September 12, 2025 • 52 mins
01 - Chapter 1 - Part 1. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
In this powerful novella based on Joseph Conrad's own experiences in the Belgian Congo, Charles Marlow, an experienced seaman, tells a small group of friends about a profoundly disturbing episode in his life where he was employed by a large colonising enterprise to sail a tinpot steamer up a river into the heart of Africa with a view to bringing out an ivory trader who had gone rogue. Conrad biographer Maya Janasoff has argued that while Marlow's descriptions of Africans are crudely racist, the author binds this racist language with "a potentially radical suggestion. What made the difference between savagery and civilization, Conrad was saying, transcended skin color; it even transcended place. The issue for Conrad wasn’t that 'savages' were inhuman. It was that any human could be a savage."
In this powerful novella based on Joseph Conrad's own experiences in the Belgian Congo, Charles Marlow, an experienced seaman, tells a small group of friends about a profoundly disturbing episode in his life where he was employed by a large colonising enterprise to sail a tinpot steamer up a river into the heart of Africa with a view to bringing out an ivory trader who had gone rogue. Conrad biographer Maya Janasoff has argued that while Marlow's descriptions of Africans are crudely racist, the author binds this racist language with "a potentially radical suggestion. What made the difference between savagery and civilization, Conrad was saying, transcended skin color; it even transcended place. The issue for Conrad wasn’t that 'savages' were inhuman. It was that any human could be a savage."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Part one of
chapter one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Bob Neufeld. The Nellie,
(00:24):
a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter
of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had
made the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down
the river, the only thing for it was to come
to and wait for the turn of the tide. The
sea reach of the Thames stretched before us like the
(00:45):
beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing, the sea
and the sky were welded together without a joint, and
in the luminous space, the tanned sails of the barges
drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in
red clusters of canvas sharply peaked with gleams of varnished spirts.
(01:06):
A haze rested on the low shores that ran out
to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above
graves End, and farther back still seemed condensed into a
mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest and the greatest
town on earth. The director of Companies was our captain
(01:27):
and our host. We fore affectionately watched his back as
he stood in the boughs, looking to seaward. On the
whole river, there was nothing that looked half so nautical.
He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified.
It was difficult to realize his work was not out
(01:48):
there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the
brooding gloom. Between us, there was, as I have already said,
somewhere the bund of the sea. Besides holding our hearts
together through long periods of separation, it had the effect
of making us tolerant of each other's yarns and even convictions.
(02:12):
The lawyer, the best of old fellows, had, because of
his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck,
and was lying on the only rug. The accountant had
brought out already a box of dominoes and was toying
architecturally with the bones. Marlowe sat cross legged, right aft,
(02:33):
leaning against the mizzen mast. He had sunken cheeks, a
yellow complexion a straight back and ascetic aspect, and with
his arms dropped, the palms of his hands outwards resembled
an idol. The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold,
moved his way aft and sat down amongst us. We
(02:57):
exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on
board the yacht. For some reason or other, we did
not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative and
fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending
in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water
(03:19):
shone pacifically, The sky, without a speck, was a benign
immensity of unstained light. The very mist on the Essex
March was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from
the wooded rises inland and draping the low shores in
diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over
(03:41):
the upper reaches, became more somber every minute, as if
angered by the approach of the sun, and at last,
in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low,
and from glowing white, changed to a dull red without
ray and without heat, as if about to go out
(04:03):
suddenly stricken to death by the touch of that gloom
brooding over a crowd of men. Forthwith a change came
over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but
more profound. The old river, in its broad reach, rested
unruffled at the decline of the day, after ages of
(04:25):
good service done to the race that peopled its banks.
Spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading
to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at
the venerable stream, not in the vivid flush of a
short day that comes and departs forever, but in the
august light of abiding memories. And indeed, nothing is easier
(04:48):
for a man who has, as the phrase goes, foddowed
the sea with reverence and affection, than to evoke the
great spirit of the past. Upon the lower reaches of
the Thames, the tidal current runs to and fro in
its unceasing service, crowded with the memories of men and
ships it had borne to the rest of home, or
(05:09):
to the battles of the sea. It had known and
served all the men of whom the nation is proud.
From Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, Knights, all
titled and untitled, the great Knights, errant of the sea.
It had borne all the ships, whose names are like
jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind,
(05:33):
returning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to be
visited by the Queen's Highness, and thus pass out of
the gigantic tale to the erebus and terror bound on
other conquests, and that never returned. It had known the
ships and the men they had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich,
(05:54):
from Erith, the adventures and the settlers, King's ships, and
the ships of men on change, captains, admirals, the dark
interlopers of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned generals of
the East India, fleet hunters for gold, or pursuers of fame.
They all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword,
(06:17):
and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land,
bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness
had not floated on the ebb of that river, into
the mystery of the unknown earth, the dreams of men,
the seed of the commonwealths, the germs of empires, the
(06:39):
sun set the dusk fell on the stream, and lights
began to appear along the shore. The Chapman Lighthouse, a
three legged thing erect on a mud flat, shone strongly.
Lights of ships moved in the fairway, a great stir
of lights going up and going down. Farther west, on
(07:01):
the upper reaches, the place of the monstrous town was
still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine,
a lurid glare under the stars. And this, also, said Marlowe,
suddenly has been one of the dark places of the earth.
(07:21):
He was the only man of us who still followed
the sea. The worst that could be said of him
was that he did not represent his class. He was
a seaman, but he was a wanderer too. While most
seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life,
their minds are of the stay at home order, and
(07:42):
their home is always with them the ship, and so
is their country the sea. One ship is very much
like another, and the sea is always the same. In
the immutability of their surroundings, the foreign shores, the foreign face,
the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by
(08:05):
a sense of mystery, but by a slightly disdainful ignorance.
For there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it
be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence,
and as inscrutable as destiny. For the rest after his
hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree
(08:26):
on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of
a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not
worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity,
the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of
a cracked nut. But Marlowe was not typical. If his
(08:47):
propensity to spin yarns be accepted, and to him the
meaning of an episode was not inside like a colonel,
but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only
as a glow brings out of haze, in the likeness
of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made
visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine. His remark did
(09:11):
not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlowe.
It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble
to grunt, even and presently he said, very slow, I
was thinking of very old times when the Romans first
came here nineteen hundred years ago. The other day, light
(09:32):
came out of this river. Since you say nights, yes,
but it is like a running blaze on a plane,
like a flash of lightning in the clouds we live in.
The flicker. May it last as long as the old
earth keeps rolling. But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the
(09:53):
feelings of a commander of a fine what do you
call him? A trirem in the meadow, terranean, ordered suddenly
to the north, run overland across the Gauls in a hurry,
put in charge of one of these craft. The Legionnaires,
A wonderful lot of handymen. They must have been too
used to build, apparently by the hundred in a month
(10:15):
or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine
him here the very end of the world, a sea
the color of lead, a sky the color of smoke,
a kind of ship about us, rigid as a concertina,
and going up this river with stores or orders or
what you like. Sand banks, marshes, forests, savages, precious little
(10:41):
to eat for a civilized man, Nothing but Thames water
to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore here
and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like
a needle in a bundle of hay, cold, fog, tempests, disease,
exce and death, death, skulking in the air, in the water,
(11:04):
in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh, yes,
he did it, did it very well too, no doubt,
and without thinking much about it either except afterwards to
brag of what he had gone through in his time.
