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 seareach 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 others 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 crosslegged right aft leaning against the mizzenmast 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 marsh 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 sombre 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 that 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 knightserrant 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 rotund flanks full of treasure to be visited by the Queens 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 threelegged thing erect on a mudflat 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 stayathome 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 dye 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 colour of lead a sky the colour 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 taxgatherer 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 Theres 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 lotusflower—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 pretence 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 freshwater sailor for a bit that we knew we were fated before the ebb began to run to hear about one of Marlows inconclusive experiences
I dont 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 like best 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 sombre 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 wouldnt 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 havent been there yet and shall not try now The glamours off Other places were scattered about the hemispheres I have been in some of them and well we wont 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 shopwindow 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 cant trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh water—steamboats Why shouldnt 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 its 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 wouldnt 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 etc 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 fellows 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 didnt 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 selfrespect 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 chiefs 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 shoulderblades 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 Freslevens remains till I got out and stepped into his shoes I couldnt 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 dont 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 fortyeight 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 sepulchre Prejudice no doubt I had no difficulty in finding the Companys offices It was the biggest thing in the town and everybody I met was full of it They were going to run an oversea 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 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 strawbottomed 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 umbrellacover and she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waitingroom 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 colours 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 lagerbeer However I wasnt going into any of these I was going into the yellow Dead in the centre And the river was there—fascinating—deadly—like a snake Ough A door opened a whitehaired secretarial head but wearing a compassionate expression appeared and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary Its light was dim and a heavy writingdesk squatted in the middle From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frockcoat The great man himself He was five feet six I should judge and had his grip on the handleend of ever so many millions He shook hands I fancy murmured vaguely was satisfied with my French Bon Voyage
In about fortyfive seconds I found myself again in the waitingroom 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 dont 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 footwarmer and a cat reposed on her lap She wore a starched white affair on her head had a wart on one cheek and silverrimmed 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 upstairs and led me forth He was shabby and careless with inkstains 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 Companys 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 matterof-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 wouldnt 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 Goodbye Ah Goodbye Adieu In the tropics one must before everything keep calm He lifted a warning forefinger Du calme du calme
One thing more remained to do—say goodbye 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 ladys drawingroom 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 dont get hold of every day Good heavens and I was going to take charge of a twopennyhalfpenny riversteamboat 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 labourer is worthy of his hire she said brightly Its queer how out of touch with truth women are They live in a world of their own and there has 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 dont know why—a queer feeling came to me that I was an imposter Odd thing that I who used to clear out for any part of the world at twentyfour hours notice with less thought than most men give to the crossing of a street had a moment—I wont 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 centre of a continent I were about to set off for the centre 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 customhouse 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 darkgreen 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 greyishwhitish specks showed up clustered inside the white surf with a flag flying above them perhaps Settlements some centuries old and still no bigger than pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background We pounded along stopped landed soldiers went on landed customhouse clerks to levy toll in what looked like a Godforsaken wilderness with a tin shed and a flagpole lost in it landed more soldiers—to take care of the customhouse 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 sombreness 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 manofwar anchored off the coast There wasnt 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 sixinch 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 sixinch 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 seagoing 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 upcountry I said to him I expected to see that soon Sooo he exclaimed He shuffled athwart keeping one eye ahead vigilantly Dont 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 Gods 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 turnedup 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 Theres your Companys station said the Swede pointing to three wooden barracklike 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 boulders and also for an undersized railwaytruck 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 waggled 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 the sea All their meagre 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 chaingang get out of sight before I climbed the hill You know I am not particularly tender Ive had to strike and to fend off Ive had to resist and to attack sometimes—thats only one way of resisting—without counting the exact cost according to the demands of such sort of life as I had blundered into Ive 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 redeyed 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 weakeyed 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 wasnt 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 dont 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 drainagepipes for the settlement had been tumbled in there There wasnt one that was not broken It was a wanton smashup 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 the 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 the 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 its hard to tell I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swedes ships 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 horrorstruck one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees and went off on allfours 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 didnt 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 getup 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 clean necktie and varnished boots No hat Hair parted brushed oiled under a greenlined 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 Companys 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 desklife I wouldnt 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 hairdressers dummy but in the great demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance Thats backbone His starched collars and gotup shirtfronts were achievements of character He had been out nearly three years and later I could not help asking him how he managed to sport such linen He had just the faintest blush and said modestly Ive been teaching one of the native women about the station It was difficult She had a distaste for the work Thus this man had verily accomplished something And he was devoted to his books which were in applepie 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 brasswire 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 accountants 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 trucklebed with a sick man some invalid agent from upcountry 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 firstclass 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 tradingpost a very important one in the true ivorycountry 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 stationyard 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 deck— is very satisfactory I dont 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 homewardbound agent was lying finished 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 treetops of the grove of death
