Joseph Conrad

“ In past years, in moments of doubt that will come to a man determined to remain free from absurdities of existence, I often asked myself, with a momentary dread, in what way would life try to get hold of me? ”

“ My dear girl, you don't know the sort of life I have been leading in unexplored countries, in the wilds; it's difficult to give you an idea. There are men who haven't been in such tight places as I have found myself in who have had to--to shed blood, as the saying is. Even the wilds hold prizes which tempt some people; but I had no schemes, no plans--and not even great firmness of mind to make me unduly obstinate. I was simply moving on, while the others, perhaps, were going somewhere. An indifference as to roads and purposes makes one meeker, as it were. ”

“ I seem to be as much of a fool as those everybodies who know the story and no doubt believe it. Can you remember any more?" he addressed the girl in a grimly polite tone. "I've often heard of the moral advantages of seeing oneself as others see one. Let us investigate further. Can't you recall something else that everybody knows?"
"Oh! Don't laugh!" she cried.
"Did I laugh? I assure you I was not aware of it. I won't ask you whether you believe the hotel-keeper's version. Surely you must know the value of human judgement!" ”

“ He was touched by the sincere accent of these simple words.
"I tell you what you can do--you can tell me whether you would have gone with me like this if you had known of whom that abominable idiot of a hotel-keeper was speaking. A murderer--no less!"
"But I didn't know you at all then," she cried. "And I had the sense to understand what he was saying. It wasn't murder, really. I never thought it was."
"What made him invent such an atrocity?" Heyst exclaimed. "He seems a stupid animal. He is stupid. ”

“ He was looking straight into them, and as a matter of fact had forgotten all about the late Morrison at that moment.
"No," he exclaimed suddenly. "What an impenetrable girl you are Lena, with those grey eyes of yours! Windows of the soul, as some poet has said. The fellow must have been a glazier by vocation. Well, nature has provided excellently for the shyness of your soul." ”

“ Not the sort that always itches for a weapon, for I have never been anxious to use one in the quarrels that a man gets into in the most innocent way sometimes. The differences for which men murder each other are, like everything else they do, the most contemptible, the most pitiful things to look back upon. ”

“ Heyst tugged violently at a tuft of dried grass, and cast it away from him with a nervous gesture.
"I gave in," he repeated.
Looking towards him with a movement of her eyes only, the girl noticed the strong feeling on his face with that intense interest which his person awakened in her mind and in her heart. But it soon passed away, leaving only a moody expression.
"It's difficult to resist where nothing matters," he observed. ”

“ But even then there still lingered in him a sense of incompleteness not altogether overcome--which, it seemed, nothing ever would overcome--the fatal imperfection of all the gifts of life, which makes of them a delusion and a snare. ”

“ That's because, when one's heart has been broken into in the way you have broken into mine, all sorts of weaknesses are free to enter--shame, anger, stupid indignation, stupid fears--stupid laughter, too. ”

“ He was still under the fresh sortilege of their common life, the surprise of novelty, the flattered vanity of his possession of this woman; for a man must feel that, unless he has ceased to be masculine. ”

“ That sort, when they know you are helpless, there's nothing to stop them. I don't know how it is, but bad people, real bad people that you can see are bad, they get over me somehow. It's the way they set about downing one. I am afraid of wickedness."
Heyst watched the changing expressions of her face. ”