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

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Part one of chapter two of the Heart of Darkness. One evening, as
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I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, I heard voices approaching,
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and there were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank. I
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laid my head on my arm again and had nearly lost myself in a doze
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when somebody sat in my ear. As it were. I am as harmless
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as a little child. But I don't like to be dictated too. Am
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I the manager? Or am I not? I was ordered to send him
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there? It's incredible. I became aware that the two were standing on the
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shore alongside the fore part of the steamboat, just below my head. I
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did not move. It did not occur to me to move. I was
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sleepy. It is unpleasant, granted the uncle. He has asked the administration
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to be sent there, said the other, with the eye idea of showing
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what he could do. And I was instructed accordingly. Look at the influence
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that man must have. Is it not frightful? They both agreed it was
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frightful, then made several bizarre remarks make rain and fine weather. One man
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the council by the nose. Bits of absurd sentences that got the better of
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my drowsiness, so that I had pretty near the whole of my wits about
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me when the uncle said, the climate may do away with this difficulty for
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you. Is he alone there? Yes, answered the manager. He sent
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his assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms, clear
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this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of that
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sort. I had rather be alone than have the kind of men you can
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dispose of with me. It was more than a year ago. Can you
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imagine such impudence anything since? Then asked the other hoarsely. Ivory jerked the
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nephew. Lots of it, prime sort, lots most annoying from him,
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And with that questioned the heavy rumble invoice was the reply fired out, so
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to speak. Then silence they had been talking about Kurtz. I was broad
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awake by this time, but lying perfectly at ease, remained still having no
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inducement to change my position. How did that Ivory come all this way?
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Growled the elder man, who seemed very vexed. The other explained that it
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had come with a fleet of canoes in charge of an English half caste clerk.
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Kurtz had with him that Kurtz had apparently intended to return himself, the
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station being by that time bare of goods and stores, but after coming three
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hundred miles, had suddenly decided to go back, which he started to do
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alone in a small dugout with four paddlers, leaving the half caste to continue
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down the river with the ivory. The two fellows there seemed astounded at anybody
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attempting such a thing. They were at a loss for an adequate motive.
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As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time. It
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was a distinct glimpse, the dugout, four paddling savages, and the lone
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white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters on relief, on thoughts of
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home, perhaps setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his
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empty and desolate station. I did not know the motive. Perhaps he was
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just simply a fine fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake.
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His name, you understand, had not been pronounced once. He was that
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man half caste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted
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a difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably alluded to as that
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scoundrel. The scoundrel had reported that the man had been very ill, had
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recovered imperfectly. The two below me moved away then a few paces, and
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strolled back and forth. At some little distance I heard military posts. Doctor
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two hundred miles quite alone. Now unavoidable delays, nine months, no news,
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strange rumors. They approached again, just as the manager was saying,
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no one, as far as I know, unless a species of wandering trader,
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a pestilential fellow snapping ivory from the natives. Who was it they were
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talking about? Now? I gathered in snatches that this was some man supposed
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to be in Courts's district, and of whom the manager did not not approve.
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We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is
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hanged. For an example, he said, certainly grunted the other, get
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him hanged? Why not anything? Anything can be done in this country,
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That's what I say. Nobody here, you understand here can endanger your position,
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And why you stand the climate, you outlast them all. The danger
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is in Europe. But there before I left, I took care to They
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moved off and whispered. Then their voices rose again. The extraordinary series of
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delays is not my fault. I did my best. The fat man sighed
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very sad, and the pestiferous absurdity of his talk continued. The other he
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bothered me enough when he was here. Each station should be like a beacon
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on the road towards better things, a center for trade, of course,
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but also for humanizing, improving, instructing. Conceive you that ass and he
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wants to be the manager. No, it's here. He got choked by
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excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least bit. I was surprised
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to see how near they were right under me. I could have spat upon
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their hats. They were looking on the ground, absorbed in thought. The
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manager was switching his leg with a slender twig. His sagacious relative lifted his
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head. You have been well since you came out this time, he asked.
