Page 122 - HEART OF DARKNESS

Heart of Darkness

camps of these people surrounded the place, and the chiefs
came every day to see him. They would crawl…. ‘I don’t
want to know anything of the ceremonies used when
approaching Mr. Kurtz,’ I shouted. Curious, this feeling

that came over me that such details would be more
intolerable than those heads drying on the stakes under
Mr. Kurtz’s windows. After all, that was only a savage
sight, while I seemed at one bound to have been
transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors,
where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief,
being something that had a right to exist—obviously—in
the sunshine. The young man looked at me with surprise.
I suppose it did not occur to him that Mr. Kurtz was no
idol of mine. He forgot I hadn’t heard any of these
splendid monologues on, what was it? on love, justice,
conduct of life—or what not. If it had come to crawling
before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the veriest savage
of them all. I had no idea of the conditions, he said: these
heads were the heads of rebels. I shocked him excessively
by laughing. Rebels! What would be the next definition I
was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals,
workers—and these were rebels. Those rebellious heads
looked very subdued to me on their sticks. ‘You don’t
know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz,’ cried Kurtz’s

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