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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Chapter one, Part two.
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 was just a hole. It might have
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been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals
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 that was not broken. It was a
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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, and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong rushing noise
filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a
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breath stirred, 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 the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out,
half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes
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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 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had withdrawn to die.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.
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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 the cost, in all the
legality of time, contracts lost in uncongenial surroundings. Fed on
unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed
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to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free
as air and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish
the gleam of the eyes under 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
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up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind
white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died
out slowly. The men 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 biscuits I had in my pocket.
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The fingers closed slowly on it and held. There was
no other movement, and no other glance. He had tied
a bit of white worsted around 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 his black
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neck the spit of white thread. From beyond the seas,
near the same tree, two more bundles of acute angle
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 forehead as
if overcome with a great weariness, and all about others
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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 his hand,
then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in
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front of him, and after a time let his wooly
head fall on his breastbone. I didn't want any more
loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards the station.
When near the buildings, I met a white man in
such an unexpected elegance of get up that in the
first moment I took him for a sort of vision.
I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light
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alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots,
no hat, hair parted, brushed, oiled under a green lined parasol,
held in a big white hand. He was amazing and
had a pen holder behind his ear. I shook hands
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with this miracle, and I learned that he was the
company's chief accountant, and that all the bookkeeping was done
at this station. He had come out for a moment,
he said, to get a breath of fresh air. The
expression sounded wonderfully awed, with its suggestion of sedentary desk life.
I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all.
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Only it was from his lips that I first heard
the name of the man who was so indissolubly connected
with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respected the fellow, yes,
I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair.
His appearance was certainly that of a hair dresser's dummy.
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But in the great demoralization of the land, he kept
up his appearance. That's backbone, his starched collars and got
up shirt fronts were achievements of character. He had been
out nearly three years, and later I could not help
asking him how he managed to sport such linen. He
had just the faintest blush and said modestly, I've been
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teaching one of the native women about the station. It
was difficult. She had a distaste for the work. Thus,
this man had verily accomplished something, and he was devoted
to his books, which were in apple pie order. Everything
else in the station was in a muddle. Heads things, buildings,
strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed
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a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads and brass
wires set into the depths of darkness, and in return
came a precious trickle of ivory. I had to wait
in the station for ten days, an eternity. I lived
in a hut in the yard. But to be out
of the chaos, I would sometimes get into the accountant's office.
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It was built out of horizontal planks, and so badly
put together that as he bent over his high desk,
he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips
of sunlight. There was no need to open the big
shutter to see it was hot there too, big flies
buzzed fiendishly and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat
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generally on the floor, while of faultless appearance, and even
slightly scented, perching on a high stool, he wrote. He wrote.
Sometimes he stood up for exercise when a truckle bed
with a sick man, some invalid agent from up country
was put in there. He exhibited a gentle annoyance the
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groans of this sick person. He said, distract my attention,
and without that it is extremely difficult to guard against
clerical errors in this climate. One day, he remarked, without
lifting his head, in the interior, you will no doubt
meet mister Kurtz. On my asking who mister Kurtz was,
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he said he was a first class agent, and seeing
my disappointment at this information, he added, slowly, laying down
his pen, he is a very remarkable person. Further questions
elicited from him that mister Kurtz was at present in
charge of a trading post, a very important one in
the true ivory country, at the very bottom of there,
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in as much ivory as all the others put together.
He began to write again. The sick man was too
ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace.
Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a
great tramping of feet. A caravan had come in. A
violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out on the other
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side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking together,
and in the midst of the uproar, the lamentable voice
of the chief Agent was heard, giving it up tearfully
for the twentieth time that day, he rose slowly. What
a frightful row, he said. He crossed the room gently
to look at the sick man, and returning, said to me,
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he does not hear what dead? I asked, startled, No,
not yet, he answered with great composure, then alluding with
a toss of the head to the tumult in the
station yard. When one has got to make correct entries,
one comes to hate those savages, hate them to death.
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He remained thoughtful for a moment. When you see, mister Kurtz,
he went on, tell him from me that everything here
he glanced at the deck, is very satisfactory. I don't
like to write to him with those messengers of ours.
You never know who may get hold of your letter.
At that central station. He stared at me for a
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moment with his mild bulging eyes. Oh he will go far,
very far, he began again. He will be as somebody
in the administration. Before long they above the council in Europe,
you know mean him to be. He turned to his work.
The noise outside had ceased, and presently, in going out,
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I stopped at the door in the steady buzz of flies.
The homeward bound agent was lying finished and insensible. The
other bent over his books, was making correct entries of
perfectly correct transactions, and fifty feet below the doorstep I
could see the still tree tops of the grove of Death.
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Next day I left that station at last with a
caravan of sixty men for a two hundred mile tramp.
No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths everywhere,
a stamped in network of paths, spreading over the empty land,
through the long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down
and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills, ablaze
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with heat and a solitude, a solitude nobody, not a hut.
The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well,
if a lot of mysterious niggers, armed with all kinds
of fearful weapons, suddenly took to traveling on the road
between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left
to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm
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and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon. Only here
the dwellings were gone too. Still. I passed through several
abandoned villages. There's something pathetically childish in the ruins of
grass walls. Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle
of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair
under a sixty pound load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike, camp,
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march now, and then a carrier dead in harness, at
rest in the long grass near the path, with an
empty water gourd and his long staff lying by his side.
A great silence around and above, perhaps on some quiet night,
the tremor of far off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor, vast, faint,
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a sound, weird, appealing, suggestive and wild, and perhaps with
as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in
a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform,
camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris,
very hospitable and festive, not to say drunk, was looking
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after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can't say
I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body
of a middle aged Negro with a bullet hole in
the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles further on,
may be considered as a permanent improvement. I had a
white companion too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshy,
and with the exasperating habit of fainting in the hot
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hill sides, miles away from the least bit of shade
and water. Annoying, you know, to hold your own coat
like a parasol over a man's head while he is
coming too. I couldn't help asking him once what he
meant by coming there at all to make money? Of course,
what do you think? He said, scornfully. Then he got
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fever and had to be carried in a hammock slung
under a pole as he weighed sixteen stone. I had
no end of rows with the carriers. They jibbed, ran away,
sneaked off with their loads in the night. Quite a mutiny.
So one evening I made a speech in English with gestures,
not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs
of eyes before me. And the next morning I started
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the hammock off in front all right. An hour afterwards
I came upon the whole concern wrecked in a bushman, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors.
The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was
very anxious for me to kill somebody, but there wasn't
the shadow of a carrier near. I remembered the old doctor.
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It would be interesting for science to watch the mental
changes of individuals on the spot, I felt I was
becoming scientifically interesting. However, off head is to no purpose.
On the fifteenth day, I came in sight of the
big river again and hobbled into the central station. It
was on a backwater, surrounded by scrub and forest, with
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a pretty border of smelly mud on one side and
on the three others, enclosed by a crazy fence of rushes.
A neglected gap was all the gate it had, and
the first glance at the place was enough to let
you see the flabby devil was running that show. White
men with long staves in their hands, appeared languidly from
amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me,
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and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of them,
a stout, excitable chap with black mustaches, informed me with
great volubility and many digressions. As soon as I told
him who I was, that my steamer was at the
bottom of the river, I was thunderstruck. What how why? Oh?
