October 26, 2023 • 48 mins
"Heart of Darkness" is a novella written by Joseph Conrad and first published in 1899. It is considered one of the most significant works in English literature and a classic of modernist literature. The story is framed as a narrative within a narrative and explores themes of imperialism, colonization, human nature, and the darkness that can reside within the human soul.The novella is set in the late 19th century and follows the journey of Charles Marlow, a British seaman and ivory trader, as he travels up the Congo River in Africa. Marlow is on a mission to find Kurtz, an enigmatic ivory trader who has gone deep into the heart of the African continent and has become both a symbol of European colonialism and a mysterious figure shrouded in rumors and legends.As Marlow ventures deeper into the African wilderness, he encounters the brutal and dehumanizing effects of European imperialism on the indigenous people and the land itself. He witnesses the exploitation, violence, and moral decay that often accompany such endeavors. The journey also becomes a metaphorical descent into the "heart of darkness," where Marlow confronts the darkness within himself and the depths of human depravity.Kurtz, the character at the center of the narrative, represents the extreme consequences of unchecked power and the corrupting influence of imperialism. His descent into madness and his embrace of brutality challenge Marlow's understanding of civilization and human nature."Heart of Darkness" is known for its vivid and evocative prose, as well as its exploration of complex and dark themes. It has been interpreted in various ways by scholars and readers, addressing issues of racism, colonialism, and the moral ambiguity of the characters. The novella has also inspired numerous adaptations, including films, plays, and literary works, and it continues to be a subject of literary analysis and discussion.
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This is a LibriVox recording. AllLibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer,please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
Kristin Luoma Green k r I dotCalm. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad,
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Chapter three, Part two. WhenI woke up shortly after midnight,
his warning came to my mind,with its hint of danger that seemed in
the starred darkness, real enough tomake me get up for the purpose of
having a look around on the hill. A big fire burned, illuminating fitfully
a crooked corner of the station house. One of the agents, with a
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picket of a few of our blacksarmed for the purpose, was keeping guard
over the ivory. But deep withinthe forest red gleams that wavered that seemed
to sink and rise from the groundamongst confused columnar's shapes of intense blackness showed
the exact position of the camp wheremister Kurtz's adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil.
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The monotonous beating of a big drumfilled the air with muffled shocks and
a lingering vibration. A steady droningsound of many men chanting each to himself.
Some weird incantation came out from ahive and had a strange narcotic effect
upon my half awake senses. Ibelieve I dozed off leaning over the rail
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till an abrupt burst of yells,an overwhelming outbreak of a pent up and
mysterious frenzy, woke me up ina bewildered wonder. It was cut short
all at once, and the lowdroning went on with an effect of audible
and soothing silence. I glanced casuallyinto the little cabin. A light was
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burning within, but mister Kurtz wasnot there. I think I would have
raised an outcry if I had believedmy eyes, but I didn't believe them.
At first, the thing seemed sopossible. The fact is I was
completely unerved by a sheer, blankfright, pure abstract terror, unconnected with
any distinct shape of physical danger.What made this emotion so overpowering was,
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how shall I define it? Themoral shock I received, as if something
altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought,and odious to the soul had been thrust
upon me unexpectedly. This lasted,of course, the merest fraction of a
second, and then the usual senseof commonplace, deadly danger. The possibility
of a sudden onslaught and massacre,or something of the kind which I saw
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impending, was positively welcome and composing. It pacified me, in fact,
so much that I did not raisean alarm. There was an agent buttoned
up inside an ulster and sleeping ona chair on deck, within three feet
of me. The yells had notawakened him. He snored very slightly.
I left him to his slumbers andleapt ashore. I did not tray mister
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Kurtz. It was ordered I shouldnever betterry him. It was written,
I should be loyal to the nightmareof my choice. I was anxious to
deal with the shadow by myself alone, and to this day I don't know
why I was so jealous of sharingwith any one the peculiar blackness of that
experience. As soon as I goton the bank, I saw trail,
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a broad trail through the grass.I remember the exultation with which I said
to myself, he can't walk,he is crawling on all fours. I've
got him. The grass was wetwith dew. I strode rapidly with clenched
fists. I fancy I had somevague notion of falling upon him and giving
him a drubbing. I don't know. I had some imbecile thoughts. The
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knitting old woman with the cat obtrudedherself upon my memory as a most improper
person to be sitting at the otherend of such an affair. I saw
a row of pilgrims squirting lead inthe air out of Winchester's held to the
hip. I thought I would neverget back to the steamer, and imagined
myself living alone and unarmed in thewoods to an advanced age. Such silly
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things, you know, And Iremember I confounded the beat of the drum
with the beating of my heart,and was pleased at its calm regularity.
I kept to the track, thoughthen stopped to listen. The night was
very clear, a dark blue spacesparkling with dew and starlight, in which
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black things stood very still. Ithought I could see a kind of motion
ahead of me. I was strangelycock sure of everything that night. I
actually left the track and ran ina wide semicircle, I verily believe,
chuckling to myself so as to getin front of that stir, of that
motion I had seen, if indeedI had seen anything, I was circumventing
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curts, as though it had beena boyish game. I came upon him,
and if he had not heard mecoming, I would have fallen over
him too. But he got upin time. He rose unsteady, long,
pale, indistinct, like a vaporexhaled by the earth, and swayed
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slightly, misty and silent before me, while at my back the fires loomed
between the trees, and the murmurof many voices issued from the forest.
I had cut him off cleverly,But when actually confronting him, I seemed
to come to my senses. Isaw the danger in its right proportion.
It was by no means over yet. Suppose he began to shout, though
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he could hardly stand. There wasstill plenty of vigor in his voice.
Go away, hide yourself, hesaid, in that profound tone. It
was very awful. I glanced back. We were within thirty yards from the
nearest fire. A black figure stoodup, strode on long black legs,
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waving long black arms across the glow. It had horns, antelope hoorns,
I think, on its head somesorcerer, some witch man, No doubt,
it looked fiendlike enough. Do youknow what you are doing? I
whispered perfectly, he answered, raisinghis voice for that single word. It
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sounded to me far off and yetloud, like a hail through a speaking
trumpet. If he makes a row, we are lost, I thought to
myself. This clearly was not acase for fisticuffs, even apart from the
very natural aversion. I had tobeat that shadow, this wandering and tormented
thing. You will be lost,I said, utterly lost. One gets
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sometimes such a flash of inspiration.You know, I did say the right
thing, though indeed he could nothave been more irretrievably lost than he was
at this very moment, when thefoundations of our intimacy were being laid.
To endure, to endure, evento the end, even beyond. I
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had immense plans, he muttered,irresolutely. Yes, said I. But
if you try to shelt, I'llsmash your head with There was not a
stick or a stone near. Iwill throttle you for good, I corrected
myself. I was on the thresholdof great things, he pleaded, in
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a voice of longing, with awistfulness of tone. That made my blood
run cold. And now for thisstupid scoundrel, your success in Europe is
assured. In any case, Iaffirmed steadily. I did not want to
have the throttling of him, youunderstand, And indeed it would have been
very little use for any practical purpose. I tried to break the spell,
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the heavy, mute spell of thewilderness that seemed to draw him to its
pitiless breast, by the awakening offorgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory
of gratified and monstrous passions. Thisalone, I was convinced, had driven
him out to the edge of theforest, to the bush towards the gleam
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of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations. This
alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyondthe bounds of permitted aspirations. And don't
you see the terror of the positionwas not in being knocked on the head,
although I had a very lively senseof that danger too, But in
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this that I had to deal witha being to whom I could not appeal
in the name of anything high orlow. I had, even like the
niggers, to invoke him himself.His own exalted and incredible degradation. There
was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had
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kicked himself loose of the earth,confound the man. He had kicked the
very earth to pieces. He wasalone, and I before him did not
know whether I stood on the groundor floated in the air. I've been
telling you what we said, repeatingthe phrases we pronounced. But what's the
good? They were calmon every daywords, the familiar, vague sounds exchanged
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on every waking day of life.But what of that they had behind them?
