September 13, 2025 • 40 mins
04 - Chapter 2 - Part 2. 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."
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two, Part two of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by
Bob Newfound. No sooner had we fairly entered it than
I became aware it was much narrower than I had supposed.
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To the left of us there was the long, uninterrupted shoal,
and to the right a high steep bank, heavily overgrown
with bushes. Above the bush, the trees stood in serried ranks.
The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to
distance a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over
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the stream. It was then well on in the afternoon.
The face of the forest was gloomy, and a broad
strip of shadow had already fallen on the water. In
this shadow we steamed up very slowly. As you may imagine,
I shared her well inshore, the being deepest near the bank.
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As the sounding pole informed me, one of my hungry
and forbearing friends was sounding in the boughs just below me.
This steambert was exactly like a decked scow. On one
deck there were two little teak wood houses with doors
and windows. The boiler was in the fore end, and
the machinery. Right astern over the whole there was a
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light roof supported on stanchions. The funnel projected through that roof,
and in front of the funnel a small cabin built
of light planks served for a pilot house. It contained
a couch, two campstools, a loaded Martini henry leaning in
one corner, tiny table, and the steering wheel. It had
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a wide door in front and a broad shutter at
each side. All these were always thrown open. Of course,
I spent my days perched up there on the extreme
fore end of the roof, before the door. At night
I slept or tried to on the couch. An athletic
black belonging to some coast tribe and educated by my
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poor predecessor, was the helmsman. He sported a pair of
brass earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist
of the ankles, and thought all the world of himself.
He was the most unstable kind of fool I had
ever seen. He steered with no end of swagger while
you were by, but if he lost sight of you,
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he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, and
would let that cripple of a steamboat to get the
upper hand of him. In a minute, I was looking
down at the sounding pole and feeling much annoyed to
see at each try a little more of it stick
out of that river, when I saw my poleman give
up on the business suddenly and stretch himself flat on
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the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul his
pole in. He kept hold on it, though, and it
trailed in the water. At the same time, the fireman,
whom I could also see below me, sat down abruptly
before his furnace and ducked his head. I was amazed.
Then I had to look at the river mighty quick
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because there was a snag in the fairway. Sticks, little
sticks were flying about thick They were whizzing before my nose,
dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilot house.
All this time, the river, the shore, the woods were
very quiet, perfectly quiet. I could only hear the heavy
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splashing thump of the stern wheel and the patter of
these things. We cleared the snag clumsily. Arrows, By jove,
we were being shot at. I stepped in quickly to
close the shutter on the land side. That fool helmsman
his hands on the spokes was lifting his knees high,
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stamping his feet, champing his mouth like a reineding horse.
Kan found him and we were staggering within ten feet
of the bank. I had to lean right out to
swing the heavy shutter, and I saw a face amongst
the leaves on the level with my own, looking at me,
very fierce and steady. And then, suddenly, as though a
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veil had been removed from my eyes, I made out
deep in the tangled gloom, naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes.
The bush was swarming with human limbs in movement, glistening
of bronze color. The twigs shook, swayed, and rustled. The
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arrows flew out of them, and then the shutter came
to stir her straight, I said to the helmsman. He
held his head rigid, face forward, but his eyes rolled.
He kept on lifting and setting down his feet gently.
His mouth poamed a little. Keep quiet, I said, in
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a fury. I might just as well have ordered a
tree not to sway in the wind. I darted out
below me. There was a great scuffle of feet on
the iron deck, confused exclamations. A voice screamed, can you
turn back? I caught sight of a V shaped ripple
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on the water ahead. What another snag? A fusilad burst
out under my feet. The pilgrims had opened with their
winchesters and were simply squirting lead into the bush. A
deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove
slowly forward. I swore at it. Now I couldn't see
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the ripple or the snag either. I stood in the
doorway peering, and the arrows came in swarms. They might
have been poisoned, but they looked as though they couldn't
kill a cat. The bush began to howl. I would
cutters raised a warlike whoop. The report of a rifle
just at my back deafened me. I glanced over my shoulder,
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and the pilot house was yet full of noise and smoke.
When I made a dash at the wheel, the fooled
nigger had dropped everything to throw the shutter open and
let off that Martini Henry. He stood before the wide opening, glaring,
and I yelled at him to come back while I
straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat. There was
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no room to turn, even if I had wanted to
the snag was somewhere very near ahead. In that confounded smoke.
There was no time to lose, so I just crowded
her into the bank, right into the bank where I
knew the water was deep. We tore slowly along the
overhanging bushes and a whirl of broken twigs and flying leaves.
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The fusillade below stopped short, as I had foreseen it
would when the squirts got empty. I threw my head
back to a gli ing whiz that traversed the pilot
house in at one shutter hole and out at the other.
Looking past that mad helmsman who was shaking the empty
rifle and yelling at the shore, I saw vague forms
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of men running, bent, double, leaping, gliding, distinct incomplete evanescent.
Something big appeared in the air before the shutter. The
rifle went overboard, and the man stepped back swiftly, looked
at me over his shoulder in an extraordinary, profound, familiar manner,
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and fell upon my feet. The side of his head
hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared
a long cane clattered round and knocked over a little campstool.
It looked as though after wrenching that thing from somebody ashore.
He had lost his balance in the effort. The thin
smoke had blown away. We were clear of the snag,
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and looking ahead, I could see that in another hundred
yards or so I would be free to sheer off
away from the bank. But my feet felt so very
warm and wet that I had to look down. The
man had rolled on his back and stared straight up
at me. Both his hands clutched that cane. It was
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the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or lunged
through the opening, had caught him in the side, just
below the ribs. The blade had gone in out of
sight after making a frightful gash. My shoes were full.
A pool of blood lay very still, gleaming dark red
under the wheel. His eyes shone with an amazing luster.
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The fusillade burst out again. He looked at me anxiously,
gripping the spear like something precious, with an air of
being afraid that I would try to take it away
from him. I had to make an effort to free
my eyes from his gaze and attent to the steering.
