Latest / Classic Adventure Books - Daily / 06 - Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

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06 - Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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Speaker 1: Part two of chapter three. When next day we left
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Speaker 1: at noon, the crowd, of whose presence behind the curtain
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Speaker 1: of trees I had been acutely conscious all the time,
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Speaker 1: flowed out of the woods again filled the clearing, covered
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Speaker 1: the slope with a mass of naked, breathing, quivering, bronze bodies.
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Speaker 1: I steamed up a bit, then swung down stream, and
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Speaker 1: two thousand eyes followed the evolutions of the splashing, thumping,
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Speaker 1: fierce river Demon, beating the water with its terrible tail
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Speaker 1: and breathing black smoke into the air. In the front
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Speaker 1: of the first rank along the river, three men plastered
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Speaker 1: with bright bread earth from head to foot, strutted to
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Speaker 1: and fro restlessly. When we came abreast again, they faced
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Speaker 1: the river, stamped their feet, knotted, their horned heads, swayed
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Speaker 1: their scarlet bodies. They shook towards the fierce river demon,
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Speaker 1: a bunch of black feathers, a mangy skin, with a
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Speaker 1: pendent tail, something that looked a dry gourd. They shouted
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Speaker 1: periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds
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Speaker 1: of human language, and the deep murmurs of the crowd
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Speaker 1: interrupted suddenly were like the responses of some satanic litany.
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Speaker 1: We had carried Kurts into the pilot house. There was
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Speaker 1: more air there. Lying on the couch, he stared through
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Speaker 1: the open shutter. There was an eddy in the mass
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Speaker 1: of human bodies, and the woman with helmeted head and
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Speaker 1: tawny cheeks rushed out to the very brink of the stream.
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Speaker 1: She put out her hands, shouted something, and all that
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Speaker 1: wild mob took up the shots and a roaring chorus
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Speaker 1: of articulated, rapid, breathless utterance. Do you understand this, I asked.
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Speaker 1: He kept on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes,
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Speaker 1: eyes with a mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He
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Speaker 1: made no answer, but I saw a smile, a smile
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Speaker 1: of indefinable meaning, appear on his colorless lips that a
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Speaker 1: moment after twitched convulsively. Do not, he said, slowly, gasping
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Speaker 1: as if the words had been torn out of him
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Speaker 1: by a supernatural power. I pulled the string of the whistle,
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Speaker 1: and I did this because I saw the pilgrims on
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Speaker 1: deck getting out their rifles with an air of anticipating
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Speaker 1: a jolly lark. At the sudden screech, there was a
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Speaker 1: movement of abject terror through that wedged mass of bodies.
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Speaker 1: Don't don't you frighten them away? Cried someone on deck disconsolately.
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Speaker 1: I pulled the string time after time. They broke and ran,
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Speaker 1: they leaped, they crouched, they swerved, the he dodged the
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Speaker 1: flying terror of the sound. The three red chaps had
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Speaker 1: fallen flat faced down on the shore as though they
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Speaker 1: had been shot dead. Only the barbarous and superb woman
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Speaker 1: did not so much as flinch, and stretched tragically her
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Speaker 1: bare arms after us over the somber and glittering river.
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Speaker 1: And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started
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Speaker 1: their little fun, and I could see nothing more for smoke.
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Speaker 1: The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness,
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Speaker 1: bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed
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Speaker 1: of our upward progress. And Courtz's life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing,
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Speaker 1: out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.
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Speaker 1: The manager was very placid, He had no vital anxieties. Now.
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Speaker 1: He took us both in with a comprehensive and satisfied glance.
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Speaker 1: The affair had come off as well as he could
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Speaker 1: have wished. I saw the time approaching when I would
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Speaker 1: be left alone of the party of unsound method. The
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Speaker 1: pilgrims looked upon me with disfavor. I was, so to speak,
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Speaker 1: numbered with the dead. It is strange how I accepted
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Speaker 1: this unforeseen partnership, this choice of nightmares forced upon me
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Speaker 1: in the tenebrous land invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms,
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Speaker 1: Curtz disgorsed a voice. A voice. It rang deep to
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Speaker 1: the very last, It survived his strength to hide in
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Speaker 1: the magnificent folds of eloquence, the barren darkness of his heart. Oh,
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Speaker 1: he struggled, He struggled. The wastes of his weary brain
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Speaker 1: were haunted by shadowy images, now images of wealth and fame,
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Speaker 1: roof evolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift of noble and
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Speaker 1: lofty expression. My intended, my station, my career, my ideas.