Perhaps they were men enough to face the darkness. And
(11:25):
perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a
chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna, by and by,
if he had good friends in Rome and survived the
awful climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in
a toga. Perhaps too much dice, you know, coming out
here in the train of some prefect or tax gatherer
(11:47):
or trader, even to mend his fortunes land in a swamp,
marched through the woods, and in some inland post. Feel
the savagery, the utter savagery had closed round him, all
that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the
forest and the jungles in the hearts of wild men.
(12:08):
There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to
live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable,
and it has a fascination too that goes to work
upon him. The fascination of the abomination. You know. Imagine
the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust,
(12:31):
the surrender, the hate. He paused mind. He began again,
lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the
hand outwards, so that with his legs folded before him,
he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes,
and without a lotus flower mind, none of us would
(12:54):
feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency, the
devotion to if efficiency. But these chaps were not much
account really. They were no colonists. Their administration was merely
a squeeze and nothing more. I suspect they were conquerors,
and for that you want only brute force, nothing to
(13:16):
boast of when you have it, since your strength is
just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They
grabbed what they could get for the sake of what
was to be got. It was just robbery with violence,
aggravated murder on a great scale. And men going at
it blind, as is very proper for those who tackle
(13:38):
a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means
that taking it away from those who have a different complexion,
more slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty
thing when you look into it too much. But redeems
it is the idea, only an idea at the back
of it, not a sentimental pretense, but an idea, and
(14:01):
an unselfish belief in the idea, something you can set
up and bow down before and offer a sacrifice to.
He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green flames,
bred flames, white flames, pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other,
(14:22):
then separating slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great
city went on in the deepening night upon the sleepless river.
We looked on, waiting patiently. There was nothing else to
do till the end of the flood. But it was
only after a long silence when he said, in a
hesitating voice, I suppose you, fellows, remember I did once
(14:46):
turn fresh water sailor for a bit that we knew
we were fated. Before the ebb began to run to
hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences. Want to bother
you much with what happened to me personally. He began
showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales,
(15:08):
who seemed so often unaware of what their audience would
like best to hear, yet to understand the effect of
it upon me. You ought to know how I got
out there, what I saw, how I went up that
river to the place where I first met the poor chap.
It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating
(15:28):
point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a
kind of light on everything about me and into my thoughts.
It was somber enough, too, and pitiful, not extraordinary in
any way, not very clear either, No, not very clear,
And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light.
(15:52):
I had then, as you remember, just returned to London
after a lot of Indian Ocean Pacific China seas a
regular dose of the East six years or so, and
I was loafing about pindering you fellows in your work
and invading your homes, just as though I had got
a heavenly mission to civilize you. It was very fine
(16:14):
for a time, But after a bit I did get
tired of resting. Then I began to look for a ship.
I should think, the hardest work on Earth, but the
ships wouldn't even look at me. I got tired of
that game too. Now, when I was a little chap,
I had a passion for maps. I would look for
(16:37):
hours at South America or Africa or Australia and lose
myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time,
there were many blank spaces on the Earth, and when
I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map,
but they all looked like that, I would put my
finger on it and say, ah, when I grow up,
(17:00):
I will go there. The North Pole was one of
those places. I remember, well, I haven't been there yet
and shall not try now. The glamours off other places
were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some
of them, and well, we won't talk about that. But
(17:22):
there was one yet, the biggest, the most blank, so
to speak, that I had a hankering after. True, by
this time it was not a blank space anymore. It
had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes
and names. It had ceased to be a blank space
of delightful mystery, a white patch for a boy to
(17:45):
dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness.
But there was in it one river, especially a mighty
big river, that you could see on the map, resembling
an immense snake uncoiled with its head in the sea,
its body at rest, curving afar over the vast country,
(18:06):
and its tail lost in the depths of the land.
And as I looked at the map of it in
the shop window, it fascinated me as a snake would
a bird, a silly little bird. Then I remembered there
was a big concern, a company for trade on that river.
Dash it all, I thought to myself. They can't trade
(18:29):
without using some kind of craft on that lot of
fresh water steamboats. Why shouldn't I try to get charge
of one. I went on along Freed Street, but could
not shake off the idea the snake had charmed me.
You understand, it was a continental concern, that trading society.
(18:51):
But I have a lot of relations living on the continent,
because it's cheap and not so nasty as it looks.
They say, I am sorry to own. I began to
worry them This was already a fresh departure for me.
I was not used to get things that way, you know.
I always went my own road and on my own
(19:12):
legs where I had a mind to go. I wouldn't
have believed it of myself. But then, you see, I
felt somehow I must get there by hook or by crook.
So I worried them. The men, said, my dear fellow,
and did nothing, And would you believe it? I tried
(19:34):
the women. I Charlie Marlowe, set the women to work
to get a job. Heavens well, you see, the notion
drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul.
She wrote, it will be delightful. I am ready to
do anything, anything for you. It is a glorious idea.
(19:57):
I know. The wife of a very high person in
the administration, and also a man who has lots of
influence with et cetera. She was determined to make no
end of fuss to get me a pointed skipper of
a river steamboat. If such was my fancy. I got
my appointments, of course, and I got it very quick.
(20:20):
It appears the company had received news that one of
their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives.
This was my chance, and it made me the more
anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards,
when I made the attempt to recover what was left
of the body, that I heard the original quarrel arose
from the misunderstanding about some hens, yes, two black hens. Fresleven,
(20:47):
that was the fellow's name. A Dane thought himself wronged
somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started
to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh,
it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this,
and at the same time to be told that Freslavin
was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs,
(21:09):
No doubt he was. But he had been a couple
of years already out there engaged in the noble cause,
you know, and he probably felt the need at last
of asserting his self respect in some way. Therefore he
whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of
his people watched him. Thunder struck till some man, I
(21:31):
was told, the chief's son, in desperation at hearing the
old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear
at the white man, and of course it went quite
easy between the shoulder blades. Then the whole population cleared
into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen,
while on the other hand, the steamer Freshlaven commanded left,
(21:54):
also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer.
I believe afterward nobody seemed to trouble much about fres
Lavin's remains till I got out and stepped into his shoes.
I couldn't let it rest, though, But when an opportunity
offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing
(22:15):
through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones.
They were all there. The supernatural being had not been
touched after he fell, and the village was deserted. The
huts gaped black, rotting all askew within the fallen enclosures.
A calamity had come of it, sure enough. The people
(22:36):
had vanished, mad terror had scattered them men, women and
children through the bush, and they had never returned. What
became of the hens I don't know either. I should
think the cause of progress got them anyhow However, through
this glorious affair, I got my appointment before I had
(22:57):
fairly begun to hope for it. I flew around like
mad to get ready, and before forty eight hours I
was crossing the channel to show myself to my employers
and sign the contract. In a very few hours I
arrived in the city that always makes me think of
a whited sepulcher prejudice, no doubt, I had no difficulty
(23:21):
in finding the company's offices. It was the biggest thing
in the town, and everybody I met was full of it.
They were going to run an oversea empire and make
no end of coin by trade. A narrow and deserted
street in deep shadow high houses, innumerable windows with Venetian blinds,
(23:42):
a dead silence, grass sprouting right and left, immense double
door standing ponderously. Ajar I slipped through one of these cracks,
went up a swept and ungarnished staircase as arid as
a desert, and opened the first door. I came to
two women, one fat and the other slim, set on
(24:04):
straw bottomed chairs knitting black wool. The slimman got up
and walked straight at me, still knitting with downcast eyes,
and only just as I began to think of getting
out of her way, as you would for a sonombulist
stood still and looked up. Her dress was as plain
as an umbrella cover, and she turned round without a
(24:25):
word and preceded me into a waiting room. I gave
my name and looked about deal table in the middle,
plain chairs all around the walls. On one end a
large shining map marked with all the colors of a rainbow.
