Heart of Darkness - Chapter 3 Part 1

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Chapter three, Part one.
I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was
before me in Motley, as though he had absconded from
a troop of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. His very existence was improbable, inexplicable,

(00:24):
and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was
inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in
getting so far, how he had managed to remain, why
he did not instantly disappear. I went a little farther,
he said, Then still a little farther, till I had

(00:45):
gone so far that I don't know how I'll ever
get back. Never mind, plenty time I can manage. You.
Take Kurts away quick quick. I tell you the glamor
of youth, enveloped his party, colored rags, his destitution, his loneliness,
the essential desolation of his feudal wanderings. For months, for years,

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his life hadn't been worth a day's purchase. And there
he was, gallantly, thoughtlessly, alive to all appearances, indestructible solely
by the virtue of his few years and of his
unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration. Like envy,

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Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. He surely
wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in
and to push on through. His need was to exist
and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk and
with a maximum of privation. If the absolutely pure, uncalculating,

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unpractical spirit of adventure had ever ruled a human being,
it ruled this bepatched youth. I almost envied him the
possession of this modest and clear flame. It seemed to
have consumed all thought of self so completely that even
while he was talking to you, you forgot that it
was he, the man before your eyes, who had gone

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through these things. I did not envy him his devotion
to Kurtz. Though he had not meditated over it. It
came to him, and he accepted it with a sort
of eager fatalism. I must say that to me it
appeared about the most dangerous thing in every way he
had come upon so far. They had come together unavoidably,

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like two ships becalmed near each other and lay rubbing
sides at last. I suppose Kurts wanted an audience because
on a certain occasion, when encamped in the forest, they
had talked all night. Or more probably Kurts had talked.
We talked of everything, he said, quite transported. At the recollection,
I forgot there was such a thing as sleep. The

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night did not seem to last an hour. Everything everything
of love too. Ah, he talked to you of love,
I said, much amused. It isn't what you think, he cried,
almost passionately. It was in general he made me see
things things. He threw his arms up. We were on

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deck at the time, and the headman of my woodcutters,
lounging near by, turned upon him his heavy and glittering eyes.
I looked around, and I don't know why, but I
assure you that never, never before did this land, this river,
this jungle, the very art of this blazing sky appeared
to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to

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human thought, so pitiless to human weakness. And ever since
you have been with him, of course, I said, on
the contrary, it appears their intercourse had been very much
broken by various causes. He had, as he informed me, proudly,
managed to nurse Kerts through two illnesses. He alluded to

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it as you would to some risky feet. But as
a rule Kurts wandered alone far in the depths of
the forest, very often coming to this station. I had
to wait days and days before he would turn up.
He said, Ah, it was worth waiting for sometimes. What
was he doing exploring? Or what? I asked? Oh? Yes,

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of course he had discovered lots of villages a lake too.
He did not know exactly in what direction. It was
dangerous to inquire too much, But mostly his expeditions had
been for ivory, but he had no goods to trade
with by that time. I objected, there's a good lot
of cartridges left. Even yet, he answered, looking away, to

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speak plainly, he raided the country, I said. He nodded.
Not alone, surely, he muttered something about the villages round
that lake. Kurtz got the tribe to follow him, did he?
I suggested? He fidget it all. They adored him, he said.

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The tone of these words was so extraordinary that I
looked at him. Certainly. It was curious to see his
mangled eagerness and reluctance. To speak of Kurts. The man
filled his life, occupied his thoughts swayed his emotions. What
can you expect he burst out. He came to them
with thunder and lightning, you know, and they had never

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seen anything like it, and very terrible. He could be
very terrible. You can't judge mister Kurtz as you would
an ordinary man. No, no, no, now, just to give
you an idea, I don't mind telling you. He wanted
to shoot me too one day, But I don't judge
him shoot you. I cried, what for? Well, I had

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a small lot of ivory the chief of that village
near my house gave me. You see, I used to
shoot game for them. Well, he wanted it, and wouldn't
hear reason. He declared he would shoot me unless I
gave him the ivory and then cleared out of the
country because he could do so and had a fancy
for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent
him killing whom he jolly well pleased. And it was