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Speaker 1: These were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments.
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Speaker 1: The shade of the original Curts frequented the bedside of
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Speaker 1: the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried
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Speaker 1: presently in the mold of primeval earth. But both the
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Speaker 1: diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteries it
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Speaker 1: had penetrated, fought for the possession of that soul, satiated
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Speaker 1: of primitive emotions, avid of lying, fame of sham, distinction
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Speaker 1: of all the appearances of success and power. Sometimes he
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Speaker 1: was contemptibly childish, a desire to have kings mete him
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Speaker 1: at railway stations on his return from some ghastly nowhere
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Speaker 1: where he intended to accomplish great things. You show them
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Speaker 1: that you have in you something it is really profitable,
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Speaker 1: and then there will be no limits to the recognition
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Speaker 1: of your ability. He would say, of course, you must
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Speaker 1: take care of the motives, right motives. Always the long
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Speaker 1: reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous
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Speaker 1: bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with
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Speaker 1: their multitude of secular trees. Looking patiently after this grimy
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Speaker 1: fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest,
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Speaker 1: of trade, of massacres of blessings. I looked ahead, piloting
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Speaker 1: close the shutter, said Curtz. Suddenly, one day I can't
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Speaker 1: bear to look at this. I did so. There was
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Speaker 1: a silence. Oh but I will wring your heart. Yet
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Speaker 1: he cried at the invisible wilderness. He broke down as
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Speaker 1: I had expected, and had to lie up for repairs
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Speaker 1: at the head of an island. This delay was the
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Speaker 1: first thing that shook Kurtz's confidence. One morning, he gave
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Speaker 1: me a packet of papers and a photograph the lot,
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Speaker 1: tied together with a shoe string. Keep this for me,
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Speaker 1: he said, this noxious fool, meaning the manager is capable
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Speaker 1: of prying into my boxes when I'm not looking. In
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Speaker 1: the afternoon, I saw him. He was lying on his
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Speaker 1: back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly. But I
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Speaker 1: heard him mutter, live rightly, Die die. I listened. There
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Speaker 1: was nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep?
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Speaker 1: Or was it a fragment of a phrase from some
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Speaker 1: newspaper article. He had been writing for the papers and
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Speaker 1: meant to do so again for the furthering of my ideas.
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Speaker 1: It's my duty. His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked
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Speaker 1: at him as you peered down at a man who
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Speaker 1: was lying at the bottom of a precipice where the
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Speaker 1: sun never shines. But I had not much time to
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Speaker 1: give him, because I was helping the engine driver to
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Speaker 1: take to pieces the leaky cylinders to straighten, a bent
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Speaker 1: connecting rod, and another such matters. I lived in an
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Speaker 1: infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers, ratchet drills,
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Speaker 1: things I abominate because I don't get on with them.
8:49
Speaker 1: I tended the little forge we fortunately had a board.
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Speaker 1: I toiled wearily in a wretched scrap heap unless I
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Speaker 1: had the shakes too bad to stand. One evening, coming
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Speaker 1: in with a candle, I was startled to hear him say,
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Speaker 1: a little tremulously, I am lying here in the dark,
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Speaker 1: waiting for death. The light was within a foot of
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Speaker 1: his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, oh, nonsense, and
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Speaker 1: stood over him, as if transfixed anything approaching. The change
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Speaker 1: that came over his features I have never seen before
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Speaker 1: and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched.
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Speaker 1: I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had
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Speaker 1: been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression
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Speaker 1: of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror, of
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Speaker 1: an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again?
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Speaker 1: In every detailer desired, temptation and surrender. During that supreme
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Speaker 1: moments of complete knowledge, he cried in a whisper at
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Speaker 1: some image, at some vision. He cried out twice, a
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Speaker 1: cry that was no more than a breath lo horror theora,
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Speaker 1: I blew the candlelights and left the cabin. The pilgrims
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Speaker 1: were dining in the mess room, and I took my
10:33
Speaker 1: place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give
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Speaker 1: me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene,
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Speaker 1: with that peculiar smile of his, sealing the unexpressed depths
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Speaker 1: of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed
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Speaker 1: upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces.