There was a vast amount of red. Good to see
at any time, because one knows that some real work
(24:49):
is done in there a deuce of a lot of blue,
of little green, smears of orange, and on the east
coast a purple patch to show where the jolly pioneers
progress drink the jolly lugger beer. However, I wasn't going
into any of these. I was going into the yellow
(25:10):
dead in the center, and the river was there fascinating,
deadly like a snake. Ah. A door opened, A white
haired secretarial head but wearing a compassionate expression, appeared, and
a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light
(25:31):
was dim, and a heavy writing desk squatted in the middle.
From behind that structure came out an impression of pale
plumpness and a frock coat. The great man himself, he
was five feet six, I should judge, and had his
grip on the handle end of ever so many millions.
He shook hands, I fancy murmured vaguely, was satisfied with
(25:55):
my French beau voyage. In about forty five seconds, I
found myself again in the waiting room with the compassionate secretary, who,
full of desolation and sympathy, made me sign some document
I believe I undertook, amongst other things, not to disclose
(26:16):
any trade secrets. Well, I'm not going to. I began
to feel slightly uneasy, you know, I am not used
to such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere.
It was just as though I had been let into
some conspiracy. I don't know, something not quite right, and
(26:37):
I was glad to get out. In the outer room,
the two women knitted black woolf feverishly. People were arriving,
and the younger one was walking back and forth introducing them.
The old one sat on her chair, Her flat cloth
slippers were propped up on a foot warmer, and a
cat reposed on her lap. She wore a starched white
(27:00):
affair on her head, had a wart on one cheek,
and silver rimmed spectacles hung on the tip of her nose.
She glanced at me above the glasses. The swift and
indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. Two youths with
foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over, and she
(27:21):
threw at them the same quick glance of unconcerned wisdom.
She seems to know all about them, and about me too.
An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful.
Often far away there I thought of these two guarding
the door of darkness, knitting black wool as for a
(27:42):
warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the
other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old
eyes bavey old knitter of black wool, morituri te salutant.
Not many of those she looked at, ever, saw her again,
(28:06):
not half by a long way. There was yet a
visit to the doctor. A simple formality assured me, the secretary,
with an air of taking an immense part in all
my sorrows. Accordingly, a young chap wearing his hat over
the left eyebrow. Some clerk, I suppose there must have
(28:27):
been clerks in the business, though the house was as
still as a house in a city of the dead.
Came from somewhere upstairs and led me forth. He was
shabby and careless, with enstains on the sleeves of his jacket,
and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin
shaped like the toe of an old boot. It was
(28:48):
a little too early for the doctor, so I proposed
a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality.
As we sat over our vremouths, he glorified the company's business,
and by and by I expressed casually my surprise at
him not going out there he became very cool and
(29:09):
collected all at once. I am not such a fool
as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples, he said, sententiously,
emptied his glass with great resolution, and we rose. The
old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else
the while. Good good for there, he mumbled, and then,
(29:32):
with a certain eagerness, asked me whether I would let
him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said yes. When
he produced a thing like calipers, and got the dimensions
back in front and every way, taking notes carefully. He
was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like
a gabbardine, with his feet in slippers, and I thought
(29:54):
him a harmless fool. I always ask leave in the
interest of science to measure the cranny of those going
out here, he said, And when they come back too,
I asked, Oh, I never see them, he remarked. And moreover,
the changes take place inside, you know, he smiled, as
(30:19):
if at some quiet joke. So you are going out
ere famous interesting too, he gave me a searching glance
and made another note. Ever any madness in your family,
he asked, in a matter of fact tone. I felt
(30:39):
very annoyed. Is that question in the interests of science too,
it would be, he said, without taking notice of my irritation.
Interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals
on the spot. But are you an alienist, I interrupted?
(31:00):
Every doctor should be a little answered that original imperturbably.
I have a little theory which you messieur who go
out there, must help me to prove this is my
share in the advantages my country shall reap from the
possession of such a magnificent dependency, the mere wealth I
(31:21):
leave to others. Pardon my questions, but you are the
first Englishman coming under my observation. I hastened to assure him.
I was not in the least typical. If I were
said I, I wouldn't be talking like this with you.
What you say is rather profound and probably erroneous, he said,
(31:45):
with a laugh. Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun. Adieu,
how do you English? Say? E er good bye? Ah,
good bye hardieu. In the tropics, one must before everything
keep calm. He lifted a warning forefinger. Do calm, do calm.
(32:11):
One thing more remained to do. Say good bye to
my excellent hands. I found her triumphant. I had a
cup of tea, the last decent cup of tea for
many days, and in a room that most soothingly looked,
just as you would expect a lady's drawing room to look.
We had a long, quiet chat by the fireside. In
(32:33):
the course of these confidences, it became quite plain to
me I had been represented to the wife of the
high dignitary, and goodness knows to how many people besides
as an exceptional and gifted creature, a piece of good
fortune for the company, a man you didn't get hold
of every day good heavens, and I was going to
(32:53):
take charge of a tuppenny haypenny river steamboat with a
penny whistle attached. Appeared. However, I was also one of
the workers with a capital, you know, something like an
emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle.
There had been a lot of such rot let loose
in print and talk just about that time, and the
(33:16):
excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that
humbug got carried off her feet. She talked about weaning
those ignorant millions from their horrid ways, till upon my word,
she made me feel quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint
that the company was run for a profit. You forget,
(33:37):
dear Charlie, that the laborer is worthy of his hire,
She said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with
truth women are. They live in a world of their own,
and there has never been anything like it, that never
can be. It is too beautiful altogether, And if they
(33:58):
were to set it up, it would go to peace
as before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men
have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation,
would start up and knock the whole thing over. After this,
I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to
ride often, and so on, and I left in the streets.
(34:22):
I don't know why a queer feeling came to me
that I was an impostor odd thing, that I, who
used to clear out for any part of the world
at twenty four hours notice, with less thought than most
men give to the crossing of a street, had a
moment I won't say of hesitation, but of startled pause
(34:44):
before this commonplace affair. The best way I can explain
it to you is by saying that, for a second
or two I felt as though, instead of going to
the center of a continent, I were about to set
off for the center of the earth. I left in
a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port
(35:06):
they have out there. For as far as I could see,
the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom house officers.
I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips
by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There
it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand mean insipid
(35:27):
or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering.
Come and find out this one was almost featureless, as
if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness.
The edge of a colossal jungle so dark green as
to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight
(35:50):
like a ruled line far far away along a blue
sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The
sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip
with steam. Here and there, grayish, whitish specks showed up
clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above them,
perhaps settlements some centuries old and still no bigger than
(36:15):
pin heads. On the untouched expanse of their background. We
pounded along, stopped. Landed soldiers went on landed custom house
clerks to Levy Toll in what looked like a god
forsaken wilderness with a tin shed and a flagpole lost
in it. Landed more soldiers to take care of the
(36:36):
custom house clerks. Presumably some I heard got drowned in
the surf, but whether they did or not, nobody seemed
particularly to care. They were just flung out there. And
on we went. Every day. The coast looked the same
as though we had not moved. But we passed various places,
(36:58):
trading places with names like Grand Bassam, little popo names.
