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“I laid the ghost of his gifts at last with a lie,” he began, suddenly.
“Girl! What? Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it—completely. They—the
women, I mean—are out of it—should be out of it. We must help them to stay
in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse. Oh, she had to
be out of it. You should have heard the disinterred body of Mr. Kurtz
saying, ‘My Intended.’ You would have perceived directly then how completely
she was out of it. And the lofty frontal bone of Mr. Kurtz! They say the
hair goes on growing sometimes, but this—ah—specimen, was impressively bald.
The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a
ball—an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and—lo!—he had withered; it had
taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh,
and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some
devilish initiation. He was its spoiled and pampered favourite. Ivory? I
should think so. Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old mud shanty was bursting
with it. You would think there was not a single tusk left either above or
below the ground in the whole country. ‘Mostly fossil,’ the manager had
remarked, disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am; but they call it
fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers do bury the tusks
sometimes—but evidently they couldn’t bury this parcel deep enough to save
the gifted Mr. Kurtz from his fate. We filled the steamboat with it, and had
to pile a lot on the deck. Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could
see, because the appreciation of this favour had remained with him to the
last. You should have heard him say, ‘My ivory.’ Oh, yes, I heard him. ‘My
Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my—’ everything belonged to him.
It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst
into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their
places. Everything belonged to him—but that was a trifle. The thing was to
know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their
own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was
impossible—it was not good for one either—trying to imagine. He had taken a
high seat amongst the devils of the land—I mean literally. You can’t
understand. How could you?—with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded
by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately
between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and
gallows and lunatic asylums—how can you imagine what particular region of
the first ages a man’s untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of
solitude—utter solitude without a policeman—by the way of silence—utter
silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering
of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When
they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your
own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go
wrong—too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of
darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the
devil; the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil—I
don’t know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to
be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds.
Then the earth for you is only a standing place—and whether to be like this
is your loss or your gain I won’t pretend to say. But most of us are neither
one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put
up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove!—breathe dead hippo,
so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don’t you see? Your
strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of
unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in—your power of devotion, not to
yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. And that’s difficult
enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain—I am trying to
account to myself for—for—Mr. Kurtz—for the shade of Mr. Kurtz. This
initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honoured me with its amazing
confidence before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak
English to me. The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England,
and—as he was good enough to say himself—his sympathies were in the right
place. His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe
contributed to the making of Kurtz; and by and by I learned that, most
appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage
Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future
guidance. And he had written it, too. I’ve seen it. I’ve read it. It was
eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-strung, I think. Seventeen
pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before
his—let us say—nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain
midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which—as far as I reluctantly
gathered from what I heard at various times—were offered up to him—do you
understand?—to Mr. Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful piece of writing.
The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes
me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point
of development we had arrived at, ‘must necessarily appear to them [savages]
in the nature of supernatural beings—we approach them with the might of a
deity,’ and so on, and so on. ‘By the simple exercise of our will we can
exert a power for good practically unbounded,’ etc., etc. From that point he
soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though
difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic
Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm.
This was the unbounded power of eloquence—of words—of burning noble words.
There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases,
unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much
later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method.
It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic
sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of
lightning in a serene sky: ‘Exterminate all the brutes!’ The curious part
was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum,
because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly
entreated me to take good care of ‘my pamphlet’ (he called it), as it was
sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career. I had full
information about all these things, and, besides, as it turned out, I was to
have the care of his memory. I’ve done enough for it to give me the
indisputable right to lay it, if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the
dust-bin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and, figuratively speaking,
all the dead cats of civilization. But then, you see, I can’t choose. He
won’t be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. He had the power to
charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his
honour; he could also fill the small souls of the pilgrims with bitter
misgivings: he had one devoted friend at least, and he had conquered one
soul in the world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with
self-seeking. No; I can’t forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the
fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my
late helmsman awfully—I missed him even while his body was still lying in
the pilot-house. Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a
savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well,
don’t you see, he had done something, he had steered; for months I had him
at my back—a help—an instrument. It was a kind of partnership. He steered
for me—I had to look after him, I worried about his deficiencies, and thus a
subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was
suddenly broken. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he
received his hurt remains to this day in my memory—like a claim of distant
kinship affirmed in a supreme moment.
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“I put that image of him to rest with a lie,” he said suddenly. “Girl!