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Speaker 1: Suddenly the manager's boy put his in slant black head
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Speaker 1: in the doorway and said, in a tone of scathing contempt,
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Speaker 1: mister Kurtz, he dead. All the pilgrims rushed out to sea.
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Speaker 1: I remained and went on with my dinner. I believe
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Speaker 1: I was considered brutally callous. However, I did not eat much.
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Speaker 1: There was a lamp in there, light, don't you know,
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Speaker 1: And outside it was so beastly, beastly dark. I went
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Speaker 1: no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a
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Speaker 1: judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth,
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Speaker 1: The voice was gone. What else had been there? But
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Speaker 1: I am of course aware that next day the Pilgrims
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Speaker 1: buried something in a muddy hole, and then they very
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Speaker 1: nearly buried me. However, as you see, I did not
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Speaker 1: go to join Kurtz there, and then I did not.
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Speaker 1: I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end,
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Speaker 1: and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny,
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Speaker 1: my destiny, droll thing. Life is that mysterious arrangement of
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Speaker 1: merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can
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Speaker 1: hope from it is some knowledge of yourself that comes
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Speaker 1: too late, a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled
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Speaker 1: with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine.
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Speaker 1: It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot,
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Speaker 1: with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without
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Speaker 1: the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat,
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Speaker 1: in a sickly atmosphere of tapidy skepticism, without much belief
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Speaker 1: in your own right, and still less in that of
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Speaker 1: your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom,
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Speaker 1: then life is a greater riddle than some of us
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Speaker 1: think it to be. I was within a hair's breadth
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Speaker 1: of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with
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Speaker 1: humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This
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Speaker 1: is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a
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Speaker 1: remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it.
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Speaker 1: Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand
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Speaker 1: better the meaning of his stare that would not see
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Speaker 1: the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to
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Speaker 1: embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the
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Speaker 1: hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up,
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Speaker 1: He had judged the horror. He was a remarkable man,
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Speaker 1: after all. This was the expression of some sort of belief.
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Speaker 1: It had candor, It had conviction, that had a vibrating
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Speaker 1: note of revolt in its whisper. It had the appalling
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Speaker 1: face of a glimpsed truth, the strange commingling of desire
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Speaker 1: and hate. And it is not my own extremity. I
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Speaker 1: remember best, a vision of grayness without form, filled with
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Speaker 1: physical pain and a careless contempt with the evanescence of
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Speaker 1: all things, even of this pain itself. Now it was
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Speaker 1: his extremity that I seemed to have lived through. True,
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Speaker 1: he had made that last stride, he had stepped over
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Speaker 1: the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back
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Speaker 1: my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all since
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Speaker 1: crity are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time
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Speaker 1: in which we step over the threshold of the invisible.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps I like to think my summing up would not
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Speaker 1: have been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry
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Speaker 1: much better. It was an affirmation, a moral victory, paid
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Speaker 1: for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfaction.
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Speaker 1: But it was a victory. That is why I have
15:37
Speaker 1: remained loyal to Carts to the last and even beyond.
15:41
Speaker 1: When a long time after I heard once more, not
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Speaker 1: his own voice, but the echo of his magnificent eloquence,
15:49
Speaker 1: thrown to me from a soul as translucently pure as
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Speaker 1: a cliff of crystal. No, they did not bury me,
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Speaker 1: though there is a period of time which I remember
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Speaker 1: mistily with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through some
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Speaker 1: inconceivable world that had no hope in it. No desire.
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Speaker 1: I found myself back in the sepulchral city, presenting the
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Speaker 1: sight of people hurrying through the streets to filter little
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Speaker 1: money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to
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Speaker 1: gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams.
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Speaker 1: They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge
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Speaker 1: of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I
16:40
Speaker 1: felt so sure they could not possibly know the things
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Speaker 1: I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of
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Speaker 1: commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of
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Speaker 1: perfect safety, was offensive to me, like the outrageous flauntings
16:56
Speaker 1: of folly in the face of a danger. It is
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Speaker 1: unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them,
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Speaker 1: but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing
17:09
Speaker 1: in their faces. So full of stupid importance, I dare
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Speaker 1: say I was not very well at that time. I
17:18
Speaker 1: tottered about the streets there were various affairs to settle,
17:23
Speaker 1: grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. I admit my behavior
17:29
Speaker 1: was inexcusable, but then my temperature was seldom normal in
17:34
Speaker 1: these days, my dear aunt's endeavors to nurse up my
17:40
Speaker 1: strength seemed altogether beside the mark. It was not my
17:45
Speaker 1: strength that wanted nursing. It was my imagination that wanted soothing.
