Authors: Joseph Conrad
"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
evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic
invasion.
"Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things happened. 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 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
silver-mounted 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 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 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.
"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 eyes to trust.' Light dawned upon me.
My dear aunt's influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected
effect upon that young man. I nearly burst into a laugh. 'Do you read
the Company's confidential correspondence?' I asked. He hadn't a word
to say. It was great fun. 'When Mr. Kurtz,' I continued, severely, 'is
General Manager, you won't have the opportunity.'
"He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. The moon had
risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring water on
the glow, whence proceeded a sound of hissing; steam ascended in the
moonlight, the beaten nigger groaned somewhere. 'What a row the brute
makes!' said the indefatigable man with the moustaches, appearing
near us. 'Serve him right. Transgression—punishment—bang! Pitiless,
pitiless. That's the only way. This will prevent all conflagrations
for the future. I was just telling the manager . . .' He noticed my
companion, and became crestfallen all at once. 'Not in bed yet,'
he said, with a kind of servile heartiness; 'it's so natural. Ha!
Danger—agitation.' He vanished. I went on to the riverside, and
the other followed me. I heard a scathing murmur at my ear, 'Heap
of muffs—go to.' The pilgrims could be seen in knots gesticulating,
discussing. Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily
believe they took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond the fence the
forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through that dim stir,
through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of
the land went home to one's very heart—its mystery, its greatness, the
amazing reality of its concealed life. The hurt nigger moaned feebly
somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my
pace away from there. I felt a hand introducing itself under my arm.
'My dear sir,' said the fellow, 'I don't want to be misunderstood, and
especially by you, who will see Mr. Kurtz long before I can have
that pleasure. I wouldn't like him to get a false idea of my
disposition. . . .'
"I let him run on, this
papier-mache
Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me
that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find
nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe. He, don't you see, had
been planning to be assistant-manager by and by under the present man,
and I could see that the coming of that Kurtz had upset them both not a
little. He talked precipitately, and I did not try to stop him. I had my
shoulders against the wreck of my steamer, hauled up on the slope like a
carcass of some big river animal. The smell of mud, of primeval mud,
by Jove! was in my nostrils, the high stillness of primeval forest was
before my eyes; there were shiny patches on the black creek. The moon
had spread over everything a thin layer of silver—over the rank grass,
over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than
the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a sombre
gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur.
All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about
himself. I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity
looking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace. What were we
who had strayed in here? Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it
handle us? I felt how big, how confoundedly big, was that thing that
couldn't talk, and perhaps was deaf as well. What was in there? I could
see a little ivory coming out from there, and I had heard Mr. Kurtz was
in there. I had heard enough about it, too—God knows! Yet somehow
it didn't bring any image with it—no more than if I had been told an
angel or a fiend was in there. I believed it in the same way one of you
might believe there are inhabitants in the planet Mars. I knew once a
Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars.
If you asked him for some idea how they looked and behaved, he would get
shy and mutter something about 'walking on all-fours.' If you as much
as smiled, he would—though a man of sixty—offer to fight you. I would
not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near
enough to a lie. You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not
because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it
appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in
lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world—what I want
to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten
would do. Temperament, I suppose. Well, I went near enough to it by
letting the young fool there believe anything he liked to imagine as to
my influence in Europe. I became in an instant as much of a pretence as
the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion
it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not
see—you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in
the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do
you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you ya
dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey
the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and
bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being
captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams. . . ."
He was silent for a while.
". . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the
life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence—that which makes
its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is
impossible. We live, as we dream—alone. . . ."
He paused again as if reflecting, then added:
"Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then. You see me,
whom you know. . . ."
It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one
another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more
to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might
have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch
for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clue to the
faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself
without human lips in the heavy night-air of the river.
". . . Yes—I let him run on," Marlow began again, "and think what
he pleased about the powers that were behind me. I did! And there was
nothing behind me! There was nothing but that wretched, old, mangled
steamboat I was leaning against, while he talked fluently about 'the
necessity for every man to get on.' 'And when one comes out here, you
conceive, it is not to gaze at the moon.' Mr. Kurtz was a 'universal
genius,' but even a genius would find it easier to work with 'adequate
tools—intelligent men.' He did not make bricks—why, there was a
physical impossibility in the way—as I was well aware; and if he
did secretarial work for the manager, it was because 'no sensible man
rejects wantonly the confidence of his superiors.' Did I see it? I saw
it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven!
Rivets. To get on with the work—to stop the hole. Rivets I
wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast—cases—piled
up—burst—split! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step in that
station-yard on the hillside. Rivets had rolled into the grove of death.
You could fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stooping
down—and there wasn't one rivet to be found where it was wanted. We
had plates that would do, but nothing to fasten them with. And every
week the messenger, a long negro, letter-bag on shoulder and staff in
hand, left our station for the coast. And several times a week a coast
caravan came in with trade goods—ghastly glazed calico that made you
shudder only to look at it, glass beads value about a penny a quart,
confounded spotted cotton handkerchiefs. And no rivets. Three carriers
could have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat.