黑暗的心 英文版 Heart of Darkness
约瑟夫.康拉德 Joseph Conrad
I Page 3
"Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat withtheir legs drawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees,stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner:his brother phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with agreat weariness; and all about others were scattered in every poseof contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence.While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his handsand knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink.He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing hisshins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fallon his breastbone.
"I didn't want any more loitering in the shade, and I madehaste towards the station. When near the buildings I meta white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-upthat in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision.I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket,snowy trousers, a clear necktie, and varnished boots. No hat.Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol heldin a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholderbehind his ear.
"I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was the Company'schief accountant, and that all the bookkeeping was done at this station.He had come out for a moment, he said, `to get a breath of fresh air.'The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion of sedentarydesk-life. I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all, only it wasfrom his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is so indissolublyconnected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respected the fellow.Yes; I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair.His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's dummy; but in the greatdemoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That's backbone.His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character.He had been out nearly three years; and, later on, I could not help askinghim how he managed to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush,and said modestly, `I've been teaching one of the native women aboutthe station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work.'This man had verily accomplished something. And he was devoted to his books,which were in apple-pie order.
"Everything else in the station was in a muddle,--heads, things, buildings.Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a streamof manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire set intothe depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory.
"I had to wait in the station for ten days--an eternity.I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaosI would sometimes get into the accountant's office.It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly put together that,as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neckto heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There was no needto open the big shutter to see. It was hot there too;big flies buzzed fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed.I sat generally on the floor, while, of faultless appearance(and even slightly scented), perching on a high stool,he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for exercise.When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalided agentfrom up-country) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance.`The groans of this sick person,' he said, distract my attention.And without that it is extremely difficult to guard againstclerical errors in this climate.'
dipped about a quart of water and tore back again.I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail.appalling manner:his brother phantom.
"One day he remarked, without lifting his head, `In theinterior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my askingwho Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent;and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly,laying down his pen, `He is a very remarkable person.'Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was atpresent in charge of a trading post, a very important one,in the true ivory-country, at `the very bottom of there.Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together.. . .' He began to write again. The sick man was too ill to groan.The flies buzzed in a great peace.
"Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a greattramping of feet. A caravan had come in. A violent babbleof uncouth sounds burst out on the other side of the planks.All the carriers were speaking together, and in the midst of the uproarthe lamentable voice of the chief agent was heard `giving it up'tearfully for the twentieth time that day. . . . He rose slowly.`What a frightful row,' he said. He crossed the room gentlyto look at the sick man, and returning, said to me, `He doesnot hear.' `What! Dead?' I asked, startled. `No, not yet,'he answered, with great composure. Then, alluding with a tossof the head to the tumult in the station-yard, `When one hasgot to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages--hate them to the death.' He remained thoughtful for a moment.`When you see Mr. Kurtz,' he went on, `tell him from me thateverything here'--he glanced at the desk--'is very satisfactory.I don't like to write to him--with those messengers of oursyou never know who may get hold of your letter--at thatCentral Station.' He stared at me for a moment with his mild,bulging eyes. `Oh, he will go far, very far,' he began again.`He will be a somebody in the Administration before long.They, above--the Council in Europe, you know--mean him to be.'
ve never seen anything so unreal in my life.And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this clearedspeck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible,like evil or truth, waiting patiently.
"He turned to his work. The noise outside had ceased,and presently in going out I stopped at the door.In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent was lyingflushed and insensible; the other, bent over his books,was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions;and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still tree-topsof the grove of death.
time requisitefor the `affair.'of sixty men,for a two-hundred-mile tramp.work. The noise outside had ceased,and presently in going out I stopped at the door.In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent.
"Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan of sixty men,for a two-hundred-mile tramp.
