Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating
torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well,
I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly.
It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of
one's soul--than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these
chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I
would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst
the corpses of a battlefield. But there was the fact facing me--the fact
dazzling, to be seen, like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a
ripple on an unfathomable enigma, a mystery greater--when I thought
of it--than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this
savage clamour that had swept by us on the river-bank, behind the blind
whiteness of the fog.
"Two pilgrims were quarrelling in hurried whispers as to which bank.
'Left.' 'no, no; how can you? Right, right, of course.' 'It is very
serious,' said the manager's voice behind me; 'I would be desolated if
anything should happen to Mr. Kurtz before we came up.' I looked at him,
and had not the slightest doubt he was sincere. He was just the kind of
man who would wish to preserve appearances.
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