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It was all right. The manager himself was there, all
quite correct. Everybody had behaved splendidly. Splendidly you must, he said,
in agitation, Go and see the general manager at once.
He is waiting. I did not see the real significance
of that wreck at once. I fancy I see it now,
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but I am not sure, not at all. Certainly the
affair was too stupid when I think of it, to
be altogether natural still, but at the moment it presented
itself simply as confounded nuisance. The steamer was sunk. They
had started two days before in a sudden hurry up
the river with the manager on board, in charge of
some volunteer skipper, and before they had been out three hours,
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they tore the bottom out of her arm stones, and
she sank near the south bank. I asked myself what
I was to do there? Now my boat was lost.
As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do
in fishing my command out of the river. I had
to set about it the very next day. That and
the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station
took some months. My first interview with the manager was curious.
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He did not ask me to sit down after my
twenty mile walk that morning. He was commonplace in complexion,
in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of
middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes of the
usual blue were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could
make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy
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as an axe. But even at these times, the rest
of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there
was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy,
a smile, not a smile. I remember it, but I
can't explain it was unconscious. This smile was though just
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after he had said something. It got intensified for an instant.
It came at the end of his speeches, like a
seal applied on the words to make the meaning of
the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common
trader from his youth up, employed in these parts. Nothing more.
He was obeyed. Yet he inspired neither love, nor fear,
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nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it, uneasiness,
not a definite mistrust, just uneasiness. Nothing more. You have
no idea how effective such a a faculty can be.
He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order,
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even that was evident in such things as the deplorable
state of the station. He had no learning and no intelligence.
His position had come to him. Why perhaps because he
was never ill, he had served three terms of three
years out there, Because triumphant health in the general route
of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. When
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he went home on leave, he rioted on a large scale,
pompously jack ashore, with a difference in externals. Only this
one could gather from his casual talk. He originated nothing.
He could keep the routine going, that's all. But he
was great. He was great by this little thing that
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it was impossible to tell what could control such a man.
He never gave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing
within him. Such a suspicion made one pause, for out
there there were no external checks. Once, when various tropical
diseases had lee laid low almost every agent in the station,
he was heard to say, men who come out here
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should have no entrails. He sealed the utterance with that
smile of his, as though it had been a door
opening into a darkness. He had in his keeping. Effeccy,
you had seen things, but the seal was on. When
annoyed at meal times by the constant quarrels of the
white men about precedence, he ordered an immense round table
to be made, for which a special house had to
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be built. This was the station's mess room, where he
sat was the first place the rest were nowhere. One
felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither
civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his boy
and overfed young Negro from the coast to treat the
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white men under his very eyes with provoking insolence. He
began to speak as soon as he saw me. I
had been very long on the road. He could not wait.
He had to start without me. The up river stations
had to be relieved. There had been so many delays
already that he did not know who was dead and
who was alive, and how they got on, and so
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on and so on. He paid no attention to my explanations, and,
playing with a stick of sealing wax, repeated several times
that the situation was very grave, very grave. There were
rumors that a very important station was in jeopardy, and
its chief, mister Kurtz, was ill. He hoped it was
not true. Mister Kurtz was. I felt weary and irritable.
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Hang Kurtz, I thought, I interrupted him by saying I
had heard of mister Kurtz on the coast. Ah, so
they talk of him down there, he murmured to himself.
Then he began again, assuring me mister Kurtz was the
best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest
importance to the company. Therefore I could understand his anxiety.
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He was, he said, very very uneasy. Certainly he fidgeted
on his chair. A good deal, exclaimed Ah. Mister Kurtz
broke the stick of sealing wax and seemed dumbfounded by
the accident. Next thing, he wanted to know how long
it would take to I interrupted him again, being hungry,
you know, and kept on my feet too. I was
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getting savage. How can I tell, I said, I haven't
even seen the wreck yet. Some months, no doubt. All
this talk seemed to me so futile. Some months he said, well,
let us say three months before we could make a start. Yes,
thought ought to do the affair. I flung out of
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his hut. He lived all alone in a clay hut
with a sort of verandah, muttering to myself my opinion
of him. He was a chattering idiot. Afterwards, I took
it back. When I was borne in upon me startlingly
with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite
for the affair. I went to work the next day, turning,
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so to speak, my back on that station. In that way, only,
it seemed to me I could keep my hold on
the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes.
And then I saw this station, these men strolling aimlessly
about in the sunshine of the yard. I asked myself
sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there
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with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a
lot of faithless pilgrims, bewitched inside a rotten fence. The
word ivory rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed.
You would think they were praying to it. A taint
of imbecile rapacity blew through it all like a whiff
from some corpse. By Jove, I've never seen anything so
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unreal in my life, and outside the silent wilderness surrounding
this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something
great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for
the passing away of this fantastic invasion. Oh these months, well,
never mind, Various things happened. One evening a grass shed
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full of calico, cotton, prints, beads, and I don't know
what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you
would have thought the earth had opened to let an
avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my
pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all
cutting capers in the light with their arms lifted high.
When the stout man with mustaches came tearing down to
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the river a tin pail in his hand, assured me
that everybody was behaving splendidly. Splendidly, dipped about a quart
of water, and tore back again. I noticed there was
a hole in the bottom of his pail. I strolled up.
There was no hurry, you see. The thing had gone
off like a box of matches. It had been hopeless
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from the very first. The flame had leapt high, driven
everybody back, lighted up everything, and collapsed. The shed was
already a heap of embers, glowing fiercely. A nigger was
being beaten near by it. They said he had caused
the fire in some way. Be that as it may.
He was screeching most horribly. I saw him later for
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several days, sitting in a bit of shade, looking very
sick and trying to recover himself. Afterwards, he arose and
went out, and the wilderness, without a sound, took him
into its bosom again. As I approached the glow from
the dark, I found myself at the back of two
men talking. I heard the name of Kurts pronounced, then
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the words take advantage of this unfortunate accident. One of
the men was the manager. I wished him a good evening.
Did you ever see anything like it? Eh, it is incredible,
he said, and walked off. The other man remained he
was a first class agent, young gentlemanly a bit reserved,
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with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He
was stand offish with the other agents, and then on
their side said he was the manager's spy upon them.
As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him
before we got into talk, and by and by we
strolled away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me
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to his room, which was in the main building of
the station. He struck a match, and I perceived that
this young aristocrat had not only a silver mounted dressing case,
but also a whole candle all to himself. Just at
that time. The manager was the only man supposed to
have any right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls,
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a collection of spears, assegaes, shields, knives with hung up
in trophies. The business entrusted to this fellow was the
making of bricks, so I had been informed. But there
wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station,
and he had been there more than a year waiting.
It seems he could not make bricks without something. I
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don't know what straw may be. Anyway, it could not
be found there, and as it was not likely to
be sent from Europe, it did not appear clear to
me what he was waiting for. An act of special
creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting, all the sixteen
or twenty pilgrims of them, for something, and upon my word,
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it did not seem an incongenial occupation from the way
they took it, though. The only thing that ever came
to them was disease. As far as I could see,
they beguiled the time by backbiting and intriguing against each
other in a foolish kind of way. There was an
air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it.
