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

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Part two of chapter one of Heart of Darkness. I didn't want any more
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loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards the station. When near
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the buildings, I met a white man in such an unexpected elegance of get
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up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision.
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I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light outpack of jacket,
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snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots, no hat,
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hair parted, brushed, oiled under a green lined parasol, held in a
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big white hand. He was amazing and had a penholder behind his ear.
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I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was the company's chief
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accountants, and that all the bookkeeping was done at this station. He had
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come out for a moment, he said, to get a breath of fresh
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air. The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion of sedentary desk life.
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I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all. Only it was
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from his lips that I first heard the name of the man who was so
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indissolubly connected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respected the fellow.
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Yes, I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair.
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His appearance was certainly that of a head dresser's dummy. But in the
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great demoralization of the land, he kept up his appearance. That's backbone,
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his starched collars and got up shirt fronts were achievements of character. He had
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been out nearly three years, and later I could not help asking him how
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he managed to sport shut linen. He had just the faintest blush and said
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modestly, I've been teaching one of the native women about the station. It
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was difficult. She had a distaste for the work. Thus this man had
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verily accomplished something, and he was devoted to his books, which were in
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apple pie order. Everything else in the station was in a muddle. Heads,
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things, buildings, strings of dusty niggers with splay feets arrived and departed
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a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads and brass wire set into
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the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory.
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I had to wait in the station for ten days, an eternity. I
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lived in a hut in the yard, but to the out of the chaos.
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I would sometimes get into the accountant's office. It was built of horizontal
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planks, and so badly put together that as he bent over his high desk,
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he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There
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was no need to open the big shutter to see it was hot. There,
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too, big flies buzzed fiendishly and did not sting, but stabbed.
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I sat generally on the floor, while of faultless appearance, and even slightly
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scented, perching on a high stool, he wrote, He wrote, Sometimes
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he stood up for exercise when a truckled bed with a sick man, some
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invalid agent from up country was put in there. He exhibited a gentle annoyance.
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The groans of this sick person, he said, distract my attention,
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and without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in this climate.
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One day, he remarked, without lifting his head in the interior,
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you will no doubt meet mister Kurtz. On my asking who mister Kurtz was,
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he said he was a first class agent's and seeing my disappointment at this
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information, he added, slowly, laying down his pen, he is a
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very remarkable person. Further questions elicited from him that mister Kurtz was at present
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in charge of a trading post, a very important one in the true ivory
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country at the very bottom of there sends in as much ivory as all the
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others put together. He began to write again. The sick man was too
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ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace. Suddenly there was
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a growing murmur of voices and a great trampling of feet. A caravan had
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come in. A violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out on the other side
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of the planks. All the carriers were speaking together, and in the midst
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of the uproar, the mementable voice of the chief agent was heard, giving
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it up tearfully for the twentieth time that day. He rode slowly. What
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a frightful row, he said. He crossed the room gently to look at
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the sick man, and returning, said to me, he does not hear
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what dead? I asked, startled, No, not yet, he answered,
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with great composure, then alluding with the toss of the head to the
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tumult in the station yard. When one has got to make correct entries,
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one comes to hate those savages, hate them to the death. He remained
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thoughtful for a moment. When you see mister Kurtz, he went on,
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tell him from me that everything here he glanced at the desk, is very
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satisfactory. They don't like to write to him. With those messengers of ours.
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You never know who may get hold of your letter. At that central
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station, he stared at me for a moment with his mild bulging eyes.
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Oh oh, he will go far, very far, he began again.
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He will be a somebody in the administration before long they above the council in
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Europe, you know, mean him to be. He turned to his work.
