Heart of Darkness Episode 44 to 49

Heart of Darkness

 Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

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yet— some months, no doubt.’ All this talk seemed to me
so futile. ‘Some months,’ he said. ‘Well, let us say three
months before we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do
the affair.’ I flung out of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay
hut with a sort of verandah) muttering to myself my
opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot. Afterwards I
took it back when it was borne in upon me startlingly
with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time
requisite for the ‘affair.’
‘I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my
back on that station. In that way only it seemed to me I
could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still,
one must look about sometimes; and then I saw this
station, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine
of the yard. I asked myself sometimes what it all meant.
They wandered here and there with their absurd long
staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims
bewitched 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 of imbecile 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
silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the
earth struck me as something great and invincible, like

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or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this
fantastic invasion.
‘Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things
yhappened. One evening a grass shed full of calico, cotton
prints, beads, and I don’t know what else, burst into a
blaze so suddenly that you would have thought the earth
had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. I
was smoking my pipe quietly 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 tearing down to the river, a tin pail in his hand,
assured me that everybody was ‘behaving splendidly,
splendidly,’ dipped about a quart of water and 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 a box of matches. It had been hopeless
from the very first. The flame had leaped high, driven
everybody back, lighted up everything— and collapsed.
The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A
nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused
the fire in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching
most horribly. I saw him, later, for several days, sitting in a
bit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover
himself; afterwards he arose and went out— and the

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wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again.
As I approached the glow from the dark I found myself at
the back of two men, talking. I heard the name of Kurtz
pronounced, then the words, ‘take advantage of this
unfortunate accident.’ One of the men was the manager. I
wished him a good evening. ‘Did you ever see anything
like it— eh? it is incredible,’ he said, and walked off. The
other man remained. He was a first-class agent, young,
gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a
hooked nose. He was stand-offish with the other agents,
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 and by we strolled away from the
hissing ruins. Then he asked me to his room, which was in
the main building of the station. He struck a match, and I
perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silvermounted
dressing-case but also a whole candle all to
himself. Just at that time the manager was the only man
supposed to have any right to candles. Native mats
covered the clay walls; a collection of spears, assegais,
shields, knives was hung up in trophies. The business
intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks— so I
had been informed; but there wasn’t a fragment of a brick
anywhere in the station, and he had been there more than

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a year—waiting. It seems he could not make 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 from Europe, it did not appear clear to
me what he was waiting for. An act of special creation
perhaps. However, they were all waiting— all the sixteen
or twenty pilgrims of them—for something; and upon my
word it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the
way they took it, though the only thing that ever came to
them was disease— as far as I could see. They beguiled the
time by back-biting and intriguing against each other in a
foolish kind of way. There was an air of plotting about
that station, but nothing came of it, of course. It was as
unreal as everything else—as the philanthropic pretence of
the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as
their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to
get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had,
so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and
slandered and hated each other only on that account— but
as to effectually lifting a little finger—oh, no. By heavens!
there is something after all in the world allowing one man
to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter.
Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it.
Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a

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halter 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 there it suddenly occurred to me the fellow was
trying to get at something— in fact, pumping me. He
alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was supposed
to know there—putting leading questions as to my
acquaintances in the sepulchral city, and so on. His little
eyes glittered like mica discs— with curiosity—though he
tried to keep up a bit of superciliousness. At first I was
astonished, but very soon I became awfully curious to see
what he would find out from me. I couldn’t possibly
imagine what I had in me to make it worth his while. It
was very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth
my body was full only of chills, and my head had nothing
in it but that wretched steamboat business. It was evident
he took me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator. At last
he got angry, and, to conceal a movement of furious
annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small
sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped
and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background
was sombre—almost black. The movement of the woman
was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was
sinister.

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‘It arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding an
empty half-pint champagne bottle (medical comforts) with
the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz
had painted this—in this very station more than a year
ago—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 short
tone, looking away. ‘Much obliged,’ I said, laughing. ‘And
you are the brickmaker of the Central Station. Every one
knows that.’ He was 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 what else. We want,’ he began
to declaim suddenly, ‘for the guidance of the cause
intrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence,
wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.’ ‘Who says that?’
I asked. ‘Lots of them,’ he replied. ‘Some even write that;
and so HE comes here, a special being, as you ought to
know.’ ‘Why ought I to know?’ I interrupted, really
surprised. He paid no attention. ‘Yes. Today he is chief of
the best station, next year he will be assistant-manager,
two years more and … but I dare-say you know what he
will be in two years’ time. You are of the new gang—the
gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially
also recommended you. Oh, don’t say no. I’ve my own