Next day I left that station at last with a caravan of sixty men for a twohundredmile tramp
No use telling you much about that Paths paths everywhere a stampedin network of paths spreading over the empty land through the 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 travelling 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 Theres 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 60lb 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 watergourd and his long staff lying by his side A great silence around and above Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of faroff 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 Cant say I saw any road or any upkeep unless the body of a middleaged negro with a bullethole 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 mans head while he is coming to I couldnt 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 wasnt 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 enclosed 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 moustaches 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 twentymile 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 axe 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 cant 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—thats 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 mealtimes 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 stations messroom 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 upriver 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 sealingwax repeated several times that the situation was very grave very grave There were rumours 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 sealingwax and seemed dumfounded 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 can I tell I said I havent 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 verandah 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 Ive 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 dont 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 moustaches 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 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 firstclass agent young gentlemanly a bit reserved with a forked little beard and a hooked nose He was standoffish with the other agents and they on their side said he was the managers 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 silvermounted dressingcase 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 wasnt 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 dont know what—straw maybe Anyway 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 pretence 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 tradingpost 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 couldnt 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 only 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 sombre—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 an empty halfpint 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 Every one 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 Today he is chief of the best station next year he will be assistantmanager two years more and but I daresay 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 dont say no Ive my own eyes to trust Light dawned upon me My dear aunts influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect upon that young man I nearly burst into a laugh Do you read the Companys confidential correspondence I asked He hadnt a word to say It was great fun When Mr Kurtz I continued severely is General Manager you wont 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 moustaches appearing near us Serve him right Transgression—punishment—bang Pitiless pitiless Thats 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 its so natural Ha Danger—agitation He vanished I went on to the riverside 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 that dim stir through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard the silence of the land went home to ones 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 dont want to be misunderstood and especially by you who will see Mr Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure I wouldnt like him to get a false idea of my disposition
I let him run on this papiermache 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 dont you see had been planning to be assistantmanager 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 sombre 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 couldnt 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 didnt 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 allfours 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 cant 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 flavour 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 pretence 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 dreamsensation 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 lifesensation of any given epoch of ones 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 clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy nightair 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 stationyard 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 wasnt 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 long negro letterbag 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 wasnt 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 Goodnight 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 tinpot steamboat I clambered on board She rang under my feet like an empty Huntley Palmer biscuittin 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 dont like work I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done I dont 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 boilermaker by trade—a good worker He was a lank bony yellowfaced 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 pigeonflying 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 couldnt believe his ears Then in a low voice You eh I dont 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 managers 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 icthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river After all said the boilermaker in a reasonable tone why shouldnt we get the rivets Why not indeed I did not know of any reason why we shouldnt Theyll come in three weeks I said confidently
But they didnt 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 donkey a lot of tents campstools 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 instalments 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 dont know but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot
In exterior he resembled a butcher in a poor neighbourhood 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 Ones 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 wasnt 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 dont like to be dictated to Am I the manager—or am I not I was ordered to send him there Its 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 dont 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 halfcaste 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 dugout with four paddlers leaving the halfcaste 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 dugout 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 halfcaste 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 rumours 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 Kurtzs 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 Thats 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 best 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 centre for trade of course but also for humanizing improving instructing Conceive you—that ass And he wants to be manager No its— 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 havent the time to send them out of the country—its incredible Hmm 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 dishonouring 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 Kurtzs 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 ones past came back to one as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare for 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 tinpot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims I had to keep a lookout for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next days 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 tightropes for—what is it halfacrown 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 didnt do badly either since I managed not to sink that steamboat on my first trip Its 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 thats 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 dont 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 hippomeat 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 tumbledown 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 sternwheel 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 dont know To some place where they expected to get something I bet For me it crawled towards Kurtz—exclusively but when the steampipes 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 Were 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 grassroofs 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 travelling 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 valour 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 wont 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 Whos that grunting You wonder I didnt go ashore for a howl and a dance Well no—I didnt Fine sentiments you say Fine sentiments be hanged I had no time I had to mess about with whitelead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steampipes—I tell you I had to watch the steering and circumvent those snags and get the tinpot along by hook or by crook There was surfacetruth 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 hindlegs A few months of training had done for that really fine chap He squinted at the steamgauge and at the watergauge 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 pencilwriting 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 Towser Towson—some such name—Master in his Majestys 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 pencilled in the margin and plainly referring to the text I couldnt 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 woodpile was gone and the manager aided by all the pilgrims was shouting at me from the riverside 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 sternwheel 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 any one 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 Kurtzs 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 clamour modulated in savage discords filled our ears The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap I dont 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 sidespring boots and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks Two others remained openmouthed a while 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 be all 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 broadchested black severely draped in darkblue fringed cloths with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets stood near me Aha I said just for good fellowships 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 dont 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 didnt enter anybodys head to trouble how they would live Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippomeat which couldnt have lasted very long anyway even if the pilgrims hadnt in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard It looked like a highhanded proceeding but it was really a case of legitimate selfdefence You cant 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 riverside 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 hegoat thrown in didnt 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 dont see what good their extravagant salary could be to them I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and honourable trading company For the rest the only thing to eat—though it didnt look eatable in the least—I saw in their possession was a few lumps of some stuff like halfcooked dough of a dirty lavender colour 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 didnt go for us—they were thirty to five—and have a good tuckin 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 dreamsensation that pervaded all my days at that time Perhaps I had a little fever too One cant live with ones finger everlastingly on ones pulse I had often a little fever or a little touch of other things—the playful pawstrokes 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 honour 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 Dont you know the devilry of lingering starvation its exasperating torment its black thoughts its sombre and brooding ferocity Well I do It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly Its really easier to face bereavement dishonour and the perdition of ones 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 clamour that had swept by us on the riverbank behind the blind whiteness of the fog
Two pilgrims were quarrelling in hurried whispers as to which bank Left no no how can you Right right of course It is very serious said the managers 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 wouldnt 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 wouldnt know at first which it was Of course I made no move I had no mind for a smashup You couldnt imagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck Whether we 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 lookout 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 riverside 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 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 lookout 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 cottonwool 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 Kurtzs 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 discoloured just awash and the whole lot was seen just under the water exactly as a mans 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 didnt 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 soundingpole 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 teakwood houses with doors and windows The boiler was in the foreend 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 pilothouse It contained a couch two campstools a loaded MartiniHenry leaning in one corner a tiny table and the steeringwheel 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 foreend 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 soundingpole 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 on 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 pilothouse All this time the river the shore the woods were very quiet—perfectly quiet I could only hear the heavy splashing thump of the sternwheel 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 landside That foolhelmsman his hands on the spokes was lifting his knees high stamping his feet champing his mouth like a reinedin 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 colour 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 sight of a Vshaped 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 couldnt 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 wouldnt kill a cat The bush began to howl Our woodcutters raised a warlike whoop the report of a rifle just at my back deafened me I glanced over my shoulder and the pilothouse was yet full of noise and smoke when I made a dash at the wheel The foolnigger had dropped everything to throw the shutter open and let off that MartiniHenry 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 pilothouse in at one shutterhole 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 campstool 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 darkred under the wheel his eyes shone with an amazing lustre 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 sternwheel came plainly to my ears I put the helm hard astarboard 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 questions 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 deathmask an inconceivably sombre brooding and menacing expression The lustre 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 shoelaces 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 couldnt have been more disgusted if I had travelled 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 didnt 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 Hadnt 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 preeminently 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 devilgod of that river I thought By Jove its 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 couldnt 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 mustnt a man ever—Here give me some tobacco
