Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad

path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small

  baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink

  kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound

  round their loins, and the short ends behind waggled

  to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of

  their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an

  iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together

  with a chain whose bights swung between them,

  rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff

  made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had

  seen firing into a continent. It was the same kind of

  ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of

  imagination be called enemies. They were called

  criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting

  shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from

  the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the

  violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared

  stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, with-

  out a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference

  of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of the

  reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work,

  strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle.

  He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and

  seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to

  his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence,

  white men being so much alike at a distance that he

  could not tell who I might be. He was speedily re-

  assured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a

  glance at his charge, seemed to take me into partner-

  ship in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part of

  the great cause of these high and just proceedings.

  "Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the

  left. My idea was to let that chain-gang get out of

  sight before I climbed the hill. You know I am not

  particularly tender; I've had to strike and to fend off.

  I've had to resist and to attack sometimes -- that's only

  one way of resisting -- without counting the exact cost,

  according to the demands of such sort of life as I had

  blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and

  the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but,

  by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed

  devils, that swayed and drove men -- men, I tell you.

  But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the

  blinding sunshine of that land I would become ac-

  quainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil

  of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he

  could be, too, I was only to find out several months

  later and a thousand miles farther. For a moment I

  stood appalled, as though by a warning. Finally I

  descended the hill, obliquely, towards the trees I had

  seen.

  "I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been

  digging on the slope, the purpose of which I found it

  impossible to divine. It wasn't a quarry or a sandpit,

  anyhow. It was just a hole. It might have been con-

  nected with the philanthropic desire of giving the

  criminals something to do. I don't know. Then I

  nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no more

  than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that a lot of

  imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been

  tumbled in there. There wasn't one that was not

  broken. It was a wanton smash-up. At last I got under

  the trees. My purpose was to stroll into the shade for

  a moment; but no sooner within than it seemed to me

  I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno.

  The rapids were near, and an uninterrupted, uniform,

  headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness

  of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf

  moved, with a mysterious sound -- as though the tear-

  ing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become

  audible.

  "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees

  leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half

  coming out, half effased within the dim light, in all

  the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. An-

  other mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight

  shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was

  going on. The work! And this was the place where

  some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.

  "They were dying slowly -- it was very clear. They

  were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were

  nothing earthly now -- nothing but black shadows of

  disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the green-

  ish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast

  in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncon-

  genial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they

  sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed

  to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were

  free as air -- and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish

  the gleam of the eyes under the trees. Then, glancing

  down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones

  reclined at full length with one shoulder against the

  tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes

  looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of

  blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which

  died out slowly. The man seemed young -- almost a

  boy -- but you know with them it's hard to tell. I

  found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my

  good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The

  fingers closed slowly on it and held -- there was no

  other movement and no other glance. He had tied a

  bit of white worsted round his neck -- Why? Where

  did he get it? Was it a badge -- an ornament -- charm

  -- a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all con-

  nected with it? It looked startling round his black

  neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas.

  "Near the same tree two more bundles of acute

  angles sat with their legs drawn up. One, with his

  chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an

  intolerable and appalling manner: his brother phan-

  tom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a great

  weariness; and all about others were scattered in

  every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of

  a massacre or a pestilence. While I stood horror-

  struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and

  knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to

  drink. He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the

  sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after

  a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone.

  "I didn't want any more loitering in the shade, and

  I made haste towards the station. When near the

  buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected

  elegance of getup that in the first moment I took him

  for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar,

  white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a

  clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair

  parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol

/>   held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a

  penholder behind his ear.

  "I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he

  was the Company's chief accountant, and that all the

  bookkeeping was done at this station. He had come

  out for a moment, he said, 'to get a breath of fresh

  air.' The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with

  its suggestion of sedentary desk-life. I wouldn't have

  mentioned the fellow to you at all, only it was from

  his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is

  so indissolubly connected with the memories of that

  time. Moreover, I respected the fellow. Yes; I re-

  spected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. His

  appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's

  dummy; but in the great demoralization of the land

  he kept up his appearance. That's backbone. His

  starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achieve-

  ments of character. He had been out nearly three

  years; and later, I could not help asking him how he

  managed to sport such linen. He had just the faintest

  blush, and said modestly, 'I've been teaching one of

  the native women about the station. It was difficult.

  She had a distaste for the work.' Thus this man had

  verily accomplished something. And he was devoted

  to his books, which were in apple-pie order.

  "Everything else in the station was in a muddle --

  heads, things, buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with

  splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manu-

  factured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-

  wire set into the depths of darkness, and in return

  came a precious trickle of ivory.

  "I had to wait in the station for ten days -- an

  eternity. I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of

  the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant's

  office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly

  put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he

  was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of

  sunlight. There was no need to open the big shutter to

  see. It was hot there, too; big flies buzzed fiendishly,

  and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat generally on the

  floor, while, of faultless appearance (and even slightly

  scented), perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote.

  Sometimes he stood up for exercise. When a truckle-

  bed with a sick man (some invalid agent from up-

  country) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle an-

  noyance. 'The groans of this sick person,' he said,

  'distract my attention. And without that it is ex-

  tremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in

  this climate.'

  "One day he remarked, without lifting his head,

  'In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.'

  On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a

  first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at

  this information, he added slowly, laying down his

  pen, 'He is a very remarkable person.' Further ques-

  tions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was at present

  in charge of a trading-post, a very important one, in

  the true ivory-country, at 'the very bottom of there.

  Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together

  . .' He began to write again. The sick man was too

  ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace.

  "Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices

  and a great tramping of feet. A caravan had come in.

