Heart of Darkness: Full Text

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of thesails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and beingbound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for theturn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of aninterminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded togetherwithout a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the bargesdrifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvassharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the lowshores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark aboveGravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom,brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionatelywatched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole riverthere was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which toa seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his workwas not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the broodinggloom.

Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea.Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it hadthe effect of making us tolerant of each other’s yarns—and evenconvictions. The Lawyer—the best of old fellows—had, because of hismany years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on theonly rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and wastoying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft,leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, astraight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms ofhands outwards, resembled an idol. The director, satisfied the anchor had goodhold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few wordslazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason orother we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit fornothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still andexquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck,was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh waslike a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and drapingthe low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding overthe upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by theapproach of the sun.

And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and fromglowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if aboutto go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding overa crowd of men.

Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliantbut more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at thedecline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled itsbanks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to theuttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vividflush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august lightof abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as thephrase goes, “followed the sea” with reverence and affection, thanto evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. Thetidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memoriesof men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea.It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from SirFrancis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled—thegreat knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names arelike jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hindreturning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to be visited by theQueen’s Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to theErebus and Terror, bound on other conquests—and that neverreturned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford,from Greenwich, from Erith—the adventurers and the settlers; kings’ships and the ships of men on ’Change; captains, admirals, the dark“interlopers” of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned“generals” of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers offame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often thetorch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from thesacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into themystery of an unknown earth!... The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths,the germs of empires.

The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along theshore. The Chapman light-house, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shonestrongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lightsgoing up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of themonstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom insunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.

“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of thedark places of the earth.”

He was the only man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worstthat could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was aseaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may soexpress it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, andtheir home is always with them—the ship; and so is theircountry—the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea isalways the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores,the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by asense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothingmysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress ofhis existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours ofwork, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him thesecret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worthknowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning ofwhich lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (ifhis propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episodewas not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought itout only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these mistyhalos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination ofmoonshine.

His remark did not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It wasaccepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently hesaid, very slow—“I was thinking of very old times, when the Romansfirst came here, nineteen hundred years ago—the other day .... Light cameout of this river since—you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a runningblaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in theflicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darknesswas here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine—whatd’ye call ’em?—trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenlyto the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one ofthese craft the legionaries—a wonderful lot of handy men they must havebeen, too—used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, ifwe may believe what we read. Imagine him here—the very end of the world,a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about asrigid as a concertina—and going up this river with stores, or orders, orwhat you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little toeat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernianwine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in awilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay—cold, fog, tempests,disease, exile, and death—death skulking in the air, in the water, in thebush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh, yes—he did it. Didit very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much about it either, exceptafterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his time, perhaps. They weremen enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eyeon a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by and by, if he had goodfriends in Rome and survived the awful climate. Or think of a decent youngcitizen in a toga—perhaps too much dice, you know—coming out herein the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even, to mend hisfortunes. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland postfeel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him—all thatmysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, inthe hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries.He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable.And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination ofthe abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing toescape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.”

He paused.

“Mind,” he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm ofthe hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose ofa Buddha preaching in European clothes and without alotus-flower—“Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. Whatsaves us is efficiency—the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps werenot much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration wasmerely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and forthat you want only brute force—nothing to boast of, when you have it,since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It wasjust robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men goingat it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. Theconquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those whohave a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not apretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only.An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and anunselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow downbefore, and offer a sacrifice to....”

He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green flames, red flames, whiteflames, pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other—thenseparating slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great city went on in thedeepening night upon the sleepless river. We looked on, waitingpatiently—there was nothing else to do till the end of the flood; but itwas only after a long silence, when he said, in a hesitating voice, “Isuppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for abit,” that we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to hearabout one of Marlow’s inconclusive experiences.

“I don’t want to bother you much with what happened to mepersonally,” he began, showing in this remark the weakness of manytellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would likebest to hear; “yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to knowhow I got out there, what I saw, how I went up that river to the place where Ifirst met the poor chap. It was the farthest point of navigation and theculminating point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind of lighton everything about me—and into my thoughts. It was sombre enough,too—and pitiful—not extraordinary in any way—not very cleareither. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light.

“I had then, as you remember, just returned to London after a lot ofIndian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas—a regular dose of the East—sixyears or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work andinvading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilizeyou. It was very fine for a time, but after a bit I did get tired of resting.Then I began to look for a ship—I should think the hardest work on earth.But the ships wouldn’t even look at me. And I got tired of that game,too.

“Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look forhours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all theglories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth,and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they alllook that) I would put my finger on it and say, ’When I grow up I will gothere.’ The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, Ihaven’t been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour’s off.Other places were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some of them,and... well, we won’t talk about that. But there was one yet—thebiggest, the most blank, so to speak—that I had a hankering after.

“True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filledsince my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blankspace of delightful mystery—a white patch for a boy to dream gloriouslyover. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one riverespecially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling animmense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afarover a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as Ilooked at the map of it in a shop-window, it fascinated me as a snake would abird—a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, aCompany for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, theycan’t trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of freshwater—steamboats! Why shouldn’t I try to get charge of one? I wenton along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmedme.

“You understand it was a Continental concern, that Trading society; but Ihave a lot of relations living on the Continent, because it’s cheap andnot so nasty as it looks, they say.