It seemed to belong to some sordid farce acted out
in front of a sinister black cloth. The idleness of
a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom
I had no point of contact. The oily and languid sea,
(37:19):
the uniform somberness of the coast seemed to keep me
away from the truth of things, within the toil of
a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf,
heard now and then, was a positive pleasure, like the
speech of a brother. It was something natural that had
its reason, that had a meaning now and then. A
(37:42):
boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality.
It was paddled by black fellers. You could see from
afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang,
their bodies streamed with perspiration. They had faces like grotesque masks,
these chaps, but they had bone, muscle, and a wild vitality,
(38:04):
an intense energy of movement that was as natural and
true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no
excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to
look at. For a time I would feel I belonged
still to a world of straightforward facts. But the feeling
would not last long. Something would turn up to scare
(38:27):
it away. Once I remember, we came upon a man
O war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a
shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears
the French had one of their wars going on there abouts.
Her ensign dropped limp like a rag, the muzzles of
the long six inch guns stuck out all over the
(38:50):
low hull. The greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily
and let her down, swaying her thin masts in the
empty immensity of earth, sky and water. There she was incomprehensible.
Firing into a continent, pop would go one of the
six inch guns. A small flame would dart and vanish,
(39:12):
A little white smoke would disappear, A tiny projectile would
give a feeble screech, and nothing happened. Nothing could happen.
There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a
sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight, and it was
not dissipated by somebody on board, assuring me earnestly there
(39:34):
was a camp of natives, he called them enemies, hidden
out of sight. Somewhere we gave her her letters. I
heard the men in that lonely ship were dying of
fever at the rate of three a day, and went on.
We call it some more places with farcical names, where
(39:55):
the merry dance of death and trade goes on in
a still and earthly atmosphere, as of an overheated catacomb,
all along the formless coast, boarded by dangerous surf, as
if nature herself had tried to ward off intruders in
and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose
(40:15):
banks were rotting into mud, whose waters thickened into slime,
invaded the contorted mangroves that seemed to writhe at us
in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did be
stopped long enough to get a particularized impression, but the
general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me.
(40:37):
It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.
It was upward of thirty days before I saw the
mouth of the big river. We anchored off the seat
of the government, but my work would not begin till
some two hundred miles further on. So as soon as
I could, I made a start for the place. Thirty
(40:58):
miles higher up. I had my passage on a little
sea going steamer. A captain was a Swede, and, knowing
me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. He
was a young man, lean, fair and morose, with lanky
hair and a shuffling gait. As we left the miserable
(41:19):
little wharf, he tossed his head contemptuously at the shore
ben living there. He asked, I said, yes, fine lot,
those coverment chaps, are they not? He went on, speaking
English with great precision and considerable bitterness. It is funny
what some people we'd do for a few francs a month.
(41:42):
I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes
up country, I said to him, I expected to see
that soon, so he exclaimed. He shuffled athwart, keeping an
eye a head vigilantly. Don't be too sure, continued The
other day, I took up a man who hanged himself
(42:03):
on the road. He was a Swede too, hanged himself.
Why in God's name, I cried? He kept on looking
out watchfully. Who knows the sun too much for him
or the country. Perhaps at last we opened a reach.
A rocky cliff appeared. Mounds of turned up earth by
(42:27):
the shore houses on a hill, others with iron roofs,
amongst a waste of excavations or hanging to the declivity.
A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this
scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black
and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into
(42:49):
the river. A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times
in a sudden recrudescence of glare. There's your company station,
said the Swede, pointing to three wooden barrack like structures
on the rocky slope. I will send your things up
four boxes. Did you say so? Farewell? I came upon
(43:14):
a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path
leading up the hill. It turned aside for the boulders,
and also for an undersized railway truck lying there on
its back with its wheels in the air. One was off.
The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal.
I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, A stack
(43:37):
of rusty rails to the left. A clump of trees
made a shady spot where dark things seemed to stir feebly.
I blinked. The path was steep. A horn tooted to
the right, and I saw the black people run. A
heavy and dull detonation shook the ground. A puff of
smoke came out of the cliff, and that was No
(44:01):
change appeared on the face of the rock. They were
building a railway. The cliff was not in the way
or anything, but this objectless blasting was all the work
going on. A slight clinking behind me made me turn
my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling
up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small
(44:25):
baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink
kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round
their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and
fro like tails. I could see every rib. The joints
of their limbs were like knots in a rope. Each
had an iron collar on his neck, and all were
(44:47):
connected together with a chain whose bites swung between them
rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made me think
suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing
into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice.
But these men could, by no stretch of imagination, be
called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law,
(45:12):
like the bursting shells, had come to them an insoluble
mystery from the sea. All their meager breasts panted together,
the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily up hill.
They passed me within six inches without a glance, with
(45:32):
that complete deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter,
one of the reclaimed the product of the new forces
at work. Strode despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle.
He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and
seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon
(45:52):
to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white
men being so much alike at a distance that he
could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured,
and with a large white, rascally grin and a glance
at his charge seemed to take me into partnership in
his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part
(46:16):
of the great cause of these high and just proceedings.
Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left.
My idea was to let that chain gang get out
of sight before I climbed the hill. You know, I
am not particularly tender. I've had to strike and defend off.
I've had to resist and to attack. Sometimes that's only
(46:39):
one way of resisting, without counting the exact costs according
to the demands of such sort of life as I
had blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and
the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire.
But by all the stars, these were strong, lusty, red
eyed devil that swayed and drove men men, I tell you.
(47:05):
But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that
in the blinding sunshine of that land, I would become
acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak eyed devil of a
rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be too,
I was only to find out several months later, and
a thousand miles farther, for a moment I stood appalled,
(47:29):
as though by a warning. Finally I descended the hill
obliquely towards the trees I had seen. I avoided a
vast artificial hole. Somebody had been digging on the slope,
the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine.
It wasn't a quarry or a sand pit anyhow, it
(47:50):
was just a hole. It might have been connected with
the philanthropic desire of giving the criminal something to do.
I don't know. Then I nearly fell into a very
narrow ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside.
I discovered that a lot of imported drainage pipes for
the settlement had been tumbled in there. There wasn't one
(48:12):
that was not broken. It was a wanton smash up.
At last I got under the trees. My purpose was
to stroll into the shade for a moment, but no
sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped
into the gloomy circle of some inferno. The rapids were near,
(48:32):
and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong rushing noise filled the mournful
stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred and
not a leaf moved with a mysterious sound, as though
the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible.
Black shapes crouched lay, sat between the trees, leaning against
(48:56):
the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half
effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain,
abandonment and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off,
followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet.
The work was going on the work, and this was
(49:17):
the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.
They were dying slowly. It was very clear. They were
not enemies, they were not criminals. They were nothing earthly now,
nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly
in the greenish gloom brought from all the recesses of
(49:41):
the coasts, in all the legality of time, contracts lost
in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient,
and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These
moribon shapes were free as air and nearly as things.
I began to distinguish the gleam of the eyes under
(50:03):
the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near
my hand. The black bones reclined at full length, with
one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose,
and the sunken eyes looked up at me enormous and vacant,
a kind of blind white flicker in the depths of
(50:24):
the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young,
almost a boy, But you know, with them it's hard
to tell. I found nothing else to do but to
offer him one of my good swedes ship's biscuits I
had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it
(50:45):
and held. There was no other movement, and no other glance.