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The other gave a start. Who I oh, like a charm,
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Like a charm. But the rest, oh, my goodness, all sick
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that I so quick too, that I haven't the time to send them out
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of the country. It's incredible, HM, trust so grunted the uncle.
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Oh, my boy, trust to this I say trust to this. I
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saw him extend his short flipper of an arm for a gesture that took in
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the forest, the creek, the mud, the river seemed to beckon with
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a dishonoring flourish before the sunlit face of the land, a treacherous appeal to
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the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its
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heart. It was so startling that I leaped to my feet and looked back
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at the edge of the forest, as though I had expected an answer of
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some sort to that black display of confidence, You know, the foolish notions
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that come to one sometimes. The high stillness confronted these two figures with its
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ominous patients, waiting for the passing away of a fantastic invasion, they swore
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aloud together, not of sheer fright, I believe, then, pretending not
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to know anything of my existence, turned back to the station. The sun
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was low, and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging
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painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length that trailed behind them slowly over
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the tall grass, without bending a single blade. In a few days,
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the El Dorado expedition went into the patient wilderness that closed upon it as the
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sea closes over a diver. Long afterwards, the news came that all the
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donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable
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animals. They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what
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they deserved. I did not inquire. I was then rather excited at the
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prospect of me eating courts very soon. When I say very soon, I
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meet it comparatively. It was just two months from the day we left the
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creek when we came to the bank below Kurtz's station. Going up that river
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was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted
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on the earth and big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great
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silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy,
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sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches
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of the waterway ran on, deserted into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On
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silvery sandbanks, hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters
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flowed through a mob of wooded islands. You lost your way on that river
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as you would in a day desert, and butted all day long against shoals,
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trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off
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forever from everything you had known once somewhere far away, in another existence.
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Perhaps there were moments when once past came back to one, as it will
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sometimes when you have not a moment to spare for yourself. But it came
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in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the
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overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants and water and silence. And this
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stillness of life did not, in the least resemble a peace. It was
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the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at
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you with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it. Afterwards, I
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did not see it any more. I had no time. I had to
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keep guessing at the channel. I had to discern, mostly by inspiration,
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the signs of hidden banks. I watched for sunken stones. I was learning
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to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out when I shaved by a
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fluke, some infernal, sly old snag that would have ripped the life out
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of the tin pot steamboats and drowned all the pilgrims. I had to keep
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a look out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the
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night for next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things of that
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sort, to the mere incidence of the surface, the reality, the reality,
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I tell you, fades. The inner truth is hidden, luckily,
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luckily, But I felt it all the same. I felt often its mysterious
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stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows,
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performing on your respective tight ropes. For what is it half a crown a
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tumble. Try to be civil, Marlowe growled a voice, and I knew
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there was at least one listener awake besides myself. I beg your pardon.
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I forgot the heartache which makes up the rest of the price. And indeed,
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what does the price matter if the trick be well done. You do
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your tricks very well. And I didn't do badly either, since I managed
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not to sink that steamboat on my first trip, it's a wonder to me.
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Yet, imagine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a bad
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road. I sweated and shivered over that business considerably. I can tell you,
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after all, for a seaman to scrape the bottom of the thing that's
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supposed to float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No
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one may know of it, but you never forget the thumb, pay a
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blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of it,
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you wake up at night and think of it years after, and go hot
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and cold all over. I don't pretend to say that steamboat floated all the
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time. More than once she had to wait for a bit with twenty cannibals
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splashing around and pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way
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for a crew. Fine fellows cannibals in their place. They were men one
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could work with, and I am grateful to them. And after all they
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did not eat each other before my face. They had brought along a provision
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of hippo meat, which went rotten and made the mystery of the wilderness stink
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in my nostrils. Phuh, I can sniff it now. I had the
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manager on board, and three or four pilgrims with their staves all complete.