Of course, it was as unreal as everything else, as
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the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern, as their talk,
as their government, as their show of work. The only
real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a
trading post where ivory was to be had, so that
they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated
each other only on that count. But as to actually
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lifting a little finger, oh no, by heavens, there is something,
after all, in the world allowing one man to steal
a horse while another must not look at a halter.
Steal a horse straight out very well, he has done it.
Perhaps he can ride, But there is a way of
looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable
of saints into a kick. I had no idea why
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he wanted to be sociable, but as we chatted in there,
it suddenly occurred to me the fellow was trying to
get at something, in fact pumping me. He alluded constantly
to Europe, to the people I was supposed to know there,
putting leading questions as to my acquaintances in the sepulchral city,
and so on his little eyes glittered like mica discs
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with curiosity, though he tried to keep up a bit
of superciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon
I became awfully curious to see what he would find
out from me. I couldn't possibly imagine what I had
in me to make it worth his while. It was
very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth,
my body was full only of chills, and my head
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had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat business. It
was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator.
At last he got angry, and to conceal a movement
of furious annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed
a small sketch in oils on a panel representing a
woman draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background
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was somber, almost black, The movement of the woman was stately,
and the effect of the torch light on the face
was sinister. It arrested me, and he stood by civilly
holding an empty half pint champagne bottle medical comforts, with
the candle stuck in it. To my question, he said,
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mister Kurtz had painted this in this very station more
than a year ago. While waiting for means to go
to his trading post, me Pray said, I who is
this mister Kurtz? The chief of the inner station, he
answered in a short tone, looking away. Much obliged, I said, laughing,
And you are the brickmaker of the central station. Every
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one knows that he was silent for a while. He
is a prodigy, he said, at last. He is an
emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows
what else we want. He began to declaim suddenly for
the guidance of the cause entrusted to us by Europe,
so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.
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Who says that? I asked lots of them, he replied,
Some even write that. And so he comes here a
special being, as you ought to know? Why ought I
to know? I interrupted, really surprised he paid no attention. Yes,
to day he is chief of the best station. Next
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year he will be assistant manager two years more. And
but I dare say you know what he will be
in two years time. You are of the new gang,
the gang of virtue, the same people who sent him
specially also recommended you. Oh don't say no, I've my
own eyes to trust. Light dawned upon me. My dear
aunt's influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect on that
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young man. I nearly burst into a laugh. Do you
read the company's confidential correspondence? I asked. He hadn't a
word to say. He was great fun. When mister Kurtz,
I continued severely, is general manager. You won't have the opportunity.
He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside.
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The moon had risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring
water on the glow. Whence preceded a sound of hissing
steam ascended in the moonlight. The beaten nigger groaned somewhere,
What a row the brute makes, said the indefatigable man
with the mustaches appearing near us. Serve him right, transgression punishment, bang, pitiless, pitiless,
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That's the only way this will prevent all conflagrations for
the future. I was just telling the manager. He noticed
my companion and became crestfallen out all at once. Not
in bed yet, he said, with a kind of servile heartiness,
it's so natural, ha danger agitation, he vanished. I went
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on to the river side, and the other followed me.
I heard a scathing murmur at my ear. Heap of
muffs go too. The pilgrims could be seen in knots, gesticulating, discussing.
Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily
believe they took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond
the fence, the forest stood up spectrally in the moon moonlight,
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and through that dim stir, through the faint sounds of
that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home
to one's very heart, its mystery, its greatness, the amazing
reality of its concealed life. The herd nigger moaned feebly
somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that
made me ment my pace away from there. I felt
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a hand introducing itself under my arm. My dear sir,
said the fellow. I don't want to be misunderstood, and
especially by you, who will see mister Kurtz long before
I can have that pleasure. I wouldn't like him to
get a false idea of my disposition. I let him
run on this papia mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to
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me that if I tried, I could poke my forefinger
through him and would find nothing inside but a little
loose dirt. Maybe he, you don't see, had been planning
to be assistant manager by and by under the present man,
And I could see that the coming of that Kurts
had upset them both not a little. He talked precipitately,
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and I did not try to stop him. I had
my shoulders against the wreck of my steamer, hauled up
on the slope, like a carcass of some big river animal.
The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove, was
in my nostrils. The high stillness of primeval forest was
before my eyes. They were shiny patches on the black creek.
(32:29):
The moon had spread over everything, a thin layer of silver,
over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall
of matted vegetation, standing higher than the wall of a temple.
Over the great river I could see through a somber gap, glittering, glittering,
as it flowed broadly by, without a murmur. All this
was great expectant mute. While the man jabbered about himself,
(32:55):
I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the
immensity looking at us too? Were men as an appeal
or as a menace? What were we who had strayed
in here? Could we handle that dumb thing? Or would
it handle us? I felt, how big, how confoundedly big,
was that thing that couldn't talk, and perhaps was deaf
(33:17):
as well? What was in there? I could see a
little ivory coming out from there? And I had heard
mister Kurtz was in there. I had heard enough about
it too, God knows. Yet somehow it didn't bring any
image with it, no more than if I had been
told an angel or a fiend was in there. I
believed it in the same way one of you might
(33:39):
believe there are inhabitants on the planet Mars. I knew
once a Scotch sail maker who was certain dead sure
there were people in Mars. If you asked him for
some idea how they looked and behaved, he would get
shy and mutter something about walking on all fours. If
you as much as smiled, he would, though a man
(34:01):
of sixty, offer to fight you. I would not have
gone so far as to fight for Curts, but I
went for him near enough to a lie. You know,
I hate detest. I can't bear a lie, not because
I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply
because it appalls me. There is a taint of death,
a flavor of mortality in lies, which is exactly what
(34:24):
I hate and detest in the world, what I want
to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting
something rotten would do temperament. I suppose well, I went
near enough to it by letting the young fool there
believe anything he liked to imagine. As to my influence
in Europe, I became in an instant as much of
(34:46):
a pretense as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This
simply because I had a notion it somehow would be
of help to that Curt whom at the time I
did not see. You understand, he was just a word
for me. You do not see the man in the
name any more than you do. Do you see him?
Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It
(35:09):
seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream,
making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream
can convey the dream sensation, that commingling of absurdity surprise
and bewilderment, in a trembor of struggling revolt, that notion
of being captured by the incredible, which is of the
very essence of dreams. He was silent for a while. No,
(35:35):
it is impossible. It is impossible to convey the life
sensation of any given epoch of one's existence, that which
makes its truth, its meaning, its subtle and penetrating essence.
It is impossible. We live as we dream alone. He
paused again, as if reflecting, then added, of course in
(36:00):
this you fellows, see more than I could. Then you
see me whom you know. It had become so pitch
dark that we listeners could hardly see one another for
a long time. Already, he sitting apart, had been no
more to us than a voice. There was not a
word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but
(36:22):
I was awake. I listened. I listened, on the watch
for the sentence, for the word that would give me
the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative
that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the
heavy night air of the river. Yes, I let him
run on. Marlow began again, and think what he pleased
(36:44):
about the powers that were behind me. I did, and
there was nothing behind me. There was nothing but that wretched, old,
mangled steamboat I was leaning against while he talked fluently
about the necessity for every man to get on, and
when one comes out here, you conceive it is not
to gaze at the moon. Mister Kurtz was a universal genius.
