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05 - Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad · Adventure Books Collection

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Part one of chapter three of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I looked
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at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me in Motley,
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as though he had absconded from a troop of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous.
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His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an
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insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded
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in getting so far, how he had managed to remain, why he did
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not instantly disappear. I went a little farther, he said, Then still
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a little farther, till I had gone so far that I don't know how
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I ever got back. Never mind, plenty time I can manage. You.
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Take courts away quick quick, I tell you. The glamor of youth
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enveloped his partly colored, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of
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his futile wanderings for months, for years, his life hadn't been worth a
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day's purchase. And there he was, gallantly, thoughtlessly, alive to all
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appearances, indestructible, solely by the virtue of his few years and of his
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unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration. Like envy, Glamour
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urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. He surely wanted nothing from the
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wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through. His need was
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to exist and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk and with a maximum
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of privation. If the absolutely pure, uncalculating, unpractical spirit of adventure had
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ever ruled a human being, it ruled this bepatched youth. I almost envied
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him the possession of this modest and clear flame. It seemed to have consumed
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all thought of self so completely that even while he was talking to you,
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you forgot that it was he, the man before your eyes, who had
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gone through these things. I did not envy him his devotion to Kurtz,
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though he had not meditated over it. It came to him, and he
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accepted it with a sort of eager fatalism. I must say that to me
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it appeared about the most dangerous thing in every way he had come upon so
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far. They had come together unavoidably, like two ships becalmed near each other
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and lay rubbing sides at last. I suppose Kurtz wanted an audience, because
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on a certain occasion, when it camped in the forest, they had talked
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all night, or more probably Kurtz had talked. We talked of everything,
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he said, quite transported. At the recollection, I forgot there was such
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a thing as sleep. The night did not seem to last an hour.
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Everything everything of love too. Ah, he talked to you of love,
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I said, much amused. It isn't what you think, he cried,
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almost passionately. It was in general he made me see things things. He
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threw his arms up. We were on deck at the time, and the
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headman of my woodcutters, lounging near by, turned upon him, his heavy
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and glittering eyes. I looked around, and I don't know why, but
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I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river,
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this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky appeared to me so
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hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human
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weakness. And ever since you have been with him, of course, I
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said, on the contrary, it appears their intercourse had been very much broken
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by various causes. He had, as he informed me, proudly, managed
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to nurse kurt through two illnesses. He alluded to it as you would to
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some risky feet. But as a rule Kurt wandered alone far in the depths
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of the forest, very often coming to this station. I had to wait
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days and days before he would turn up. He said, Ah, it
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was worth waiting for sometimes. What was he doing exploring? Or what?
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I asked? Oh? Yes, of course he had discovered lots of villages
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a lake too. He did not know exactly in what direction. It was
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dang interest to inquire too much, but mostly his expeditions had been for ivery,
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but he had no goods to trade with by that time. I objected,
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there's a good lot of cartridges left. Even yet, he answered,
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looking away, to speak plainly, he raided the country, I said.
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He nodded, Not alone, surely. He muttered something about the villages round
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that lake. Kurt's got the tribe to follow him, did he? I
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suggested? He fidgeted a little. They adored him, he said. The
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tone of these words was so extraordinary that I looked at him searchingly. It
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was curious to see his mingled eagerness and the reluctance to speak of Kurts.
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The man filled his life, occupied his thoughts swayed his emotions. What can
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you expect he burst out. He came to them with thunder and lightning,
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you know, and they had never seen anything like it, and very terrible.
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He could be very terrible. You can't judge mister Kurtz as you would
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an ordinary man. No, no, no, now, just to give
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you an idea, I don't mind telling you. He wanted to shoot me
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too one day. But I don't judge him shoot you. I cried,
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what for? Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of
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that village near my house gave me. You see, I used to shoot
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game for them. Well, he wanted it, and wouldn't hear reason.