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Sometimes we came upon a station close by the bank, clinging to the skirts
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of the unknown, and the white men, rushing out of a tumble down
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hovel with great gestures of joy and surprise and welcome, seemed very strange,
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had the appearance of being held there captive by a spell. The word ivory
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would ring in the air for a while. And on we went again into
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the silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, between the high
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walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow claps, the ponderous beat of
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the stern wheel. Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense,
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running up high and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream,
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crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling on the floor
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of a lofty portico. It made you feel very small, very lost,
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And yet it was not altogether depressing that feeling. After all, if you
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were small, the grimy beetle crawled on, which was just what you wanted
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it to do. Where the pilgrims imagined its crawl too, I don't know,
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to some place where they expected to get something. I bet for me,
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it crawled towards kurts exclusively. But when the steam pipe started leaking.
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We crawled very slow. The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as
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if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our
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return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was
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very quiet there at night. Sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of
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trees would run up the river and remained sustained faintly, as if hovering in
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the air, high over our heads, till the first break of day.
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Whether it meant war, peace or prayer, we could not tell. The
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dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness. The woodcutters slept,
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their fires burned low. The snapping of a twig would make you start.
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We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspects
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of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men,
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taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the costs of profound
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anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend,
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there would be a glimpse of rush, walls of peaked grass, roofs,
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a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of
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hands, clapping of feet, stamping of bodies, swaying of eyes, rolling
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under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on
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the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us,
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praying to us, welcoming us. Who could tell we were cut off
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from the comprehension of our surroundings. We glided past like phantoms, wondering and
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secretly appalled that sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse.
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We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember. Because
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we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are
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gone, leaving hardly a sign and no memories, The earth seemed unearthly.
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We were accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster. But
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there there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly,
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and the men were no they were not inhuman. Well, you know,
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that was the worst of it, the suspicion of their not being inhuman.
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It could come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun
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and made horrid faces. But what thrilled you was just the thought of their
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humanity like yours, the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate
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uproar. Ugly, yes, it was ugly enough. But if you were
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mad enough, you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the
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faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim
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suspicion of there being a meaning in it, which you, you so remote
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from the night of first Ages, could comprehend. And why not? The
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mind of man is capable of anything, because everything is in it, all
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the past as well as all the future. What was there after all?
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Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage. Who can tell
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but truth, truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape
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and shudder. The man knows, and can look on without a wink.
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But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the
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shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff, with his
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own inborn strength. Principles won't do acquisitions. Clothes, pretty rags, rags
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that would fly off at the first good shake, no, you want a
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deliberate belief and appeal to me in this fiendish row? Is there very well,
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I hear, I admit, but I have a voice too, and
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for good or evil, mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of
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course, a fool, what with sheer, fright and fine sentiments, is
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always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a
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howl and a dance. Well, no, I didn't. Fine sentiments,
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You say, fine sentiments be hanged. I had no time. I had
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to mess about with white lead and strips of woolen blanket, helping to put
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bandages on those leaky steam pipes. I tell you, I had to watch
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the steering and circumvent those snags, and get the tin pot along by hook
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or by crook. There was surface truth enough in these things to save a
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wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was
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fireman. He was an improved specimen. He could fire up a vertical boiler.
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He was there below, and upon my word, to look at him
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was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather
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hat walking on his hind legs a few months of training had done for that
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really fine chap. He squintered at the steam gage and at the water gage
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with an evident effort of intrepidity, and he filed teeth too, the poor
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devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three
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ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his
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hands and stabbing his foot on the bank, instead of which he was hard
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at work a thraw to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was
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useful because he had been instructed. And what he knew was this, that
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should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler
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would get angry through the greatness of his thirst and take a terrible vengeance.