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true too, I gave him the ivory. What did I care?
But I didn't clear out. No, No, I couldn't leave him.
I had to be careful, of course, till we got
friendly again. For a time. He had his second illness.
Then afterwards, I had to keep out of the way,
but I didn't mind. He was living for the most
part in those villages on the lake. When he came

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down to the river, sometimes he would take to me,
and sometimes it was better for me to be careful.
This man suffered too much, he hated all this, and
somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance.
I begged him to try and leave while there was time.
I offered to go back with him, and he would
say yes, and then he would remain, go off on

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another ivory hunt, disappear for weeks, forget himself amongst these people.
Forget himself. You know why he's mad, I said, he
protested indignantly. Mister Kurtz couldn't be mad. If I had
heard him talk only two days ago, I wouldn't dare
hint at such a thing. I had taken up my

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binoculars while we talked, and was looking at the shore,
sweeping the limit of the forest at each side and
at the back of the house. The consciousness of there
being people in that bush, so silent, so quiet, as
silent and quiet as the ruined house on the hill,
made me uneasy. There was no sign on the face
of nature of this amazing tale that was not so

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much told as suggested to me in desolate exclamations, completely
by shrugs, in uninterrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs.
The woods were unmoved, like a mask, heavy, like the
closed door of a prison. They looked with their air
of hidden knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence. The

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Russian was explaining to me that it was only lately
that mister Kurtz had come down to the river, bringing
along with him all the fighting men of that lake tribe.
He had been absent for several months, getting himself adored,
I suppose, and had come down unexpectedly with the intention
to all appearance of making a raid, either across the
river or down stream. Evidently the appetite for more ivory

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had got the better of the what shall I say,
less material aspirations. However, he had got much worse. Suddenly
I heard he was lying helpless, and so I came
up took my chance, said the Russian. Oh, he is bad,
very bad. I directed my glass to the house. There
were no signs of life, but there was the ruined

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roof the long mud wall, peeping above the grass with
three little square window holes, no two of the same size.
All this brought within reach of my hand, as it were.
And then I made a brusque movement, and one of
the remaining post hosts of that vanished fence leapt up
in the field of my glass. You remember, I told

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you I had been struck at that distance by certain
attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of
the place. Now I had suddenly the nearer view, and
its first result was to make me throw my head back,
as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from
post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake.

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These round knobs were not ornamental, but symbolic. They were
expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing, food for thought and
also for vultures, if there be any looking down from
the sky. But at all events, for such ants as
were industrious enough to ascend the pole, they would have

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been even more impressive those heads on the stakes, if
their faces had not been turned to the house. Only
one the first I had made out, was facing my way.
I was not so shocked as you may think. The
start back I had given was really nothing but a
movement of surprise. I had expected to see a novel
wood there, you know. I returned deliberately to the first

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I had seen, And there it was black, dried, sunken
with closed eyelids, a head that seemed to sleep at
the top of the pole, and with the shrunken, dry
lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth. Was smiling, too,
smiling continuously at some endless and jocose stream of that

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eternal slumber. I am not disclosing any trade secrets. In fact,
the manager said afterwards that mister Kurtz's methods had ruined
the district. I have no opinion on that point, but
I want you clearly to understand that there was nothing
exactly profitable in these heads being there. They only showed
that mister Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his

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various lusts, that there was something wanting in him, some
small matter, which, when the pressing need arose, could not
be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of
this deficiency himself, I can't say. I think the knowledge
came to him at last, only at the very last.
But the wilderness had found him out early and had

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taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion.
I think it had whispered to him things about himself
which he did not know, things of which he had
no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude,
and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly
within him, because he was hollow at the core. I

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put down the glass, and the head that had appeared
near enough to be spoken to, seemed at once to
have leapt away from me into inaccessible distance. The admirer
of mister Kurtz was a bit crestfallen. In a hurried,
indistinct voice, he began to assure me he had dared
not to take these say cymbals down. He was not
afraid of the natives. They would not stir till mister

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Kurtz gave the word. His ascendancy was extraordinary. The camps
of these people surrounded the place, and the chiefs came
every day to see him. They would crawl. I don't
want to know anything of the ceremonies used when approaching
mister Kurtz. I shouted curious this feeling that came over me,

