Chance: A Tale in Two Parts

Front Cover
Doubleday, Page, 1921 - Children of prisoners - 447 pages
The story of Flora de Barral, a vulnerable and abandoned young girl who is "like a beggar, without a right to anything but compassion." After her bankrupt father is imprisoned, she learns the harsh fact that a woman in her position "has no resources but in herself." Her only means of action is to be what she is. Flora's long struggle to achieve some dignity and happiness makes her Conrad's most moving female character.

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 84 - You seem to have studied the man," I observed. "Studied," repeated Marlow thoughtfully. "No! Not studied. I had no opportunities. You know that I saw him only on that one occasion I told you of. But It may be that a glimpse and no more is the proper way of seeing an individuality...
Page 326 - If you ask me what is an ordinary marital quarrel I will tell you, that it is a difference about nothing; I mean, these nothings which, as Mr. Powell told us when we first met him, shore people are so prone to start a row about, and nurse into hatred from an idle sense of wrong, from perverted ambition, for spectacular reasons too. There are on earth no actors too humble and obscure not to have a gallery, that gallery which envenoms the play by stealthy jeers, counsels of anger, amused comments or...
Page 353 - You say I don't know women. Maybe. It's just as well not to come too close to the shrine. But I have a clear notion of woman. In all of them, termagant, flirt, crank, washerwoman, blue-stocking, outcast and even in the ordinary fool of the ordinary commerce there is something left, if only a spark. And when there is a spark there can always be a flame . . ." He went back into the shadow and sat down again.
Page 340 - And indeed to be busy with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection, fears, doubts — all these things which stand in the way of achievement. I suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort of relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully.
Page 223 - What seemed most awful to her was the elated light in his eyes, the rapacious smile that would come and go on his lips as if he were gloating over her misery. But her misery was iis opportunity and he rejoiced while the tenderest pity seemed to flood his whole being.
Page 50 - It was one of those dewy, clear, starry nights, oppressing our spirit, crushing our pride, by the brilliant evidence of the awful loneliness, of the hopeless obscure insignificance of our globe lost in the splendid revelation of a glittering soulless universe.
Page x - The history of men on this earth since the beginning of ages may be resumed in one phrase of infinite poignancy : They were born, they suffered, they died...
Page 427 - Pairing off is the fate of mankind. And if two beings thrown together, mutually attracted, resist the necessity, fail in understanding and voluntarily stop short of the — the embrace, in the noblest meaning of the word, then they are committing a sin against life, the call of which is simple. Perhaps sacred.
Page 80 - he defended himself. " My way of putting things ! My dear fellow I have merely stripped the rags of business verbiage and financial jargon off my statements. And you are startled ! I am giving you the naked truth. It's true too that nothing lays itself open to the charge of exaggeration more than the language of naked truth. What comes with a shock is admitted with difficulty. But what will you say to the end of his career ? It was of course sensational and tolerably sudden.
Page xii - I have never sinned against the basic feelings and elementary convictions which make life possible to the mass of mankind and, by establishing a standard of judgment, set their idealism free to look for plainer ways, ior higher feelings, for deeper purposes.

Bibliographic information