With one hand. I felt above my head for the
line of the steam whistle and jerked out, screech after screech, hurriedly.
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The tumult of angry and warlike yells was checked instantly,
and then from the depths of the woods went out
such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and
utter despair, as may be imagined to follow the flight
of the last hope from the earth. There was a
great commotion in the bush. The shower of arrows stopped,
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A few dropping shots rang out sharply, then silence, in
which the languid beat of the stern wheel came plainly
to my ears. I put the helm hard a starboard.
At the moment when the pilgrim in pink pajamas, very
hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway, the manager sends me.
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He began in an official tone, and stops. Good God,
he said, glaring at the wounded man. We two whites
stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiring glance enveloped
us both. I declare, it looked as though he would
presently put to us some questions in an understandable language.
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But he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb,
without twitching a muscle, Only in the very last moment,
as though in response to some sign we could not see,
to some whisper we could not hear. He frowned heavily,
and that frown gave to his black death mask, an
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inconceivably somber, brooding and menacing expression. The luster of inquiring
glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness. Can you steer, I
asked the agent eagerly. He looked very dubious, But I
made a grab his arm, and he understood at once.
I meant him to steer, whether or no. To tell
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you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my
shoes and socks. He is dead, murmured the fellow, immensely impressed,
no doubt about it, said I, tugging like mad at
the shoelaces. And by the way, I suppose mister Kurtz
is dead as well. By this time, for the moment
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that was the dominant thought, there was a sense of
extreme disappointments, as though I had found out that I
had been striving after something altogether without a substance. I
couldn't have been more disgusted if I had traveled all
this way for the sole purpose of talking with mister
Kurtz talking with I flung one shoe overboard and became
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aware that that was exactly what I had been looking
forward to. A talk with Kurts. I made the strange
discovery that I had never imagined him as doing, you know,
but as discoursing. I didn't say to myself, now I
will never see him, or now I will never shake
him by the hand, But now I will never hear him.
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The man presented himself as a voice, not of course,
that I did not connect him with some sort of action.
Had I been told, in all the tones of jealousy
and admiration, that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen
more ivory than all the other agents together. That was
not the point. The point was in his being a
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gifted creature, and that of all his gifts, the one
that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense
of real presence was his ability to talk his words,
the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most
exalted and the most contemptible, the pulse eating stream of light,
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or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.
The other shoe went flying into the devil god of
that river. I thought, by Jove, it's all over. We
are too late. He has vanished, The gift has vanished
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by means of some spear, arrow or club. I will
never hear that chap speak after all. And my sorrow
had a startling extravagance of emotion, even such as I
had noticed in the howling sorrow of those savages in
the bush. I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow,
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had I been robbed of a belief, or had missed
my destiny in life? Why do you sigh in this
beastly way? Somebody absurd? Well absurd, Good Lord, mustn't a
man ever give me some tobacco. There was a pause
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of profound stillness. Then a match flared, and Marlow's lean
face appeared born hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids,
with an aspect of concentrated attention. And as he took
vigorous draws at his pipe, which seemed to retreat and
advance out of the nights in the regular flicker of
tiny flame, the match went out. Absurd, He cried, this
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is the worst of trying to tell you here You
all are each moored with two good addresses, like a
hulk with two anchors. A butcher round one corner, a
policeman round another. Excellent appetites and temperature normal. You hear
normal from years and to year's end, and you say absurd, absurd,
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to be exploded. Absurd, My dear boy, what can you
expect from a man who, out of sheer nervousness, had
just flung overboard a pair of new shoes. Now I
think of it, it is amazing. I did not shed tears.
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I am upon the whole proud of my fortitude. I
was cut to the quick at the idea of having
lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kerts.
Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me.
Oh yes, I heard more than enough, and I was
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right too. A voice, he was very little more than
a voice, and I heard him it this voice, other voices,
all of them were so little more than voices. And
the memory of that time itself lingers upon me impalpably,
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like a dying vibration of war, immense, jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage,
or simply mean, without any kind of sense, voices, voices,
even the girl herself. Now he was silent for a
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long time. I laid the ghost of his gifts at
last with a lie. He began suddenly, Girl, What did
I mention a girl? Oh? She is out of it completely. They,
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the women, I mean, are out of it. Should be
out of it. We must help them stay in that
beautiful world of their own lest ours gets worse. Oh,
she had to be out of it. You should have
heard the disinterred body of mister kurt saying tended. You
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would have perceived directly then how completely she was out
of it. And the lofty frontal bone of mister Kurtz.
They say the hair goes on growing sometimes, But this
specimen was impressively bold. The wilderness had patted him on
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the head, and behold it was like a ball, an
ivory ball. It had caressed him, and lo he had withered.
It had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into
his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to
its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation.
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He was its spoiled and pampered favorite ivory. I should
think so heaps of it, stacks of it. The old
mud shanty was burst with it. You would think there
was not a single tusk left either above or below
the ground in the whole country. Mostly fossil. The manager
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had remarked disparagingly, It was no more fossil than I am.
But they call it fossil when it is duga. It
appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimes, But evidently
they couldn't bury this parcel deep enough. To save the
gifted mister Kurtz from his fate, we filled the steamboat
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with it and had to pile a lot on the deck.
Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he
could see, because the appreciation of this favor had remained
with him to the last. You should have heard him say,
my ivy. Oh yes, I heard him. My intended, my ivy,
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my station, my river, my everything belonged to him. It
made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the
wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would
shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him,
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But that was a trifle. The thing was to know
what he belonged to how many powers of darkness claimed
him for their own. That was the reflection that made
you creepy all over. It was impossible. He was not
good for one either, trying to imagine he had taken
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a high seat amongst the devils of the land. I
mean literally, you can't understand. How could you, with solid
pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to
cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between
the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of
scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums. How can you imagine
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what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled
feat may take him into by the way of solitude,
utter solitude without a policeman, by the way of silence,
utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor
can be heard, whispering of public opinion. These little things
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make all the great difference. When they are gone, you
must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your
own capacity for faithfulness. Of course, you may be too
much of a fool to go wrong, too dull even
to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness.
