Heart of Darkness 2 Episode 61 to 69

Heart of Darkness

 Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

62 of 162



II


‘One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my
steamboat, I heard voices approaching—and there were
the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank. I laid
my head on my arm again, and had nearly lost myself in a
doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were: ‘I am as
harmless as a little child, but I don’t like to be dictated to.
Am I the manager—or am I not? I was ordered to send
him there. It’s incredible.’ … I became aware that the two
were standing on the shore alongside the forepart of the
steamboat, just below my head. I did not move; it did not
occur to me to move: I was sleepy. ‘It IS unpleasant,’
grunted the uncle. ‘He has asked the Administration to be
sent there,’ said the other, ‘with the idea of showing what
he could do; and I was instructed accordingly. Look at the
influence that man must have. Is it not frightful?’ They
both agreed it was frightful, then made several bizarre
remarks: ‘Make rain and fine weather—one man—the
Council—by the nose’— bits of absurd sentences that got
the better of my drowsiness, so that I had pretty near the
whole of my wits about me when the uncle said, ‘The
climate may do away with this difficulty for you. Is he

Heart of Darkness

63 of 162

alone there?’ ‘Yes,’ answered the manager; ‘he sent his
assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms:
‘Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don’t bother
sending more of that sort. I had rather be alone than have
the kind of men you can dispose of with me.’ It was more
than a year ago. Can you imagine such impudence!’
‘Anything since then?’ asked the other hoarsely. ‘Ivory,’
jerked the nephew; ‘lots of it—prime sort—lots—most
annoying, from him.’ ‘And with that?’ questioned the
heavy rumble. ‘Invoice,’ was the reply fired out, so to
speak. Then silence. They had been talking about Kurtz.
‘I was broad awake by this time, but, lying perfectly at
ease, remained still, having no inducement to change my
position. ‘How did that ivory come all this way?’ growled
the elder man, who seemed very vexed. The other
explained that it had come with a fleet of canoes in charge
of an English half-caste clerk Kurtz had with him; that
Kurtz had apparently intended to return himself, the
station being by that time bare of goods and stores, but
after coming three hundred miles, had suddenly decided to
go back, which he started to do alone in a small dugout
with four paddlers, leaving the half-caste to continue
down the river with the ivory. The two fellows there
seemed astounded at anybody attempting such a thing.

Heart of Darkness

64 of 162

They were at a loss for an adequate motive. As to me, I
seemed to see Kurtz for the first time. It was a distinct
glimpse: the dugout, four paddling savages, and the lone
white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters,
yon relief, on thoughts of home—perhaps; setting his face
towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his empty
and desolate station. I did not know the motive. Perhaps
he was just simply a fine fellow who stuck to his work for
its own sake. His name, you understand, had not been
pronounced once. He was ‘that man.’ The half-caste,
who, as far as I could see, had conducted a difficult trip
with great prudence and pluck, was invariably alluded to
as ‘that scoundrel.’ The ‘scoundrel’ had reported that the
‘man’ had been very ill—had recovered imperfectly….
The two below me moved away then a few paces, and
strolled back and forth at some little distance. I heard:
‘Military post—doctor—two hundred miles—quite alone
now— unavoidable delays—nine months—no news—
strange rumours.’ They approached again, just as the
manager was saying, ‘No one, as far as I know, unless a
species of wandering trader— a pestilential fellow,
snapping ivory from the natives.’ Who was it they were
talking about now? I gathered in snatches that this was
some man supposed to be in Kurtz’s district, and of whom

