Chapter 3 Part 2

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:04.879
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
2
00:00:04.919 --> 00:00:09.439
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
3
00:00:09.560 --> 00:00:16.239
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Kristin Luoma Green k
4
00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:22.120
r I dot Calm. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad,
5
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:30.320
Chapter three, Part two. When I woke up shortly after midnight,
6
00:00:30.359 --> 00:00:32.119
his warning came to my mind, with its hint of
7
00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:35.799
danger that seemed in the starred darkness, real enough to
8
00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:37.520
make me get up for the purpose of having a
9
00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:42.039
look around on the hill. A big fire burned, illuminating
10
00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:45.280
fitfully a crooked corner of the station house. One of
11
00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:46.960
the agents, with a picket of a few of our
12
00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:50.200
blacks armed for the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory.
13
00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:54.320
But deep within the forest red gleams that wavered that
14
00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:57.719
seemed to sink and rise from the ground amongst confused
15
00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.320
columnar's shapes of intense blackness showed the exact position of
16
00:01:02.359 --> 00:01:06.040
the camp where mister Kurtz's adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil.
17
00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:10.159
The monotonous beating of a big drum filled the air
18
00:01:10.439 --> 00:01:14.799
with muffled shocks and a lingering vibration. A steady droning
19
00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:18.120
sound of many men chanting each to himself. Some weird
20
00:01:18.200 --> 00:01:22.359
incantation came out from a hive and had a strange
21
00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:26.840
narcotic effect upon my half awake senses. I believe I
22
00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:29.760
dozed off leaning over the rail till an abrupt burst
23
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:32.719
of yells, an overwhelming outbreak of a pent up and
24
00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:37.760
mysterious frenzy, woke me up in a bewildered wonder. It
25
00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:40.879
was cut short all at once, and the low droning
26
00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:43.840
went on with an effect of audible and soothing silence.
27
00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:48.799
I glanced casually into the little cabin. A light was
28
00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:53.799
burning within, but mister Kurtz was not there. I think
29
00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:55.879
I would have raised an outcry if I had believed
30
00:01:55.879 --> 00:01:59.159
my eyes, but I didn't believe them. At first, the
31
00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:03.239
thing seemed so possible. The fact is I was completely
32
00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:08.479
unerved by a sheer, blank fright, pure abstract terror, unconnected
33
00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:12.360
with any distinct shape of physical danger. What made this
34
00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:16.879
emotion so overpowering was, how shall I define it? The
35
00:02:16.960 --> 00:02:22.319
moral shock I received, as if something altogether monstrous, intolerable
36
00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:25.080
to thought, and odious to the soul had been thrust
37
00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:29.560
upon me unexpectedly. This lasted, of course, the merest fraction
38
00:02:29.639 --> 00:02:32.639
of a second, and then the usual sense of commonplace,
39
00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:36.479
deadly danger. The possibility of a sudden onslaught and massacre,
40
00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:39.639
or something of the kind which I saw impending, was
41
00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:44.159
positively welcome and composing. It pacified me, in fact, so
42
00:02:44.360 --> 00:02:47.360
much that I did not raise an alarm. There was
43
00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:49.840
an agent buttoned up inside an ulster and sleeping on
44
00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:52.479
a chair on deck, within three feet of me. The
45
00:02:52.599 --> 00:02:56.400
yells had not awakened him. He snored very slightly. I
46
00:02:56.479 --> 00:02:59.560
left him to his slumbers and leapt ashore. I did
47
00:02:59.639 --> 00:03:02.599
not tray mister Kurtz. It was ordered I should never
48
00:03:02.639 --> 00:03:05.639
betterry him. It was written, I should be loyal to
49
00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:08.919
the nightmare of my choice. I was anxious to deal
50
00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:11.919
with the shadow by myself alone, and to this day
51
00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:14.080
I don't know why I was so jealous of sharing
52
00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:19.400
with any one the peculiar blackness of that experience. As
53
00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:21.319
soon as I got on the bank, I saw trail,
54
00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:25.879
a broad trail through the grass. I remember the exultation
55
00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:28.639
with which I said to myself, he can't walk, he
56
00:03:28.719 --> 00:03:32.479
is crawling on all fours. I've got him. The grass
57
00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:36.400
was wet with dew. I strode rapidly with clenched fists.
58
00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.280
I fancy I had some vague notion of falling upon
59
00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:42.000
him and giving him a drubbing. I don't know. I
60
00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:45.719
had some imbecile thoughts. The knitting old woman with the
61
00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:49.560
cat obtruded herself upon my memory as a most improper
62
00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:51.560
person to be sitting at the other end of such
63
00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:55.240
an affair. I saw a row of pilgrims squirting lead
64
00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:57.800
in the air out of Winchester's held to the hip.
65
00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:00.719
I thought I would never get back to the steamer,
66
00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:04.439
and imagined myself living alone and unarmed in the woods
67
00:04:04.439 --> 00:04:08.280
to an advanced age. Such silly things, you know, And
68
00:04:08.360 --> 00:04:10.360
I remember I confounded the beat of the drum with
69
00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:12.919
the beating of my heart, and was pleased at its
70
00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:19.040
calm regularity. I kept to the track, though then stopped
71
00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:22.879
to listen. The night was very clear, a dark blue
72
00:04:22.879 --> 00:04:26.920
space sparkling with dew and starlight, in which black things
73
00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:30.639
stood very still. I thought I could see a kind
74
00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:33.720
of motion ahead of me. I was strangely cock sure
75
00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:37.120
of everything that night. I actually left the track and
76
00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.959
ran in a wide semicircle, I verily believe, chuckling to
77
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:43.639
myself so as to get in front of that stir,
78
00:04:44.399 --> 00:04:46.920
of that motion I had seen, if indeed I had
79
00:04:46.959 --> 00:04:50.680
seen anything, I was circumventing curts, as though it had
80
00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:55.680
been a boyish game. I came upon him, and if
81
00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:57.560
he had not heard me coming, I would have fallen
82
00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:00.839
over him too. But he got up in time. He
83
00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:08.079
rose unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapor exhaled by
84
00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:12.120
the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me,
85
00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:16.360
while at my back the fires loomed between the trees,
86
00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:19.759
and the murmur of many voices issued from the forest.
87
00:05:20.439 --> 00:05:23.920
I had cut him off cleverly, But when actually confronting him,
88
00:05:24.240 --> 00:05:26.920
I seemed to come to my senses. I saw the
89
00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.120
danger in its right proportion. It was by no means
90
00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:34.360
over yet. Suppose he began to shout, though he could
91
00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:37.959
hardly stand. There was still plenty of vigor in his voice.