“I am sorry to own I began to worry them. This was already a freshdeparture for me. I was not used to get things that way, you know. I alwayswent my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go. I wouldn’thave believed it of myself; but, then—you see—I felt somehow I mustget there by hook or by crook. So I worried them. The men said ‘My dearfellow,’ and did nothing. Then—would you believe it?—I triedthe women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work—to get a job.Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiasticsoul. She wrote: ‘It will be delightful. I am ready to do anything,anything for you. It is a glorious idea. I know the wife of a very highpersonage in the Administration, and also a man who has lots of influencewith,’ etc. She was determined to make no end of fuss to get me appointedskipper of a river steamboat, if such was my fancy.

“I got my appointment—of course; and I got it very quick. Itappears the Company had received news that one of their captains had beenkilled in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me themore anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards, when I made theattempt to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original quarrelarose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens.Fresleven—that was the fellow’s name, a Dane—thought himselfwronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer thechief of the village with a stick. Oh, it didn’t surprise me in the leastto hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was the gentlest,quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he was; but he hadbeen a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know,and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in someway. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of hispeople watched him, thunderstruck, till some man—I was told thechief’s son—in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made atentative jab with a spear at the white man—and of course it went quiteeasy between the shoulder-blades. Then the whole population cleared into theforest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand,the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in charge of theengineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble much aboutFresleven’s remains, till I got out and stepped into his shoes. Icouldn’t let it rest, though; but when an opportunity offered at last tomeet my predecessor, the grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hidehis bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had not been touchedafter he fell. And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, allaskew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough. Thepeople had vanished. Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children,through the bush, and they had never returned. What became of the hens Idon’t know either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow.However, through this glorious affair I got my appointment, before I had fairlybegun to hope for it.

“I flew around like mad to get ready, and before forty-eight hours I wascrossing the Channel to show myself to my employers, and sign the contract. Ina very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whitedsepulchre. Prejudice no doubt. I had no difficulty in finding theCompany’s offices. It was the biggest thing in the town, and everybody Imet was full of it. They were going to run an over-sea empire, and make no endof coin by trade.

“A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high houses, innumerablewindows with venetian blinds, a dead silence, grass sprouting between thestones, imposing carriage archways right and left, immense double doorsstanding ponderously ajar. I slipped through one of these cracks, went up aswept and ungarnished staircase, as arid as a desert, and opened the first doorI came to. Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs,knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me—stillknitting with downcast eyes—and only just as I began to think of gettingout of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up.Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned round without aword and preceded me into a waiting-room. I gave my name, and looked about.Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one end a largeshining map, marked with all the colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amountof red—good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work isdone in there, a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and,on the East Coast, a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progressdrink the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn’t going into any of these. Iwas going into the yellow. Dead in the centre. And the river wasthere—fascinating—deadly—like a snake. Ough! A door opened, awhite-haired secretarial head, but wearing a compassionate expression,appeared, and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light wasdim, and a heavy writing-desk squatted in the middle. From behind thatstructure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frock-coat. The greatman himself. He was five feet six, I should judge, and had his grip on thehandle-end of ever so many millions. He shook hands, I fancy, murmured vaguely,was satisfied with my French. Bon Voyage.

“In about forty-five seconds I found myself again in the waiting-roomwith the compassionate secretary, who, full of desolation and sympathy, made mesign some document. I believe I undertook amongst other things not to discloseany trade secrets. Well, I am not going to.

“I began to feel slightly uneasy. You know I am not used to suchceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere. It was just asthough I had been let into some conspiracy—I don’tknow—something not quite right; and I was glad to get out. In the outerroom the two women knitted black wool feverishly. People were arriving, and theyounger one was walking back and forth introducing them. The old one sat on herchair. Her flat cloth slippers were propped up on a foot-warmer, and a catreposed on her lap. She wore a starched white affair on her head, had a wart onone cheek, and silver-rimmed spectacles hung on the tip of her nose. Sheglanced at me above the glasses. The swift and indifferent placidity of thatlook troubled me. Two youths with foolish and cheery countenances were beingpiloted over, and she threw at them the same quick glance of unconcernedwisdom. She seemed to know all about them and about me, too. An eerie feelingcame over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. Often far away there I thought ofthese two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warmpall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the otherscrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes.Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many ofthose she looked at ever saw her again—not half, by a long way.

“There was yet a visit to the doctor. ‘A simple formality,’assured me the secretary, with an air of taking an immense part in all mysorrows. Accordingly a young chap wearing his hat over the left eyebrow, someclerk I suppose—there must have been clerks in the business, though thehouse was as still as a house in a city of the dead—came from somewhereup-stairs, and led me forth. He was shabby and careless, with inkstains on thesleeves of his jacket, and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chinshaped like the toe of an old boot. It was a little too early for the doctor,so I proposed a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality. As wesat over our vermouths he glorified the Company’s business, and by and byI expressed casually my surprise at him not going out there. He became verycool and collected all at once. ‘I am not such a fool as I look, quothPlato to his disciples,’ he said sententiously, emptied his glass withgreat resolution, and we rose.

