I figuratively take my place amongst the other men, lounging in their long cane chairs, and contentedly blow smoke as an old sea captain tells a yarn. I figuratively seat myself in a cosy armchair by a log fire and slip in and out of the story. I figuratively lie in a bed, eyes on the ceiling, and listen to a voice, modulated in tone, for now is the time for sleep and not for scares. I figuratively inhabit again the body of a small child, held intensely by the images unfolding.
Yes; every hour is the after-dinner hour: easy, pleasant, empty.
Though nobody has the least understanding of the person enjoying them, for the glimpses there are are viewed through a thick fog, presumably from the smoke of the after-dinner hour cigar, which only feed 'one's curiosity without satisfying it.' On the whole, just as Marlow, that old sea captain, sums up Jim, I mislead, and arouse not just curiosity but suspicion, though I don't quite wholly comprehend my own artful dodges. (Do I not?) Perhaps, as Marlow says, no man can. What grim shadow of self-knowledge am I escaping from? What shadows do I not wish other people to see? Even here, rather than being economical with the truth, I'm denying its very existence. There is no other truth; I cannot like a country be seen altogether.
The dodges, that to me necessity dictates, are, however, less artful than impulsive, and add to the strangeness I occasionally see reflected in another's eyes. The figurative cigar, then, becomes a must, as its puff-puff clouds and blurs, and averts many an intrusive gaze.
Picture credit: Smoke Me, Paula Klien (source: WikiArt).
A journal entry, June 2021. See Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.