To my mind? The terrific suggestivenessof words heard in dreams, of
phrases spoken in nightmares. Soul.If anybody ever struggled with a soul,
I am the man, and Iwasn't arguing with a lunatic, either believe
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me or not. His intelligence wasperfectly clear, concentrated, it is true,
upon himself, with horrible intensity,yet clear, And therein was my
only chance, barring, of course, the killing him there and then,
which wasn't so good on account ofunavoidable noise. But his soul was mad,
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being alone in the wilderness, Ithad loos within itself, and by
heavens, I tell you it hadgone mad. I had for my sins,
I supposed to go through the ordealof looking into it myself. No
eloquence could have been so withering toone's belief in mankind as his final burst
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of sincerity. He struggled within himselftoo. I saw it, I heard
it. I saw the inconceivable mysteryof a soul that knew no restraint,
no faith, and no fear,yet struggling blindly with itself. I kept
my head pretty well, but whenI had him at last stretched on the
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couch, I wiped my forehead whilemy legs shook under me, as though
I had carried half a ton onmy back down that hill, and yet
I had only supported him. Hisbony arm clasped round my neck, and
he was not much heavier than achild. When next day we left at
noon, the crowd of whose presencebehind the curtain of trees I had been
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acutely conscious of all the time,flowed out of the woods again, filling
the clearing, covered the slope witha mass of naked, breathing, quivering,
bronzed bodies. I steamed up abit, then swung down stream,
and two thousand eyes followed the evolutionsof the splashing, thumping, fierce river
demon, beating the water with itsterrible tail and breathing black smoke into the
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air. In front of the firstrank along the river, three men plastered
with bright red earth from head tofoot, strutted to and fro restlessly.
When we came abreast again, theyfaced the river, stamped their feet,
nodded their horned heads, swayed theirscarlet bodies. They shook towards the fierce
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river demon, a bunch of blackfeathers, a mangy skin with a pendant
tail, something that looked like adried gourd. They shouted periodically to gather
strings of amazing words that resembled nosounds of human language, and the deep
murmurs of the crowd interrupted suddenly,were like the responses of some satanic litany.
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We had carried curts into the pilothouse. There was more air there.
Lying on the couch, he staredthrough the open shutter. There was
an eddy on the mass of humanbodies, and the woman with helmeted head
and tawny cheeks rushed out to thevery brink of the stream. She put
out her hands shouting something, andall that wild mob took up the shout
in a roaring chorus of articulated,rapid, breathless utterance. Do you understand
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this? I asked. He kepton looking out past me with fiery,
longing eyes, with a mingled expressionof wistfulness and hate. He made no
answer, But I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear
on his colorless lips that a momentafter twitched convulsively. Do I not,
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he said, slowly, gasping asif the words had been torn out of
him by a supernatural power. Ipulled the string of the whistle, and
I did this because I saw thepilgrims on deck getting out their rifles with
an air of anticipating a jolly lark. At the sudden screech, there was
a movement of abject terror through thatwedged mass of bodies. Don't don't you
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frighten them away? Cried some oneon deck, disconsolately. I pulled the
string time after time. They brokeand ran, They leaped, They crouched,
they swerved, they dodged the flyingterror of the sound. The three
red chaps had fallen flat face downon the shore as though they had been
shot dead. Only the barbarous andsuperb woman did not so much as flinch,
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and stretched tragically her bare arms afterus over the somber and glittering river.
And then that imbecile crowd down onthe deck started their little fun,
and I could see nothing more forsmoke. The brown cur and ran swiftly
out of the heart of darkness,bearing us down towards the sea with twice
the speed of our upward progress.And Kurtz's life was running swiftly too,
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ebbing ebbing, out of his heartinto the sea of inexorable time. The
manager was very placid, He hadno vital anxieties. Now he took us
both in with a comprehensive and satisfiedglance. The affair had come off as
well as could be wished. Isaw the time approaching when I would be
left alone of the party of unsoundmethod. The pilgrims looked upon me with
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disfavor. I was, so tospeak, numbered with the dead. It
is strange how I accepted this unforeseenpartnership, this choice of nightmares, forced
upon me in the tenebrous land invadedby these mean and greedy phantoms. Kurt's
discoursed a voice, a voice.It rang deep to the very last,
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It survived his strength to hide inthe magnificent folds of eloquence, the barren
darkness of his heart. Oh,he struggled, He struggled. The wastes
of his weary brain were haunted byshadowy images, now images of wealth and
fame, revolving obsequiously around his inextinguishablegift of noble and lofty expression. My
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intended, my station, my career, my ideas. These were the subjects
for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. The shade of the original curts frequented
the bedside of the hollow sham,whose fate it was to be buried presently
in the mold of primeval earth.But both the diabolic love and the unearthly
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hate of the mysteries it had penetrated, fought for the possession of that soul,
satiated with primitive emotions, avid oflying fame of sham, distinction of
all the appearances of success and power. Times he was contemptibly childish. He
desired to have kings meet him atrailway stations on his return from some ghastly
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nowhere where he intended to accomplish greatthings. You show them you have in
you something that is really profitable,and then there will be no limits to
the recognition of your ability. Hewould say. Of course, you must
take care of the motives, right, motives always the long reaches that were
like one and the same reach,monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped
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past the steamer with their multitude ofsecular trees. Looking patiently after this grimy
fragment of another world, the forerunnerof change, of conquest, of trade,
of massacres of blessings. I lookedahead, piloting close the shutter,
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said Kurt, Suddenly, one dayI can't beare to look at this.
I did so. There was asilence. Oh but I will wring your
heart yet, he cried at theinvisible wilderness. We broke down, as
I had expected, and had tolie up for repairs at the head of
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an island. This delay was thefirst thing that shook Kurtz's confidence. One
morning, he gave me a packetof papers and a photograph the lot,
tied together with a shoe string.Keep this for me, he said,
This noxious fool, meaning the manageris capable of prying into my boxes when
I am not looking. In theafternoon, I saw him. He was
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lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quickly. But I
heard him mutter, live rightly,die die. I listened. There was
nothing more. Was he rehearsing somespeech in his sleep, or was it
a fragment of a phrase from somenewspaper article. He had been writing for
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the papers and meant to do soagain for the furthering of my ideas.
It's a duty. His was animpenetrable darkness. I looked at him as
you peer down a man who islying at the bottom of a precipice where
the sun never shines. But Ihad not much time to give him,
because I was helping the engine driverto take to pieces the leaky cylinders,
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to straighten a bent connecting rod,and inn other such matters. I lived
in an infernal mess of rust,filings, nuts, bolts, spanners,
hammers, ratchet drills, things Iabominate because I don't get on with them.
I tended the little forge we fortunatelyhad a board. I toiled wearily
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in a wretched scrap heap. UnlessI had the shakes too bad to stand
one evening, coming in with acandle. I was startled to hear him
say a little tremulously, I amlying here in the dark, waiting for
death. The light was within afoot of his eyes. I forced myself
to murmur, oh, nonsense,and stood over him, as if transfixed
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anything approaching. The change that cameover his features I have never seen before
and hope never to see again.Oh, I wasn't touched. I was
fascinated. It was as though aveil had been rent. I saw on
that ivory face the expression of somberpride, of ruthless power, of craven
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terror, of an intense and hopelessdespair. Did he live his life again
in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender. During that supreme moment
of complete knowledge? He cried ina whisper at some image, at some
vision. He cried out twice,a cry that was no more than a
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breath. The horror, the horror. I blew the candle out and left
the cabin. The pilgrims were diningin the mess room, and I took
my place opposite the manager, wholifted his eyes to give me a questioning
glance, which I successfully ignored,He leaned back, serene, with that
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peculiar smile of his, sealing theunexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous
shower of small flies streamed upon thelamp, upon the cloth, upon her
hands and faces. Suddenly, themanager's boy put his insolent black head in
the doorway and said, in atone of scathing contempt, Mistack Kurtz,
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he dead. All the pilgrims rushedout to sea. I remained and went
on with my dinner. I believeI was considered brutally callous. However I
did not eat much. There wasa lamp in there, light you don't
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know, and outside it was sobeastly, beastly dark. I went no
more near the remarkable man who hadpronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his
soul on this earth. The voicewas gone. What else had been there?
But I am, of course awarethat next day the pilgrims buried something
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in a muddy hole, and thenthey very nearly buried me. However,
as you see, I did notgo to join Curts there, and then
I did not. I remained todream the nightmare out to the end,
and to show my loyalty to curtsonce more. Destiny, my destiny,
droll thing. Life is that mysteriousarrangement of merciless logic for a feudal purpose.