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So he sweated and fired up, and watched the glass fearfully with an impromptu
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charm made of rags tied to his arm and a piece of polished bone as
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big as a watch stuck flatways through his lower lip. While the wooded bank
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slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind the interminable miles of
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silence, and we crept on towards kurts, but the snags were thick,
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the water was treacherous and shallow. The boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky
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devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any time to
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peer into our creepy thoughts. Some fifty miles below the inner station, we
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came upon a hut of reeds and inclined and melancholy pole, with the unrecognizable
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tatters of what had been a flag of some sort flying from it, and
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a neatly stacked wood pile. This was unexpected. We came to the bank
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and on the stack of firewood found a flat piece of board with some faded
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pencil riding on it. When deciphered, it said, would for you hurry
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up? Approach cautiously. There was a signature, but it was illegible,
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not kurtz, a much longer word, hurry up? Where up the river?
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Approach cautiously? We had not done so, But the warning could not
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have been meant for the place where it could be only found after reproach.
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Something was wrong above, but what and how much? That was the question.
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We commented adversely upon the imbecility of that telegraphic style. The bush around,
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said nothing, and would not let us look very far either. A
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torn curtain of red twill hung in the doorway of the hut and flapped sadly
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in our faces. The dwelling was dismantled, but we could see a white
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man had lived there not very long ago. There remained a rude table,
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a plank on two posts, a heap of rubbish reposed in a dark corner,
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and by the door. I picked up a book, but had lost
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its covers, and the pages had been thumbed into a state of extremely dirty
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softness. But the back had been lovingly stitched afresh with white cotton thread,
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which looked clean. Yet it was an extraordinary find. Its title was an
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Inquiry into some points of Seamanship by a man Towsered tousand, some such name,
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master in his Majesty's Navy. The matter looked dreary reading enough, with
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illustrative diagrams and repulsive tables of figures, and the copy was sixty years old.
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I handled the amazing antiquity with the greatest possible tenderness, lest it should
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dissolve in my hands. Within towsand Or Towser was inquiring earnestly into the breaking
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strain of ships, chains and tackle, and other such matters. Not a
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very enthralling book, but at the first glance you could see there was a
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singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of going to work,
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which made these humble pages, thought out so many years ago, luminous
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with another than a professional light. The simple old sailor, with his talk
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of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a
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delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real. Such a book being there
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was wonderful enough. But still more astounding were the notes penciled in the margin
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and plainly referring to the text. I couldn't believe my eyes. They were
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in cipher. Yes, it looked like cipher. Fancy a man lugging with
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him a book of that description into this nowhere and studying it and making notes
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in cipher at that it was an extravagant mystery. I had been dimly aware
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for some time of a worrying noise, And when I lifted my eyes,
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I saw the woodpile was gone, and the manager, aided by all the
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pilgrims, was shouting at me from the river side. I slipped the book
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into my pocket. I assure you that to leave off reading was like tearing
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myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship. I started the
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lame engine ahead. There must be this miserable trader, this intruder, exclaimed
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the manager, looking back malevolently at the place we had left. He must
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be English. I said, it will not save him from getting into trouble
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if he is not careful, muttered the manager darkly. I observed, with
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assumed innocence, that no man was safe from trouble in this world. The
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current was more rapid now. The steamer seemed at her last gasp. The
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stern wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next