“The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else thewhile. ‘Good, good for there,’ he mumbled, and then with a certaineagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, Isaid Yes, when he produced a thing like calipers and got the dimensions backand front and every way, taking notes carefully. He was an unshaven little manin a threadbare coat like a gaberdine, with his feet in slippers, and I thoughthim a harmless fool. ‘I always ask leave, in the interests of science, tomeasure the crania of those going out there,’ he said. ‘And whenthey come back, too?’ I asked. ‘Oh, I never see them,’ heremarked; ‘and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.’He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. ‘So you are going out there. Famous.Interesting, too.’ He gave me a searching glance, and made another note.‘Ever any madness in your family?’ he asked, in a matter-of-facttone. I felt very annoyed. ‘Is that question in the interests of science,too?’ ‘It would be,’ he said, without taking notice of myirritation, ‘interesting for science to watch the mental changes ofindividuals, on the spot, but...’ ‘Are you an alienist?’ Iinterrupted. ‘Every doctor should be—a little,’ answered thatoriginal, imperturbably. ‘I have a little theory which you messieurs whogo out there must help me to prove. This is my share in the advantages mycountry shall reap from the possession of such a magnificent dependency. Themere wealth I leave to others. Pardon my questions, but you are the firstEnglishman coming under my observation...’ I hastened to assure him I wasnot in the least typical. ‘If I were,’ said I, ‘Iwouldn’t be talking like this with you.’ ‘What you say israther profound, and probably erroneous,’ he said, with a laugh.‘Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun. Adieu. How do youEnglish say, eh? Good-bye. Ah! Good-bye. Adieu. In the tropics one mustbefore everything keep calm.’... He lifted a warning forefinger....‘Du calme, du calme.’

“One thing more remained to do—say good-bye to my excellent aunt. Ifound her triumphant. I had a cup of tea—the last decent cup of tea formany days—and in a room that most soothingly looked just as you wouldexpect a lady’s drawing-room to look, we had a long quiet chat by thefireside. In the course of these confidences it became quite plain to me I hadbeen represented to the wife of the high dignitary, and goodness knows to howmany more people besides, as an exceptional and gifted creature—a pieceof good fortune for the Company—a man you don’t get hold of everyday. Good heavens! and I was going to take charge of a two-penny-half-pennyriver-steamboat with a penny whistle attached! It appeared, however, I was alsoone of the Workers, with a capital—you know. Something like an emissaryof light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of suchrot let loose in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman,living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. Shetalked about ‘weaning those ignorant millions from their horridways,’ till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured tohint that the Company was run for profit.

“‘You forget, dear Charlie, that the labourer is worthy of hishire,’ she said, brightly. It’s queer how out of touch with truthwomen are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anythinglike it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were toset it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded factwe men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation wouldstart up and knock the whole thing over.

“After this I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to write often,and so on—and I left. In the street—I don’t know why—aqueer feeling came to me that I was an imposter. Odd thing that I, who used toclear out for any part of the world at twenty-four hours’ notice, withless thought than most men give to the crossing of a street, had amoment—I won’t say of hesitation, but of startled pause, beforethis commonplace affair. The best way I can explain it to you is by sayingthat, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre ofa continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.

“I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port theyhave out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landingsoldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast as itslips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is beforeyou—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, andalways mute with an air of whispering, ‘Come and find out.’ Thisone was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect ofmonotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to bealmost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far,far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The sunwas fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Here and theregreyish-whitish specks showed up clustered inside the white surf, with a flagflying above them perhaps. Settlements some centuries old, and still no biggerthan pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background. We pounded along,stopped, landed soldiers; went on, landed custom-house clerks to levy toll inwhat looked like a God-forsaken wilderness, with a tin shed and a flag-polelost in it; landed more soldiers—to take care of the custom-house clerks,presumably. Some, I heard, got drowned in the surf; but whether they did ornot, nobody seemed particularly to care. They were just flung out there, and onwe went. Every day the coast looked the same, as though we had not moved; butwe passed various places—trading places—with names like Gran’Bassam, Little Popo; names that seemed to belong to some sordid farce acted infront of a sinister back-cloth. The idleness of a passenger, my isolationamongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languidsea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truthof things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice ofthe surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of abrother. It was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning. Nowand then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. Itwas paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of theireyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed withperspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks—these chaps; but theyhad bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was asnatural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for beingthere. They were a great comfort to look at. For a time I would feel I belongedstill to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long.Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember, we came upon aman-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn’t even a shed there, andshe was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going onthereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the longsix-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swungher up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensityof earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into acontinent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart andvanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give afeeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was atouch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in thesight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestlythere was a camp of natives—he called them enemies!—hidden out ofsight somewhere.

“We gave her her letters (I heard the men in that lonely ship were dyingof fever at the rate of three a day) and went on. We called at some more placeswith farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in astill and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb; all along theformless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried toward off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose bankswere rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded thecontorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of animpotent despair. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularizedimpression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me.It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.

“It was upward of thirty days before I saw the mouth of the big river. Weanchored off the seat of the government. But my work would not begin till sometwo hundred miles farther on. So as soon as I could I made a start for a placethirty miles higher up.

“I had my passage on a little sea-going steamer. Her captain was a Swede,and knowing me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. He was a young man,lean, fair, and morose, with lanky hair and a shuffling gait. As we left themiserable little wharf, he tossed his head contemptuously at the shore.‘Been living there?’ he asked. I said, ‘Yes.’‘Fine lot these government chaps—are they not?’ he went on,speaking English with great precision and considerable bitterness. ‘It isfunny what some people will do for a few francs a month. I wonder what becomesof that kind when it goes upcountry?’ I said to him I expected to seethat soon. ‘So-o-o!’ he exclaimed. He shuffled athwart, keeping oneeye ahead vigilantly. ‘Don’t be too sure,’ he continued.‘The other day I took up a man who hanged himself on the road. He was aSwede, too.’ ‘Hanged himself! Why, in God’s name?’ Icried. He kept on looking out watchfully. ‘Who knows? The sun too muchfor him, or the country perhaps.’