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The most you can hope from itis some knowledge of yourself that comes
too late, a crop of unextinguishableregrets. I have wrestled with death.
It is the most unexciting contest youcan imagine. It takes place in an
impalpable grains, with nothing under foot, with nothing around, without spectators,
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without clamor, without glory, withoutthe great desire of victory, without the
great fear of defeat, in asickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much
belief in your own right, andstill less in that of your adversary.
If such is the form of ultimatewisdom, then life is a greater riddle
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than some of us think it tobe. I was within a hair's breadth
of the last opportunity for pronouncement,and I found with humiliation that probably I
would have nothing to say. Thisis the reason why I affirm that Kurtz
was a remarkable man. He hadsomething to say. He said it.
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Since I had peeped over the edgemyself, I understood better the meaning of
his stare that could not see theflame of the candle, but was wide
enough to embrace the whole universe,piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that
beat in the darkness. He hadsummed up, he had judged the horror.
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He was a remarkable man. Afterall. This was the expression of
some sort of belief. It hadcandor, It had conviction, It had
a vibrating note of revolt in itswhisper. It had the appalling face of
a glimpsed truth, the strange comminglingof desire and hate. And it is
not my own extremity I remember best, a vision of grayness without form,
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filled with physical pain, and acareless contempt for the evanescence of all things,
even of this pain itself. No, it is his extremity that I
seemed to have lived through. True, he had made that last stride,
he had stepped over the edge,while I had been permitted to draw back
my hesitating foot. And perhaps inthis is the whole difference, Perhaperhaps all
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the wisdom, and all truth andall sincerity are just compressed into that inappreciable
moment of time in which we stepover the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps
I like to think my summing upwould not have been a word of careless
contempt. Better his cry much better. It was an affirmation, a moral
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victory, paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions.
But it was a victory. Thatis why I have remained loyal to
Curts to the last and even beyond. When a long time after I heard
once more, not his own voice, but the echo of his magnificent eloquence,
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thrown to me from a soul astranslucently pure as a cliff of crystal.
No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of
time which I remember mistily with ashuddering wonder, like a passage through some
inconceivable world that had no no hopein it and no desire. I found
myself back in the sepulchral city,resenting the sight of people hurrying through the
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streets to filter a little money fromeach other, to devour their infamous cookery,
to gulp their unwholesome beer, todream their insignificant and silly dreams.
They trespassed upon my thoughts. Theywere intruders whose knowledge of life was to
me an irritating pretense, because Ifelt so sure they could not possibly know
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the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace
individuals going about their business in theassurance of perfect safety, was offensive to
me, like the outrageous flauntings offolly in the face of a danger.
It is unable to comprehend. Ihad no particular desire to enlighten them,
but I had some difficulty in restrainingmyself from laughing in their faces. So
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full of stupid importance, I daresay I was not very well at that
time. I tottered about the streetsthere were various affairs to settle, grinning
bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. Iadmit my behavior was inexcusable, but then
my temperature was seldom normal in thesedays. My dear aunt's endeavors to nurse
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up my strength seemed altogether beside themark. It was not my strength that
wanted nursing. It was my imaginationthat wanted soothing. I kept the bundle
of papers given me by Kurts,not knowing exactly what to do with it.
His mother had died lately, watchedover as I was told by his
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intended. A clean shaved man withan official manner and wearing gold rimmed spectacles
called on me one day and madeinquiries, at first circuitous and afterwards suavely
pressing about what he was pleased todenominate certain documents. I was not surprised,
because I had had two rows withthe manager on the subject out there.
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I had refused to give up thesmall mollest scrap out of that package,
and I took the same attitude withthe spectacled man. He became darkly
menacing at last, and with muchheat, argued that the company had the
right to every bit of information aboutits territories, and said he mister Kurtz's
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knowledge of unexplored regions must have beennecessarily extensive and peculiar, owing to his
great abilities and to the deplorable circumstancesin which he had been placed. Therefore,
I assured him mister Kurtz's knowledge,however extensive, did not bear upon
the problems of commerce or administration.He invoked, then the name of science,
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it would be an incalculable loss ifet cetera, et cetera. I
offered him the report on the suppressionof savage customs. With the postscriptum torn
off, he took it up eagerly, but ended up by sniffing at it
with an air of contempt. Thisis not what we had a right to
excite, he remarked. Expect nothingelse, I said, there are only
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private letters. He withdrew upon somethreat of legal proceedings, and I saw
him no more. But another fellowcalling himself Kurtz's cousin, appeared two days
later and was anxious to hear allthe details about his dear relative's last moments.
Incidentally, he gave me to understandthat Kurtz had been essentially a great
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musician. There was the making ofan immense success, said the man who
was an organist. I believe,with lank gray hair flowing over a greasy
coat collar. I had no reasonto doubt his statement, And to this
day I am unable to say whatwas Kurtz's profession, whether he ever had
any, which was the greatest ofhis talents. I had taken him for
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a painter who wrote for the papers, or else for a journalist who could
paint. But even the cousin whotook snuff during the interview could not tell
me what he had don man exactly. He was a universal genius. On
that point, I agreed with theold chap, who thereupon blew his nose
noisily into a large cotton handkerchief,and withdrew in senile agitation, bearing off
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some family letters and memoranda without importance. Ultimately, a journalist, anxious to
know something of the fate of hisdear colleague, turned up. This visitor
informed me Curti's proper sphere ought tohave been politics. On the popular side,
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he had furry, straight eyebrows,bristly hair cropped short, an eye
glass on a broad ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that
Kurt really couldn't write a bit,But heavens how that man could talk.
He electrified large meetings. He hadfaith, don't you see? He had
the faith. He could get himselfto believe anything anything. He would have
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been a splendid leader of an extremeparty. What party, I asked?
Any party answered the other. Hewas an an extremist. Did I not
think so? I assented, DidI know? He asked, with a
sudden flash of curiosity, what itwas that had induced him to go out
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there, yes, said I,and forthwith handed him the famous report for
publication if he thought fit. Heglanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all the
time, judged it would do,and took himself off with this plunder.
Thus I was left at last witha slim packet of letters and the girl's
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portrait. She struck me as beautiful. I mean, she had a beautiful
expression. I know that the sunlightcan be made to lie too. Yet
one felt that no manipulation of lightand pose could have conveyed the delicate shade
of truthfulness upon those features. Sheseemed ready to listen, without mental reservation,
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without suspicion, without a thought forherself. I concluded I would go
and give her back her portrait andthose letters myself. Curiosity, yes,
and also some other feeling. Perhapsall that had been courtgies had passed out
of my hands, his soul,his body, his station, his plans,
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his ivory, his career. Thereremained only his memory and his intended
And I wanted to give that uptoo, to the past, in a
way, to surrender personally all thatremained of him with me to that oblivion
which is the last word of ourcommon fate. I don't defend myself.
I had no clear perception of whatit was I really wanted. Perhaps it
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was an impulse of unconscious loyalty,or the fulfillment of one of those ironic
necessities that lurk in the facts ofhuman existence. I don't know. I
can't tell, but I went.I thought his memory was like the other
memories of the dead that accumulate inevery man's life, a vague impress on
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the brain of shadows that had fallenon it in their swift and final passage.
But before the high and ponderous door, between the tall houses of a
street, as still and a chorus, as a well kept alley in a
cemetery, I had a vision ofhim on a stretcher, opening his mouth
voraciously, as if to devour allthe earth with all its mankind. He
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lived then before me, he livedas much as he had ever lived,
a shadow, insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities, a shadow darker
than the shadow of the night,and draped nobly in the folds of a
gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed toenter the house with me, the stretcher,
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the phantom bearers, the wild crowdof obedient worshippers, the gloom of
the forest, the glitter of thereach between the murky bends. The beat
of the drum, regular and muffled, like the beating of a heart,
the heart of a conquering darkness.It was a moment of triumph for the
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wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush, which it seemed to me I would
have to keep back alone for thesalvation of another soul. And the memory
of what I had heard him sayafar there, with the horned shapes stirring
at my back, in the glowof fires within the patient woods, those
broken phrases came back to me,were heard again, in their ominous and
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terrifying simplicity. I remembered his abjectpleading, his abject threats, the colossal
scale of his vile desires, themeanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish
of his soul. And later onI seemed to see his collected, languid
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manner when he said, one day, this lot of ivory now is really
mine. The company did not payfor it. I collected it myself at
a very great personal risk. Iam afraid they will try to claim it
as theirs. Though, Hm,it is a difficult case. What do
you think I ought to do?Resist? Eh? I want no more
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than justice. He wanted no morethan justice, no more than justice.
