Chapter 47 forty seven

I have tried to connect some of the things Captain Nichols told me about Strickland, which I shall try to follow in the order in which they occurred.They met at the end of the winter of the year when Strickland and I last met in Paris.How Strickland lived during the time before he met Captain Nichols I do not know at all; but he must have been very miserable, for Captain Nichols first saw him In the night shop.There was a strike in Marseilles at the time, and Strickland was at the end of his rope, apparently unable to earn even a bare subsistence. The Night House was a large stone building where poor and vagabond people could lodge a lodging house for anyone who had full papers and could convince the friar in charge of the institution that he was working and eating. Week.Nichols noticed Strickland in a group of people waiting for the door of the boarding house to open, because Strickland was very tall and very eccentric, which was very attractive.These people waited listlessly outside the door, some paced back and forth, some leaned lazily against the wall, and some sat on the curb with their feet sticking out in the gutter.At last, when all the people had filed into the office, Captain Nichols heard the monk checking the papers talking to Strickland in English.But he had no opportunity to speak to Strickland, for no sooner had the people entered the common room than a missionary with a large Bible came up to a dais at one end of the room, and declared Rise up; the price of lodging these poor wanderers must bear patiently.Captain Nichols and Strickland were not assigned to the same room, and at five o'clock the next morning a tall, stout priest drove the lodgers out of their beds until Nichols had made them. After washing his face, Strickland had disappeared.Captain Nichols wandered for an hour through the bitterly cold streets, and finally came to a place where sailors used to meet-Victor Yale Square.He saw Strickland again in the square, dozing against the plinth of a stone statue.He kicked Strickland out of his sleep.

"Come and have breakfast with me, friend," he said. "Go to hell," said Strickland. As soon as I heard the tone of my old friend, I resolved to regard Captain Nichols as a trustworthy witness. "Have you lost a penny?" asked the captain again. "Go to hell," said Strickland. "Come with me. I'll make you some breakfast." After hesitating for a while, Strickland got up from the ground, and the two of them walked to a bread relief center.People who are hungry can get a piece of bread there, but they must eat it at that time and are not allowed to take it away.After eating the bread, they went to a soup almshouse, where they could get a bowl of salt water soup from eleven to four every day, but they could not receive it for a week in a row.There is a long distance between the two institutions, and no one would bother to go to two places unless he was really hungry.Thus they ate breakfast, and thus Charles Strickland and Captain Nichols became friends.

The two probably spent four months together in Marseille.There were no adventures in their lives--if adventure meant something unexpected or exciting; for their time was spent running about for a living, and they were trying to get some money and find a place to sleep at night. A place where you can buy something to eat to satisfy your hunger.I wish I could have painted some bright and colorful pictures for the reader to see, too, of the images that Captain Nichols' vivid account evokes in my imagination.His account of the adventures of the two of them in the underworld of this seaport would make a very interesting book, and a student of folklore would have found enough material to compile a book from the variety of characters they met. This great dictionary of homeless people.But in this book, I can only use a few paragraphs to describe their life.The impression I got from his talk was that life in Marseilles was tense and rough, colorful and vivid.By comparison, the Marseilles I knew—crowded, sunny, cozy hotels and restaurants packed with rich people—seemed bland and dull by comparison.Those who have seen with their own eyes the scenes that Captain Nichols described to me are worthy of envy.

When the overnight house issued an order to evict them, Strickland and Captain Nichols found another place to sleep at the tough man Bill.Tough guy Bill is the boss of a sailor boarding house. He is a tall mulatto with a pair of hard fists.He provided board and lodging to temporarily unemployed sailors until employment was found for them on board.Strickland and Captain Nichols lived with him for a month, sleeping with a dozen others, Swedes, Negroes, Brazilians, on the floor of two rooms in the boarding house.The two rooms were unfurnished, and Bill assigned them to live there.Every day he took these people to Victor Yale Square, where the captain of the ship hired anyone he wanted.The mulatto's wife is a very sloppy fat American woman, and no one knows how this American has fallen to this point.The boarders take turns helping her with household chores every day.Strickland painted a portrait of the tough guy Bill as a reward for board and lodging, and Captain Nichols thought it was a big deal for Strickland.Bill not only paid for canvases, paints and brushes for him, but also gave him a pound of tobacco smuggled ashore.As far as I know, the picture probably still hangs today in the drawing-room of a dilapidated house near the Quay at La Ronate, and I estimate it might be worth fifteen hundred pounds by now.Strickland's plan was to take a ship to Australia or New Zealand, and then go on to Samoa or Tahiti.I don't know how he got the idea of ​​going to the South Pacific, though I do remember that he had fantasized about a little green island full of sunshine, somewhere surrounded by blue waves bluer than any ocean in the northern hemisphere.I think he also clung to Captain Nichols because Nichols was familiar with the country, and finally persuaded him to go to Tahiti, which he found more comfortable than any other place, and it was entirely Nichols. idea.