There was a pause of profound stillness then a match flared and Marlows 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 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 years end to years 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 favourite 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 couldnt 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 favour 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 cant understand How could you—with solid pavement under your feet surrounded by kind neighbours 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 mans untrammelled 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 neighbour 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 dont 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 wont 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 dont 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 backbreaking business And thats 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 honoured 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 halfEnglish his father was halfFrench 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 Ive seen it Ive read it It was eloquent vibrating with eloquence but too highstrung 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 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 etc etc 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 Ive done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it if I choose for an everlasting rest in the dustbin of progress amongst all the sweepings and figuratively speaking all the dead cats of civilization But then you see I cant choose He wont be forgotten Whatever he was he was not common He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witchdance in his honour 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 selfseeking No I cant 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 pilothouse 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 dont 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 doorstep 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 awningdeck about the pilothouse 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 cant guess Embalm it maybe But I had also heard another and a very ominous murmur on the deck below My friends the woodcutters 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 secondrate helmsman while alive but now he was dead he might have become a firstclass 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 halfspeed 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 redhaired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that at least this poor Kurtz had been properly avenged 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 cant 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 riverside and the outlines of some sort of building Whats this I asked He clapped his hands in wonder The station he cried I edged in at once still going halfspeed
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 enclosure or fence of any kind but there had been one apparently for near the house halfadozen 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 riverbank was clear and on the waterside I saw a white man under a hat like a cartwheel 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 Its all right yelled back the other as cheerful as you please Come along Its all right I am glad
His aspect reminded me of something I had seen—something funny I had seen somewhere As I manoeuvred 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 the front patches on elbows on knees coloured binding around 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 theres 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 pugnose 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 dont 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 pilothouse wants a cleanup 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 Dont you talk with Mr Kurtz I said You dont 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 honour pleasure delight introduce myself Russian son of an archpriest Government of Tambov What Tobacco English tobacco the excellent English tobacco Now thats brotherly Smoke Wheres 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 archpriest 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 met Mr Kurtz he said youthfully solemn and reproachful I held my tongue after that It appears he had persuaded a Dutch tradinghouse 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 twentyfive 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 hindleg off his favourite 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 Ive sent him one small lot of ivory a year ago so that he cant call me a little thief when I get back I hope he got it And for the rest I dont care I had some wood stacked for you That was my old house Did you see
I gave him Towsons 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 youve 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 dont want him to go Dont 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 dont know how Ill 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 particoloured rags his destitution his loneliness the essential desolation of his futile wanderings For months—for years—his life hadnt been worth a days purchase and there he was gallantly thoughtlessly alive to all appearances 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 bepatched 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 isnt 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 woodcutters lounging near by turned upon him his heavy and glittering eyes I looked around and I dont 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 Theres 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 cant judge Mr Kurtz as you would an ordinary man No no no Now—just to give you an idea—I dont mind telling you he wanted to shoot me too one day—but I dont 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 wouldnt 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 didnt clear out No no I couldnt 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 didnt 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 couldnt 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 hes mad I said He protested indignantly Mr Kurtz couldnt be mad If I had heard him talk only two days ago I wouldnt 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 windowholes 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 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 Kurtzs 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 cant 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 ascendancy was extraordinary The camps of these people surrounded the place and the chiefs came every day to see him They would crawl I dont 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 Kurtzs 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 that Mr Kurtz was no idol of mine He forgot I hadnt 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 dont know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz cried Kurtzs 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 dont understand he groaned Ive been doing my best to keep him alive and thats enough I had no hand in all this I have no abilities There hasnt 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—havent slept for the last ten nights
His voice lost itself in the calm of the evening The long shadows of the forest had slipped downhill 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 splendour with a murky and overshadowed 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 waistdeep 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 darkfaced 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 halfway 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 dishonouring 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—dont 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 windingsheet 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 shotguns a heavy rifle and a light revolvercarbine—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 campstool 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 witchmen 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 wildeyed 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 waters edge Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling halfshaped 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 have 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 wasnt 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 dont 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 dont understand No—its too much for me Ah well its all over now