I take it no fool ef it made a bargain
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for his soul with the devil. The fool is too
much of a fool, or the devil too much of
a devil, I don't know which. Or you may be
such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf
and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then
the earth for you is only a standing place. And
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whether to be like this is your loss or your gain,
I won't pretend to say, but most of us are
neither one nor the other. The earth for us is
a place to live in where we must put up
with sights, with sounds, with smiles too, by Jove, breathe
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dead hippo, so to speak, andnot be contaminated. And there,
don't you see? Your strength comes in the faith, in
your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury
the stuff, in your power of devotion not to yourself
but to an obscure, back breaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind.
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I am not trying to excuse or even explain. I
am trying to account to myself for for mister Kurtz,
for the shade of mister Kurtz, This initiated Wraith from
the back of nowhere, honored me with its amazing confidence
before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak
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English to me. The original Kurts have been educated partly
in England, and as he was good enough to say himself,
his sympathies were in the right place. His mother was
half English, his father was half French. All Europe contributed
to the making of Kurts, and by and by I
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learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression
of Savage Customs had entrusted him with the making of
a report for its future guidance, and he had written
it too. I've seen it, I've read it. It was elegant,
vibrating with elegance, but too high strong. I think seventeen
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pages of close writing he had found time for. But
this must have been before his, let us say, nerves
went wrong and caused him to preside at certain midnight
dances ending with unspeakable rites, which, as far as I
reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times, were
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offered up to him. Do you understand to mister Kurtz himself.
But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph. However,
in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous.
He began with the argument that we whites, from the
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point of development we had arrived at, must necessarily appear
to them savages in the nature of supernatural beings. We
approached them with the might of a deity, and so
on and so on. By the simple exercise of our will,
we can exert a power for good, practically unbounded, et cetera,
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et cetera. From that point he soared and took me
with him. The periation was magnificent, though difficult to remember.
You know, he gave me the notion of an exotic
immensity ruled by an august benevolence. It made me tingle
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with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence, of words,
of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to
interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of
note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently
much later in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as
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the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and
at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment.
It blazed at you luminous and terrifying, like a flash
of lightning in a serene sky, exterminate all the brutes.
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The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all
about that valuable postscriptum, because later on, when he, in
a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to
take good care of my pamphlet. He called it, as
it was sure to have in the future a good
influence upon his career. I had full information about all
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these things. And besides, as it turned out, I was
to have the care of his memory. I've done enough
for it to give me the indisputable right to lay
it if I choose for an everlasting rest in the
dust bin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and figuratively speaking,
all the dead cats of civilization. But then you see,
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I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was,
he was not common. He had the power to charm
or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch dance in
his honor. He could also fill the small souls of
the pilgrims with bitter misgivings. He had one devoted friend
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at least, and he had conquered one soul in the
world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with self seeking. No,
I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to
affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost
in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully.
I missed him even while his body was still lying
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in the pilot house. Perhaps you will think it passing strange,
this regret for a savage who was no more account
than a grain of sand in a black so Aarrah. Well,
don't you see he had done something he had steered
for months. I had him at my back, a help,
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an instrument. It was a kind of partnership he steered
for me. I had to look after him. I worried
about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created,
of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken.
And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me
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when he received his hurt remains to this day in
my memory like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in
a supreme moment. Poor fool, if he had only left
that shutter alone, he had no restraint, no restraint, just
like Kurtz a tree swayed by the wind. As soon
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as I had put on a dry pair of slippers,
I dragged him out, after first jerking the spear out
of his side, which operation I confess I performed with
my eyes shut tight. His heels leaped together over the
little doorstep. His shoulders were pressed to my breast. I
hugged him from behind desperately. Oh he was heavy, heavy, heavy,
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heavier than any man on earth, I should imagine. Then,
without more ado, I tipped him overboard. The current snatched
him as though he had been a wisp of grass,
and I saw the body roll over twice before I
lost sight of it forever. All the pilgrims and the
manager were then congregated on the awning deck about the
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pilot house, chattering at each other like a flock of
excited magpies. And there was a scandalized murmur at my
heartless promptitude. What they wanted to keep that body hanging about? For?
I can't guess embowment maybe, But I had also heard
another and a very ominous murmur on the deck below.
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My friends the woodcutters were likewise scandalized, and with a
better show of reason, though I admit that the reason
itself was quite inadmissible, Oh quite. I had made up
my mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten,
the fishes alone should have him. He had been a
very second rate helmsman while alive, but now he was
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dead he might have become a first class temptation and
possibly caused some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to
take the wheel the man in pink pajamas showing himself
a hopeless duffer at the business. This I did directly.
The simple funeral was over. We were going half speed,
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keeping rights in the middle of the stream, and I
listened to the talk about me. They had given up Kurtz,
they had given up the station. Kurtz was dead, and
the station had been burned, and so on and so on.
The red haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought
that at least this poor curts had been properly avenged.
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Say we must have made a glorious slaughter of them
in the Bushay, what do you think? Say? He positively
danced the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar, and he had nearly
fainted when he saw the wounded man, I could not
help saying, you made a glorious lot of smoke. Anyhow,
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I had seen from the way the tops of the
bushes rustled and flew that almost all the shots had
gone too high. You can't hit anything unless you take
aim and fire from the shoulder. But these chaps fired
from the hip with their eyes shut. The retreat, I maintained,
and I was right, was caused by the screeching of
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the steam whistle. Upon this they forgot kerts and began
to howl at me with indignant protests. The manager stood
by the wheel, murmuring confidentially about the necessity of getting
well away down the river before dark at all events.
When I saw in the distance a clearing on the
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river side, and the outlines of some sort of building.
What's this, I asked, He clapped his hands in wonder.