Heart of Darkness

65 of 162

the manager did not approve. ‘We will not be free from
unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for
an example,’ he said. ‘Certainly,’ grunted the other; ‘get
him hanged! Why not? Anything—anything can be done
in this country. That’s what I say; nobody here, you
understand, HERE, can endanger your position. And
why? You stand the climate—you outlast them all. The
danger is in Europe; but there before I left I took care
to—’ They moved off and whispered, then their voices
rose again. ‘The extraordinary series of delays is not my
fault. I did my best.’ The fat man sighed. ‘Very sad.’ ‘And
the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,’ continued the other;
‘he bothered me enough when he was here. ‘Each station
should be like a beacon on the road towards better things,
a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing,
improving, instructing.’ Conceive you—that ass! And he
wants to be manager! No, it’s—’ Here he got choked by
excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least bit. I
was surprised to see how near they were—right under me.
I could have spat upon their hats. They were looking on
the ground, absorbed in thought. The manager was
switching his leg with a slender twig: his sagacious relative
lifted his head. ‘You have been well since you came out
this time?’ he asked. The other gave a start. ‘Who? I? Oh!

Heart of Darkness

66 of 162

Like a charm—like a charm. But the rest—oh, my
goodness! All sick. They die so quick, too, that I haven’t
the time to send them out of the country— it’s
incredible!’ ‘Hm’m. Just so,’ grunted the uncle. ‘Ah! my
boy, trust to this—I say, trust to this.’ I saw him extend his
short flipper of an arm for a gesture that took in the forest,
the creek, the mud, the river— seemed to beckon with a
dishonouring flourish before the sunlit face of the land a
treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil,
to the profound darkness of its heart. It was so startling
that I leaped to my feet and looked back at the edge of the
forest, as though I had expected an answer of some sort to
that black display of confidence. You know the foolish
notions that come to one sometimes. The high stillness
confronted these two figures with its ominous patience,
waiting for the passing away of a fantastic invasion.
‘They swore aloud together—out of sheer fright, I
believe—then pretending not to know anything of my
existence, turned back to the station. The sun was low;
and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be
tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of
unequal length, that trailed behind them slowly over the
tall grass without bending a single blade.

Heart of Darkness

67 of 162

‘In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the
patient wilderness, that closed upon it as the sea closes
over a diver. Long afterwards the news came that all the
donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the
less valuable animals. They, no doubt, like the rest of us,
found what they deserved. I did not inquire. I was then
rather excited at the prospect of meeting Kurtz very soon.
When I say very soon I mean it comparatively. It was just
two months from the day we left the creek when we came
to the bank below Kurtz’s station.
‘Going up that river was like traveling back to the
earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted
on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty
stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was
warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the
brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway
ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed
distances. On silvery sand-banks hippos and alligators
sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters
flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your
way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all
day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you
thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from
everything you had known once—somewhere—far

Heart of Darkness

68 of 162

away—in another existence perhaps. There were moments
when one’s past came back to one, as it will sometimes
when you have not a moment to spare for yourself; but it
came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream,
remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming
realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and
silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least
resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force
brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you
with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it afterwards; I did
not see it any more; I had no time. I had to keep guessing
at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the
signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was
learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew
out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag
that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot
steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I had to keep a
lookout for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the
night for next day’s steaming. When you have to attend to
things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the
reality—the reality, I tell you—fades. The inner truth is
hidden—luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt
often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey
tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your

Heart of Darkness

69 of 162

respective tight-ropes for—what is it? half-a-crown a
tumble—‘
‘Try to be civil, Marlow,’ growled a voice, and I knew
there was at least one listener awake besides myself.
‘I beg your pardon. I forgot the heartache which makes
up the rest of the price. And indeed what does the price
matter, if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very
well. And I didn’t do badly either, since I managed not to
sink that steamboat on my first trip. It’s a wonder to me
yet. Imagine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a
bad road. I sweated and shivered over that business
considerably, I can tell you. After all, for a seaman, to
scrape the bottom of the thing that’s supposed to float all
the time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No one
may know of it, but you never forget the thump—eh? A
blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of
it, you wake up at night and think of it—years after—and
go hot and cold all over. I don’t pretend to say that
steamboat floated all the time. More than once she had to
wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splashing around and
pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way
for a crew. Fine fellows—cannibals—in their place. They
were men one could work with, and I am grateful to
them. And, after all, they did not eat each other before my