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He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared
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out of the country because he could do so and had a fancy for it,
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and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well
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pleased. And it was true too, I gave him the ivory. What
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did I care? But I didn't clear out. No, no, I
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couldn't leave him. I had to be careful, of course, till we
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got friendly again. For a time he had his second illness. Then afterwards
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I had to keep out of the way, but I didn't mind. He
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was living for the most part in those villages on the lake. When he
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came down to the river, sometimes he would take to me, and sometimes
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it was better for me to be careful. This man suffered too much,
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he hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had
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a chance. I begged him to try and leave while there was time.
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I offered to go back with him, and he would say yes, and
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then he would remain, go off on another ivory hunt, disappear for weeks,
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forgot himself amongst these people, forgot himself. You know why he's mad,
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I said, he protested indignantly. Mister Kurtz couldn't be mad. If
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I had heard him talk only two days ago, I wouldn't dare hint at
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such a thing. I had taken up my binoculars while we talked, and
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was looking at the shore, sweeping the limit of the forest at each side
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and at the back of the house. The consciousness of there being people in
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that bush, so silent, so quiet, as silent and quiet as the
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ruined house on the hill, made me uneasy. There was no sign on
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the face of nature of this amazing tale that was not so much told as
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suggested to me in desolate exclamations completed by shrugs. It interrupted phrases in hints,
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ending in deep sighs. The woods were unmoved, like a mask,
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heavy, like the closed door of a prison. They looked with their air
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of hidden knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence. The Russian was
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explaining to me that it was only lately that mister Kurtz had come down to
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the river, bringing along with him all the fighting men of that lake tribe.
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He had been absent for several months, getting himself adored, I suppose,
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and had come down unexpectedly with the intention to all appearance of making a
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raid, either across the river or down stream. Evidently the appetite for more
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ivory had got the better of the what shall I say, the less material
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aspirations. However, he had got much worse. Suddenly I heard he was
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lying helpless, and so I came up, took my chance, said the
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Russian. Oh, he is bad, very bad. I directed my glass
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to the house. There were no signs of life, but there was the
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ruined roof the long mud wall peeping above the grass with three little square window
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holes, no two of the same size. All this brought within reach of
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my hand, as it were. And then I made a brusque movement,
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and one of the remaining posts of that vanished forest leaped up in the field
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of my glass. You remember I told you I had been struck at the
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distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the
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place. Now I suddenly had a nearer view, and its first result was
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to make me throw my head back, as if before a blow. Then
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I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my
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mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental, but symbolic. They were expressive
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and puzzling, striking and disturbing, food for thought and also for vulgures if
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there had been any looking down from the sky. But at all events,
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for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole, they would have
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been even more impressive. These heads on the stakes, if their faces had
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not been turned to the house. Only one the first I had made out,
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was facing my way. I was not so shocked as you may think.
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The start back I had given was really nothing, but a movement of
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surprise. I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know,
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I'd returned deliberately to the first I had seen. And there it was
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black, dried, sunken with closed eyelids, a head that seemed to sleep
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at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken, dry lips showing
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a narrow white line of the teeth. Was smiling too, smiling continuously at
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some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber. I am not disclosing any
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trade secrets. In fact, the manager said afterwards that mister Kurtz's methods had
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ruined the district. I have no opinion on that point, but I want
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you clearly to understand that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there.
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They only showed that mister Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various
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lusts, that there was something wanting in him, some small matter, which,
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when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence.
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Whether he knew of this deficiency himself, I can't say. I think
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the knowledge came to him at last, only at the very last. But
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the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible
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vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about
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himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till
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he took counsel with this great solitude, and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating.
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It echoed loudly within him, because he was hollow at the core.
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I put down the glass, and the head that had appeared near enough to
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be spoken to, seemed at once to have leaped away from me into inaccessible
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distance. The admirer of mister Kurtz was a bit crestfallen. In a hurried,
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indistinct voice, he began to assure me he had not dared to take
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these say symbols down. He was not afraid of the natives. They would
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not stir till mister Kurtz gave the word. His ascendancy was extraordinary. The
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camps of these people surrounded the place, and the chiefs came every day to
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see him. They would crawl. I don't want to know anything of the
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ceremonies used when approaching mister Kurtz. I shouted, curious, this feeling that
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came over me that such details would be more intolerable than those heads drying on
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the stakes under mister Kurtz's windows. After all, that was only a savage
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sight, while I seemed at one bound to have been transported into some lightless
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region of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief,
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being something that had a right to exist obviously in the sunshine. The young
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man looked at me with surprise. I suppose it did not occur to him
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that mister Kurtz was no idol of mine. He forgot I hadn't heard any
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of these splendid monologs on what was it on love, justice, conduct of
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life, or what not? If it had come to crawling before mister Kurtz,
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he crawled as much as the veriest savage of them all, I had
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no idea of the conditions. He said, these heads were the heads of
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rebels. I shocked him excessively by laughing, rebels. What would be the
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next definition? I was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals,
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workers, and these were rebels. These rebellious heads looked very subdued to me
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on their sticks. You don't know how such a life tries a man like
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Kurtz, cried Kurtz's last disciple. Well and you, I said I I
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I am a simple man. I have no great thoughts. I want nothing
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from anybody. How can you compare me to? His feelings were too much
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for speech, and suddenly he broke down. I don't understand, he groaned.
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I've been doing my best to keep him alive, and that's enough.
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I had no hand in all this. I have no abilities. There hasn't
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been a drop of medicine or a mouthful of invalid food for months. Here
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he was shamefully abandoned, a man like this with such ideas, shamefully,
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shamefully, I I haven't slept for the last ten nights. His voice lost
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itself. In the calm of the evening. The long shadows of the forest
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had slipped down hill while we talked, had gone far beyond the ruined hovel,
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beyond the symbolic row of stakes. All this was in the gloom,
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while we down there were yet in the sunshine, and the stretch of the
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river abreast of the clearing, glittered in a still and dazzling splendor, with
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a murky and overshadowed, bend over and below. Oh, not a living
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soul was seen on the shore. The bushes did not rustle. Suddenly,
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round the corner of the house a group of men appeared, as though they
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had come up from the ground. They waded waist deep in the grass in
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a compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst Instantly, in the
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emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose, whose shrillness pierced the still air,
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like a sharp arrow flying straight to the very heart of the land.
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And as if by enchantment, streams of human beings, of naked human beings
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with spears in their hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances
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and savage movements, were poured into the clearing by the dark faced and pensive
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forest. The bushes shook, the grass swayed for a time, and then
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everything stood still in attentive immobility. Now, if he does not say the
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right thing to them, we are all done for, said the Russian at
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my elbow. The knot of men with a stretcher had stopped too, half
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way to the steamer. As if petrified, I saw the men on the
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stretcher set up lank and with an uplifted arm above the shoulders of the bearers.
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Let us hope that the man who can talk so well of love in
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general will find some particular reason to spare us this time, I said,
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I resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situation, as if to be at
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the mercy of that atrocious phantom had been a dishonoring necessity. I could not
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hear a sound, but through my glasses I saw the thin arm extended commandingly,
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the lower jaw moving, the eyes of that apparition shining darkly far in
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its bony head, that nodded with grotesque church kurts, kurts that means short
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and German. Don't it well? The name was as true as everything else
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in his life and death. He looked at least seven feet long. His
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covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it, pitiful and appalling,
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as from a winding sheet. I could see the cage of his ribs
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all astir, the bones of his arm waving. It was as though an
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animated image of death carved out of old ivory, had been shaking its hand
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with menaces, and a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze.
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I saw him open his mouth wide. It gave him a weirdly voracious
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aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the
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earth, all the men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly.
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He must have been shouting. He fell back. Suddenly the stretcher shook as
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the bearers staggered forward again, and almost at the same time, I noticed
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that the crowd of savages was vanishing, without any perceptible movement of retreat,
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as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in
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again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration. Some of the pilgrims
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behind the stretcher carried his arms two shot guns, a heavy rifle and a
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light revolver carbine, the thunderbolts of that pitiful Jupiter. The manager bent over
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him, murmuring as he walked beside his head. They laid him down in
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one of the little cabins, just a room for a bed place and a
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campstool or two. You know, he had brought his belated correspondence, and
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a lot of torn envelopes and opened letters littered his bed. His hand roamed
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feebly amongst his papers. I was struck by the fire of his eyes eyes,
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and the composed languor of his expression. It was not so much the
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exhaustion of disease. He did not seem in pain. This shadow looked satiated
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and calm, as though for the moments it had had its fill of all
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the emotions. He rustled one of the letters, and looking straight in my
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face, said, I am glad somebody had been writing to him about me.
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These special recommendations were turning up again. The volume of tone he emitted,
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without effort, almost without the trouble of moving his lips, amazed me.
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A voice, a voice. It was grave, profound, vibrating.
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While the man did not seem capable of a whisper, however, he had
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enough strength in him fact issues no doubt, to very nearly make an end
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of us. As you shall hear directly, the manager appeared silently in the
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doorway. I stepped out at once, and he drew a curtain after me.
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The Russian, eyed curiously by the pilgrims, was staring at the shore.
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I followed the direction of his glands. Dark human shapes could be made
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out in the distance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest,
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and near the river, two bronze figures, leaning on tall spears, stood
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in the sunlight under fantastic head dresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in
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statuesque repose, And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild
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and gorgeous apparition of a woman. She walked with measured steps, draped in
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striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly. With a slight jingle and
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flash of barbarous ornaments, carried her head high. Her hair was done in
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the shape of a helmet. She had brass leggings to the knee, brass
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wire gauntless to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable
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necklaces of glass beads on her neck, bizarre things, charms, gifts of
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witch men that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She
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must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage
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and superb wild eyed and magnificent. There was something ominous and stately in her
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deliberate progress, and in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful
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land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fakened and mysterious life
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seemed to look at her pensive, as though it had been looking at the
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image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul. She came abreast of the steamer,
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stood still and faced us. Her long shadow fell to the water's edge.
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Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb
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pain, mingled with the fear of some struggling, half shaped resolve. She
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stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with
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an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and
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then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint
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of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped, as
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if her heart had failed her. The young fellow by my side growled,
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the pilgrims murmured at my back. She looked at us all as if her
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life had depended upon the unswerving steadiness of her glance. Suddenly she opened her
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bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head. As though in an
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uncontrollable desire to touch the sky. And at the same time, the swift
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shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the
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steamer into a shadowy embrace. A formidable silence hung over the scene. She
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turned away, slowly walked on, following the bank, and passed into the
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bushes to the left. Once only her eyes gleamed back at us in the
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dusk of the thickets before she disappeared. If she had offered to come aboard,
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I really think I would have tried to shoot her, said the man
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of patches nervously. I have been risking my life every day for the last
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fortnight to keep her out of the house. She got in one day and
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kicked up a row about these miserable rags I picked up in the storeroom to
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mend my clothes with. I wasn't decent, at least it must have been
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that, for she talked like a fury to Kurtz for an hour, pointing
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at me now and then. I don't understand the dialect of this tribe.
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Luckily for me, I fancy. Kurtz felt too ill that day to care,
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or they would have been mischief. I don't understand. No, it's
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too much for me. Oh well, it's all over now. At this
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moment, I heard Kurtz's deep voice behind the curtain. Save me, save
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the ivy. You mean, don't tell me, save me? Why I've
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had to save you. You are interrupting my plans now, sick, sick,
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not so sick as you would like to believe. Never mind, I'll
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carry my ideas out yet I will return. I'll show you what can be
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done. You with your little peddling notions, you are interfering with me.
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I will return. Hei the manager came out. He did me the honor
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to take me under the arm and lead me aside. He is very low,
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very low, he said. He considered it necessary to sigh, but
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neglected to be consistently sorrowful. We have done all we could for him,
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haven't we. But there is no disguising the fact mister Kirks has done more
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harm than good to the company. He did not see the time was not
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ripe for vigorous action. Cautiously, cautiously, that's my principle. We must
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be cautious. Yet the district is close to us for a time, upon
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the whole the trade will suffer. I don't deny there the remarkable quantity of
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ivory, mostly fossil. We must save it at all events. But look
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how precarious the position is, and why because the method is unsound? Do
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you, said I, looking at the shore, call it unsound method?