  A violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out on the

  other side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking

  together, and in the midst of the uproar the lament-

  able voice of the chief agent was heard 'giving it up'

  tearfully for the twentieth time that day.... He

  rose slowly. 'What a frightful row,' he said. He

  crossed the room gently to look at the sick man, and

  returning, said to me, 'He does not hear.' 'What!

  Dead?' I asked, startled. 'No, not yet,' he answered,

  with great composure. Then, alluding with a toss of

  the head to the tumult in the station-yard, 'When one

  has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate

  those savages -- hate them to the death.' He remained

  thoughtful for a moment. 'When you see Mr. Kurtz'

  he went on, 'tell him from me that everything here' --

  he glanced at the deck -- 'is very satisfactory. I don't

  like to write to him -- with those messengers of ours

  you never know who may get hold of your letter -- at

  that Central Station.' He stared at me for a moment

  with his mild, bulging eyes. 'Oho, he will go far, very

  far,' he began again. 'He will be a somebody in the

  Administration before long. They, above -- the Coun-

  cil in Europe, you know -- mean him to be.'

  "He turned to his work. The noise outside had

  ceased, and presently in going out I stopped at the

  door. In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound

  agent was lying flushed and insensible; the other,

  bent over his books, was making correct entries of

  perfectly correct transactions; and fifty feet below the

  doorstep I could see the still treetops of the grove of

  death.

  "Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan

  of sixty men, for a two-hundred-mile tramp.

  "No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths,

  everywhere; a stamped-in network of paths spreading

  over the empty land, through the long grass, through

  burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly

  ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze with heat;

  and a solitude, a solitude, nobody, not a hut. The

  population had cleared out a long time ago. Well, if

  a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of

  fearful weapons suddenly took to travelling on the

  road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yo-

  kels right and left to carry heavy loads for them, I

  fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would

  get empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were

  gone, too. Still I passed through several abandoned

  villages. There's something pathetically childish in

  the ruins of grass walls. Day after day, with the stamp

  and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each

  pair under a 60-lb. load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike

  camp, march. Now and then a carrier dead in harness,

  at rest in the long grass near the path, with an empty

  water-gourd and his long staff lying by his side. A

  great silence around and above. Perhaps on some

  quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swell-

  ing, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing,

  suggestive, and wild -- and perhaps with as profound

  a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country.

  Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping

  on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris,

  very hospitable and festive -- not to say drunk. Was

  looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared.

  Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the

  body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-ho
le in the

  forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three

  miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent

  improvement. I had a white companion, too, not a bad

  chap, but rather too fleshy and with the exasperating

  habit of fainting on the hot hillsides, miles away from

  the least bit of shade and water. Annoying, you know,

  to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man's

  head while he is coming to. I couldn't help asking him

  once what he meant by coming there at all. 'To make

  money, of course. What do you think?' he said, scorn-

  fully. Then he got fever, and had to be carried in a

  hammock slung under a pole. As he weighed sixteen

  stone I had no end of rows with the carriers. They

  jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their loads in the

  night -- quite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a

  speech in English with gestures, not one of which was

  lost to the sixty pairs of eyes before me, and the next

  morning I started the hammock off in front all right.

  An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concern

  wrecked in a bush -- man, hammock, groans, blankets,

  horrors. The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose.

  He was very anxious for me to kill somebody, but

  there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near. I remem-

  bered the old doctor -- 'It would be interesting for

  science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on

  the spot.' I felt I was becoming scientifically interest-

  ing. However, all that is to no purpose. On the fif-

  teenth day I came in sight of the big river again, and

  hobbled into the Central Station. It was on a back

  water surrounded by scrub and forest, with a pretty

  border of smelly mud on one side, and on the three

  others enclosed by a crazy fence of rushes. A ne-

  glected gap was all the gate it had, and the first glance

  at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil

  was running that show. White men with long staves in

  their hands appeared languidly from amongst the

  buildings, strolling up to take a look at me, and then

  retired out of sight somewhere. One of them, a stout,

  excitable chap with black moustaches, informed me

  with great volubility and many digressions, as soon

  as I told him who I was, that my steamer was at the

  bottom of the river. I was thunderstruck. What, how,

  why? Oh, it was 'all right.' The 'manager himself'

  was there. All quite correct. 'Everybody had behaved

  splendidly! splendidly!' -- 'you must,' he said in agi-

  tation, 'go and see the general manager at once. He is

  waiting!'

  "I did not see the real significance of that wreck at

  once. I fancy I see it now, but I am not sure not at

  all. Certainly the affair was too stupid -- when I think

  of it -- to be altogether natural. Still . . . But at the

  moment it presented itself simply as a confounded

  nuisance. The steamer was sunk. They had started

  two days before in a sudden hurry up the river with

  the manager on board, in charge of some volunteer

  skipper, and before they had been out three hours

  they tore the bottom out of her on stones, and she

  sank near the south bank. I asked myself what I was

  to do there, now my boat was lost. As a matter of fact,

  I had plenty to do in fishing my command out of the

  river. I had to set about it the very next day. That,

  and the repairs when I brought the pieces to the sta-

  tion, took some months.

  "My first interview with the manager was curious.

  He did not ask me to sit down after my twenty-mile

  walk that morning. He was commonplace in com-

  plexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was

  of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the

  usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he

  certainly could make his glance fall on one as trench-

  ant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times the

  rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention.

  Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expres-

  sion of his lips, something stealthy -- a smile -- not a

  smile -- I remember it, but I can't explain. It was un-

  conscious, this smile was, though just after he had

  said something it got intensified for an instant. It

  came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on

  the words to make the meaning of the commonest

  phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a com-

  mon trader, from his youth up employed in these

  parts -- nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired

  neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired

  uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite

  mistrust -- just uneasiness -- nothing more. You have