Heart of Darkness

"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 station, 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
complexion, in features, 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
trenchant and heavy as an ax. But even at these times the rest of his
person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only
an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy--a
smile--not a smile--I remember it, but I can't explain. It was
unconscious, 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 common 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 no idea how effective such a . . . a . . . faculty can
be. He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even.
That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station.
He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to
him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill . . . He had served three
terms of three years out there . . . Because triumphant health in the
general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. When he went
home on leave he rioted on a large scale--pompously. Jack ashore--with
a difference--in externals only. This one could gather from his casual
talk. He originated nothing, he could keep the routine going--that's
all. But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was
impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave that
secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion
made one pause--for out there there were no external checks. Once when
various tropical diseases had laid low almost every 'agent' in the
station, he was heard to say, 'Men who come out here should have no
entrails.' He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though
it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping.
You fancied you had seen things--but the seal was on. When annoyed at
meal-times by the constant quarrels of the white men about precedence,
he ordered an immense round table to be made, for which a special house
had to be built. This was the station's mess-room. Where he sat was the
first place--the rest were nowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable
conviction. He was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed
his 'boy'--an overfed young negro from the coast--to treat the white
men, under his very eyes, with provoking insolence.

"He began to speak as soon as he saw me. I had been very long on the
road. He could not wait. Had to start without me. The up-river stations
had to be relieved. There had been so many delays already that he did
not know who was dead and who was alive, and how they got on--and so on,
and so on. He paid no attention to my explanations, and, playing with
a stick of sealing-wax, repeated several times that the situation
was 'very grave, very grave.' There were rumors that a very important
station was in jeopardy, and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was
not true. Mr. Kurtz was . . . I felt weary and irritable. Hang Kurtz,
I thought. I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the
coast. 'Ah! So they talk of him down there,' he murmured to himself.
Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, an
exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company; therefore
I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said, 'very, very uneasy.'
Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a good deal, exclaimed, 'Ah, Mr.
Kurtz!' broke the stick of sealing-wax and seemed dumbfounded by the
accident. Next thing he wanted to know 'how long it would take to' . . .
I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet
too, I was getting savage. 'How could I tell,' I said. 'I hadn't even
seen the wreck yet--some months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me
so futile. 'Some months,' he said. 'Well, let us say three months before
we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung out
of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of veranda)
muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot.
Afterwards I took it back when it was borne in upon me startlingly
with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite for the
'affair.'

"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.