What? Did I mention a girl? Let’s leave her out of it. The women should be
out of it. We must keep them in that beautiful world of theirs, or our world
will get worse. She had to be left out of it. You should have heard Kurtz,
looking like a corpse, saying, ‘My Beloved.’ You would have seen then how
clueless she had to be. And the head of Mr. Kurtz! They say that hair keeps
growing after death, but this living corpse was bald. The wilderness had
patted him on the head, and it became an ivory cue ball. The wilderness
caressed him and he wasted away. His soul was married to the jungle. He was
its spoiled favorite. Was there ivory? Absolutely. Heaps of it, stacks of
it. The old mud shack was bursting with it. You would have thought there
wasn’t a tusk left anywhere in the country. ‘Mostly fossilized ivory,’ said
the manager dismissively. It was no more fossilized than I am, but that’s
what they call it when you dig it up. Apparently the natives bury it
sometimes, but they couldn’t bury it deep enough to save Mr. Kurtz from his
destiny. We filled the steamboat with it and had to pile a lot on the deck.
He could see and enjoy it for as long as his eyes worked. He loved it to the
end. You should have heard him say, ‘My ivory.’ Oh, I heard him. ‘My
Beloved, my ivory, my station, my river, my—’ everything belonged to him. I
kept waiting for the jungle to laugh at his arrogance. What difference did
it make what belonged to him? What mattered was what he belonged to, what
dark powers had taken possession of him. It was terrifying to think about.
He was a devil. Literally. You can’t understand. How could you, with solid
pavement beneath your feet and neighbors and the police looking out for you?
How can you imagine what dark things a man can do living all alone in a
primitive place like that, without any civilization around to control him?
Those little pieces of civilization like neighbors and policemen, they make
all the difference. If you were without them, you’d have to fall back on
your own inner strength. Of course, you might be too much of a fool to
recognize the dark temptations that would arise. No fool ever sold his soul
to the devil. The fool is too foolish or the devil is too devilish to make
that deal. I don’t know which. Or maybe you’re just such a wonderful person
that you wouldn’t feel such temptations. If so, the earth is just a waiting
room for you. But most of us aren’t that way. The earth is a place for us to
live in, where we have to put up with terrible sights and sounds and smells
and try not to get contaminated by them. This is where your inner strength
comes in, your determination to bury those dark feelings deep and focus on
some other business. And that’s hard to do. I’m not trying to excuse or
explain Mr. Kurtz. I’m trying to make sense of him to myself. He was
practically a ghost when we found him, but this ghost spoke to me before he
disappeared entirely. This was because he could speak English to me. Kurtz
had gone to school in England and that place was still special to him. His
mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All of Europe helped
make Kurtz. That was appropriate, since the International Society for the
Suppression of Savage Customs had asked him to make a report to help them
with their future plans. And he wrote it. I’ve read it. It was incredibly
eloquent, but full of anxiety. Seventeen pages of tiny writing! He must have
written it before his, um, nerves went wrong and led him to host dances at
midnight in the jungle that ended with human flesh being offered up to him.
(Or so I gathered from various sources.) But it was a beautiful piece of
writing. In light of what happened later, the opening paragraph seems a
little ominous. He began by saying that we whites ‘must seem like
supernatural beings to savages, we must look like gods to them,’ and so on.
‘By applying our will, we can do endless good,’ etc. It carried me away,
though it’s difficult to remember what exactly it said. I know it gave me
the impression of an immense land overseen by gentle and noble rulers. It
was exciting, so full of brilliant words. There was no practical advice at
all, except for a note on the last page, which he apparently scrawled
sometime later, in a shaky hand. It was a very simple method of rule that he
proposed, and after reading all of those pages of pure poetry about helping
the natives, it was like a terrifying flash of lightning in a clear sky:
‘Exterminate all the brutes!’ He apparently forgot all about that piece of
practical advice, because later he asked me to take good care of ‘my
pamphlet’ (as he called it), which he was sure would be good for his career.
As it turned out, I had to handle his affairs after he died. After
everything I’ve done, I should have the right to put his memory in the
trashcan of history, but I don’t have a choice in the matter. He won’t be
forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. He could make his followers
do terrible things, and his enemies feel consumed by bitterness. He had one
true friend, at least, one person who was neither simple nor selfish. So no,
I can’t forget him, even though I don’t think he was worth the life we lost
trying to rescue him. I missed the dead helmsman a lot, even while his body
was still lying in the cabin. Maybe you think it’s strange to feel that way
about a savage, but for months he was a sort of partner to me. I was only
aware of our bond after it had been broken. The look he gave me when he was
hit with the spear is still in my mind.
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