“At last we opened a reach. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-upearth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a wasteof excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of the rapidsabove hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostlyblack and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. Ablinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence of glare.‘There’s your Company’s station,’ said the Swede,pointing to three wooden barrack-like structures on the rocky slope. ‘Iwill send your things up. Four boxes did you say? So. Farewell.’

“I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path leadingup the hill. It turned aside for the boulders, and also for an undersizedrailway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. One was off.The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal. I came upon more piecesof decaying machinery, a stack of rusty rails. To the left a clump of treesmade a shady spot, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the pathwas steep. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavyand dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff,and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They werebuilding a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but thisobjectless blasting was all the work going on.

“A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advancedin a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing smallbaskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with theirfootsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behindwaggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbswere like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all wereconnected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmicallyclinking. Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship ofwar I had seen firing into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice;but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They werecalled criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come tothem, an insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meagre breasts pantedtogether, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonilyuphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete,deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of thereclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled despondently,carrying a rifle by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off,and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder withalacrity. This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distancethat he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, and with alarge, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take me intopartnership in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part of the greatcause of these high and just proceedings.

“Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left. My idea was tolet that chain-gang get out of sight before I climbed the hill. You know I amnot particularly tender; I’ve had to strike and to fend off. I’vehad to resist and to attack sometimes—that’s only one way ofresisting—without counting the exact cost, according to the demands ofsuch sort of life as I had blundered into. I’ve seen the devil ofviolence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all thestars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drovemen—men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that inthe blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby,pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious hecould be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand milesfarther. For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning. Finally Idescended the hill, obliquely, towards the trees I had seen.

“I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the slope,the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. It wasn’t a quarryor a sandpit, anyhow. It was just a hole. It might have been connected with thephilanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do. I don’tknow. Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no more than a scarin the hillside. I discovered that a lot of imported drainage-pipes for thesettlement had been tumbled in there. There wasn’t one that was notbroken. It was a wanton smash-up. At last I got under the trees. My purpose wasto stroll into the shade for a moment; but no sooner within than it seemed tome I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno. The rapids were near,and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournfulstillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved, with amysterious sound—as though the tearing pace of the launched earth hadsuddenly become audible.

“Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against thetrunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dimlight, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine onthe cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. Thework was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpershad withdrawn to die.

“They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies,they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now—nothing but blackshadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of timecontracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, theysickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest.These moribund shapes were free as air—and nearly as thin. I began todistinguish the gleam of the eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw aface near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulderagainst the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up atme, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of theorbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young—almost a boy—butyou know with them it’s hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but tooffer him one of my good Swede’s ship’s biscuits I had in mypocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held—there was no othermovement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round hisneck—Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge—an ornament—acharm—a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? Itlooked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond theseas.

“Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legsdrawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in anintolerable and appalling manner: his brother phantom rested its forehead, asif overcome with a great weariness; and all about others were scattered inevery pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or apestilence. While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to hishands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink. Helapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins infront of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone.

“I didn’t want any more loitering in the shade, and I made hastetowards the station. When near the buildings I met a white man, in such anunexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort ofvision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowytrousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed,oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing,and had a penholder behind his ear.

“I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was theCompany’s chief accountant, and that all the book-keeping was done atthis station. He had come out for a moment, he said, ‘to get a breath offresh air. The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion ofsedentary desk-life. I wouldn’t have mentioned the fellow to you at all,only it was from his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is soindissolubly connected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respectedthe fellow. Yes; I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. Hisappearance was certainly that of a hairdresser’s dummy; but in the greatdemoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That’s backbone.His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character. Hehad been out nearly three years; and, later, I could not help asking him how hemanaged to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush, and said modestly,‘I’ve been teaching one of the native women about the station. Itwas difficult. She had a distaste for the work.’ Thus this man had verilyaccomplished something. And he was devoted to his books, which were inapple-pie order.

“Everything else in the station was in a muddle—heads, things,buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; astream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire sent intothe depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory.

“I had to wait in the station for ten days—an eternity. I lived ina hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into theaccountant’s office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly puttogether that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck to heelswith narrow strips of sunlight. There was no need to open the big shutter tosee. It was hot there, too; big flies buzzed fiendishly, and did not sting, butstabbed. I sat generally on the floor, while, of faultless appearance (and evenslightly scented), perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes hestood up for exercise. When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalid agentfrom upcountry) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance. ‘Thegroans of this sick person,’ he said, ‘distract my attention. Andwithout that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in thisclimate.’

“One day he remarked, without lifting his head, ‘In the interioryou will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.’ On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, hesaid he was a first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at thisinformation, he added slowly, laying down his pen, ‘He is a veryremarkable person.’ Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtzwas at present in charge of a trading-post, a very important one, in the trueivory-country, at ‘the very bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory asall the others put together...’ He began to write again. The sick man wastoo ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace.

“Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a great tramping offeet. A caravan had come in. A violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out onthe other side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking together, and inthe midst of the uproar the lamentable voice of the chief agent was heard‘giving it up’ tearfully for the twentieth time that day.... Herose slowly. ‘What a frightful row,’ he said. He crossed the roomgently to look at the sick man, and returning, said to me, ‘He does nothear.’ ‘What! Dead?’ I asked, startled. ‘No, notyet,’ he answered, with great composure. Then, alluding with a toss ofthe head to the tumult in the station-yard, ‘When one has got to makecorrect entries, one comes to hate those savages—hate them to thedeath.’ He remained thoughtful for a moment. ‘When you see Mr.Kurtz’ he went on, ‘tell him from me that everythinghere’—he glanced at the deck—’ is very satisfactory. Idon’t like to write to him—with those messengers of ours you neverknow who may get hold of your letter—at that Central Station.’ Hestared at me for a moment with his mild, bulging eyes. ‘Oh, he will gofar, very far,’ he began again. ‘He will be a somebody in theAdministration before long. They, above—the Council in Europe, youknow—mean him to be.’

“He turned to his work. The noise outside had ceased, and presently ingoing out I stopped at the door. In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-boundagent was lying finished and insensible; the other, bent over his books, wasmaking correct entries of perfectly correct transactions; and fifty feet belowthe doorstep I could see the still tree-tops of the grove of death.

“Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan of sixty men, for atwo-hundred-mile tramp.

“No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths, everywhere; astamped-in network of paths spreading over the empty land, through the longgrass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly ravines, upand down stony hills ablaze with heat; and a solitude, a solitude, nobody, nota hut. The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well, if a lot ofmysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons suddenly took totravelling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels rightand left to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm and cottagethereabouts would get empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were gone, too.Still I passed through several abandoned villages. There’s somethingpathetically childish in the ruins of grass walls. Day after day, with thestamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a60-lb. load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier deadin harness, at rest in the long grass near the path, with an empty water-gourdand his long staff lying by his side. A great silence around and above. Perhapson some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremorvast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild—and perhapswith as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. Once awhite man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort oflank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive—not to say drunk. Waslooking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can’t say I saw anyroad or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-holein the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, maybe considered as a permanent improvement. I had a white companion, too, not abad chap, but rather too fleshy and with the exasperating habit of fainting onthe hot hillsides, miles away from the least bit of shade and water. Annoying,you know, to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man’s head while heis coming to. I couldn’t help asking him once what he meant by comingthere at all. ‘To make money, of course. What do you think?’ hesaid, scornfully. Then he got fever, and had to be carried in a hammock slungunder a pole. As he weighed sixteen stone I had no end of rows with thecarriers. They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their loads in thenight—quite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a speech in English withgestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of eyes before me, andthe next morning I started the hammock off in front all right. An hourafterwards I came upon the whole concern wrecked in a bush—man, hammock,groans, blankets, horrors. The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He wasvery anxious for me to kill somebody, but there wasn’t the shadow of acarrier near. I remembered the old doctor—‘It would be interestingfor science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot.’ Ifelt I was becoming scientifically interesting. However, all that is to nopurpose. On the fifteenth day I came in sight of the big river again, andhobbled into the Central Station. It was on a back water surrounded by scruband forest, with a pretty border of smelly mud on one side, and on the threeothers enclosed by a crazy fence of rushes. A neglected gap was all the gate ithad, and the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabbydevil was running that show. White men with long staves in their hands appearedlanguidly from amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me, andthen retired out of sight somewhere. One of them, a stout, excitable chap withblack moustaches, informed me with great volubility and many digressions, assoon as I told him who I was, that my steamer was at the bottom of the river. Iwas thunderstruck. What, how, why? Oh, it was ‘all right.’ The‘manager himself’ was there. All quite correct. ‘Everybodyhad behaved splendidly! splendidly!’—‘you must,’ hesaid in agitation, ‘go and see the general manager at once. He iswaiting!’

“I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once. I fancy I seeit now, but I am not sure—not at all. Certainly the affair was toostupid—when I think of it—to be altogether natural. Still... But atthe moment it presented itself simply as a confounded nuisance. The steamer wassunk. They had started two days before in a sudden hurry up the river with themanager on board, in charge of some volunteer skipper, and before they had beenout three hours they tore the bottom out of her on stones, and she sank nearthe south bank. I asked myself what I was to do there, now my boat was lost. Asa matter of fact, I had plenty to do in fishing my command out of the river. Ihad to set about it the very next day. That, and the repairs when I brought thepieces to the station, took some months.

“My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not ask me tosit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. He was commonplace incomplexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and ofordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, andhe certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as anaxe. But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim theintention. Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of hislips, something stealthy—a smile—not a smile—I remember it,but I can’t explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though justafter he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at theend of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of thecommonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader, fromhis youth up employed in these parts—nothing more. He was obeyed, yet heinspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. Thatwas it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust—just uneasiness—nothingmore. You have no idea how effective such a... a... faculty can be. He had nogenius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. That was evident insuch things as the deplorable state of the station. He had no learning, and nointelligence. His position had come to him—why? Perhaps because he wasnever ill... He had served three terms of three years out there... Becausetriumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power initself. When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scale—pompously.Jack ashore—with a difference—in externals only. This one couldgather from his casual talk. He originated nothing, he could keep the routinegoing—that’s all. But he was great. He was great by this littlething that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. He nevergave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicionmade one pause—for out there there were no external checks. Once whenvarious tropical diseases had laid low almost every ‘agent’ in thestation, he was heard to say, ‘Men who come out here should have noentrails.’ He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though ithad been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. You fancied youhad seen things—but the seal was on. When annoyed at meal-times by theconstant quarrels of the white men about precedence, he ordered an immenseround table to be made, for which a special house had to be built. This was thestation’s mess-room. Where he sat was the first place—the rest werenowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither civilnor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his ‘boy’—an overfedyoung negro from the coast—to treat the white men, under his very eyes,with provoking insolence.

