he presence of others." And this awareness is
illustrated in Under Western Eyes and Nostromo--the latter that
astonishing rehabilitation of the humming life on a South American
seaboard. For Nostromo nothing is lost save honour; he goes to his
death loving insensately; for Razumov his honour endures till the
pressure put upon it by his love for Haldin's sister cracks it, and
cracks, too, his reason. For once the novelist seems cruel to the
pathological point--I mean in the punishment of Razumov by the hideous
spy. I hope this does not betray parvitude of view-point. I am not
thin-skinned, and Under Western Eyes is my favourite novel, but the
closing section is lacerating music for the nerves. And what a
chapter!--that thunder-storm driving down the valley of the Rhone, the
haggard, haunted face of the Russian student forced, despite his
convictions, to become an informer and a supposed anarchist (curious
students will find the first hint of the leitmotiv of this monumental
book in An Anarchist--A Set of Six; as Gaspar Ruiz may be looked on as
a pendant to Nostromo). Under Western Eyes is a masterpiece of irony,
observation, and pity. I once described it as being as powerful as
Dostoievsky and as well written as Turgenieff. The truth is that it
is Conrad at his best, although I know that I may seem to slight the
Eastern tales. It has the colour and shape and gait of the marvellous
stories of Dostoievsky and Turgenieff--with an absolutely original
motive, and more modern. A magical canvas!

Its type of narrative is in the later style of the writer. The events
are related by an English teacher of languages in Geneva, based on the
diary of Razumov. It is a favourite device of Conrad's which might be
described as, structurally progressing from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous. His novel, Chance, is a specific instance of his
intricate and elliptical method. Several personages of the story
relate in almost fugal manner, the heroine appearing to us in flashes
as if reflected by some revolving mirror. It is a difficult and
elusive method, but it presents us with many facets of character and
is swift and secular. If Flaubert in Sentimental Education originated
a novel structure in fiction, Conrad may claim the same honour; his
edifice, in its contrapuntal presentation of character and chapter
suspensions, is new, tantalisingly, bewilderingly, refreshingly, new.
The colour is toned down, is more sober than the prose of the Ea