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that such details would be more intolerable than those heads
drying on the stakes under mister Kurtz's windows. After all,
that was only a savage sight, while I seemed at
one bound to have been transported into some lightless region
of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief,

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being something that had a right to exist obviously in
the sunshine. The young man looked at me with surprise.
I suppose it did not occur to him that mister
Kurtz was no idol of mine. He forgot I hadn't
heard any of these splendid monologs on what was it
on love, justice, conduct of life, or what not? If

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it had come to crawling before mister Kurtz, he crawled
as much as the veriest savage of them all, I
had no idea of the conditions. He said these heads
were the heads of rebels. I shocked him excessively by laughing, rebels.
What would be the next definition? I was to hear?
There had been enemies, criminals, workers, and these were rebels.

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Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me. On their sticks.
You don't know how such a life tries a man
like Kurts, cried Kurtz's last disciple. Well and you, I
said I I I am a simple man. I have
no great thoughts. I want nothing from anybody. How can
you compare me to? His feelings were too much for speech,

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and suddenly he broke down. I don't understand, he groaned.
I've been I'm doing my best to keep him alive,
and that's enough. I had no hand in all this.
I have no abilities. There hasn't been a drop of
medicine or a mouthful of invalid food for months. Here
he was shamefully abandoned, a man like this with such ideas, shamefully, shamefully,

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I I haven't slept for the last ten nights. His
voice lost itself, and the calm of the evening, the
long shadows of the forest had slipped downhill while we talked,
had gone far beyond the ruined hovel, beyond the symbolic
row of the stakes. All this was in the gloom,

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while we down there were yet in the sunshine, and
the stretch of the river abreast of the clearing glittered
in a still and dazzling splendor, with a murky and
overshadowed bend above and below. Not a living soul was
seen on the shore. The bushes did not rustle. Suddenly,
round the corner of the house a group of men appeared,

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as though they had come up from the ground. They
waded waist deep in the grass in a compact body,
bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst. Instantly, in the
emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose, whose shrillness pierced
the still air, like a sharp arrow flying straight to
the very heart of the land. And as if by enchantment,

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streams of human beings, of naked human beings with spears
in their hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances
and savage movements, were poured into the clearing by the
dark faced and pensive forest. The bushes shook, the grass
swayed for a time, and then everybody stood still in
attentive immobility. Now, if he does not say the right

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thing to them, we are all done for, said the
Russian at my elbow. The knot of men with the
stretcher had stopped too, half way to the steamer, as
if petrified. I saw the man on the stretcher sit
up lank with an uplifted arm above the shoulders of
the bearers. Let us hope that the man who can
talk so well of love in general will find some

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particular reason to spare us this time, I said, I
resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situation, as if
to be at the mercy of that atrocious phantom had
been a dishonoring necessity. I could not hear a sound,
but through my glasses I saw the thin arm extended commandingly,
the lower jaw moving, the eyes of that apparition shining

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darkly far in its bony head, that nodded with grotesque jerks, curts,
curts that means short in German. Don't it well? The
name was as true as everything else in his life
and death. He looked at least seven feet long. His
covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it,

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pitiful and appalling, as from a winding sheet. I could
see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones
of his arm waving. It was as though an animated
image of death carved out of old ivory, had been
shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of
men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw him
open his mouth wide. It gave him a weirdly voracious aspect,

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as though he had wanted to swallow all the air,
all the earth, all the men before him. A deep
voice suddenly reached me. Faintly. He must have been shouting.
He fell back. Suddenly the stretcher shook as the bearer
staggered forward again, And almost at the same time, I
noticed that the crowd of savages was vanishing, without any

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perceptible movement of retreat, as if the forest that had
ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again
as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration. Some
of the pilgrims behind the stretcher carried his arms two
shot guns, a heavy rifle and a light revolver carbine,
the thunderbolts of that pitiful Jupiter. The manager bent over him,

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murmuring as he walked beside his head. They laid him
down in one of the little cabins, just a room
for a bed place and a campstool or two. You know,
we had brought his blated correspondence, and a lot of
torn envelopes and open letters littered his bed. His hand
roamed feebly amongst these papers. I was struck by the
fire of his eyes and the composed languor of his expression.