17:52
Speaker 1: I kept the bundle of papers given me by Kerts,
17:55
Speaker 1: not knowing exactly what to do with it. His mother
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Speaker 1: had died lately, watched over as I was told by
18:03
Speaker 1: his intended. A clean shaved man with an official manner
18:08
Speaker 1: and wearing gold rimmed spectacles called on me one day
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Speaker 1: and made inquiries, at first circuitous, afterwards suavely pressing about
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Speaker 1: what he was pleased to denominate certain documents. I was
18:22
Speaker 1: not surprised, because I had had two rows with the
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Speaker 1: manager on the subject out there. I had refused to
18:30
Speaker 1: give up the smallest scrap out of that package, and
18:33
Speaker 1: I took the same attitude with the spectacled man. He
18:37
Speaker 1: became darkly menacing at last, and with much heat, argued
18:42
Speaker 1: that the company had the right to every bit of
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Speaker 1: information about its territories, and said he mister Curtz's knowledge
18:51
Speaker 1: of unexplored regions must have been necessarily extensive and peculiar,
18:56
Speaker 1: owing to his great abilities and to the deplorable circumstances
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Speaker 1: in which he had been placed. Therefore, I assured him
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Speaker 1: mister Kurtz's knowledge, however extensive, did not bear upon the
19:10
Speaker 1: problems of commerce or administration. He invoked, then the name
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Speaker 1: of science. It would be an incalculable loss if et cetera,
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Speaker 1: et cetera. I offered him the Report on the Suppression
19:24
Speaker 1: of Savage Customs, with the post scriptum torn off. He
19:29
Speaker 1: took it up eagerly, but ended by sniffing at it
19:32
Speaker 1: with an air of contempt. This is not what we
19:36
Speaker 1: had a right to expect, he remarked. Expect nothing else,
19:40
Speaker 1: I said, there are only private letters. He withdrew upon
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Speaker 1: some threat of legal proceedings, and I saw him no more.
19:52
Speaker 1: But another fellow calling himself Kurtz's cousin, appeared two days
19:56
Speaker 1: later and was anxious to hear all the details about
19:59
Speaker 1: his the relative's last moments. Incidentally, he gave me to
20:04
Speaker 1: understand that Kurtz had been essentially a great musician. There
20:09
Speaker 1: was the making of an immense success, said the man
20:13
Speaker 1: who was an organist. I believe. With lank gray hair
20:17
Speaker 1: flowing over a greasy coat collar, I had no reason
20:22
Speaker 1: to doubt his statements, and to this day I was
20:25
Speaker 1: unable to say what was Kurtz's profession, whether he ever
20:29
Speaker 1: had any, which was the greatest of his talents. I
20:34
Speaker 1: had taken him for a painter who wrote for the papers,
20:37
Speaker 1: or else for a journalist who could paint. But even
20:40
Speaker 1: the cousin who took snuff during the interview could not
20:44
Speaker 1: tell me what he had been exactly. He was a
20:49
Speaker 1: universal genius on that point. I agreed with the old chap,
20:54
Speaker 1: who thereupon blew his nose noisily into a large cotton handkerchief,
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Speaker 1: and withdrew in senile agitation, bearing off some family letters
21:03
Speaker 1: and memoranda without importance. Ultimately, a journalist, anxious to know
21:09
Speaker 1: something of the fate of his dear colleague, turned up.