The station, he cried. I edged in at once, still
going half speed through my glasses, I saw the slope
of a hill, interspersed with rare trees and perfectly free
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from undergrowth. A long, decaying building on the summit was
half buried in the high grass. The large holes in
the peaked roof gaped black from afar the jungle in
the woods made a background. There was no enclosure or
fence of any kind, but there had bend one, apparently,
for near the house, half a dozen slim posts remained
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in a row, roughly trimmed and with their upper ends
ornamented with round carved balls. The rails or whatever there
had been between had disappeared, of course, The forest surrounded
all that. The river bank was clear, and on the
water side I saw a white man under a hat
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like a cartwheel, beckoning persistently with his whole arm. Examining
the edge of the forest above and below. I was
almost certain I could see movements human forms gliding here
and there. I steamed past prudently, then stopped the engines
and let her drift down. The man on the shore
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began to shout, urging us to land. We have been attacked,
screamed the manager. I know, I know, it's all right,
yelled back the other, as cheerful as you please, come along.
It's all right. I am glad. His aspect reminded me
of something I had seen, something funny I had seen somewhere.
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As I maneuvered to get alongside, I was asking myself,
what does this fellow look like Suddenly I got it.
It looked like a harlequin. His clothes had been made
of some stuff that was brown, Holland probably, but it
was covered with patches all over, with bright patches, blue, red,
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and yellow patches on the back, patches on the front,
patches on elbows, on knees, colored binding around his jacket,
scarlet edging at the bottom of his trousers. And the
sunshine made him look extremely gay and wonderfully neat withal
because you could see how beautifully all this patching had
been done. A beardless, boyish face, very fair, no features
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to speak of, nose peeling, little blue eyes, smiles and
frowns chasing each other over that open countenance, like sunshine
and shadow on a wind swept plain. Look Out, Captain,
he recried, there's a snag lodged in here last night.
What another snag? I confess, I swore, shamefully, I had
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nearly holed my cribble to finish off that charming trip.
The harlequin on the back turned his little pug nose
up to me. You English, he asked, All smiles are you?
I shouted from the wheel. The smiles vanished, and he
shook his head as if sorry for my disappointment. Then
(34:42):
he brightened up. Never mind, he cried encouragingly. Are we
in time? I asked, He is up there, he replied,
with a toss of the head, up the hill and
becoming gloomy. All of a sudden, His face was like
the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next.
(35:04):
When the manager, escorted by the pilgrims, all of them
armed to the teeth, had gone to the house, this
chap came on board. I say, I don't like this.
The natives are in the bush, I said. He assured
me earnestly it was all right. They are simple people.
He added, Well, I am glad you came. It took
(35:27):
me all my time to keep them off, but you
said it was all right. I cried, Oh they meant
no harm, he said, And as I stared, he corrected himself,
not exactly. Then, vivaciously, my faith, your pilot house wants
a clean up. In the next breath, he advised me
(35:49):
to keep enough steam on the boiler to blow the
whistle in case of trouble. One good screech will do
more for you than all your rifles. They are simple people,
he repeated, he rattled away at such a rate he
quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make
up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing that
(36:13):
such was the case. But don't you talk with mister Kurtz,
I said, you don't talk with that man. You listen
to him, he exclaimed, with severe exultation. But now he
waved his arm, and in the twinkling of an eye,
was in the outermost depths of despondency. In a moment,
(36:36):
he came up again with a jump, possessed himself of
both my hands, shook them continuously while he gabbed A brother, sailor, honor,
a pleasure, delight, introduce myself Russian son of an archpriest,
government of time. Boff What tobacco, English tobacco, The excellent
(36:57):
English tobacco. Now, oh, that's brotherly smoke. Where's a sailor
that does not smoke? The pipe soothed him, and gradually
I made out he had run away from school and
had gone to sea in a Russian ship, ran away again,
served some time in English ships, was now reconciled with
(37:19):
the arch priest. He made a point of that, But
when one is young, one must see things gathered, experience
ideas enlarged the mind. Here, I interrupted, you can never
tell Here I met mister Kurtz, he said, youthfully, solemn
and reproachful. I held my tongue. After that, it appears
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he had persuaded a Dutch trading house on the coast
to fit him out with stores and goods, and started
for the interior with a light heart and no more
idea of what would happen to him than a baby.
He had been wandering about that river for nearly two
years alone, cut off from everybody and everything. I am
(38:03):
not so young as I look. I am twenty five,
he said. At first, Old von Schechten would tell me
to go to the devil. He narrated with keen enjoyment.
But I stuck to him and talked and talked till
at last he got afraid I would talk the hind
leg off his favorite dog. So he gave me some
(38:24):
cheap things and a few guns, and told me he
hoped he would never see my face again. Good old
Dutchman von Scheiden. I've sent him one small lot of
ivory a year ago so that he can't call me
a little thief. When I get back, I hope he
got it, And for the rest I don't care. I
(38:46):
had some wood stacked for you. That was my old house,
did you see. I gave him Towsand's book. He made
as though he would kiss me, but restrained himself. The
only book I had left, and I thought I had
lost it, he said, looking at it ecstatically. So many
(39:07):
accidents happened to a man about alone. You know, canoes
get upset sometimes, and sometimes you've got to clear out
so quick when the people get angry. He thumbed the pages.
You made notes in Russian, I asked. He nodded. I
thought they were written in cipher, I said. He laughed,
(39:29):
then became serious. I had lots of trouble to keep
these people off, he said. Did they want to kill you?
I asked, Oh no, he cried and checked himself. Why
did they attack us? I pursued. He hesitated, then said, shamefacedly.
(39:49):
They don't want him to go, don't they? I said curiously.
He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom, I
tell you, he cried, This man has enlarged my mind.
He opened his arms wide staring at me with his
(40:11):
little blue eyes that were perfectly round. End of chapter two,
Chapter two, Part two of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by
Bob Newfound. No sooner had we fairly entered it than
I became aware it was much narrower than I had supposed.
(00:21):
To the left of us there was the long, uninterrupted shoal,
and to the right a high steep bank, heavily overgrown
with bushes. Above the bush, the trees stood in serried ranks.
