I looked
ahead--piloting. 'Close the shutter,' said Kurtz suddenly one day; 'I
can't bear to look at this.' I did so. There was a silence. 'Oh, but I
will wring your heart yet!' he cried at the invisible wilderness.
"We broke down--as I had expected--and had to lie up for repairs at the
head of an island. This delay was the first thing that shook Kurtz's
confidence. One morning he gave me a packet of papers and a
photograph--the lot tied together with a shoe-string. 'Keep this for
me,' he said. 'This noxious fool' (meaning the manager) 'is capable of
prying into my boxes when I am not looking.' In the afternoon I saw him.
He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly, but I
heard him mutter, 'Live rightly, die, die . . .' I listened. There was
nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep, or was it a
fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article? He had been writing
for the papers and meant to do so again, 'for the furthering of my
ideas. It's a duty.'
"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. But I had not much time to give him, because I was helping the
engine-driver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders, to straighten a
bent connecting-rod, and in other such matters.
Pages:
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157