The Project Gutenberg EBook of Romance, by Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

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Title: Romance

Author: Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

Release Date: January 31, 2006 [EBook #17642]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE ***

Produced by David Widger

ROMANCE

By Joseph Conrad

and

F.M. Hueffer

COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

TO

ELSIE AND JESSIE

"C'est toi qui dors dans Vombre, O sacre Souvenir."
If we could have remembrance now
And see, as in the days to come
We shall, what's venturous in these hours:
The swift, intangible romance of fields at home,
The gleams of sun, the showers,
Our workaday contentments, or our powers
To fare still forward through the uncharted haze
Of present days. . . .
For, looking back when years shall flow
Upon this olden day that's now,
We'll see, romantic in dimm'd hours,
These memories of ours.

CONTENTS

PART FIRST The Quarry and the Beach

PART SECOND The Girl with the Lizard

PART THIRD Casa Riego

PART FOURTH Blade and Guitar

PART FIFTH The Lot of Man

PART FIRST -- THE QUARRY AND THE BEACH

ROMANCE

CHAPTER ONE

To yesterday and to 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,