21:13
Speaker 1: This visitor informed me Kurtz's proper sphere ought to have
21:17
Speaker 1: been in politics on the popular side. He had very
21:22
Speaker 1: straight eyebrows, bristly hair, crop short, an eyeglass on a
21:26
Speaker 1: broad ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that Kurtz
21:32
Speaker 1: really couldn't write a bit, But heavens how that man
21:36
Speaker 1: could talk. He electrified large meetings. He had faith, don't
21:41
Speaker 1: you see? He had the faith he could get himself
21:45
Speaker 1: to believe anything anything. He would have been a splendid
21:50
Speaker 1: leader of an extreme party. What party, I asked? Any party,
21:57
Speaker 1: answered the other. He was an an extremist. Did I
22:02
Speaker 1: not think so? I assented, Did I know? He asked,
22:08
Speaker 1: with a sudden flash of curiosity, what it was that
22:11
Speaker 1: had induced him to go out there? Yes, said I,
22:17
Speaker 1: and forthwith handed him the famous report for publication if
22:21
Speaker 1: he thought fit. He glanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all
22:25
Speaker 1: the time, judged it it would do, and took himself
22:30
Speaker 1: off with his plunder. Thus I was left at last
22:35
Speaker 1: with a slim packet of letters and the girl's portrait.
22:40
Speaker 1: She struck me as beautiful. I mean, she had a
22:44
Speaker 1: beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be made
22:49
Speaker 1: to lie too. Yet one felt that no manipulation of
22:53
Speaker 1: light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of
22:56
Speaker 1: truthfulness upon these features. Seemed ready to listen without mental reservation,
23:03
Speaker 1: without suspicion, without a thought for herself. I concluded I
23:08
Speaker 1: would go back and give her back her portrait and
23:10
Speaker 1: those letters myself curiosity, yes, and some other feeling. Perhaps
23:19
Speaker 1: all that had been Curtsy's had passed out of my hands,
23:22
Speaker 1: his soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory,
23:27
Speaker 1: his career. There remained only his memory and his intended
23:33
Speaker 1: And I wanted to give that up too, to the past,
23:37
Speaker 1: in a way, to surrender personally all that remained of
23:41
Speaker 1: him with me, to that oblivion, which is the last
23:44
Speaker 1: word of our common fate. I don't defend myself. I
23:50
Speaker 1: had no clear perception of what it was I really wanted.
23:54
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was an impulse of unconscious loyalty, or the
23:59
Speaker 1: fulfillment of war, one of those ironic necessities that lurk
24:02
Speaker 1: in the facts of human existence. I don't know. I
24:07
Speaker 1: can't tell, but I went. I thought his memory was
24:14
Speaker 1: like the other memories of the dead that accumulated in
24:16
Speaker 1: every man's life, a vague impress on the brain of
24:20
Speaker 1: shadows that had fallen on us in their swift and
24:23
Speaker 1: final passage. But before the high and ponderous door between
24:29
Speaker 1: the tall houses of a street, as still and decorous
24:32
Speaker 1: as a well kept alley in a cemetery, I had
24:35
Speaker 1: a vision of him on the stretcher, opening his mouth voraciously,
24:40
Speaker 1: as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind.
24:45
Speaker 1: He lived. Then, before me, he lived as much as
24:49
Speaker 1: he had ever lived, a shadow, insatiable of splendid appearances,
24:53
Speaker 1: of frightful realities, a shadow darker than the shadow of
24:58
Speaker 1: the night, and draped no in the folds of a
25:01
Speaker 1: gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house with me,
25:06
Speaker 1: the stretcher, the phantom bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers,
25:12
Speaker 1: the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach
25:15
Speaker 1: between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular
25:19
Speaker 1: and muffled, like the beating of a heart, the hearts
25:23
Speaker 1: of a conquering darkness. It was a moment of triumph
25:28
Speaker 1: for the wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush, which it
25:32
Speaker 1: seemed to me I would have to keep back alone,
25:35
Speaker 1: for the salvation of another soul, and the memory of
25:40
Speaker 1: what I had heard him say Afar there, with the
25:43
Speaker 1: horned shapes stirring at my back. In the glow of
25:46
Speaker 1: fires within the patient woods, those broken phrases came back
25:51
Speaker 1: to me, were heard again, in their ominous and terrifying simplicity.
25:57
Speaker 1: I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, the colossal
26:02
Speaker 1: scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the
26:07
Speaker 1: tempestuous anguish of his soul. And later on I seemed
26:12
Speaker 1: to see his collected, languid manner when he said, one day,
26:18
Speaker 1: this lot of ivory now is really mine. The company
26:23
Speaker 1: did not pay for it. I collected it myself at
26:27
Speaker 1: a very great personal risk. I am afraid they will
26:31
Speaker 1: try to claim it as theirs. Though it's a difficult case.