At this moment I heard Kurtzs deep voice behind the curtain Save me—save the ivory you mean Dont tell me Save me Why Ive had to save you You are interrupting my plans now Sick Sick Not so sick as you would like to believe Never mind Ill carry my ideas out yet—I will return Ill 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 honour 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—havent 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—thats 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 dont 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 Dont 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—whats 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 heavy glance said very quietly he was and turned his back on me My hour of favour 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—couldnt conceal—knowledge of matters that would affect Mr Kurtzs 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 Kurtzs 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 illwill 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 Whats to stop them Theres 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 lip then I dont want any harm to happen to these whites here but of course I was thinking of Mr Kurtzs reputation—but you are a brother seaman and— All right said I after a time Mr Kurtzs 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 dont 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 Yeees he muttered not very convinced apparently Thanks said I I shall keep my eyes open But quieteh 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 MartiniHenry 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 pilothouse he turned round—I say havent you a pair of shoes you could spare He raised one leg Look The soles were tied with knotted strings sandalwise 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 Towsons Inquiry etc etc He seemed to think himself excellently well equipped for a renewed encounter with the wilderness Ah Ill 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 Goodbye 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 stationhouse 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 Kurtzs 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 halfawake senses I believe I dozed off leaning over the rail till an abrupt burst of yells an overwhelming outbreak of a pentup 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 didnt 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 dont know why I was so jealous of sharing with any one 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 cant walk—he is crawling on allfours—Ive 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 dont 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 vapour 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 vigour 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 witchman no doubt it looked fiendlike 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 speakingtrumpet 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 Ill 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 dont 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 Ive been telling you what we said—repeating the phrases we pronounced—but whats 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 ever struggled with a soul I am the man And I wasnt 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 wasnt 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 ones 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 riverdemon 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 riverdemon a bunch of black feathers a mangy skin with a pendent tail—something that looked 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 responses of some satanic litany
We had carried Kurtz into the pilothouse 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 colourless 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. Dont dont you frighten them away cried some one 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 sombre 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 Kurtzs 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 disfavour 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 mould 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 railwaystations 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 cant 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 Kurtzs confidence One morning he gave me a packet of papers and a photograph—the lot tied together with a shoestring 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 enginedriver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders to straighten a bent connectingrod and in other such matters I lived in an infernal mess of rust filings nuts bolts spanners hammers ratchetdrills—things I abominate because I dont get on with them I tended the little forge we fortunately had aboard I toiled wearily in a wretched scrapheap—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 wasnt touched I was fascinated It was as though a veil had been rent I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre 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 messroom 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 managers 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 dont 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 greyness with nothing underfoot with nothing around without spectators without clamour without glory without the great desire of victory without the great fear of defeat in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism 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 hairs 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 candour 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 greyness 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 summingup 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 pretence 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 daresay 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 behaviour was inexcusable but then my temperature was seldom normal in these days My dear aunts endeavours 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 cleanshaved man with an official manner and wearing goldrimmed 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 Kurtzs 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 Kurtzs 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 etc etc 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 Kurtzs cousin appeared two days later and was anxious to hear all the details about his dear relatives 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 grey hair flowing over a greasy coatcollar I had no reason to doubt his statement and to this day I am unable to say what was Kurtzs 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 Kurtzs proper sphere ought to have been politics on the popular side He had furry straight eyebrows bristly hair cropped short an eyeglass on a broad ribbon and becoming expansive confessed his opinion that Kurtz really couldnt write a bit—but heavens how that man could talk He electrified large meetings He had faith—dont 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 girls 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 Kurtzs 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 dont defend myself I had no clear perception of what it was I really wanted Perhaps it was an impulse of unconscious loyalty or the fulfilment of one of those ironic necessities that lurk in the facts of human existence I dont know I cant tell But I went
I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead that accumulate in every mans 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 wellkept 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 phantombearers the wild crowd of obedient worshippers 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 Hm 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 drawingroom 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 sombre 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 forever 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 quickly 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 inextinguishable 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 any one 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 wasnt rich enough or something And indeed I dont 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 the 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 back 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 any one 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 Dont 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 murmured in a heartbroken tone I want—I want—something—something—to—to live with
I was on the point of crying at her Dont 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 insisted Dont 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 Hadnt he said he wanted only justice But I couldnt 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 sombre under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness