Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
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and to this day I am unable to say what was Kurtz’s
profession, whether he ever had any—which was the
greatest of his talents. I had taken him for a painter who
wrote for the papers, or else for a journalist who could
paint—but even the cousin (who took snuff during the
interview) could not tell me what he had been—exactly.
He was a universal genius—on that point I agreed with
the old chap, who thereupon blew his nose noisily into a
large cotton handkerchief and withdrew in senile
agitation, bearing off some family letters and memoranda
without importance. Ultimately a journalist anxious to
know something of the fate of his ‘dear colleague’ turned
up. This visitor informed me Kurtz’s proper sphere ought
to have been politics ‘on the popular side.’ He had furry
straight eyebrows, bristly hair cropped short, an eyeglass
on a broad ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed his
opinion that Kurtz really couldn’t write a bit—’but
heavens! how that man could talk. He electrified large
meetings. He had faith—don’t you see?—he had the faith.
He could get himself to believe anything—anything. He
would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.’
‘What party?’ I asked. ‘Any party,’ answered the other.
‘He was an—an—extremist.’ Did I not think so? I
assented. Did I know, he asked, with a sudden flash of
Heart of Darkness
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curiosity, ‘what it was that had induced him to go out
there?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, and forthwith handed him the famous
Report for publication, if he thought fit. He glanced
through it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged ‘it
would do,’ and took himself off with this plunder.
‘Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of letters and
the girl’s portrait. She struck me as beautiful— I mean she
had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight ycan
be made to lie, too, yet one felt that no manipulation of
light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of
truthfulness upon those features. She seemed ready to
listen without mental reservation, without suspicion,
without a thought for herself. I concluded I would go and
give her back her portrait and those letters myself.
Curiosity? Yes; and also some other feeling perhaps. All
that had been Kurtz’s had passed out of my hands: his soul,
his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career. There
remained only his memory and his Intended— and I
wanted to give that up, too, to the past, in a way— to
surrender personally all that remained of him with me to
that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate. I
don’t defend myself. I had no clear perception of what it
was I really wanted. Perhaps it was an impulse of
unconscious loyalty, or the fulfilment of one of those
Heart of Darkness
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ironic necessities that lurk in the facts of human existence.
I don’t know. I can’t tell. But I went.
‘I thought his memory was like the other memories of
the dead that accumulate in every man’s life—a vague
impress on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in
their swift and final passage; but before the high and
ponderous door, between the tall houses of a street as still
and decorous as a well-kept alley in a cemetery, I had a
vision of him on the stretcher, opening his mouth
voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its
mankind. He lived then before me; he lived as much as he
had ever lived—a shadow insatiable of splendid
appearances, of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the
shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a
gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house
with me—the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild
crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests,
the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat
of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a
heart—the heart of a conquering darkness. It was a
moment of triumph for the wilderness, an invading and
vengeful rush which, it seemed to me, I would have to
keep back alone for the salvation of another soul. And the
memory of what I had heard him say afar there, with the
Heart of Darkness
154 of 162
horned shapes stirring at my back, in the glow of fires,
within the patient woods, those broken phrases came back
to me, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying
simplicity. I remembered his abject pleading, his abject
threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness,
the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul. And
later on I seemed to see his collected languid manner,
when he said one day, ‘This lot of ivory now is really
mine. The Company did not pay for it. I collected it
myself at a very great personal risk. I am afraid they will
try to claim it as theirs though. H’m. It is a difficult case.
What do you think I ought to do—resist? Eh? I want no
more than justice.’ … He wanted no more than justice—
no more than justice. I rang the bell before a mahogany
door on the first floor, and while I waited he seemed to
stare at me out of the glassy panel— stare with that wide
and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all
the universe. I seemed to hear the whispered cry, ‘The
horror! The horror!’
‘The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty drawingroom
with three long windows from floor to ceiling that
were like three luminous and bedraped columns. The bent
gilt legs and backs of the furniture shone in indistinct
curves. The tall marble fireplace had a cold and
Heart of Darkness
155 of 162
monumental whiteness. A grand piano stood massively in
a corner; with dark gleams on the flat surfaces like a
sombre and polished sarcophagus. A high door opened—
closed. I rose.
‘She came forward, all in black, with a pale head,
floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning. It
was more than a year since his death, more than a year
since the news came; she seemed as though she would
remember and mourn forever. She took both my hands in
hers and murmured, ‘I had heard you were coming.’ I
noticed she was not very young—I mean not girlish. She
had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering.
The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad
light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her
forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow,
seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which the dark
eyes looked out at me. Their glance was guileless,
profound, confident, and trustful. She carried her
sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow,
as though she would say, ‘I—I alone know how to mourn
for him as he deserves.’ But while we were still shaking
hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face
that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not
the playthings of Time. For her he had died only
Heart of Darkness
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yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful
that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday—
nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same
instant of time—his death and her sorrow—I saw her
sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you
understand? I saw them together—I heard them together.
She had said, with a deep catch of the breath, ‘I have
survived’ while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly,
mingled with her tone of despairing regret, the summing
up whisper of his eternal condemnation. I asked myself
what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my
heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and
absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold. She
motioned me to a chair. We sat down. I laid the packet
gently on the little table, and she put her hand over it. …
‘You knew him well,’ she murmured, after a moment of
mourning silence.
‘‘Intimacy grows quickly out there,’ I said. ‘I knew him
as well as it is possible for one man to know another.’
‘‘And you admired him,’ she said. ‘It was impossible to
know him and not to admire him. Was it?’
