Page 97 - HEART OF DARKNESS

Heart of Darkness

dubious; but I made a grab at his arm, and he understood
at once I meant him to steer whether or no. To tell you
the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my shoes and
socks. ‘He is dead,’ murmured the fellow, immensely

impressed. ‘No doubt about it,’ said I, tugging like mad at
the shoe-laces. ‘And by the way, I suppose Mr. Kurtz is
dead as well by this time.’
‘For the moment that was the dominant thought.
There was a sense of extreme disappointment, as though I
had found out I had been striving after something
altogether without a substance. I couldn’t have been more
disgusted if I had travelled all this way for the sole purpose
of talking with Mr. Kurtz. Talking with … I flung one
shoe overboard, and became aware that that was exactly
what I had been looking forward to— a talk with Kurtz. I
made the strange discovery that I had never imagined him
as doing, you know, but as discoursing. I didn’t say to
myself, ‘Now I will never see him,’ or ‘Now I will never
shake him by the hand,’ but, ‘Now I will never hear him.’
The man presented himself as a voice. Not of course that I
did not connect him with some sort of action. Hadn’t I
been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that
he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory
than all the other agents together? That was not the point.

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