I rang the bell before a mahoganydoor on the first floor, and while
I waited, he seemed to stareat me out of the glassy panel,
stare with that wide and immense stare, embracing, condemning, loathing all the
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universe. I seemed to hear thewhispered cry, the horror, the horror.
The dusk was falling. I hadto wait in a lofty drawing room
with three three long windows from floorto ceiling that were like three luminous and
bedraped columns. The bent gilt legsand backs of the furniture shone in indistinct
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curves. The tall marble fireplace hada cold and monumental whiteness. A grand
piano stood massively in a corner,with dark gleams on the flat surfaces,
like a somber and polished sarcophagus.A high door opened, closed. I
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rose. She came forward, allin black, with a pale head floating
towards me in the dusk. Shewas in mourning. It was more than
a year since his death, morethan a year since the news came.
She seemed as though she would rememberand mourned forever. She took both my
hands in hers and murmured, Ihad heard you were coming. I noticed
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she was not very young, Imean, not girlish. She had a
mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering. The room seemed to
have grown darker, as if allthe sad light of the cloudy evening had
taken refuge on her forehead. Thisfair hair, this pale visage, this
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pure brow, seemed surrounded by anashy halo from which the dark eyes looked
out at me. Their glance wasguileless, profound, confident, and trustful.
She carried her sorrowful head as thoughshe were proud of that sorrow,
as though she would say, II alone know how to mourn for him
(36:39):
as he deserves. But while wewere still shaking hands, such a look
of awful desolation came upon her facethat I perceived she was one of those
creatures that are not the playthings oftime. For her, he had died
only yesterday, and by Jove,the impression was so powerful that for me
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too, he seemed to have diedonly yesterday, Nay, this very minute.
I saw her and him in thesame instant of time, his death
and her sorrow. I saw hersorrow in the very moment of his death.
Do you understand I saw them together. I heard them together, she
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had said, with a deep catchof the breath, I have survived,
while my strained ears seemed to heardistinctly mingled with her tone of despairing regret,
the summing up whisper of his eternalcondemnation. I asked myself what I
was doing there, with a sensationof panic in my heart, as though
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I had blundered into a place ofcruel and absurd mysteries, not fit for
a human being to behold. Shemotioned me to a chair. We sat
down. I laid the packet gentlyon the little table, and she put
her hand over it. You knewhim well, she murmured, after a
(38:04):
moment of morning silence. INTI,Missy grows quickly out there. I said,
I knew him as well as itis possible for one man to know
another. And you admired him,She said, it was impossible to know
him and not to admire him.Was it he was a remarkable man,
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I said, unsteadily. Then,before the appealing fixity of her gaze that
seemed to watch for more words onmy lips, I went on. It
was impossible not to love him,she finished, eagerly, silencing me into
an appalled dumbness. How true,How true? But when you think that
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no one knew him so well asI? I had all his noble confidence.
I knew him best. You knewhim best, I repeated, And
perhaps she did. But with everyword spoken, the room was growing darker,
and only her forehead, smooth andwhite, remained illumined by the inextinguishable
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light of belief and love. Youwere his friend, she went on,
His friend, she repeated. Alittle louder you must have been if he
had given you this and sent youto me. I feel I can speak
to you, and oh I mustspeak. I want you, you who
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have heard his last words, toknow I have been worthy of him.
It is not pride. Yes,I am proud to know I understood him
better than any one on earth.He told me so himself, And since
his mother died, I have hadno one, no one two two.
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I listened, The darkness deepened.I was not even sure whether he had
given me the right bundle. Irather suspect he wanted me to take care
of an another batch of his papers, which after his death. I saw
the manager examining under the lamp,and the girl talked, easing her pain
in the certitude of my sympathy.She talked as thirsty men drink. I
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had heard that her engagement with Curtshad been disapproved by her people. He
wasn't rich enough for something. Andindeed, I don't know whether he had
not been a pauper all his life. He had given me some reason to
infer that it was his impatience ofcomparative poverty that drove him out there.
Who was not his friend, whohad heard him speak once? She was
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saying, he drew men towards himby what was best in them. She
looked at me with intensity. Itis the gift of the great, she
went on, and the sound ofher low voice seemed to have the accompaniment
of all the other sounds full ofmystery, desolation, and sorrow. I
had ever heard, the ripple ofthe river, the sowing of the trees
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swayed by the wind, the murmursof the crowds, the faint ring of
incomprehensible words cried from Afar, thewhisper of a voice speaking from beyond the
threshold of an eternal darkness. Butyou have heard him, you know,
she cried, Yes, I know, I said, with something like despair
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in my heart, but bowing myhead before the faith that was in her,
before that great and saving illusion thatshone with an unearthly glow in the
darkness, in the triumphant darkness fromwhich I could not have defended her,
from which I could not even defendmyself. What a loss to me,
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to us, she corrected herself withbeautiful generosity, then added, in a
murmur to the world. By thelast gleams of twilight, I could see
the glitter of her eyes full oftears, of tears that would not fall.
I have been very happy, veryfortunate, very proud. She went
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on, too fortunate, too happyfor a little while, and now I
am unhappy for for life. Shestood up, her fair hair seemed to
catch all the remaining light in aglimmer of gold. I rose too,
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And all of this she went onmournfully, all of his promise and all
of his greatness, of his generousmind, of his noble heart. Nothing
remains, nothing but a memory.You and I we shall always remember him,
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I said hastily. No, shecried, It is impossible that all
this should be lost, that sucha life should be sacrificed, to leave
nothing but sorrow. You know whatvast plans he had. I knew of
them too, I could not perhapsunderstand, but others knew of them.
Something must remain. His words,at least have not died. His words
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will remain, I said, Andhis example, she whispered to herself.
Men looked up to him. Hisgoodness shone in every act, his example,
true, I said, his exampletoo, Yes, his example.
I forgot that. But I donot. I cannot. I cannot believe,
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not yet, I cannot believe thatI shall never see him again,
That nobody will see him again,never, never, never. She put
out her arms as if after aretreating figure, stretching them back with clasped,
pale hands across the fading and narrowsheen of the window. Never see
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him. I saw him clearly enough. Then I shall see this eloquent phantom
as long as I live, AndI shall see her too. A tragic
and familiar shade resembling in this gestureanother one tragic also, and bedecked with
powerless charms, stretching bare brown armsover the glitter of the infernal stream,
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the stream of darkness, she said, suddenly very low. He died as
he lived his end, said I, with dull anger stirring in me.
Was in every way worthy of hislife. And I was not with him,
she murmured. My anger subsided beforea feeling of infinite pity. Everything
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that could be done, I mumbled, ah, But I believed in him
more than any one on earth,more than his own mother, more than
himself. He needed me me.I would have treasured every sigh, every
word, every sign, every glance. I felt like a chill grip on
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my chest, don't, I said, in a muffled voice, forgive me,
I I have mourned so long insilence, In silence. You were
with him to the last. Ithink of his loneliness. Nobody near to
understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear to the
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very end, I said shakily.I heard his very last words. I
stopped in affright repeat them, shemurmured, in a heart broken tone.
I want, I want something,something to to live with. I was
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on the point of crying at her. Don't you hear them? The dusk
was repeating them in a persistent whisperall around us, in a whisper that
seemed to swell menacingly, like thefirst whisper of a rising wind. The
horror, the horror, his lastword to live with, She insisted,
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don't you understand I loved him.I loved him. I loved him.
I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. The last word he pronounced was your
name. I heard a light sigh, and then my heart stood still,
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stopped dead short by an exulting andterrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable
triumph and of unspeakable pain. Iknew it. I was sure she knew.
She was sure I heard her weeping. She had hidden her face in
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her hands. It seemed to methat the house would collapse before I could
escape, that the heavens would fallupon my head. But nothing happened.
The heavens did not fall for sucha trifle. Would they have fallen?