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Without doubt? He exclaimed hotly. Don't you no method at all? I
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murmured after a while, exactly, he exulted. I anticipated this shows a
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complete want of judgment. It is my duty to point it out in the
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proper quarter. Oh, said I. That fellow what's his name, the
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brickmaker, will make a readable report for you. He appeared confounded for a
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moment. It seemed to me I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile,
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and I turned mentally to Kurt's for relief, positively for relief. Nevertheless,
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I think Kurt is a remarkable man, I said with emphasis. He started
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dropped on me a heavy glance, said very quietly he was, and turned
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his back on me. My hour of favor was over. I found myself
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lumped along with Kurts as a partisan of methods for which the time was not
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ripe. I was unsound, Ah, but it was something to have at
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least a choice of nightmares. I had turned to the wilderness, really,
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not to mister Kurtz, who I was ready to admit was as good as
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buried. And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also were
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buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable way
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of pressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence
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of victorious corruption, that darkness of an impenetrable night. The Russian tapped me
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on the shoulder. I heard him mumbling and stammering something about brother Seamen.
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Couldn't conceive knowledge of matters that would affect mister Kurtz's reputation. I waited for
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him. Evidently mister Kurtz was not in his grave. I suspect that for
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him, mister Kurtz was one of the immortals. Well said, I at
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last speak out, as it happens. I am mister Kurtz's friend in a
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way. He stated with a good deal of formality that had we not been
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of the same profession, he would have kept the matter to himself without regarding
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consequences. He suspected there was an active ill will towards him on the part
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of these white men. That you are right, I said, remembering a
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certain conversation I had overheard. The manager thinks you are to be hanged.
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He showed a concern at this intelligence, which amused me at first. I
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had better get out of the way quietly, he said, earnestly. I
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can do no more for Kurtz now, and they would soon find some excuse.
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What's to stop them. There's a military post three hundred miles from here.
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Well, upon my word, said I, perhaps you had better go.
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If you have any friends amongst the savages nearby plenty, he said.
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They are simple people, and I want nothing, you know, he stood,
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biting his lip. Then I don't want any harm to happen to these
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whites here. But of course I was thinking of mister Kurtz's reputation. But
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you are a brother, seaman, and all right, said I. After
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a time, mister Kurtz's reputation is safe with me. I did not know
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how truly I spoke. He informed me, lowering his voice, that it
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was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer. He
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hated sometimes the idea of being taken away and then again. But I don't
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understand these matters. I am a simple man. He thought it would scare
32:20
you away, that you would give it up. Thinking him dead, I
32:23
could not stop him. Oh, I had an awful time of it this
32:29
last month. Very well, I said, He is all right now?
32:36
Yes, he muttered, not very convinced. Apparently, thanks, said I
32:42
I shall keep my eyes open. Won't good? Quiet? Eh? He
32:46
urged anxiously. It would be awful for his reputation if anybody here. I
32:52
promised a complete discretion with great gravity. I have a canoe and three black
32:59
fellows was waiting, not very far off. I am off. Could you
33:06
give me a few martini Henry Cartridges? I could, and did with proper
33:12
secrecy. He helped himself with a wink at me to a handful of my
33:16
tobacco between sailors, you know, good English tobacco. At the door of
33:24
the pilot house, he turned round. I say, haven't you a pair
33:29
of shoes you could spare? He raised one leg. Look. The soles
33:35
were tied with knotted strings sandalwise under his bare feet. I rooted out an
33:40
old pair, at which he looked with admiration. Before tucking it under his
33:45
left arm. One of his pockets, bright red, was bulging with cartridges.
33:52
From the other, dark blue, peeped thousands inquiry. Met Sena at
33:57
Cena, he seemed to think himself excellently well equipped for a renewed encounter with
34:04
the wilderness. Ah, I'll never never meet such a man again. You
34:13
ought to have heard him recite poetry his own too, it was he told
34:17
me poetry. He rode his eyes at the recollection of these delights. Oh,
34:24
he enlarged my mind. Good Bye, said I. He shook hands
34:32
and vanished in the night. Sometimes I asked myself whether I had ever really
34:38
seen him, whether it was possible to meet such a phenomenon. When I
34:45
woke up shortly after midnights, his warning came to my mind, with its
34:49
hint of danger that seemed in the starred darkness, real enough to make me
34:53
get up for the purpose of having a look round on the hill. A
34:58
big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a crooked corner of the station house. One
35:04
of the agents, with a picket of a few of our blacks armed for
35:07
the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory. But deep within the forest,
35:13
red gleams that wavered, that seemed to sink and rise from the ground.