The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to
distance a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over
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the stream. It was then well on in the afternoon.
The face of the forest was gloomy, and a broad
strip of shadow had already fallen on the water. In
this shadow we steamed up very slowly. As you may imagine,
I shared her well inshore, the being deepest near the bank.
(01:02):
As the sounding pole informed me, one of my hungry
and forbearing friends was sounding in the boughs just below me.
This steambert was exactly like a decked scow. On one
deck there were two little teak wood houses with doors
and windows. The boiler was in the fore end, and
the machinery. Right astern over the whole there was a
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light roof supported on stanchions. The funnel projected through that roof,
and in front of the funnel a small cabin built
of light planks served for a pilot house. It contained
a couch, two campstools, a loaded Martini henry leaning in
one corner, tiny table, and the steering wheel. It had
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a wide door in front and a broad shutter at
each side. All these were always thrown open. Of course,
I spent my days perched up there on the extreme
fore end of the roof, before the door. At night
I slept or tried to on the couch. An athletic
black belonging to some coast tribe and educated by my
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poor predecessor, was the helmsman. He sported a pair of
brass earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist
of the ankles, and thought all the world of himself.
He was the most unstable kind of fool I had
ever seen. He steered with no end of swagger while
you were by, but if he lost sight of you,
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he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, and
would let that cripple of a steamboat to get the
upper hand of him. In a minute, I was looking
down at the sounding pole and feeling much annoyed to
see at each try a little more of it stick
out of that river, when I saw my poleman give
up on the business suddenly and stretch himself flat on
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the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul his
pole in. He kept hold on it, though, and it
trailed in the water. At the same time, the fireman,
whom I could also see below me, sat down abruptly
before his furnace and ducked his head. I was amazed.
Then I had to look at the river mighty quick
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because there was a snag in the fairway. Sticks, little
sticks were flying about thick They were whizzing before my nose,
dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilot house.
All this time, the river, the shore, the woods were
very quiet, perfectly quiet. I could only hear the heavy
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splashing thump of the stern wheel and the patter of
these things. We cleared the snag clumsily. Arrows, By jove,
we were being shot at. I stepped in quickly to
close the shutter on the land side. That fool helmsman
his hands on the spokes was lifting his knees high,
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stamping his feet, champing his mouth like a reineding horse.
Kan found him and we were staggering within ten feet
of the bank. I had to lean right out to
swing the heavy shutter, and I saw a face amongst
the leaves on the level with my own, looking at me,
very fierce and steady. And then, suddenly, as though a
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veil had been removed from my eyes, I made out
deep in the tangled gloom, naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes.
The bush was swarming with human limbs in movement, glistening
of bronze color. The twigs shook, swayed, and rustled. The
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arrows flew out of them, and then the shutter came
to stir her straight, I said to the helmsman. He
held his head rigid, face forward, but his eyes rolled.
He kept on lifting and setting down his feet gently.
His mouth poamed a little. Keep quiet, I said, in
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a fury. I might just as well have ordered a
tree not to sway in the wind. I darted out
below me. There was a great scuffle of feet on
the iron deck, confused exclamations. A voice screamed, can you
turn back? I caught sight of a V shaped ripple
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on the water ahead. What another snag? A fusilad burst
out under my feet. The pilgrims had opened with their
winchesters and were simply squirting lead into the bush. A
deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove
slowly forward. I swore at it. Now I couldn't see
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the ripple or the snag either. I stood in the
doorway peering, and the arrows came in swarms. They might
have been poisoned, but they looked as though they couldn't
kill a cat. The bush began to howl. I would
cutters raised a warlike whoop. The report of a rifle
just at my back deafened me. I glanced over my shoulder,
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and the pilot house was yet full of noise and smoke.
When I made a dash at the wheel, the fooled
nigger had dropped everything to throw the shutter open and
let off that Martini Henry. He stood before the wide opening, glaring,
and I yelled at him to come back while I
straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat. There was
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no room to turn, even if I had wanted to
the snag was somewhere very near ahead. In that confounded smoke.
There was no time to lose, so I just crowded
her into the bank, right into the bank where I
knew the water was deep. We tore slowly along the
overhanging bushes and a whirl of broken twigs and flying leaves.
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The fusillade below stopped short, as I had foreseen it
would when the squirts got empty. I threw my head
back to a gli ing whiz that traversed the pilot
house in at one shutter hole and out at the other.
Looking past that mad helmsman who was shaking the empty
rifle and yelling at the shore, I saw vague forms
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of men running, bent, double, leaping, gliding, distinct incomplete evanescent.
Something big appeared in the air before the shutter. The
rifle went overboard, and the man stepped back swiftly, looked
at me over his shoulder in an extraordinary, profound, familiar manner,
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and fell upon my feet. The side of his head
hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared
a long cane clattered round and knocked over a little campstool.
It looked as though after wrenching that thing from somebody ashore.
He had lost his balance in the effort. The thin
smoke had blown away. We were clear of the snag,
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and looking ahead, I could see that in another hundred
yards or so I would be free to sheer off
away from the bank. But my feet felt so very
warm and wet that I had to look down. The
man had rolled on his back and stared straight up
at me. Both his hands clutched that cane. It was
(08:20):
the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or lunged
through the opening, had caught him in the side, just
below the ribs. The blade had gone in out of
sight after making a frightful gash. My shoes were full.
A pool of blood lay very still, gleaming dark red
under the wheel. His eyes shone with an amazing luster.
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The fusillade burst out again. He looked at me anxiously,
gripping the spear like something precious, with an air of
being afraid that I would try to take it away
from him. I had to make an effort to free
my eyes from his gaze and attent to the steering.
With one hand. I felt above my head for the
line of the steam whistle and jerked out, screech after screech, hurriedly.
(09:10):
The tumult of angry and warlike yells was checked instantly,
and then from the depths of the woods went out
such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and
utter despair, as may be imagined to follow the flight
of the last hope from the earth. There was a
great commotion in the bush. The shower of arrows stopped,
(09:35):
A few dropping shots rang out sharply, then silence, in
which the languid beat of the stern wheel came plainly
to my ears. I put the helm hard a starboard.