“He began to speak as soon as he saw me. I had been very long on theroad. He could not wait. Had to start without me. The up-river stations had tobe relieved. There had been so many delays already that he did not know who wasdead and who was alive, and how they got on—and so on, and so on. He paidno attention to my explanations, and, playing with a stick of sealing-wax,repeated several times that the situation was ‘very grave, verygrave.’ There were rumours that a very important station was in jeopardy,and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was not true. Mr. Kurtz was... Ifelt weary and irritable. Hang Kurtz, I thought. I interrupted him by saying Ihad heard of Mr. Kurtz on the coast. ‘Ah! So they talk of him downthere,’ he murmured to himself. Then he began again, assuring me Mr.Kurtz was the best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest importanceto the Company; therefore I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said,‘very, very uneasy.’ Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a gooddeal, exclaimed, ‘Ah, Mr. Kurtz!’ broke the stick of sealing-waxand seemed dumfounded by the accident. Next thing he wanted to know ‘howlong it would take to’... I interrupted him again. Being hungry, youknow, and kept on my feet too. I was getting savage. ‘How can Itell?’ I said. ‘I haven’t even seen the wreck yet—somemonths, no doubt.’ All this talk seemed to me so futile. ‘Somemonths,’ he said. ‘Well, let us say three months before we can makea start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.’ I flung out of his hut (helived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of verandah) muttering to myself myopinion of him. He was a chattering idiot. Afterwards I took it back when itwas borne in upon me startlingly with what extreme nicety he had estimated thetime requisite for the ‘affair.’

“I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on thatstation. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeemingfacts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes; and then I saw thisstation, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard. Iasked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there withtheir absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrimsbewitched inside a rotten fence. The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air,was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint ofimbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove!I’ve never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silentwilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as somethinggreat and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passingaway of this fantastic invasion.

“Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things happened. One eveninga grass shed full of calico, cotton prints, beads, and I don’t know whatelse, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have thought the earth hadopened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my pipequietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all cutting capers in the light,with their arms lifted high, when the stout man with moustaches came tearingdown to the river, a tin pail in his hand, assured me that everybody was‘behaving splendidly, splendidly,’ dipped about a quart of waterand tore back again. I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail.

“I strolled up. There was no hurry. You see the thing had gone off like abox of matches. It had been hopeless from the very first. The flame had leapedhigh, driven everybody back, lighted up everything—and collapsed. Theshed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A nigger was being beatennear by. They said he had caused the fire in some way; be that as it may, hewas screeching most horribly. I saw him, later, for several days, sitting in abit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover himself; afterwards hearose and went out—and the wilderness without a sound took him into itsbosom again. As I approached the glow from the dark I found myself at the backof two men, talking. I heard the name of Kurtz pronounced, then the words,‘take advantage of this unfortunate accident.’ One of the men wasthe manager. I wished him a good evening. ‘Did you ever see anything likeit—eh? it is incredible,’ he said, and walked off. The other manremained. He was a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, witha forked little beard and a hooked nose. He was stand-offish with the otheragents, and they on their side said he was the manager’s spy upon them.As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him before. We got into talk, and by andby we strolled away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me to his room, whichwas in the main building of the station. He struck a match, and I perceivedthat this young aristocrat had not only a silver-mounted dressing-case but alsoa whole candle all to himself. Just at that time the manager was the only mansupposed to have any right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls; acollection of spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies. Thebusiness intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks—so I had beeninformed; but there wasn’t a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station,and he had been there more than a year—waiting. It seems he could notmake bricks without something, I don’t know what—straw maybe.Anyway, it could not be found there and as it was not likely to be sent fromEurope, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for. An act ofspecial creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting—all the sixteenor twenty pilgrims of them—for something; and upon my word it did notseem an uncongenial occupation, from the way they took it, though the onlything that ever came to them was disease—as far as I could see. Theybeguiled the time by back-biting and intriguing against each other in a foolishkind of way. There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing cameof it, of course. It was as unreal as everything else—as thephilanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as theirgovernment, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to getappointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earnpercentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on thataccount—but as to effectually lifting a little finger—oh, no. Byheavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal ahorse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Verywell. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at ahalter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick.

“I had no idea why he wanted to be sociable, but as we chatted in thereit suddenly occurred to me the fellow was trying to get at something—infact, pumping me. He alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was supposedto know there—putting leading questions as to my acquaintances in thesepulchral city, and so on. His little eyes glittered like micadiscs—with curiosity—though he tried to keep up a bit ofsuperciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon I became awfullycurious to see what he would find out from me. I couldn’t possiblyimagine what I had in me to make it worth his while. It was very pretty to seehow he baffled himself, for in truth my body was full only of chills, and myhead had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat business. It was evident hetook me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator. At last he got angry, and, toconceal a movement of furious annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed asmall sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded,carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre—almost black. Themovement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the facewas sinister.