92
00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:42.879
Go away, hide yourself, he said, in that profound tone.
93
00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:47.759
It was very awful. I glanced back. We were within
94
00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:51.759
thirty yards from the nearest fire. A black figure stood up,
95
00:05:52.199 --> 00:05:56.879
strode on long black legs, waving long black arms across
96
00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:01.759
the glow. It had horns, antelope hoorns, I think, on
97
00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:06.439
its head some sorcerer, some witch man, No doubt, it
98
00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:10.319
looked fiendlike enough. Do you know what you are doing?
99
00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:16.199
I whispered perfectly, he answered, raising his voice for that
100
00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:21.160
single word. It sounded to me far off and yet loud,
101
00:06:21.399 --> 00:06:25.079
like a hail through a speaking trumpet. If he makes
102
00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:29.199
a row, we are lost, I thought to myself. This
103
00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:32.240
clearly was not a case for fisticuffs, even apart from
104
00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:34.720
the very natural aversion. I had to beat that shadow,
105
00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:40.360
this wandering and tormented thing. You will be lost, I said,
106
00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:45.959
utterly lost. One gets sometimes such a flash of inspiration.
107
00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:49.240
You know, I did say the right thing, though indeed
108
00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:51.759
he could not have been more irretrievably lost than he
109
00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:56.879
was at this very moment, when the foundations of our
110
00:06:56.879 --> 00:07:01.600
intimacy were being laid. To endure, to endure, even to
111
00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:09.600
the end, even beyond. I had immense plans, he muttered, irresolutely. Yes,
112
00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:12.720
said I. But if you try to shelt, I'll smash
113
00:07:12.759 --> 00:07:15.879
your head with There was not a stick or a
114
00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:20.519
stone near. I will throttle you for good, I corrected myself.
115
00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:24.600
I was on the threshold of great things, he pleaded,
116
00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:27.600
in a voice of longing, with a wistfulness of tone.
117
00:07:27.639 --> 00:07:30.959
That made my blood run cold. And now for this
118
00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:35.839
stupid scoundrel, your success in Europe is assured. In any case,
119
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:39.240
I affirmed steadily. I did not want to have the
120
00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:42.240
throttling of him, you understand, And indeed it would have
121
00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:46.079
been very little use for any practical purpose. I tried
122
00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:49.439
to break the spell, the heavy, mute spell of the
123
00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:53.000
wilderness that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast,
124
00:07:53.399 --> 00:07:56.800
by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the
125
00:07:56.879 --> 00:08:03.120
memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced,
126
00:08:03.399 --> 00:08:05.759
had driven him out to the edge of the forest,
127
00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:09.759
to the bush towards the gleam of fires, the throb
128
00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:15.360
of drums, the drone of weird incantations. This alone had
129
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:20.199
beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations.
130
00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:24.480
And don't you see the terror of the position was
131
00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:27.199
not in being knocked on the head, although I had
132
00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:30.360
a very lively sense of that danger too, But in
133
00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:33.080
this that I had to deal with a being to
134
00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:35.480
whom I could not appeal in the name of anything
135
00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:39.360
high or low. I had, even like the niggers, to
136
00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:46.279
invoke him himself. His own exalted and incredible degradation. There
137
00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:49.360
was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it.
138
00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:54.480
He had kicked himself loose of the earth, confound the man.
139
00:08:55.960 --> 00:08:59.720
He had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone,
140
00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:02.399
and I before him did not know whether I stood
141
00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:05.279
on the ground or floated in the air. I've been
142
00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:08.559
telling you what we said, repeating the phrases we pronounced.
143
00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:11.960
But what's the good? They were calmon every day words,
144
00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:16.200
the familiar, vague sounds exchanged on every waking day of life.
145
00:09:17.039 --> 00:09:20.360
But what of that they had behind them? To my mind?
146
00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:25.559
The terrific suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases
147
00:09:25.559 --> 00:09:31.159
spoken in nightmares. Soul. If anybody ever struggled with a soul,
148
00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:34.720
I am the man, and I wasn't arguing with a lunatic,
149
00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:40.600
either believe me or not. His intelligence was perfectly clear, concentrated,
150
00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:44.480
it is true, upon himself, with horrible intensity, yet clear,
151
00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:49.120
And therein was my only chance, barring, of course, the
152
00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:52.159
killing him there and then, which wasn't so good on
153
00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:57.759
account of unavoidable noise. But his soul was mad, being
154
00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:01.759
alone in the wilderness, It had loos within itself, and
155
00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:06.039
by heavens, I tell you it had gone mad. I
156
00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:09.039
had for my sins, I supposed to go through the
157
00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:13.480
ordeal of looking into it myself. No eloquence could have
158
00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:16.799
been so withering to one's belief in mankind as his
159
00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:22.159
final burst of sincerity. He struggled within himself too. I
160
00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:26.120
saw it, I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery
161
00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:30.679
of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and
162
00:10:30.840 --> 00:10:36.120
no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself. I kept my
163
00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:38.840
head pretty well, but when I had him at last
164
00:10:38.840 --> 00:10:42.039
stretched on the couch, I wiped my forehead while my
165
00:10:42.120 --> 00:10:44.159
legs shook under me, as though I had carried half
166
00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:47.320
a ton on my back down that hill, and yet
167
00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:51.159
I had only supported him. His bony arm clasped round
168
00:10:51.159 --> 00:10:54.039
my neck, and he was not much heavier than a child.
169
00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:57.960
When next day we left at noon, the crowd of
170
00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:00.240
whose presence behind the curtain of trees I had been
171
00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:03.399
acutely conscious of all the time, flowed out of the
172
00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:06.639
woods again, filling the clearing, covered the slope with a
173
00:11:06.679 --> 00:11:12.240
mass of naked, breathing, quivering, bronzed bodies. I steamed up
174
00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:15.720
a bit, then swung down stream, and two thousand eyes
175
00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:20.279
followed the evolutions of the splashing, thumping, fierce river demon,
176
00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:23.960
beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black
177
00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.600
smoke into the air. In front of the first rank
178
00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:31.000
along the river, three men plastered with bright red earth
179
00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:35.600
from head to foot, strutted to and fro restlessly. When
180
00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:39.519
we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet,
181
00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:44.960
nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies. They shook
182
00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:47.559
towards the fierce river demon, a bunch of black feathers,
183
00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:51.639
a mangy skin with a pendant tail, something that looked
184
00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:55.879
like a dried gourd. They shouted periodically to gather strings
185
00:11:55.879 --> 00:11:59.759
of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language,
186
00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:04.080
and the deep murmurs of the crowd interrupted suddenly, were
187
00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:07.799
like the responses of some satanic litany. We had carried
188
00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:10.759
curts into the pilot house. There was more air there.