26:36
Speaker 1: What do you think I ought to do? Resist m
26:41
Speaker 1: I want no more than justice. He wanted no more
26:46
Speaker 1: than justice, no more than justice. I rang the bell
26:53
Speaker 1: before a mahogany door on the first floor, and while
26:56
Speaker 1: I waited, he seemed to stare at me out of
26:59
Speaker 1: the glassy panel, stare with that wide and immense stare, embracing, condemning,
27:05
Speaker 1: loathing all the universe. I seemed to hear the whispered cry,
27:12
Speaker 1: the horror, the horror. The dusk was falling. I had
27:22
Speaker 1: to wait in a lofty drawing room with three long
27:25
Speaker 1: windows from floor to ceiling that were like three luminous
27:28
Speaker 1: and bedraped columns. The bent gilt legs and backs of
27:33
Speaker 1: the furniture shone in indistinct curves. The tall marble fireplace
27:39
Speaker 1: had a cold and monumental whiteness. A grand piano stood
27:43
Speaker 1: massively in a corner, with dark gleams on the flat surfaces,
27:47
Speaker 1: like a somber and polished sarcophagus. A high door opened closed.
27:54
Speaker 1: I rose. She came forward, all in black, with a
27:59
Speaker 1: pale head floating towards me in the dusk. She was
28:04
Speaker 1: in mourning. It was more than a year since his death,
28:09
Speaker 1: more than a year since the news came. She seemed
28:12
Speaker 1: as though she would remember and mourn forever. She took
28:17
Speaker 1: both my hands in hers and murmured, I had heard
28:20
Speaker 1: you were coming. I noticed she was not very young,
28:25
Speaker 1: I mean, not girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity,
28:31
Speaker 1: for belief, for suffering. The room seemed to have grown darker,
28:37
Speaker 1: as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening
28:40
Speaker 1: had taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this
28:46
Speaker 1: pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy
28:51
Speaker 1: halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me.
28:55
Speaker 1: Their glance was guileless, profound, confident, and trustful. She carried
29:01
Speaker 1: her sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow,
29:05
Speaker 1: as though she would say, I I alone know how
29:10
Speaker 1: to mourn for him as he deserves. But while we
29:15
Speaker 1: were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation
29:19
Speaker 1: came upon her face that I perceived she was one
29:22
Speaker 1: of those creatures that are not the playthings of time.
29:27
Speaker 1: For her, he had died only yesterday, And by Jove,
29:32
Speaker 1: the impression was so powerful that for me too, he
29:36
Speaker 1: seemed to have died only yesterday. Nay, this very minute,
29:43
Speaker 1: I saw her and him in the same instant of time,
29:48
Speaker 1: his death and her sorrow. I saw her sorrow in
29:53
Speaker 1: the very moment of his death. Do you understand I
29:58
Speaker 1: saw them together? There? I heard them together, she had said,
30:05
Speaker 1: with a deep catch of the breath, I have survived,
30:09
Speaker 1: while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly mingled with
30:14
Speaker 1: her tone of despairing regret, the summing up whisper of
30:18
Speaker 1: his eternal condemnation. I asked myself what I was doing there,
30:24
Speaker 1: with a sensation of panic in my heart, as though
30:26
Speaker 1: I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd
30:29
Speaker 1: mysteries not fit for a human being to behold. She
30:34
Speaker 1: motioned me to a chair. We sat down. I laid
30:38
Speaker 1: the packet gently on the little table, and she put
30:41
Speaker 1: her hand over it. You knew him well, she murmured,
30:46
Speaker 1: after a moment of mourning silence. Intimacy grows quickly out there.
30:52
Speaker 1: I said, I knew him as well as it is
30:56
Speaker 1: possible for one man to know another. And you admired him.
31:02
Speaker 1: He said, it was impossible to know him and not
31:06
Speaker 1: admire him. Who was it? He was a remarkable man,
31:11
Speaker 1: I said unsteadily. Then, before the appealing fixity of her
31:17
Speaker 1: gaze that seemed to watch for more words on my lips,
31:21
Speaker 1: I went on, it was impossible not to love him,
31:27
Speaker 1: she finished, eagerly, silencing me into an appalled dumbness. How true,
31:35
Speaker 1: How true? But when you think that no one knew
31:39
Speaker 1: him so well as I? I had all his noble confidence.
