Conrad and Masculinity

202 Conrad and Masculinity
afternoon conversation with Schomberg. This conversation, a
turning point in the plot and the initiating moment of the disastrous
trip of the three criminals to Samburan, is a visual duel
between the two men to match that between Heyst and Lena. In
this male duel, and in the descriptions of Jones, Ricardo and Pedro
on their arrival at the hotel, there is an equally extraordinary
number of references to eyes. These include references to Ricardo’s
‘eyes that gleamed and blinked’ (100), Jones’s ‘sunken eyes’, ‘long,
feminine eyelashes’ (102) and ‘spectral intensity of ... glance’ (112),
Pedro’s ‘queer stare of his little bear’s eyes’ (116) and Schomberg’s
attempt ‘to keep within bounds the enlargement of his eyes’ (129),
as well as passages such as the following:
Schomberg, raising his eyes, at last met the gleams in two dark
caverns under Mr. Jones’s devilish eyebrows, directed upon him
impenetrably.
(115)
[Ricardo confesses a passionate love for cards, and] the effect of this
outburst was augmented by the quiet lowering of the eyelids, by a
reserved pause as though this had been a confession of another
kind of love.
(124)
Ricardo blinked slowly for a time, then closed his eyes altogether,
with the placidity of the domestic cat dozing on the hearth-rug. In
another moment he opened them very wide.
(148)
The greenish irises which had been staring out of doors glided into
the corners of his eyes nearest to Schomberg and stayed there with
a coyly voluptuous expression.
(152) 21
Most striking, however, is Ricardo’s description of his first meeting
with Mr Jones:
It was only then that he looked at me—quietly, you know . . . He
seemed to touch me inside somewhere. I went away pretty quick
from there . . . I wasn’t frightened. What should I be frightened for?
I only felt touched—on the very spot. But Jee-miny, if anybody had