I have wrestled with
death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place
in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around,
without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great
desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly
atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right,
and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of
ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it
to be. I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for
pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have
nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a
remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped
over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that
could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace
the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that
beat in the darkness. He had summed up--he had judged. 'The horror!' He
was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of
belief; it had candour, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of
revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed
truth--the strange commingling of desire and hate.
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