At the moment when the pilgrim in pink pajamas, very
hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway, the manager sends me.
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He began in an official tone, and stops. Good God,
he said, glaring at the wounded man. We two whites
stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiring glance enveloped
us both. I declare, it looked as though he would
presently put to us some questions in an understandable language.
(10:20):
But he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb,
without twitching a muscle, Only in the very last moment,
as though in response to some sign we could not see,
to some whisper we could not hear. He frowned heavily,
and that frown gave to his black death mask, an
(10:42):
inconceivably somber, brooding and menacing expression. The luster of inquiring
glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness. Can you steer, I
asked the agent eagerly. He looked very dubious, But I
made a grab his arm, and he understood at once.
I meant him to steer, whether or no. To tell
(11:05):
you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my
shoes and socks. He is dead, murmured the fellow, immensely impressed,
no doubt about it, said I, tugging like mad at
the shoelaces. And by the way, I suppose mister Kurtz
is dead as well. By this time, for the moment
(11:28):
that was the dominant thought, there was a sense of
extreme disappointments, as though I had found out that I
had been striving after something altogether without a substance. I
couldn't have been more disgusted if I had traveled all
this way for the sole purpose of talking with mister
Kurtz talking with I flung one shoe overboard and became
(11:51):
aware that that was exactly what I had been looking
forward to. A talk with Kurts. I made the strange
discovery that I had never imagined him as doing, you know,
but as discoursing. I didn't say to myself, now I
will never see him, or now I will never shake
him by the hand, But now I will never hear him.
(12:16):
The man presented himself as a voice, not of course,
that I did not connect him with some sort of action.
Had I been told, in all the tones of jealousy
and admiration, that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen
more ivory than all the other agents together. That was
not the point. The point was in his being a
(12:38):
gifted creature, and that of all his gifts, the one
that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense
of real presence was his ability to talk his words,
the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most
exalted and the most contemptible, the pulse eating stream of light,
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or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.
The other shoe went flying into the devil god of
that river. I thought, by Jove, it's all over. We
are too late. He has vanished, The gift has vanished
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by means of some spear, arrow or club. I will
never hear that chap speak after all. And my sorrow
had a startling extravagance of emotion, even such as I
had noticed in the howling sorrow of those savages in
the bush. I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow,
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had I been robbed of a belief, or had missed
my destiny in life? Why do you sigh in this
beastly way? Somebody absurd? Well absurd, Good Lord, mustn't a
man ever give me some tobacco. There was a pause
(14:03):
of profound stillness. Then a match flared, and Marlow's lean
face appeared born hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids,
with an aspect of concentrated attention. And as he took
vigorous draws at his pipe, which seemed to retreat and
advance out of the nights in the regular flicker of
tiny flame, the match went out. Absurd, He cried, this
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is the worst of trying to tell you here You
all are each moored with two good addresses, like a
hulk with two anchors. A butcher round one corner, a
policeman round another. Excellent appetites and temperature normal. You hear
normal from years and to year's end, and you say absurd, absurd,
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to be exploded. Absurd, My dear boy, what can you
expect from a man who, out of sheer nervousness, had
just flung overboard a pair of new shoes. Now I
think of it, it is amazing. I did not shed tears.
(15:15):
I am upon the whole proud of my fortitude. I
was cut to the quick at the idea of having
lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kerts.
Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me.
Oh yes, I heard more than enough, and I was
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right too. A voice, he was very little more than
a voice, and I heard him it this voice, other voices,
all of them were so little more than voices. And
the memory of that time itself lingers upon me impalpably,
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like a dying vibration of war, immense, jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage,
or simply mean, without any kind of sense, voices, voices,
even the girl herself. Now he was silent for a
(16:19):
long time. I laid the ghost of his gifts at
last with a lie. He began suddenly, Girl, What did
I mention a girl? Oh? She is out of it completely. They,
(16:40):
the women, I mean, are out of it. Should be
out of it. We must help them stay in that
beautiful world of their own lest ours gets worse. Oh,
she had to be out of it. You should have
heard the disinterred body of mister kurt saying tended. You
(17:02):
would have perceived directly then how completely she was out
of it. And the lofty frontal bone of mister Kurtz.
They say the hair goes on growing sometimes, But this
specimen was impressively bold. The wilderness had patted him on
(17:23):
the head, and behold it was like a ball, an
ivory ball. It had caressed him, and lo he had withered.
It had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into
his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to
its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation.
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He was its spoiled and pampered favorite ivory. I should
think so heaps of it, stacks of it. The old
mud shanty was burst with it. You would think there
was not a single tusk left either above or below
the ground in the whole country. Mostly fossil. The manager
(18:10):
had remarked disparagingly, It was no more fossil than I am.
But they call it fossil when it is duga. It
appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimes, But evidently
they couldn't bury this parcel deep enough. To save the
gifted mister Kurtz from his fate, we filled the steamboat
(18:31):
with it and had to pile a lot on the deck.
Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he
could see, because the appreciation of this favor had remained
with him to the last. You should have heard him say,
my ivy. Oh yes, I heard him. My intended, my ivy,
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my station, my river, my everything belonged to him. It
made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the
wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would
shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him,
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But that was a trifle. The thing was to know
what he belonged to how many powers of darkness claimed
him for their own. That was the reflection that made
you creepy all over. It was impossible. He was not
good for one either, trying to imagine he had taken
(19:41):
a high seat amongst the devils of the land. I
mean literally, you can't understand. How could you, with solid
pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to
cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between
the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of
scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums. How can you imagine
(20:04):
what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled
feat may take him into by the way of solitude,
utter solitude without a policeman, by the way of silence,
utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor
can be heard, whispering of public opinion. These little things
(20:26):
make all the great difference. When they are gone, you
must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your
own capacity for faithfulness. Of course, you may be too
much of a fool to go wrong, too dull even
to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness.