I wonder if I had rendered curtsthat justice which was his due? Hadn't
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he said he wanted only justice,But I couldn't. I could not tell
her. It would have been toodark, too dark. Altogether, Marlow
ceased and sat apart, indistinct andsilent, in the pose of a meditating
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Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. We have lost the first of the
ebb, said the director. SuddenlyI raised my head. The offing was
barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the
uttermost ends of the earth flowed somberunder an overcast sky, seemed to lead
(48:15):
into the heart of an immense darkness. End of Heart of Darkness by Joseph
Conrad, read for LibriVox dot orgby Christian Luoma
This is a LibriVox recording. AllLibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer,please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
Kristin Luoma Green k r I dotCalm. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad,
(00:22):
Chapter three, Part two. WhenI woke up shortly after midnight,
his warning came to my mind,with its hint of danger that seemed in
the starred darkness, real enough tomake me get up for the purpose of
having a look around on the hill. A big fire burned, illuminating fitfully
a crooked corner of the station house. One of the agents, with a
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picket of a few of our blacksarmed for the purpose, was keeping guard
over the ivory. But deep withinthe forest red gleams that wavered that seemed
to sink and rise from the groundamongst confused columnar's shapes of intense blackness showed
the exact position of the camp wheremister Kurtz's adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil.
(01:07):
The monotonous beating of a big drumfilled the air with muffled shocks and
a lingering vibration. A steady droningsound of many men chanting each to himself.
Some weird incantation came out from ahive and had a strange narcotic effect
upon my half awake senses. Ibelieve I dozed off leaning over the rail
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till an abrupt burst of yells,an overwhelming outbreak of a pent up and
mysterious frenzy, woke me up ina bewildered wonder. It was cut short
all at once, and the lowdroning went on with an effect of audible
and soothing silence. I glanced casuallyinto the little cabin. A light was
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burning within, but mister Kurtz wasnot there. I think I would have
raised an outcry if I had believedmy eyes, but I didn't believe them.
At first, the thing seemed sopossible. The fact is I was
completely unerved by a sheer, blankfright, pure abstract terror, unconnected with
any distinct shape of physical danger.What made this emotion so overpowering was,
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how shall I define it? Themoral shock I received, as if something
altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought,and odious to the soul had been thrust
upon me unexpectedly. This lasted,of course, the merest fraction of a
second, and then the usual senseof commonplace, deadly danger. The possibility
of a sudden onslaught and massacre,or something of the kind which I saw
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impending, was positively welcome and composing. It pacified me, in fact,
so much that I did not raisean alarm. There was an agent buttoned
up inside an ulster and sleeping ona chair on deck, within three feet
of me. The yells had notawakened him. He snored very slightly.
I left him to his slumbers andleapt ashore. I did not tray mister
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Kurtz. It was ordered I shouldnever betterry him. It was written,
I should be loyal to the nightmareof my choice. I was anxious to
deal with the shadow by myself alone, and to this day I don't know
why I was so jealous of sharingwith any one the peculiar blackness of that
experience. As soon as I goton the bank, I saw trail,
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a broad trail through the grass.I remember the exultation with which I said
to myself, he can't walk,he is crawling on all fours. I've
got him. The grass was wetwith dew. I strode rapidly with clenched
fists. I fancy I had somevague notion of falling upon him and giving
him a drubbing. I don't know. I had some imbecile thoughts. The
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knitting old woman with the cat obtrudedherself upon my memory as a most improper
person to be sitting at the otherend of such an affair. I saw
a row of pilgrims squirting lead inthe air out of Winchester's held to the
hip. I thought I would neverget back to the steamer, and imagined
myself living alone and unarmed in thewoods to an advanced age. Such silly
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things, you know, And Iremember I confounded the beat of the drum
with the beating of my heart,and was pleased at its calm regularity.
I kept to the track, thoughthen stopped to listen. The night was
very clear, a dark blue spacesparkling with dew and starlight, in which
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black things stood very still. Ithought I could see a kind of motion
ahead of me. I was strangelycock sure of everything that night. I
actually left the track and ran ina wide semicircle, I verily believe,
chuckling to myself so as to getin front of that stir, of that
motion I had seen, if indeedI had seen anything, I was circumventing
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curts, as though it had beena boyish game. I came upon him,
and if he had not heard mecoming, I would have fallen over
him too. But he got upin time. He rose unsteady, long,
pale, indistinct, like a vaporexhaled by the earth, and swayed
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slightly, misty and silent before me, while at my back the fires loomed
between the trees, and the murmurof many voices issued from the forest.
I had cut him off cleverly,But when actually confronting him, I seemed
to come to my senses. Isaw the danger in its right proportion.
It was by no means over yet. Suppose he began to shout, though
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he could hardly stand. There wasstill plenty of vigor in his voice.
Go away, hide yourself, hesaid, in that profound tone. It
was very awful. I glanced back. We were within thirty yards from the
nearest fire. A black figure stoodup, strode on long black legs,
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waving long black arms across the glow. It had horns, antelope hoorns,
I think, on its head somesorcerer, some witch man, No doubt,
it looked fiendlike enough. Do youknow what you are doing? I
whispered perfectly, he answered, raisinghis voice for that single word. It
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sounded to me far off and yetloud, like a hail through a speaking
trumpet. If he makes a row, we are lost, I thought to
myself. This clearly was not acase for fisticuffs, even apart from the
very natural aversion. I had tobeat that shadow, this wandering and tormented
thing. You will be lost,I said, utterly lost. One gets
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sometimes such a flash of inspiration.You know, I did say the right
thing, though indeed he could nothave been more irretrievably lost than he was
at this very moment, when thefoundations of our intimacy were being laid.
To endure, to endure, evento the end, even beyond. I
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had immense plans, he muttered,irresolutely. Yes, said I. But
if you try to shelt, I'llsmash your head with There was not a
stick or a stone near. Iwill throttle you for good, I corrected
myself. I was on the thresholdof great things, he pleaded, in
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a voice of longing, with awistfulness of tone. That made my blood
run cold. And now for thisstupid scoundrel, your success in Europe is
assured. In any case, Iaffirmed steadily. I did not want to
have the throttling of him, youunderstand, And indeed it would have been
very little use for any practical purpose. I tried to break the spell,
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the heavy, mute spell of thewilderness that seemed to draw him to its
pitiless breast, by the awakening offorgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory
of gratified and monstrous passions. Thisalone, I was convinced, had driven
him out to the edge of theforest, to the bush towards the gleam
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of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations. This
alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyondthe bounds of permitted aspirations. And don't
you see the terror of the positionwas not in being knocked on the head,
although I had a very lively senseof that danger too, But in
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this that I had to deal witha being to whom I could not appeal
in the name of anything high orlow. I had, even like the
niggers, to invoke him himself.His own exalted and incredible degradation. There
was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had
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kicked himself loose of the earth,confound the man. He had kicked the
very earth to pieces. He wasalone, and I before him did not
know whether I stood on the groundor floated in the air. I've been
telling you what we said, repeatingthe phrases we pronounced. But what's the
good? They were calmon every daywords, the familiar, vague sounds exchanged
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on every waking day of life.But what of that they had behind them?
To my mind? The terrific suggestivenessof words heard in dreams, of
phrases spoken in nightmares. Soul.If anybody ever struggled with a soul,
I am the man, and Iwasn't arguing with a lunatic, either believe
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me or not. His intelligence wasperfectly clear, concentrated, it is true,
upon himself, with horrible intensity,yet clear, And therein was my
only chance, barring, of course, the killing him there and then,
which wasn't so good on account ofunavoidable noise. But his soul was mad,
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being alone in the wilderness, Ithad loos within itself, and by
heavens, I tell you it hadgone mad. I had for my sins,
I supposed to go through the ordealof looking into it myself. No
eloquence could have been so withering toone's belief in mankind as his final burst
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of sincerity. He struggled within himselftoo. I saw it, I heard
it. I saw the inconceivable mysteryof a soul that knew no restraint,
no faith, and no fear,yet struggling blindly with itself. I kept
my head pretty well, but whenI had him at last stretched on the
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couch, I wiped my forehead whilemy legs shook under me, as though
I had carried half a ton onmy back down that hill, and yet
I had only supported him. Hisbony arm clasped round my neck, and
he was not much heavier than achild. When next day we left at
noon, the crowd of whose presencebehind the curtain of trees I had been
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acutely conscious of all the time,flowed out of the woods again, filling
the clearing, covered the slope witha mass of naked, breathing, quivering,
bronzed bodies. I steamed up abit, then swung down stream,
and two thousand eyes followed the evolutionsof the splashing, thumping, fierce river
demon, beating the water with itsterrible tail and breathing black smoke into the
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air. In front of the firstrank along the river, three men plastered
with bright red earth from head tofoot, strutted to and fro restlessly.