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beat of the boat. For in sober truth, I expected the wretched thing
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to give up every moment. It was like watching the last flickers of a
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life. But still we crawled. Sometimes I would pick out a tree a
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little way ahead to measure our progress towards kurtz By, but I lost it
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invariably before we got abreast. To keep the eye so long on one thing
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was too much for human patience, The manager displayed a beautiful resignation. I
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fretted and fumed, and took to arguing with myself whether or no I would
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talk openly with Kurtz. But before I could come to any conclusion, it
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occurred to me that my speech, or my silence, indeed any action of
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mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what anyone knew
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or ignored, What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such
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a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface,
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beyond my reach and beyond my power of meddling. Towards the evening of
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the second day, we judged ourselves about eight miles from Kurtz's station. I
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wanted to push on, but the manager looked grave and told me the navigation
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up there was so dangerous that it would be advisable, the sun being very
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low already, to wait where we were till next morning. Moreover, he
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pointed out that if the warning to approach cautiously were to be followed, we
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must approach in daylight, not at dusk or in the dark. This was
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sensible enough. Eight miles met nearly three hours of steaming for us, and
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I could also see suspicious ripples at the upper end of the reach. Nevertheless,
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I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay, and most unreasonably too,
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since one night more could not matter much after so many months, as we
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had plenty of wood, and caution was the word I brought up in the
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middle of the stream. The reach was narrow, straight, with high sides,
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like a railway cutting. The dusk came gliding into it long before the
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sun had set. The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility
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sat on the banks. The living trees lashed together by the creepers, and
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every living bush of the undergrowth might have been changed into stone, even to
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the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf. It was not sleep. It
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seemed unnatural, like a state of trans Not the faintest sound of any kind
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could be heard. You looked on amazed and began to suspect yourself of being
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deaf. Then the night came suddenly and struck you blind as well. About
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three in the morning, some large fish leaped, and the loud splash made
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me jump as though a gun had been fired. When the sun rose,
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there was a white fog, very warm and clamming, and more blinding than
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the night. It did not shift or drive. It was just there standing
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all round you, like something solid that eight or nine. Perhaps it lifted
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as a shutter lifts. We had a glimpse of the towering multitude of trees,
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of the immense mattered jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun
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hanging over it, all perfectly still. And then the white shudder came down
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again, smoothly, as if sliding and greased grooves. I ordered the chain
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which we had begun to heave in to be paid out again before it stopped
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running with a muffled rattle. A cry, a very loud cry as of
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infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A complaining
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clamor modulated in savage discords filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made
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my hair stir under my cap. I don't know how it struck the others.
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To me, it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed so suddenly,
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and apparently from all all sides at once, to this tumultuous and mournful
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uproar arise. It culminated in a hairried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking,
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which stopped short, leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes and obstinately
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listening to the nearly as appalling an excessive silence. Good God, what is
32:22
the meaning? Stammered at my elbow. One of the pilgrims, a little
32:28
fat man with sandy hair and red whiskers, who wore side spring boots and
32:32
pink pajamas tucked into his socks. Two others remained open mouthed a whole minute,
32:38
then dashed into the little cabin to rush out incontinently and stand darting scared
32:45
glances with winchesters at ready in their hands. What we could see was just
32:52
the steamer we were on, her outlines blurred as though she had been on
32:57