189
00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:14.159
Lying on the couch, he stared through the open shutter.
190
00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:17.279
There was an eddy on the mass of human bodies,
191
00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:20.559
and the woman with helmeted head and tawny cheeks rushed
192
00:12:20.559 --> 00:12:23.200
out to the very brink of the stream. She put
193
00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:26.559
out her hands shouting something, and all that wild mob
194
00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:30.519
took up the shout in a roaring chorus of articulated, rapid,
195
00:12:30.600 --> 00:12:37.320
breathless utterance. Do you understand this? I asked. He kept
196
00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:41.519
on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes, with
197
00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:46.480
a mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He made no answer,
198
00:12:46.679 --> 00:12:50.240
But I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning,
199
00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:54.919
appear on his colorless lips that a moment after twitched convulsively.
200
00:12:56.759 --> 00:13:01.080
Do I not, he said, slowly, gasping as if the
201
00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:03.759
words had been torn out of him by a supernatural power.
202
00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:08.039
I pulled the string of the whistle, and I did
203
00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:10.639
this because I saw the pilgrims on deck getting out
204
00:13:10.639 --> 00:13:13.240
their rifles with an air of anticipating a jolly lark.
205
00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:17.039
At the sudden screech, there was a movement of abject
206
00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:20.799
terror through that wedged mass of bodies. Don't don't you
207
00:13:20.840 --> 00:13:25.360
frighten them away? Cried some one on deck, disconsolately. I
208
00:13:25.399 --> 00:13:29.039
pulled the string time after time. They broke and ran,
209
00:13:29.559 --> 00:13:34.039
They leaped, They crouched, they swerved, they dodged the flying
210
00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:37.799
terror of the sound. The three red chaps had fallen
211
00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:40.360
flat face down on the shore as though they had
212
00:13:40.360 --> 00:13:44.840
been shot dead. Only the barbarous and superb woman did
213
00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:48.799
not so much as flinch, and stretched tragically her bare
214
00:13:48.919 --> 00:13:52.679
arms after us over the somber and glittering river. And
215
00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:55.399
then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their
216
00:13:55.399 --> 00:13:57.799
little fun, and I could see nothing more for smoke.
217
00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:01.480
The brown cur and ran swiftly out of the heart
218
00:14:01.480 --> 00:14:04.879
of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice
219
00:14:04.960 --> 00:14:08.320
the speed of our upward progress. And Kurtz's life was
220
00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:12.759
running swiftly too, ebbing ebbing, out of his heart into
221
00:14:12.799 --> 00:14:17.399
the sea of inexorable time. The manager was very placid,
222
00:14:17.639 --> 00:14:21.039
He had no vital anxieties. Now he took us both
223
00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:25.440
in with a comprehensive and satisfied glance. The affair had
224
00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:28.480
come off as well as could be wished. I saw
225
00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:30.480
the time approaching when I would be left alone of
226
00:14:30.519 --> 00:14:35.200
the party of unsound method. The pilgrims looked upon me
227
00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:39.240
with disfavor. I was, so to speak, numbered with the dead.
228
00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:43.759
It is strange how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, this
229
00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:46.919
choice of nightmares, forced upon me in the tenebrous land
230
00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:54.519
invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms. Kurt's discoursed a voice,
231
00:14:55.399 --> 00:15:00.120
a voice. It rang deep to the very last, It
232
00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:03.600
survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence,
233
00:15:04.039 --> 00:15:09.240
the barren darkness of his heart. Oh, he struggled, He struggled.
234
00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:13.639
The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images,
235
00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:18.080
now images of wealth and fame, revolving obsequiously around his
236
00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:25.039
inextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression. My intended, my station,
237
00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:29.919
my career, my ideas. These were the subjects for the
238
00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:34.360
occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. The shade of the original
239
00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:37.759
curts frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate
240
00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:39.919
it was to be buried presently in the mold of
241
00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:44.480
primeval earth. But both the diabolic love and the unearthly
242
00:15:44.519 --> 00:15:48.000
hate of the mysteries it had penetrated, fought for the
243
00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:52.759
possession of that soul, satiated with primitive emotions, avid of
244
00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:57.519
lying fame of sham, distinction of all the appearances of
245
00:15:57.559 --> 00:16:03.720
success and power. Times he was contemptibly childish. He desired
246
00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:06.200
to have kings meet him at railway stations on his
247
00:16:06.279 --> 00:16:10.200
return from some ghastly nowhere where he intended to accomplish
248
00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:14.320
great things. You show them you have in you something
249
00:16:14.360 --> 00:16:16.919
that is really profitable, and then there will be no
250
00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:19.919
limits to the recognition of your ability. He would say.
251
00:16:20.679 --> 00:16:22.759
Of course, you must take care of the motives, right,
252
00:16:22.919 --> 00:16:27.720
motives always the long reaches that were like one and
253
00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:32.000
the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped
254
00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:35.720
past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees. Looking
255
00:16:35.759 --> 00:16:40.279
patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner
256
00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:48.200
of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres of blessings.
257
00:16:49.519 --> 00:16:54.240
I looked ahead, piloting close the shutter, said Kurt, Suddenly,
258
00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:57.840
one day I can't beare to look at this. I
259
00:16:57.919 --> 00:17:03.440
did so. There was a silence. Oh but I will
260
00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:07.279
wring your heart yet, he cried at the invisible wilderness.
261
00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:12.799
We broke down, as I had expected, and had to
262
00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:14.799
lie up for repairs at the head of an island.
263
00:17:15.559 --> 00:17:18.279
This delay was the first thing that shook Kurtz's confidence.
264
00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:21.160
One morning, he gave me a packet of papers and
265
00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:24.200
a photograph the lot, tied together with a shoe string.
266
00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:30.200
Keep this for me, he said, This noxious fool, meaning
267
00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:33.480
the manager is capable of prying into my boxes when
268
00:17:33.519 --> 00:17:37.839
I am not looking. In the afternoon, I saw him.
269
00:17:38.680 --> 00:17:41.400
He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and
270
00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:45.359
I withdrew quickly. But I heard him mutter, live rightly,
271
00:17:45.880 --> 00:17:53.079
die die. I listened. There was nothing more. Was he
272
00:17:53.119 --> 00:17:55.960
rehearsing some speech in his sleep, or was it a
273
00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:59.759
fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article. He had
274
00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:01.720
been writing for the papers and meant to do so
275
00:18:01.799 --> 00:18:05.519
again for the furthering of my ideas. It's a duty.
276
00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:10.359
His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as
277
00:18:10.359 --> 00:18:12.799
you peer down a man who is lying at the
278
00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:16.880
bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines. But
279
00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:19.160
I had not much time to give him, because I
280
00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:21.279
was helping the engine driver to take to pieces the
281
00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:24.920
leaky cylinders, to straighten a bent connecting rod, and inn
282
00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:33.359
other such matters. I lived in an infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers,
283
00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:38.359
ratchet drills, things I abominate because I don't get on
284
00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:42.039
with them. I tended the little forge we fortunately had
285
00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:45.559
a board. I toiled wearily in a wretched scrap heap.
286
00:18:45.640 --> 00:18:49.720
Unless I had the shakes too bad to stand one evening,
287
00:18:49.960 --> 00:18:52.079
coming in with a candle. I was startled to hear
288
00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:56.200
him say a little tremulously, I am lying here in
289
00:18:56.279 --> 00:19:00.480
the dark, waiting for death. The light was within a
290
00:19:00.519 --> 00:19:05.319
foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, oh, nonsense,
291
00:19:05.559 --> 00:19:10.559
and stood over him, as if transfixed anything approaching. The
292
00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:13.359
change that came over his features I have never seen
293
00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:18.519
before and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched.
294
00:19:19.279 --> 00:19:22.480
I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had
295
00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:26.480
been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression
296
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:31.960
of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror, of
297
00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:36.680
an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life
298
00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:41.319
again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender. During
299
00:19:41.319 --> 00:19:45.240
that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a
300
00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:49.440
whisper at some image, at some vision. He cried out twice,
301
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.039
a cry that was no more than a breath. The horror,
302
00:19:54.599 --> 00:19:58.920
the horror. I blew the candle out and left the cabin.
303
00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:02.240
The pilgrims were dining in the mess room, and I
304
00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:05.240
took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes
305
00:20:05.240 --> 00:20:08.640
to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored,
306
00:20:10.279 --> 00:20:13.880
He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his,
307
00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:21.519
sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower
308
00:20:21.559 --> 00:20:25.000
of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth,
309
00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:29.559
upon her hands and faces. Suddenly, the manager's boy put
310
00:20:29.559 --> 00:20:31.960
his insolent black head in the doorway and said, in
311
00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:41.000
a tone of scathing contempt, Mistack Kurtz, he dead. All
312
00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:44.680
the pilgrims rushed out to sea. I remained and went
313
00:20:44.720 --> 00:20:49.519
on with my dinner. I believe I was considered brutally callous.
314
00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:54.160
However I did not eat much. There was a lamp
315
00:20:54.160 --> 00:20:58.680
in there, light you don't know, and outside it was
316
00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:04.359
so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the
317
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:07.599
remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures
318
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:13.519
of his soul on this earth. The voice was gone.
319
00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:16.680
What else had been there? But I am, of course
320
00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:19.119
aware that next day the pilgrims buried something in a
321
00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:24.759
muddy hole, and then they very nearly buried me. However,
322
00:21:24.799 --> 00:21:27.319
as you see, I did not go to join Curts there,
323
00:21:27.359 --> 00:21:30.240
and then I did not. I remained to dream the
324
00:21:30.359 --> 00:21:33.079
nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty
325
00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:38.680
to curts once more. Destiny, my destiny, droll thing. Life
326
00:21:38.759 --> 00:21:42.799
is that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a feudal purpose.
327
00:21:43.839 --> 00:21:45.799
The most you can hope from it is some knowledge
328
00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:50.720
of yourself that comes too late, a crop of unextinguishable regrets.
329
00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:56.160
I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting
330
00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:59.960
contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grains,
331
00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:06.119
with nothing under foot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor,
332
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:10.880
without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the
333
00:22:10.920 --> 00:22:15.960
great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism,
334
00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:19.599
without much belief in your own right, and still less
335
00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:23.000
in that of your adversary. If such is the form
336
00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:26.160
of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than
337
00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:29.079
some of us think it to be. I was within
338
00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:32.920
a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and
339
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:36.680
I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing
340
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:41.240
to say. This is the reason why I affirm that
341
00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:46.039
Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say.
342
00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:50.200
He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself,
343
00:22:50.680 --> 00:22:53.680
I understood better the meaning of his stare that could
344
00:22:53.759 --> 00:22:56.079
not see the flame of the candle, but was wide
345
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.839
enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate
346
00:23:00.279 --> 00:23:03.960
all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had
347
00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:10.680
summed up, he had judged the horror. He was a
348
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:14.640
remarkable man. After all. This was the expression of some
349
00:23:14.759 --> 00:23:19.440
sort of belief. It had candor, It had conviction, It
350
00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:23.079
had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper. It
351
00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:26.960
had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth, the strange
352
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:30.359
commingling of desire and hate. And it is not my
353
00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:34.759
own extremity I remember best, a vision of grayness without form,
354
00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:38.200
filled with physical pain, and a careless contempt for the
355
00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:43.359
evanescence of all things, even of this pain itself. No,
356
00:23:44.359 --> 00:23:48.599
it is his extremity that I seemed to have lived through. True,
357
00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:52.279
he had made that last stride, he had stepped over
358
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:54.480
the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back
359
00:23:54.519 --> 00:23:58.799
my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference,
360
00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:03.759
Perhaperhaps all the wisdom, and all truth and all sincerity
361
00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:08.240
are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in
362
00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:12.119
which we step over the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps
363
00:24:13.640 --> 00:24:15.359
I like to think my summing up would not have
364
00:24:15.400 --> 00:24:19.559
been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry much better.
365
00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:24.559
It was an affirmation, a moral victory, paid for by
366
00:24:24.599 --> 00:24:31.640
innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it
367
00:24:31.720 --> 00:24:35.279
was a victory. That is why I have remained loyal
368
00:24:35.319 --> 00:24:38.359
to Curts to the last and even beyond. When a
369
00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:41.880
long time after I heard once more, not his own voice,
370
00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:45.400
but the echo of his magnificent eloquence, thrown to me
371
00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:50.559
from a soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal. No,
372
00:24:50.839 --> 00:24:53.119
they did not bury me, though there is a period
373
00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:56.640
of time which I remember mistily with a shuddering wonder,
374
00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:59.920
like a passage through some inconceivable world that had no
375
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.519
no hope in it and no desire. I found myself
376
00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:06.759
back in the sepulchral city, resenting the sight of people
377
00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:09.680
hurrying through the streets to filter a little money from
378
00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:13.279
each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their
379
00:25:13.400 --> 00:25:18.680
unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They
380
00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:22.480
trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of
381
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:26.559
life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt
382
00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:30.079
so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew.
