The ship, a fragment detached from the earth, went on lonely and swift like a small planet.

Conrad’s image turns a ship into a severed “fragment” of the earth—an artificial world cut loose from ordinary human society. By likening it to “a small planet,” he emphasizes isolation, self-containment, and the eerie autonomy of life at sea: once underway, the vessel carries its own rules, dangers, and moral atmosphere. The simile also suggests speed and inevitability, as if the ship follows an orbital path beyond easy intervention. In Conrad, such maritime isolation often becomes a testing ground where character is revealed under pressure, and where the distance from land mirrors a psychological or ethical distance from familiar certainties.