35:17
Amongst confused columnar shapes of intense blackness showed the exact position of the camp
35:23
where mister Kurtz's adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil. The monotonous beating of a
35:30
big drum filled the air with muffled shocks and a lingering vibration, a steady
35:36
droning sound of many men chanting each to himself. Some weird incantation came out
35:40
from the black flat wall of the woods, as the humming of bees comes
35:45
out of a hive, and had a strange narcotic effect upon my half awake
35:50
senses. I believe I dozed off leaning over the rail till an abrupt burst
35:55
of yells and overwhelming outbreak of a pent up and mysterious frenzy woke me up
36:01
in a bewildered wonder. It was cut short all at once, and the
36:07
low droning went on with an effect of audible and soothing silence. I glanced
36:13
casually into the little cabin. A light was burning within, but mister Kurtz
36:17
was not there. I think I would have raised an outcry if I had
36:22
believed my eyes, but I didn't believe them at first. The thing seemed
36:27
so impossible. The fact is I was completely unnerved by a sheer, blank
36:32
fright, pure abstract terror, unconnected with any distinct shape of physical danger.
36:39
What made this emotion so overpowering was, how shall I define it? The
36:45
moral shock I received, as if something altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought,
36:51
and odious to the soul had been thrust upon me unexpectedly. This lasted,
36:57
of course, the merest fraction of a set, and then the usual sense
37:01
of commonplace, deadly danger. The possibility of a sudden onslaught and massacre,
37:07
or something of the kind which I saw impending, was positively welcome and composing.
37:14
It pacified me, in fact, so much that I did not raise
37:17
an alarm. There was an agent buttoned up inside an ulster and sleeping on
37:23
a chair on deck, within three feet of me. The yells had not
37:28
awakened him. He snored very slightly. I left him to his slumbers and
37:32
leaped ashore. I did not betray mister Kurtz. It was ordered I should
37:38
never betray him. It was written, I should be loyal to the nightmare
37:44
of my choice. I was anxious to deal with this shadow by myself alone,
37:50
and to this day I don't know why I was so jealous of sharing
37:53
with any one the peculiar blackness of that experience. As soon as I got
38:00
on the bank, I saw a trail, a broad trail through the grass.
38:05
I remember the exultation with which I said to myself, he can't walk,
38:10
he is crawling on all fours. I've got him. The grass was
38:16
wet with dew. I strode rapidly with clinched fists. I fancy I had
38:22
some vague notion of falling upon him and giving him a drubbing. I don't
38:27
know. I had some imbecile thoughts. The knitting old woman with the cat
38:32
obtruded herself upon my memory as a most improper person to be sitting at the
38:37
other end of such an affair. I saw a row of pilgrims squirting lead
38:42
in the air out of Winchester's held to the ship. I thought I would
38:45
never get back to the steamer, and imagined myself living alone and unarmed in
38:51
the woods to an advanced age. Such silly things, you know, And
38:58
I remember I confounded the of the drum with the beating of my heart,
39:01
and was pleased at its calm regularity. I kept to the track, though
39:08
then stopped to listen. The night was very clear, a dark blue space,
39:15
sparkling with dew and starlight, in which black things stood very still.