When we came abreast again, theyfaced the river, stamped their feet,
nodded their horned heads, swayed theirscarlet bodies. They shook towards the fierce
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river demon, a bunch of blackfeathers, a mangy skin with a pendant
tail, something that looked like adried gourd. They shouted periodically to gather
strings of amazing words that resembled nosounds of human language, and the deep
murmurs of the crowd interrupted suddenly,were like the responses of some satanic litany.
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We had carried curts into the pilothouse. There was more air there.
Lying on the couch, he staredthrough the open shutter. There was
an eddy on the mass of humanbodies, and the woman with helmeted head
and tawny cheeks rushed out to thevery brink of the stream. She put
out her hands shouting something, andall that wild mob took up the shout
in a roaring chorus of articulated,rapid, breathless utterance. Do you understand
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this? I asked. He kepton looking out past me with fiery,
longing eyes, with a mingled expressionof wistfulness and hate. He made no
answer, But I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear
on his colorless lips that a momentafter twitched convulsively. Do I not,
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he said, slowly, gasping asif the words had been torn out of
him by a supernatural power. Ipulled the string of the whistle, and
I did this because I saw thepilgrims on deck getting out their rifles with
an air of anticipating a jolly lark. At the sudden screech, there was
a movement of abject terror through thatwedged mass of bodies. Don't don't you
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frighten them away? Cried some oneon deck, disconsolately. I pulled the
string time after time. They brokeand ran, They leaped, They crouched,
they swerved, they dodged the flyingterror of the sound. The three
red chaps had fallen flat face downon the shore as though they had been
shot dead. Only the barbarous andsuperb woman did not so much as flinch,
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and stretched tragically her bare arms afterus over the somber and glittering river.
And then that imbecile crowd down onthe deck started their little fun,
and I could see nothing more forsmoke. The brown cur and ran swiftly
out of the heart of darkness,bearing us down towards the sea with twice
the speed of our upward progress.And Kurtz's life was running swiftly too,
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ebbing ebbing, out of his heartinto the sea of inexorable time. The
manager was very placid, He hadno vital anxieties. Now he took us
both in with a comprehensive and satisfiedglance. The affair had come off as
well as could be wished. Isaw the time approaching when I would be
left alone of the party of unsoundmethod. The pilgrims looked upon me with
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disfavor. I was, so tospeak, numbered with the dead. It
is strange how I accepted this unforeseenpartnership, this choice of nightmares, forced
upon me in the tenebrous land invadedby these mean and greedy phantoms. Kurt's
discoursed a voice, a voice.It rang deep to the very last,
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It survived his strength to hide inthe magnificent folds of eloquence, the barren
darkness of his heart. Oh,he struggled, He struggled. The wastes
of his weary brain were haunted byshadowy images, now images of wealth and
fame, revolving obsequiously around his inextinguishablegift of noble and lofty expression. My
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intended, my station, my career, my ideas. These were the subjects
for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. The shade of the original curts frequented
the bedside of the hollow sham,whose fate it was to be buried presently
in the mold of primeval earth.But both the diabolic love and the unearthly
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hate of the mysteries it had penetrated, fought for the possession of that soul,
satiated with primitive emotions, avid oflying fame of sham, distinction of
all the appearances of success and power. Times he was contemptibly childish. He
desired to have kings meet him atrailway stations on his return from some ghastly
(16:07):
nowhere where he intended to accomplish greatthings. You show them you have in
you something that is really profitable,and then there will be no limits to
the recognition of your ability. Hewould say. Of course, you must
take care of the motives, right, motives always the long reaches that were
like one and the same reach,monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped
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past the steamer with their multitude ofsecular trees. Looking patiently after this grimy
fragment of another world, the forerunnerof change, of conquest, of trade,
of massacres of blessings. I lookedahead, piloting close the shutter,
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said Kurt, Suddenly, one dayI can't beare to look at this.
I did so. There was asilence. Oh but I will wring your
heart yet, he cried at theinvisible wilderness. We broke down, as
I had expected, and had tolie up for repairs at the head of
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an island. This delay was thefirst thing that shook Kurtz's confidence. One
morning, he gave me a packetof papers and a photograph the lot,
tied together with a shoe string.Keep this for me, he said,
This noxious fool, meaning the manageris capable of prying into my boxes when
I am not looking. In theafternoon, I saw him. He was
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lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quickly. But I
heard him mutter, live rightly,die die. I listened. There was
nothing more. Was he rehearsing somespeech in his sleep, or was it
a fragment of a phrase from somenewspaper article. He had been writing for
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the papers and meant to do soagain for the furthering of my ideas.
It's a duty. His was animpenetrable darkness. I looked at him as
you peer down a man who islying at the bottom of a precipice where
the sun never shines. But Ihad not much time to give him,
because I was helping the engine driverto take to pieces the leaky cylinders,
(18:22):
to straighten a bent connecting rod,and inn other such matters. I lived
in an infernal mess of rust,filings, nuts, bolts, spanners,
hammers, ratchet drills, things Iabominate because I don't get on with them.
I tended the little forge we fortunatelyhad a board. I toiled wearily
(18:44):
in a wretched scrap heap. UnlessI had the shakes too bad to stand
one evening, coming in with acandle. I was startled to hear him
say a little tremulously, I amlying here in the dark, waiting for
death. The light was within afoot of his eyes. I forced myself
to murmur, oh, nonsense,and stood over him, as if transfixed
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anything approaching. The change that cameover his features I have never seen before
and hope never to see again.Oh, I wasn't touched. I was
fascinated. It was as though aveil had been rent. I saw on
that ivory face the expression of somberpride, of ruthless power, of craven
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terror, of an intense and hopelessdespair. Did he live his life again
in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender. During that supreme moment
of complete knowledge? He cried ina whisper at some image, at some
vision. He cried out twice,a cry that was no more than a
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breath. The horror, the horror. I blew the candle out and left
the cabin. The pilgrims were diningin the mess room, and I took
my place opposite the manager, wholifted his eyes to give me a questioning
glance, which I successfully ignored,He leaned back, serene, with that
(20:11):
peculiar smile of his, sealing theunexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous
shower of small flies streamed upon thelamp, upon the cloth, upon her
hands and faces. Suddenly, themanager's boy put his insolent black head in
the doorway and said, in atone of scathing contempt, Mistack Kurtz,
(20:36):
he dead. All the pilgrims rushedout to sea. I remained and went
on with my dinner. I believeI was considered brutally callous. However I
did not eat much. There wasa lamp in there, light you don't
(20:56):
know, and outside it was sobeastly, beastly dark. I went no
more near the remarkable man who hadpronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his
soul on this earth. The voicewas gone. What else had been there?
But I am, of course awarethat next day the pilgrims buried something
(21:18):
in a muddy hole, and thenthey very nearly buried me. However,
as you see, I did notgo to join Curts there, and then
I did not. I remained todream the nightmare out to the end,
and to show my loyalty to curtsonce more. Destiny, my destiny,
droll thing. Life is that mysteriousarrangement of merciless logic for a feudal purpose.
(21:42):
The most you can hope from itis some knowledge of yourself that comes
too late, a crop of unextinguishableregrets. I have wrestled with death.
It is the most unexciting contest youcan imagine. It takes place in an
impalpable grains, with nothing under foot, with nothing around, without spectators,
(22:04):
without clamor, without glory, withoutthe great desire of victory, without the
great fear of defeat, in asickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much
belief in your own right, andstill less in that of your adversary.
If such is the form of ultimatewisdom, then life is a greater riddle
(22:26):
than some of us think it tobe. I was within a hair's breadth
of the last opportunity for pronouncement,and I found with humiliation that probably I
would have nothing to say. Thisis the reason why I affirm that Kurtz
was a remarkable man. He hadsomething to say. He said it.
(22:48):
Since I had peeped over the edgemyself, I understood better the meaning of
his stare that could not see theflame of the candle, but was wide
enough to embrace the whole universe,piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that
beat in the darkness. He hadsummed up, he had judged the horror.
