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<chapter id="chapt04"> 
<title>[[uncertain]]</title>

<paragraph>&ldquo;The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of
darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our
upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too, ebbing,
ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. The manager
was very placid, he had no vital anxieties now, he took us both in
with a comprehensive and satisfied glance: the &lsquo;affair&rsquo;
had come off as well as could be wished. I saw the time approaching
when I would be left alone of the party of &lsquo;unsound
method.&rsquo; The pilgrims looked upon me with disfavour. I was, so
to speak, numbered with the dead. It is strange how I accepted this
unforeseen partnership, this choice of nightmares forced upon me in
the tenebrous land invaded by these mean and greedy
phantoms.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;Kurtz discoursed. A voice! a voice! It rang deep to
the very last. It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent
folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart. Oh, he struggled!
he struggled! The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy
images now &mdash; images of wealth and fame revolving obsequiously
round his unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression. My
Intended, my station, my career, my ideas &mdash; 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.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;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. &lsquo;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,&rsquo; he would say. &lsquo;Of course you must take care
of the motives &mdash; right motives &mdash; always.&rsquo; 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. I looked ahead &mdash; piloting. &lsquo;Close the
shutter,&rsquo; said Kurtz suddenly one day; &lsquo;I can't bear to
look at this.&rsquo; I did so. There was a silence. &lsquo;Oh, but I
will wring your heart yet!&rsquo; he cried at the invisible
wilderness.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;We broke down &mdash; as I had expected &mdash; 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 &mdash; the lot tied together with a
shoe-string. &lsquo;Keep this for me,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;This
noxious fool&rsquo; (meaning the manager) &lsquo;is capable of prying
into my boxes when I am not looking.&rsquo; In the afternoon I saw
him. He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew
quietly, but I heard him mutter, &lsquo;Live rightly, die, die
&hellip;&rsquo; 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, &lsquo;for the furthering of my ideas. It's a
duty.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;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. I
lived in an infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners,
hammers, ratchet drills &mdash; things I abominate, because I don't
get on with them. I tended the little forge we fortunately had aboard;
I toiled wearily in a wretched scrap-heap &mdash; unless I had the
shakes too bad to stand.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;One evening coming in with a candle I was startled
to hear him say a little tremulously, &lsquo;I am lying here in the
dark waiting for death.&rsquo; The light was within a foot of his
eyes. I forced myself to murmur, &lsquo;Oh, nonsense!&rsquo; and stood
over him as if transfixed.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;Anything approaching the change that came over his
features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I
wasn't touched. I was fascinated.  It was as though a veil had been
rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of
ruthless power, of craven terror &mdash; of an intense and hopeless
despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire,
temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete
knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision &mdash;
he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;The horror! The horror!&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The
pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my place opposite
the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance,
which I successfully ignored.  He leaned back, serene, with that
peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his
meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp,
upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager's boy
put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of
scathing contempt:</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Mistah Kurtz &mdash; he
dead.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and
went on with my dinner. I believe that I was considered brutally
callous. However, I did not eat much.  There was a lamp in there
&mdash; light, don't you know &mdash; and outside it was so beastly,
beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had
pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this
earth. The voice was gone. What else had been there?  But I am of
course aware that next day the pilgrims buried something in a muddy
hole.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;And then they very nearly buried me.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz
there and then. I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to
the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My
destiny! Droll thing life is &mdash; that mysterious arrangement of
merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is
some knowledge of yourself &mdash; that comes too late &mdash; a crop
of unextinguishable regrets. 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 &mdash; he had
judged. &lsquo;The horror!&rsquo; 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 &mdash; the strange commingling
of desire and hate. And it is not my own extremity I remember best
&mdash; a vision of greyness without form filled with physical pain,
and a careless contempt for the evanescence of all things &mdash; even
of this pain itself. No! It is his extremity that I seem to have lived
through. True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the
edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And
perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and
all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that
inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of
the invisible. Perhaps! I like to think my summing-up would not have
been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry &mdash; much better.
