HEART OF DARKNESS
By Joseph Conrad
I
The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her
anchor without a flutter of
the sails, and was at rest. 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.