(23:10):
He was a remarkable man. Afterall. This was the expression of
some sort of belief. It hadcandor, It had conviction, It had
a vibrating note of revolt in itswhisper. It had the appalling face of
a glimpsed truth, the strange comminglingof desire and hate. And it is
not my own extremity I remember best, a vision of grayness without form,
(23:33):
filled with physical pain, and acareless contempt for the evanescence of all things,
even of this pain itself. No, it is his extremity that I
seemed to have lived through. True, he had made that last stride,
he had stepped over the edge,while I had been permitted to draw back
my hesitating foot. And perhaps inthis is the whole difference, Perhaperhaps all
(24:00):
the wisdom, and all truth andall sincerity are just compressed into that inappreciable
moment of time in which we stepover the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps
I like to think my summing upwould not have been a word of careless
contempt. Better his cry much better. It was an affirmation, a moral
(24:22):
victory, paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions.
But it was a victory. Thatis why I have remained loyal to
Curts to the last and even beyond. When a long time after I heard
once more, not his own voice, but the echo of his magnificent eloquence,
(24:44):
thrown to me from a soul astranslucently pure as a cliff of crystal.
No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of
time which I remember mistily with ashuddering wonder, like a passage through some
inconceivable world that had no no hopein it and no desire. I found
myself back in the sepulchral city,resenting the sight of people hurrying through the
(25:07):
streets to filter a little money fromeach other, to devour their infamous cookery,
to gulp their unwholesome beer, todream their insignificant and silly dreams.
They trespassed upon my thoughts. Theywere intruders whose knowledge of life was to
me an irritating pretense, because Ifelt so sure they could not possibly know
(25:29):
the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace
individuals going about their business in theassurance of perfect safety, was offensive to
me, like the outrageous flauntings offolly in the face of a danger.
It is unable to comprehend. Ihad no particular desire to enlighten them,
but I had some difficulty in restrainingmyself from laughing in their faces. So
(25:53):
full of stupid importance, I daresay I was not very well at that
time. I tottered about the streetsthere were various affairs to settle, grinning
bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. Iadmit my behavior was inexcusable, but then
my temperature was seldom normal in thesedays. My dear aunt's endeavors to nurse
(26:15):
up my strength seemed altogether beside themark. It was not my strength that
wanted nursing. It was my imaginationthat wanted soothing. I kept the bundle
of papers given me by Kurts,not knowing exactly what to do with it.
His mother had died lately, watchedover as I was told by his
(26:36):
intended. A clean shaved man withan official manner and wearing gold rimmed spectacles
called on me one day and madeinquiries, at first circuitous and afterwards suavely
pressing about what he was pleased todenominate certain documents. I was not surprised,
because I had had two rows withthe manager on the subject out there.
(26:57):
I had refused to give up thesmall mollest scrap out of that package,
and I took the same attitude withthe spectacled man. He became darkly
menacing at last, and with muchheat, argued that the company had the
right to every bit of information aboutits territories, and said he mister Kurtz's
(27:18):
knowledge of unexplored regions must have beennecessarily extensive and peculiar, owing to his
great abilities and to the deplorable circumstancesin which he had been placed. Therefore,
I assured him mister Kurtz's knowledge,however extensive, did not bear upon
the problems of commerce or administration.He invoked, then the name of science,
(27:41):
it would be an incalculable loss ifet cetera, et cetera. I
offered him the report on the suppressionof savage customs. With the postscriptum torn
off, he took it up eagerly, but ended up by sniffing at it
with an air of contempt. Thisis not what we had a right to
excite, he remarked. Expect nothingelse, I said, there are only
(28:06):
private letters. He withdrew upon somethreat of legal proceedings, and I saw
him no more. But another fellowcalling himself Kurtz's cousin, appeared two days
later and was anxious to hear allthe details about his dear relative's last moments.
Incidentally, he gave me to understandthat Kurtz had been essentially a great
(28:26):
musician. There was the making ofan immense success, said the man who
was an organist. I believe,with lank gray hair flowing over a greasy
coat collar. I had no reasonto doubt his statement, And to this
day I am unable to say whatwas Kurtz's profession, whether he ever had
any, which was the greatest ofhis talents. I had taken him for
(28:49):
a painter who wrote for the papers, or else for a journalist who could
paint. But even the cousin whotook snuff during the interview could not tell
me what he had don man exactly. He was a universal genius. On
that point, I agreed with theold chap, who thereupon blew his nose
noisily into a large cotton handkerchief,and withdrew in senile agitation, bearing off
(29:12):
some family letters and memoranda without importance. Ultimately, a journalist, anxious to
know something of the fate of hisdear colleague, turned up. This visitor
informed me Curti's proper sphere ought tohave been politics. On the popular side,
(29:33):
he had furry, straight eyebrows,bristly hair cropped short, an eye
glass on a broad ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that
Kurt really couldn't write a bit,But heavens how that man could talk.
He electrified large meetings. He hadfaith, don't you see? He had
the faith. He could get himselfto believe anything anything. He would have
(29:56):
been a splendid leader of an extremeparty. What party, I asked?
Any party answered the other. Hewas an an extremist. Did I not
think so? I assented, DidI know? He asked, with a
sudden flash of curiosity, what itwas that had induced him to go out
(30:19):
there, yes, said I,and forthwith handed him the famous report for
publication if he thought fit. Heglanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all the
time, judged it would do,and took himself off with this plunder.
Thus I was left at last witha slim packet of letters and the girl's
(30:40):
portrait. She struck me as beautiful. I mean, she had a beautiful
expression. I know that the sunlightcan be made to lie too. Yet
one felt that no manipulation of lightand pose could have conveyed the delicate shade
of truthfulness upon those features. Sheseemed ready to listen, without mental reservation,
(31:00):
without suspicion, without a thought forherself. I concluded I would go
and give her back her portrait andthose letters myself. Curiosity, yes,
and also some other feeling. Perhapsall that had been courtgies had passed out
of my hands, his soul,his body, his station, his plans,
(31:22):
his ivory, his career. Thereremained only his memory and his intended
And I wanted to give that uptoo, to the past, in a
way, to surrender personally all thatremained of him with me to that oblivion
which is the last word of ourcommon fate. I don't defend myself.
I had no clear perception of whatit was I really wanted. Perhaps it
(31:45):
was an impulse of unconscious loyalty,or the fulfillment of one of those ironic
necessities that lurk in the facts ofhuman existence. I don't know. I
can't tell, but I went.I thought his memory was like the other
memories of the dead that accumulate inevery man's life, a vague impress on
(32:06):
the brain of shadows that had fallenon it in their swift and final passage.
But before the high and ponderous door, between the tall houses of a
street, as still and a chorus, as a well kept alley in a
cemetery, I had a vision ofhim on a stretcher, opening his mouth
voraciously, as if to devour allthe earth with all its mankind. He
(32:30):
lived then before me, he livedas much as he had ever lived,
a shadow, insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities, a shadow darker
than the shadow of the night,and draped nobly in the folds of a
gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed toenter the house with me, the stretcher,
(32:52):
the phantom bearers, the wild crowdof obedient worshippers, the gloom of
the forest, the glitter of thereach between the murky bends. The beat
of the drum, regular and muffled, like the beating of a heart,
the heart of a conquering darkness.It was a moment of triumph for the
(33:15):
wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush, which it seemed to me I would
have to keep back alone for thesalvation of another soul. And the memory
of what I had heard him sayafar there, with the horned shapes stirring
at my back, in the glowof fires within the patient woods, those
broken phrases came back to me,were heard again, in their ominous and
(33:37):
terrifying simplicity. I remembered his abjectpleading, his abject threats, the colossal
scale of his vile desires, themeanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish
of his soul. And later onI seemed to see his collected, languid
(33:58):
manner when he said, one day, this lot of ivory now is really
mine. The company did not payfor it. I collected it myself at
a very great personal risk. Iam afraid they will try to claim it
as theirs. Though, Hm,it is a difficult case. What do
you think I ought to do?Resist? Eh? I want no more
(34:22):
than justice. He wanted no morethan justice, no more than justice.
I rang the bell before a mahoganydoor on the first floor, and while
I waited, he seemed to stareat me out of the glassy panel,
stare with that wide and immense stare, embracing, condemning, loathing all the
(34:45):
universe. I seemed to hear thewhispered cry, the horror, the horror.