(37:09):
But even a genius would find it easier to work
with adequate tools, intelligent men. He did not make bricks.
Why there was a physical impossibility in the way a
as I was well aware. And if he did secretarial
work for the manager, it was because no sensible man
rejects wanton lead the confidence of his superiors. Did I
(37:31):
see it? I saw it? What more did I want?
What I really wanted was rivets by heaven. Rivets to
get on with the work, to stop the whole rivets
I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast,
cases piled up, burst split. You kicked a loose rivet
(37:53):
at every second step in that station yard. On the
hill side, rivets had rolled into the grove of death.
You'd fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of
stooping down, and there wasn't one rivet to be found
where it was wanted. We had plates that would do,
but nothing to fasten them with. And every week the messenger,
a long Negro letter bag on shoulder and staff in hand,
(38:16):
left our station for the coast, And several times a
week a coast caravan came in with trade goods, ghastly
glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it,
glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cotton, handkerchiefs,
and no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that
(38:37):
was wanted to set that steamboat afloat. He was becoming
confidential now, But I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have
exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to
inform me. He feared neither God nor devil, let alone
any mere man. I said, I could see that very well.
But what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets.
(38:58):
And rivets were what really mister Kurtz wanted, if he
had only known it now. Letters went to the coast
every week. My dear sir, he cried, I write from dictation.
I demanded rivets there was a way for an intelligent man.
He changed his manner, became very cold, and suddenly began
(39:19):
to talk about a Hippoponymous wondered whether sleeping on board
the steamer. I stuck to my salvage night and day.
I wasn't disturbed. There was an old hippo that had
the bad habit of getting out on the bank and
roaming at night over the station grounds. The pilgrims used
to turn out in a body and empty every rifle
they could lay hands on at him. Some even sat
(39:43):
up o nights for him. All this energy was wasted,
though that animal has a charmed life, he said, But
you can say this only of brute in this country.
No man you apprehend me, No man here bears a
charmed life. He stood there for a moment in the moonlight,
with his delicate hooked nose set a little askew, and
(40:04):
his mica eyes glittering without a wink. Then with a
curt good night, he strode off. I could see he
was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which made me feel more
hopeful than I had been for days. It was a
great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential
friend the battered, twisted, ruined tin pot steamboat. I clambered
(40:27):
on board. She rang under my feet like an empty
huntly and palmer biscuit tin kicked along a gutter. She
was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty
in shape. But I had expended enough hard work on
her to make me love her. No influential friend would
have served me better. She had given me a chance
(40:49):
to come out a bit, to find out what I
could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather
lays about and think of all the fine things I
can be done. I don't like work, no man does. Uh.
But I like what is in the work, the chance
to find yourself, your own reality, for yourself, not for others.
What no other men can ever know. They can only
(41:10):
see the mere show and never can tell what it
really means. I was not surprised to see somebody sitting
aft on the deck with his legs dangling over the mud.
You see, I rather chummed with the few mechanics there
were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despised
on account of their imperfect manners. I suppose this was
(41:31):
the foreman, a boiler maker by trade, a good worker.
He was a lank, bony, yellow faced man with big,
intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was
as bald as the palm of my hand. But his
hair and falling seemed to have stuck to his chin
and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard
(41:51):
hung down to his waist. He was a widower with
six young children. He had left them in charge of
a sister of his to come out there. And the
passion of his life was pigeon flying. He was an
enthusiast and a connoisseur. He would rave about pigeons after
work hours. He used sometimes to come over from his
(42:12):
hut for a talk about his children and his pigeons.
At work, when he had to crawl in the mud
under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up
that beard of his in a kind of white serviette
he brought for the purpose. It had loops to go
over his ears. In the evening he could be seen
squatted on the bank, rinsing that wrapper in the creek
(42:33):
with great care, then spreading it solemnly on a bush
to dry. I slapped him on the back and shouted,
we shall have rivets He scrambled to his feet, exclaiming
no rivets, as though he couldn't believe his ears. Then,
in a low voice, you, eh, I don't know why
(42:54):
we behaved like lunatics. I put my finger to the
side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. Good for you,
he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot,
I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck.
A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the
virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent
it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station.
(43:18):
It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up
in their hovels. A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway
of the manager's hut vanished, Then a second or so after,
the doorway itself vanished too. We stopped, and the silence,
driven away by the stamping of our feet, flowed back
again from the recesses of the land. The great wall
(43:40):
of vegetation, an exuberant and unentangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons,
motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of
soundless life. A rolling wave of plants piled up, crested,
ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little
man of us out of his little existence. And it
(44:03):
moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts
reached us from afar, as though an ichthysaurus had been
taking a bath of glitter in the great river. After all,
said the boiler maker, in a reasonable tone, Why shouldn't
we get the rivets? Why not? Indeed, I did not
know of any reason why we shouldn't. They'll come in
(44:25):
three weeks, I said, confidently. But they didn't. Instead of rivets,
there came an invasion and infliction of visitation. It came
in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed
by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes
and tanned shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left
(44:47):
to the impressed pilgrims a quarrelsome band of footsore sulky
niggers trod on the heels of the donkey. A lot
of tents, campstools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would
be shot down in the court, and the air of
mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station.
Five such installments came with their absurd air of disorderly flight,
(45:09):
with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provisioned stores
that one would think they were lugging after a raid
into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable
mess of things decent in themselves, but that human folly
made look like the spoils of thieving. This devoted band
(45:31):
called itself the El Dorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe
they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the
talk of sordid buccaneers. It was reckless without hardihood, greedy
without audacity, and cruel without courage. There was not an
atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole
(45:51):
batch of them, and they did not seem aware these
things are wanted for the work of the world. To
tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was
their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back
of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.
Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise? I don't know,
but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot.
(46:12):
In exterior, he resembled a butcher in a poor neighborhood,
and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He
carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs,
and during the time his gang infested the station, spoke
to no one but his nephew. You could see these
two roaming about all day long, with their heads close
together in an everlasting confab. I had given up worrying
(46:37):
myself about the Rivets. One's capacity for that kind of
folly is more limited than you would suppose, I said,
hang and let things slide. I had plenty of time
for meditation, and now and then I would give some
thought to Curts. I wasn't very interested in him. No, Still,
I was curious to see whether this man, who had
(46:58):
come out equipped with moral eyes ideas of some sort,
would climb to the top after all, and how he
would set about his work when there end of Chapter one,
Part two
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Chapter one, Part two.
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 was just a hole. It might have
(00:21):
been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals
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 that was not broken. It was a
(00:42):
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, and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong rushing noise
filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a
(01:04):
breath stirred, 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 the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out,
half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes
(01:26):
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 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.
(01:50):
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 the cost, in all the
legality of time, contracts lost in uncongenial surroundings. Fed on
unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed
(02:10):
to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free
as air and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish
the gleam of the eyes under 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
(02:33):
up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind
white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died
out slowly. The men 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 biscuits I had in my pocket.
