ABSTRACT
The completion of Nostromo had exhausted the writer’s strength; he finished with his literary problems only to find them replaced by serious concern over the health of his wife, who had to undergo a painful operation on her knee. The calm poetic shores of the Bay of Naples had certainly bestowed on him the carefree peacefulness that lures so many tourists; they had only strengthened his feelings of attachment to the West and his anxieties about the dangers threatening it. The one-act play was produced in London on June 25 and the two following nights by a non-commercial company. In Montpellier he had become so acclimatized to French life that he corrected and even partly rewrote a French translation of “Karain.” The Pent Farm period was over. On his return from Geneva, Conrad, who was inclined to take violent dislikes to houses, decided that he could not work there any longer and wanted to be nearer London.