He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck.
Why where did he get it? Was it a badge,
an ornament, a charm, a propitiatory act? Was there any
idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round
(51:07):
his black neck, this bit of white thread. From beyond
the seas, near the same tree, two more bundles of
acute angles sat with their legs drawn up, one with
his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing in
an intolerable and appalling manner. His brother phantom rested its
(51:29):
forehead as if overcome with a great weariness, and all
abouts others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse,
as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence.
While I stood horror struck, one of these creatures rose
to his hands and knees, and went off on all
fours towards the river to drink. He lapped out of
(51:52):
his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his
shins in front of him, and after a time let
him his wooly head fall on his breast bone. End
of Part one.
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Part one of
chapter one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Bob Neufeld. The Nellie,
(00:24):
a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter
of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had
made the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down
the river, the only thing for it was to come
to and wait for the turn of the tide. The
sea reach of the Thames stretched before us like the
(00:45):
beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing, the sea
and the sky were welded together without a joint, and
in the luminous space, the tanned sails of the barges
drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in
red clusters of canvas sharply peaked with gleams of varnished spirts.
(01:06):
A haze rested on the low shores that ran out
to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above
graves End, and farther back still seemed condensed into a
mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest and the greatest
town on earth. The director of Companies was our captain
(01:27):
and our host. We fore affectionately watched his back as
he stood in the boughs, looking to seaward. On the
whole river, there was nothing that looked half so nautical.
He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified.
It was difficult to realize his work was not out
(01:48):
there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the
brooding gloom. Between us, there was, as I have already said,
somewhere the bund of the sea. Besides holding our hearts
together through long periods of separation, it had the effect
of making us tolerant of each other's yarns and even convictions.
(02:12):
The lawyer, the best of old fellows, had, because of
his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck,
and was lying on the only rug. The accountant had
brought out already a box of dominoes and was toying
architecturally with the bones. Marlowe sat cross legged, right aft,
(02:33):
leaning against the mizzen mast. He had sunken cheeks, a
yellow complexion a straight back and ascetic aspect, and with
his arms dropped, the palms of his hands outwards resembled
an idol. The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold,
moved his way aft and sat down amongst us. We
(02:57):
exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on
board the yacht. For some reason or other, we did
not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative and
fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending
in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water
(03:19):
shone pacifically, The sky, without a speck, was a benign
immensity of unstained light. The very mist on the Essex
March was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from
the wooded rises inland and draping the low shores in
diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over
(03:41):
the upper reaches, became more somber every minute, as if
angered by the approach of the sun, and at last,
in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low,
and from glowing white, changed to a dull red without
ray and without heat, as if about to go out
(04:03):
suddenly stricken to death by the touch of that gloom
brooding over a crowd of men. Forthwith a change came
over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but
more profound. The old river, in its broad reach, rested
unruffled at the decline of the day, after ages of
(04:25):
good service done to the race that peopled its banks.
Spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading
to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at
the venerable stream, not in the vivid flush of a
short day that comes and departs forever, but in the
august light of abiding memories. And indeed, nothing is easier
(04:48):
for a man who has, as the phrase goes, foddowed
the sea with reverence and affection, than to evoke the
great spirit of the past. Upon the lower reaches of
the Thames, the tidal current runs to and fro in
its unceasing service, crowded with the memories of men and
ships it had borne to the rest of home, or
(05:09):
to the battles of the sea. It had known and
served all the men of whom the nation is proud.
From Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, Knights, all
titled and untitled, the great Knights, errant of the sea.
It had borne all the ships, whose names are like
jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind,
(05:33):
returning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to be
visited by the Queen's Highness, and thus pass out of
the gigantic tale to the erebus and terror bound on
other conquests, and that never returned. It had known the
ships and the men they had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich,
(05:54):
from Erith, the adventures and the settlers, King's ships, and
the ships of men on change, captains, admirals, the dark
interlopers of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned generals of
the East India, fleet hunters for gold, or pursuers of fame.
They all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword,
(06:17):
and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land,
bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness
had not floated on the ebb of that river, into
the mystery of the unknown earth, the dreams of men,
the seed of the commonwealths, the germs of empires, the
(06:39):
sun set the dusk fell on the stream, and lights
began to appear along the shore. The Chapman Lighthouse, a
three legged thing erect on a mud flat, shone strongly.
Lights of ships moved in the fairway, a great stir
of lights going up and going down. Farther west, on
(07:01):
the upper reaches, the place of the monstrous town was
still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine,
a lurid glare under the stars. And this, also, said Marlowe,
suddenly has been one of the dark places of the earth.
(07:21):
He was the only man of us who still followed
the sea. The worst that could be said of him
was that he did not represent his class. He was
a seaman, but he was a wanderer too. While most
seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life,
their minds are of the stay at home order, and
(07:42):
their home is always with them the ship, and so
is their country the sea. One ship is very much
like another, and the sea is always the same. In
the immutability of their surroundings, the foreign shores, the foreign face,
the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by
(08:05):
a sense of mystery, but by a slightly disdainful ignorance.
For there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it
be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence,
and as inscrutable as destiny. For the rest after his
hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree
(08:26):
on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of
a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not
worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity,
the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of
a cracked nut. But Marlowe was not typical. If his
(08:47):
propensity to spin yarns be accepted, and to him the
meaning of an episode was not inside like a colonel,
but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only
as a glow brings out of haze, in the likeness
of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made
visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine. His remark did
(09:11):
not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlowe.
It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble
to grunt, even and presently he said, very slow, I
was thinking of very old times when the Romans first
came here nineteen hundred years ago. The other day, light
(09:32):
came out of this river. Since you say nights, yes,
but it is like a running blaze on a plane,
like a flash of lightning in the clouds we live in.
The flicker. May it last as long as the old
earth keeps rolling. But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the
(09:53):
feelings of a commander of a fine what do you
call him? A trirem in the meadow, terranean, ordered suddenly
to the north, run overland across the Gauls in a hurry,
put in charge of one of these craft. The Legionnaires,
A wonderful lot of handymen. They must have been too
used to build, apparently by the hundred in a month
(10:15):
or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine
him here the very end of the world, a sea
the color of lead, a sky the color of smoke,
a kind of ship about us, rigid as a concertina,
and going up this river with stores or orders or
what you like. Sand banks, marshes, forests, savages, precious little
(10:41):
to eat for a civilized man, Nothing but Thames water
to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore here
and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like
a needle in a bundle of hay, cold, fog, tempests, disease,
exce and death, death, skulking in the air, in the water,
(11:04):
in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh, yes,
he did it, did it very well too, no doubt,
and without thinking much about it either except afterwards to
brag of what he had gone through in his time.
Perhaps they were men enough to face the darkness. And
(11:25):
perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a
chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna, by and by,
if he had good friends in Rome and survived the
awful climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in
a toga. Perhaps too much dice, you know, coming out
here in the train of some prefect or tax gatherer
(11:47):
or trader, even to mend his fortunes land in a swamp,
marched through the woods, and in some inland post. Feel
the savagery, the utter savagery had closed round him, all
that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the
forest and the jungles in the hearts of wild men.