(02:54):
The fingers closed slowly on it and held. There was
no other movement, and no other glance. He had tied
a bit of white worsted around 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 his black
(03:17):
neck the spit of white thread. From beyond the seas,
near the same tree, two more bundles of acute angle
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 forehead as
if overcome with a great weariness, and all about others
(03:40):
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 his hand,
then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in
(04:00):
front of him, and after a time let his wooly
head fall on his breastbone. I didn't want any more
loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards the station.
When near the buildings, I met a white man in
such an unexpected elegance of get up that in the
first moment I took him for a sort of vision.
I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light
(04:24):
alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots,
no hat, hair parted, brushed, oiled under a green lined parasol,
held in a big white hand. He was amazing and
had a pen holder behind his ear. I shook hands
(04:45):
with this miracle, and I learned that he was the
company's chief accountant, and that all the bookkeeping was done
at this station. He had come out for a moment,
he said, to get a breath of fresh air. The
expression sounded wonderfully awed, with its suggestion of sedentary desk life.
I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all.
(05:05):
Only it was from his lips that I first heard
the name of the man who was so indissolubly connected
with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respected the fellow, yes,
I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair.
His appearance was certainly that of a hair dresser's dummy.
(05:26):
But in the great demoralization of the land, he kept
up his appearance. That's backbone, his starched collars and got
up shirt fronts were achievements of character. He had been
out nearly three years, and later I could not help
asking him how he managed to sport such linen. He
had just the faintest blush and said modestly, I've been
(05:50):
teaching one of the native women about the station. It
was difficult. She had a distaste for the work. Thus,
this man had verily accomplished something, and he was devoted
to his books, which were in apple pie order. Everything
else in the station was in a muddle. Heads things, buildings,
strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed
(06:12):
a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads and brass
wires set into the depths of darkness, and in return
came a precious trickle of ivory. I had to wait
in the station for ten days, an eternity. I lived
in a hut in the yard. But to be out
of the chaos, I would sometimes get into the accountant's office.
(06:33):
It was built out of horizontal planks, and so badly
put together that as he bent over his high desk,
he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips
of sunlight. There was no need to open the big
shutter to see it was hot there too, big flies
buzzed fiendishly and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat
(06:56):
generally on the floor, while of faultless appearance, and even
slightly scented, perching on a high stool, he wrote. He wrote.
Sometimes he stood up for exercise when a truckle bed
with a sick man, some invalid agent from up country
was put in there. He exhibited a gentle annoyance the
(07:17):
groans of this sick person. He said, distract my attention,
and without that it is extremely difficult to guard against
clerical errors in this climate. One day, he remarked, without
lifting his head, in the interior, you will no doubt
meet mister Kurtz. On my asking who mister Kurtz was,
(07:37):
he said he was a first class agent, and seeing
my disappointment at this information, he added, slowly, laying down
his pen, he is a very remarkable person. Further questions
elicited from him that mister Kurtz was at present in
charge of a trading post, a very important one in
the true ivory country, at the very bottom of there,
(08:00):
in as much ivory as all the others put together.
He began to write again. The sick man was too
ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace.
Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a
great tramping of feet. A caravan had come in. A
violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out on the other
(08:21):
side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking together,
and in the midst of the uproar, the lamentable voice
of the chief Agent was heard, giving it up tearfully
for the twentieth time that day, he rose slowly. What
a frightful row, he said. He crossed the room gently
to look at the sick man, and returning, said to me,
(08:43):
he does not hear what dead? I asked, startled, No,
not yet, he answered with great composure, then alluding with
a toss of the head to the tumult in the
station yard. When one has got to make correct entries,
one comes to hate those savages, hate them to death.
(09:03):
He remained thoughtful for a moment. When you see, mister Kurtz,
he went on, tell him from me that everything here
he glanced at the deck, is very satisfactory. I don't
like to write to him with those messengers of ours.
You never know who may get hold of your letter.
At that central station. He stared at me for a
(09:24):
moment with his mild bulging eyes. Oh he will go far,
very far, he began again. He will be as somebody
in the administration. Before long they above the council in Europe,
you know mean him to be. He turned to his work.
The noise outside had ceased, and presently, in going out,
(09:45):
I stopped at the door in the steady buzz of flies.
The homeward bound agent was lying finished and insensible. The
other bent over his books, was making correct entries of
perfectly correct transactions, and fifty feet below the doorstep I
could see the still tree tops of the grove of Death.
(10:05):
Next day I left that station at last with a
caravan of sixty men for a two hundred mile tramp.
No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths everywhere,
a stamped in network of paths, spreading over the empty land,
through the long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down
and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills, ablaze
(10:27):
with heat and a solitude, a solitude nobody, not a hut.
The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well,
if a lot of mysterious niggers, armed with all kinds
of fearful weapons, suddenly took to traveling on the road
between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left
to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm
(10:50):
and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon. Only here
the dwellings were gone too. Still. I passed through several
abandoned villages. There's something pathetically childish in the ruins of
grass walls. Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle
of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair
under a sixty pound load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike, camp,
(11:14):
march now, and then a carrier dead in harness, at
rest in the long grass near the path, with an
empty water gourd and his long staff lying by his side.
A great silence around and above, perhaps on some quiet night,
the tremor of far off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor, vast, faint,
(11:36):
a sound, weird, appealing, suggestive and wild, and perhaps with
as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in
a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform,
camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris,
very hospitable and festive, not to say drunk, was looking
(11:58):
after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can't say
I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body
of a middle aged Negro with a bullet hole in
the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles further on,
may be considered as a permanent improvement. I had a
white companion too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshy,
and with the exasperating habit of fainting in the hot
(12:20):
hill sides, miles away from the least bit of shade
and water. Annoying, you know, to hold your own coat
like a parasol over a man's head while he is
coming too. I couldn't help asking him once what he
meant by coming there at all to make money? Of course,
what do you think? He said, scornfully. Then he got
(12:41):
fever and had to be carried in a hammock slung
under a pole as he weighed sixteen stone. I had
no end of rows with the carriers. They jibbed, ran away,
sneaked off with their loads in the night. Quite a mutiny.
So one evening I made a speech in English with gestures,
not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs
of eyes before me. And the next morning I started
(13:03):
the hammock off in front all right. An hour afterwards
I came upon the whole concern wrecked in a bushman, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors.
The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was
very anxious for me to kill somebody, but there wasn't
the shadow of a carrier near. I remembered the old doctor.
(13:25):
It would be interesting for science to watch the mental
changes of individuals on the spot, I felt I was
becoming scientifically interesting. However, off head is to no purpose.
On the fifteenth day, I came in sight of the
big river again and hobbled into the central station. It
was on a backwater, surrounded by scrub and forest, with
(13:46):
a pretty border of smelly mud on one side and
on the three others, enclosed by a crazy fence of rushes.
A neglected gap was all the gate it had, and
the first glance at the place was enough to let
you see the flabby devil was running that show. White
men with long staves in their hands, appeared languidly from
amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me,
(14:07):
and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of them,
a stout, excitable chap with black mustaches, informed me with
great volubility and many digressions. As soon as I told
him who I was, that my steamer was at the
bottom of the river, I was thunderstruck. What how why? Oh?
