Under Western Eyes

By: Conrad, Joseph

To begin with I wish to disclaim the possession of those high gifts of imagination and expressionwhich would have enabled my pen to create for the reader the personality of the man who calledhimself, after the Russian custom, Cyril son of Isidor-Kirylo Sidorovitch-Razumov.If I have ever had these gifts in any sort of living form they have been smothered out of existencea long time ago under a wilderness of words. Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. Ihave been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatalto whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To ateacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and manappears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.This being so, I could not have observed Mr. Razumov or guessed at his reality by the force ofinsight, much less have imagined him as he was. Even to invent the mere bald facts of his life wouldhave been utterly beyond my powers. But I think that without this declaration the readers of thesepages will be able to detect in the story the marks of documentary evidence. And that is perfectlycorrect. It is based on a document; all I have brought to it is my knowledge of the Russian language, which is sufficient for what is attempted here. The document, of course, is something in the natureof a journal, a diary, yet not exactly that in its actual form. For instance, most of it was not writtenup from day to day, though all the entries are dated. Some of these entries cover months of time andextend over dozens of pages. All the earlier part is a retrospect, in a narrative form, relating to anevent which took place about a year before.I must mention that I have lived for a long time in Geneva. A whole quarter of that town, onaccount of many Russians residing there, is called La Petite Russie-Little Russia. I had a ratherextensive connexion in Little Russia at that time. Yet I confess that I have no comprehension of theRussian character. The illogicality of their attitude, the arbitrariness of their conclusions, thefrequency of the exceptional, should present no difficulty to a student of many grammars; but theremust be something else in the way, some special human trait-one of those subtle differences thatare beyond the ken of mere professors. What must remain striking to a teacher of languages is theRussians' extraordinary love of words. They gather them up; they cherish them, but they don't hoardthem in their breasts; on the contrary, they are always ready to pour them out by the hour or by thenight with an enthusiasm, a sweeping abundance, with such an aptness of application sometimesthat, as in the case of very accomplished parrots, one can't defend oneself from the suspicion thatthey really understand what they say. There is a generosity in their ardour of speech which removesit as far as possible from common loquacity; and it is ever too disconnected to be classed aseloquence.... But I must apologize for this digression

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08XFVWX66
• ISBN13: 9798710089804
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"