(12:08):
There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to
live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable,
and it has a fascination too that goes to work
upon him. The fascination of the abomination. You know. Imagine
the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust,
(12:31):
the surrender, the hate. He paused mind. He began again,
lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the
hand outwards, so that with his legs folded before him,
he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes,
and without a lotus flower mind, none of us would
(12:54):
feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency, the
devotion to if efficiency. But these chaps were not much
account really. They were no colonists. Their administration was merely
a squeeze and nothing more. I suspect they were conquerors,
and for that you want only brute force, nothing to
(13:16):
boast of when you have it, since your strength is
just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They
grabbed what they could get for the sake of what
was to be got. It was just robbery with violence,
aggravated murder on a great scale. And men going at
it blind, as is very proper for those who tackle
(13:38):
a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means
that taking it away from those who have a different complexion,
more slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty
thing when you look into it too much. But redeems
it is the idea, only an idea at the back
of it, not a sentimental pretense, but an idea, and
(14:01):
an unselfish belief in the idea, something you can set
up and bow down before and offer a sacrifice to.
He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green flames,
bred flames, white flames, pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other,
(14:22):
then separating slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great
city went on in the deepening night upon the sleepless river.
We looked on, waiting patiently. There was nothing else to
do till the end of the flood. But it was
only after a long silence when he said, in a
hesitating voice, I suppose you, fellows, remember I did once
(14:46):
turn fresh water sailor for a bit that we knew
we were fated. Before the ebb began to run to
hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences. Want to bother
you much with what happened to me personally. He began
showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales,
(15:08):
who seemed so often unaware of what their audience would
like best to hear, yet to understand the effect of
it upon me. You ought to know how I got
out there, what I saw, how I went up that
river to the place where I first met the poor chap.
It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating
(15:28):
point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a
kind of light on everything about me and into my thoughts.
It was somber enough, too, and pitiful, not extraordinary in
any way, not very clear either, No, not very clear,
And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light.
(15:52):
I had then, as you remember, just returned to London
after a lot of Indian Ocean Pacific China seas a
regular dose of the East six years or so, and
I was loafing about pindering you fellows in your work
and invading your homes, just as though I had got
a heavenly mission to civilize you. It was very fine
(16:14):
for a time, But after a bit I did get
tired of resting. Then I began to look for a ship.
I should think, the hardest work on Earth, but the
ships wouldn't even look at me. I got tired of
that game too. Now, when I was a little chap,
I had a passion for maps. I would look for
(16:37):
hours at South America or Africa or Australia and lose
myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time,
there were many blank spaces on the Earth, and when
I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map,
but they all looked like that, I would put my
finger on it and say, ah, when I grow up,
(17:00):
I will go there. The North Pole was one of
those places. I remember, well, I haven't been there yet
and shall not try now. The glamours off other places
were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some
of them, and well, we won't talk about that. But
(17:22):
there was one yet, the biggest, the most blank, so
to speak, that I had a hankering after. True, by
this time it was not a blank space anymore. It
had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes
and names. It had ceased to be a blank space
of delightful mystery, a white patch for a boy to
(17:45):
dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness.
But there was in it one river, especially a mighty
big river, that you could see on the map, resembling
an immense snake uncoiled with its head in the sea,
its body at rest, curving afar over the vast country,
(18:06):
and its tail lost in the depths of the land.
And as I looked at the map of it in
the shop window, it fascinated me as a snake would
a bird, a silly little bird. Then I remembered there
was a big concern, a company for trade on that river.
Dash it all, I thought to myself. They can't trade
(18:29):
without using some kind of craft on that lot of
fresh water steamboats. Why shouldn't I try to get charge
of one. I went on along Freed Street, but could
not shake off the idea the snake had charmed me.
You understand, it was a continental concern, that trading society.
(18:51):
But I have a lot of relations living on the continent,
because it's cheap and not so nasty as it looks.
They say, I am sorry to own. I began to
worry them This was already a fresh departure for me.
I was not used to get things that way, you know.
I always went my own road and on my own
(19:12):
legs where I had a mind to go. I wouldn't
have believed it of myself. But then, you see, I
felt somehow I must get there by hook or by crook.
So I worried them. The men, said, my dear fellow,
and did nothing, And would you believe it? I tried
(19:34):
the women. I Charlie Marlowe, set the women to work
to get a job. Heavens well, you see, the notion
drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul.
She wrote, it will be delightful. I am ready to
do anything, anything for you. It is a glorious idea.
(19:57):
I know. The wife of a very high person in
the administration, and also a man who has lots of
influence with et cetera. She was determined to make no
end of fuss to get me a pointed skipper of
a river steamboat. If such was my fancy. I got
my appointments, of course, and I got it very quick.
(20:20):
It appears the company had received news that one of
their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives.
This was my chance, and it made me the more
anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards,
when I made the attempt to recover what was left
of the body, that I heard the original quarrel arose
from the misunderstanding about some hens, yes, two black hens. Fresleven,
(20:47):
that was the fellow's name. A Dane thought himself wronged
somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started
to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh,
it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this,
and at the same time to be told that Freslavin
was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs,
(21:09):
No doubt he was. But he had been a couple
of years already out there engaged in the noble cause,
you know, and he probably felt the need at last
of asserting his self respect in some way. Therefore he
whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of
his people watched him. Thunder struck till some man, I
(21:31):
was told, the chief's son, in desperation at hearing the
old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear
at the white man, and of course it went quite
easy between the shoulder blades. Then the whole population cleared
into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen,
while on the other hand, the steamer Freshlaven commanded left,
(21:54):
also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer.
I believe afterward nobody seemed to trouble much about fres
Lavin's remains till I got out and stepped into his shoes.
I couldn't let it rest, though, But when an opportunity
offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing
(22:15):
through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones.
They were all there. The supernatural being had not been
touched after he fell, and the village was deserted. The
huts gaped black, rotting all askew within the fallen enclosures.
A calamity had come of it, sure enough. The people
(22:36):
had vanished, mad terror had scattered them men, women and
children through the bush, and they had never returned. What
became of the hens I don't know either. I should
think the cause of progress got them anyhow However, through
this glorious affair, I got my appointment before I had
(22:57):
fairly begun to hope for it. I flew around like
mad to get ready, and before forty eight hours I
was crossing the channel to show myself to my employers
and sign the contract. In a very few hours I
arrived in the city that always makes me think of
a whited sepulcher prejudice, no doubt, I had no difficulty
(23:21):
in finding the company's offices. It was the biggest thing
in the town, and everybody I met was full of it.
They were going to run an oversea empire and make
no end of coin by trade. A narrow and deserted
street in deep shadow high houses, innumerable windows with Venetian blinds,
(23:42):
a dead silence, grass sprouting right and left, immense double
door standing ponderously. Ajar I slipped through one of these cracks,
went up a swept and ungarnished staircase as arid as
a desert, and opened the first door. I came to
two women, one fat and the other slim, set on
(24:04):
straw bottomed chairs knitting black wool. The slimman got up
and walked straight at me, still knitting with downcast eyes,
and only just as I began to think of getting
out of her way, as you would for a sonombulist
stood still and looked up. Her dress was as plain
as an umbrella cover, and she turned round without a
(24:25):
word and preceded me into a waiting room. I gave
my name and looked about deal table in the middle,
plain chairs all around the walls. On one end a
large shining map marked with all the colors of a rainbow.
There was a vast amount of red. Good to see
at any time, because one knows that some real work
(24:49):
is done in there a deuce of a lot of blue,
of little green, smears of orange, and on the east
coast a purple patch to show where the jolly pioneers
progress drink the jolly lugger beer. However, I wasn't going
into any of these. I was going into the yellow
(25:10):
dead in the center, and the river was there fascinating,
deadly like a snake. Ah. A door opened, A white
haired secretarial head but wearing a compassionate expression, appeared, and
a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light
(25:31):
was dim, and a heavy writing desk squatted in the middle.