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It was not so much the exhaustion of disease. He
did not seem in pain. This shadow looked satiated and calm,
as though for the moment it had had its fill
of all the emotions. He rustled one of the letters,
and looking straight in my face, said, I am glad
somebody had been writing to him about me. These special

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recommendations were turning up again. The volume of tone he emitted,
without effort, almost without the trouble of moving his lips,
amazed me. A voice, a voice. It was grave, profound, vibrating.
While the man did not seem capable of a whisper, however,
he had enough strength in him, factitious, no doubt, to

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very nearly make an end of us. As you shall
hear directly, the manager appeared silently in the doorway. I
stepped out at once, and he drew the curtain after me.
The Russian, eyed curiously by the pilgrims, was staring at
the shore. I followed the direction of his glance. Dark
human shapes could be made out in the darkness, Flitting

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indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest, and near
the river, two bronze figures, leaning on tall spears, stood
in the sunlight under fantastic head dresses of spotted skins,
warlike and still in statuesque repose, And from right to
left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous

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apparition of a woman. She walked with with measured steps,
draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly,
with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She
carried her head high. Her hair was done in the
shape of a helmet. She had brass leggings to the knee,

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brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on
her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck,
bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch men that hung about her,
glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had
the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was

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savage and superb wild eyed and magnificent. There was something
ominous and stately in her deliberate progress, and in the
hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land,
The immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and
mysterious life seemed to look at her punsive, as though

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it had been looking at the image of its own
tenebrous and passionate soul. She came abreast of the steamer
and stood still and faced us. Her long shadow fell
to the water's edge. Her face had a tragic and
fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain, mingled
with the fear of some struggling, half shaped resolve. She

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stood looking at us without a stir, and like the
wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose.
A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward.
There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal,
a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped, as if

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her heart had failed her. The young fellow by my
side growled, the pilgrims murmured at my back. She looked
at us all as if her life had depended upon
the unswerving steadiness of her glance. Suddenly she opened her
bared arms and drew them up rigid above her head
as oh in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky.

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And at the same time, the swift shadows started out
on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the
steamer into a shadowy embrace. A formidable silence hung over
the scene. She turned away, slowly walked on following the bank,
and passed into the bushes to the left. Once only

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her eyes gleamed back at us in the dusk of
the thickets before she disappeared. If she had offered to
come aboard, I really think I would have tried to
shoot her, said the man of patches nervously. I have
been risking my life every day for the last fortnight
to keep her out of the house. She got in
one day and kicked up a row about those miserable

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rags I picked up in the storm room to mend
my clothes with. I wasn't decent, at least it must
have been that, for she talked like a fury to
Kurtz for an hour, pointing at me now and then.
I don't understand the dialect of this tribe. Luckily for me,
I fancy. Kurtz felt too ill that day to care
or there would have been mischief. I don't understand. No,

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it's too much for me. Ah well, it's all over now.
At this moment, I heard Kurtz's deep voice behind the curtain.
Save me, save the ivory. You mean, don't tell me,
save me? Why I've had to save you? You are
interrupting my plans now, sick, sick, not so sick as
you would like to believe. Never mind, I'll carry my

(23:31):
ideas out yet I will return. I'll show you what
can be done. You with your little peddling notions, you
are interfering with me. I will return. I the manager
came out. He did me the honor to take me
under the arm and leave me aside. He is very low,
very low, he said. He considered it necessary to sigh,

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but neglected to be consistently sorrowful. We have done all
we could for him, haven't we. But there is no
disguising the fact mister Kurtz has done more harm than
good to the company. He did not see the time
was not ripe for vigorous action. Cautiously, cautiously, that's my principle.
We must be cautious. Yet the district is close to

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us for a time deplorable upon the whole the trade
will suffer. I don't deny. There is a remarkable quantity
of ivory, mostly fossil. We must save it at all events.
But look how precarious the position is, and why because
the method is unsound? Do you, said I, looking at
the shore, call it unsound method? Without doubt, he exclaimed hotly.