It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable
defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it
was a victory! That is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last,
and even beyond, when a long time after I heard once more, not his own
voice, but the echo of his magnificent eloquence thrown to me from a
soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;No, they did not bury me, though there is a period
of time which I remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a
passage through some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no
desire. I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight
of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from
each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their
unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They
trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of
life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they
could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was
simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their
business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like
the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is
unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them,
but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their
faces so full of stupid importance. I daresay I was not very well at
that time. I tottered about the streets &mdash; there were various
affairs to settle &mdash; grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable
persons. I admit my behaviour was inexcusable, but then my temperature
was seldom normal in these days. My dear aunt's endeavours to
&lsquo;nurse up my strength&rsquo; seemed altogether beside the
mark. It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my
imagination that wanted soothing. I kept the bundle of papers given me
by Kurtz, not knowing exactly what to do with it. His mother had died
lately, watched over, as I was told, by his Intended. A clean-shaved
man, with an official manner and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles,
called on me one day and made inquiries, at first circuitous,
afterwards suavely pressing, about what he was pleased to denominate
certain &lsquo;documents.&rsquo; I was not surprised, because I had
had two rows with the manager on the subject out there. I had refused
to give up the smallest scrap out of that package, and I took the same
attitude with the spectacled man. He became darkly menacing at Last,
and with much heat argued that the Company had the right to every bit
of information about its 'territories.&rsquo; And said he,
&lsquo;Mr. Kurtz's knowledge of unexplored regions must have been
necessarily extensive and peculiar &mdash; owing to his great
abilities and to the deplorable circumstances in which he had been
placed: therefore &mdash;&rsquo; I assured him Mr. Kurtz's knowledge,
however extensive, did not bear upon the problems of commerce or
administration. He invoked then the name of science. &lsquo;It would
be an incalculable loss if,&rsquo; etc., etc. I offered him the report
on the &lsquo;Suppression of Savage Customs,&rsquo; with the
postscriptum torn off.  He took it up eagerly, but ended by sniffing
at it with an air of contempt. &lsquo;This is not what we had a right
to expect,&rsquo; he remarked. &lsquo;Expect nothing else,&rsquo; I
said.  &lsquo;There are only private letters.&rsquo; He withdrew upon
some threat of legal proceedings, and I saw him no more; but another
fellow, calling himself Kurtz's cousin, appeared two days later, and
was anxious to hear all the details about his dear relative's last
moments.  Incidentally he gave me to understand that Kurtz had been
essentially a great musician. &lsquo;There was the making of an
immense success,&rsquo; said the man, who was an organist, I believe,
with lank grey hair flowing over a greasy coat-collar. I had no reason
to doubt his statement, and to this day I am unable to say what was
Kurtz's profession, whether he ever had any &mdash; which was the
greatest of his talents. I had taken him for a painter who wrote for
the papers, or else for a journalist who could paint &mdash; but even
the cousin (who took snuff during the interview) could not tell me
what he had been &mdash; exactly. He was a universal genius &mdash; on
that point I agreed with the old chap, who thereupon blew his nose
noisily into a large cotton handkerchief and withdrew in senile
agitation, bearing off some family letters and memoranda without
importance. Ultimately a journalist anxious to know something of the
fate of his &lsquo;dear colleague&rsquo; turned up. This visitor
informed me Kurtz's proper sphere ought to have been politics
&lsquo;on the popular side.&rsquo; He had furry straight eyebrows,
bristly hair cropped short, an eyeglass on a broad ribbon, and,
becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that Kurtz really couldn't
write a bit &mdash; 'but heavens! how that man could talk. He
electrified large meetings. He had faith &mdash; don't you see?
&mdash; he had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything
&mdash; anything. He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme
party.&rsquo; &lsquo;What party?&rsquo; I asked. &lsquo;Any
party,&rsquo; answered the other. &lsquo;He was an &mdash; an &mdash;
extremist.&rsquo; Did I not think so? I assented. Did I know, he
asked, with a sudden flash of curiosity, &lsquo;what it was that had
induced him to go out there?&rsquo; &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; said I, and
forthwith handed him the famous Report for publication, if he thought
fit. He glanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged
&lsquo;it would do,&rsquo; and took himself off with this
plunder.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of
letters and the girl's portrait. She struck me as beautiful &mdash; I
mean she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be
made to lie, too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light and pose
could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those
features. She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation,
without suspicion, without a thought for herself. I concluded I would
go and give her back her portrait and those letters myself. Curiosity?