“It arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding an empty half-pintchampagne bottle (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my questionhe said Mr. Kurtz had painted this—in this very station more than a yearago—while waiting for means to go to his trading post. ‘Tell me,pray,’ said I, ‘who is this Mr. Kurtz?’

“‘The chief of the Inner Station,’ he answered in a shorttone, looking away. ‘Much obliged,’ I said, laughing. ‘Andyou are the brickmaker of the Central Station. Every one knows that.’ Hewas silent for a while. ‘He is a prodigy,’ he said at last.‘He is an emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows whatelse. We want,’ he began to declaim suddenly, ‘for the guidance ofthe cause intrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, widesympathies, a singleness of purpose.’ ‘Who says that?’ Iasked. ‘Lots of them,’ he replied. ‘Some even write that; andso he comes here, a special being, as you ought to know.’‘Why ought I to know?’ I interrupted, really surprised. He paid noattention. ‘Yes. Today he is chief of the best station, next year he willbe assistant-manager, two years more and... but I dare-say you know what hewill be in two years’ time. You are of the new gang—the gang ofvirtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh,don’t say no. I’ve my own eyes to trust.’ Light dawned uponme. My dear aunt’s influential acquaintances were producing an unexpectedeffect upon that young man. I nearly burst into a laugh. ‘Do you read theCompany’s confidential correspondence?’ I asked. He hadn’t aword to say. It was great fun. ‘When Mr. Kurtz,’ I continued,severely, ‘is General Manager, you won’t have theopportunity.’

“He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. The moon hadrisen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring water on the glow,whence proceeded a sound of hissing; steam ascended in the moonlight, thebeaten nigger groaned somewhere. ‘What a row the brute makes!’ saidthe indefatigable man with the moustaches, appearing near us. ‘Serve himright. Transgression—punishment—bang! Pitiless, pitiless.That’s the only way. This will prevent all conflagrations for the future.I was just telling the manager...’ He noticed my companion, and becamecrestfallen all at once. ‘Not in bed yet,’ he said, with a kind ofservile heartiness; ‘it’s so natural. Ha!Danger—agitation.’ He vanished. I went on to the riverside, and theother followed me. I heard a scathing murmur at my ear, ‘Heap ofmuffs—go to.’ The pilgrims could be seen in knots gesticulating,discussing. Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily believethey took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond the fence the forest stood upspectrally in the moonlight, and through that dim stir, through the faintsounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home toone’s very heart—its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality ofits concealed life. The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and thenfetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there. I felt a handintroducing itself under my arm. ‘My dear sir,’ said the fellow,‘I don’t want to be misunderstood, and especially by you, who willsee Mr. Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure. I wouldn’t like himto get a false idea of my disposition....’

“I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemedto me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would findnothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe. He, don’t you see, hadbeen planning to be assistant-manager by and by under the present man, and Icould see that the coming of that Kurtz had upset them both not a little. Hetalked precipitately, and I did not try to stop him. I had my shoulders againstthe wreck of my steamer, hauled up on the slope like a carcass of some bigriver animal. The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove! was in my nostrils,the high stillness of primeval forest was before my eyes; there were shinypatches on the black creek. The moon had spread over everything a thin layer ofsilver—over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of mattedvegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river Icould see through a sombre gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly bywithout a murmur. All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabberedabout himself. I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensitylooking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace. What were we who hadstrayed in here? Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? I felthow big, how confoundedly big, was that thing that couldn’t talk, andperhaps was deaf as well. What was in there? I could see a little ivory comingout from there, and I had heard Mr. Kurtz was in there. I had heard enoughabout it, too—God knows! Yet somehow it didn’t bring any image withit—no more than if I had been told an angel or a fiend was in there. Ibelieved it in the same way one of you might believe there are inhabitants inthe planet Mars. I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure,there were people in Mars. If you asked him for some idea how they looked andbehaved, he would get shy and mutter something about ‘walking onall-fours.’ If you as much as smiled, he would—though a man ofsixty—offer to fight you. I would not have gone so far as to fight forKurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. You know I hate, detest, andcan’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, butsimply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortalityin lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world—what Iwant to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rottenwould do. Temperament, I suppose. Well, I went near enough to it by letting theyoung fool there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence inEurope. I became in an instant as much of a pretence as the rest of thebewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be ofhelp to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not see—you understand. He wasjust a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Doyou see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I amtrying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation ofa dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity,surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion ofbeing captured by the incredible which is of the very essence ofdreams....”

He was silent for a while.

“... No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensationof any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth,its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. Welive, as we dream—alone....”

He paused again as if reflecting, then added:

“Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then. You see me,whom you know....”

It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. Fora long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice.There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but I wasawake. I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, thatwould give me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative thatseemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy night-air of the river.

