ON 20 JULY 1900, Conrad Hurried off, forgetting even to send letters ready for posting to Blackwood and Meldrum, with Jessie and Borys for a month’s holiday in Belgium, where they were awaited by the Fords and their daughter. Ford met them in Ostend; from there all six proceeded first to Bruges and then to Knocke-sur-Mer, to the Grand Hôtel de la Plage. Conrad felt “exhausted mentally and very depressed,” but he could not even think of resting, as he still had to prepare a clean copy of Jim’s ending and to proofread the successive installments of the novel. Moreover, he hoped to work with Ford on Seraphina.

Nothing came of their plans, however, for about 1 August Borys fell seriously ill with dysentery. Ford helped Jessie look after the sick child, and years later she still recalled with gratitude the devotion shown by the man whom she otherwise detested: “He was always at hand to shift my small invalid, fetch the doctor or help with the nursing.” Conrad, plunged into distress, had an attack of gout. It could have been a symptom of depression—or its cause, since rheumatic ailments often lower the spirits. Exhausted by their holiday, the Conrads returned to The Pent about 20 August.

Ford joined them there, and the two writers set to work for a few weeks on Seraphina—to the obvious displeasure of Conrad, whose mind was elsewhere. “Bosh! Horrors!” Ford reports him as saying. About the middle of September Conrad began writing “Typhoon,” although originally he thought about starting First Command. The story about the captain of the Nan-Shan and the coolies fighting under the deck was meant to be short and written quickly: on 8 October, Conrad promised to send off the finished text in a week. As usual, it took him longer. On 27 November he was complaining: “The typhoon is still blowing. I find it extremely difficult to express the simplest idea clearly. It is a sort of temporary fog on the brain.” In the end, “Typhoon” was not finished until 11 January 1901.