by Matt Kish
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149
“‘He was shamefully abandoned. A man like this, with such ideas. Shamefully! Shamefully!’”
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151
“He looked at least seven feet long. His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it pitiful and appalling as from a winding sheet. I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving. It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw him open his mouth wide—it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly. He must have been shouting.”
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153
“I was struck by the fire of his eyes and the composed languor of his expression.”
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155
“She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.”
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157
“The manager came out. He did me the honor to take me under the arm and lead me aside.”
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159
“And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also were buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night. . . .”
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161
“‘I am off. Could you give me a few Martini-Henry cartridges?’ I could, and did, with proper secrecy. He helped himself, with a wink at me, to a handful of my tobacco.”
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163
“On the hill a big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a crooked corner of the station house. One of the agents with a picket of a few of our blacks, armed for the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory; but deep within the forest, red gleams that wavered, that seemed to sink and rise from the ground amongst confused columnar shapes of intense blackness, showed the exact position of the camp where Mr. Kurtz’s adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil.”
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165
“As soon as I got on the bank I saw a trail—a broad trail through the grass. I remember the exultation with which I said to myself, ‘He can’t walk—he is crawling on all fours—I’ve got him.’”
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167
“He rose, unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapor exhaled by the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me . . .”
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169
“There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth.”
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171
“In front of the first rank, along the river, three men, plastered with bright red earth from head to foot, strutted to and fro restlessly. When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies . . .”
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173
“The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz’s life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.”
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175
“The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mold of primeval earth.”
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177
“His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines.”
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179
“‘The horror! The horror!’”
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181
“This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it.”
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183
“I tottered about the streets—there were various affairs to settle—grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. I admit my behavior was inexcusable, but then my temperature was seldom normal in these days.”
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185
“‘There was the making of an immense success,’ said the man, who was an organist, I believe, with lank gray hair flowing over a greasy coat collar.”
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187
“Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of letters and the girl’s portrait. She struck me as beautiful—I mean she had a beautiful expression.”
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189
“The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty drawing room with three long windows from floor to ceiling that were like three luminous and bedraped columns.”
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191
“She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning.”
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193
“But with every word spoken the room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illumined by the unextinguishable light of belief and love.”
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195
“‘Yes, I know,’ I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her—from which I could not even defend myself.”
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197
“‘Forgive me. I—I—have mourned so long in silence—in silence . . . You were with him—to the last? I think of his loneliness. Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear. . . .’
“‘To the very end,’ I said, shakily. ‘I heard his very last words. . . .’ I stopped in a fright.
“‘Repeat them,’ she murmured in a heartbroken tone. ‘I want—I want—something—something—to—to live with.’”
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199
Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. “We have lost the first of the ebb,” said the director, suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
You know how this goes. But really, it’s very true that you wouldn’t be holding this book if not for the following people and wha
t they gave me.
My agent, Seth Fishman, who really seems to get where I’m coming from. My editor on this book, Tony Perez, because if every boss I ever had was as good as him, I’d have never quit any job ever. My art director at Tin House, Diane Chonette, who has this magical ability to take everything I do and make it look a billion times better. My good friend Charley Deremer, whose talk of a “papier-mâché Mephistopheles” introduced me to Conrad in the first place. Shawn Cheng, the best artist I know, and a constant inspiration. Jill and AJ Savage for the harpoon and the beer. Kim Kite for the grammar. Chris Kite for the abuse. Stephanie and Jeff Gostomski for the rainbows and poker. Dana Jordan for the midget porn. Pete Schupska for being the best salesman I’ve met. Tom Mains, my brother in The Thing. Wes Johnson, because somebody has to read fantasy books and talk about them with me. J.D. Cain, the devil’s advocate. Brian Stevens, who owns more of my art than I do, and somehow still finds time to have lunch with me. And most importantly my wife Ione, whose friendship has proven to me that Kurtz was wrong after all.
MATT KISH is a self-taught artist from Ohio, where he lives with his wife, their two frogs, and far too many books. He has created one illustration for every page of Moby-Dick, fully illustrated Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and had his work appear in the Chicagoan, Propeller Magazine, and the Salt Hill Journal. He has also illustrated The Alligators of Abraham by Robert Kloss and the upcoming The Desert Places by Robert Kloss and Amber Sparks.
JOSEPH CONRAD is widely accepted as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Along with Heart of Darkness, he’s the author of Lord Jim, Nostromo, and numerous other novels, stories, and essays.