‘‘He was a remarkable man,’ I said, unsteadily. Then
before the appealing fixity of her gaze, that seemed to
151 of 162
and to this day I am unable to say what was Kurtz’s
profession, whether he ever had any—which was the
greatest of his talents. I had taken him for a painter who
wrote for the papers, or else for a journalist who could
paint—but even the cousin (who took snuff during the
interview) could not tell me what he had been—exactly.
He was a universal genius—on that point I agreed with
the old chap, who thereupon blew his nose noisily into a
large cotton handkerchief and withdrew in senile
agitation, bearing off some family letters and memoranda
without importance. Ultimately a journalist anxious to
know something of the fate of his ‘dear colleague’ turned
up. This visitor informed me Kurtz’s proper sphere ought
to have been politics ‘on the popular side.’ He had furry
straight eyebrows, bristly hair cropped short, an eyeglass
on a broad ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed his
opinion that Kurtz really couldn’t write a bit—’but
heavens! how that man could talk. He electrified large
meetings. He had faith—don’t you see?—he had the faith.
He could get himself to believe anything—anything. He
would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.’
‘What party?’ I asked. ‘Any party,’ answered the other.
‘He was an—an—extremist.’ Did I not think so? I
assented. Did I know, he asked, with a sudden flash of
Heart of Darkness
152 of 162
curiosity, ‘what it was that had induced him to go out
there?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, and forthwith handed him the famous
Report for publication, if he thought fit. He glanced
through it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged ‘it
would do,’ and took himself off with this plunder.
‘Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of letters and
the girl’s portrait. She struck me as beautiful— I mean she
had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight ycan
be made to lie, too, yet one felt that no manipulation of
light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of
truthfulness upon those features. She seemed ready to
listen without mental reservation, without suspicion,
without a thought for herself. I concluded I would go and
give her back her portrait and those letters myself.
Curiosity? Yes; and also some other feeling perhaps. All
that had been Kurtz’s had passed out of my hands: his soul,
his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career. There
remained only his memory and his Intended— and I
wanted to give that up, too, to the past, in a way— to
surrender personally all that remained of him with me to
that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate. I
don’t defend myself. I had no clear perception of what it
was I really wanted. Perhaps it was an impulse of
unconscious loyalty, or the fulfilment of one of those
Heart of Darkness
153 of 162
ironic necessities that lurk in the facts of human existence.
I don’t know. I can’t tell. But I went.
‘I thought his memory was like the other memories of
the dead that accumulate in every man’s life—a vague
impress on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in
their swift and final passage; but before the high and
ponderous door, between the tall houses of a street as still
and decorous as a well-kept alley in a cemetery, I had a
vision of him on the stretcher, opening his mouth
voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its
mankind. He lived then before me; he lived as much as he
had ever lived—a shadow insatiable of splendid
appearances, of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the
shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a
gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house
with me—the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild
crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests,
the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat
of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a
heart—the heart of a conquering darkness. It was a
moment of triumph for the wilderness, an invading and
vengeful rush which, it seemed to me, I would have to
keep back alone for the salvation of another soul. And the
memory of what I had heard him say afar there, with the
Heart of Darkness
154 of 162
horned shapes stirring at my back, in the glow of fires,
within the patient woods, those broken phrases came back
to me, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying
simplicity. I remembered his abject pleading, his abject
threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness,
the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul. And
later on I seemed to see his collected languid manner,
when he said one day, ‘This lot of ivory now is really
mine. The Company did not pay for it. I collected it
myself at a very great personal risk. I am afraid they will
try to claim it as theirs though. H’m. It is a difficult case.
What do you think I ought to do—resist? Eh? I want no
more than justice.’ … He wanted no more than justice—
no more than justice. I rang the bell before a mahogany
door on the first floor, and while I waited he seemed to
stare at me out of the glassy panel— stare with that wide
and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all
the universe. I seemed to hear the whispered cry, ‘The
horror! The horror!’
‘The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty drawingroom
with three long windows from floor to ceiling that
were like three luminous and bedraped columns. The bent
gilt legs and backs of the furniture shone in indistinct
curves. The tall marble fireplace had a cold and
Heart of Darkness
155 of 162
monumental whiteness. A grand piano stood massively in
a corner; with dark gleams on the flat surfaces like a
sombre and polished sarcophagus. A high door opened—
closed. I rose.
‘She came forward, all in black, with a pale head,
floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning. It
was more than a year since his death, more than a year
since the news came; she seemed as though she would
remember and mourn forever. She took both my hands in
hers and murmured, ‘I had heard you were coming.’ I
noticed she was not very young—I mean not girlish. She
had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering.
The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad
light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her
forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow,
seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which the dark
eyes looked out at me. Their glance was guileless,
profound, confident, and trustful. She carried her
sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow,
as though she would say, ‘I—I alone know how to mourn
for him as he deserves.’ But while we were still shaking
hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face
that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not
the playthings of Time. For her he had died only
Heart of Darkness
156 of 162
yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful
that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday—
nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same
instant of time—his death and her sorrow—I saw her
sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you
understand? I saw them together—I heard them together.
She had said, with a deep catch of the breath, ‘I have
survived’ while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly,
mingled with her tone of despairing regret, the summing
up whisper of his eternal condemnation. I asked myself
what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my
heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and
absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold. She
motioned me to a chair. We sat down. I laid the packet
gently on the little table, and she put her hand over it. …
‘You knew him well,’ she murmured, after a moment of
mourning silence.
‘‘Intimacy grows quickly out there,’ I said. ‘I knew him
as well as it is possible for one man to know another.’
‘‘And you admired him,’ she said. ‘It was impossible to
know him and not to admire him. Was it?’
‘‘He was a remarkable man,’ I said, unsteadily. Then
before the appealing fixity of her gaze, that seemed to
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