383
00:25:31.359 --> 00:25:34.559
Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals
384
00:25:35.079 --> 00:25:37.880
going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety,
385
00:25:38.519 --> 00:25:41.559
was offensive to me, like the outrageous flauntings of folly
386
00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:44.839
in the face of a danger. It is unable to comprehend.
387
00:25:46.440 --> 00:25:49.799
I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I
388
00:25:49.839 --> 00:25:53.880
had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces.
389
00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:58.000
So full of stupid importance, I dare say I was
390
00:25:58.039 --> 00:26:00.960
not very well at that time. I tottered about the
391
00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:05.079
streets there were various affairs to settle, grinning bitterly at
392
00:26:05.079 --> 00:26:10.640
perfectly respectable persons. I admit my behavior was inexcusable, but
393
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:14.599
then my temperature was seldom normal in these days. My
394
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:18.039
dear aunt's endeavors to nurse up my strength seemed altogether
395
00:26:18.079 --> 00:26:22.599
beside the mark. It was not my strength that wanted nursing.
396
00:26:23.119 --> 00:26:27.759
It was my imagination that wanted soothing. I kept the
397
00:26:27.759 --> 00:26:31.200
bundle of papers given me by Kurts, not knowing exactly
398
00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:34.119
what to do with it. His mother had died lately,
399
00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:38.039
watched over as I was told by his intended. A
400
00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:41.599
clean shaved man with an official manner and wearing gold
401
00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:44.839
rimmed spectacles called on me one day and made inquiries,
402
00:26:45.160 --> 00:26:50.079
at first circuitous and afterwards suavely pressing about what he
403
00:26:50.200 --> 00:26:54.720
was pleased to denominate certain documents. I was not surprised,
404
00:26:54.720 --> 00:26:56.680
because I had had two rows with the manager on
405
00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.680
the subject out there. I had refused to give up
406
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:02.839
the small mollest scrap out of that package, and I
407
00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:06.680
took the same attitude with the spectacled man. He became
408
00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:09.759
darkly menacing at last, and with much heat, argued that
409
00:27:09.799 --> 00:27:12.880
the company had the right to every bit of information
410
00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:19.079
about its territories, and said he mister Kurtz's knowledge of
411
00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:24.079
unexplored regions must have been necessarily extensive and peculiar, owing
412
00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:27.240
to his great abilities and to the deplorable circumstances in
413
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:31.559
which he had been placed. Therefore, I assured him mister
414
00:27:31.640 --> 00:27:35.400
Kurtz's knowledge, however extensive, did not bear upon the problems
415
00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:40.279
of commerce or administration. He invoked, then the name of science,
416
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.640
it would be an incalculable loss if et cetera, et cetera.
417
00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:49.720
I offered him the report on the suppression of savage customs.
418
00:27:50.039 --> 00:27:53.799
With the postscriptum torn off, he took it up eagerly,
419
00:27:54.119 --> 00:27:55.920
but ended up by sniffing at it with an air
420
00:27:55.960 --> 00:27:59.599
of contempt. This is not what we had a right
421
00:27:59.640 --> 00:28:05.640
to excite, he remarked. Expect nothing else, I said, there
422
00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:10.079
are only private letters. He withdrew upon some threat of
423
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:13.400
legal proceedings, and I saw him no more. But another
424
00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:17.480
fellow calling himself Kurtz's cousin, appeared two days later and
425
00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:19.759
was anxious to hear all the details about his dear
426
00:28:19.799 --> 00:28:24.559
relative's last moments. Incidentally, he gave me to understand that
427
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:29.039
Kurtz had been essentially a great musician. There was the
428
00:28:29.079 --> 00:28:32.160
making of an immense success, said the man who was
429
00:28:32.200 --> 00:28:36.039
an organist. I believe, with lank gray hair flowing over
430
00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:39.599
a greasy coat collar. I had no reason to doubt
431
00:28:39.640 --> 00:28:42.279
his statement, And to this day I am unable to
432
00:28:42.279 --> 00:28:45.640
say what was Kurtz's profession, whether he ever had any,
433
00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:50.279
which was the greatest of his talents. I had taken
434
00:28:50.359 --> 00:28:52.839
him for a painter who wrote for the papers, or
435
00:28:52.920 --> 00:28:55.960
else for a journalist who could paint. But even the
436
00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.400
cousin who took snuff during the interview could not tell
437
00:28:59.400 --> 00:29:03.279
me what he had don man exactly. He was a
438
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:06.799
universal genius. On that point, I agreed with the old chap,
439
00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:10.480
who thereupon blew his nose noisily into a large cotton handkerchief,
440
00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:14.880
and withdrew in senile agitation, bearing off some family letters
441
00:29:14.920 --> 00:29:20.680
and memoranda without importance. Ultimately, a journalist, anxious to know
442
00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:24.000
something of the fate of his dear colleague, turned up.
443
00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:28.400
This visitor informed me Curti's proper sphere ought to have
444
00:29:28.440 --> 00:29:35.960
been politics. On the popular side, he had furry, straight eyebrows,
445
00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:40.400
bristly hair cropped short, an eye glass on a broad ribbon, and,
446
00:29:40.759 --> 00:29:45.079
becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that Kurt really couldn't write
447
00:29:45.079 --> 00:29:48.680
a bit, But heavens how that man could talk. He
448
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:52.440
electrified large meetings. He had faith, don't you see? He
449
00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:56.440
had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything anything.
450
00:29:57.079 --> 00:29:59.960
He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.
451
00:30:01.559 --> 00:30:06.960
What party, I asked? Any party answered the other. He
452
00:30:07.119 --> 00:30:13.839
was an an extremist. Did I not think so? I assented,
453
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:17.720
Did I know? He asked, with a sudden flash of curiosity,
454
00:30:18.759 --> 00:30:22.400
what it was that had induced him to go out there, yes,
455
00:30:22.759 --> 00:30:25.799
said I, and forthwith handed him the famous report for
456
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:30.240
publication if he thought fit. He glanced through it hurriedly,
457
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:33.640
mumbling all the time, judged it would do, and took
458
00:30:33.720 --> 00:30:37.160
himself off with this plunder. Thus I was left at
459
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:40.920
last with a slim packet of letters and the girl's portrait.