“... Yes—I let him run on,” Marlow began again, “andthink what he pleased about the powers that were behind me. I did! And therewas nothing behind me! There was nothing but that wretched, old, mangledsteamboat I was leaning against, while he talked fluently about ‘thenecessity for every man to get on.’ ‘And when one comes out here,you conceive, it is not to gaze at the moon.’ Mr. Kurtz was a‘universal genius,’ but even a genius would find it easier to workwith ‘adequate tools—intelligent men.’ He did not makebricks—why, there was a physical impossibility in the way—as I waswell aware; and if he did secretarial work for the manager, it was because‘no sensible man rejects wantonly the confidence of his superiors.’Did I see it? I saw it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets,by heaven! Rivets. To get on with the work—to stop the hole. Rivets Iwanted. There were cases of them down at the coast—cases—piledup—burst—split! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step inthat station-yard on the hillside. Rivets had rolled into the grove of death.You could fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stoopingdown—and there wasn’t one rivet to be found where it was wanted. Wehad plates that would do, but nothing to fasten them with. And every week themessenger, a long negro, letter-bag on shoulder and staff in hand, left ourstation for the coast. And several times a week a coast caravan came in withtrade goods—ghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look atit, glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cottonhandkerchiefs. And no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that waswanted to set that steamboat afloat.

“He was becoming confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive attitudemust have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me hefeared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said I could see thatvery well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets—and rivetswere what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went tothe coast every week.... ‘My dear sir,’ he cried, ‘I writefrom dictation.’ I demanded rivets. There was a way—for anintelligent man. He changed his manner; became very cold, and suddenly began totalk about a hippopotamus; wondered whether sleeping on board the steamer (Istuck to my salvage night and day) I wasn’t disturbed. There was an oldhippo that had the bad habit of getting out on the bank and roaming at nightover the station grounds. The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and emptyevery rifle they could lay hands on at him. Some even had sat up o’nights for him. All this energy was wasted, though. ‘That animal has acharmed life,’ he said; ‘but you can say this only of brutes inthis country. No man—you apprehend me?—no man here bears a charmedlife.’ He stood there for a moment in the moonlight with his delicatehooked nose set a little askew, and his mica eyes glittering without a wink,then, with a curt Good-night, he strode off. I could see he was disturbed andconsiderably puzzled, which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days.It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, thebattered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat. I clambered on board. She rangunder my feet like an empty Huntley & Palmer biscuit-tin kicked along agutter; she was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty in shape, butI had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her. No influentialfriend would have served me better. She had given me a chance to come out abit—to find out what I could do. No, I don’t like work. I hadrather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. Idon’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in thework—the chance to find yourself. Your own reality—for yourself,not for others—what no other man can ever know. They can only see themere show, and never can tell what it really means.

“I was not surprised to see somebody sitting aft, on the deck, with hislegs dangling over the mud. You see I rather chummed with the few mechanicsthere were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despised—onaccount of their imperfect manners, I suppose. This was the foreman—aboiler-maker by trade—a good worker. He was a lank, bony, yellow-facedman, with big intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald asthe palm of my hand; but his hair in falling seemed to have stuck to his chin,and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist. Hewas a widower with six young children (he had left them in charge of a sisterof his to come out there), and the passion of his life was pigeon-flying. Hewas an enthusiast and a connoisseur. He would rave about pigeons. After workhours he used sometimes to come over from his hut for a talk about his childrenand his pigeons; at work, when he had to crawl in the mud under the bottom ofthe steamboat, he would tie up that beard of his in a kind of white serviettehe brought for the purpose. It had loops to go over his ears. In the evening hecould be seen squatted on the bank rinsing that wrapper in the creek with greatcare, then spreading it solemnly on a bush to dry.

“I slapped him on the back and shouted, ‘We shall haverivets!’ He scrambled to his feet exclaiming, ‘No! Rivets!’as though he couldn’t believe his ears. Then in a low voice,‘You... eh?’ I don’t know why we behaved like lunatics. I putmy finger to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. ‘Good foryou!’ he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot. Itried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came out of thathulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in athundering roll upon the sleeping station. It must have made some of thepilgrims sit up in their hovels. A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway ofthe manager’s hut, vanished, then, a second or so after, the doorwayitself vanished, too. We stopped, and the silence driven away by the stampingof our feet flowed back again from the recesses of the land. The great wall ofvegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves,boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion ofsoundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to toppleover the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence.And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached usfrom afar, as though an icthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in thegreat river. ‘After all,’ said the boiler-maker in a reasonabletone, ‘why shouldn’t we get the rivets?’ Why not, indeed! Idid not know of any reason why we shouldn’t. ‘They’ll come inthree weeks,’ I said confidently.

“But they didn’t. Instead of rivets there came an invasion, aninfliction, a visitation. It came in sections during the next three weeks, eachsection headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes,bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims. Aquarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkey; alot of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be shotdown in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little over themuddle of the station. Five such instalments came, with their absurd air ofdisorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provisionstores, that, one would think, they were lugging, after a raid, into thewilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable mess of things decentin themselves but that human folly made look like the spoils of thieving.

“This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and Ibelieve they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordidbuccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, andcruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of seriousintention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these thingsare wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of theland was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than thereis in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the nobleenterprise I don’t know; but the uncle of our manager was leader of thatlot.

“In exterior he resembled a butcher in a poor neighbourhood, and his eyeshad a look of sleepy cunning. He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on hisshort legs, and during the time his gang infested the station spoke to no onebut his nephew. You could see these two roaming about all day long with theirheads close together in an everlasting confab.

“I had given up worrying myself about the rivets. One’s capacityfor that kind of folly is more limited than you would suppose. I saidHang!—and let things slide. I had plenty of time for meditation, and nowand then I would give some thought to Kurtz. I wasn’t very interested inhim. No. Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come outequipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all andhow he would set about his work when there.”