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The noise outside had ceased, and presently, in going out, I
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stopped at the door, in the steady buzz of flies. The homeward bound
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agent was lying, finished and insensible. The other, bent over his books,
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was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions. And fifty feet below the
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doorstep I could see the still treetops of the grove of death. Next day
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I left that station at last with a caravan of sixty men for a two
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hundred mile tramp. No use telling you much about that. Paths paths everywhere,
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A stamped in work of paths, spreading over the empty land, through
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the long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly
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ravines, up and down stony hills, ablaze with heat and a solitude,
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a solitude, nobody, not a hut. The population had cleared out a
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long time ago. Well, if a lot of mysterious niggers, armed with
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all kinds of fearful weapons, suddenly took to traveling on the road between Deal
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and Gravesend, catching the yukele's right and left to carry heavy loads for them,
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I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon. Only
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here the dwellings were gone too. Still I passed through several abandoned villages.
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There's something pathetically childish in the ruins of grass walls, day after day,
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with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each
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pair under a six pound load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike,
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camp, march now and then a carrier dead in harness, at rest in
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the long grass near the path, with an empty water good and his long
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staff lying by his side. A great silence around and above, perhaps on
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some quiet night, the tremor of far off drums sinking, swelling, a
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tremor, vast, faint, a sound, weird, appealing, suggestive and
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wild, and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in
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a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on
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the path with an armed escort of lush Zanzabaris, very hospitable and festive,
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not to say drunk, was looking after the upkeep of the road. He
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declared, can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body
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of a middle aged Negro with a bullet hole in the forehead, upon which
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I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement.
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I had a white companion too, not a bad chap, but rather
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too fleshy, and with the exasperating habit of fainting on the hot hillsides miles
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away from the least bit of shade and water. Annoying, you know,
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to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man's head while he's coming
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too. I couldn't help asking him once what he meant by coming there at
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all? To make money? Of course, what do you think, he
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said, scornfully. Then he got fever and had to be carried in a
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hammock slung under a pole. As he weighed sixteen stone. I had no
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end of rows with the carriers. They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off
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with their loads in the night. Quite a mutiny. So one evening I
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made a speech in English with gestures, not one of which was lost to
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the sixty pair of eyes before me, And the next morning I started the
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hammock off in front all right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole
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concern wrecked in a bush man hammock, groans, blankets, horrors. The
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heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was very anxious for me to
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kill somebody. But there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near. I remembered
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the old doctor. It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes
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of individuals. On the spot, I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.
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However, all that is to know purpose. On the fifteenth day I came
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in sight of the Big River again and hobbled into the central station. It
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was on a back water, surrounded by scrub and forest, with a pretty
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border of smelly mud on one side and on the three others enclosed by a
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crazy fence of rushes. A neglected gap was all the gait it had,
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and the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabby
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devil was running that show. White men with long staves in their hands,
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appeared languidly from amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me,
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and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of them, a stout,
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excitable chap with black mustaches, informed me with great volubility and many digressions.
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As soon as I told him who I was, that my steamer was
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at the bottom of the river. I was thunderstruck. What how why?
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Oh, it was all right. The manager himself was there, all quite
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correct. Everybody had behaved splendidly. Splendidly, you must, he said,
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in agitation, Go and see the general manager at once. He is waiting.
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I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once. I
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fancy I see it now, but I am not sure, not at all.
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Certainly the affair was too stupid when I think of it, to be
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altogether natural. Still, but at the moment it presented itself simply as a
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confounded nuisance. The steamer was sunk. They had started two days before in
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a sudden hurry up the river with the manager on board, in charge of
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some volunteer skipper, and before they had been out three hours, they tore
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the bottom out of her on stones, and she sank near the south bank.
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I asked myself what I was to do there now my boat was lost.
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As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do in fishing my
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mind command out of the river. I had to set about it the very
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next day. That and the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station
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took some months. My first interview with the manager was curious. He did
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not ask me to sit down after my twenty mile walk that morning. He
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was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice.
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He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes of the usual
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blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall
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on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times,
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the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was
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only an indefinable faint expression of his lips, something stealthy. A smile.