From behind that structure came out an impression of pale
plumpness and a frock coat. The great man himself, he
was five feet six, I should judge, and had his
grip on the handle end of ever so many millions.
He shook hands, I fancy murmured vaguely, was satisfied with
(25:55):
my French beau voyage. In about forty five seconds, I
found myself again in the waiting room with the compassionate secretary, who,
full of desolation and sympathy, made me sign some document
I believe I undertook, amongst other things, not to disclose
(26:16):
any trade secrets. Well, I'm not going to. I began
to feel slightly uneasy, you know, I am not used
to such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere.
It was just as though I had been let into
some conspiracy. I don't know, something not quite right, and
(26:37):
I was glad to get out. In the outer room,
the two women knitted black woolf feverishly. People were arriving,
and the younger one was walking back and forth introducing them.
The old one sat on her chair, Her flat cloth
slippers were propped up on a foot warmer, and a
cat reposed on her lap. She wore a starched white
(27:00):
affair on her head, had a wart on one cheek,
and silver rimmed spectacles hung on the tip of her nose.
She glanced at me above the glasses. The swift and
indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. Two youths with
foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over, and she
(27:21):
threw at them the same quick glance of unconcerned wisdom.
She seems to know all about them, and about me too.
An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful.
Often far away there I thought of these two guarding
the door of darkness, knitting black wool as for a
(27:42):
warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the
other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old
eyes bavey old knitter of black wool, morituri te salutant.
Not many of those she looked at, ever, saw her again,
(28:06):
not half by a long way. There was yet a
visit to the doctor. A simple formality assured me, the secretary,
with an air of taking an immense part in all
my sorrows. Accordingly, a young chap wearing his hat over
the left eyebrow. Some clerk, I suppose there must have
(28:27):
been clerks in the business, though the house was as
still as a house in a city of the dead.
Came from somewhere upstairs and led me forth. He was
shabby and careless, with enstains on the sleeves of his jacket,
and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin
shaped like the toe of an old boot. It was
(28:48):
a little too early for the doctor, so I proposed
a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality.
As we sat over our vremouths, he glorified the company's business,
and by and by I expressed casually my surprise at
him not going out there he became very cool and
(29:09):
collected all at once. I am not such a fool
as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples, he said, sententiously,
emptied his glass with great resolution, and we rose. The
old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else
the while. Good good for there, he mumbled, and then,
(29:32):
with a certain eagerness, asked me whether I would let
him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said yes. When
he produced a thing like calipers, and got the dimensions
back in front and every way, taking notes carefully. He
was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like
a gabbardine, with his feet in slippers, and I thought
(29:54):
him a harmless fool. I always ask leave in the
interest of science to measure the cranny of those going
out here, he said, And when they come back too,
I asked, Oh, I never see them, he remarked. And moreover,
the changes take place inside, you know, he smiled, as
(30:19):
if at some quiet joke. So you are going out
ere famous interesting too, he gave me a searching glance
and made another note. Ever any madness in your family,
he asked, in a matter of fact tone. I felt
(30:39):
very annoyed. Is that question in the interests of science too,
it would be, he said, without taking notice of my irritation.
Interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals
on the spot. But are you an alienist, I interrupted?
(31:00):
Every doctor should be a little answered that original imperturbably.
I have a little theory which you messieur who go
out there, must help me to prove this is my
share in the advantages my country shall reap from the
possession of such a magnificent dependency, the mere wealth I
(31:21):
leave to others. Pardon my questions, but you are the
first Englishman coming under my observation. I hastened to assure him.
I was not in the least typical. If I were
said I, I wouldn't be talking like this with you.
What you say is rather profound and probably erroneous, he said,
(31:45):
with a laugh. Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun. Adieu,
how do you English? Say? E er good bye? Ah,
good bye hardieu. In the tropics, one must before everything
keep calm. He lifted a warning forefinger. Do calm, do calm.
(32:11):
One thing more remained to do. Say good bye to
my excellent hands. I found her triumphant. I had a
cup of tea, the last decent cup of tea for
many days, and in a room that most soothingly looked,
just as you would expect a lady's drawing room to look.
We had a long, quiet chat by the fireside. In
(32:33):
the course of these confidences, it became quite plain to
me I had been represented to the wife of the
high dignitary, and goodness knows to how many people besides
as an exceptional and gifted creature, a piece of good
fortune for the company, a man you didn't get hold
of every day good heavens, and I was going to
(32:53):
take charge of a tuppenny haypenny river steamboat with a
penny whistle attached. Appeared. However, I was also one of
the workers with a capital, you know, something like an
emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle.
There had been a lot of such rot let loose
in print and talk just about that time, and the
(33:16):
excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that
humbug got carried off her feet. She talked about weaning
those ignorant millions from their horrid ways, till upon my word,
she made me feel quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint
that the company was run for a profit. You forget,
(33:37):
dear Charlie, that the laborer is worthy of his hire,
She said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with
truth women are. They live in a world of their own,
and there has never been anything like it, that never
can be. It is too beautiful altogether, And if they
(33:58):
were to set it up, it would go to peace
as before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men
have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation,
would start up and knock the whole thing over. After this,
I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to
ride often, and so on, and I left in the streets.
(34:22):
I don't know why a queer feeling came to me
that I was an impostor odd thing, that I, who
used to clear out for any part of the world
at twenty four hours notice, with less thought than most
men give to the crossing of a street, had a
moment I won't say of hesitation, but of startled pause
(34:44):
before this commonplace affair. The best way I can explain
it to you is by saying that, for a second
or two I felt as though, instead of going to
the center of a continent, I were about to set
off for the center of the earth. I left in
a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port
(35:06):
they have out there. For as far as I could see,
the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom house officers.
I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips
by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There
it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand mean insipid
(35:27):
or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering.
Come and find out this one was almost featureless, as
if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness.
The edge of a colossal jungle so dark green as
to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight
(35:50):
like a ruled line far far away along a blue
sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The
sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip
with steam. Here and there, grayish, whitish specks showed up
clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above them,
perhaps settlements some centuries old and still no bigger than
(36:15):
pin heads. On the untouched expanse of their background. We
pounded along, stopped. Landed soldiers went on landed custom house
clerks to Levy Toll in what looked like a god
forsaken wilderness with a tin shed and a flagpole lost
in it. Landed more soldiers to take care of the
(36:36):
custom house clerks. Presumably some I heard got drowned in
the surf, but whether they did or not, nobody seemed
particularly to care. They were just flung out there. And
on we went. Every day. The coast looked the same
as though we had not moved. But we passed various places,
(36:58):
trading places with names like Grand Bassam, little popo names.
It seemed to belong to some sordid farce acted out
in front of a sinister black cloth. The idleness of
a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom
I had no point of contact. The oily and languid sea,
(37:19):
the uniform somberness of the coast seemed to keep me
away from the truth of things, within the toil of
a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf,
heard now and then, was a positive pleasure, like the
speech of a brother. It was something natural that had
its reason, that had a meaning now and then. A
(37:42):
boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality.
