Heart of Darkness

uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, 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 Mr. Kurtz was

  no idol of mine. He forgot I hadn't heard any of these

  splendid monologues on, what was it? on love, jus-

  tice, conduct of life -- or what not. If it had come to

  crawling before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the

  veriest savage of them all. I had no idea of the condi-

  tions, 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. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to

  me on their sticks. 'You don't know how such a life

  tries a man like Kurtz,' 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, and suddenly he broke

  down. 'I don't understand,' he groaned. 'I've been

  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 in-

  valid food for months here. He was shamefully aban-

  doned. A man like this, with such ideas. Shamefully!

  Shamefully! I -- I -- haven't slept for the last ten

  nights . . .'

  "His voice lost itself in 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 stakes. All this

  was in the gloom, 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 splendour,

  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, 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, 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 dearing by

  the dark-faced and pensive forest. The bushes shook,

  the grass swayed for a time, and then everything

  stood still in attentive immobility.

  " 'Now, if he does not say the right thing to them

  we are all done for,' said the Russian at my elbow.

  The knot of men with the stretcher had stopped, too,

  halfway to the steamer, as if petrified. I saw the man

  on the stretcher sit up, lank and 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 particular reason to spare us this time,' I

  said. I resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situ-

  ation, as if to be at the mercy of that atrocious phan-

  tom had been a dishonouring 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 darkly far in its

  bony head that nodded with grotesque jerks. Kurtz --

  Kurtz -- 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

  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, as though he

  had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the

  men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly. He

  must have been shouting. He fell back suddenly. The

  stretcher shook as the bearers staggered forward

  again, and almost at the same time I noticed that the

  crowd of savages was vanishing without any percepti-

  ble 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 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

  camp-stool or two, you know. We had brought his

  belated 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 expres-

  sion. 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 writ-

  ing to him about me. These special 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 cap-

  able of a whisper. However, he had enough strength

  in him -- factitious no doubt -- to 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 star-

  ing at the shore. I followed the direction of his glance.

  "Dark human shapes could be made out in the dis-

  tance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border

  of the forest, and near the river two bronze figures,

  leaning on tall spears, stood in the sunlight under fan-

  tastic 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 apparition

  of a woman.

  "She walked with measured steps, draped in striped

  and fringed clothes, treading the earth proudly, with

  a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She

  carried her head high; her ha
ir was done in the shape

  of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, 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 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,

  pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of

  its own tenebrous and passionate soul.

  "She came abreast of the steamer, 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 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 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 threw them up rigid

  above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire

  to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shad-

  ows darted 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 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 rags I picked up in the storeroom 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 under-

  stand 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 -- 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 ideas out yet -- I will return. I'll show you

  what can be done. You with your little peddling no-

  tions -- you are interfering with me. I will return.

  I....'

  "The manager came out. He did me the honour to

  take me under the arm and lead me aside. 'He is very

  low, very low,' he said. He considered it necessary to

  sigh, but neglected to be consistently sorrowful. 'We

  have done all we could for him -- haven't we? But

  there is no disguising the fact, Mr. Kurtz has done

  more harm than good to the Company. He did not

  see the time was not ripe for vigorous action. Cau-

  tiously, cautiously -- that's my principle. We must be

  cautious yet. The district is closed to 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. 'Don't you?' . . . 'No method at

  all,' I murmured after a while. 'Exactly,' he exulted.

  'I anticipated this. Shows a complete want of judg-

  ment. It is my duty to point it out in the proper quar-

  ter.' 'Oh,' said I, 'that fellow -- what's his name? -- the

  brickmaker, will make a readable report for you.' He

  appeared confounded 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 Mr. Kurtz is a remark-

  able man,' I said with emphasis. He started, dropped

  on me a cold heavy glance, said very quietly, 'he was

  and turned his back on me. My hour of favour was

  over; I found myself lumped 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 Mr.

  Kurtz, who, I was ready to admit, was as good as

  buried. 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 vic-

  torious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable

  night.... The Russian tapped me on the shoulder.

  I heard him mumbling and stammering something

  about 'brother seaman -- couldn't conceal -- knowledge

  of matters that would affect Mr. Kurtz's reputation.'

  I waited. For him evidently Mr. Kurtz was not in his

  grave; I suspect that for him Mr. Kuutz was one of

  the immortals. 'Well!' said I at last, 'speak out. As it

  happens, I am Mr. 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 conse-

  quences. 'He suspected there was an active ill will to-

  wards him on the part of these white men that --'

  'You are right,' I said, remembering a certain conver-

  sation I had overheard. 'The manager thinks 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,' 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 didn't want

  any harm to happen to these whites here, but of course

  I was thinking of Mr. Kurtz's reputation -- bu
t you

  are a brother seaman and --' 'All right,' said I, after

  a time. 'Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.' I did

  not know how truly I spoke.

  "He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was

  Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the

  steamer. 'He hated sometimes the 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.' 'Ye-e-es,' 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 wait-

  ing not very far. 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?' He raised one leg.

  'Look' The soles were tied with knotted strings san-

  dalwise under his bare feet. I rooted out an old pair,

  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,' ctc., etc. He seemed

  to think himself excellently well equipped for a re-

  newed 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!' 'Good-

  bye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the

  night. Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever

  really seen him -- whether it was possible to meet such

  a phenomenon! . . .

  "When I woke up shortly after midnight his warn-

  ing came to my mind with its hint of danger that

  seemed, in the starred darkness, real enough to make

  me get up for the purpose of having a look round. On

  the hill a big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a

  crooked corner of the station-house. One of the agents

  with a picket of a few of our blacks, armed for the

  purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory; but deep

  within the forest, red gleams that wavered, that

  seemed to sink and rise from the ground amongst

  confused columnar shapes of intense blackness, showed

  the exact position of the camp where Mr. Kurtz's

  adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil. The monoto-

  nous beating of a big drum filled the air with muf-

  fled shocks and a lingering vibration. A steady

  droning sound of many men chanting each to himself

  some weird incantation came out from the black, flat

  wall of the woods as the humming of bees comes out

  of a hive, and had a strange narcotic effect upon my

  half-awake senses. I believe I dozed off leaning over

  the rail, till an abrupt burst of yells, an overwhelming

  outbreak of a pent-up and mysterious frenzy, woke me

  up in a bewildered wonder. It was cut short all at

  once, and the low droning went on with an effect of

  audible and soothing silence. I glanced casually into

  the little cabin. A light was burning within, but Mr.

  Kurtz was not there.

  "I think I would have raised an outcry if I had

  believed my eyes. But I didn't believe them at first --

  the thing seemed so impossible. The fact is I was com-

  pletely unnerved by a sheer blank fright, pure abstract

  terror, unconnected with any distinct shape of physical

  danger. What made this emotion so overpowering

  was -- how shall I define it? -- the moral shock I re-

  ceived, as if something altogether monstrous, intoler-

  able 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

  sense of commonplace, deadly danger, the possibility

  of a sudden onslaught and massacre, or something of

  the kind, which I saw impending, was positively wel-

  come and composing. It pacified me, in fact, so much

  that I did not raise an alarm.

  "There was an agent buttoned up inside an ulster

  and sleeping on a chair on deck within three feet of

  me. The yells had not awakened him; he snored very