"You know, Tahiti is French territory," Nichols explained to me, "and the French don't do things so fucking mechanically." I think I understand what he means by that. Strickland was undocumented, but tough Bill didn't care about it as long as it was profitable (he deducted the first month's wages from any sailor he placed for a job).It so happened that an English fireman died while living with him, and he gave Strickland his papers.But Captain Nichols and Strickland were both going east, and the ships that needed sailors happened to be going west.Twice Strickland refused work on a freighter bound for the United States, and he also refused to go on a coal ship bound for Newcastle.Strickland's recalcitrant temper can only be a disadvantage to the tough guy Bill. Finally, he lost his patience and kicked both Strickland and Captain Nichols out of the gate.The two men once again found themselves on the streets.

The food in the tough Bill's boarding house was never a good one, and standing up from the table was as hungry as sitting down after eating, but even so, there were days when the two of them missed the food there.This time they really got a taste of what it was like to go hungry.The soup kitchen and the dormitory were closed to them, and now they had nothing to feed on but a small piece of bread from the bread kitchen.At night, they slept wherever they could, sometimes in an empty wagon on the sidewalk at the station, sometimes in a truck behind the freight station.But the weather was terribly cold, and one or two hour-long dozes were often enough to warm one's body by walking on the street.The worst thing for them was the lack of cigarettes, and Captain Nichols couldn't live without them, so he began to go to the taverns to pick up the butts and cigar ends thrown by the night swimmers the night before.

"I've smoked anything less flavorful than this," he added, with a self-deprecating shrug of his shoulders.While he was saying this, he took two more cigars from the cigarette case I handed him, one in his mouth and one in his pocket. Occasionally they also have the opportunity to earn a little money.Sometimes when a cruise ship came into port, Captain Nichols would develop a friendship with the hired timekeeper and would find them a job as a temporary stevedore.If it was an English ship, they would slip into the cabins below the forecastle and feast on the sailors.Of course, there is a certain risk in doing this. If you meet the senior crew members on the ship, they will be kicked off the gangway.

"A kick in the ass is nothing to a man so long as he has a full belly," said Captain Nichols. "I never take offense, personally. Officers ought to think of ship's morals." A picture came alive in my mind: Captain Nichols rolled headfirst down the narrow gangplank with the kick of an angry first mate; This disciplined spirit in the Merchant Marine was very pleased. From time to time, you can find some odd jobs in the fish market.Another time, Strickland and Captain Nichols helped load the truck with many baskets of oranges piled up on the pier, earning a franc each.One day the two were lucky: a freighter sailing around the Cape of Good Hope from Madagascar needed to be painted, and a boarding house owner got a labor contract. Paint on the rusty hull.The errand must have suited Strickland's sneering temper.I asked Captain Nichols what Strickland's reaction was during those difficult days.

"Never heard him say a word of dismay," replied the captain, "sometimes he's a little morose, but when we can't get a bite of food all day, and we can't even get room money for a night with a Chinaman." At that time, he was still jumping around like a cricket." I am not surprised by this.Strickland is just the man who stands above his surroundings, even in the most depressing of circumstances.Whether this is due to peace of mind or to contradictions, it is difficult to say. "Chinese hut", is the name given by a homeless man to a chicken feather shop run by a one-eyed Chinese near Puteri Road.Six coppers can sleep on a small bed, and three coppers can sleep overnight.Here they made acquaintances who were as destitute as they were, and when they were penniless and the nights were cold, they would not hesitate to borrow a few dollars from whoever happened to earn a franc during the day. Wen lodging fee.These tramps are not stingy, and whoever has money is willing to share it with others.They come from all over the world, but they are all very friendly, and they don't stand apart from each other because of their nationalities, because they all feel that they are free subjects of one country—Anle Township; this country has a vast territory and includes them all. in its own field.

"But if Strickland gets angry, I don't think it's easy to mess with," Captain Nichols recalled the situation at the time. "One day we met Bill the tough guy in the square, and Bill thought Take back the identification he gave to Charles." "'If you want it, get it yourself,' said Charles." "Bill was a big, strong guy, but he was so overwhelmed by the way Charles looked, he just kept swearing, using all the dirty words he could. Tough guy Bill deserves a lot of swearing." Listening. At first, Charles listened quietly, and after a while, he took a step forward and said only one thing: 'Go away, you fucking pig.' His curse It didn't matter what he said, it was the way he cursed that mattered. Tough Bill stopped short, and you could see he was timid. He turned and walked away as if suddenly remembering he had an appointment."

