Heart of Darkness Episode 9 to 13

Heart of Darkness

 Heart of Darkness

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in the 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 of the abomination—you know, imagine the
growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless
disgust, the surrender, the hate.’
He paused.
‘Mind,’ he began again, lifting one arm from the
elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his
legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha
preaching in European clothes and without a lotusflower—‘
Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this.
What saves us is efficiency—the devotion to efficiency.
But these chaps were not much account, really. They
were no colonists; their administration was merely a
squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were
conquerors, and for that 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 was just robbery with violence,
aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it
blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness.

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The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking
it away from those who have a different complexion or
slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty 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 an unselfish belief in the idea—
something you can set up, and bow down before, and
offer a sacrifice to. …’
He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green
flames, red flames, white flames, pursuing, overtaking,
joining, crossing each other— then separating slowly or
hastily. The traffic of the great city went on in the
deepening night upon the sleepless river. We looked on,
waiting patiently—there was nothing else to do till the
end of the flood; but it was only after a long silence, when
he said, in a hesitating voice, ‘I suppose you fellows
remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit,’ that
we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to
hear about one of Marlow’s inconclusive experiences.
‘I don’t want to bother you much with what happened
to me personally,’ he began, showing in this remark the
weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often
unaware of what their audience would like best to hear;
‘yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to

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know how I got out there, what I saw, how I went up
that river to the place where I first met the poor chap. It
was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating
point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a
kind of light on everything about me— and into my
thoughts. It was sombre enough, too—and pitiful— not
extraordinary in any way—not very clear either. 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 of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas—a regular
dose of the East—six years or so, and I was loafing about,
hindering you fellows in your work and invading your
homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to
civilize you. 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 for hours at South America, or Africa, or
Australia, and lose myself in all the glories 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 all look that) I would put my finger on it

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and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there.’ The North
Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven’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—the biggest, 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 filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes
and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful
mystery— a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously
over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in
it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could
see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled,
with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a
vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And
as I looked at the map of it in a shop-window, it fascinated
me as a snake would a bird—a silly little bird. Then I
remembered there was a big concern, a Company for
trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, they
can’t trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of
fresh water—steamboats! Why shouldn’t I try to get
charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not
shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me.

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‘You understand it was a Continental concern, that
Trading society; but I have a lot of relations living on the
Continent, because it’s cheap and not so nasty as it looks,
they say.
‘I am sorry to own I began to worry them. This was
already a fresh departure for me. I was not used to get
things that way, you know. I always went my own road
and on my own legs where I had a mind to go. I wouldn’t
have believed it of myself; but, then—you see—I felt
somehow I must get there by hook or by crook. So I
worried them. The men said ‘My dear fellow,’ and did
nothing. Then—would you believe it?—I tried the
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 enthusiastic soul. 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 high
personage in the Administration, and also a man who has
lots of influence with,’ etc. She was determined to make
no end of fuss to get me appointed skipper of a river
steamboat, if such was my fancy.
‘I got my appointment—of course; and I got it very
quick. It appears the Company had received news that one
of their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the