It was paddled by black fellers. You could see from
afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang,
their bodies streamed with perspiration. They had faces like grotesque masks,
these chaps, but they had bone, muscle, and a wild vitality,
(38:04):
an intense energy of movement that was as natural and
true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no
excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to
look at. For a time I would feel I belonged
still to a world of straightforward facts. But the feeling
would not last long. Something would turn up to scare
(38:27):
it away. Once I remember, we came upon a man
O war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a
shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears
the French had one of their wars going on there abouts.
Her ensign dropped limp like a rag, the muzzles of
the long six inch guns stuck out all over the
(38:50):
low hull. The greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily
and let her down, swaying her thin masts in the
empty immensity of earth, sky and water. There she was incomprehensible.
Firing into a continent, pop would go one of the
six inch guns. A small flame would dart and vanish,
(39:12):
A little white smoke would disappear, A tiny projectile would
give a feeble screech, and nothing happened. Nothing could happen.
There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a
sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight, and it was
not dissipated by somebody on board, assuring me earnestly there
(39:34):
was a camp of natives, he called them enemies, hidden
out of sight. Somewhere we gave her her letters. I
heard the men in that lonely ship were dying of
fever at the rate of three a day, and went on.
We call it some more places with farcical names, where
(39:55):
the merry dance of death and trade goes on in
a still and earthly atmosphere, as of an overheated catacomb,
all along the formless coast, boarded by dangerous surf, as
if nature herself had tried to ward off intruders in
and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose
(40:15):
banks were rotting into mud, whose waters thickened into slime,
invaded the contorted mangroves that seemed to writhe at us
in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did be
stopped long enough to get a particularized impression, but the
general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me.
(40:37):
It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.
It was upward of thirty days before I saw the
mouth of the big river. We anchored off the seat
of the government, but my work would not begin till
some two hundred miles further on. So as soon as
I could, I made a start for the place. Thirty
(40:58):
miles higher up. I had my passage on a little
sea going steamer. A captain was a Swede, and, knowing
me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. He
was a young man, lean, fair and morose, with lanky
hair and a shuffling gait. As we left the miserable
(41:19):
little wharf, he tossed his head contemptuously at the shore
ben living there. He asked, I said, yes, fine lot,
those coverment chaps, are they not? He went on, speaking
English with great precision and considerable bitterness. It is funny
what some people we'd do for a few francs a month.
(41:42):
I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes
up country, I said to him, I expected to see
that soon, so he exclaimed. He shuffled athwart, keeping an
eye a head vigilantly. Don't be too sure, continued The
other day, I took up a man who hanged himself
(42:03):
on the road. He was a Swede too, hanged himself.
Why in God's name, I cried? He kept on looking
out watchfully. Who knows the sun too much for him
or the country. Perhaps at last we opened a reach.
A rocky cliff appeared. Mounds of turned up earth by
(42:27):
the shore houses on a hill, others with iron roofs,
amongst a waste of excavations or hanging to the declivity.
A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this
scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black
and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into
(42:49):
the river. A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times
in a sudden recrudescence of glare. There's your company station,
said the Swede, pointing to three wooden barrack like structures
on the rocky slope. I will send your things up
four boxes. Did you say so? Farewell? I came upon
(43:14):
a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path
leading up the hill. It turned aside for the boulders,
and also for an undersized railway truck lying there on
its back with its wheels in the air. One was off.
The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal.
I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, A stack
(43:37):
of rusty rails to the left. A clump of trees
made a shady spot where dark things seemed to stir feebly.
I blinked. The path was steep. A horn tooted to
the right, and I saw the black people run. A
heavy and dull detonation shook the ground. A puff of
smoke came out of the cliff, and that was No
(44:01):
change appeared on the face of the rock. They were
building a railway. The cliff was not in the way
or anything, but this objectless blasting was all the work
going on. A slight clinking behind me made me turn
my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling
up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small
(44:25):
baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink
kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round
their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and
fro like tails. I could see every rib. The joints
of their limbs were like knots in a rope. Each
had an iron collar on his neck, and all were
(44:47):
connected together with a chain whose bites swung between them
rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made me think
suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing
into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice.
But these men could, by no stretch of imagination, be
called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law,
(45:12):
like the bursting shells, had come to them an insoluble
mystery from the sea. All their meager breasts panted together,
the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily up hill.
They passed me within six inches without a glance, with
(45:32):
that complete deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter,
one of the reclaimed the product of the new forces
at work. Strode despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle.
He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and
seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon
(45:52):
to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white
men being so much alike at a distance that he
could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured,
and with a large white, rascally grin and a glance
at his charge seemed to take me into partnership in
his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part
(46:16):
of the great cause of these high and just proceedings.
Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left.
My idea was to let that chain gang get out
of sight before I climbed the hill. You know, I
am not particularly tender. I've had to strike and defend off.
I've had to resist and to attack. Sometimes that's only
(46:39):
one way of resisting, without counting the exact costs according
to the demands of such sort of life as I
had blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and
the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire.
But by all the stars, these were strong, lusty, red
eyed devil that swayed and drove men men, I tell you.
(47:05):
But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that
in the blinding sunshine of that land, I would become
acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak eyed devil of a
rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be too,
I was only to find out several months later, and
a thousand miles farther, for a moment I stood appalled,
(47:29):
as though by a warning. Finally I descended the hill
obliquely towards the trees I had seen. I avoided a
vast artificial hole. Somebody had been digging on the slope,
the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine.
It wasn't a quarry or a sand pit anyhow, it
(47:50):
was just a hole. It might have been connected with
the philanthropic desire of giving the criminal something to do.
I don't know. Then I nearly fell into a very
narrow ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside.
I discovered that a lot of imported drainage pipes for
the settlement had been tumbled in there. There wasn't one
(48:12):
that was not broken. It was a wanton smash up.
At last I got under the trees. My purpose was
to stroll into the shade for a moment, but no
sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped
into the gloomy circle of some inferno. The rapids were near,
(48:32):
and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong rushing noise filled the mournful
stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred and
not a leaf moved with a mysterious sound, as though
the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible.
Black shapes crouched lay, sat between the trees, leaning against
(48:56):
the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half
effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain,
abandonment and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off,
followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet.
The work was going on the work, and this was
(49:17):
the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.
They were dying slowly. It was very clear. They were
not enemies, they were not criminals. They were nothing earthly now,
nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly
in the greenish gloom brought from all the recesses of
(49:41):
the coasts, in all the legality of time, contracts lost
in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient,
and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These
moribon shapes were free as air and nearly as things.
I began to distinguish the gleam of the eyes under
(50:03):
the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near
my hand. The black bones reclined at full length, with
one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose,
and the sunken eyes looked up at me enormous and vacant,
a kind of blind white flicker in the depths of
(50:24):
the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young,
almost a boy, But you know, with them it's hard
to tell. I found nothing else to do but to
offer him one of my good swedes ship's biscuits I
had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it
(50:45):
and held. There was no other movement, and no other glance.
He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck.
Why where did he get it? Was it a badge,
an ornament, a charm, a propitiatory act? Was there any
idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round
(51:07):
his black neck, this bit of white thread. From beyond
the seas, near the same tree, two more bundles of
acute angles sat with their legs drawn up, one with
his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing in
an intolerable and appalling manner. His brother phantom rested its
(51:29):
forehead as if overcome with a great weariness, and all
abouts others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse,
as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence.
While I stood horror struck, one of these creatures rose
to his hands and knees, and went off on all
fours towards the river to drink. He lapped out of
(51:52):
his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his
shins in front of him, and after a time let
him his wooly head fall on his breast bone. End
of Part one.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.