(14:29):
It was all right. The manager himself was there, all
quite correct. Everybody had behaved splendidly. Splendidly you must, he said,
in agitation, Go and see the general manager at once.
He is waiting. I did not see the real significance
of that wreck at once. I fancy I see it now,
(14:49):
but I am not sure, not at all. Certainly the
affair was too stupid when I think of it, to
be altogether natural still, but at the moment it presented
itself simply as confounded nuisance. The steamer was sunk. They
had started two days before in a sudden hurry up
the river with the manager on board, in charge of
some volunteer skipper, and before they had been out three hours,
(15:12):
they tore the bottom out of her arm stones, and
she sank near the south bank. I asked myself what
I was to do there? Now my boat was lost.
As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do
in fishing my command out of the river. I had
to set about it the very next day. That and
the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station
took some months. My first interview with the manager was curious.
(15:37):
He did not ask me to sit down after my
twenty mile walk that morning. He was commonplace in complexion,
in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of
middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes of the
usual blue were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could
make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy
(15:57):
as an axe. But even at these times, the rest
of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there
was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy,
a smile, not a smile. I remember it, but I
can't explain it was unconscious. This smile was though just
(16:18):
after he had said something. It got intensified for an instant.
It came at the end of his speeches, like a
seal applied on the words to make the meaning of
the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common
trader from his youth up, employed in these parts. Nothing more.
He was obeyed. Yet he inspired neither love, nor fear,
(16:39):
nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it, uneasiness,
not a definite mistrust, just uneasiness. Nothing more. You have
no idea how effective such a a faculty can be.
He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order,
(16:59):
even that was evident in such things as the deplorable
state of the station. He had no learning and no intelligence.
His position had come to him. Why perhaps because he
was never ill, he had served three terms of three
years out there, Because triumphant health in the general route
of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. When
(17:22):
he went home on leave, he rioted on a large scale,
pompously jack ashore, with a difference in externals. Only this
one could gather from his casual talk. He originated nothing.
He could keep the routine going, that's all. But he
was great. He was great by this little thing that
(17:42):
it was impossible to tell what could control such a man.
He never gave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing
within him. Such a suspicion made one pause, for out
there there were no external checks. Once, when various tropical
diseases had lee laid low almost every agent in the station,
he was heard to say, men who come out here
(18:05):
should have no entrails. He sealed the utterance with that
smile of his, as though it had been a door
opening into a darkness. He had in his keeping. Effeccy,
you had seen things, but the seal was on. When
annoyed at meal times by the constant quarrels of the
white men about precedence, he ordered an immense round table
to be made, for which a special house had to
(18:27):
be built. This was the station's mess room, where he
sat was the first place the rest were nowhere. One
felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither
civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his boy
and overfed young Negro from the coast to treat the
(18:48):
white men under his very eyes with provoking insolence. He
began to speak as soon as he saw me. I
had been very long on the road. He could not wait.
He had to start without me. The up river stations
had to be relieved. There had been so many delays
already that he did not know who was dead and
who was alive, and how they got on, and so
(19:09):
on and so on. He paid no attention to my explanations, and,
playing with a stick of sealing wax, repeated several times
that the situation was very grave, very grave. There were
rumors that a very important station was in jeopardy, and
its chief, mister Kurtz, was ill. He hoped it was
not true. Mister Kurtz was. I felt weary and irritable.
(19:33):
Hang Kurtz, I thought, I interrupted him by saying I
had heard of mister Kurtz on the coast. Ah, so
they talk of him down there, he murmured to himself.
Then he began again, assuring me mister Kurtz was the
best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest
importance to the company. Therefore I could understand his anxiety.
(19:55):
He was, he said, very very uneasy. Certainly he fidgeted
on his chair. A good deal, exclaimed Ah. Mister Kurtz
broke the stick of sealing wax and seemed dumbfounded by
the accident. Next thing, he wanted to know how long
it would take to I interrupted him again, being hungry,
you know, and kept on my feet too. I was
(20:18):
getting savage. How can I tell, I said, I haven't
even seen the wreck yet. Some months, no doubt. All
this talk seemed to me so futile. Some months he said, well,
let us say three months before we could make a start. Yes,
thought ought to do the affair. I flung out of
(20:38):
his hut. He lived all alone in a clay hut
with a sort of verandah, muttering to myself my opinion
of him. He was a chattering idiot. Afterwards, I took
it back. When I was borne in upon me startlingly
with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite
for the affair. I went to work the next day, turning,
(20:58):
so to speak, my back on that station. In that way, only,
it seemed to me I could keep my hold on
the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes.
And then I saw this station, these men strolling aimlessly
about in the sunshine of the yard. I asked myself
sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there
(21:20):
with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a
lot of faithless pilgrims, bewitched inside a rotten fence. The
word ivory rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed.
You would think they were praying to it. A taint
of imbecile rapacity blew through it all like a whiff
from some corpse. By Jove, I've never seen anything so
(21:43):
unreal in my life, and outside the silent wilderness surrounding
this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something
great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for
the passing away of this fantastic invasion. Oh these months, well,
never mind, Various things happened. One evening a grass shed
(22:06):
full of calico, cotton, prints, beads, and I don't know
what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you
would have thought the earth had opened to let an
avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my
pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all
cutting capers in the light with their arms lifted high.
When the stout man with mustaches came tearing down to
(22:28):
the river a tin pail in his hand, assured me
that everybody was behaving splendidly. Splendidly, dipped about a quart
of water, and tore back again. I noticed there was
a hole in the bottom of his pail. I strolled up.
There was no hurry, you see. The thing had gone
off like a box of matches. It had been hopeless
(22:48):
from the very first. The flame had leapt high, driven
everybody back, lighted up everything, and collapsed. The shed was
already a heap of embers, glowing fiercely. A nigger was
being beaten near by it. They said he had caused
the fire in some way. Be that as it may.
He was screeching most horribly. I saw him later for
(23:10):
several days, sitting in a bit of shade, looking very
sick and trying to recover himself. Afterwards, he arose and
went out, and the wilderness, without a sound, took him
into its bosom again. As I approached the glow from
the dark, I found myself at the back of two
men talking. I heard the name of Kurts pronounced, then
(23:32):
the words take advantage of this unfortunate accident. One of
the men was the manager. I wished him a good evening.
Did you ever see anything like it? Eh, it is incredible,
he said, and walked off. The other man remained he
was a first class agent, young gentlemanly a bit reserved,
(23:53):
with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He
was stand offish with the other agents, and then on
their side said he was the manager's spy upon them.
As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him
before we got into talk, and by and by we
strolled away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me
(24:14):
to his room, which was in the main building of
the station. He struck a match, and I perceived that
this young aristocrat had not only a silver mounted dressing case,
but also a whole candle all to himself. Just at
that time. The manager was the only man supposed to
have any right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls,
(24:35):
a collection of spears, assegaes, shields, knives with hung up
in trophies. The business entrusted to this fellow was the
making of bricks, so I had been informed. But there
wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station,
and he had been there more than a year waiting.