Yes; and also some other feeling perhaps. All that had been Kurtz's
had passed out of my hands: his soul, his body, his station, his
plans, his ivory, his career. There remained only his memory and his
Intended &mdash; and I wanted to give that up, too, to the past, in a
way &mdash; to surrender personally all that remained of him with me
to that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate. I don't
defend myself. I had no clear perception of what it was I really
wanted. Perhaps it was an impulse of unconscious loyalty, or the
fulfilment of one of those ironic necessities that lurk in the facts
of human existence. I don't know. I can't tell.  But I
went.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;I thought his memory was like the other memories of
the dead that accumulate in every man's life &mdash; a vague impress
on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in their swift and final
passage; but before the high and ponderous door, between the tall
houses of a street as still and decorous as a well-kept alley in a
cemetery, I had a vision of him on the stretcher, opening his mouth
voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind. He
lived then before me; he lived as much as he had ever lived &mdash; a
shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities; a
shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the
folds of a gorgeous eloquence.  The vision seemed to enter the house
with me &mdash; the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of
obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the
reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and
muffled like the beating of a heart &mdash; the heart of a conquering
darkness. It was a moment of triumph for the wilderness, an invading
and vengeful rush which, it seemed to me, I would have to keep back
alone for the salvation of another soul. And the memory of what I had
heard him say afar there, with the horned shapes stirring at my back,
in the glow of fires, within the patient woods, those broken phrases
came back to me, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying
simplicity. I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, the
colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the
tempestuous anguish of his soul. And later on I seemed to see his
collected languid manner, when he said one day, &lsquo;This lot of
ivory now is really mine.  The Company did not pay for it. I collected
it myself at a very great personal risk. I am afraid they will try to
claim it as theirs though. H'm. It is a difficult case.  What do you
think I ought to do &mdash; resist? Eh? I want no more than
justice.&rsquo; &hellip; He wanted no more than justice &mdash; no
more than justice. I rang the bell before a mahogany door on the first
floor, and while I waited he seemed to stare at me out of the glassy
panel &mdash; stare with that wide and immense stare embracing,
condemning, loathing all the universe. I seemed to hear the whispered
cry, &lsquo;The horror! The horror!  &rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty
drawingroom with three long windows from floor to ceiling that were
like three luminous and bedraped columns. The bent gilt legs and backs
of the furniture shone in indistinct curves. The tall marble fireplace
had a cold and monumental whiteness. A grand piano stood massively in
a corner; with dark gleams on the flat surfaces like a sombre and
polished sarcophagus.  A high door opened closed I rose.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;She came forward, all in black, with a pale head,
floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning.  It was more
than a year since his death, more than a year since the news came; she
seemed as though she would remember and mourn forever. She took both
my hands in hers and murmured, &lsquo;I had heard you were
coming.&rsquo; I noticed she was not very young &mdash; I mean not
girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for
suffering. The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad
light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. This
fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an
ashy halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me. Their glance was
guileless, profound, confident, and trustful. She carried her
sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow, as though she
would say, &lsquo;I &mdash; I alone know how to mourn for him as he
deserves.&rsquo; But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of
awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of
those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had
died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that
for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday &mdash; nay, this
very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time &mdash; his
death and her sorrow &mdash; I saw her sorrow in the very moment of
his death. Do you understand? I saw them together - I heard them
together. She had said, with a deep catch of the breath, &lsquo;I have
survived&rsquo; while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly,
mingled with her tone of despairing regret, the summing up whisper of
his eternal condemnation. I asked myself what I was doing there, with
a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a
place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to
behold.  She motioned me to a chair. We sat down. I laid the packet
gently on the little table, and she put her hand over it&hellip;
&lsquo;You knew him well,&rsquo; she murmured, after a moment of
mourning silence.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Intimacy grows quickly out there,&rsquo; I
said. &lsquo;I knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know
another.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;And you admired him,&rsquo; she
said. &lsquo;It was impossible to know him and not to admire him. Was
it?&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;He was a remarkable man,&rsquo; I said,
unsteadily.  Then before the appealing fixity of her gaze, that seemed
to watch for more words on my lips, I went on, &lsquo;It was
impossible not to &mdash;&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Love him,&rsquo; she finished eagerly,
silencing me into an appalled dumbness. &lsquo;How true! how true! But
when you think that no one knew him so well as I! I had all his noble
confidence. I knew him best.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;You knew him best,&rsquo; I repeated. And
perhaps she did. But with every word spoken the room was growing
darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illumined by
the unextinguishable light of belief and love.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;You were his friend,&rsquo; she went
on. &lsquo;His friend,&rsquo; she repeated, a little
louder. &lsquo;You must have been, if he had given you this, and sent
you to me. I feel I can speak to you &mdash; and oh! I must speak. I
want you &mdash; you who have heard his last words &mdash; to know I
have been worthy of him&hellip; It is not pride&hellip; Yes!  I am
proud to know I understood him better than any one on earth &mdash; he
told me so himself. And since his mother died I have had no one
&mdash; no one &mdash; to &mdash; to &mdash;&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;I listened. The darkness deepened. I was not even
sure whether he had given me the right bundle. I rather suspect he
wanted me to take care of another batch of his papers which, after his
