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diff --git a/old/hdark12a.txt b/old/hdark12a.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0959e93 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hdark12a.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3889 @@ +******The Project Gutenberg Etext of Heart of Darkness******** +#8 in our series by Joseph Conrad +#1 was from another edition of Heart of Darkness + +[See also the movie Apocalypse Now] + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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The flood had made, +the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, +the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn +of the tide. + +The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an +interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded +together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails +of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red +clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. +A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. +The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed +condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, +and the greatest, town on earth. + +The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four +affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. +On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. +He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. +It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous +estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom. + +Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond +of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long +periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant +of each other's yarns--and even convictions. The Lawyer--the best +of old fellows--had, because of his many years and many virtues, +the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. +The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was +toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged +right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, +a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his +arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. +The Director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way +aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. +Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. +For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. +We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. +The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. +The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a +benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex +marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded +rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. +Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, +became more somber every minute, as if angered by the approach +of the sun. + +And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, +and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, +as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom +brooding over a crowd of men. + +Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity +became less brilliant but more profound. The old river +in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, +after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, +spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading +to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable +stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and +departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. +And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, +"followed the sea" with reverence and affection, than to +evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches +of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its +unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it +had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. +It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, +from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, +titled and untitled--the great knights-errant of the sea. +It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels +flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning +with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by +the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, +to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests-- +and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. +They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith-- +the adventurers and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships +of men on `Change; captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" +of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned "generals" +of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, +they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, +and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, +bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not +floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown +earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, +the germs of empires. + +The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to +appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged +thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved +in the fairway--a great stir of lights going up and going down. +And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town +was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, +a lurid glare under the stars. + +"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places +of the earth." + +He was the only man of us who still "followed the sea." +The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent +his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most +seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. +Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is +always with them--the ship; and so is their country--the sea. +One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. +In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, +the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, +veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; +for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be +the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as +inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, +a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him +the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret +not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, +the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. +But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be +excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside +like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it +out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of +these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral +illumination of moonshine. + +His remark did not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was +accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently +he said, very slow-- + +"I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, +nineteen hundred years ago--the other day. . . . Light came +out of this river since--you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a +running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. +We live in the flicker--may it last as long as the old +earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. +Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine--what d'ye call +`em?--trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; +run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one +of these craft the legionaries,--a wonderful lot of handy men they +must have been too--used to build, apparently by the hundred, +in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here-- +the very end of the world, a sea the color of lead, a sky +the color of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina-- +and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. +Sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages,--precious little to eat +fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. +No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there +a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle +of hay--cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death,-- +death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. +They must have been dying like flies here. Oh yes--he did it. +Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much +about it either, except afterwards to brag of what he had gone +through in his time, perhaps. They were men enough to face +the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye +on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by-and-by, +if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful climate. +Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga--perhaps too much dice, +you know--coming out here in the train of some prefect, +or tax-gatherer, or trader even, to mend his fortunes. +Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post +feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him,-- +all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs +in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. +There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live +in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. +And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. +The fascination of the abomination--you know. Imagine the +growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, +the surrender, the hate." + +He paused. + +"Mind," he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm +of the hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, +he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without +a lotus-flower--"Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. +What saves us is efficiency--the devotion to efficiency. +But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; +their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. +They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force-- +nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength +is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. +They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. +It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, +and men going at it blind--as is very proper for those who tackle +a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means +the taking it away from those who have a different complexion +or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing +when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. +An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but an idea; +and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, +and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . ." + +He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green flames, red flames, +white flames, pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other-- +then separating slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great city went +on in the deepening night upon the sleepless river. We looked on, +waiting patiently--there was nothing else to do till the end of the flood; +but it was only after a long silence, when he said, in a hesitating voice, +"I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor +for a bit," that we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, +to hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences. + +"I don't want to bother you much with what happened to me personally," +he began, showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers +of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would best +like to hear; "yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought +to know how I got out there, what I saw, how I went up that river +to the place where I first met the poor chap. It was the farthest +point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. +It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me-- +and into my thoughts. It was somber enough too--and pitiful-- +not extraordinary in any way--not very clear either. No, not very clear. +And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light. + +"I had then, as you remember, just returned to London +after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas--a regular +dose of the East--six years or so, and I was loafing about, +hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, +just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you. +It was very fine for a time, but after a bit I did get tired +of resting. Then I began to look for a ship--I should think +the hardest work on earth. But the ships wouldn't even look at me. +And I got tired of that game too. + +"Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. +I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, +and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. +At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, +and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map +(but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, `When I +grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, +I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. +The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the Equator, +and in every sort of latitude all over the two hemispheres. +I have been in some of them, and . . . well, we won't talk about that. +But there was one yet--the biggest, the most blank, so to speak-- +that I had a hankering after. + +"True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. +It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. +It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery--a white patch +for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. +But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you +could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its +head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, +and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as I looked at the map +of it in a shop-window, it fascinated me as a snake would a bird-- +a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, +a Company for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, +they can't trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of +fresh water--steamboats! Why shouldn't I try to get charge of one? +I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. +The snake had charmed me. + +"You understand it was a Continental concern, that Trading society; +but I have a lot of relations living on the Continent, because it's +cheap and not so nasty as it looks, they say. + +"I am sorry to own I began to worry them. This was already a fresh +departure for me. I was not used to get things that way, you know. +I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go. +I wouldn't have believed it of myself; but, then--you see--I felt +somehow I must get there by hook or by crook. So I worried them. +The men said `My dear fellow,' and did nothing. Then--would you +believe it?--I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work-- +to get a job. Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. +I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul. She wrote: `It will be delightful. +I am ready to do anything, anything for you. It is a glorious idea. +I know the wife of a very high personage in the Administration, +and also a man who has lots of influence with,' &c., &c. She was determined +to make no end of fuss to get me appointed skipper of a river steamboat, +if such was my fancy. + +"I got my appointment--of course; and I got it very quick. +It appears the Company had received news that one of their +captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives. +This was my chance, and it made me the more anxious to go. +It was only months and months afterwards, when I made the attempt +to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original +quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. +Yes, two black hens. Fresleven--that was the fellow's name, +a Dane--thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, +so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village +with a stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to +hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was +the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. +No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out +there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt +the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. +Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big +crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man,-- +I was told the chief's son,--in desperation at hearing the old +chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man-- +and of course it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades. +Then the whole population cleared into the forest, expecting all +kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand, +the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, +in charge of the engineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed +to trouble much about Fresleven's remains, till I got out and +stepped into his shoes. I couldn't let it rest, though; but when +an opportunity offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass +growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. +They were all there. The supernatural being had not been +touched after he fell. And the village was deserted, the huts +gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. +A calamity had come to it, sure enough. The people had vanished. +Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, +through the bush, and they had never returned. +What became of the hens I don't know either. I should think +the cause of progress got them, anyhow. However, through this +glorious affair I got my appointment, before I had fairly begun +to hope for it. + +"I flew around like mad to get ready, and before forty-eight +hours I was crossing the Channel to show myself to my employers, +and sign the contract. In a very few hours I arrived in a city that +always makes me think of a whited sepulcher. Prejudice no doubt. +I had no difficulty in finding the Company's offices. It was +the biggest thing in the town, and everybody I met was full of it. +They were going to run an over-sea empire, and make no end +of coin by trade. + +"A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high houses, +innumerable windows with venetian blinds, a dead silence, +grass sprouting between the stones, imposing carriage archways +right and left, immense double doors standing ponderously ajar. +I slipped through one of these cracks, went up a swept and ungarnished +staircase, as arid as a desert, and opened the first door I came to. +Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, +knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me-- +still knitting with downcast eyes--and only just as I began to +think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, +stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an +umbrella-cover, and she turned round without a word and preceded +me into a waiting-room. I gave my name, and looked about. +Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one +end a large shining map, marked with all the colors of a rainbow. +There was a vast amount of red--good to see at any time, because one +knows that some real work is done in there, a deuce of a lot +of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and, on the East Coast, +a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink +the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn't going into any of these. +I was going into the yellow. Dead in the center. And the river +was there--fascinating--deadly--like a snake. Ough! A door opened, +a white-haired secretarial head, but wearing a compassionate expression, +appeared, and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. +Its light was dim, and a heavy writing-desk squatted in the middle. +From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness +in a frock-coat. The great man himself. He was five feet six, +I should judge, and had his grip on the handle-end of ever +so many millions. He shook hands, I fancy, murmured vaguely, +was satisfied with my French. Bon voyage. + +"In about forty-five seconds I found myself again in the waiting-room +with the compassionate secretary, who, full of desolation and sympathy, +made me sign some document. I believe I undertook amongst other things +not to disclose any trade secrets. Well, I am not going to. + +"I began to feel slightly uneasy. You know I am not used to +such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere. +It was just as though I had been let into some conspiracy-- +I don't know--something not quite right; and I was glad to get out. +In the outer room the two women knitted black wool feverishly. +People were arriving, and the younger one was walking back +and forth introducing them. The old one sat on her chair. +Her flat cloth slippers were propped up on a foot-warmer, and a cat +reposed on her lap. She wore a starched white affair on her head, +had a wart on one cheek, and silver-rimmed spectacles hung +on the tip of her nose. She glanced at me above the glasses. +The swift and indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. +Two youths with foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over, +and she threw at them the same quick glance of unconcerned wisdom. +She seemed to know all about them and about me too. +An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. +Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door +of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, +one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, +the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned +old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. +Not many of those she looked at ever saw her again--not half, +by a long way. + +"There was yet a visit to the doctor. `A simple formality,' assured me +the secretary, with an air of taking an immense part in all my sorrows. +Accordingly a young chap wearing his hat over the left eyebrow, +some clerk I suppose,--there must have been clerks in the business, +though the house was as still as a house in a city of the dead,-- +came from somewhere up-stairs, and led me forth. He was shabby +and careless, with ink-stains on the sleeves of his jacket, +and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin shaped like the toe +of an old boot. It was a little too early for the doctor, so I +proposed a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality. +As we sat over our vermouths he glorified the Company's business, +and by-and-by I expressed casually my surprise at him not going +out there. He became very cool and collected all at once. +`I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples,' +he said sententiously, emptied his glass with great resolution, +and we rose. + +"The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something +else the while. `Good, good for there,' he mumbled, +and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would +let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said Yes, +when he produced a thing like calipers and got the dimensions +back and front and every way, taking notes carefully. +He was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like a gaberdine, +with his feet in slippers, and I thought him a harmless fool. +`I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure +the crania of those going out there,' he said. `And when they +come back, too?' I asked. `Oh, I never see them,' he remarked; +`and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.' +He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. `So you are going +out there. Famous. Interesting too.' He gave me a searching glance, +and made another note. `Ever any madness in your family?' +he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. +`Is that question in the interests of science too?' +`It would be,' he said, without taking notice of my irritation, +`interesting for science to watch the mental changes +of individuals, on the spot, but . . .' `Are you an alienist?' +I interrupted. `Every doctor should be--a little,' +answered that original, imperturbably. `I have a little theory +which you Messieurs who go out there must help me to prove. +This is my share in the advantages my country shall reap +from the possession of such a magnificent dependency. +The mere wealth I leave to others. Pardon my questions, +but you are the first Englishman coming under my observation. +. . .' I hastened to assure him I was not in the least typical. +`If I were,' said I, `I wouldn't be talking like this with you.' +`What you say is rather profound, and probably erroneous,' +he said, with a laugh. `Avoid irritation more than +exposure to the sun. Adieu. How do you English say, eh? +Good-by. Ah! Good-by. Adieu. In the tropics one must before +everything keep calm.' . . . He lifted a warning forefinger. +. . . `Du calme, du calme. Adieu.' + +"One thing more remained to do--say good-by to my excellent aunt. +I found her triumphant. I had a cup of tea--the last decent +cup of tea for many days--and in a room that most soothingly +looked just as you would expect a lady's drawing-room to look, +we had a long quiet chat by the fireside. In the course of these +confidences it became quite plain to me I had been represented +to the wife of the high dignitary, and goodness knows to how many +more people besides, as an exceptional and gifted creature-- +a piece of good fortune for the Company--a man you don't get hold +of every day. Good heavens! and I was going to take charge of a +two-penny-halfpenny river-steamboat with a penny whistle attached! +It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capital-- +you know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a +lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose +in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman, +living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. +She talked about `weaning those ignorant millions from their +horrid ways,' till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. +I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit. + +"`You forget, dear Charlie, that the laborer is worthy of his hire,' +she said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. +They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything +like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they +were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. +Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever +since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over. + +"After this I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to write often, +and so on--and I left. In the street--I don't know why--a queer feeling +came to me that I was an impostor. Odd thing that I, who used to clear out +for any part of the world at twenty-four hours' notice, with less thought +than most men give to the crossing of a street, had a moment--I won't say +of hesitation, but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair. +The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second +or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the center of a continent, +I were about to set off for the center of the earth. + +"I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed +port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, +the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. +I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship +is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you-- +smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, +and always mute with an air of whispering, `Come and find out.' +This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, +with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, +so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, +ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along +a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. +The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. +Here and there grayish-whitish specks showed up, clustered inside +the white surf, with a flag flying above them perhaps. +Settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than +pin-heads on the untouched expanse of their background. +We pounded along, stopped, landed soldiers; went on, +landed custom-house clerks to levy toll in what looked like a +God-forsaken wilderness, with a tin shed and a flag-pole lost +in it; landed more soldiers--to take care of the custom-house +clerks, presumably. Some, I heard, got drowned in the surf; +but whether they did or not, nobody seemed particularly to care. +They were just flung out there, and on we went. +Every day the coast looked the same, as though we had not moved; +but we passed various places--trading places--with names +like Gran' Bassam Little Popo, names that seemed to belong +to some sordid farce acted in front of a sinister backcloth. +The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men +with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, +the uniform somberness of the coast, seemed to keep me away +from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful +and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf heard now and +then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother. +It was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning. +Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary +contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. +You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. +They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; +they had faces like grotesque masks--these chaps; but they +had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, +that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. +They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort +to look at. For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world +of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. +Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember, +we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. +There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. +It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. +Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long +eight-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, +slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her +thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, +there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. +Pop, would go one of the eight-inch guns; a small flame would +dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny +projectile would give a feeble screech--and nothing happened. +Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in +the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; +and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me +earnestly there was a camp of natives--he called them enemies!-- +hidden out of sight somewhere. + +"We gave her her letters (I heard the men in that lonely ship were dying +of fever at the rate of three a day) and went on. We called at some more +places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade +goes on in a still and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb; +all along the formless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature +herself had tried to ward off intruders; in and out of rivers, +streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, +whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, +that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. +Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularized impression, +but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. +It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares. + +"It was upward of thirty days before I saw the mouth of +the big river. We anchored off the seat of the government. +But my work would not begin till some two hundred miles farther on. +So as soon as I could I made a start for a place thirty +miles higher up. + +"I had my passage on a little sea-going steamer. Her captain was +a Swede, and knowing me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. +He was a young man, lean, fair, and morose, with lanky hair and a +shuffling gait. As we left the miserable little wharf, he tossed +his head contemptuously at the shore. `Been living there?' he asked. +I said, `Yes.' `Fine lot these government chaps--are they not?' he went on, +speaking English with great precision and considerable bitterness. +`It is funny what some people will do for a few francs a month. +I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes up country?' +I said to him I expected to see that soon. `So-o-o!' he exclaimed. +He shuffled athwart, keeping one eye ahead vigilantly. `Don't be too sure,' +he continued. `The other day I took up a man who hanged himself on the road. +He was a Swede, too.' `Hanged himself! Why, in God's name?' I cried. +He kept on looking out watchfully. `Who knows? The sun too much for him, +or the country perhaps.' + +"At last we opened a reach. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up +earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others, with iron roofs, +amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. +A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene +of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, +moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. +A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence +of glare. `There's your Company's station,' said the Swede, +pointing to three wooden barrack-like structures on the rocky slope. +`I will send your things up. Four boxes did you say? So. Farewell.' + +"I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path leading up +the hill. It turned aside for the bowlders, and also for an undersized +railway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. +One was off. The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal. +I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, a stack of rusty rails. +To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things seemed +to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right, +and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook +the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. +No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. +The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting +was all the work going on. + +"A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. +Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. +They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth +on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. +Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends +behind wagged to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, +the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had +an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with +a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. +Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly +of that ship of war I had seen firing into a continent. +It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could +by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were +called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, +had come to them, an insoluble mystery from over the sea. +All their meager breasts panted together, the violently +dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. +They passed me within six inches, without a glance, +with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. +Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of the new +forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. +He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white man +on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. +This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance +that he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, +and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, +seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. +After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high +and just proceedings. + +"Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left. +My idea was to let that chain-gang get out of sight before I +climbed the hill. You know I am not particularly tender; +I've had to strike and to fend off. I've had to resist +and to attack sometimes--that's only one way of resisting-- +without counting the exact cost, according to the demands +of such sort of life as I had blundered into. I've seen +the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil +of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, +red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men--men, I tell you. +But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding +sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, +pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. +How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find +out several months later and a thousand miles farther. +For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning. +Finally I descended the hill, obliquely, towards the trees +I had seen. + +"I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on +the slope, the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. +It wasn't a quarry or a sandpit, anyhow. It was just a hole. +It might have been connected with the philanthropic desire +of giving the criminals something to do. I don't know. +Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no +more than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that a lot +of imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been +tumbled in there. There wasn't one that was not broken. +It was a wanton smash-up. At last I got under the trees. +My purpose was to stroll into the shade for a moment; +but no sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped +into a gloomy circle of some Inferno. The rapids were near, +and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled +the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, +not a leaf moved, with a mysterious sound--as though the tearing +pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible. + +"Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against +the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within +the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. +Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder +of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! +And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die. + +"They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, +they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,-- +nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying +confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses +of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in +uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, +became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. +These moribund shapes were free as air--and nearly as thin. +I began to distinguish the gleam of eyes under the trees. +Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. +The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder +against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken +eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, +white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. +The man seemed young--almost a boy--but you know with them it's +hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him +one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. +The fingers closed slowly on it and held--there was no +other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit +of white worsted round his neck--Why? Where did he get it? +Was it a badge--an ornament--a charm--a propitiatory act? +Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked +startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from +beyond the seas. + +"Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with +their legs drawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees, +stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner: +his brother phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a +great weariness; and all about others were scattered in every pose +of contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence. +While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands +and knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink. +He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his +shins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall +on his breastbone. + +"I didn't want any more loitering in the shade, and I made +haste towards the station. When near the buildings I met +a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up +that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. +I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, +snowy trousers, a clear necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. +Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held +in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder +behind his ear. + +"I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was the Company's +chief accountant, and that all the bookkeeping was done at this station. +He had come out for a moment, he said, `to get a breath of fresh air.' +The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion of sedentary +desk-life. I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all, only it was +from his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is so indissolubly +connected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respected the fellow. +Yes; I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. +His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's dummy; but in the great +demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That's backbone. +His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character. +He had been out nearly three years; and, later on, I could not help asking +him how he managed to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush, +and said modestly, `I've been teaching one of the native women about +the station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work.' +This man had verily accomplished something. And he was devoted to his books, +which were in apple-pie order. + +"Everything else in the station was in a muddle,--heads, things, buildings. +Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream +of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire set into +the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory. + +"I had to wait in the station for ten days--an eternity. +I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos +I would sometimes get into the accountant's office. +It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly put together that, +as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck +to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There was no need +to open the big shutter to see. It was hot there too; +big flies buzzed fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed. +I sat generally on the floor, while, of faultless appearance +(and even slightly scented), perching on a high stool, +he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for exercise. +When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalided agent +from up-country) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance. +`The groans of this sick person,' he said, distract my attention. +And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against +clerical errors in this climate.' + +"One day he remarked, without lifting his head, `In the +interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my asking +who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent; +and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, +laying down his pen, `He is a very remarkable person.' +Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was at +present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, +in the true ivory-country, at `the very bottom of there. +Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together. +. . .' He began to write again. The sick man was too ill to groan. +The flies buzzed in a great peace. + +"Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a great +tramping of feet. A caravan had come in. A violent babble +of uncouth sounds burst out on the other side of the planks. +All the carriers were speaking together, and in the midst of the uproar +the lamentable voice of the chief agent was heard `giving it up' +tearfully for the twentieth time that day. . . . He rose slowly. +`What a frightful row,' he said. He crossed the room gently +to look at the sick man, and returning, said to me, `He does +not hear.' `What! Dead?' I asked, startled. `No, not yet,' +he answered, with great composure. Then, alluding with a toss +of the head to the tumult in the station-yard, `When one has +got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages-- +hate them to the death.' He remained thoughtful for a moment. +`When you see Mr. Kurtz,' he went on, `tell him from me that +everything here'--he glanced at the desk--'is very satisfactory. +I don't like to write to him--with those messengers of ours +you never know who may get hold of your letter--at that +Central Station.' He stared at me for a moment with his mild, +bulging eyes. `Oh, he will go far, very far,' he began again. +`He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. +They, above--the Council in Europe, you know--mean him to be.' + +"He turned to his work. The noise outside had ceased, +and presently in going out I stopped at the door. +In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent was lying +flushed and insensible; the other, bent over his books, +was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions; +and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still tree-tops +of the grove of death. + +"Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan of sixty men, +for a two-hundred-mile tramp. + +"No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths, everywhere; +a stamped-in network of paths spreading over the empty land, +through long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, +down and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze +with heat; and a solitude, a solitude, nobody, not a hut. +The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well, if a lot +of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons +suddenly took to traveling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, +catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads +for them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would +get empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were gone too. +Still I passed through several abandoned villages. +There's something pathetically childish in the ruins of grass walls. +Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair +of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load. +Camp, cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier +dead in harness, at rest in the long grass near the path, +with an empty water-gourd and his long staff lying by his side. +A great silence around and above. Perhaps on some quiet night +the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; +a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild--and perhaps with as +profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. +Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path +with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive-- +not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, +he declared. Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, +unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole +in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles +farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement. +I had a white companion too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshy +and with the exasperating habit of fainting on the hot hillsides, +miles away from the least bit of shade and water. Annoying, you know, +to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man's head +while he is coming-to. I couldn't help asking him once what +he meant by coming there at all. `To make money, of course. +What do you think?' he said, scornfully. Then he got fever, +and had to be carried in a hammock slung under a pole. +As he weighed sixteen stone I had no end of rows with the carriers. +They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their loads in the night-- +quite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a speech in English +with gestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of eyes +before me, and the next morning I started the hammock off in front +all right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concern +wrecked in a bush--man, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors. +The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was very anxious for me +to kill somebody, but there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near. +I remembered the old doctor,--'It would be interesting for science +to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot.' +I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting. +However, all that is to no purpose. On the fifteenth day +I came in sight of the big river again, and hobbled into +the Central Station. It was on a back water surrounded by scrub +and forest, with a pretty border of smelly mud on one side, +and on the three others inclosed by a crazy fence of rushes. +A neglected gap was all the gate it had, and the first glance +at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil was +running that show. White men with long staves in their hands +appeared languidly from amongst the buildings, strolling up +to take a look at me, and then retired out of sight somewhere. +One of them, a stout, excitable chap with black mustaches, +informed me with great volubility and many digressions, as soon as I +told him who I was, that my steamer was at the bottom of the river. +I was thunderstruck. What, how, why? Oh, it was `all right.' +The `manager himself' was there. All quite correct. +`Everybody had behaved splendidly! splendidly!'--'you must,' +he said in agitation, `go and see the general manager at once. +He is waiting!' + +"I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once. +I fancy I see it now, but I am not sure--not at all. +Certainly the affair was too stupid--when I think of it--to be +altogether natural. Still. . . . But at the moment it presented +itself simply as a confounded nuisance. The steamer was sunk. +They had started two days before in a sudden hurry up the river +with the manager on board, in charge of some volunteer skipper, +and before they had been out three hours they tore the bottom +out of her on stones, and she sank near the south bank. +I asked myself what I was to do there, now my boat was lost. +As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do in fishing my command +out of the river. I had to set about it the very next day. +That, and the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station, +took some months. + +"My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not +ask me to sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. +He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. +He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, +were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance +fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an ax. But even at these +times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. +Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, +something stealthy--a smile--not a smile--I remember it, but I +can't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just +after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. +It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make +the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. +He was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these parts-- +nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, +nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it! +Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust--just uneasiness--nothing more. +You have no idea how effective such a . . . a . . . faculty can be. +He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. +That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. +He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come +to him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill . . . He had served +three terms of three years out there . . . Because triumphant health +in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. +When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scale--pompously. +Jack ashore--with a difference--in externals only. +This one could gather from his casual talk. He originated nothing, +he could keep the routine going--that's all. But he was great. +He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell +what could control such a man. He never gave that secret away. +Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pause-- +for out there there were no external checks. Once when various +tropical diseases had laid low almost every `agent' in the station, +he was heard to say, `Men who come out here should have no entrails.' +He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though it +had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. +You fancied you had seen things--but the seal was on. +When annoyed at meal-times by the constant quarrels of the white +men about precedence, he ordered an immense round table to be made, +for which a special house had to be built. This was the station's +mess-room. Where he sat was the first place--the rest were nowhere. +One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither civil +nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his `boy'--an overfed young +negro from the coast--to treat the white men, under his very eyes, +with provoking insolence. + +"He began to speak as soon as he saw me. I had been very long +on the road. He could not wait. Had to start without me. +The up-river stations had to be relieved. There had been so many +delays already that he did not know who was dead and who was alive, +and how they got on--and so on, and so on. He paid no attention +to my explanations, and, playing with a stick of sealing-wax, repeated +several times that the situation was `very grave, very grave.' +There were rumors that a very important station was in jeopardy, +and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was not true. +Mr. Kurtz was . . . I felt weary and irritable. Hang Kurtz, I thought. +I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the coast. +`Ah! So they talk of him down there,' he murmured to himself. +Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, +an exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company; +therefore I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said, +`very, very uneasy.' Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a +good deal, exclaimed, `Ah, Mr. Kurtz!' broke the stick of sealing-wax +and seemed dumbfounded by the accident. Next thing he wanted +to know `how long it would take to' . . . I interrupted him again. +Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too, I was getting savage. +`How could I tell,' I said. `I hadn't even seen the wreck yet-- +some months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me so futile. +`Some months,' he said. `Well, let us say three months before we +can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung out +of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of veranda) +muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot. +Afterwards I took it back when it was borne in upon me startlingly +with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite +for the `affair.' + +"I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back +on that station. In that way only it seemed to me I could +keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must +look about sometimes; and then I saw this station, these men +strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard. +I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered +here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, +like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. +The word `ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. +You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile +rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. +By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. +And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared +speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, +like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away +of this fantastic invasion. + +"Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things happened. +One evening a grass shed full of calico, cotton prints, beads, and I don't +know what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have thought +the earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. +I was smoking my pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw +them all cutting capers in the light, with their arms lifted high, +when the stout man with mustaches came tearing down to the river, a tin +pail in his hand, assured me that everybody was `behaving splendidly, +splendidly,' dipped about a quart of water and tore back again. +I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail. + +"I strolled up. There was no hurry. You see the thing had gone off +like a box of matches. It had been hopeless from the very first. +The flame had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everything-- +and collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. +A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire +in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly. +I saw him, later on, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking +very sick and trying to recover himself: afterwards he arose and went out-- +and the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again. +As I approached the glow from the dark I found myself at the back of +two men, talking. I heard the name of Kurtz pronounced, then the words, `take +advantage of this unfortunate accident.' One of the men was the manager. +I wished him a good evening. `Did you ever see anything like it-- +eh? it is incredible,' he said, and walked off. The other man remained. +He was a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, +with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He was stand-offish +with the other agents, and they on their side said he was the manager's +spy upon them. As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him before. +We got into talk, and by-and-by we strolled away from the hissing ruins. +Then he asked me to his room, which was in the main building of the station. +He struck a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only +a silver-mounted dressing-case but also a whole candle all to himself. +Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have any +right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls; a collection +of spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies. +The business intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks-- +so I had been informed; but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere +in the station, and he had been there more than a year--waiting. It seems +he could not make bricks without something, I don't know what--straw maybe. +Anyways, it could not be found there, and as it was not likely to be sent +from Europe, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for. +An act of special creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting-- +all the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of them--for something; and upon +my word it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the way they +took it, though the only thing that ever came to them was disease-- +as far as I could see. They beguiled the time by backbiting and +intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an air +of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of course. +It was as unreal as everything else--as the philanthropic pretense of the +whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. +The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post +where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. +They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account,-- +but as to effectually lifting a little finger--oh, no. By heavens! there +is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse +while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. +Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way +of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints +into a kick. + +"I had no idea why he wanted to be sociable, but as we chatted in there +it suddenly occurred to me the fellow was trying to get at something-- +in fact, pumping me. He alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was +supposed to know there--putting leading questions as to my acquaintances +in the sepulchral city, and so on. His little eyes glittered like mica discs-- +with curiosity,--though he tried to keep up a bit of superciliousness. +At first I was astonished, but very soon I became awfully curious +to see what he would find out from me. I couldn't possibly imagine +what I had in me to make it worth his while. It was very pretty to see +how he baffled himself, for in truth my body was full of chills, +and my head had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat business. +It was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator. +At last he got angry, and to conceal a movement of furious annoyance, +he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, +representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. +The background was somber--almost black. The movement of the woman +was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister. + +"It arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding a half-pint champagne bottle +(medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said +Mr. Kurtz had painted this--in this very station more than a year ago-- +while waiting for means to go to his trading-post. `Tell me, pray,' said I, +`who is this Mr. Kurtz?' + +"`The chief of the Inner Station,' he answered in a short tone, +looking away. `Much obliged,' I said, laughing. `And you are +the brickmaker of the Central Station. Everyone knows that.' +He was silent for a while. `He is a prodigy,' he said at last. +`He is an emissary of pity, and science, and progress, and devil +knows what else. We want,' he began to declaim suddenly, +`for the guidance of the cause intrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, +higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.' +`Who says that?' I asked. `Lots of them,' he replied. +`Some even write that; and so HE comes here, a special being, +as you ought to know.' `Why ought I to know?' I interrupted, +really surprised. He paid no attention. `Yes. To-day he is chief +of the best station, next year he will be assistant-manager, +two years more and . . . but I dare say you know what he will be +in two years' time. You are of the new gang--the gang of virtue. +The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. +Oh, don't say no. I've my own eyes to trust.' Light dawned upon me. +My dear aunt's influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected +effect upon that young man. I nearly burst into a laugh. +`Do you read the Company's confidential correspondence?' +I asked. He hadn't a word to say. It was great fun. +`When Mr. Kurtz,' I continued severely, `is General Manager, +you won't have the opportunity.' + +"He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. +The moon had risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, +pouring water on the glow, whence proceeded a sound of hissing; +steam ascended in the moonlight, the beaten nigger groaned somewhere. +`What a row the brute makes!' said the indefatigable man +with the mustaches, appearing near us. `Serve him right. +Transgression--punishment--bang! Pitiless, pitiless. +That's the only way. This will prevent all conflagrations +for the future. I was just telling the manager . . .' He +noticed my companion, and became crestfallen all at once. +`Not in bed yet,' he said, with a kind of servile heartiness; +`it's so natural. Ha! Danger--agitation.' He vanished. +I went on to the river-side, and the other followed me. +I heard a scathing murmur at my ear, `Heap of muffs--go to.' +The pilgrims could be seen in knots gesticulating, discussing. +Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily believe they +took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond the fence the forest +stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, +through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence +of the land went home to one's very heart,--its mystery, +its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. +The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and then +fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there. +I felt a hand introducing itself under my arm. `My dear sir,' +said the fellow, `I don't want to be misunderstood, and especially +by you, who will see Mr. Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure. +I wouldn't like him to get a false idea of my disposition. +. . .' + +"I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed +to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, +and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe. +He, don't you see, had been planning to be assistant-manager +by-and-by under the present man, and I could see that +the coming of that Kurtz had upset them both not a little. +He talked precipitately, and I did not try to stop him. +I had my shoulders against the wreck of my steamer, hauled up +on the slope like a carcass of some big river animal. +The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove! was in my nostrils, +the high stillness of primeval forest was before my eyes; +there were shiny patches on the black creek. +The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver-- +over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted +vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, +over the great river I could see through a somber gap glittering, +glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur. +All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered +about himself. I wondered whether the stillness on the face +of the immensity looking at us two were meant as an appeal +or as a menace. What were we who had strayed in here? +Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? +I felt how big, how confoundedly big, was that thing that +couldn't talk, and perhaps was deaf as well. What was in there? +I could see a little ivory coming out from there, and I had +heard Mr. Kurtz was in there. I had heard enough about it too-- +God knows! Yet somehow it didn't bring any image with it-- +no more than if I had been told an angel or a fiend was in there. +I believed it in the same way one of you might believe there are +inhabitants in the planet Mars. I knew once a Scotch sailmaker +who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars. If you +asked him for some idea how they looked and behaved, he would +get shy and mutter something about `walking on all-fours.' +If you as much as smiled, he would--though a man of sixty-- +offer to fight you. I would not have gone so far as to +fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. +You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am +straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. +There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies,-- +which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world-- +what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, +like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose. +Well, I went near enough to it by letting the young fool +there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence +in Europe. I became in an instant as much of a pretense as the rest +of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion +it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time +I did not see--you understand. He was just a word for me. +I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. +Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? +It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, +because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, +that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment +in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured +by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams. +. . ." + +He was silent for a while. + +". . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation +of any given epoch of one's existence,--that which makes its truth, +its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. +We live, as we dream--alone. . . ." + +He paused again as if reflecting, then added-- + +"Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then. +You see me, whom you know. . . ." + +It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see +one another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been +no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. +The others might have been asleep, but I was awake. +I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, +that would give me the clew to the faint uneasiness inspired +by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human +lips in the heavy night-air of the river. + +". . . Yes--I let him run on," Marlow began again, "and think +what he pleased about the powers that were behind me. I did! +And there was nothing behind me! There was nothing but that wretched, +old, mangled steamboat I was leaning against, while he talked +fluently about `the necessity for every man to get on.' `And when +one comes out here, you conceive, it is not to gaze at the moon.' +Mr. Kurtz was a `universal genius,' but even a genius would +find it easier to work with `adequate tools--intelligent men.' +He did not make bricks--why, there was a physical impossibility +in the way--as I was well aware; and if he did secretarial +work for the manager, it was because `no sensible man rejects +wantonly the confidence of his superiors.' Did I see it? +I saw it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, +by heaven! Rivets. To get on with the work--to stop the hole. +Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast-- +cases--piled up--burst--split! You kicked a loose rivet +at every second step in that station yard on the hillside. +Rivets had rolled into the grove of death. You could fill +your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stooping down-- +and there wasn't one rivet to be found where it was wanted. +We had plates that would do, but nothing to fasten them with. +And every week the messenger, a lone negro, letter-bag on +shoulder and staff in hand, left our station for the coast. +And several times a week a coast caravan came in with trade goods,-- +ghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it, +glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted +cotton handkerchiefs. And no rivets. Three carriers could +have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat. + +"He was becoming confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive +attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary +to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. +I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain +quantity of rivets--and rivets were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, +if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week. +. . . `My dear sir,' he cried, `I write from dictation.' +I demanded rivets. There was a way--for an intelligent man. +He changed his manner; became very cold, and suddenly began to talk +about a hippopotamus; wondered whether sleeping on board the steamer +(I stuck to my salvage night and day) I wasn't disturbed. +There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting out +on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds. +The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they +could lay hands on at him. Some even had sat up o' nights for him. +All this energy was wasted, though. `That animal has a charmed life,' +he said; `but you can say this only of brutes in this country. +No man--you apprehend me?--no man here bears a charmed life.' +He stood there for a moment in the moonlight with his delicate +hooked nose set a little askew, and his mica eyes glittering +without a wink, then, with a curt Good night, he strode off. +I could see he was disturbed and considerably puzzled, +which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days. +It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential +friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat. +I clambered on board. She rang under my feet like an empty +Huntley & Palmer biscuit-tin kicked along a gutter; she was +nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty in shape, +but I had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her. +No influential friend would have served me better. She had given +me a chance to come out a bit--to find out what I could do. +No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all +the fine things that can be done. I don't like work--no man does-- +but I like what is in the work,--the chance to find yourself. +Your own reality--for yourself, not for others--what no other man +can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can +tell what it really means. + +"I was not surprised to see somebody sitting aft, on the deck, +with his legs dangling over the mud. You see I rather chummed with +the few mechanics there were in that station, whom the other pilgrims +naturally despised--on account of their imperfect manners, I suppose. +This was the foreman--a boiler-maker by trade--a good worker. +He was a lank, bony, yellow-faced man, with big intense eyes. +His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald as the palm of my hand; +but his hair in falling seemed to have stuck to his chin, and had +prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist. +He was a widower with six young children (he had left them in charge +of a sister of his to come out there), and the passion of his +life was pigeon-flying. He was an enthusiast and a connoisseur. +He would rave about pigeons. After work hours he used sometimes to come +over from his hut for a talk about his children and his pigeons; at work, +when he had to crawl in the mud under the bottom of the steamboat, +he would tie up that beard of his in a kind of white serviette +he brought for the purpose. It had loops to go over his ears. +In the evening he could be seen squatted on the bank rinsing that +wrapper in the creek with great care, then spreading it solemnly +on a bush to dry. + +"I slapped him on the back and shouted, `We shall have rivets!' +He scrambled to his feet exclaiming `No! Rivets!' as though +he couldn't believe his ears. Then in a low voice, `You . . . eh?' +I don't know why we behaved like lunatics. I put my finger +to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. `Good for you!' +he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot. +I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came +out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek +sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station. +It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels. +A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway of the manager's hut, +vanished, then, a second or so after, the doorway itself vanished too. +We stopped, and the silence driven away by the stamping +of our feet flowed back again from the recesses of the land. +The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, +branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, +was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave +of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, +to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. +And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts +reached us from afar, as though an ichthyosaurus had been taking a bath +of glitter in the great river. `After all,' said the boiler-maker +in a reasonable tone, `why shouldn't we get the rivets?' +Why not, indeed! I did not know of any reason why we shouldn't. +`They'll come in three weeks,' I said confidently. + +"But they didn't. Instead of rivets there came an invasion, +an infliction, a visitation. It came in sections during +the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying +a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from +that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims. +A quarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels +of the donkeys; a lot of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases, +brown bales would be shot down in the courtyard, and the air +of mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station. +Five such installments came, with their absurd air of +disorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit shops +and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging, +after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division. +It was an inextricable mess of things decent in themselves +but that human folly made look like the spoils of thieving. + +"This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, +and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, +was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, +greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom +of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they +did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. +To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no +more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking +into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know; +but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot. + +"In exterior he resembled a butcher in a poor neighborhood, +and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He carried his fat +paunch with ostentation on his short legs, and during the time +his gang infested the station spoke to no one but his nephew. +You could see these two roaming about all day long with their +heads close together in an everlasting confab. + +"I had given up worrying myself about the rivets. +One's capacity for that kind of folly is more limited than +you would suppose. I said Hang!--and let things slide. +I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then I would +give some thought to Kurtz. I wasn't very interested in him. +No. Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come +out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top +after all, and how he would set about his work when there." + + +II + + +"One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, +I heard voices approaching--and there were the nephew and the uncle +strolling along the bank. I laid my head on my arm again, +and had nearly lost myself in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, +as it were: `I am as harmless as a little child, but I don't +like to be dictated to. Am I the manager--or am I not? +I was ordered to send him there. It's incredible.' +. . . I became aware that the two were standing on the shore +alongside the forepart of the steamboat, just below my head. +I did not move; it did not occur to me to move: I was sleepy. +`It IS unpleasant,' grunted the uncle. `He has asked the +Administration to be sent there,' said the other, `with the idea +of showing what he could do; and I was instructed accordingly. +Look at the influence that man must have. Is it not frightful?' +They both agreed it was frightful, then made several bizarre remarks: +`Make rain and fine weather--one man--the Council--by the nose'-- +bits of absurd sentences that got the better of my drowsiness, +so that I had pretty near the whole of my wits about me when the +uncle said, `The climate may do away with this difficulty for you. +Is he alone there?' `Yes,' answered the manager; `he sent +his assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms: +"Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't +bother sending more of that sort. I had rather be alone +than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me." +It was more than a year ago. Can you imagine such impudence!' +`Anything since then?' asked the other, hoarsely. `Ivory,' jerked +the nephew; `lots of it--prime sort--lots--most annoying, +from him.' `And with that?' questioned the heavy rumble. +`Invoice,' was the reply fired out, so to speak. Then silence. +They had been talking about Kurtz. + +"I was broad awake by this time, but, lying perfectly at ease, +remained still, having no inducement to change my position. +`How did that ivory come all this way?' growled the elder man, +who seemed very vexed. The other explained that it had come +with a fleet of canoes in charge of an English half-caste +clerk Kurtz had with him; that Kurtz had apparently intended +to return himself, the station being by that time bare +of goods and stores, but after coming three hundred miles, +had suddenly decided to go back, which he started to do alone +in a small dug-out with four paddlers, leaving the half-caste +to continue down the river with the ivory. The two fellows +there seemed astounded at anybody attempting such a thing. +They were at a loss for an adequate motive. As to me, I seemed +to see Kurtz for the first time. It was a distinct glimpse: +the dug-out, four paddling savages, and the lone white man +turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, +on thoughts of home--perhaps; setting his face towards the depths +of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station. +I did not know the motive. Perhaps he was just simply a fine +fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake. His name, +you understand, had not been pronounced once. He was `that man.' +The half-caste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted +a difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably +alluded to as `that scoundrel.' The `scoundrel' had reported +that the `man' had been very ill--had recovered imperfectly. +. . . The two below me moved away then a few paces, +and strolled back and forth at some little distance. I heard: +`Military post--doctor--two hundred miles--quite alone now-- +unavoidable delays--nine months--no news--strange rumors.' +They approached again, just as the manager was saying, `No one, +as far as I know, unless a species of wandering trader-- +a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.' +Who was it they were talking about now? I gathered in snatches +that this was some man supposed to be in Kurtz's district, and of whom +the manager did not approve. `We will not be free from unfair +competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example,' +he said. `Certainly,' grunted the other; `get him hanged! +Why not? Anything--anything can be done in this country. +That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, HERE, can endanger +your position. And why? You stand the climate--you outlast them all. +The danger is in Europe; but there before I left I took care to--' +They moved off and whispered, then their voices rose again. +`The extraordinary series of delays is not my fault. +I did my possible.' The fat man sighed, `Very sad.' +`And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other; +`he bothered me enough when he was here. "Each station +should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, +a center for trade of course, but also for humanizing, +improving, instructing." Conceive you--that ass! +And he wants to be manager! No, it's--' Here he got choked +by excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least bit. +I was surprised to see how near they were--right under me. +I could have spat upon their hats. They were looking on the ground, +absorbed in thought. The manager was switching his leg +with a slender twig: his sagacious relative lifted his head. +`You have been well since you came out this time?' he asked. +The other gave a start. `Who? I? Oh! Like a charm--like a charm. +But the rest--oh, my goodness! All sick. They die so quick, +too, that I haven't the time to send them out of the country-- +it's incredible!' `H'm. Just so,' grunted the uncle. +`Ah! my boy, trust to this--I say, trust to this.' +I saw him extend his short flipper of an arm for a gesture +that took in the forest, the creek, the mud, the river,-- +seemed to beckon with a dishonoring flourish before the sunlit +face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, +to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart. +It was so startling that I leaped to my feet and looked +back at the edge of the forest, as though I had expected +an answer of some sort to that black display of confidence. +You know the foolish notions that come to one sometimes. +The high stillness confronted these two figures with its ominous +patience, waiting for the passing away of a fantastic invasion. + +"They swore aloud together--out of sheer fright, I believe--then pretending +not to know anything of my existence, turned back to the station. +The sun was low; and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be +tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, +that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending +a single blade. + +"In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient +wilderness, that closed upon it as the sea closes over a diver. +Long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead. +I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals. +They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved. +I did not inquire. I was then rather excited at the prospect of meeting +Kurtz very soon. When I say very soon I mean it comparatively. +It was just two months from the day we left the creek when we +came to the bank below Kurtz's station. + +"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings +of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees +were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. +The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy +in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway +ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. +On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. +The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; +you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted +all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you +thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you +had known once--somewhere--far away--in another existence perhaps. +There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it +will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; +but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, +remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities +of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. +And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. +It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an +inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect. +I got used to it afterwards; I did not see it any more; I had no time. +I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by +inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; +I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, +when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would +have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned +all the pilgrims; I had to keep a look-out for the signs of dead +wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. +When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents +of the surface, the reality--the reality, I tell you--fades. The inner +truth is hidden--luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; +I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, +just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective +tight-ropes for--what is it? half-a-crown a tumble--" + +"Try to be civil, Marlow," growled a voice, and I knew there was at least +one listener awake besides myself. + +"I beg your pardon. I forgot the heartache which makes up +the rest of the price. And indeed what does the price matter, +if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very well. +And I didn't do badly either, since I managed not to sink +that steamboat on my first trip. It's a wonder to me yet. +Imagine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a bad road. +I sweated and shivered over that business considerably, +I can tell you. After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom +of the thing that's supposed to float all the time under +his care is the unpardonable sin. No one may know of it, +but you never forget the thump--eh? A blow on the very heart. +You remember it, you dream of it, you wake up at night +and think of it--years after--and go hot and cold all over. +I don't pretend to say that steamboat floated all the time. +More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals +splashing around and pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps +on the way for a crew. Fine fellows--cannibals--in their place. +They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them. +And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face: +they had brought along a provision of hippo-meat which +went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink +in my nostrils. Phoo! I can sniff it now. I had the manager +on board and three or four pilgrims with their staves-- +all complete. Sometimes we came upon a station close by the bank, +clinging to the skirts of the unknown, and the white men +rushing out of a tumble-down hovel, with great gestures +of joy and surprise and welcome, seemed very strange,-- +had the appearance of being held there captive by a spell. +The word ivory would ring in the air for a while--and on we went +again into the silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, +between the high walls of our winding way, reverberating in +hollow claps the ponderous beat of the stern-wheel. Trees, +trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high; +and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, +crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle +crawling on the floor of a lofty portico. It made you feel +very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, +that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy +beetle crawled on--which was just what you wanted it to do. +Where the pilgrims imagined it crawled to I don't know. +To some place where they expected to get something, I bet! +For me it crawled toward Kurtz--exclusively; but when +the steam-pipes started leaking we crawled very slow. +The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had +stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. +We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. +It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll +of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river +and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air +high over our heads, till the first break of day. +Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. +The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; +the woodcutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig +would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, +on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. +We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking +possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost +of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we +struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, +of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, +a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, +of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. +The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black +and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was +cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us--who could tell? +We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; +we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, +as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. +We could not understand, because we were too far and could +not remember, because we were traveling in the night of +first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign-- +and no memories. + +"The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look +upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there-- +there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. +It was unearthly, and the men were--No, they were not inhuman. +Well, you know, that was the worst of it--this suspicion +of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. +They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; +but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity-- +like yours--the thought of your remote kinship with this +wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; +but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself +that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response +to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion +of there being a meaning in it which you--you so remote from +the night of first ages--could comprehend. And why not? +The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, +all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? +Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage--who can tell?-- +but truth--truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool +gape and shudder--the man knows, and can look on without a wink. +But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. +He must meet that truth with his own true stuff--with his +own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. +Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags--rags that would fly off +at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. +An appeal to me in this fiendish row--is there? Very well; +I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil +mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of course, a fool, +what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe. +Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl +and a dance? Well, no--I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? +Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess +about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping +to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes--I tell you. +I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, +and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was +surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man. +And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. +He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. +He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him +was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches +and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs. A few +months of training had done for that really fine chap. +He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an +evident effort of intrepidity--and he had filed teeth too, +the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer +patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. +He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his +feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, +a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. +He was useful because he had been instructed; and what he knew +was this--that should the water in that transparent thing disappear, +the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through +the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance. +So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully +(with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a +piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through +his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, +the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence-- +and we crept on, towards Kurtz. But the snags were thick, +the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed +to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor +I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts. + +"Some fifty miles below the Inner Station we came upon a hut of reeds, +an inclined and melancholy pole, with the unrecognizable tatters of what had +been a flag of some sort flying from it, and a neatly stacked woodpile. +This was unexpected. We came to the bank, and on the stack of firewood +found a flat piece of board with some faded pencil-writing on it. +When deciphered it said: `Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously.' +There was a signature, but it was illegible--not Kurtz--a much longer word. +`Hurry up.' Where? Up the river? `Approach cautiously.' +We had not done so. But the warning could not have been meant +for the place where it could be only found after approach. +Something was wrong above. But what--and how much? That was the question. +We commented adversely upon the imbecility of that telegraphic style. +The bush around said nothing, and would not let us look very far, either. +A torn curtain of red twill hung in the doorway of the hut, +and flapped sadly in our faces. The dwelling was dismantled; +but we could see a white man had lived there not very long ago. +There remained a rude table--a plank on two posts; a heap of rubbish +reposed in a dark corner, and by the door I picked up a book. +It had lost its covers, and the pages had been thumbed into a state +of extremely dirty softness; but the back had been lovingly +stitched afresh with white cotton thread, which looked clean yet. +It was an extraordinary find. Its title was, `An Inquiry into some +Points of Seamanship,' by a man Tower, Towson--some such name-- +Master in his Majesty's Navy. The matter looked dreary reading enough, +with illustrative diagrams and repulsive tables of figures, +and the copy was sixty years old. I handled this amazing antiquity with +the greatest possible tenderness, lest it should dissolve in my hands. +Within, Towson or Towser was inquiring earnestly into the breaking +strain of ships' chains and tackle, and other such matters. +Not a very enthralling book; but at the first glance you could see +there a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right +way of going to work, which made these humble pages, thought out +so many years ago, luminous with another than a professional light. +The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, +made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation +of having come upon something unmistakably real. Such a book being +there was wonderful enough; but still more astounding were the notes +penciled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text. I couldn't +believe my eyes! They were in cipher! Yes, it looked like cipher. +Fancy a man lugging with him a book of that description into this +nowhere and studying it--and making notes--in cipher at that! +It was an extravagant mystery. + +"I had been dimly aware for some time of a worrying noise, +and when I lifted my eyes I saw the wood-pile was gone, +and the manager, aided by all the pilgrims, was shouting at +me from the river-side. I slipped the book into my pocket. +I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away +from the shelter of an old and solid friendship. + +"I started the lame engine ahead. `It must be this miserable trader-- +this intruder,' exclaimed the manager, looking back malevolently +at the place we had left. `He must be English,' I said. +`It will not save him from getting into trouble if he is not careful,' +muttered the manager darkly. I observed with assumed innocence +that no man was safe from trouble in this world. + +"The current was more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her +last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself +listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the boat, for in sober +truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. +It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. +Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our +progress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast. +To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience. +The manager displayed a beautiful resignation. I fretted and fumed and took +to arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz; +but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech +or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. +What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter +who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. +The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, +and beyond my power of meddling. + +"Towards the evening of the second day we judged ourselves +about eight miles from Kurtz's station. I wanted to push on; +but the manager looked grave, and told me the navigation up +there was so dangerous that it would be advisable, the sun being +very low already, to wait where we were till next morning. +Moreover, he pointed out that if the warning to approach +cautiously were to be followed, we must approach in daylight-- +not at dusk, or in the dark. This was sensible enough. +Eight miles meant nearly three hours' steaming for us, and I +could also see suspicious ripples at the upper end of the reach. +Nevertheless, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay, +and most unreasonably too, since one night more could not +matter much after so many months. As we had plenty of wood, +and caution was the word, I brought up in the middle of the stream. +The reach was narrow, straight, with high sides like a railway cutting. +The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set. +The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat +on the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the creepers +and every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changed +into stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf. +It was not sleep--it seemed unnatural, like a state of trance. +Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard. +You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deaf-- +then the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well. +About three in the morning some large fish leaped, and the loud +splash made me jump as though a gun had been fired. +When the sun rose there was a white fog, very warm and clammy, +and more blinding than the night. It did not shift or drive; +it was just there, standing all round you like something solid. +At eight or nine, perhaps, it lifted as a shutter lifts. +We had a glimpse of the towering multitude of trees, of the immense +matted jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun hanging +over it--all perfectly still--and then the white shutter came +down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves. I ordered +the chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again. +Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, +as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. +It ceased. A complaining clamor, modulated in savage discords, +filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair +stir under my cap. I don't know how it struck the others: +to me it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so suddenly, +and apparently from all sides at once, did this tumultuous +and mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a hurried outbreak +of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short, +leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and obstinately +listening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence. +`Good God! What is the meaning--?' stammered at my elbow one of +the pilgrims,--a little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers, +who wore side-spring boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks. +Two others remained open-mouthed a whole minute, then dashed +into the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand darting +scared glances, with Winchesters at `ready' in their hands. +What we could see was just the steamer we were on, her outlines blurred +as though she had been on the point of dissolving, and a misty strip +of water, perhaps two feet broad, around her--and that was all. +The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears +were concerned. Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared; swept off +without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind. + +"I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short, +so as to be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat at +once if necessary. `Will they attack?' whispered an awed voice. +`We will all be butchered in this fog,' murmured another. +The faces twitched with the strain, the hands trembled slightly, +the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious to see the contrast +of expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, +who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we, +though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. +The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious +look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row. +The others had an alert, naturally interested expression; +but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or two +who grinned as they hauled at the chain. Several exchanged short, +grunting phrases, which seemed to settle the matter to +their satisfaction. Their headman, a young, broad-chested black, +severely draped in dark-blue fringed cloths, with fierce +nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, +stood near me. `Aha!' I said, just for good fellowship's sake. +`Catch `im,' he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes +and a flash of sharp teeth--'catch `im. Give `im to us.' +`To you, eh?' I asked; `what would you do with them?' `Eat `im!' +he said curtly, and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked out +into the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude. +I would no doubt have been properly horrified, had it not +occurred to me that he and his chaps must be very hungry: +that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for at +least this month past. They had been engaged for six months +(I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, +as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged +to the beginnings of time--had no inherited experience to teach +them as it were), and of course, as long as there was a piece +of paper written over in accordance with some farcical law +or other made down the river, it didn't enter anybody's head +to trouble how they would live. Certainly they had brought +with them some rotten hippo-meat, which couldn't have lasted +very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn't, in the midst +of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity +of it overboard. It looked like a high-handed proceeding; +but it was really a case of legitimate self-defense. You can't +breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same +time keep your precarious grip on existence. Besides that, +they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire, +each about nine inches long; and the theory was they were to buy +their provisions with that currency in river-side villages. +You can see how THAT worked. There were either no villages, +or the people were hostile, or the director, who like the rest +of us fed out of tins, with an occasional old he-goat thrown in, +didn't want to stop the steamer for some more or less +recondite reason. So, unless they swallowed the wire itself, +or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don't see +what good their extravagant salary could be to them. +I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and +honorable trading company. For the rest, the only thing to eat-- +though it didn't look eatable in the least--I saw in their +possession was a few lumps of some stuff like half-cooked dough, +of a dirty lavender color, they kept wrapped in leaves, +and now and then swallowed a piece of, but so small that it +seemed done more for the looks of the thing than for any serious +purpose of sustenance. Why in the name of all the gnawing devils +of hunger they didn't go for us--they were thirty to five-- +and have a good tuck in for once, amazes me now when I think of it. +They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh +the consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though their +skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard. +And I saw that something restraining, one of those human +secrets that baffle probability, had come into play there. +I looked at them with a swift quickening of interest-- +not because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them before +very long, though I own to you that just then I perceived-- +in a new light, as it were--how unwholesome the pilgrims looked, +and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so-- +what shall I say?--so--unappetizing: a touch of fantastic +vanity which fitted well with the dream-sensation that pervaded +all my days at that time. Perhaps I had a little fever too. +One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse. +I had often `a little fever,' or a little touch of other things-- +the playful paw-strokes of the wilderness, the preliminary trifling +before the more serious onslaught which came in due course. +Yes; I looked at them as you would on any human being, +with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, +weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable +physical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint? +Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear--or some kind +of primitive honor? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience +can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; +and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, +they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don't you know +the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, +its black thoughts, its somber and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. +It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. +It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonor, and the perdition +of one's soul--than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. +And these chaps too had no earthly reason for any kind +of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint +from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. +But there was the fact facing me--the fact dazzling, to be seen, +like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a ripple on an +unfathomable enigma, a mystery greater--when I thought of it-- +than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this +savage clamor that had swept by us on the river-bank, behind +the blind whiteness of the fog. + +"Two pilgrims were quarreling in hurried whispers as to +which bank. `Left.' `No, no; how can you? Right, right, of course.' +`It is very serious,' said the manager's voice behind me; `I would be +desolated if anything should happen to Mr. Kurtz before we came up.' +I looked at him, and had not the slightest doubt he was sincere. +He was just the kind of man who would wish to preserve appearances. +That was his restraint. But when he muttered something about +going on at once, I did not even take the trouble to answer him. +I knew, and he knew, that it was impossible. Were we to let go our +hold of the bottom, we would be absolutely in the air--in space. +We wouldn't be able to tell where we were going to--whether up +or down stream, or across--till we fetched against one bank +or the other,--and then we wouldn't know at first which it was. +Of course I made no move. I had no mind for a smash-up. You couldn't +imagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck. Whether drowned at once +or not, we were sure to perish speedily in one way or another. +`I authorize you to take all the risks,' he said, after a short silence. +`I refuse to take any,' I said shortly; which was just the answer +he expected, though its tone might have surprised him. +`Well, I must defer to your judgment. You are captain,' he said, +with marked civility. I turned my shoulder to him in sign of +my appreciation, and looked into the fog. How long would it last? +It was the most hopeless look-out. The approach to this Kurtz grubbing +for ivory in the wretched bush was beset by as many dangers as though +he had been an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle. +`Will they attack, do you think?' asked the manager, +in a confidential tone. + +"I did not think they would attack, for several obvious reasons. +The thick fog was one. If they left the bank in their canoes they +would get lost in it, as we would be if we attempted to move. +Still, I had also judged the jungle of both banks quite impenetrable-- +and yet eyes were in it, eyes that had seen us. The river-side +bushes were certainly very thick; but the undergrowth behind +was evidently penetrable. However, during the short lift I +had seen no canoes anywhere in the reach--certainly not abreast +of the steamer. But what made the idea of attack inconceivable +to me was the nature of the noise--of the cries we had heard. +They had not the fierce character boding of immediate hostile intention. +Unexpected, wild, and violent as they had been, they had given me +an irresistible impression of sorrow. The glimpse of the steamboat +had for some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief. +The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a great +human passion let loose. Even extreme grief may ultimately vent +itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy. +. . . + +"You should have seen the pilgrims stare! They had no heart to grin, or even +to revile me; but I believe they thought me gone mad--with fright, maybe. +I delivered a regular lecture. My dear boys, it was no good bothering. +Keep a look-out? Well, you may guess I watched the fog for the signs +of lifting as a cat watches a mouse; but for anything else our eyes +were of no more use to us than if we had been buried miles deep in a heap +of cotton-wool. It felt like it too--choking, warm, stifling. Besides, all +I said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to fact. +What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt at repulse. +The action was very far from being aggressive--it was not even defensive, +in the usual sense: it was undertaken under the stress of desperation, +and in its essence was purely protective. + +"It developed itself, I should say, two hours after the fog lifted, +and its commencement was at a spot, roughly speaking, +about a mile and a half below Kurtz's station. We had just +floundered and flopped round a bend, when I saw an islet, a mere +grassy hummock of bright green, in the middle of the stream. +It was the only thing of the kind; but as we opened the reach more, +I perceived it was the head of a long sandbank, or rather of a chain +of shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river. +They were discolored, just awash, and the whole lot was seen +just under the water, exactly as a man's backbone is seen +running down the middle of his back under the skin. +Now, as far as I did see, I could go to the right or to +the left of this. I didn't know either channel, of course. +The banks looked pretty well alike, the depth appeared the same; +but as I had been informed the station was on the west side, +I naturally headed for the western passage. + +"No sooner had we fairly entered it than I became aware it was much +narrower than I had supposed. To the left of us there was the long +uninterrupted shoal, and to the right a high, steep bank heavily +overgrown with bushes. Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks. +The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to distance +a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over the stream. +It was then well on in the afternoon, the face of the forest was gloomy, +and a broad strip of shadow had already fallen on the water. +In this shadow we steamed up--very slowly, as you may imagine. +I sheered her well inshore--the water being deepest near the bank, +as the sounding-pole informed me. + +"One of my hungry and forbearing friends was sounding in the bows +just below me. This steamboat was exactly like a decked scow. +On the deck there were two little teak-wood houses, with doors and windows. +The boiler was in the fore-end, and the machinery right astern. +Over the whole there was a light roof, supported on stanchions. +The funnel projected through that roof, and in front of the funnel +a small cabin built of light planks served for a pilot-house. +It contained a couch, two camp-stools, a loaded Martini-Henry +leaning in one corner, a tiny table, and the steering-wheel. +It had a wide door in front and a broad shutter at each side. +All these were always thrown open, of course. I spent my days perched +up there on the extreme fore-end of that roof, before the door. +At night I slept, or tried to, on the couch. An athletic black +belonging to some coast tribe, and educated by my poor predecessor, +was the helmsman. He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a blue +cloth wrapper from the waist to the ankles, and thought all the world +of himself. He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen. +He steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost +sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, +and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the upper hand of him +in a minute. + +"I was looking down at the sounding-pole, and feeling much annoyed +to see at each try a little more of it stick out of that river, +when I saw my poleman give up the business suddenly, and stretch himself +flat on the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul his pole in. +He kept hold on it though, and it trailed in the water. +At the same time the fireman, whom I could also see below me, +sat down abruptly before his furnace and ducked his head. +I was amazed. Then I had to look at the river mighty quick, +because there was a snag in the fairway. Sticks, little sticks, +were flying about--thick: they were whizzing before my nose, +dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilot-house. +All this time the river, the shore, the woods, were very quiet-- +perfectly quiet. I could only hear the heavy splashing thump +of the stern-wheel and the patter of these things. We cleared +the snag clumsily. Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at! +I stepped in quickly to close the shutter on the land side. +That fool-helmsman, his hands on the spokes, was lifting his knees high, +stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reined-in horse. +Confound him! And we were staggering within ten feet of the bank. +I had to lean right out to swing the heavy shutter, and I saw +a face amongst the leaves on the level with my own, looking at me +very fierce and steady; and then suddenly, as though a veil had +been removed from my eyes, I made out, deep in the tangled gloom, +naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes,--the bush was swarming +with human limbs in movement, glistening, of bronze color. +The twigs shook, swayed, and rustled, the arrows flew out +of them, and then the shutter came to. `Steer her straight,' +I said to the helmsman. He held his head rigid, face forward; +but his eyes rolled, he kept on lifting and setting down +his feet gently, his mouth foamed a little. `Keep quiet!' +I said in a fury. I might just as well have ordered a tree +not to sway in the wind. I darted out. Below me there was +a great scuffle of feet on the iron deck; confused exclamations; +a voice screamed, `Can you turn back?' I caught shape of a +V-shaped ripple on the water ahead. What? Another snag! +A fusillade burst out under my feet. The pilgrims had opened with +their Winchesters, and were simply squirting lead into that bush. +A deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove slowly forward. +I swore at it. Now I couldn't see the ripple or the snag either. +I stood in the doorway, peering, and the arrows came in swarms. +They might have been poisoned, but they looked as though +they wouldn't kill a cat. The bush began to howl. +Our wood-cutters raised a warlike whoop; the report of a rifle +just at my back deafened me. I glanced over my shoulder, +and the pilot-house was yet full of noise and smoke when I made +a dash at the wheel. The fool-nigger had dropped everything, +to throw the shutter open and let off that Martini-Henry. He stood +before the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him to come back, +while I straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat. +There was no room to turn even if I had wanted to, the snag +was somewhere very near ahead in that confounded smoke, +there was no time to lose, so I just crowded her into the bank-- +right into the bank, where I knew the water was deep. + +"We tore slowly along the overhanging bushes in a whirl of broken +twigs and flying leaves. The fusillade below stopped short, +as I had foreseen it would when the squirts got empty. +I threw my head back to a glinting whizz that traversed +the pilot-house, in at one shutter-hole and out at the other. +Looking past that mad helmsman, who was shaking the empty rifle +and yelling at the shore, I saw vague forms of men running +bent double, leaping, gliding, distinct, incomplete, evanescent. +Something big appeared in the air before the shutter, the rifle +went overboard, and the man stepped back swiftly, looked at me +over his shoulder in an extraordinary, profound, familiar manner, +and fell upon my feet. The side of his head hit the wheel twice, +and the end of what appeared a long cane clattered round and knocked +over a little camp-stool. It looked as though after wrenching that +thing from somebody ashore he had lost his balance in the effort. +The thin smoke had blown away, we were clear of the snag, +and looking ahead I could see that in another hundred yards +or so I would be free to sheer off, away from the bank; +but my feet felt so very warm and wet that I had to look down. +The man had rolled on his back and stared straight up at me; +both his hands clutched that cane. It was the shaft of a spear that, +either thrown or lunged through the opening, had caught him +in the side just below the ribs; the blade had gone in out +of sight, after making a frightful gash; my shoes were full; +a pool of blood lay very still, gleaming dark-red under the wheel; +his eyes shone with an amazing luster. The fusillade burst out again. +He looked at me anxiously, gripping the spear like something precious, +with an air of being afraid I would try to take it away from him. +I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze and attend +to the steering. With one hand I felt above my head for the line +of the steam-whistle, and jerked out screech after screech hurriedly. +The tumult of angry and warlike yells was checked instantly, +and then from the depths of the woods went out such a tremulous +and prolonged wail of mournful fear and utter despair as may be +imagined to follow the flight of the last hope from the earth. +There was a great commotion in the bush; the shower of arrows stopped, +a few dropping shots rang out sharply--then silence, in which +the languid beat of the stern-wheel came plainly to my ears. +I put the helm hard a-starboard at the moment when the pilgrim +in pink pyjamas, very hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway. +`The manager sends me--' he began in an official tone, +and stopped short. `Good God!' he said, glaring at the wounded man. + +"We two whites stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiring +glance enveloped us both. I declare it looked as though he would +presently put to us some question in an understandable language; +but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, +without twitching a muscle. Only in the very last moment, as though +in response to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could +not hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black +death-mask an inconceivably somber, brooding, and menacing expression. +The luster of inquiring glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness. +`Can you steer?' I asked the agent eagerly. He looked very dubious; +but I made a grab at his arm, and he understood at once I +meant him to steer whether or no. To tell you the truth, +I was morbidly anxious to change my shoes and socks. `He is dead,' +murmured the fellow, immensely impressed. `No doubt about it,' +said I, tugging like mad at the shoe-laces. `And, by the way, +I suppose Mr. Kurtz is dead as well by this time.' + +"For the moment that was the dominant thought. There was a sense +of extreme disappointment, as though I had found out I had been +striving after something altogether without a substance. +I couldn't have been more disgusted if I had traveled all this way +for the sole purpose of talking with Mr. Kurtz. Talking with. +. . . I flung one shoe overboard, and became aware +that that was exactly what I had been looking forward to-- +a talk with Kurtz. I made the strange discovery that I had +never imagined him as doing, you know, but as discoursing. +I didn't say to myself, `Now I will never see him,' +or `Now I will never shake him by the hand,' but, `Now I +will never hear him.' The man presented himself as a voice. +Not of course that I did not connect him with some sort of action. +Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration +that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory +than all the other agents together? That was not the point. +The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his +gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it +a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words-- +the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, +the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating +stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of +an impenetrable darkness. + +"The other shoe went flying unto the devil-god of that river. +I thought, `By Jove! it's all over. We are too late; he has vanished-- +the gift has vanished, by means of some spear, arrow, or club. +I will never hear that chap speak after all,'--and my sorrow +had a startling extravagance of emotion, even such as I had +noticed in the howling sorrow of these savages in the bush. +I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been +robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life. . . . Why +do you sigh in this beastly way, somebody? Absurd? Well, absurd. +Good Lord! mustn't a man ever--Here, give me some tobacco." +. . . + +There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, +and Marlow's lean face appeared, worn, hollow, with downward folds +and dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention; +and as he took vigorous draws at his pipe, it seemed to retreat and +advance out of the night in the regular flicker of the tiny flame. +The match went out. + +"Absurd!" he cried. "This is the worst of trying to tell. . . . Here you +all are, each moored with two good addresses, like a hulk with two anchors, +a butcher round one corner, a policeman round another, excellent appetites, +and temperature normal--you hear--normal from year's end to year's end. +And you say, Absurd! Absurd be--exploded! Absurd! My dear boys, what can +you expect from a man who out of sheer nervousness had just flung overboard +a pair of new shoes. Now I think of it, it is amazing I did not shed tears. +I am, upon the whole, proud of my fortitude. I was cut to the quick +at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the +gifted Kurtz. Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. +Oh yes, I heard more than enough. And I was right, too. A voice. +He was very little more than a voice. And I heard--him--it--this voice-- +other voices--all of them were so little more than voices--and the memory +of that time itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration +of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, +without any kind of sense. Voices, voices--even the girl herself--now--" + +He was silent for a long time. + +"I laid the ghost of his gifts at last with a lie," +he began suddenly. "Girl! What? Did I mention a girl? +Oh, she is out of it--completely. They--the women, I mean-- +are out of it--should be out of it. We must help them to stay +in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse. +Oh, she had to be out of it. You should have heard the disinterred +body of Mr. Kurtz saying, `My Intended.' You would have +perceived directly then how completely she was out of it. +And the lofty frontal bone of Mr. Kurtz! They say the hair goes +on growing sometimes, but this--ah specimen, was impressively bald. +The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was +like a ball--an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and--lo!-- +he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, +got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its +own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. +He was its spoiled and pampered favorite. Ivory? I should think so. +Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old mud shanty was bursting with it. +You would think there was not a single tusk left either above +or below the ground in the whole country. `Mostly fossil,' +the manager had remarked disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am; +but they call it fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers +do bury the tusks sometimes--but evidently they couldn't bury this +parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr. Kurtz from his fate. +We filled the steamboat with it, and had to pile a lot on the deck. +Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could see, because the +appreciation of this favor had remained with him to the last. +You should have heard him say, `My ivory.' Oh yes, I heard him. +`My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my--' everything belonged +to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing +the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would +shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him-- +but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, +how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. +That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. +It was impossible--it was not good for one either--trying to imagine. +He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land-- +I mean literally. You can't understand. How could you?-- +with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors +ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between +the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and +gallows and lunatic asylums--how can you imagine what particular +region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him +into by the way of solitude--utter solitude without a policeman-- +by the way of silence, utter silence, where no warning voice +of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering of public opinion? +These little things make all the great difference. +When they are gone you must fall back upon your own +innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. +Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong--too dull +even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. +I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil: +the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil-- +I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted +creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly +sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place-- +and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't +pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other. +The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, +with sounds, with smells too, by Jove!--breathe dead hippo, +so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? +Your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging +of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in--your power of devotion, +not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. +And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or +even explain--I am trying to account to myself for--for--Mr. Kurtz-- +for the shade of Mr. Kurtz. This initiated wraith from the back +of Nowhere honored me with its amazing confidence before it +vanished altogether. This was because it could speak English to me. +The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England, and--as he was +good enough to say himself--his sympathies were in the right place. +His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe +contributed to the making of Kurtz; and by-and-by I learned that, +most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression +of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, +for its future guidance. And he had written it too. I've seen it. +I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, +but too high-strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing +he had found time for! But this must have been before his-- +let us say--nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain +midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which--as far +as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times-- +were offered up to him--do you understand?--to Mr. Kurtz himself. +But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, +however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. +He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development +we had arrived at, `must necessarily appear to them [savages] in +the nature of supernatural beings--we approach them with the might +as of a deity,' and so on, and so on. `By the simple exercise +of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' +&c., &c. From that point he soared and took me with him. +The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, +you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled +by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. +This was the unbounded power of eloquence--of words-- +of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to +interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note +at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, +in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. +It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every +altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, +like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: `Exterminate all +the brutes!' The curious part was that he had apparently +forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, +when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me +to take good care of `my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was +sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career. +I had full information about all these things, and, besides, +as it turned out, I was to have the care of his memory. +I've done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it, +if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the dust-bin of progress, +amongst all the sweepings and, figuratively speaking, all the dead +cats of civilization. But then, you see, I can't choose. +He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. +He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into +an aggravated witch-dance in his honor; he could also fill +the small souls of the pilgrims with bitter misgivings: +he had one devoted friend at least, and he had conquered one +soul in the world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with +self-seeking. No; I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm +the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. +I missed my late helmsman awfully,--I missed him even while his +body was still lying in the pilot-house. Perhaps you will think it +passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account +than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well, don't you see, +he had done something, he had steered; for months I had him at +my back--a help--an instrument. It was a kind of partnership. +He steered for me--I had to look after him, I worried about +his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, +of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken. +And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received +his hurt remains to this day in my memory--like a claim of distant +kinship affirmed in a supreme moment. + +"Poor fool! If he had only left that shutter alone. +He had no restraint, no restraint--just like Kurtz--a tree swayed +by the wind. As soon as I had put on a dry pair of slippers, +I dragged him out, after first jerking the spear out of his side, +which operation I confess I performed with my eyes shut tight. +His heels leaped together over the little door-step; his shoulders +were pressed to my breast; I hugged him from behind desperately. +Oh! he was heavy, heavy; heavier than any man on earth, +I should imagine. Then without more ado I tipped him overboard. +The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, +and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight +of it for ever. All the pilgrims and the manager were then +congregated on the awning-deck about the pilot-house, +chattering at each other like a flock of excited magpies, +and there was a scandalized murmur at my heartless promptitude. +What they wanted to keep that body hanging about for I can't guess. +Embalm it, maybe. But I had also heard another, and a very ominous, +murmur on the deck below. My friends the wood-cutters +were likewise scandalized, and with a better show of reason-- +though I admit that the reason itself was quite inadmissible. +Oh, quite! I had made up my mind that if my late helmsman +was to be eaten, the fishes alone should have him. +He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive, but now +he was dead he might have become a first-class temptation, +and possibly cause some startling trouble. Besides, I was +anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing +himself a hopeless duffer at the business. + +"This I did directly the simple funeral was over. We were going half-speed, +keeping right in the middle of the stream, and I listened to the talk +about me. They had given up Kurtz, they had given up the station; +Kurtz was dead, and the station had been burnt--and so on--and so on. +The red-haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that at +least this poor Kurtz had been properly revenged. `Say! We must +have made a glorious slaughter of them in the bush. Eh? What do +you think? Say?' He positively danced, the bloodthirsty little +gingery beggar. And he had nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man! +I could not help saying, `You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.' +I had seen, from the way the tops of the bushes rustled and flew, +that almost all the shots had gone too high. You can't hit anything +unless you take aim and fire from the shoulder; but these chaps +fired from the hip with their eyes shut. The retreat, I maintained-- +and I was right--was caused by the screeching of the steam-whistle. Upon +this they forgot Kurtz, and began to howl at me with indignant protests. + +"The manager stood by the wheel murmuring confidentially about +the necessity of getting well away down the river before dark at +all events, when I saw in the distance a clearing on the river-side +and the outlines of some sort of building. `What's this?' +I asked. He clapped his hands in wonder. `The station!' he cried. +I edged in at once, still going half-speed. + +"Through my glasses I saw the slope of a hill interspersed +with rare trees and perfectly free from undergrowth. A long +decaying building on the summit was half buried in the high grass; +the large holes in the peaked roof gaped black from afar; +the jungle and the woods made a background. There was no inclosure +or fence of any kind; but there had been one apparently, for near +the house half-a-dozen slim posts remained in a row, roughly trimmed, +and with their upper ends ornamented with round carved balls. +The rails, or whatever there had been between, had disappeared. +Of course the forest surrounded all that. The river-bank +was clear, and on the water-side I saw a white man under a hat +like a cart-wheel beckoning persistently with his whole arm. +Examining the edge of the forest above and below, I was almost +certain I could see movements--human forms gliding here and there. +I steamed past prudently, then stopped the engines and let her +drift down. The man on the shore began to shout, urging us to land. +`We have been attacked,' screamed the manager. `I know--I know. +It's all right,' yelled back the other, as cheerful as you please. +`Come along. It's all right. I am glad.' + +"His aspect reminded me of something I had seen--something funny +I had seen somewhere. As I maneuvered to get alongside, I was +asking myself, `What does this fellow look like?' Suddenly I got it. +He looked like a harlequin. His clothes had been made of some stuff +that was brown holland probably, but it was covered with patches all over, +with bright patches, blue, red, and yellow,--patches on the back, +patches on front, patches on elbows, on knees; colored binding +round his jacket, scarlet edging at the bottom of his trousers; +and the sunshine made him look extremely gay and wonderfully neat withal, +because you could see how beautifully all this patching had been done. +A beardless, boyish face, very fair, no features to speak of, +nose peeling, little blue eyes, smiles and frowns chasing each other over +that open countenance like sunshine and shadow on a windswept plain. +`Look out, captain!' he cried; `there's a snag lodged in here +last night.' What! Another snag? I confess I swore shamefully. +I had nearly holed my cripple, to finish off that charming trip. +The harlequin on the bank turned his little pug nose up to me. +`You English?' he asked, all smiles. `Are you?' I shouted from the wheel. +The smiles vanished, and he shook his head as if sorry for my disappointment. +Then he brightened up. `Never mind!' he cried encouragingly. +`Are we in time?' I asked. `He is up there,' he replied, with a toss +of the head up the hill, and becoming gloomy all of a sudden. +His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next. + +"When the manager, escorted by the pilgrims, all of them armed +to the teeth, had gone to the house, this chap came on board. +`I say, I don't like this. These natives are in the bush,' +I said. He assured me earnestly it was all right. +`They are simple people,' he added; `well, I am glad you came. +It took me all my time to keep them off.' `But you said it +was all right,' I cried. `Oh, they meant no harm,' he said; +and as I stared he corrected himself, `Not exactly.' +Then vivaciously, `My faith, your pilot-house wants a clean up!' +In the next breath he advised me to keep enough steam +on the boiler to blow the whistle in case of any trouble. +`One good screech will do more for you than all your rifles. +They are simple people,' he repeated. He rattled away at such +a rate he quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make +up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such +was the case. `Don't you talk with Mr. Kurtz?' I said. +`You don't talk with that man--you listen to him,' he exclaimed +with severe exaltation. `But now--' He waved his arm, and in +the twinkling of an eye was in the uttermost depths of despondency. +In a moment he came up again with a jump, possessed himself +of both my hands, shook them continuously, while he gabbled: +`Brother sailor . . . honor . . . pleasure . . . delight . . . +introduce myself . . . Russian . . . son of an arch-priest . . +. Government of Tambov . . . What? Tobacco! English tobacco; +the excellent English tobacco! Now, that's brotherly. +Smoke? Where's a sailor that does not smoke?' + +"The pipe soothed him, and gradually I made out he had +run away from school, had gone to sea in a Russian ship; +ran away again; served some time in English ships; was now +reconciled with the arch-priest. He made a point of that. +`But when one is young one must see things, gather experience, +ideas; enlarge the mind.' `Here!' I interrupted. +`You can never tell! Here I have met Mr. Kurtz,' he said, +youthfully solemn and reproachful. I held my tongue after that. +It appears he had persuaded a Dutch trading-house on the coast to fit +him out with stores and goods, and had started for the interior +with a light heart, and no more idea of what would happen to him +than a baby. He had been wandering about that river for nearly +two years alone, cut off from everybody and everything. +`I am not so young as I look. I am twenty-five,' he said. +`At first old Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil,' +he narrated with keen enjoyment; `but I stuck to him, and talked +and talked, till at last he got afraid I would talk the hind-leg off +his favorite dog, so he gave me some cheap things and a few guns, +and told me he hoped he would never see my face again. +Good old Dutchman, Van Shuyten. I've sent him one small lot +of ivory a year ago, so that he can't call me a little thief when I +get back. I hope he got it. And for the rest I don't care. +I had some wood stacked for you. That was my old house. +Did you see?' + +"I gave him Towson's book. He made as though he would kiss me, +but restrained himself. `The only book I had left, and I +thought I had lost it,' he said, looking at it ecstatically. +`So many accidents happen to a man going about alone, you know. +Canoes get upset sometimes--and sometimes you've got to clear +out so quick when the people get angry.' He thumbed the pages. +`You made notes in Russian?' I asked. He nodded. `I thought they +were written in cipher,' I said. He laughed, then became serious. +`I had lots of trouble to keep these people off,' he said. +`Did they want to kill you?' I asked. `Oh no!' he cried, +and checked himself. `Why did they attack us?' I pursued. +He hesitated, then said shamefacedly, `They don't want him to go.' +`Don't they?' I said, curiously. He nodded a nod full of mystery +and wisdom. `I tell you,' he cried, `this man has enlarged my mind.' +He opened his arms wide, staring at me with his little blue eyes +that were perfectly round." + + + + +III + + +"I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, +as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. +His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. +He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, +how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain-- +why he did not instantly disappear. `I went a little farther,' +he said, `then still a little farther--till I had gone so far that I +don't know how I'll ever get back. Never mind. Plenty time. +I can manage. You take Kurtz away quick--quick--I tell you.' +The glamour of youth enveloped his particolored rags, his destitution, +his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings. +For months--for years--his life hadn't been worth a day's purchase; +and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearance +indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his +unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration-- +like envy. Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. +He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe +in and to push on through. His need was to exist, and to move onwards +at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation. +If the absolutely pure, uncalculating, unpractical spirit of adventure +had ever ruled a human being, it ruled this be-patched youth. +I almost envied him the possession of this modest and clear flame. +It seemed to have consumed all thought of self so completely, that, +even while he was talking to you, you forgot that it was he--the man +before your eyes--who had gone through these things. I did not envy +him his devotion to Kurtz, though. He had not meditated over it. +It came to him, and he accepted it with a sort of eager fatalism. +I must say that to me it appeared about the most dangerous thing +in every way he had come upon so far. + +"They had come together unavoidably, like two ships becalmed near +each other, and lay rubbing sides at last. I suppose Kurtz wanted +an audience, because on a certain occasion, when encamped in the forest, +they had talked all night, or more probably Kurtz had talked. +`We talked of everything,' he said, quite transported at the recollection. +`I forgot there was such a thing as sleep. The night did not seem +to last an hour. Everything! Everything! . . . Of love too.' +`Ah, he talked to you of love!' I said, much amused. `It isn't +what you think,' he cried, almost passionately. `It was in general. +He made me see things--things.' + +"He threw his arms up. We were on deck at the time, and the headman +of my wood-cutters, lounging near by, turned upon him his heavy and +glittering eyes. I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure +you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, +the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, +so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness. +`And, ever since, you have been with him, of course?' I said. + +"On the contrary. It appears their intercourse had been very much +broken by various causes. He had, as he informed me proudly, +managed to nurse Kurtz through two illnesses (he alluded to it as you +would to some risky feat), but as a rule Kurtz wandered alone, +far in the depths of the forest. `Very often coming to this station, +I had to wait days and days before he would turn up,' he said. +`Ah, it was worth waiting for!--sometimes.' `What was +he doing? exploring or what?' I asked. `Oh yes, of course;' +he had discovered lots of villages, a lake too--he did not know +exactly in what direction; it was dangerous to inquire too much-- +but mostly his expeditions had been for ivory. `But he had no +goods to trade with by that time,' I objected. `There's a good +lot of cartridges left even yet,' he answered, looking away. +`To speak plainly, he raided the country,' I said. He nodded. +`Not alone, surely!' He muttered something about the villages +round that lake. `Kurtz got the tribe to follow him, did he?' +I suggested. He fidgeted a little. `They adored him,' he said. +The tone of these words was so extraordinary that I looked at +him searchingly. It was curious to see his mingled eagerness +and reluctance to speak of Kurtz. The man filled his life, +occupied his thoughts, swayed his emotions. `What can you expect?' +he burst out; `he came to them with thunder and lightning, you know-- +and they had never seen anything like it--and very terrible. +He could be very terrible. You can't judge Mr. Kurtz as you would +an ordinary man. No, no, no! Now--just to give you an idea-- +I don't mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me too one day-- +but I don't judge him.' `Shoot you!' I cried. `What for?' +`Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of that village +near my house gave me. You see I used to shoot game +for them. Well, he wanted it, and wouldn't hear reason. +He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory +and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so, +and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth +to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased. +And it was true too. I gave him the ivory. What did I care! +But I didn't clear out. No, no. I couldn't leave him. +I had to be careful, of course, till we got friendly +again for a time. He had his second illness then. +Afterwards I had to keep out of the way; but I didn't mind. +He was living for the most part in those villages on the lake. +When he came down to the river, sometimes he would take to me, +and sometimes it was better for me to be careful. This man suffered +too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. +When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there +was time; I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, +and then he would remain; go off on another ivory hunt; +disappear for weeks; forget himself amongst these people-- +forget himself--you know.' `Why! he's mad,' I said. +He protested indignantly. Mr. Kurtz couldn't be mad. +If I had heard him talk, only two days ago, I wouldn't dare +hint at such a thing. . . . I had taken up my binoculars +while we talked and was looking at the shore, sweeping the limit +of the forest at each side and at the back of the house. +The consciousness of there being people in that bush, so silent, +so quiet--as silent and quiet as the ruined house on the hill-- +made me uneasy. There was no sign on the face of nature +of this amazing tale that was not so much told as suggested +to me in desolate exclamations, completed by shrugs, +in interrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs. +The woods were unmoved, like a mask--heavy, like the closed door +of a prison--they looked with their air of hidden knowledge, +of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence. +The Russian was explaining to me that it was only lately +that Mr. Kurtz had come down to the river, bringing along +with him all the fighting men of that lake tribe. He had been +absent for several months--getting himself adored, I suppose-- +and had come down unexpectedly, with the intention to all appearance +of making a raid either across the river or down stream. +Evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the-- +what shall I say?--less material aspirations. However he had got much +worse suddenly. `I heard he was lying helpless, and so I came up-- +took my chance,' said the Russian. `Oh, he is bad, very bad.' +I directed my glass to the house. There were no signs of life, +but there was the ruined roof, the long mud wall peeping above +the grass, with three little square window-holes, no two of the +same size; all this brought within reach of my hand, as it were. +And then I made a brusque movement, and one of the remaining +posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass. +You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain +attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect +of the place. Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first +result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. +Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw +my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic; +they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing-- +food for thought and also for the vultures if there had been +any looking down from the sky; but at all events for such +ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. +They would have been even more impressive, those heads on +the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. +Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my way. +I was not so shocked as you may think. The start back I +had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise. +I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know. +I returned deliberately to the first I had seen--and there +it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids,--a head +that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the +shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, +was smiling too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose +dream of that eternal slumber. + +"I am not disclosing any trade secrets. In fact the manager said +afterwards that Mr. Kurtz's methods had ruined the district. +I have no opinion on that point, but I want you clearly to understand +that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there. +They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification +of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him-- +some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, +could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. +Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. +I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. +But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him +a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it +had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, +things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this +great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. +It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core. +. . . I put down the glass, and the head that had appeared near +enough to be spoken to seemed at once to have leaped away from me +into inaccessible distance. + +"The admirer of Mr. Kurtz was a bit crestfallen. In a hurried, +indistinct voice he began to assure me he had not dared to +take these--say, symbols--down. He was not afraid of the natives; +they would not stir till Mr. Kurtz gave the word. His ascendency +was extraordinary. The camps of these people surrounded the place, +and the chiefs came every day to see him. They would crawl. +. . . `I don't want to know anything of the ceremonies used +when approaching Mr. Kurtz,' I shouted. Curious, this feeling +that came over me that such details would be more intolerable +than those heads drying on the stakes under Mr. Kurtz's windows. +After all, that was only a savage sight, while I seemed at one bound +to have been transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors, +where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, +being something that had a right to exist--obviously-- +in the sunshine. The young man looked at me with surprise. +I suppose it did not occur to him Mr. Kurtz was no idol of mine. +He forgot I hadn't heard any of these splendid monologues on, +what was it? on love, justice, conduct of life--or what not. +If it had come to crawling before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the +veriest savage of them all. I had no idea of the conditions, he said: +these heads were the heads of rebels. I shocked him excessively +by laughing. Rebels! What would be the next definition I was to hear? +There had been enemies, criminals, workers--and these were rebels. +Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks. +`You don't know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz,' cried Kurtz's +last disciple. `Well, and you?' I said. `I! I! I am a simple man. +I have no great thoughts. I want nothing from anybody. +How can you compare me to . . .?' His feelings were too much for speech, +and suddenly he broke down. `I don't understand,' he groaned. +`I've been doing my best to keep him alive, and that's enough. +I had no hand in all this. I have no abilities. There hasn't been +a drop of medicine or a mouthful of invalid food for months here. +He was shamefully abandoned. A man like this, with such ideas. +Shamefully! Shamefully! I--I-- haven't slept for the last ten nights. +. . .' + +"His voice lost itself in the calm of the evening. The long shadows +of the forest had slipped down hill while we talked, had gone +far beyond the ruined hovel, beyond the symbolic row of stakes. +All this was in the gloom, while we down there were yet in the sunshine, +and the stretch of the river abreast of the clearing glittered +in a still and dazzling splendor, with a murky and over-shadowed +bend above and below. Not a living soul was seen on the shore. +The bushes did not rustle. + +"Suddenly round the corner of the house a group of men appeared, +as though they had come up from the ground. They waded waist-deep +in the grass, in a compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher +in their midst. Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a cry +arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a sharp arrow flying +straight to the very heart of the land; and, as if by enchantment, +streams of human beings--of naked human beings--with spears in their hands, +with bows, with shields, with wild glances and savage movements, +were poured into the clearing by the dark-faced and pensive forest. +The bushes shook, the grass swayed for a time, and then everything +stood still in attentive immobility. + +"`Now, if he does not say the right thing to them we are all +done for,' said the Russian at my elbow. The knot of men +with the stretcher had stopped too, half-way to the steamer, +as if petrified. I saw the man on the stretcher sit up, +lank and with an uplifted arm, above the shoulders of the bearers. +`Let us hope that the man who can talk so well of love in general +will find some particular reason to spare us this time,' I said. +I resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situation, as if to be at +the mercy of that atrocious phantom had been a dishonoring necessity. +I could not hear a sound, but through my glasses I saw the thin +arm extended commandingly, the lower jaw moving, the eyes of +that apparition shining darkly far in its bony head that nodded +with grotesque jerks. Kurtz--Kurtz--that means short in German-- +don't it? Well, the name was as true as everything else +in his life--and death. He looked at least seven feet long. +His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it +pitiful and appalling as from a winding-sheet. I could see +the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving. +It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old +ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless +crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw him +open his mouth wide--it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, +as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, +all the men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly. +He must have been shouting. He fell back suddenly. +The stretcher shook as the bearers staggered forward again, +and almost at the same time I noticed that the crowd of savages +was vanishing without any perceptible movement of retreat, +as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had +drawn them in again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration. + +"Some of the pilgrims behind the stretcher carried his arms-- +two shot-guns, a heavy rifle, and a light revolver-carbine-- +the thunderbolts of that pitiful Jupiter. The manager bent over him +murmuring as he walked beside his head. They laid him down in one +of the little cabins--just a room for a bed-place and a camp-stool +or two, you know. We had brought his belated correspondence, +and a lot of torn envelopes and open letters littered his bed. +His hand roamed feebly amongst these papers. I was struck by +the fire of his eyes and the composed languor of his expression. +It was not so much the exhaustion of disease. He did not seem in pain. +This shadow looked satiated and calm, as though for the moment it +had had its fill of all the emotions. + +"He rustled one of the letters, and looking straight in my face said, +`I am glad.' Somebody had been writing to him about me. +These special recommendations were turning up again. +The volume of tone he emitted without effort, almost without +the trouble of moving his lips, amazed me. A voice! a voice! +It was grave, profound, vibrating, while the man did not seem +capable of a whisper. However, he had enough strength in him-- +factitious no doubt--to very nearly make an end of us, as you +shall hear directly. + +"The manager appeared silently in the doorway; I stepped +out at once and he drew the curtain after me. The Russian, +eyed curiously by the pilgrims, was staring at the shore. +I followed the direction of his glance. + +"Dark human shapes could be made out in the distance, +flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest, +and near the river two bronze figures, leaning on tall spears, +stood in the sunlight under fantastic headdresses of spotted skins, +warlike and still in statuesque repose. And from right to left +along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition +of a woman. + +"She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and +fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle +and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; +her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass +leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, +a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass +beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, +that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. +She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. +She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was +something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. +And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole +sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of +the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, +as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous +and passionate soul. + +"She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us. +Her long shadow fell to the water's edge. Her face had a tragic +and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled +with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve. +She stood looking at us without a stir and like the wilderness +itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. +A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. +There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of +fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her. +The young fellow by my side growled. The pilgrims murmured +at my back. She looked at us all as if her life had depended +upon the unswerving steadiness of her glance. Suddenly she +opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head, +as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at +the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around +on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace. +A formidable silence hung over the scene. + +"She turned away slowly, walked on, following the bank, and passed +into the bushes to the left. Once only her eyes gleamed back at us +in the dusk of the thickets before she disappeared. + +"`If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried +to shoot her,' said the man of patches, nervously. `I had been risking +my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. +She got in one day and kicked up a row about those miserable rags I +picked up in the storeroom to mend my clothes with. I wasn't decent. +At least it must have been that, for she talked like a fury to Kurtz +for an hour, pointing at me now and then. I don't understand the dialect +of this tribe. Luckily for me, I fancy Kurtz felt too ill that day +to care, or there would have been mischief. I don't understand. +. . . No--it's too much for me. Ah, well, it's all over now.' + +"At this moment I heard Kurtz's deep voice behind the curtain, +`Save me!--save the ivory, you mean. Don't tell me. +Save ME! Why, I've had to save you. You are interrupting my +plans now. Sick! Sick! Not so sick as you would like to believe. +Never mind. I'll carry my ideas out yet--I will return. +I'll show you what can be done. You with your little +peddling notions--you are interfering with me. I will return. +I . . .' + +"The manager came out. He did me the honor to take me under +the arm and lead me aside. `He is very low, very low,' he said. +He considered it necessary to sigh, but neglected to be +consistently sorrowful. `We have done all we could for him--haven't we? +But there is no disguising the fact, Mr. Kurtz has done more harm +than good to the Company. He did not see the time was not ripe +for vigorous action. Cautiously, cautiously--that's my principle. +We must be cautious yet. The district is closed to us for +a time. Deplorable! Upon the whole, the trade will suffer. +I don't deny there is a remarkable quantity of ivory--mostly fossil. +We must save it, at all events--but look how precarious +the position is--and why? Because the method is unsound.' +`Do you,' said I, looking at the shore, `call it "unsound method"?' +`Without doubt,' he exclaimed, hotly. `Don't you?' . . . `No +method at all,' I murmured after a while. `Exactly,' he exulted. +`I anticipated this. Shows a complete want of judgment. +It is my duty to point it out in the proper quarter.' +`Oh,' said I, `that fellow--what's his name?--the brickmaker, will make +a readable report for you.' He appeared confounded for a moment. +It seemed to me I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile, +and I turned mentally to Kurtz for relief--positively for relief. +`Nevertheless I think Mr. Kurtz is a remarkable man,' I said +with emphasis. He started, dropped on me a cold heavy glance, +said very quietly, `He WAS,' and turned his back on me. +My hour of favor was over; I found myself lumped along with Kurtz +as a partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe: +I was unsound! Ah! but it was something to have at least +a choice of nightmares. + +"I had turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz, who, +I was ready to admit, was as good as buried. And for a moment +it seemed to me as if I also were buried in a vast grave full +of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing +my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence +of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night. +. . . The Russian tapped me on the shoulder. I heard him mumbling +and stammering something about `brother seaman--couldn't conceal-- +knowledge of matters that would affect Mr. Kurtz's reputation.' +I waited. For him evidently Mr. Kurtz was not in his grave; +I suspect that for him Mr. Kurtz was one of the immortals. +`Well!' said I at last, `speak out. As it happens, I am +Mr. Kurtz's friend--in a way.' + +"He stated with a good deal of formality that had we not been `of +the same profession,' he would have kept the matter to himself +without regard to consequences. `He suspected there was an active +ill-will towards him on the part of these white men that--' +`You are right,' I said, remembering a certain conversation I +had overheard. `The manager thinks you ought to be hanged.' +He showed a concern at this intelligence which amused me at first. +`I had better get out of the way quietly,' he said, earnestly. +`I can do no more for Kurtz now, and they would soon find some excuse. +What's to stop them? There's a military post three hundred miles +from here.' `Well, upon my word,' said I, `perhaps you had +better go if you have any friends amongst the savages near by.' +`Plenty,' he said. `They are simple people--and I want nothing, +you know.' He stood biting his lips, then: `I don't want any harm +to happen to these whites here, but of course I was thinking of +Mr. Kurtz's reputation--but you are a brother seaman and--' `All right,' +said I, after a time. `Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.' +I did not know how truly I spoke. + +"He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was Kurtz +who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer. +`He hated sometimes the idea of being taken away--and then again. +. . . But I don't understand these matters. I am a simple man. +He thought it would scare you away--that you would give it up, +thinking him dead. I could not stop him. Oh, I had an awful time +of it this last month.' `Very well,' I said. `He is all right now.' +`Ye-e-es,' he muttered, not very convinced apparently. +`Thanks,' said I; `I shall keep my eyes open.' `But quiet--eh?' +he urged, anxiously. `It would be awful for his reputation if +anybody here--' I promised a complete discretion with great gravity. +`I have a canoe and three black fellows waiting not very far. +I am off. Could you give me a few Martini-Henry cartridges?' +I could, and did, with proper secrecy. He helped himself, +with a wink at me, to a handful of my tobacco. `Between sailors-- +you know--good English tobacco.' At the door of the pilot-house +he turned round--' I say, haven't you a pair of shoes you could spare?' +He raised one leg. `Look.' The soles were tied with knotted +strings sandal-wise under his bare feet. I rooted out an old pair, +at which he looked with admiration before tucking it under his left arm. +One of his pockets (bright red) was bulging with cartridges, +from the other (dark blue) peeped `Towson's Inquiry,' &c., &c. He +seemed to think himself excellently well equipped for a renewed +encounter with the wilderness. `Ah! I'll never, never meet +such a man again. You ought to have heard him recite poetry-- +his own too it was, he told me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes at +the recollection of these delights. `Oh, he enlarged my mind!' +`Goodby,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night. +Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever really seen him-- +whether it was possible to meet such a phenomenon! . . . + +"When I woke up shortly after midnight his warning came to my mind +with its hint of danger that seemed, in the starred darkness, +real enough to make me get up for the purpose of having a look round. +On the hill a big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a crooked corner +of the station-house. One of the agents with a picket of a few of +our blacks, armed for the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory; +but deep within the forest, red gleams that wavered, that seemed +to sink and rise from the ground amongst confused columnar shapes +of intense blackness, showed the exact position of the camp +where Mr. Kurtz's adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil. +The monotonous beating of a big drum filled the air with muffled +shocks and a lingering vibration. A steady droning sound of many men +chanting each to himself some weird incantation came out from the black, +flat wall of the woods as the humming of bees comes out of a hive, +and had a strange narcotic effect upon my half-awake senses. +I believe I dozed off leaning over the rail, till an abrupt burst +of yells, an overwhelming outbreak of a pent-up and mysterious frenzy, +woke me up in a bewildered wonder. It was cut short all at once, +and the low droning went on with an effect of audible and soothing silence. +I glanced casually into the little cabin. A light was burning within, +but Mr. Kurtz was not there. + +"I think I would have raised an outcry if I had believed my eyes. +But I didn't believe them at first--the thing seemed so impossible. +The fact is I was completely unnerved by a sheer blank fright, +pure abstract terror, unconnected with any distinct shape +of physical danger. What made this emotion so overpowering was-- +how shall I define it?--the moral shock I received, +as if something altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought +and odious to the soul, had been thrust upon me unexpectedly. +This lasted of course the merest fraction of a second, and then +the usual sense of commonplace, deadly danger, the possibility +of a sudden onslaught and massacre, or something of the kind, +which I saw impending, was positively welcome and composing. +It pacified me, in fact, so much, that I did not raise an alarm. + +"There was an agent buttoned up inside an ulster and sleeping on a chair +on deck within three feet of me. The yells had not awakened him; +he snored very slightly; I left him to his slumbers and leaped ashore. +I did not betray Mr. Kurtz--it was ordered I should never betray him-- +it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice. +I was anxious to deal with this shadow by myself alone,--and to this day +I don't know why I was so jealous of sharing with anyone the peculiar +blackness of that experience. + +"As soon as I got on the bank I saw a trail--a broad trail through +the grass. I remember the exultation with which I said to myself, +`He can't walk--he is crawling on all-fours--I've got him.' +The grass was wet with dew. I strode rapidly with clenched fists. +I fancy I had some vague notion of falling upon him and giving +him a drubbing. I don't know. I had some imbecile thoughts. +The knitting old woman with the cat obtruded herself upon my memory +as a most improper person to be sitting at the other end of such +an affair. I saw a row of pilgrims squirting lead in the air +out of Winchesters held to the hip. I thought I would never get +back to the steamer, and imagined myself living alone and unarmed +in the woods to an advanced age. Such silly things--you know. +And I remember I confounded the beat of the drum with the beating +of my heart, and was pleased at its calm regularity. + +"I kept to the track though--then stopped to listen. +The night was very clear: a dark blue space, sparkling with +dew and starlight, in which black things stood very still. +I thought I could see a kind of motion ahead of me. +I was strangely cocksure of everything that night. +I actually left the track and ran in a wide semicircle (I verily +believe chuckling to myself) so as to get in front of that stir, +of that motion I had seen--if indeed I had seen anything. +I was circumventing Kurtz as though it had been a boyish game. + +"I came upon him, and, if he had not heard me coming, +I would have fallen over him too, but he got up in time. +He rose, unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapor exhaled +by the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me; +while at my back the fires loomed between the trees, and the murmur +of many voices issued from the forest. I had cut him off cleverly; +but when actually confronting him I seemed to come to my senses, +I saw the danger in its right proportion. It was by no means over yet. +Suppose he began to shout? Though he could hardly stand, +there was still plenty of vigor in his voice. `Go away-- +hide yourself,' he said, in that profound tone. It was very awful. +I glanced back. We were within thirty yards from the nearest fire. +A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long +black arms, across the glow. It had horns--antelope horns, I think-- +on its head. Some sorcerer, some witch-man, no doubt: it looked +fiend-like enough. `Do you know what you are doing?' I whispered. +`Perfectly,' he answered, raising his voice for that single word: +it sounded to me far off and yet loud, like a hail through a +speaking-trumpet. `If he makes a row we are lost,' I thought to myself. +This clearly was not a case for fisticuffs, even apart from +the very natural aversion I had to beat that Shadow--this wandering +and tormented thing. `You will be lost,' I said--'utterly lost.' +One gets sometimes such a flash of inspiration, you know. +I did say the right thing, though indeed he could not have +been more irretrievably lost than he was at this very moment, +when the foundations of our intimacy were being laid--to endure-- +to endure--even to the end--even beyond. + +"`I had immense plans,' he muttered irresolutely. +`Yes,' said I; `but if you try to shout I'll smash your +head with--' There was not a stick or a stone near. +`I will throttle you for good,' I corrected myself. +`I was on the threshold of great things,' he pleaded, in a voice +of longing, with a wistfulness of tone that made my blood run cold. +`And now for this stupid scoundrel--' `Your success in Europe +is assured in any case,' I affirmed, steadily. I did not want +to have the throttling of him, you understand--and indeed it +would have been very little use for any practical purpose. +I tried to break the spell--the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness-- +that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening +of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified +and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced, +had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, +towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone +of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul +beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations. And, don't you see, +the terror of the position was not in being knocked on the head-- +though I had a very lively sense of that danger too--but in this, +that I had to deal with a being to whom I could not appeal in +the name of anything high or low. I had, even like the niggers, +to invoke him--himself his own exalted and incredible degradation. +There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. +He had kicked himself loose of the earth. Confound the man! +he had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone, +and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground +or floated in the air. I've been telling you what we said-- +repeating the phrases we pronounced,--but what's the good? +They were common everyday words,--the familiar, vague sounds +exchanged on every waking day of life. But what of that? +They had behind them, to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness +of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares. +Soul! If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man. +And I wasn't arguing with a lunatic either. Believe me or not, +his intelligence was perfectly clear--concentrated, it is true, +upon himself with horrible intensity, yet clear; and therein +was my only chance--barring, of course, the killing him there +and then, which wasn't so good, on account of unavoidable noise. +But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked +within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad. +I had--for my sins, I suppose--to go through the ordeal of looking +into it myself. No eloquence could have been so withering +to one's belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity. +He struggled with himself, too. I saw it,--I heard it. +I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, +no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself. +I kept my head pretty well; but when I had him at last stretched +on the couch, I wiped my forehead, while my legs shook under me +as though I had carried half a ton on my back down that hill. +And yet I had only supported him, his bony arm clasped round my neck-- +and he was not much heavier than a child. + +"When next day we left at noon, the crowd, of whose presence behind +the curtain of trees I had been acutely conscious all the time, +flowed out of the woods again, filled the clearing, covered the slope +with a mass of naked, breathing, quivering, bronze bodies. +I steamed up a bit, then swung down-stream, and two thousand eyes followed +the evolutions of the splashing, thumping, fierce river-demon beating +the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air. +In front of the first rank, along the river, three men, plastered with +bright red earth from head to foot, strutted to and fro restlessly. +When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, +nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies; they shook +towards the fierce river-demon a bunch of black feathers, a mangy +skin with a pendent tail--something that looked like a dried gourd; +they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled +no sounds of human language; and the deep murmurs of the crowd, +interrupted suddenly, were like the response of some satanic litany. + +"We had carried Kurtz into the pilot-house: there was more air there. +Lying on the couch, he stared through the open shutter. +There was an eddy in the mass of human bodies, and the woman +with helmeted head and tawny cheeks rushed out to the very brink +of the stream. She put out her hands, shouted something, +and all that wild mob took up the shout in a roaring chorus +of articulated, rapid, breathless utterance. + +"`Do you understand this?' I asked. + +"He kept on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes, with a +mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He made no answer, +but I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear on +his colorless lips that a moment after twitched convulsively. +`Do I not?' he said slowly, gasping, as if the words had been +torn out of him by a supernatural power. + +"I pulled the string of the whistle, and I did this because I +saw the pilgrims on deck getting out their rifles with an air +of anticipating a jolly lark. At the sudden screech there was +a movement of abject terror through that wedged mass of bodies. +`Don't! Don't you frighten them away,' cried someone on +deck disconsolately. I pulled the string time after time. +They broke and ran, they leaped, they crouched, they swerved, +they dodged the flying terror of the sound. The three red chaps had +fallen flat, face down on the shore, as though they had been shot dead. +Only the barbarous and superb woman did not so much as flinch, +and stretched tragically her bare arms after us over the somber +and glittering river. + +"And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their little fun, +and I could see nothing more for smoke. + +"The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, +bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our +upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running swiftly too, +ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. +The manager was very placid, he had no vital anxieties now, +he took us both in with a comprehensive and satisfied glance: +the `affair' had come