31:45
Speaker 1: I knew him best. You knew him best, I repeated,
31:51
Speaker 1: And perhaps she did. But with every word spoken, the
31:56
Speaker 1: room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white,
32:01
Speaker 1: remained illumined by the inextinguishable light of belief and love.
32:07
Speaker 1: You were his friend, she went on, His friend, she repeated.
32:12
Speaker 1: A little louder you must have been if he had
32:15
Speaker 1: given you this and sent you to me. I fear
32:20
Speaker 1: I can speak to you, And oh, I must speak.
32:26
Speaker 1: I want you, you have heard his last words, to
32:31
Speaker 1: know I have been worthy of him. It is not pride, Yes,
32:37
Speaker 1: I am proud to know I understood him better than
32:40
Speaker 1: any one on earth. He told me so himself, and
32:45
Speaker 1: since his mother died, I have had no one, no
32:49
Speaker 1: one to to. I listened, the darkness deepened. I was
32:56
Speaker 1: not even sure whether he had given me the right bundle.
33:00
Speaker 1: I rather suspect he wanted me to take care of
33:03
Speaker 1: another batch of his papers, which after his death. I
33:06
Speaker 1: saw the manager examining under the lamp, and the girl talked,
33:12
Speaker 1: easing her pain in the certitude of my sympathy. She
33:17
Speaker 1: talked as thirsty men drink. I had heard that her
33:22
Speaker 1: engagement with Kurts had been disapproved by her people. He
33:27
Speaker 1: wasn't rich enough for something. And indeed, I don't know
33:31
Speaker 1: whether he had not been a pauper all his life.
33:34
Speaker 1: He had given me some reason to infer that it
33:37
Speaker 1: was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there.
33:43
Speaker 1: Who was not his friend, who had heard him speak once?
33:47
Speaker 1: She was saying he drew men towards him by what
33:51
Speaker 1: was best in them. She looked at me with intensity
33:56
Speaker 1: it is the gift of the great. She went on,
34:00
Speaker 1: and the sound of her low voice seemed to have
34:03
Speaker 1: the accompaniment of all the other sounds, full of mystery, desolation,
34:08
Speaker 1: and sorrow. I had ever heard the ripple of the river,
34:13
Speaker 1: the sowing of the trees swayed by the wind, the
34:16
Speaker 1: murmurs of the crowds, the faint ring of incomprehensible words
34:20
Speaker 1: cried from afar, the whisper of a voice speaking from
34:25
Speaker 1: beyond the threshold of an eternal darkness. But you have
34:31
Speaker 1: heard him, you know, she cried, Yes, I know, I said,
34:37
Speaker 1: with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my
34:42
Speaker 1: head before the faith that was in her, before that
34:45
Speaker 1: great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow
34:48
Speaker 1: in the darkness, and the triumphant darkness from which I
34:51
Speaker 1: could not have defended her, from which I could not
34:55
Speaker 1: even defend myself. What a lost to me, to us,
35:02
Speaker 1: she corrected herself with beautiful generosity, then added in a
35:06
Speaker 1: murmur to the world. By the last gleams of twilight,
35:13
Speaker 1: I could see the glitter of her eyes full of tears,
35:16
Speaker 1: of tears that would not fall. I have been very happy,
35:23
Speaker 1: very fortunate, very proud. She went on, too fortunate, too
35:29
Speaker 1: happy for a little while, and now I am unhappy
35:33
Speaker 1: for for life. She stood up, her fair hair seemed
35:40
Speaker 1: to catch all the remaining light in a glimmer of gold.
35:44
Speaker 1: I rose too, And all of this she went on, mournfully,
35:50
Speaker 1: of all his promise, and of all his greatness, of
35:54
Speaker 1: his generous mind, of his noble heart. Nothing remained, nothing
36:01
Speaker 1: but a memory. You and I we shall always remember him,
36:08
Speaker 1: I said hastily. No, she cried, It is impossible that
36:14
Speaker 1: all this should be lost, that such a life should
36:17
Speaker 1: be sacrificed, to leave nothing but sorrow. You know what
36:23
Speaker 1: vast plans he had. I knew of them too, I
36:27
Speaker 1: could not perhaps understand, but others knew of them. Something
36:32
Speaker 1: must remain. His words, at least, have not died. His
36:39
Speaker 1: words will remain, I said. And his example, she whispered
36:45
Speaker 1: to herself. Men looked up to him, his goodness shown
36:50
Speaker 1: in every act, his example true, I said, his example too, Yes,
36:58
Speaker 1: his example. I forgot that. But I do not. I cannot.