death, I saw the manager examining under the lamp. And the girl
talked, easing her pain in the certitude of my sympathy; she talked as
thirsty men drink. I had heard that her engagement with Kurtz had been
disapproved by her people. He wasn't rich enough or something. And
indeed I don't know whether he had not been a pauper all his life. He
had given me some reason to infer that it was his impatience of
comparative poverty that drove him out there.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;&hellip; Who was not his friend who had
heard him speak once?&rsquo; she was saying. &lsquo;He drew men
towards him by what was best in them.&rsquo; She looked at me with
intensity. &lsquo;It is the gift of the great,&rsquo; she went on, and
the sound of her low voice seemed to have the accompaniment of all the
other sounds, full of mystery, desolation, and sorrow, I had ever
heard &mdash; the ripple of the river, the soughing of the trees
swayed by the wind, the murmurs of the crowds, the faint ring of
incomprehensible words cried from afar, the whisper of a voice
speaking from beyond the threshold of an eternal darkness. &lsquo;But
you have heard him! You know!&rsquo; she cried.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Yes, I know,&rsquo; I said with something
like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was
in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an
unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which
I could not have defended her &mdash; from which I could not even
defend myself.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;What a loss to me &mdash; to us!&rsquo;
&mdash; she corrected herself with beautiful generosity; then added in
a murmur, 'To the world.&rsquo; By the last gleams of twilight I could
see the glitter of her eyes, full of tears &mdash; of tears that would
not fall.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;I have been very happy &mdash; very
fortunate &mdash; very proud,&rsquo; she went on. &lsquo;Too
fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy for
&mdash; for life.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;She stood up; her fair hair seemed to catch all the
remaining light in a glimmer of gold. I rose, too.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;And of all this,&rsquo; she went on
mournfully, &lsquo;of all his promise, and of all his greatness, of
his generous mind, of his noble heart, nothing remains &mdash; nothing
but a memory. You and I &mdash;&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;We shall always remember him,&rsquo; I said
hastily.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;No!&rsquo; she cried. &lsquo;It is
impossible that all this should be lost &mdash; that such a life
should be sacrificed to leave nothing &mdash; but sorrow. You know
what vast plans he had. I knew of them, too &mdash; I could not
perhaps understand &mdash; but others knew of them. Something must
remain. His words, at least, have not died.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;His words will remain,&rsquo; I
said.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;And his example,&rsquo; she whispered to
herself. &lsquo;Men looked up to him &mdash; his goodness shone in
every act.  His example &mdash;&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;True,&rsquo; I said; &lsquo;his example,
too. Yes, his example.  I forgot that.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;But I do not. I cannot &mdash; I cannot
believe &mdash; not yet. I cannot believe that I shall never see him
again, that nobody will see him again, never, never,
never.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;She put out her arms as if after a retreating
figure, stretching them back and with clasped pale hands across the
fading and narrow sheen of the window.  Never see him! I saw him
clearly enough then. I shall see this eloquent phantom as long as I
live, and I shall see her, too, a tragic and familiar Shade,
resembling in this gesture another one, tragic also, and bedecked with
powerless charms, stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the
infernal stream, the stream of darkness. She said suddenly very low,
'He died as he lived.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;His end,&rsquo; said I, with dull anger
stirring in me, 'was in every way worthy of his
life.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;And I was not with him,&rsquo; she
murmured. My anger subsided before a feeling of infinite
pity.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Everything that could be done &mdash;&rsquo;
I mumbled.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Ah, but I believed in him more than any one
on earth &mdash; more than his own mother, more than &mdash; himself.
He needed me! Me! I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every
sign, every glance.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;I felt like a chill grip on my
chest. &lsquo;Don't,&rsquo; I said, in a muffled voice.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Forgive me. I &mdash; I have mourned so long
in silence &mdash; in silence&hellip; You were with him &mdash; to the
last?  I think of his loneliness. Nobody near to understand him as I
would have understood. Perhaps no one to
hear&hellip;&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;To the very end,&rsquo; I said,
shakily. &lsquo;I heard his very last words&hellip;&rsquo; I stopped
in a fright.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;Repeat them,&rsquo; she murmured in a
heart-broken tone. &lsquo;I want &mdash; I want &mdash; something
&mdash; something &mdash; to &mdash; to live with.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;I was on the point of crying at her, &lsquo;Don't
you hear them?&rsquo; The dusk was repeating them in a persistent
whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly
like the first whisper of a rising wind. &lsquo;The horror! The
horror!&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo; &lsquo;His last word &mdash; to live with,&rsquo;
she insisted. &lsquo;Don't you understand I loved him &mdash; I loved
him &mdash; I loved him!&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;I pulled myself together and spoke
slowly.</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;'The last word he pronounced was &mdash; your
name.&rsquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>&ldquo;I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still,
stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of
inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. &lsquo;I knew it
&mdash; I was sure!&rsquo; &hellip; She knew. She was sure. I heard
her weeping; she had hidden her face in her hands. It seemed to me
that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens
would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall
for such a trifle. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered
Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only
justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have been too
dark &mdash; too dark altogether&hellip;
&rdquo;</paragraph>

<paragraph>Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the
pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. &ldquo;We have
lost the first of the ebb,&rdquo; said the Director suddenly. I raised
my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the
tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed
sombre under an overcast sky &mdash; seemed to lead into the heart of
an immense darkness.</paragraph>

</chapter>