off as well as could be wished. +I saw the time approaching when I would be left alone of +the party of `unsound method.' The pilgrims looked upon me +with disfavor. I was, so to speak, numbered with the dead. +It is strange how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, +this choice of nightmares forced upon me in the tenebrous land +invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms. + +"Kurtz discoursed. A voice! a voice! It rang deep to the very last. +It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence +the barren darkness of his heart. Oh, he struggled! he struggled! +The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images now--images of +wealth and fame revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift +of noble and lofty expression. My Intended, my station, my career, my ideas-- +these were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. +The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, +whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mold of primeval earth. +But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteries +it had penetrated fought for the possession of that soul satiated +with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, +of all the appearances of success and power. + +"Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have +kings meet him at railway-stations on his return from some +ghastly Nowhere, where he intended to accomplish great things. +`You show them you have in you something that is really profitable, +and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability,' +he would say. `Of course you must take care of the motives-- +right motives--always.' The long reaches that were like one +and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, +slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees +looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, +the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, +of blessings. I looked ahead--piloting. `Close the shutter,' +said Kurtz suddenly one day; `I can't bear to look at this.' +I did so. There was a silence. `Oh, but I will wring your heart yet!' +he cried at the invisible wilderness. + +"We broke down--as I had expected--and had to lie up for repairs at the head +of an island. This delay was the first thing that shook Kurtz's confidence. +One morning he gave me a packet of papers and a photograph,-- +the lot tied together with a shoe-string. `Keep this for me,' he said. +`This noxious fool' (meaning the manager) `is capable of prying +into my boxes when I am not looking.' In the afternoon I saw him. +He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly, +but I heard him mutter, `Live rightly, die, die . . .' I listened. +There was nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep, +or was it a fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article? +He had been writing for the papers and meant to do so again, +`for the furthering of my ideas. It's a duty.' + +"His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer +down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun +never shines. But I had not much time to give him, because I was +helping the engine-driver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders, +to straighten a bent connecting-rod, and in other such matters. +I lived in an infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners, +hammers, ratchet-drills--things I abominate, because I don't get +on with them. I tended the little forge we fortunately had aboard; +I toiled wearily in a wretched scrap-heap--unless I had the shakes +too bad to stand. + +"One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say +a little tremulously, `I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.' +The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, +`Oh, nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed. + +"Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have +never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. +I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. +I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, +of ruthless power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. +Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, +and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? +He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,--he cried +out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath-- + +"`The horror! The horror!' + +"I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining +in the mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted +his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. +He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing +the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small +flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. +Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, +and said in a tone of scathing contempt-- + +"`Mistah Kurtz--he dead.' + +"All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner. +I believe I was considered brutally callous. However, I did not eat much. +There was a lamp in there--light, don't you know--and outside it was +so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had +pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. +The voice was gone. What else had been there? But I am of course aware +that next day the pilgrims buried something in a muddy hole. + +"And then they very nearly buried me. + +"However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz there and then. +I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show +my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life is-- +that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. +The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself--that comes +too late--a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. +It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place +in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, +without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire +of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere +of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still +less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, +then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. +I was within a hair's-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, +and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. +This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. +He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge +myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see +the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, +piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. +He had summed up--he had judged. `The horror!' He was a remarkable man. +After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief; it had candor, +it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, +it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth--the strange commingling +of desire and hate. And it is not my own extremity I remember best-- +a vision of grayness without form filled with physical pain, +and a careless contempt for the evanescence of all things--even of this +pain itself. No! It is his extremity that I seem to have lived through. +True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, +while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. +And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, +and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that +inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold +of the invisible. Perhaps! I like to think my summing-up would not +have been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry--much better. +It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, +by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory! +That is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond, +when a long time after I heard once more, not his own voice, but the echo +of his magnificent eloquence thrown to me from a soul as translucently +pure as a cliff of crystal. + +"No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of time which I +remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through +some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no desire. +I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight +of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money +from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their +unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. +They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose +knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I +felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. +Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace +individuals going about their business in the assurance of +perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings +of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. +I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some +difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full +of stupid importance. I dare say I was not very well at that time. +I tottered about the streets--there were various affairs +to settle--grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. +I admit my behavior was inexcusable, but then my temperature +was seldom normal in these days. My dear aunt's endeavors +to `nurse up my strength' seemed altogether beside the mark. +It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my +imagination that wanted soothing. I kept the bundle of papers +given me by Kurtz, not knowing exactly what to do with it. +His mother had died lately, watched over, as I was told, +by his Intended. A clean-shaved man, with an official manner +and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, called on me one day and +made inquiries, at first circuitous, afterwards suavely pressing, +about what he was pleased to denominate certain `documents.' +I was not surprised, because I had had two rows with the manager +on the subject out there. I had refused to give up the smallest +scrap out of that package, and I took the same attitude +with the spectacled man. He became darkly menacing at last, +and with much heat argued that the Company had the right to every +bit of information about its `territories.' And, said he, +`Mr. Kurtz's knowledge of unexplored regions must have been +necessarily extensive and peculiar--owing to his great abilities +and to the deplorable circumstances in which he had been placed: +therefore'--I assured him Mr. Kurtz's knowledge, however extensive, +did not bear upon the problems of commerce or administration. +He invoked then the name of science. `It would be an incalculable +loss if,' &c., &c. I offered him the report on the `Suppression +of Savage Customs,' with the postscriptum torn off. He took it +up eagerly, but ended by sniffing at it with an air of contempt. +`This is not what we had a right to expect,' he remarked. +`Expect nothing else,' I said. `There are only private letters.' +He withdrew upon some threat of legal proceedings, and I saw him +no more; but another fellow, calling himself Kurtz's cousin, +appeared two days later, and was anxious to hear all the details +about his dear relative's last moments. Incidentally he gave me +to understand that Kurtz had been essentially a great musician. +`There was the making of an immense success,' said the man, +who was an organist, I believe, with lank gray hair flowing over +a greasy coat-collar. I had no reason to doubt his statement; +and to this day I am unable to say what was Kurtz's profession, +whether he ever had any--which was the greatest of his talents. +I had taken him for a painter who wrote for the papers, +or else for a journalist who could paint--but even the cousin +(who took snuff during the interview) could not tell me what +he had been--exactly. He was a universal genius--on that point +I agreed with the old chap, who thereupon blew his nose noisily +into a large cotton handkerchief and withdrew in senile agitation, +bearing off some family letters and memoranda without importance. +Ultimately a journalist anxious to know something of the fate +of his `dear colleague' turned up. This visitor informed me Kurtz's +proper sphere ought to have been politics `on the popular side.' +He had furry straight eyebrows, bristly hair cropped short, +an eye-glass on a broad ribbon, and, becoming expansive, +confessed his opinion that Kurtz really couldn't write +a bit--'but heavens! how that man could talk! He electrified +large meetings. He had faith--don't you see?--he had the faith. +He could get himself to believe anything--anything. +He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.' +`What party?' I asked. `Any party,' answered the other. +`He was an--an--extremist.' Did I not think so? I assented. +Did I know, he asked, with a sudden flash of curiosity, +`what it was that had induced him to go out there?' +`Yes,' said I, and forthwith handed him the famous Report +for publication, if he thought fit. He glanced through +it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged `it would do,' +and took himself off with this plunder. + +"Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of letters +and the girl's portrait. She struck me as beautiful--I mean +she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can +be made to lie too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light +and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness +upon those features. She seemed ready to listen without mental +reservation, without suspicion, without a thought for herself. +I concluded I would go and give her back her portrait and those +letters myself. Curiosity? Yes; and also some other feeling perhaps. +All that had been Kurtz's had passed out of my hands: +his soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, +his career. There remained only his memory and his Intended-- +and I wanted to give that up too to the past, in a way,-- +to surrender personally all that remained of him with me +to that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate. +I don't defend myself. I had no clear perception of what it was I +really wanted. Perhaps it was an impulse of unconscious loyalty, +or the fulfillment of one of these ironic necessities that lurk +in the facts of human existence. I don't know. I can't tell. +But I went. + +"I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead +that accumulate in every man's life,--a vague impress on the brain +of shadows that had fallen on it in their swift and final passage; +but before the high and ponderous door, between the tall +houses of a street as still and decorous as a well-kept +alley in a cemetery, I had a vision of him on the stretcher, +opening his mouth voraciously, as if to devour all the earth +with all its mankind. He lived then before me; he lived as much +as he had ever lived--a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, +of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, +and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. +The vision seemed to enter the house with me--the stretcher, +the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshipers, +the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between +the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled +like the beating of a heart--the heart of a conquering darkness. +It was a moment of triumph for the wilderness, an invading +and vengeful rush which, it seemed to me, I would have +to keep back alone for the salvation of another soul. +And the memory of what I had heard him say afar there, +with the horned shapes stirring at my back, in the glow of fires, +within the patient woods, those broken phrases came back to me, +were heard again in their ominous and terrifying simplicity. +I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, +the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, +the tempestuous anguish of his soul. And later on I seemed to see +his collected languid manner, when he said one day, `This lot +of ivory now is really mine. The Company did not pay for it. +I collected it myself at a very great personal risk. +I am afraid they will try to claim it as theirs though. +H'm. It is a difficult case. What do you think I ought +to do--resist? Eh? I want no more than justice.' +. . . He wanted no more than justice--no more than justice. +I rang the bell before a mahogany door on the first floor, +and while I waited he seemed to stare at me out of the glassy panel-- +stare with that wide and immense stare embracing, condemning, +loathing all the universe. I seemed to hear the whispered cry, +`The horror! The horror!' + +"The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty drawing-room +with three long windows from floor to ceiling that were +like three luminous and bedraped columns. The bent gilt +legs and backs of the furniture shone in indistinct curves. +The tall marble fireplace had a cold and monumental whiteness. +A grand piano stood massively in a corner, with dark gleams +on the flat surfaces like a somber and polished sarcophagus. +A high door opened--closed. I rose. + +"She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, floating towards +me in the dusk. She was in mourning. It was more than a year +since his death, more than a year since the news came; +she seemed as though she would remember and mourn for ever. +She took both my hands in hers and murmured, `I had heard you +were coming.' I noticed she was not very young--I mean not girlish. +She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering. +The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad light +of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. +This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded +by an ashy halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me. +Their glance was guileless, profound, confident, and trustful. +She carried her sorrowful head as though she were proud +of that sorrow, as though she would say, `I--I alone know +how to mourn for him as he deserves. But while we were still +shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face +that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not +the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. +And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me too +he seemed to have died only yesterday--nay, this very minute. +I saw her and him in the same instant of time--his death and +her sorrow--I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. +Do you understand? I saw them together--I heard them together. +She had said, with a deep catch of the breath, `I have survived;' +while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly, mingled with +her tone of despairing regret, the summing-up whisper of his +eternal condemnation. I asked myself what I was doing there, +with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered +into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human +being to behold. She motioned me to a chair. We sat down. +I laid the packet gently on the little table, and she put +her hand over it. . . . `You knew him well,' she murmured, +after a moment of mourning silence. + +"`Intimacy grows quick out there,' I said. `I knew him as well as it +is possible for one man to know another.' + +"`And you admired him,' she said. `It was impossible to know +him and not to admire him. Was it?' + +"`He was a remarkable man,' I said, unsteadily. Then before the appealing +fixity of her gaze, that seemed to watch for more words on my lips, I went on, +`It was impossible not to--' + +"`Love him,' she finished eagerly, silencing me into an appalled dumbness. +`How true! how true! But when you think that no one knew him so well +as I! I had all his noble confidence. I knew him best.' + +"`You knew him best,' I repeated. And perhaps she did. +But with every word spoken the room was growing darker, +and only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illumined +by the unextinguishable light of belief and love. + +"`You were his friend,' she went on. `His friend,' she repeated, +a little louder. `You must have been, if he had given you this, +and sent you to me. I feel I can speak to you--and oh! +I must speak. I want you--you who have heard his last words-- +to know I have been worthy of him. . . . It is not pride. +. . . Yes! I am proud to know I understood him better than +anyone on earth--he told me so himself. And since his mother +died I have had no one--no one--to--to--' + +"I listened. The darkness deepened. I was not even sure whether +he had given me the right bundle. I rather suspect he wanted me +to take care of another batch of his papers which, after his death, +I saw the manager examining under the lamp. And the girl talked, +easing her pain in the certitude of my sympathy; she talked as thirsty +men drink. I had heard that her engagement with Kurtz had been +disapproved by her people. He wasn't rich enough or something. +And indeed I don't know whether he had not been a pauper all his life. +He had given me some reason to infer that it was his impatience +of comparative poverty that drove him out there. + +"`. . . Who was not his friend who had heard him speak once?' +she was saying. `He drew men towards him by what was best in them.' +She looked at me with intensity. `It is the gift of the great,' +she went on, and the sound of her low voice seemed to have the +accompaniment of all the other sounds, full of mystery, desolation, +and sorrow, I had ever heard--the ripple of the river, the soughing +of the trees swayed by the wind, the murmurs of wild crowds, +the faint ring of incomprehensible words cried from afar, the whisper +of a voice speaking from beyond the threshold of an eternal darkness. +`But you have heard him! You know!' she cried. + +"`Yes, I know,' I said with something like despair in my heart, +but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great +and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, +in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her-- +from which I could not even defend myself. + +"`What a loss to me--to us!'--she corrected herself with +beautiful generosity; then added in a murmur, `To the world.' +By the last gleams of twilight I could see the glitter of her eyes, +full of tears--of tears that would not fall. + +"`I have been very happy--very fortunate--very proud,' +she went on. `Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. +And now I am unhappy for--for life.' + +"She stood up; her fair hair seemed to catch all the remaining +light in a glimmer of gold. I rose too. + +"`And of all this,' she went on, mournfully, `of all +his promise, and of all his greatness, of his generous mind, +of his noble heart, nothing remains--nothing but a memory. +You and I--' + +"`We shall always remember him,' I said, hastily. + +"`No!' she cried. `It is impossible that all this should be lost-- +that such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothing--but sorrow. +You know what vast plans he had. I knew of them too--I could not +perhaps understand,--but others knew of them. Something must remain. +His words, at least, have not died.' + +"`His words will remain,' I said. + +"`And his example,' she whispered to herself. `Men looked up to him,-- +his goodness shone in every act. His example--' + +"`True,' I said; `his example too. Yes, his example. +I forgot that.' + +"`But I do not. I cannot--I cannot believe--not yet. +I cannot believe that I shall never see him again, that nobody +will see him again, never, never, never.' + +"She put out her arms as if after a retreating figure, stretching them +black and with clasped pale hands across the fading and narrow sheen +of the window. Never see him! I saw him clearly enough then. +I shall see this eloquent phantom as long as I live, and I shall see her too, +a tragic and familiar Shade, resembling in this gesture another one, +tragic also, and bedecked with powerless charms, stretching bare brown +arms over the glitter of the infernal stream, the stream of darkness. +She said suddenly very low, `He died as he lived.' + +"`His end,' said I, with dull anger stirring in me, `was in every +way worthy of his life.' + +"`And I was not with him,' she murmured. My anger subsided before a feeling +of infinite pity. + +"`Everything that could be done--' I mumbled. + +"`Ah, but I believed in him more than anyone on earth--more than +his own mother, more than--himself. He needed me! Me! I would +have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance.' + +"I felt like a chill grip on my chest. `Don't,' I said, +in a muffled voice. + +"`Forgive me. I--I-- have mourned so long in silence--in silence. +. . . You were with him--to the last? I think of his loneliness. +Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood. +Perhaps no one to hear. . . .' + +"`To the very end,' I said, shakily. `I heard his very last words. +. . .' I stopped in a fright. + +"`Repeat them,' she said in a heart-broken tone. `I want-- +I want--something--something--to--to live with.' + +"I was on the point of crying at her, `Don't you hear them?' +The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, +in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper +of a rising wind. `The horror! The horror!' + +"`His last word--to live with,' she murmured. `Don't you understand +I loved him--I loved him--I loved him!' + +"I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. + +"`The last word he pronounced was--your name.' + +"I heard a light sigh, and then my heart stood still, +stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, +by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. +`I knew it--I was sure!' . . . She knew. She was sure. +I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face in her hands. +It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, +that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. +The heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have fallen, +I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? +Hadn't he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could +not tell her. It would have been too dark--too dark altogether. +. . ." + +Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, +in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. +"We have lost the first of the ebb," said the Director, suddenly. +I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank +of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost +ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky-- +seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Heart of Darkness + + |