Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924 / 2008-07-31 00:00:00



III

"Yes, my friends," he used to say to his guests, "what would you have?
A youth of seventeen summers, without worldly experience, and owing
my rank only to the glorious patriotism of my father, may God rest his
soul. I suffered immense humiliation, not so much from the disobedience
of that subordinate, who, after all, was responsible for those
prisoners; but I suffered because, like the boy I was, I myself dreaded
going to the adjutant for the key. I had felt, before, his rough and
cutting tongue. Being quite a common fellow, with no merit except his
savage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike from the
first day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It was only
a fortnight before! I would have confronted him sword in hand, but I
shrank from the mocking brutality of his sneers.
"I don't remember having been so miserable in my life before or since.
The torment of my sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant to
fall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to
turn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had
procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them
without shame.
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