Joseph Conrad

Falk Joseph Conrad

Book Excerpt: ...ys little frocks and pinafores could be seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or a tiny row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a fortnight the family washing was exhibited in force. It covered the poop entirely. The after- noon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby activ- ity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague suggestions of drowned, mutilated and flattened hu- manity. Trunks without heads waved at you arms without hands; legs without feet kicked fantasti- cally with collapsible flourishes; and there were long white garments that, taking the wind fairly through their neck openings edged with lace, be- came for a moment violently distended as by the passage of obese and invisible bodies. On these days you could make out that ship at a great distance by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft her mizzen mast. She had her berth just ahead of me, and her name was Diana, --Diana not of Ephesus but of Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a foot l.