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Not a smile, I remember it, but I can't explain. It was
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unconscious. This smile was though just after he had said something, it got
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intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches, like
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a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear
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absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader from his youth up, employed in
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these parts. Nothing more. He was obeyed. Yet he inspired neither love,
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nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was its
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uneasiness, not a definite mistrusts, just uneasiness. Nothing more. You have
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no idea how effective such a faculty can be. He had no genius for
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organizing, for initiative, or for order, even that was evident in such
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things as the fplorable state of the station. He had no learning and no
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intelligence. His position had come to him. Why, perhaps because he was
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never ill, He had served three terms of three years out there, Because
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triumphant health in the general route of constitutions is a kind of power in itself.
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When he went home on leave, he rioted on a large scale pompously
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jack ashore, with a difference in externals. Only this one could gather from
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his casual talk he originated nothing. He can keep the routine going, that's
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all. But he was great. He was great by this little thing that
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it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave
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that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made
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one pause. For out there there were no external checks. Once, when
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various tropical diseases had laid low almost every agent in the station, he was
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heard to say, men who come out here should have no entrails. He
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sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though it had been a
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door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. You fancied you had
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seen things. But the seal was on. When annoyed at meal times by
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the constant quarrels of the white men about precedents, he ordered an immense round
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table to be made, for which a special house had to be built.
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This was the station's mess room, where he sat, was the first place
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the rest were nowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He
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was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his boy and
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over fed young Negro from the coast, to treat the white men under his
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very eyes, with provoking insolence. He began to speak as soon as he
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saw me. I had been very long on the road. He could not
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wait, had to start without me. The up river stations had to be
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relieved. There had been so many delays already that he did not know who
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was dead and who was alive, and how they got on, and so
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on and so on. He paid no attention to my explanations, and,
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playing with a stick of sealing wax, repeated several times that the situation was
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very grave, fairy grave. There were rumors that a very important station was
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in jeopardy, and its chief, mister Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it
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was not true. Mister Kurtz was. I felt weary and irritable. Hang
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Kurtz, I thought. I interrupted him by saying, I had heard of
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mister Kurtz on the coast. Ah, so they talk of him down there,
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he murmured to himself. Then he began again, assuring me mister Kurtz
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was the best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest importance
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to the company. Therefore, I could understand his anxiety. He was,
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he said, very very uneasy. Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a good
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deal, exclaimed, Ah, mister Kurtz broke the stick of sealing wax and
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seemed dumbfounded by the accident. Next thing, he wanted to know how long
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it would take to I interrupted him again, being hungry, you know,
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and kept on my feet too. I was getting savage. How can I
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tell? I said, I haven't even seen the wreck yet. Some months,
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no doubt. All this talk seemed to me so futile. Some months
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he said, well, let us say three months before we can make a
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start. Yes, that ought to do the affair. I flung out of
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his hut. He lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of
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verandah muttering to myself my opinion of him, he was a chattering idiot.
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Afterwards, I took it back when it was borne in upon me, startlingly
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with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite for the affair. I
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went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back
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on that station. In that way, only it seemed to me I could
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keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still one must look about
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sometimes, And then I saw this station, these men strolling aimlessly about in
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the sunshine of the yard, I asked myself sometimes what in all meant?
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They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like
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a lot of faithless pilgrims, bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word ivory
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rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they
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were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all like
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a whiff from some corpse. By Jove, I've never seen anything so unreal
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in my life, and outside the silent wilderness surrounding, this cleared speck on
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the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth,
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waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion. Oh these months,
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well, never mind. Various things happened. One evening, a grass shed
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full of Calaco cotton prints, bees, and I don't know what else,
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burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have thought the earth had opened
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to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my pipe
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quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all cutting capers in the lights
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with their arms lifted high. When the stout man with mustaches came tearing down
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to the river, a tin pail in his hand, assured me that everybody
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was behaving splendidly. Splendidly, dipped about a quart of water and tore back
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again. I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail.
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I strolled up. There was no hurry, you see. The thing had
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gone off like a box of matches. It had been hopeless from the very
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first. The flame had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everything,
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and collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers, glowing fiercely.
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It was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire
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in some way, but be that as it may, he was screeching most
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horribly. I saw him later for several days, sitting in a bit of
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shade, looking very sick and trying to recover himself. Afterwards, he arose
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and went out, and the wilderness, without a sound, took him into
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its bosom again. As I approached the glow from the dark, I found
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myself at the back of two men talking. I heard the name of Kurts
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pronounced, then the words take advantage of this unfortunate accident. One of the
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men was the manager. I wished him a good evening. Did you ever
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see anything like it? Say? It was incredible, he said, and
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walked off. The other man remained he was a first class agent, young
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gentlemanly bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He
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was stand offish with the other agents, and they on their side said he
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was the manager's spy upon them. As to me, I had hardly ever
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spoken to him before we got into talk, and by and by we strolled
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away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me to his room, which
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was in the main building of the station. He struck a match, and
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I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silver mounted dressing case,
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but also a whole candle all to himself. Just at that time the manager
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was the only man supposed to have any right to candles. Native mats covered
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the clay walls. A collection of spears, assgades, shiels knives was hung
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up in trophies. The business entrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks,
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so I had been informed. But there wasn't a fragment of a brick
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anywhere in the station, and he had been there more than a year waiting.
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It seems he could not make bricks without something. I don't know what,
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straw maybe. Anyway, it could not be found there, and as
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it was not likely to be sent from Europe, it did not appear clear
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to me what he was waiting for. An act of special creation perhaps.
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However, they were all waiting, all the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of them,
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for something, and upon my word, it did not seem an uncongenial
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occupation from the way they took it, though, the only thing that ever
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came to them was disease. As far as I could see. They beguiled
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the time by backbiding and in figuring against each other in a foolish kind of
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way. There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing came
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of it. Of course, it was as unreal as everything else, as
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the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern as their talk, as their government,
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as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get
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appointed to a trading post where ivory was to be had, so that they
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could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that
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account. But as to effectually lifting a little finger, oh no, By
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heavens, there was something, after all in the world allowing one man to
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steal a horse while another must not look at a halter steal a horse straight
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out, very well, he has done it. Perhaps he can ride.
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But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most
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charitable of saints into a kick. I had no idea why he wanted to
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be sociable, but as we chatted in there, it suddenly occurred to me
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the fellow was trying to get at something, in fact pumping me. He
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alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was supposed to know there,
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putting leading questions as to my acquaintances in the sepulchral city. So on his
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little eyes glittered like mica discs with curiosity, though he tried to keep up
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a bit of superciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon I
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became awfully curious to see what he would find out from me. I couldn't
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possibly imagine what I had in me to make it worth his while. It
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was very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth, my
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body was full only of chills, and my head had nothing in it but
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that wretched steamboat business. It was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless
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prevaricator. At last he got angry, and to conceal a moment of furious
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annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch of
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oils on a panel representing a woman draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch.
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The background was somber, almost black. The movement of the woman was
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stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister. It
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arrested me, and he stood by civilly holding an empty half pint champagne bottle
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medical comforts, with the candle stuck in it. To my question, he
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said, mister Kurtz had painted this in this very station more than a year
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ago, while waiting for means to go to his trading post. Tell me,
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pray, said I. Who is this, mister Kurtz, the chief
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of the inner station, He answered, in a short tone, looking away.
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Much obliged, I said, laughing, and you are the brickmaker of
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the central station. Every one knows that he was silent for a while He
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is a prodigy, he said, at last, he is an emissary of
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pity and science and progress, and devil knows what else we want. He
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began to declaim suddenly for the guidance of the cause entrusted to us by Europe,
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so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.
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Who says that? I asked lots of them, he replied, some
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even write that. And so he comes here a special bee, as you
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ought to know? Why ought I to know? I interrupted, really surprised
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he paid no attention. Yes, to day, he is chief of the
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best station. Next year he will be assistant manager two years more. And
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but I dare say you know what he will be in two years time.
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You are of the new gang, the gang of virtue. The same people
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who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh, don't say no, I've
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mine own eyes to trust. Lights dawned upon me. My dear aunt's influential
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acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect upon that young man. I nearly burst into
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a laugh. Do you read the company's confidential correspondence? I asked. He
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hadn't a word to say. It was great fun. When mister Kurtz,
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I continued severely. It's general, manager, you won't have the opportunity.