It seems he could not make bricks without something. I
(24:57):
don't know what straw may be. Anyway, it could not
be found there, and as it was not likely to
be sent from Europe, it did not appear clear to
me what he was waiting for. An act of special
creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting, all the sixteen
or twenty pilgrims of them, for something, and upon my word,
(25:18):
it did not seem an incongenial occupation from the way
they took it, though. The only thing that ever came
to them was disease. As far as I could see,
they beguiled the time by backbiting and intriguing against each
other in a foolish kind of way. There was an
air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it.
Of course, it was as unreal as everything else, as
(25:40):
the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern, as their talk,
as their government, as their show of work. The only
real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a
trading post where ivory was to be had, so that
they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated
each other only on that count. But as to actually
(26:01):
lifting a little finger, oh no, by heavens, there is something,
after all, in the world allowing one man to steal
a horse while another must not look at a halter.
Steal a horse straight out very well, he has done it.
Perhaps he can ride, But there is a way of
looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable
of saints into a kick. I had no idea why
(26:24):
he wanted to be sociable, but as we chatted in there,
it suddenly occurred to me the fellow was trying to
get at something, in fact pumping me. He alluded constantly
to Europe, to the people I was supposed to know there,
putting leading questions as to my acquaintances in the sepulchral city,
and so on his little eyes glittered like mica discs
(26:45):
with curiosity, though he tried to keep up a bit
of superciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon
I became awfully curious to see what he would find
out from me. I couldn't possibly imagine what I had
in me to make it worth his while. It was
very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth,
my body was full only of chills, and my head
(27:07):
had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat business. It
was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator.
At last he got angry, and to conceal a movement
of furious annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed
a small sketch in oils on a panel representing a
woman draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background
(27:31):
was somber, almost black, The movement of the woman was stately,
and the effect of the torch light on the face
was sinister. It arrested me, and he stood by civilly
holding an empty half pint champagne bottle medical comforts, with
the candle stuck in it. To my question, he said,
(27:52):
mister Kurtz had painted this in this very station more
than a year ago. While waiting for means to go
to his trading post, me Pray said, I who is
this mister Kurtz? The chief of the inner station, he
answered in a short tone, looking away. Much obliged, I said, laughing,
And you are the brickmaker of the central station. Every
(28:14):
one knows that he was silent for a while. He
is a prodigy, he said, at last. He is an
emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows
what else we want. He began to declaim suddenly for
the guidance of the cause entrusted to us by Europe,
so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.
(28:41):
Who says that? I asked lots of them, he replied,
Some even write that. And so he comes here a
special being, as you ought to know? Why ought I
to know? I interrupted, really surprised he paid no attention. Yes,
to day he is chief of the best station. Next
(29:02):
year he will be assistant manager two years more. And
but I dare say you know what he will be
in two years time. You are of the new gang,
the gang of virtue, the same people who sent him
specially also recommended you. Oh don't say no, I've my
own eyes to trust. Light dawned upon me. My dear
aunt's influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect on that
(29:27):
young man. I nearly burst into a laugh. Do you
read the company's confidential correspondence? I asked. He hadn't a
word to say. He was great fun. When mister Kurtz,
I continued severely, is general manager. You won't have the opportunity.
He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside.
(29:50):
The moon had risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring
water on the glow. Whence preceded a sound of hissing
steam ascended in the moonlight. The beaten nigger groaned somewhere,
What a row the brute makes, said the indefatigable man
with the mustaches appearing near us. Serve him right, transgression punishment, bang, pitiless, pitiless,
(30:17):
That's the only way this will prevent all conflagrations for
the future. I was just telling the manager. He noticed
my companion and became crestfallen out all at once. Not
in bed yet, he said, with a kind of servile heartiness,
it's so natural, ha danger agitation, he vanished. I went
(30:38):
on to the river side, and the other followed me.
I heard a scathing murmur at my ear. Heap of
muffs go too. The pilgrims could be seen in knots, gesticulating, discussing.
Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily
believe they took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond
the fence, the forest stood up spectrally in the moon moonlight,
(31:00):
and through that dim stir, through the faint sounds of
that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home
to one's very heart, its mystery, its greatness, the amazing
reality of its concealed life. The herd nigger moaned feebly
somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that
made me ment my pace away from there. I felt
(31:24):
a hand introducing itself under my arm. My dear sir,
said the fellow. I don't want to be misunderstood, and
especially by you, who will see mister Kurtz long before
I can have that pleasure. I wouldn't like him to
get a false idea of my disposition. I let him
run on this papia mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to
(31:46):
me that if I tried, I could poke my forefinger
through him and would find nothing inside but a little
loose dirt. Maybe he, you don't see, had been planning
to be assistant manager by and by under the present man,
And I could see that the coming of that Kurts
had upset them both not a little. He talked precipitately,
(32:07):
and I did not try to stop him. I had
my shoulders against the wreck of my steamer, hauled up
on the slope, like a carcass of some big river animal.
The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove, was
in my nostrils. The high stillness of primeval forest was
before my eyes. They were shiny patches on the black creek.
(32:29):
The moon had spread over everything, a thin layer of silver,
over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall
of matted vegetation, standing higher than the wall of a temple.
Over the great river I could see through a somber gap, glittering, glittering,
as it flowed broadly by, without a murmur. All this
was great expectant mute. While the man jabbered about himself,
(32:55):
I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the
immensity looking at us too? Were men as an appeal
or as a menace? What were we who had strayed
in here? Could we handle that dumb thing? Or would
it handle us? I felt, how big, how confoundedly big,
was that thing that couldn't talk, and perhaps was deaf
(33:17):
as well? What was in there? I could see a
little ivory coming out from there? And I had heard
mister Kurtz was in there. I had heard enough about
it too, God knows. Yet somehow it didn't bring any
image with it, no more than if I had been
told an angel or a fiend was in there. I
believed it in the same way one of you might
(33:39):
believe there are inhabitants on the planet Mars. I knew
once a Scotch sail maker who was certain dead sure
there were people in Mars. If you asked him for
some idea how they looked and behaved, he would get
shy and mutter something about walking on all fours. If
you as much as smiled, he would, though a man
(34:01):
of sixty, offer to fight you. I would not have
gone so far as to fight for Curts, but I
went for him near enough to a lie. You know,
I hate detest. I can't bear a lie, not because
I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply
because it appalls me. There is a taint of death,
a flavor of mortality in lies, which is exactly what
(34:24):
I hate and detest in the world, what I want
to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting
something rotten would do temperament. I suppose well, I went
near enough to it by letting the young fool there
believe anything he liked to imagine. As to my influence
in Europe, I became in an instant as much of
(34:46):
a pretense as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This
simply because I had a notion it somehow would be
of help to that Curt whom at the time I
did not see. You understand, he was just a word
for me. You do not see the man in the
name any more than you do. Do you see him?
Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It
(35:09):
seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream,
making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream
can convey the dream sensation, that commingling of absurdity surprise
and bewilderment, in a trembor of struggling revolt, that notion
of being captured by the incredible, which is of the
very essence of dreams. He was silent for a while. No,
(35:35):
it is impossible. It is impossible to convey the life
sensation of any given epoch of one's existence, that which
makes its truth, its meaning, its subtle and penetrating essence.