the point of dissolving, and a misty strip of water perhaps two feet broad
33:01
around her. And that was all. The rest of the world was nowhere,
33:07
as far as our eyes and ears were concerned, just nowhere, gone,
33:14
disappeared, swept off without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind. I
33:20
went forward and ordered the chain to be hauled in short so as to be
33:23
ready to trip the anchor, and move the steamboat at once. If necessary,
33:29
will they attack, whispered an awed voice. We will all be butchered
33:35
in this fog, murmured another. The faces twitched with a strain, the
33:40
hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious to
33:46
see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of
33:51
our crew, who were as much strange as to that part of the river
33:53
as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The white,
34:00
of course, greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of being painfully
34:05
shot by such an outrageous row. The others had an alert, naturally interested
34:12
expression, but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or
34:16
two who grinned as they hauled out the chain. Several exchanged short, grunting
34:22
phrases, which seemed to settle the matter to their satisfaction. Their headman,
34:29
a young, broad chested black, severely draped in dark blue fringed claws with
34:35
fierce nostrils, and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, stood
34:39
near me. Aha, I said, just for a good fellowship's sake,
34:45
catch him he snapped, with a blood shot widening of his eyes and a
34:50
flash of sharp teeth. Catch him, give him to us, to you,
34:55
eh, I asked, And what would you do with him? Eat
35:00
em? He said curtly, and leaning his elbow on the rail, looked
35:05
out into the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude. I would no
35:10
doubt have been properly horrified had it not occurred to me that he and his
35:15
chaps must be very hungry, that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for
35:21
at least this month past. They had been engaged for six months. I
35:27
don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as
35:30
we at the end of countless ages have they still belonged to the beginnings of
35:35
time, had no inherited experience to teach them as it were. And of
35:40
course, as long as there was a piece of paper written over in accordance
35:45
with some farcical law or other made down the river, it didn't enter anybody's
35:50
head to trouble how they would live. Certainly they had brought with them some
35:54
rotten hippo meat, which couldn't have lasted very long anyway, even if the
36:00
pilgrims hadn't, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity
36:05
of it overboard. It looked like a high handed proceeding, but it was
36:10
really a case of legitimate self defense. You can't breathe dead, hippo,
36:15
waking, sleeping, and eating and at the same time keep your precarious grip
36:21
on existence. Besides that, they had given them every week three pieces of
36:27
brass wire, each about nine inches long, and the theory was they were
36:31
to buy their provisions with that currency in riverside villages. You can see how
36:37
that worked. There were either no villages, or the people were hostile,
36:44
or the director, who like the rest of us, fed out of tins
36:46
with an occasional old he goat thrown in, didn't want to stop the steamer
36:52
for some more or less recondite reason. So unless they swallowed the wire itself
36:59
or made loop of it to snare the fishes with, I don't see what
37:02
good their extravagant salary could be to them. I must say it was paid
37:07
with a regularity worthy of a large and honorable tracking company. For the rest
37:14
the only thing to eat, though it didn't look eatable. In the least
37:16
I saw in their possession were a few lumps of some stuff, like half
37:22
cooked dough of a dirty lavender color. They kept wrapped in leaves, and
37:27
now and then swallowed a piece of but so small that it seemed done more
37:31
for the looks of the thing than for any serious purpose of sustenance. Why
37:37
in the name of all the gnawing devils of hunger they didn't go for us.
37:42
They were thirty to five and have a good tuck in for once.
37:46
Amazes me now when I think of it. They were big, powerful men,
37:52
with not much capacity to weigh the consequences with courage, with strength.
37:57
Even yet, though their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer
38:01
hard, and I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that
38:07
baffle probability, had come into play there. I looked at them with a
38:13
swift quickening of interest, not because it occurred to me I might be eaten
38:17
by them before very long, though I owned to you that just then I
38:22
perceived in a new light, as it were, how unwholesome the pilgrims looked.
38:28
And I hoped, yes, I positively hoped that my aspect was not
38:32
so what shall I say, so unappetizing, a touch of fantastic vanity,
38:40
which fitted well with the dream sensation that pervaded all my days at the time.
38:46
Perhaps I had a little fever too. One can't live with one's finger
38:52
everlastingly on one's pulse. I had often a little fever, or a little
38:58
touch of other things, the playful paw strokes of the wilderness, the preliminary
39:02
trifling before the more serious onslaught, which came in due course. Yes,
39:07
I looked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity
39:13
of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test
39:19
of an inexorable physical necessity, restraint, What possible restraint was it? Superstition,
39:28
disgust, patience, fear, or some kind of primitive honor. No
39:36
fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out. Disgust
39:39
simply does not exist where hunger is. And as to superstition, beliefs,
39:45
and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze.
39:52
Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its
39:58
black thoughts, somber and brooding ferocity. Well, I do. It takes
40:05
a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to
40:10
face bereavement, dishonor, and the perdition of one's soul than this kind of
40:15
prolonged hunger. Sad but true, And these chaps too, had no earthly
40:22
reason for any kind of scruple restraint. I would just as soon have expected
40:28
restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. But there was
40:34
the fact facing me, the fact dazzling to be seen, like the foam
40:38
on the depths of a sea, like a ripple on the unfathomable enigma,
40:44
A mystery greater when I thought of it, than the curious, inexplicable note
40:50
of desperate grief in this savage clamor that had swept bias on the river bank.
40:54
Behind the blind whiteness of the fog, two pilgrims were quarreling in hurried
41:02
whispers as to which bank left. No, No, how can you right?
41:08
Right? Of course, it is very serious, said the manager's voice
41:14
behind me. I would be desolated if anything should happen to mister Kurtz.
