Originally conceived, in the attempt to convey realistically a real story of adventure recorded in a State Trial, as the thin tale of a very old man—and this before the question of collaboration arose—the book contains of its first version only the two opening sentences—and the single other sentence: “And, looking back, we see Romance!” In between lay to say the least of it almost unbelievable labours—a contest of attrition lasting over several years. For insofar as this collaboration was a contest of wills it was a very friendly one; yet it was the continual attempt on the part of the one collaborator to key up and of the other to key down. And so exhausting was the contest that in the course of the years two definite breakdowns occurred. In the first the robuster writer let the book called “The Inheritors” just go and it remains a monument as it were of silverpoint, delicacies and allusiveness. The second breakdown is recorded in the Fourth Part of “Romance,” sketches for which were written over and over—and then over—again, until the weaker brother, in absolute exhaustion, in turn let it go at that. So, to mark those breaking points, you have the silverpoint of “The Inheritors” set against the, let us say, oil-painting of this matchless Fourth Part.
“The Nature of a Crime” should have become a novel treating of the eternal subject of the undetected criminal—a theme which every writer for once or twice in his life at least contemplates in a world in which the fortunate are so very often the merely not found out. The courage of few writers carries them even beyond the contemplation; in this case the joint courages of the authors went as far as what you may read.
The passage from the Fifth Part of “Romance” printed below contains the “famous sentence” as to which Mr. Conrad writes: “We both exclaimed: ‘This is genius’.”
Joseph Conrad in Italics; F. M. Hueffer in Roman type.
Part One: Chapter One.
To yesterday and to-day I say my polite “vaya usted con dios.” What are these days to me? But that far-off day of my romance, when from between the blue and white bales in Don Ramon’s darkened storeroom, at Kingston, I saw the door open before the figure of an old man with the tired, long, white face, that day I am not likely to forget. I remember the chilly smell of the typical West Indian store, the indescribable smell of damp gloom, of locos, of pimento, of olive oil, of new sugar, of new rum; the glassy double sheen of Ramon’s great spectacles, the piercing eyes in the mahogany face, while the tap, tap, tap of a cane on the flags went on behind the inner door; the click of the latch; the stream of light. The door, petulantly thrust inwards, struck against some barrels. I remember the rattling of the bolts on that door, and the tall figure that appeared there, snuff-box in hand. In that land of white clothes that precise, ancient, Castilian in black was something to remember. The black cane that had made the tap, tap, tap dangled by a silken cord from the hand whose delicate blue-veined, wrinkled wrist ran back into a foam of lawn ruffles. The other hand paused in the act of conveying a pinch of snuff to the nostrils of the hooked nose that had, on the skin stretched tight over the bridge, the polish of old ivory; the elbow pressing the black cocked hat against the side; the legs, one bent, the other bowing a little back—this was the attitude of Seraphina’s father.
Having imperiously thrust the door of the inner room open, he remained immovable, with no intention of entering, and called in a harsh, aged voice: “Señor Ramon! Señor Ramon!” and then twice: “Seraphina—Seraphina!” turning his head back.
Then for the first time I saw Seraphina, looking over her father’s shoulder. I remember her face of that day; her eyes were grey—the grey of black, not of blue. For a moment they looked me straight in the face, reflectively, unconcerned, and then travelled to the spectacles of old Ramon.
This glance—remember I was young on that day—had been enough to set me wondering what they were thinking of me; what they could have seen of me.
“But there he is your Señor Ramon,” she said to her father, as if she were chiding him for a petulance in calling; “your sight is not very good, my poor little father—there he is, your Ramon.”