It is impossible. We live as we dream alone. He
paused again, as if reflecting, then added, of course in
(36:00):
this you fellows, see more than I could. Then you
see me whom you know. It had become so pitch
dark that we listeners could hardly see one another for
a long time. Already, he sitting apart, had been no
more to us than a voice. There was not a
word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but
(36:22):
I was awake. I listened. I listened, on the watch
for the sentence, for the word that would give me
the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative
that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the
heavy night air of the river. Yes, I let him
run on. Marlow began again, and think what he pleased
(36:44):
about the powers that were behind me. I did, and
there was nothing behind me. There was nothing but that wretched, old,
mangled steamboat I was leaning against while he talked fluently
about the necessity for every man to get on, and
when one comes out here, you conceive it is not
to gaze at the moon. Mister Kurtz was a universal genius.
(37:09):
But even a genius would find it easier to work
with adequate tools, intelligent men. He did not make bricks.
Why there was a physical impossibility in the way a
as I was well aware. And if he did secretarial
work for the manager, it was because no sensible man
rejects wanton lead the confidence of his superiors. Did I
(37:31):
see it? I saw it? What more did I want?
What I really wanted was rivets by heaven. Rivets to
get on with the work, to stop the whole rivets
I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast,
cases piled up, burst split. You kicked a loose rivet
(37:53):
at every second step in that station yard. On the
hill side, rivets had rolled into the grove of death.
You'd fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of
stooping down, and there wasn't one rivet to be found
where it was wanted. We had plates that would do,
but nothing to fasten them with. And every week the messenger,
a long Negro letter bag on shoulder and staff in hand,
(38:16):
left our station for the coast, And several times a
week a coast caravan came in with trade goods, ghastly
glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it,
glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cotton, handkerchiefs,
and no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that
(38:37):
was wanted to set that steamboat afloat. He was becoming
confidential now, But I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have
exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to
inform me. He feared neither God nor devil, let alone
any mere man. I said, I could see that very well.
But what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets.
(38:58):
And rivets were what really mister Kurtz wanted, if he
had only known it now. Letters went to the coast
every week. My dear sir, he cried, I write from dictation.
I demanded rivets there was a way for an intelligent man.
He changed his manner, became very cold, and suddenly began
(39:19):
to talk about a Hippoponymous wondered whether sleeping on board
the steamer. I stuck to my salvage night and day.
I wasn't disturbed. There was an old hippo that had
the bad habit of getting out on the bank and
roaming at night over the station grounds. The pilgrims used
to turn out in a body and empty every rifle
they could lay hands on at him. Some even sat
(39:43):
up o nights for him. All this energy was wasted,
though that animal has a charmed life, he said, But
you can say this only of brute in this country.
No man you apprehend me, No man here bears a
charmed life. He stood there for a moment in the moonlight,
with his delicate hooked nose set a little askew, and
(40:04):
his mica eyes glittering without a wink. Then with a
curt good night, he strode off. I could see he
was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which made me feel more
hopeful than I had been for days. It was a
great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential
friend the battered, twisted, ruined tin pot steamboat. I clambered
(40:27):
on board. She rang under my feet like an empty
huntly and palmer biscuit tin kicked along a gutter. She
was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty
in shape. But I had expended enough hard work on
her to make me love her. No influential friend would
have served me better. She had given me a chance
(40:49):
to come out a bit, to find out what I
could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather
lays about and think of all the fine things I
can be done. I don't like work, no man does. Uh.
But I like what is in the work, the chance
to find yourself, your own reality, for yourself, not for others.
What no other men can ever know. They can only
(41:10):
see the mere show and never can tell what it
really means. I was not surprised to see somebody sitting
aft on the deck with his legs dangling over the mud.
You see, I rather chummed with the few mechanics there
were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despised
on account of their imperfect manners. I suppose this was
(41:31):
the foreman, a boiler maker by trade, a good worker.
He was a lank, bony, yellow faced man with big,
intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was
as bald as the palm of my hand. But his
hair and falling seemed to have stuck to his chin
and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard
(41:51):
hung down to his waist. He was a widower with
six young children. He had left them in charge of
a sister of his to come out there. And the
passion of his life was pigeon flying. He was an
enthusiast and a connoisseur. He would rave about pigeons after
work hours. He used sometimes to come over from his
(42:12):
hut for a talk about his children and his pigeons.
At work, when he had to crawl in the mud
under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up
that beard of his in a kind of white serviette
he brought for the purpose. It had loops to go
over his ears. In the evening he could be seen
squatted on the bank, rinsing that wrapper in the creek
(42:33):
with great care, then spreading it solemnly on a bush
to dry. I slapped him on the back and shouted,
we shall have rivets He scrambled to his feet, exclaiming
no rivets, as though he couldn't believe his ears. Then,
in a low voice, you, eh, I don't know why
(42:54):
we behaved like lunatics. I put my finger to the
side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. Good for you,
he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot,
I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck.
A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the
virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent
it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station.
(43:18):
It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up
in their hovels. A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway
of the manager's hut vanished, Then a second or so after,
the doorway itself vanished too. We stopped, and the silence,
driven away by the stamping of our feet, flowed back
again from the recesses of the land. The great wall
(43:40):
of vegetation, an exuberant and unentangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons,
motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of
soundless life. A rolling wave of plants piled up, crested,
ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little
man of us out of his little existence. And it
(44:03):
moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts
reached us from afar, as though an ichthysaurus had been
taking a bath of glitter in the great river. After all,
said the boiler maker, in a reasonable tone, Why shouldn't
we get the rivets? Why not? Indeed, I did not
know of any reason why we shouldn't. They'll come in
(44:25):
three weeks, I said, confidently. But they didn't. Instead of rivets,
there came an invasion and infliction of visitation. It came
in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed
by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes
and tanned shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left
(44:47):
to the impressed pilgrims a quarrelsome band of footsore sulky
niggers trod on the heels of the donkey. A lot
of tents, campstools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would
be shot down in the court, and the air of
mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station.
Five such installments came with their absurd air of disorderly flight,
(45:09):
with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provisioned stores
that one would think they were lugging after a raid
into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable
mess of things decent in themselves, but that human folly
made look like the spoils of thieving. This devoted band
(45:31):
called itself the El Dorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe
they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the
talk of sordid buccaneers. It was reckless without hardihood, greedy
without audacity, and cruel without courage. There was not an
atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole
(45:51):
batch of them, and they did not seem aware these
things are wanted for the work of the world. To
tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was
their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back
of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.
Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise? I don't know,
but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot.
(46:12):
In exterior, he resembled a butcher in a poor neighborhood,
and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He
carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs,
and during the time his gang infested the station, spoke
to no one but his nephew. You could see these
two roaming about all day long, with their heads close
together in an everlasting confab. I had given up worrying
(46:37):
myself about the Rivets. One's capacity for that kind of
folly is more limited than you would suppose, I said,
hang and let things slide. I had plenty of time
for meditation, and now and then I would give some
thought to Curts. I wasn't very interested in him. No, Still,
I was curious to see whether this man, who had
(46:58):
come out equipped with moral eyes ideas of some sort,
would climb to the top after all, and how he
would set about his work when there end of Chapter one,
Part two
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.