41:17
Before we came up. I looked at him and had not the slightest doubt
41:22
he was sincere. He was just the kind of man who would wish to
41:27
preserve appearances. That was his restraint. But when he muttered something about going
41:34
on at once, I did not even take the trouble to answer him.
41:38
I knew, and he knew, that it was impossible. Were we to
41:44
let go our hold of the bottom, we would be absolutely in the air
41:47
in space. We wouldn't be able to tell where we were going to,
41:52
whether up or down stream or a cross till we fetched against one bank or
41:58
the other, and then we wouldn't know at first which it was. Of
42:02
course, I had no move I had no mind for a smash up.
42:07
You couldn't imagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck. Whether we drowned at
42:13
once or not, we were sure to perry speedily in one way or another.
42:17
I authorize you to take all the risks, he said, after a
42:22
short silence. I refuse to take any, I said shortly, which was
42:28
just the answer he expected, though its tone might have surprised him. Well,
42:35
I must defer to your judgment. You are captain he said, with
42:38
a marked civility. I turned my shoulder to him in a sign of my
42:44
appreciation, and looked into the fog. How long would it last? It
42:51
was the most hopeless look out the approach to this, Kurt's grubbing for ivory
42:55
and the wretched bush was beset by as many dangers as though he had been
43:00
an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle. Will they attack, do you
43:07
think? Asked the manager in a confidential tone. I did not think they
43:13
would attack, for several obvious reasons. The thick fog was one. If
43:19
they left the bank and their canoes, they would get lost in it,
43:22
as we would be if we attempted to move Still. I had also judged
43:28
the jungle of both banks quite impenetrable, and yet eyes were in it,
43:32
eyes that had seen us. The riverside bushes were certainly very thick, but
43:38
the undergrowth behind was evidently penetrable. However, during the short lift, I
43:45
had seen no canoes anywhere in the reach, certainly not abreast of the steamer.
43:51
But what made the idea of attack inconceivable to me was the nature of
43:54
the noise of the cries we had heard. They had not the fierce character
44:00
boding immediate hostile intention. Unexpected, wild and violent as they had been,
44:07
they had given me an irresistible impression of sorrow. The glimpse of the steamboats
44:13
had for some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief. The danger, if
44:20
any, I expounded, was from the proximity to a great human passion let
44:24
loose. Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence, but more generally
44:31
takes the form of apathy. You should have seen the pilgrims stare. They
44:38
had no heart to grin or even to revile me. But I believe they
44:43
thought me gone mad with fright. Maybe I delivered a regular lecture, my
44:50
dear boys. It was no good bothering keep a lookouts. Well, you
44:55
may guess. I watched the fog for the signs of lifting as a cat
45:00
watches a mouse, but for anything else. Our eyes were of no more
45:04
use to us than if we had been buried miles deep in a heap of
45:07
cotton wool. I felt like it too, choking, warm, stifling.
45:15
Besides, all I said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to
45:20
fact. What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt to
45:25
repulse. The action was very far from being aggressive. It was not even
45:31
defensive in the usual sense. It was undertaken under the stress of desperation,
45:37
and in its essence was purely protective. It developed itself, I should say,
45:45
two hours after the fog lifted, and its commencement was at a spot
45:49
roughly speaking, about a mile and a half below Kurtz's station. We had
45:54
just floundered and flopped round a bend when I saw an island, a mere
45:59
grass hummock of bright green in the middle of the stream. It was the
46:02
only thing of the kind. But as we opened the reach more I perceived
46:07
it was the head of a long sand bank, or rather of a chain
46:12
of shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river. They were discolored,
46:16
just a wash, and the whole lot was seen just under the water,
46:21
exactly as a man's backbone is seen running down the middle of his back under
46:25
the skin. Now, as far as I did see, I could go
46:30
to the right or to the left of this, I didn't know either channel.
46:35
Of course, the banks looked pretty well alike. The depth appeared the
46:38
same, But as I had been informed the station was on the west side,
46:45
I naturally headed for the western passage. End of part one of Chapter two