According to Captain Nichols' narration, Strickland's cursing words were not the same as those I wrote, but since this is a book for family reading and entertainment, I think it might as well violate some authenticity and change a few words. It is better to use a word that is both refined and popular. Besides, tough Bill was not a man who was insulted by ordinary sailors and could not bear it.His power rested entirely on his prestige; a sailor who lived in the boarding house he kept told them that Bill had sworn to kill Strickland, and another later told them the same. Captain Nichols and Strickland were sitting one evening in a bar in the Bootley Road.The Rue Bootli was a narrow street lined with one-story houses, each with only one hut, like a crowded fair shed or a circus cage.A woman can be seen at the door of each house.Some are lazily leaning against the door frame, or humming a little song, or greeting passers-by with a hoarse voice, and some are listlessly reading a book.Some are French, some are Italian, some are Spanish, some are Japanese, some are black; The marks carved on their faces and the scars left by debauchery.Some of them wore black underwear and flesh-colored stockings, and some had curly hair dyed golden and gauze dresses, dressed like little girls.From the open door, you can see the red brick floor, a large wooden bed, a jug and a basin on the card table.All sorts of people walked up and down the streets—Indian sailors on cruise ships, fair-haired Nordics on Swedish barques, Japanese soldiers on man-of-war, English sailors, Spaniards, handsome sailors on French cruisers, American freighters. blacks.During the day it was squalid and squalid, but at night, illuminated by the lights of the small houses, the street had a sinister charm.The hideous lust that filled the air was smothering and terrifying, but there was something mysterious about all this haunting and thrilling sight.You feel that there is a primal force that people don't understand, which repells you and deeply fascinates you.Here, all civilization and decency have disappeared, and what people are facing is only the gloomy reality, and an atmosphere that is both warm and sad hangs over everything. In the bar where Strickland and Nichols sat there was a player piano mechanically playing loud and noisy dance music.Around the room people were sitting around little tables, half-drunk half-drunk sailors on one side, and a group of soldiers on the other.In the center of the room people were huddled together in couples dancing.The bearded, swarthy sailor threw his large blunt hands around his partner.The women wore only underwear.From time to time, two sailors stood up and danced with their arms around each other.The noise was deafening.No one stopped drinking, shouting, and laughing loudly; when a man kissed the woman sitting on his lap, some of the English sailors hissed, adding to the noise of the room.The dust from the men's big boots and the smoke from their mouths filled the room with smoke.The air was stuffy and hot.Behind the liquor counter sat a woman nursing a baby.A short young waiter with a flat, freckled face was limping around with a tray full of beer glasses. After a while, tough Bill came in accompanied by two tall black men.It can be seen at a glance that he is seven or eight points drunk.He is deliberately provoking trouble.Once inside, Bill staggered against a table and knocked over a glass of beer.Sitting at the edge of this table were three soldiers, and an immediate quarrel broke out between the two sides.The barman came out and told Tough Bill to get out.The boss has a violent temper and never allows customers to make trouble in his tavern.The tough guy Bill has a bit of arrogance, he doesn't dare to confront the bar owner, because the boss has the backing of the police.Bill cursed and turned around.Suddenly, he caught sight of Strickland.He staggered up to Strickland, and without saying a word, he spat in Strickland's face.Strickland picked up his glass and threw it at him.The dancers all stopped.For a minute, the whole bar room became very quiet, and there was no sound at all.But when the tough guy Bill threw himself on Strickland, everyone's fighting spirit became aroused.In an instant, a scuffle broke out in the bar.The beer stand was overturned, and the glasses shattered on the floor.The two sides fought more and more fiercely.Women ducked by doors and behind counters, and passers-by poured in from the streets.There was only the sound of cursing, punching, and shouting everywhere, and in the middle of the room, a dozen or so people were beating hard.Suddenly, the police rushed in, and everyone rushed out the door.When the bar room became more or less quiet, the tough guy Bill was lying unconscious on the ground with a big gash on his head.Captain Nichols dragged Strickland out into the street, his arms bleeding and his clothes torn.Captain Nichols, too, was bloodied; he had been punched in the nose. "I reckon you'd better get out of Marseilles until tough Bill gets out of the hospital," he said to Strickland as they returned to the "Chinese hut" for cleaning. "It's more lively than a cockfight," said Strickland. I seemed to see a mocking smile on his face. Captain Nichols was very worried.He knew that Bill, the tough guy, would get revenge.Strickland had disgraced the half-breed, and Bill had to be on his guard when he was sane.He won't do it right away, he will secretly wait for an appropriate time.Sooner or later, one night, Strickland would be stabbed in the back, and a day or two later, the body of an unknown tramp would be fished out of the harbor sewage.The next night Nichols went to the house of tough Bill to make inquiries.Bill is still in the hospital, but his wife has visited him.According to his wife, Bill gambled on every day that he would kill Strickland as soon as he got out of the hospital. Another week passed. "I always say," Captain Nichols went on recalling the situation, "that if you hit someone, hit him hard. It will give you a little time to think about what to do next." After this Strickland had a stroke of luck.A ship bound for Australia went to the Sailors' House to ask for a fireman, who had committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea near Gibraltar because of insanity. "Don't waste a minute, man, get to the pier at once," said the captain to Strickland, "and sign your name. You've got papers." Strickland set off at once.Captain Nichols never saw him again.The ship had only been at the dock for six hours, and in the evening, Captain Nichols watched as the black smoke from the funnel of the ship thinned away as it sailed eastward on the wintry sea. I have tried to make the stories as vivid as possible, because I like to compare the experience with his life in Ashley Gardens, London, when he was busy with his stock business, a life I saw firsthand. .But I also know very well that Captain Nichols is a big talker, and it is possible that none of the things he told me was true.I shall not be surprised in the future to discover that Strickland did not know him at all during his lifetime, and that his knowledge of Marseilles came entirely from a magazine.