460
00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:44.640
She struck me as beautiful. I mean, she had a
461
00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:48.240
beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be made
462
00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:51.599
to lie too. Yet one felt that no manipulation of
463
00:30:51.720 --> 00:30:54.759
light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of
464
00:30:54.799 --> 00:30:59.079
truthfulness upon those features. She seemed ready to listen, without
465
00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:04.680
mental reservation, without suspicion, without a thought for herself. I
466
00:31:04.759 --> 00:31:06.920
concluded I would go and give her back her portrait
467
00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:13.079
and those letters myself. Curiosity, yes, and also some other feeling.
468
00:31:13.160 --> 00:31:16.319
Perhaps all that had been courtgies had passed out of
469
00:31:16.359 --> 00:31:22.119
my hands, his soul, his body, his station, his plans,
470
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:27.640
his ivory, his career. There remained only his memory and
471
00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:30.920
his intended And I wanted to give that up too,
472
00:31:31.640 --> 00:31:34.759
to the past, in a way, to surrender personally all
473
00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:37.240
that remained of him with me to that oblivion which
474
00:31:37.279 --> 00:31:40.720
is the last word of our common fate. I don't
475
00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:44.000
defend myself. I had no clear perception of what it
476
00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:46.880
was I really wanted. Perhaps it was an impulse of
477
00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:50.240
unconscious loyalty, or the fulfillment of one of those ironic
478
00:31:50.319 --> 00:31:53.799
necessities that lurk in the facts of human existence. I
479
00:31:53.880 --> 00:32:00.680
don't know. I can't tell, but I went. I thought
480
00:32:00.680 --> 00:32:02.839
his memory was like the other memories of the dead
481
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:06.680
that accumulate in every man's life, a vague impress on
482
00:32:06.799 --> 00:32:08.960
the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in
483
00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:12.960
their swift and final passage. But before the high and
484
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:17.160
ponderous door, between the tall houses of a street, as
485
00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:19.759
still and a chorus, as a well kept alley in
486
00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:24.039
a cemetery, I had a vision of him on a stretcher,
487
00:32:24.680 --> 00:32:28.039
opening his mouth voraciously, as if to devour all the
488
00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:32.839
earth with all its mankind. He lived then before me,
489
00:32:33.920 --> 00:32:37.519
he lived as much as he had ever lived, a shadow,
490
00:32:37.799 --> 00:32:43.440
insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities, a shadow darker
491
00:32:43.480 --> 00:32:46.880
than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in
492
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.960
the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to
493
00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:54.920
enter the house with me, the stretcher, the phantom bearers,
494
00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:59.720
the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forest,
495
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:04.720
the glitter of the reach between the murky bends. The
496
00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:09.000
beat of the drum, regular and muffled, like the beating
497
00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:14.759
of a heart, the heart of a conquering darkness. It
498
00:33:14.839 --> 00:33:18.079
was a moment of triumph for the wilderness, an invading
499
00:33:18.160 --> 00:33:21.480
and vengeful rush, which it seemed to me I would
500
00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:24.039
have to keep back alone for the salvation of another soul.
501
00:33:25.079 --> 00:33:27.000
And the memory of what I had heard him say
502
00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:30.440
afar there, with the horned shapes stirring at my back,
503
00:33:30.759 --> 00:33:34.319
in the glow of fires within the patient woods, those
504
00:33:34.359 --> 00:33:37.880
broken phrases came back to me, were heard again, in
505
00:33:37.920 --> 00:33:43.400
their ominous and terrifying simplicity. I remembered his abject pleading,
506
00:33:44.279 --> 00:33:48.480
his abject threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires,
507
00:33:49.200 --> 00:33:53.440
the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul.
508
00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:58.599
And later on I seemed to see his collected, languid
509
00:33:58.680 --> 00:34:02.519
manner when he said, one day, this lot of ivory
510
00:34:02.559 --> 00:34:05.720
now is really mine. The company did not pay for it.
511
00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:09.840
I collected it myself at a very great personal risk.
512
00:34:10.440 --> 00:34:14.880
I am afraid they will try to claim it as theirs. Though, Hm,
513
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:17.679
it is a difficult case. What do you think I
514
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:25.159
ought to do? Resist? Eh? I want no more than justice.
515
00:34:25.559 --> 00:34:30.360
He wanted no more than justice, no more than justice.
516
00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:34.480
I rang the bell before a mahogany door on the
517
00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:37.760
first floor, and while I waited, he seemed to stare
518
00:34:37.800 --> 00:34:41.000
at me out of the glassy panel, stare with that
519
00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:46.840
wide and immense stare, embracing, condemning, loathing all the universe.
520
00:34:48.119 --> 00:34:53.800
I seemed to hear the whispered cry, the horror, the horror.
521
00:34:56.400 --> 00:34:58.760
The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a
522
00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:01.440
lofty drawing room with three three long windows from floor
523
00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:05.199
to ceiling that were like three luminous and bedraped columns.
524
00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:09.360
The bent gilt legs and backs of the furniture shone
525
00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:13.599
in indistinct curves. The tall marble fireplace had a cold
526
00:35:13.679 --> 00:35:19.079
and monumental whiteness. A grand piano stood massively in a corner,
527
00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:22.920
with dark gleams on the flat surfaces, like a somber
528
00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:30.360
and polished sarcophagus. A high door opened, closed. I rose.
529
00:35:31.639 --> 00:35:34.920
She came forward, all in black, with a pale head
530
00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:38.239
floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning.