The dusk was falling. I hadto wait in a lofty drawing room
with three three long windows from floorto ceiling that were like three luminous and
bedraped columns. The bent gilt legsand backs of the furniture shone in indistinct
(35:09):
curves. The tall marble fireplace hada cold and monumental whiteness. A grand
piano stood massively in a corner,with dark gleams on the flat surfaces,
like a somber and polished sarcophagus.A high door opened, closed. I
(35:30):
rose. She came forward, allin black, with a pale head floating
towards me in the dusk. Shewas in mourning. It was more than
a year since his death, morethan a year since the news came.
She seemed as though she would rememberand mourned forever. She took both my
hands in hers and murmured, Ihad heard you were coming. I noticed
(35:54):
she was not very young, Imean, not girlish. She had a
mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering. The room seemed to
have grown darker, as if allthe sad light of the cloudy evening had
taken refuge on her forehead. Thisfair hair, this pale visage, this
(36:16):
pure brow, seemed surrounded by anashy halo from which the dark eyes looked
out at me. Their glance wasguileless, profound, confident, and trustful.
She carried her sorrowful head as thoughshe were proud of that sorrow,
as though she would say, II alone know how to mourn for him
(36:39):
as he deserves. But while wewere still shaking hands, such a look
of awful desolation came upon her facethat I perceived she was one of those
creatures that are not the playthings oftime. For her, he had died
only yesterday, and by Jove,the impression was so powerful that for me
(37:01):
too, he seemed to have diedonly yesterday, Nay, this very minute.
I saw her and him in thesame instant of time, his death
and her sorrow. I saw hersorrow in the very moment of his death.
Do you understand I saw them together. I heard them together, she
(37:23):
had said, with a deep catchof the breath, I have survived,
while my strained ears seemed to heardistinctly mingled with her tone of despairing regret,
the summing up whisper of his eternalcondemnation. I asked myself what I
was doing there, with a sensationof panic in my heart, as though
(37:44):
I had blundered into a place ofcruel and absurd mysteries, not fit for
a human being to behold. Shemotioned me to a chair. We sat
down. I laid the packet gentlyon the little table, and she put
her hand over it. You knewhim well, she murmured, after a
(38:04):
moment of morning silence. INTI,Missy grows quickly out there. I said,
I knew him as well as itis possible for one man to know
another. And you admired him,She said, it was impossible to know
him and not to admire him.Was it he was a remarkable man,
(38:24):
I said, unsteadily. Then,before the appealing fixity of her gaze that
seemed to watch for more words onmy lips, I went on. It
was impossible not to love him,she finished, eagerly, silencing me into
an appalled dumbness. How true,How true? But when you think that
(38:45):
no one knew him so well asI? I had all his noble confidence.
I knew him best. You knewhim best, I repeated, And
perhaps she did. But with everyword spoken, the room was growing darker,
and only her forehead, smooth andwhite, remained illumined by the inextinguishable
(39:08):
light of belief and love. Youwere his friend, she went on,
His friend, she repeated. Alittle louder you must have been if he
had given you this and sent youto me. I feel I can speak
to you, and oh I mustspeak. I want you, you who
(39:28):
have heard his last words, toknow I have been worthy of him.
It is not pride. Yes,I am proud to know I understood him
better than any one on earth.He told me so himself, And since
his mother died, I have hadno one, no one two two.
(39:50):
I listened, The darkness deepened.I was not even sure whether he had
given me the right bundle. Irather suspect he wanted me to take care
of an another batch of his papers, which after his death. I saw
the manager examining under the lamp,and the girl talked, easing her pain
in the certitude of my sympathy.She talked as thirsty men drink. I
(40:13):
had heard that her engagement with Curtshad been disapproved by her people. He
wasn't rich enough for something. Andindeed, I don't know whether he had
not been a pauper all his life. He had given me some reason to
infer that it was his impatience ofcomparative poverty that drove him out there.
Who was not his friend, whohad heard him speak once? She was
(40:35):
saying, he drew men towards himby what was best in them. She
looked at me with intensity. Itis the gift of the great, she
went on, and the sound ofher low voice seemed to have the accompaniment
of all the other sounds full ofmystery, desolation, and sorrow. I
had ever heard, the ripple ofthe river, the sowing of the trees
(41:00):
swayed by the wind, the murmursof the crowds, the faint ring of
incomprehensible words cried from Afar, thewhisper of a voice speaking from beyond the
threshold of an eternal darkness. Butyou have heard him, you know,
she cried, Yes, I know, I said, with something like despair
(41:25):
in my heart, but bowing myhead before the faith that was in her,
before that great and saving illusion thatshone with an unearthly glow in the
darkness, in the triumphant darkness fromwhich I could not have defended her,
from which I could not even defendmyself. What a loss to me,
(41:46):
to us, she corrected herself withbeautiful generosity, then added, in a
murmur to the world. By thelast gleams of twilight, I could see
the glitter of her eyes full oftears, of tears that would not fall.
I have been very happy, veryfortunate, very proud. She went
(42:10):
on, too fortunate, too happyfor a little while, and now I
am unhappy for for life. Shestood up, her fair hair seemed to
catch all the remaining light in aglimmer of gold. I rose too,
(42:32):
And all of this she went onmournfully, all of his promise and all
of his greatness, of his generousmind, of his noble heart. Nothing
remains, nothing but a memory.You and I we shall always remember him,
(42:53):
I said hastily. No, shecried, It is impossible that all
this should be lost, that sucha life should be sacrificed, to leave
nothing but sorrow. You know whatvast plans he had. I knew of
them too, I could not perhapsunderstand, but others knew of them.
Something must remain. His words,at least have not died. His words
(43:20):
will remain, I said, Andhis example, she whispered to herself.
Men looked up to him. Hisgoodness shone in every act, his example,
true, I said, his exampletoo, Yes, his example.
I forgot that. But I donot. I cannot. I cannot believe,
(43:44):
not yet, I cannot believe thatI shall never see him again,
That nobody will see him again,never, never, never. She put
out her arms as if after aretreating figure, stretching them back with clasped,
pale hands across the fading and narrowsheen of the window. Never see
(44:05):
him. I saw him clearly enough. Then I shall see this eloquent phantom
as long as I live, AndI shall see her too. A tragic
and familiar shade resembling in this gestureanother one tragic also, and bedecked with
powerless charms, stretching bare brown armsover the glitter of the infernal stream,
(44:28):
the stream of darkness, she said, suddenly very low. He died as
he lived his end, said I, with dull anger stirring in me.
Was in every way worthy of hislife. And I was not with him,
she murmured. My anger subsided beforea feeling of infinite pity. Everything
(44:54):
that could be done, I mumbled, ah, But I believed in him
more than any one on earth,more than his own mother, more than
himself. He needed me me.I would have treasured every sigh, every
word, every sign, every glance. I felt like a chill grip on
(45:16):
my chest, don't, I said, in a muffled voice, forgive me,
I I have mourned so long insilence, In silence. You were
with him to the last. Ithink of his loneliness. Nobody near to
understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear to the
(45:38):
very end, I said shakily.I heard his very last words. I
stopped in affright repeat them, shemurmured, in a heart broken tone.
I want, I want something,something to to live with. I was
(46:01):
on the point of crying at her. Don't you hear them? The dusk
was repeating them in a persistent whisperall around us, in a whisper that
seemed to swell menacingly, like thefirst whisper of a rising wind. The
horror, the horror, his lastword to live with, She insisted,
(46:23):
don't you understand I loved him.I loved him. I loved him.
I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. The last word he pronounced was your
name. I heard a light sigh, and then my heart stood still,
(46:47):
stopped dead short by an exulting andterrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable
triumph and of unspeakable pain. Iknew it. I was sure she knew.
She was sure I heard her weeping. She had hidden her face in
(47:08):
her hands. It seemed to methat the house would collapse before I could
escape, that the heavens would fallupon my head. But nothing happened.
The heavens did not fall for sucha trifle. Would they have fallen?
I wonder if I had rendered curtsthat justice which was his due? Hadn't
(47:30):
he said he wanted only justice,But I couldn't. I could not tell
her. It would have been toodark, too dark. Altogether, Marlow
ceased and sat apart, indistinct andsilent, in the pose of a meditating
(47:52):
Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. We have lost the first of the
ebb, said the director. SuddenlyI raised my head. The offing was
barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the
uttermost ends of the earth flowed somberunder an overcast sky, seemed to lead
(48:15):
into the heart of an immense darkness. End of Heart of Darkness by Joseph
Conrad, read for LibriVox dot orgby Christian Luoma
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