I take it no fool ef it made a bargain
(20:49):
for his soul with the devil. The fool is too
much of a fool, or the devil too much of
a devil, I don't know which. Or you may be
such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf
and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then
the earth for you is only a standing place. And
(21:12):
whether to be like this is your loss or your gain,
I won't pretend to say, but most of us are
neither one nor the other. The earth for us is
a place to live in where we must put up
with sights, with sounds, with smiles too, by Jove, breathe
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dead hippo, so to speak, andnot be contaminated. And there,
don't you see? Your strength comes in the faith, in
your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury
the stuff, in your power of devotion not to yourself
but to an obscure, back breaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind.
(21:59):
I am not trying to excuse or even explain. I
am trying to account to myself for for mister Kurtz,
for the shade of mister Kurtz, This initiated Wraith from
the back of nowhere, honored me with its amazing confidence
before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak
(22:23):
English to me. The original Kurts have been educated partly
in England, and as he was good enough to say himself,
his sympathies were in the right place. His mother was
half English, his father was half French. All Europe contributed
to the making of Kurts, and by and by I
(22:43):
learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression
of Savage Customs had entrusted him with the making of
a report for its future guidance, and he had written
it too. I've seen it, I've read it. It was elegant,
vibrating with elegance, but too high strong. I think seventeen
(23:07):
pages of close writing he had found time for. But
this must have been before his, let us say, nerves
went wrong and caused him to preside at certain midnight
dances ending with unspeakable rites, which, as far as I
reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times, were
(23:29):
offered up to him. Do you understand to mister Kurtz himself.
But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph. However,
in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous.
He began with the argument that we whites, from the
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point of development we had arrived at, must necessarily appear
to them savages in the nature of supernatural beings. We
approached them with the might of a deity, and so
on and so on. By the simple exercise of our will,
we can exert a power for good, practically unbounded, et cetera,
(24:12):
et cetera. From that point he soared and took me
with him. The periation was magnificent, though difficult to remember.
You know, he gave me the notion of an exotic
immensity ruled by an august benevolence. It made me tingle
(24:32):
with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence, of words,
of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to
interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of
note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently
much later in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as
(24:55):
the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and
at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment.
It blazed at you luminous and terrifying, like a flash
of lightning in a serene sky, exterminate all the brutes.
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The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all
about that valuable postscriptum, because later on, when he, in
a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to
take good care of my pamphlet. He called it, as
it was sure to have in the future a good
influence upon his career. I had full information about all
(25:39):
these things. And besides, as it turned out, I was
to have the care of his memory. I've done enough
for it to give me the indisputable right to lay
it if I choose for an everlasting rest in the
dust bin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and figuratively speaking,
all the dead cats of civilization. But then you see,
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I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was,
he was not common. He had the power to charm
or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch dance in
his honor. He could also fill the small souls of
the pilgrims with bitter misgivings. He had one devoted friend
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at least, and he had conquered one soul in the
world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with self seeking. No,
I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to
affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost
in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully.
I missed him even while his body was still lying
(26:50):
in the pilot house. Perhaps you will think it passing strange,
this regret for a savage who was no more account
than a grain of sand in a black so Aarrah. Well,
don't you see he had done something he had steered
for months. I had him at my back, a help,
(27:11):
an instrument. It was a kind of partnership he steered
for me. I had to look after him. I worried
about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created,
of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken.
And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me
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when he received his hurt remains to this day in
my memory like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in
a supreme moment. Poor fool, if he had only left
that shutter alone, he had no restraint, no restraint, just
like Kurtz a tree swayed by the wind. As soon
(27:55):
as I had put on a dry pair of slippers,
I dragged him out, after first jerking the spear out
of his side, which operation I confess I performed with
my eyes shut tight. His heels leaped together over the
little doorstep. His shoulders were pressed to my breast. I
hugged him from behind desperately. Oh he was heavy, heavy, heavy,
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heavier than any man on earth, I should imagine. Then,
without more ado, I tipped him overboard. The current snatched
him as though he had been a wisp of grass,
and I saw the body roll over twice before I
lost sight of it forever. All the pilgrims and the
manager were then congregated on the awning deck about the
(28:45):
pilot house, chattering at each other like a flock of
excited magpies. And there was a scandalized murmur at my
heartless promptitude. What they wanted to keep that body hanging about? For?
I can't guess embowment maybe, But I had also heard
another and a very ominous murmur on the deck below.
(29:08):
My friends the woodcutters were likewise scandalized, and with a
better show of reason, though I admit that the reason
itself was quite inadmissible, Oh quite. I had made up
my mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten,
the fishes alone should have him. He had been a
very second rate helmsman while alive, but now he was
(29:31):
dead he might have become a first class temptation and
possibly caused some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to
take the wheel the man in pink pajamas showing himself
a hopeless duffer at the business. This I did directly.
The simple funeral was over. We were going half speed,
(29:54):
keeping rights in the middle of the stream, and I
listened to the talk about me. They had given up Kurtz,
they had given up the station. Kurtz was dead, and
the station had been burned, and so on and so on.
The red haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought
that at least this poor curts had been properly avenged.
(30:15):
Say we must have made a glorious slaughter of them
in the Bushay, what do you think? Say? He positively
danced the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar, and he had nearly
fainted when he saw the wounded man, I could not
help saying, you made a glorious lot of smoke. Anyhow,
(30:38):
I had seen from the way the tops of the
bushes rustled and flew that almost all the shots had
gone too high. You can't hit anything unless you take
aim and fire from the shoulder. But these chaps fired
from the hip with their eyes shut. The retreat, I maintained,
and I was right, was caused by the screeching of
(30:59):
the steam whistle. Upon this they forgot kerts and began
to howl at me with indignant protests. The manager stood
by the wheel, murmuring confidentially about the necessity of getting
well away down the river before dark at all events.
When I saw in the distance a clearing on the
(31:19):
river side, and the outlines of some sort of building.