531
00:35:39.440 --> 00:35:41.960
It was more than a year since his death, more
532
00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:45.280
than a year since the news came. She seemed as
533
00:35:45.320 --> 00:35:49.320
though she would remember and mourned forever. She took both
534
00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:52.360
my hands in hers and murmured, I had heard you
535
00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:56.639
were coming. I noticed she was not very young, I mean,
536
00:35:56.679 --> 00:36:02.119
not girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief,
537
00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:07.480
for suffering. The room seemed to have grown darker, as
538
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:10.599
if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had
539
00:36:10.639 --> 00:36:17.119
taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage,
540
00:36:17.159 --> 00:36:21.599
this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from
541
00:36:21.679 --> 00:36:25.199
which the dark eyes looked out at me. Their glance
542
00:36:25.320 --> 00:36:31.920
was guileless, profound, confident, and trustful. She carried her sorrowful
543
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:35.840
head as though she were proud of that sorrow, as
544
00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:39.559
though she would say, I I alone know how to
545
00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:43.880
mourn for him as he deserves. But while we were
546
00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:48.280
still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came
547
00:36:48.360 --> 00:36:51.000
upon her face that I perceived she was one of
548
00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:55.079
those creatures that are not the playthings of time. For her,
549
00:36:55.960 --> 00:37:00.000
he had died only yesterday, and by Jove, the impression
550
00:37:00.239 --> 00:37:03.840
was so powerful that for me too, he seemed to
551
00:37:03.880 --> 00:37:09.679
have died only yesterday, Nay, this very minute. I saw
552
00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:12.960
her and him in the same instant of time, his
553
00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:16.000
death and her sorrow. I saw her sorrow in the
554
00:37:16.119 --> 00:37:20.760
very moment of his death. Do you understand I saw
555
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:25.119
them together. I heard them together, she had said, with
556
00:37:25.239 --> 00:37:29.559
a deep catch of the breath, I have survived, while
557
00:37:29.599 --> 00:37:33.320
my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly mingled with her
558
00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:36.480
tone of despairing regret, the summing up whisper of his
559
00:37:36.559 --> 00:37:41.519
eternal condemnation. I asked myself what I was doing there,
560
00:37:41.719 --> 00:37:44.000
with a sensation of panic in my heart, as though
561
00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:47.079
I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries,
562
00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:51.519
not fit for a human being to behold. She motioned
563
00:37:51.519 --> 00:37:56.119
me to a chair. We sat down. I laid the
564
00:37:56.159 --> 00:37:58.760
packet gently on the little table, and she put her
565
00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:03.960
hand over it. You knew him well, she murmured, after
566
00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:09.880
a moment of morning silence. INTI, Missy grows quickly out there.
567
00:38:10.119 --> 00:38:12.719
I said, I knew him as well as it is
568
00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:16.519
possible for one man to know another. And you admired him,
569
00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:19.559
She said, it was impossible to know him and not
570
00:38:19.679 --> 00:38:24.880
to admire him. Was it he was a remarkable man,
571
00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:29.480
I said, unsteadily. Then, before the appealing fixity of her
572
00:38:29.519 --> 00:38:32.679
gaze that seemed to watch for more words on my lips,
573
00:38:32.719 --> 00:38:38.320
I went on. It was impossible not to love him,
574
00:38:38.440 --> 00:38:43.760
she finished, eagerly, silencing me into an appalled dumbness. How true,
575
00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:46.800
How true? But when you think that no one knew
576
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:51.199
him so well as I? I had all his noble confidence.
577
00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:57.840
I knew him best. You knew him best, I repeated,
578
00:38:58.360 --> 00:39:01.880
And perhaps she did. But with every word spoken, the
579
00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:06.440
room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white,
580
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:10.559
remained illumined by the inextinguishable light of belief and love.
581
00:39:11.679 --> 00:39:17.159
You were his friend, she went on, His friend, she repeated.
582
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:19.639
A little louder you must have been if he had
583
00:39:19.639 --> 00:39:22.599
given you this and sent you to me. I feel
584
00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:26.000
I can speak to you, and oh I must speak.
585
00:39:27.039 --> 00:39:30.320
I want you, you who have heard his last words,
586
00:39:30.599 --> 00:39:33.679
to know I have been worthy of him. It is
587
00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:37.159
not pride. Yes, I am proud to know I understood
588
00:39:37.239 --> 00:39:39.840
him better than any one on earth. He told me
589
00:39:39.880 --> 00:39:43.239
so himself, And since his mother died, I have had
590
00:39:43.280 --> 00:39:53.280
no one, no one two two. I listened, The darkness deepened.
591
00:39:54.440 --> 00:39:56.480
I was not even sure whether he had given me
592
00:39:56.519 --> 00:39:59.360
the right bundle. I rather suspect he wanted me to
593
00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:01.480
take care of an another batch of his papers, which
594
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:04.880
after his death. I saw the manager examining under the lamp,
595
00:40:06.079 --> 00:40:09.400
and the girl talked, easing her pain in the certitude
596
00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:13.800
of my sympathy. She talked as thirsty men drink. I
597
00:40:13.880 --> 00:40:16.920
had heard that her engagement with Curts had been disapproved
598
00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:21.320
by her people. He wasn't rich enough for something. And indeed,
599
00:40:21.400 --> 00:40:23.280
I don't know whether he had not been a pauper
600
00:40:23.320 --> 00:40:26.400
all his life. He had given me some reason to
601
00:40:26.480 --> 00:40:30.079
infer that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that
602
00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:33.639
drove him out there. Who was not his friend, who
603
00:40:33.639 --> 00:40:37.440
had heard him speak once? She was saying, he drew
604
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:40.800
men towards him by what was best in them. She
605
00:40:40.880 --> 00:40:44.400
looked at me with intensity. It is the gift of
606
00:40:44.440 --> 00:40:47.800
the great, she went on, and the sound of her
607
00:40:47.840 --> 00:40:51.000
low voice seemed to have the accompaniment of all the
608
00:40:51.039 --> 00:40:56.119
other sounds full of mystery, desolation, and sorrow. I had
609
00:40:56.159 --> 00:41:00.760
ever heard, the ripple of the river, the sowing of
610
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:05.960
the trees swayed by the wind, the murmurs of the crowds,
611
00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:11.440
the faint ring of incomprehensible words cried from Afar, the
612
00:41:11.480 --> 00:41:14.880
whisper of a voice speaking from beyond the threshold of
613
00:41:14.920 --> 00:41:19.840
an eternal darkness. But you have heard him, you know,
614
00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:25.559
she cried, Yes, I know, I said, with something like
615
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:28.920
despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the
616
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:31.960
faith that was in her, before that great and saving
617
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:35.519
illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness,
618
00:41:36.199 --> 00:41:38.639
in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have
619
00:41:38.679 --> 00:41:43.239
defended her, from which I could not even defend myself.
620
00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:49.320
What a loss to me, to us, she corrected herself
621
00:41:49.320 --> 00:41:55.719
with beautiful generosity, then added, in a murmur to the world.
622
00:41:56.440 --> 00:41:58.679
By the last gleams of twilight, I could see the
623
00:41:58.679 --> 00:42:02.559
glitter of her eyes full of tears, of tears that
624
00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:08.880
would not fall. I have been very happy, very fortunate,
625
00:42:09.800 --> 00:42:15.639
very proud. She went on, too fortunate, too happy for
626
00:42:15.679 --> 00:42:23.719
a little while, and now I am unhappy for for life.
627
00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:27.039
She stood up, her fair hair seemed to catch all
628
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:32.320
the remaining light in a glimmer of gold. I rose too,
629
00:42:33.480 --> 00:42:38.280
And all of this she went on mournfully, all of
630
00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:43.239
his promise and all of his greatness, of his generous mind,
631
00:42:44.079 --> 00:42:49.559
of his noble heart. Nothing remains, nothing but a memory.
632
00:42:50.840 --> 00:42:56.239
You and I we shall always remember him, I said hastily. No,
633
00:42:56.679 --> 00:42:59.960
she cried, It is impossible that all this should be lost,
634
00:43:00.360 --> 00:43:02.800
that such a life should be sacrificed, to leave nothing
635
00:43:03.280 --> 00:43:07.880
but sorrow. You know what vast plans he had. I
636
00:43:07.960 --> 00:43:10.679
knew of them too, I could not perhaps understand, but
637
00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:15.079
others knew of them. Something must remain. His words, at
638
00:43:15.159 --> 00:43:22.320
least have not died. His words will remain, I said,
639
00:43:22.679 --> 00:43:27.880
And his example, she whispered to herself. Men looked up
640
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:33.840
to him. His goodness shone in every act, his example, true,
641
00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:39.239
I said, his example too, Yes, his example. I forgot that.
642
00:43:41.559 --> 00:43:45.320
But I do not. I cannot. I cannot believe, not yet,
643
00:43:46.239 --> 00:43:48.559
I cannot believe that I shall never see him again,
644
00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:54.960
That nobody will see him again, never, never, never. She
645
00:43:55.039 --> 00:43:57.519
put out her arms as if after a retreating figure,
646
00:43:57.960 --> 00:44:01.880
stretching them back with clasped, pale hands across the fading
647
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:07.039
and narrow sheen of the window. Never see him. I
648
00:44:07.079 --> 00:44:10.639
saw him clearly enough. Then I shall see this eloquent
649
00:44:10.679 --> 00:44:13.280
phantom as long as I live, And I shall see
650
00:44:13.320 --> 00:44:17.800
her too. A tragic and familiar shade resembling in this
651
00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:23.920
gesture another one tragic also, and bedecked with powerless charms,
652
00:44:23.960 --> 00:44:27.480
stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the infernal stream,
653
00:44:28.519 --> 00:44:35.000
the stream of darkness, she said, suddenly very low. He
654
00:44:35.199 --> 00:44:40.119
died as he lived his end, said I, with dull
655
00:44:40.159 --> 00:44:43.119
anger stirring in me. Was in every way worthy of
656
00:44:43.159 --> 00:44:48.760
his life. And I was not with him, she murmured.
657
00:44:50.280 --> 00:44:55.519
My anger subsided before a feeling of infinite pity. Everything
658
00:44:55.519 --> 00:44:59.519
that could be done, I mumbled, ah, But I believed
659
00:44:59.519 --> 00:45:01.920
in him more than any one on earth, more than
660
00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:07.159
his own mother, more than himself. He needed me me.
661
00:45:07.920 --> 00:45:11.920
I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign,
662
00:45:12.559 --> 00:45:20.199
every glance. I felt like a chill grip on my chest, don't,
663
00:45:20.480 --> 00:45:25.239
I said, in a muffled voice, forgive me, I I
664
00:45:25.320 --> 00:45:29.280
have mourned so long in silence, In silence. You were
665
00:45:29.320 --> 00:45:32.960
with him to the last. I think of his loneliness.
666
00:45:33.679 --> 00:45:36.519
Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood.
667
00:45:36.840 --> 00:45:41.119
Perhaps no one to hear to the very end, I
668
00:45:41.159 --> 00:45:48.119
said shakily. I heard his very last words. I stopped
669
00:45:48.119 --> 00:45:53.119
in affright repeat them, she murmured, in a heart broken tone.
670
00:45:53.800 --> 00:45:59.559
I want, I want something, something to to live with.
671
00:46:02.280 --> 00:46:04.360
I was on the point of crying at her. Don't
672
00:46:04.400 --> 00:46:07.880
you hear them? The dusk was repeating them in a
673
00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:11.079
persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed
674
00:46:11.119 --> 00:46:14.480
to swell menacingly, like the first whisper of a rising wind.
675
00:46:15.679 --> 00:46:23.199
The horror, the horror, his last word to live with,
676
00:46:23.599 --> 00:46:29.119
She insisted, don't you understand I loved him. I loved him.
677
00:46:29.559 --> 00:46:35.519
I loved him. I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.
678
00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:45.199
The last word he pronounced was your name. I heard
679
00:46:45.199 --> 00:46:49.239
a light sigh, and then my heart stood still, stopped
680
00:46:49.360 --> 00:46:53.800
dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the
681
00:46:53.840 --> 00:46:59.960
cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. I knew it.
682
00:47:00.320 --> 00:47:06.960
I was sure she knew. She was sure I heard
683
00:47:06.960 --> 00:47:10.079
her weeping. She had hidden her face in her hands.
684
00:47:10.760 --> 00:47:13.480
It seemed to me that the house would collapse before
685
00:47:13.480 --> 00:47:17.920
I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head.
686
00:47:18.840 --> 00:47:22.599
But nothing happened. The heavens did not fall for such
687
00:47:22.599 --> 00:47:26.400
a trifle. Would they have fallen? I wonder if I
688
00:47:26.440 --> 00:47:31.000
had rendered curts that justice which was his due? Hadn't
689
00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:36.000
he said he wanted only justice, But I couldn't. I
690
00:47:36.039 --> 00:47:39.239
could not tell her. It would have been too dark,
691
00:47:40.239 --> 00:47:51.440
too dark. Altogether, Marlow ceased and sat apart, indistinct and silent,
692
00:47:51.559 --> 00:47:55.920
in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for
693
00:47:55.960 --> 00:47:59.840
a time. We have lost the first of the ebb,
694
00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:05.159
said the director. Suddenly I raised my head. The offing
695
00:48:05.199 --> 00:48:07.800
was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the
696
00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:10.880
tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth
697
00:48:11.199 --> 00:48:15.639
flowed somber under an overcast sky, seemed to lead into
698
00:48:15.639 --> 00:48:25.239
the heart of an immense darkness. End of Heart of
699
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:31.159
Darkness by Joseph Conrad, read for LibriVox dot org by
700
00:48:31.239 --> 00:48:38.519
Christian Luoma