37:06
Speaker 1: I cannot believe, not yet, I cannot believe that I
37:12
Speaker 1: shall never see him again, That nobody will see him again, never, never, never,
37:24
Speaker 1: She put out her arms as if after a retreating figure,
37:29
Speaker 1: stretching them back and with clasped pale hands across the
37:32
Speaker 1: fading and narrow sheen of the window. Never see him.
37:38
Speaker 1: I saw him clearly enough. Then I shall see this
37:42
Speaker 1: eloquent phantom as long as I live, And I shall
37:46
Speaker 1: see her too, a tragic and familiar shade, resembling in
37:51
Speaker 1: this gesture another one, tragic also, and bedecked with powerless charms,
37:58
Speaker 1: stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the infernal stream,
38:02
Speaker 1: the stream of darkness, she said, suddenly very low. He
38:09
Speaker 1: died as he lived his end, said I, with dull
38:15
Speaker 1: anger stirring in me, was in every way worthy of
38:19
Speaker 1: his life. And I was not with him, She murmured.
38:25
Speaker 1: My anger subsided before a feeling of infinite pity. Everything
38:31
Speaker 1: that could be done, I mumbled, Ah. But I believed
38:37
Speaker 1: in him more than any one on earth, more than
38:41
Speaker 1: his own mother, more than himself. He needed me me.
38:48
Speaker 1: I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign,
38:54
Speaker 1: every glance. I felt like a chill grip on my chest,
39:01
Speaker 1: don't I said, in a muffled voice. Forgive me, I
39:10
Speaker 1: I have mourned so long in silence, in silence, you
39:17
Speaker 1: were with him to the last. I think of his loneliness.
39:23
Speaker 1: Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood, perhaps,
39:29
Speaker 1: no one to hear to the very end, I said, shakily.
39:34
Speaker 1: I heard his very last words. I stopped in affright.
39:41
Speaker 1: Repeat them, she murmured, in a heart broken tone. I
39:47
Speaker 1: want I want something, something to to live with. I
39:59
Speaker 1: was on the point of crying at her. Don't you
40:02
Speaker 1: hear them? The dusk was repeating them in a persistent
40:06
Speaker 1: whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to
40:09
Speaker 1: swell menacingly, like the first whisper of a rising wind. Theror,
40:17
Speaker 1: Theror his last word to live with? She insisted, Don't
40:26
Speaker 1: you understand I I loved him. I loved him. I
40:32
Speaker 1: loved him. I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. The
40:39
Speaker 1: last word he pronounced was your name. I heard a
40:46
Speaker 1: light sigh, and then my heart stood still, stopped dead
40:52
Speaker 1: short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry
40:56
Speaker 1: of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. I knew it.
41:03
Speaker 1: I was sure. She knew she was sure. I heard
41:12
Speaker 1: her weeping. She had hidden her face in her hands.
41:16
Speaker 1: It seemed to me that the house would collapse before
41:19
Speaker 1: I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head.
41:25
Speaker 1: But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such
41:29
Speaker 1: a trifle. Would they have fallen? I wonder if I
41:33
Speaker 1: had rendered Kerts that justice which was his due? Hadn't
41:36
Speaker 1: he said he wanted only justice, But I couldn't. I
41:42
Speaker 1: could not tell her. It would have been too dark,
41:45
Speaker 1: too dark. Altogether, Marlowe ceased and sat apart, indistinct and silent,
41:54
Speaker 1: in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for
41:58
Speaker 1: a time. We have lost the first of the ebb,
42:03
Speaker 1: said the director. Suddenly I raised my head. The offing
42:08
Speaker 1: was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the
42:11
Speaker 1: tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth
42:15
Speaker 1: flowed somber under an overcast sky, seemed to lead into
42:20
Speaker 1: the heart of an immense darkness. End of Heart of
42:28
Speaker 1: Darkness by Joseph Conrad