Oh, he struggled! he struggled! The wastes
of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images now--images of wealth
and fame revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift of noble
and lofty expression. My Intended, my station, my career, my
ideas--these were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated
sentiments. The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of
the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mould
of primeval earth. But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of
the mysteries it had penetrated fought for the possession of that
soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham
distinction, of all the appearances of success and power.
"Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have kings meet
him at railway-stations on his return from some ghastly Nowhere, where
he intended to accomplish great things. 'You show them you have in you
something that is really profitable, and then there will be no limits to
the recognition of your ability,' he would say. 'Of course you must take
care of the motives--right motives--always.' The long reaches that were
like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike,
slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking
patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner
of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings.
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