Heart of Darkness Episode 14 to 18

Heart of Darkness

 Heart of Darkness

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natives. This was my chance, and it made me the more
anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards,
when I made the attempt to recover what was left of the
body, that I heard the original quarrel arose from a
misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens.
Fresleven—that was the fellow’s name, a Dane—thought
himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went
ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with
a stick. Oh, it didn’t surprise me in the least to 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 had been 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 selfrespect
in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger
mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him,
thunderstruck, till some man— I was told the chief’s
son—in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a
tentative jab with a spear at the white man— and of
course it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades.
Then the whole population cleared into the forest,
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 the engineer, I believe.

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Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble much about
Fresleven’s remains, till I got out and stepped into his
shoes. I couldn’t let it rest, though; but when an
opportunity offered at last to meet my predecessor, the
grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his
bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had
not been touched after he fell. And the village was
deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within
the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure
enough. The people had vanished. Mad terror had
scattered them, men, women, and children, through the
bush, and they had never returned. What became of the
hens I don’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 fairly
begun to hope for it.
‘I flew around like mad to get ready, and before fortyeight
hours I was crossing the Channel to show myself to
my employers, and sign the contract. In a very few hours I
arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited
sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt. I had no difficulty in
finding the Company’s offices. It was the biggest thing in
the town, and everybody I met was full of it. They were

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going to run an over-sea empire, and make no end of coin
by trade.
‘A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high
houses, innumerable windows with venetian blinds, a dead
silence, grass sprouting right and left, immense double
doors standing ponderously ajar. I slipped through one of
these cracks, went up a swept and ungarnished staircase, as
arid as a desert, and opened the first door I 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— still knitting with downcast
eyes—and only just as I began to think of getting out 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 a word 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 large shining map, marked with all the
colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amount of red—
good to see at any time, because one knows that some real
work is done 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 progress drink
the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn’t going into any of

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these. I was going into the yellow. Dead in the centre.
And the river was there—fascinating—deadly—like a
snake. Ough! A door opened, ya white-haired secretarial
head, but wearing a compassionate expression, appeared,
and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary.
Its light was dim, and a heavy writing-desk squatted in the
middle. From behind that structure came out an
impression of pale plumpness in a frock-coat. The great
man himself. He was five feet six, I should judge, and had
his grip on the handle-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-room with the compassionate secretary, who, full
of desolation and sympathy, made me sign some
document. I believe I undertook amongst other things not
to disclose any trade secrets. Well, I am not going to.
‘I began to feel slightly uneasy. You know I am not
used to such ceremonies, and there was something
ominous in the atmosphere. It was just as though I had
been let into some conspiracy— I don’t know—
something not quite right; and I was glad to get out. In
the outer room the two women knitted black wool
feverishly. People were arriving, and the younger one was

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walking back and forth introducing them. The old one sat
on her chair. Her flat cloth slippers were propped up on a
foot-warmer, and a cat reposed on her lap. She wore a
starched white affair on her head, had a wart on one
cheek, and silver-rimmed spectacles hung on the tip of her
nose. She glanced at me above the glasses. The swift and
indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. Two youths
with foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted
over, and she threw at them the same quick glance of
unconcerned wisdom. She seemed to know all about them
and about me, too. An eerie feeling came over me. She
seemed uncanny and fateful. Often far away there I
thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness,
knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing,
introducing continuously to the unknown, the other
scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned
old eyes. AVE! Old knitter of black wool. MORITURI
TE SALUTANT. Not many of those 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 my sorrows. Accordingly a young
chap wearing his hat over the left eyebrow, some clerk I
suppose—there must have been clerks in the business,