39:20
I thought I could see a kind of motion ahead of me. I was
39:23
strangely cocksure of everything that night. I actually left the track and ran in
39:28
a great semicircle, I verily believe, chuckling to myself, so as to
39:34
get in front of that stir of that motion I had seen, if indeed
39:38
I had seen anything, I was circumventing Kurts as though it had been a
39:44
boyish game. I came upon him, and if he had not heard me
39:49
coming, I would have fallen over him too. But he got up in
39:52
time. He rose unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapor
40:00
exhaled by the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me,
40:06
while at my back the fires loomed between the trees, and the murmur of
40:10
many voices issued from the forest. I had cut him off cleverly, but
40:15
when actually confronting him, I seemed to come to my senses. I saw
40:21
the danger in its right proportion. It was by no means over yet Suppose
40:28
he began to shout, though he could hardly stand, there was still plenty
40:31
of vigor in his voice. Go away, hide yourself, he said,
40:39
in that profound tone. It was very awful. I glanced back. We
40:47
were within thirty yards from the nearest fire. A black figure stood up,
40:52
strolled on long black legs, waving long black arms across the glow. It
40:59
had horn antelope poems. I think on its head, some sorcerer, some
41:05
witch man, No doubt, it looked fiendlike enough. Do you know what
41:12
you are doing? I whispered perfectly, he answered, raising his voice for
41:20
that single word. It sounded to me far off and yet loud, like
41:24
a hail through a speaking trumpet. If he makes a row, we are
41:30
lost, I thought to myself. This clearly was not a case for fisticuffs,
41:36
even apart from the very natural aversion. I had to beat that shadow,
41:40
this wandering and tormented thing. You will be lost, I said,
41:45
utterly lost. One gets sometimes such a flash of inspiration. You know,
41:53
I did say the right thing, though indeed he could not have been more
41:58
irretrievably lost than he was at this very moment, when the foundations of our
42:01
intimacy were being laid. To endure, to endure, even to the end,
42:07
even beyond. I had immense plans, he muttered, irresolutely, Yes,
42:17
said I. But if you try to shout, I'll smash your head
42:22
with There was not a stick or a stone near. I will throttle you
42:28
for good, I corrected myself. I was on the threshold of great things,
42:36
he pleaded, in a voice of longing, with a wistfulness of tone
42:38
that made my blood run cold. And now for this stupid scoundrel, your
42:46
success in Europe is assured. In any case, I affirmed steadily. I
42:52
did not want to have the throttling of him, you understand, And indeed
42:58
it would have been very little useful any practical purpose. I tried to break
43:01
the spell, the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness that seemed to draw
43:07
him to its pitiless breast, by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts,
43:13
by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced,
43:20
had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush,
43:23
towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of
43:28
weird incantations. This alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted
43:35
aspirations. And don't you see the terror of the position was not in being
43:42
knocked on the head, though I had a very lively sense of that danger
43:45
too, But in this that I had to deal with a being to whom
43:51
I could not appeal in the name of anything high or low. I had,
43:55
even, like the niggers, to invoke him himself, his own exalted
44:00
and incredible degradation. There was nothing either above or below him. I knew
44:07
it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth, confound the man.
44:13
He had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone, and I
44:19
before him, did not know whether I stood on the ground or floated in
44:22
the air. I've been telling you what we said, repeating the phrases we
44:28
pronounced. But what's the good? They were common every day words, the
44:34
familiar, vague sounds, exchanged on every waking day of life. But what
44:38
of that they had behind them? To my mind? The terrific suggestiveness of
44:45
words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares. Soul. If anybody
44:52
ever struggled with a soul. I am the man, and I wasn't arguing
44:59
with a loun either believe me or not. His intelligence was perfectly clear,
45:06
concentrated, it is true, upon himself, with horrible intensity, yet clear.
45:12
And therein was my only chance, barring, of course, the killing
45:16
him there and then, which wasn't so good on account of unavoidable noise.
45:22
But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked
45:29
within itself, and by Heavens, I tell you it had gone mad.
45:35
I had for my sins, I suppose to go through the ordeal of looking
45:39
into myself. No eloquence could have been so withering to one's belief in mankind
45:46
as his final burst of sincerity. He struggled with himself too. I saw
45:53
it, I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that
45:59
knew no restraint, no faith, no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.
46:07
I kept my head pretty well, But when I had him at last
46:10
stretched on the couch, I wiped my forehead while my legs shook under me,
46:15
as though I had carried half a ton on my back down the hill.
46:21
And yet I had only supported him, his bony arm clasped round my
46:25
neck. He was not much heavier than a child. And of part one
46:34
of Chapter three