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Don't you no method at all? I murmured after a while, exactly,
he exulted. I anticipated this shows a complete want of judgment.
It is my duty to point it out in the
proper quarter, Oh, said I. That fellow what's his name,
the brickmaker, will a readable report for you. He appeared confounded.

(25:04):
For a moment. It seemed to me I had never
breathed an atmosphere so vile, and I turned mentally to
Kurtz for relief, positively for relief. Nevertheless, I think mister
Kurtz is a remarkable man, I said with emphasis. He
started dropped on me a heavy glance and said very
quietly he was and turned his back on me. My

(25:29):
hour of favor was over. I found myself lumping along
with Kurtz as a partisan of methods for which the
time was not ripe. I was unsound, ah, but it
was something to have, at least a choice of nightmares.
I had turned to the wilderness, really, not to mister Kurtz,
who I was ready to admit was as good as buried.

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And for a moment it seemed to me as if
I also were buried in a vast grave full of
unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast,
the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of
victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night. The Russian
tapped me on the shoulder. I heard him mumbling and

(26:11):
stammered something about brother Seaman couldn't conceal knowledge of matters
that would affect mister Kurtse's reputation. I waited for him.
Evidently mister Kurtz was not in his grave. I suspect
that for him, mister Kurtz was one of the immortals.
Well said, I at last speak out, as it happens,

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I am mister Kurtz's friend in a way. He stated
with a good deal of formality that had we not
been of the same profession, he would have kept the
matter to himself without regard to consequences. He suspected there
was an active ill will towards him on the part
of these white men. That you are right, I said,
remembering a certain conversation I had overheard. The manager thinks

(26:57):
you ought to be hanged. He showed a concern at
this intelligence, which amused me at first. I had better
get out of the way quietly, he said, earnestly. I
can do no more for Kurtz now, and they would
soon find some excuse. What's to stop them. There's a
military post three hundred miles from here. Well, upon my word,

(27:19):
said I, perhaps you had better go. If you have
any friends amongst the savages near by plenty, he said.
They are simple people, and I want nothing, you know,
he stood, biting his lip. Then I don't want any
harm to happen to these whites here. But of course
I was thinking of mister Kurtz's reputation. But you are

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a brother, seaman, and all right, said I. After a time.
Mister Kurtz's reputation is safe with me. I did not
know how truly I spoke. He informed me, lowering his voice,
that it was kurt who had ordered the attack to
be made on the steamer. He hated some times the

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idea of being taken away and then again. But I
don't understand these matters. I am a simple man. He
thought it would scare you away, that you would give
it up. Thinking him dead, I could not stop him. Oh,
I had an awful time of it this last month.
Very well, I said, he is all right now, yes,

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he muttered, not very convinced. Apparently, thanks said I I
shall keep my eyes open, but quiet eh, he urged anxiously.
It would be awful for his reputation if anybody here.
I promised a complete discretion with great gravity. I have
a canoe and three black fellows waiting not very far.

(28:43):
I am off. Could you give me a few martini
Henry Cartridges? I could, and did with proper secrecy. He
helped himself with a wink at me to a handful
of my tobacco between sailors, you know, good English tobacco.
At the door of the pilot house, he turned round.
I say, haven't you a pair of shoes you could spare?

(29:05):
He raised one leg. Look. The soles were tied with
knotted strings sandalwise under his bare feet. I rooted out
an old pear at which he looked with admiration, before
tucking it under his left arm. One of his pockets,
bright red, was bulging with cartridges. From the other, dark blue,
peeped Towson's inquiry, et cetera, et cetera. He seemed to

(29:28):
think himself excellently well equipped for a renewed encounter with
the wilderness. Ah, I'll never never meet such a man again.
You ought to have heard him recite poetry his own too,
it was, he told me poetry. He rolled his eyes
at the recollection of these delights. Oh, he enlarged my mind.

(29:49):
Good Bye, said I. He shook hands and vanished in
the night. Sometimes I asked myself whether I had ever
really seen him, whether it was possible to me. It's
such a phenomenon.