What's this, I asked, He clapped his hands in wonder.
The station, he cried. I edged in at once, still
going half speed through my glasses, I saw the slope
of a hill, interspersed with rare trees and perfectly free
(31:42):
from undergrowth. A long, decaying building on the summit was
half buried in the high grass. The large holes in
the peaked roof gaped black from afar the jungle in
the woods made a background. There was no enclosure or
fence of any kind, but there had bend one, apparently,
for near the house, half a dozen slim posts remained
(32:04):
in a row, roughly trimmed and with their upper ends
ornamented with round carved balls. The rails or whatever there
had been between had disappeared, of course, The forest surrounded
all that. The river bank was clear, and on the
water side I saw a white man under a hat
(32:25):
like a cartwheel, beckoning persistently with his whole arm. Examining
the edge of the forest above and below. I was
almost certain I could see movements human forms gliding here
and there. I steamed past prudently, then stopped the engines
and let her drift down. The man on the shore
(32:46):
began to shout, urging us to land. We have been attacked,
screamed the manager. I know, I know, it's all right,
yelled back the other, as cheerful as you please, come along.
It's all right. I am glad. His aspect reminded me
of something I had seen, something funny I had seen somewhere.
(33:10):
As I maneuvered to get alongside, I was asking myself,
what does this fellow look like Suddenly I got it.
It looked like a harlequin. His clothes had been made
of some stuff that was brown, Holland probably, but it
was covered with patches all over, with bright patches, blue, red,
(33:32):
and yellow patches on the back, patches on the front,
patches on elbows, on knees, colored binding around his jacket,
scarlet edging at the bottom of his trousers. And the
sunshine made him look extremely gay and wonderfully neat withal
because you could see how beautifully all this patching had
been done. A beardless, boyish face, very fair, no features
(33:56):
to speak of, nose peeling, little blue eyes, smiles and
frowns chasing each other over that open countenance, like sunshine
and shadow on a wind swept plain. Look Out, Captain,
he recried, there's a snag lodged in here last night.
What another snag? I confess, I swore, shamefully, I had
(34:20):
nearly holed my cribble to finish off that charming trip.
The harlequin on the back turned his little pug nose
up to me. You English, he asked, All smiles are you?
I shouted from the wheel. The smiles vanished, and he
shook his head as if sorry for my disappointment. Then
(34:42):
he brightened up. Never mind, he cried encouragingly. Are we
in time? I asked, He is up there, he replied,
with a toss of the head, up the hill and
becoming gloomy. All of a sudden, His face was like
the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next.
(35:04):
When the manager, escorted by the pilgrims, all of them
armed to the teeth, had gone to the house, this
chap came on board. I say, I don't like this.
The natives are in the bush, I said. He assured
me earnestly it was all right. They are simple people.
He added, Well, I am glad you came. It took
(35:27):
me all my time to keep them off, but you
said it was all right. I cried, Oh they meant
no harm, he said, And as I stared, he corrected himself,
not exactly. Then, vivaciously, my faith, your pilot house wants
a clean up. In the next breath, he advised me
(35:49):
to keep enough steam on the boiler to blow the
whistle in case of trouble. One good screech will do
more for you than all your rifles. They are simple people,
he repeated, he rattled away at such a rate he
quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make
up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing that
(36:13):
such was the case. But don't you talk with mister Kurtz,
I said, you don't talk with that man. You listen
to him, he exclaimed, with severe exultation. But now he
waved his arm, and in the twinkling of an eye,
was in the outermost depths of despondency. In a moment,
(36:36):
he came up again with a jump, possessed himself of
both my hands, shook them continuously while he gabbed A brother, sailor, honor,
a pleasure, delight, introduce myself Russian son of an archpriest,
government of time. Boff What tobacco, English tobacco, The excellent
(36:57):
English tobacco. Now, oh, that's brotherly smoke. Where's a sailor
that does not smoke? The pipe soothed him, and gradually
I made out he had run away from school and
had gone to sea in a Russian ship, ran away again,
served some time in English ships, was now reconciled with
(37:19):
the arch priest. He made a point of that, But
when one is young, one must see things gathered, experience
ideas enlarged the mind. Here, I interrupted, you can never
tell Here I met mister Kurtz, he said, youthfully, solemn
and reproachful. I held my tongue. After that, it appears
(37:43):
he had persuaded a Dutch trading house on the coast
to fit him out with stores and goods, and started
for the interior with a light heart and no more
idea of what would happen to him than a baby.
He had been wandering about that river for nearly two
years alone, cut off from everybody and everything. I am
(38:03):
not so young as I look. I am twenty five,
he said. At first, Old von Schechten would tell me
to go to the devil. He narrated with keen enjoyment.
But I stuck to him and talked and talked till
at last he got afraid I would talk the hind
leg off his favorite dog. So he gave me some
(38:24):
cheap things and a few guns, and told me he
hoped he would never see my face again. Good old
Dutchman von Scheiden. I've sent him one small lot of
ivory a year ago so that he can't call me
a little thief. When I get back, I hope he
got it, And for the rest I don't care. I
(38:46):
had some wood stacked for you. That was my old house,
did you see. I gave him Towsand's book. He made
as though he would kiss me, but restrained himself. The
only book I had left, and I thought I had
lost it, he said, looking at it ecstatically. So many
(39:07):
accidents happened to a man about alone. You know, canoes
get upset sometimes, and sometimes you've got to clear out
so quick when the people get angry. He thumbed the pages.
You made notes in Russian, I asked. He nodded. I
thought they were written in cipher, I said. He laughed,
(39:29):
then became serious. I had lots of trouble to keep
these people off, he said. Did they want to kill you?
I asked, Oh no, he cried and checked himself. Why
did they attack us? I pursued. He hesitated, then said, shamefacedly.
(39:49):
They don't want him to go, don't they? I said curiously.
He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom, I
tell you, he cried, This man has enlarged my mind.
He opened his arms wide staring at me with his
(40:11):
little blue eyes that were perfectly round. End of chapter two,
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