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He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. The moon had
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risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring water on the glow. Whence
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proceeded, a sound of hissing steam ascended in the moonlight. The beaten nigger
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groaned. Somewhere, What a row the brute makes, said the indefatigable man
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with the mustaches appearing near us. Serve him right, transgression punishment, bang,
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pitiless, pitiless, That's the only way this will prevent all conflagrations for
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the future. I was just telling the manager. He noticed my companion and
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became crestfallen all at once. Not in bed yet, he said, with
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a kind of servile heartiness. It's so natural. Ah, danger agitation,
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he vanished. I went on to the river side, and the other followed
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me. I heard a scathing murmur at my ear. Heap of muffs go
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to the Pilgrims could be seen in nots gesticulating discussing. Several had stilled their
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staves in their hands. I verily believe they took these sticks to bed with
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them. Beyond the fence. The forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight,
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and through that dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard,
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the silence of the land went home to one's very heart, its mystery,
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its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. The hurt nigger moaned
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feebly somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend
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my pace away from there. I felt a hand introducing itself under my arm.
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My dear sir, said the fellow. I don't want to be misunderstood,
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and especially by you, who we'll see, mister Kurtz, long before
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I can have that pleasure. I wouldn't like him to get a false idea
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of my disposition. I let him run on this paper, Machet Mestopheles,
31:52
And it seemed to me that if I tried, I could poke my forefinger
31:56
through him and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt. Maybe he
32:04
don't, you see, had been planned to be the assistant manager by and
32:07
by under the present man. And I could see that the coming of that
32:12
Kurtz had upset them both not a little. He talked precipitately, and I
32:16
did not try to stop him. I had my shoulders against the wreck of
32:21
my steamer, hauled up on the slope, like a carcass of some big
32:24
river animal. The smell of mud, of prime evil, mud, by
32:30
jove was in my nostrils. The high stillness of primeval forests was before my
32:36
eyes. There were shiny patches on the black creek. The moon had spread
32:40
over everything, a thin layer of silver over the rank grass, over the
32:45
mud open, the wall of matted vegetation, standing higher than the wall of
32:50
a temple. Over the great river I could see through a somber gap,
32:54
glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by, without a murmur. All
33:00
this was great, expectant mute. While the man jabbered about himself. I
33:07
wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity looking at us too,
33:12
were meant as an appeal or as a menace? What were we who had
33:16
strayed in there? Could we handle that dumb thing or would it handle us?
33:22
I felt, how big, how confoundly big, was that thing that
33:27
couldn't talk, and perhaps was deaf as well? What was in there?
33:34
I could see a little ivory coming out from there, and I had heard
33:37
mister Kurtz was in there. I had heard enough about it too, God
33:43
knows. Yet somehow it didn't bring any image with it, no more than
33:47
if I had been told an angel or a fiend was in there. I
33:52
believed it in the same way one of you might believe there are inhabitants in
33:54
the planet Mars. I knew once a Scotch salemanaker, who was certain dead
34:00
sure there were people in Mars. If you asked him for some idea how
34:06
they looked and behaved, he would get shy and mutter something about walking on
34:12
all fours. If you as much as smiled, he would, though a
34:16
man of sixty, offer to fight you. I would not have gone so
34:21
far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to
34:24
a lie. You know, I hate, detest, and can't bear a
34:30
lie. Not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply
34:35
because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavor of
34:39
mortality in lies, which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world,
34:45
what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like
34:51
biting something rotten would do temperament, I suppose well, I went near enough
34:58
to it by letting the young fool believe anything he liked to imagine. As
35:01
to my influence in Europe, I became in an instant as much of a
35:07
pretense as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a
35:13
notion it would somehow be of help to that Kurtz, whom at that time
35:16
I did not see. You understand, he was just a word for me.
35:22
I did not see the man in the name any more than you do.
