Page 112 - HEART OF DARKNESS

Heart of Darkness

was now reconciled with the arch-priest. He made a point
of that. ‘But when one is young one must see things,
gather experience, ideas; enlarge the mind.’ ‘Here!’ I
interrupted. ‘You can never tell! Here I met Mr. Kurtz,’

he said, youthfully solemn and reproachful. I held my
tongue after that. It appears he had persuaded a Dutch
trading-house on the coast to fit him out with stores and
goods, and had started for the interior with a light heart
and no more idea of what would happen to him than a
baby. He had been wandering about that river for nearly
two years alone, cut off from everybody and everything. ‘I
am not so young as I look. I am twenty-five,’ he said. ‘At
first old Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil,’ he
narrated with keen enjoyment; ‘but I stuck to him, and
talked and talked, till at last he got afraid I would talk the
hind-leg off his favourite dog, so he gave me some cheap
things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he would
never see my face again. Good old Dutchman, Van
Shuyten. I’ve sent him one small lot of ivory a year ago, so
that he can’t call me a little thief when I get back. I hope
he got it. And for the rest I don’t care. I had some wood
stacked for you. That was my old house. Did you see?’
‘I gave him Towson’s book. He made as though he
would kiss me, but restrained himself. ‘The only book I

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