Part 1 (1/2)
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
I
The Nellie, a cruising yaung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest The flood hadbound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide
The sea-reach of the Tha of an inter the sea and the sky elded together without a joint, and in the lu up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishi+ng flatness
The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still see reatest, town on earth
The Director of Companies was our captain and our host We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified It was difficult to realize his as not out there in the luloom
Between us there was, as I have already said soether through long periods of separation, it had the effect ofus tolerant of each other's yarns--and even convictions The Lawyer--the best of old fellows--had, because of his many years andon the only rug The Accountant had brought out already a box of do architecturally with the bones Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-ht back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, reseood hold, ed a feords lazily Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht For soa but placid staring The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign iht; the very auzy and radiant fabric, hung fro the low shores in diaphanous folds Only the gloo over the upper reaches, becaered by the approach of the sun
And at last, in its curved and i white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that glooe came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a ay leading to the uttermost ends of the earth We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that cois easier for a oes, ”followed the sea” with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Tha service, croith memories of men and shi+ps it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, frohts all, titled and untitled--the great knights-errant of the sea It had borne all the shi+ps whose naht of ti with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests--and that never returned It had known the shi+ps and the men They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, fros' shi+ps and the shi+ps of e; captains, admirals, the dark ”interlopers” of the Eastern trade, and the coenerals”
of East India fleets Hunters for gold or pursuers of fa the sword, and often the torch, ht within the land, bearers of a spark froreatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!The dreaerms of empires
The sun set; the dusk fell on the strea the shore The Chap erect on a hts of shi+ps oing down And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous toas still loolare under the stars
”And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, ”has been one of the dark places of the earth”
He was the only man of us who still ”followed the sea” The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is alith them--the shi+p; and so is their country--the sea One shi+p is very much like another, and the sea is always the san shores, the foreign faces, the changing ilide past, veiled not by a sense of norance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny
For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for hienerally he finds the secret not worth knowing The yarns of sea of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut But Marloas not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to hi of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination ofIt was just like Marlow
It was accepted in silence No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently he said, very slow--
”I was thinking of very old times, when the Roo--the other dayLight cahts? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds We live in the flicker--! But darkness was here yesterday Is of a commander of a fine--what d'ye call 'em?--trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries,--a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been too--used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a ine him here--the very end of the world, a sea the color of lead, a sky the color of soing up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like Sandbanks, es,--precious little to eat fit for a civilizedbut Tha ashore Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay--cold, fog, te in the air, in the water, in the bush Theylike flies here Oh yes--he did it Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinkingof what he had gone through in his tih to face the darkness And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of proood friends in Ro citizen in a toga--perhaps tooout here in the train of soatherer, or trader even, to h the woods, and in soery, had closed round him,--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, 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 hirowing 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 pals folded before hi in European clothes and without a lotus-flower--”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 ad 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 froet for the sake of as to be got It was just robbery with violence, aggravatedat it blind--as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness The conquest of the earth, whichit away frohtly 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 pretense but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea--so you can set up, and bon before, and offer a sacrifice to ”
He broke off Flareen fla, 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 kneere fated, before the ebb began to run, to hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences
”I don't want to bother you an, showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would best like to hear; ”yet to understand the effect of it on ot out there, what I saent up that river to the place where I first ation and the cul point of ht on everything about h too--and pitiful--not extraordinary in any way--not very clear either
No, not very clear And yet it seeht
”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 hoot a heavenly mission to civilize you It was very fine for a tian to look for a shi+p--I should think the hardest work on earth But the shi+ps wouldn't even look at ame too
”Nohen I was a little chap I had a passion for maps I would look for hours at South Alories of exploration At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a er on it 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 Equator, and in every sort of latitude all over the two hemispheres I have been in some of them, andwell, on't talk about that But there was one yet--the biggest, theafter
”True, by this tiot filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and nahtful loriously over It had become a place of darkness But there was in it one river especially, aan 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-, it fascinated me as a snake would a bird--a silly little bird Then I re concern, a Coht tosome kind of craft on that lot of fresh water--steae of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea The snake had charmed me