35:27
Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see
35:30
anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream,
35:35
making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream
35:39
sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of
35:45
struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible, which is of
35:52
the very essence of dreams. He was silent for a while. Now it
35:59
is in possible. It is impossible to convey the life sensation of any given
36:04
epoch of one's existence, that which makes its truth, its meaning, its
36:09
subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible we live as we dream alone.
36:19
He paused again, as if reflecting, then added, of course in this
36:23
you fellas see more than I could. Then you see me whom you know.
36:30
It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another
36:35
for a long time. Already, he sitting apart, had been no more
36:38
to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The
36:45
others might have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened. I
36:50
listened, on the watch for the sentence, for the word that would give
36:52
me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape
36:58
itself without human lips in the heavy night air of the river. Yes,
37:04
I let him run on. Marlow began again, and think what he pleased
37:08
about the powers that were behind me. I did, And there was nothing
37:15
behind me. There was nothing but that wretched, old, mangled steamboat I
37:20
was leaning against. While he talked fluently about the necessity for every man to
37:24
get on, and when one comes out here you can see it is not
37:29
to gaze at the moon. Mister Kurtz was a universal genius, but even
37:35
a genius would find it easier to work with adequate tools intelligent men. He
37:40
did not make bricks. Why there was a physical impossibility in the way,
37:46
as I was well aware. And if he did secretarial work for the manager,
37:52
it was because no sensible man rejects wantonly the confidence of his superiors.
37:58
Did I see it? I saw it? What more did I want?
38:04
What I really wanted was rivets by heaven, rivets to get on with the
38:07
work, to stop the whole rivets I wanted. There were cases of them
38:14
down at the coast, cases piled up, burst split. You kicked a
38:19
loose rivet in every second step in that station yard. On the hillside,
38:23
rivets had rolled into the grove of death. You could fill your pockets with
38:29
rivets for the trouble of stooping down. And there wasn't one rivet to be
38:34
found where it was wanted. We had plates that would do, but nothing
38:37
to fasten them with. And every week the messenger, a long negro let,
38:44
her bag on shoulder and staff in hand, left our station for the
38:47
coast, And several times a week a coast caravan came in with trade goods,
38:52
ghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it. Glass
38:58
beads, value about penny court, confounded, spotted cotton, handkerchiefs, and
39:02
no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that was wanted to set that
39:08
steamboat afloat. He was becoming confidential now, But I fancy my unresponsive attitude
39:16
must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me
39:22
he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said,
39:28
I could see that very well. But what I wanted was a certain
39:31
quantity of rivets. And rivets were what really mister Kurtz wanted, if he
39:37
had only known it now. Letters went to the coast every week. My
39:43
dear sir, he cried, I write from dictation. I demanded rivets.
39:50
There was a way for an intelligent man. He changed his manner, became
39:54
very cold, and suddenly began to talk about a hippopotamus. Wondered whether sleeping
40:00
on board the steamer. I stuck to my salvage night and day. I
40:05
wasn't disturbed. There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting
40:09
out on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds. The pilgrims
40:15
used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands
40:20
on at him. Some had even sat up a night's for him. All
40:23
this energy was wasted, though that animal has a charmed life, he said.
40:30
But you can say this only are brutes in this country. No man
40:35
you apprehend me, No man here bears a charmed life. He stood there
40:40
for a moment in the moonlight, with his delicate hooked nose set a little
40:45
askew, and his mica eyes glittering without a wink. Then with a curt
40:50
good night, he strode off. I could see he was disturbed and considerably
40:57
puzzled, which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days.
41:01
It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend,
41:07
the battered, twisted, ruined tin pot steamboat. I clambered on board.
41:13
She rang under my feet like an empty Huntley and Palmer biscuit tin kicked along
41:17
a gutter. She was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty
41:22
in shape. But I had expended enough hard work on her to make me
41:27
love her. No influential friend would have served me better. She had given
41:32
me a chance to come out a bit to find out what I could do.
41:37
No, I didn't like work. I would rather laze about and think
41:40
of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work,
41:45
no man does. But I like what is in the work, the chance
41:51
to find yourself, your own reality, for yourself, not for others.
41:55
What no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show
42:00
and never can tell what it really means. I was not surprised to see
42:07
somebody sitting aft on the deck, with his legs dangling over the mud.
42:12
You see, I rather chummed with the few mechanics there were in that station,
42:16
whom the other pilgrims naturally despised on account of their imperfect manners. I
42:22
suppose this was the foreman, a boiler maker by trade, a good worker.
42:28
He was a lank, bony, yellow faced man, with big,
42:30
intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald as
42:36
the palm of my hand. But his hair, in falling, seemed to
42:39
have stuck to his chin and had prospered in the new locality, for his
42:45
beard hung down to his waist. He was a widower with six young children.
42:51
He had left them in charge of a sister of his to come out
42:53
there. And the passion of his life was pigeon flying. He was an
42:59
enthusias and a connoisseur. He would rave about pigeons after work hours. He
43:05
used sometimes to come over from his hut for a little talk about his children
43:09
and his pigeons. At work, when he had to crawl in the mud
43:14
under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up that beard of his
43:17
and a kind of white serviettes he brought for the purpose. It had loops
43:22
to go over his ears. In the evening he could be seen squatted on
43:25
the bank, rincing that wrapper in the creek with great care, then spreading
43:30
it solemnly on a bush to dry. I slapped him on the back and
43:37
shouted, we shall have rivets. He scrambled to his feet, exclaiming no
43:44
rivets, as though he couldn't believe his ears. Then, in a low
43:47
voice, you way, I don't know why we behave like lunatics. I
43:54
put my finger to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. Good for
44:00
you, he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot,
44:05
I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful
44:10
clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank
44:15
of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station.
44:21
It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels. A
44:25
dark figure obscured the lighted doorway of the manager's hut vanished, Then a second
44:31
or so after the doorway itself vanished too. We stopped, and the silence,
44:37
driven away by the stamping of our feet, flowed back again from the
44:42
recesses of the land. The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled
44:47
mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the
44:53
moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life. A rolling wave of
45:00
glance piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep
45:04
every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not
45:10
A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though
45:15
an ichtheosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. After
45:22
all, said the boilermaker, in a reasonable tone, Why shouldn't we get
45:25
the rivets? Why not? Indeed, I did not know of any reason
45:30
why we shouldn't. They'll come in three weeks, I said, confidently.
45:37
But they didn't. Instead of rivets, there came an invasion, an infliction
45:44
of visitation. It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section
45:50
headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes,
45:54
bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims, a quarrelsome band
46:00
of footsore, sulky niggers trode on the heels of the donkey. A lot
46:06
of tents, campstools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be
46:10
shot down in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little
46:15
over the muddle of the station. Five such installments came, with their absurd
46:21
air of disorderly flight, with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores
46:27
that one would think they were lugging after a raid into the wilderness for equitable
46:32
division. It was an inextricable mess of things decent in themselves, but that
46:39
human folly made look like the spoils of thieving. This devoted band called itself
46:45
the El Dorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy.
46:52
Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers. It was reckless
46:58
without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage. There was not
47:05
an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them,
47:09
and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the
47:13
world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire,
47:19
with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in
47:22
the burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise?
47:28
I don't know, but the uncle of our manager was leader of that
47:31
lot. In exterior, he resembled a butcher in a poor neighborhood, and
47:38
his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He carried his fat paunch with
47:43
ostentation on his short legs, and during the time his gang infested the station,
47:49
spoke to no one but his nephew. You could see these two roaming
47:52
about all day long with their heads close together in an everlasting confab. I
48:00
had given up worrying myself about the rivets. One's capacity for that kind of
48:05
folly is more limited than you would suppose. I said, hang and let
48:10
things slide. I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then
48:16
I would give some thought to Kerts. I wasn't very interested in him.
48:22
No, Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had
48:27
come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top
48:31
after all, and how he would set about his work When there end of chapter one