Joseph Conrad

                               The Arrow of Gold

                           A Story between Two Notes

            »Celui qui n'a connu que
             des hommes polis et raisonnables,
             ou ne connait pas l'homme,
             ou ne le connait qu'a demi« -
                                                                      Caractères
 
                                To Richard Curle
 

                                 Author's Note

Having named all the short prefaces written for my books, Author's Notes, this
one too must have the same heading for the sake of uniformity if at the risk of
some confusion. »The Arrow of Gold,« as its sub-title states, is a story between
two Notes. But these Notes are embodied in its very frame, belong to its
texture, and their mission is to prepare and close the story. They are material
to the comprehension of the experience related in the narrative and are meant to
determine the time and place together with certain historical circumstances
conditioning the existence of the people concerned in the transactions of the
twelve months covered by the narrative. It was the shortest way of getting over
the preliminaries of a piece of work which could not have been of the nature of
a chronicle.
    »The Arrow of Gold« is my first after-the-war publication. The writing of it
was begun in the autumn of 1917 and finished in the summer of 1918. Its memory
is associated with that of the darkest hour of the war, which, in accordance
with the well known proverb, preceded the dawn - the dawn of peace.
    As I look at them now, these pages, written in the days of stress and dread,
wear a look of strange serenity. They were written calmly, yet not in cold
blood, and are perhaps the only kind of pages I could have written at that time
full of menace, but also full of faith.
    The subject of this book I had been carrying about with me for many years,
not so much a possession of my memory as an inherent part of myself. It was ever
present to my mind and ready to my hand, but I was loth to touch it, from a
feeling of what I imagined to be mere shyness but which in reality was a very
comprehensible mistrust of myself.
    In plucking the fruit of memory one runs the risk of spoiling its bloom,
especially if it has got to be carried into the market-place. This being the
product of my private garden my reluctance can be easily understood; and though
some critics have expressed their regret that I had not written this book
fifteen years earlier I do not share that opinion. If I took it up so late in
life it is because the right moment had not arrived