"No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths, everywhere;a stamped-in network of paths spreading over the empty land,through long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets,down and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills ablazewith heat; and a solitude, a solitude, nobody, not a hut.The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well, if a lotof mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weaponssuddenly took to traveling on the road between Deal and Gravesend,catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loadsfor them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts wouldget empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were gone too.Still I passed through several abandoned villages.There's something pathetically childish in the ruins of grass walls.Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pairof bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load.Camp, cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrierdead in harness, at rest in the long grass near the path,with an empty water-gourd and his long staff lying by his side.A great silence around and above. Perhaps on some quiet nightthe tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint;a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild--and perhaps with asprofound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country.Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the pathwith an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive--not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road,he declared. Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep,unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-holein the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three milesfarther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement.I had a white companion too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshyand with the exasperating habit of fainting on the hot hillsides,miles away from the least bit of shade and water. Annoying, you know,to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man's headwhile he is coming-to. I couldn't help asking him once whathe meant by coming there at all. `To make money, of course.What do you think?' he said, scornfully. Then he got fever,and had to be carried in a hammock slung under a pole.As he weighed sixteen stone I had no end of rows with the carriers.They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their loads in the night--quite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a speech in Englishwith gestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of eyesbefore me, and the next morning I started the hammock off in frontall right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concernwrecked in a bush--man, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors.The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was very anxious for meto kill somebody, but there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near.I remembered the old doctor,--'It would be interesting for scienceto watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot.'I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.However, all that is to no purpose. On the fifteenth dayI came in sight of the big river again, and hobbled intothe Central Station. It was on a back water surrounded by scruband forest, with a pretty border of smelly mud on one side,and on the three others inclosed by a crazy fence of rushes.A neglected gap was all the gate it had, and the first glanceat the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil wasrunning that show. White men with long staves in their handsappeared languidly from amongst the buildings, strolling upto take a look at me, and then retired out of sight somewhere.One of them, a stout, excitable chap with black mustaches,informed me with great volubility and many digressions, as soon as Itold him who I was, that my steamer was at the bottom of the river.I was thunderstruck. What, how, why? Oh, it was `all right.'The `manager himself' was there. All quite correct.`Everybody had behaved splendidly! splendidly!'--'you must,'he said in agitation, `go and see the general manager at once.He is waiting!'
"I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once.I fancy I see it now, but I am not sure--not at all.Certainly the affair was too stupid--when I think of it--to bealtogether natural. Still. . . . But at the moment it presenteditself simply as a confounded nuisance. The steamer was sunk.They had started two days before in a sudden hurry up the riverwith the manager on board, in charge of some volunteer skipper,and before they had been out three hours they tore the bottomout of her on stones, and she sank near the south bank.I asked myself what I was to do there, now my boat was lost.As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do in fishing my commandout of the river. I had to set about it the very next day.That, and the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station,took some months.
"My first interview with the manager was curious. He did notask me to sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning.He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice.He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue,were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glancefall on one as trenchant and heavy as an ax. But even at thesetimes the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention.Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips,something stealthy--a smile--not a smile--I remember it, but Ican't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though justafter he had said something it got intensified for an instant.It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to makethe meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable.He was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these parts--nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear,nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it!Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust--just uneasiness--nothing more.You have no idea how effective such a . . . a . . . faculty can be.He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even.That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station.He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had cometo him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill . . . He had servedthree terms of three years out there . . . Because triumphant healthin the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself.When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scale--pompously.Jack ashore--with a difference--in externals only.This one could gather from his casual talk. He originated nothing,he could keep the routine going--that's all. But he was great.He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tellwhat could control such a man. He never gave that secret away.Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pause--for out there there were no external checks. Once when varioustropical diseases had laid low almost every `agent' in the station,he was heard to say, `Men who come out here should have no entrails.'He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though ithad been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping.You fancied you had seen things--but the seal was on.When annoyed at meal-times by the constant quarrels of the whitemen about precedence, he ordered an immense round table to be made,for which a special house had to be built. This was the station'smess-room. Where he sat was the first place--the rest were nowhere.One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither civilnor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his `boy'--an overfed youngnegro from the coast--to treat the white men, under his very eyes,with provoking insolence.
"He began to speak as soon as he saw me. I had been very longon the road. He could not wait. Had to start without me.The up-river stations had to be relieved. There had been so manydelays already that he did not know who was dead and who was alive,and how they got on--and so on, and so on. He paid no attentionto my explanations, and, playing with a stick of sealing-wax, repeatedseveral times that the situation was `very grave, very grave.'There were rumors that a very important station was in jeopardy,and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was not true.Mr. Kurtz was . . . I felt weary and irritable. Hang Kurtz, I thought.I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the coast.`Ah! So they talk of him down there,' he murmured to himself.Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had,an exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company;therefore I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said,`very, very uneasy.' Certainly he fidgeted on his chair agood deal, exclaimed, `Ah, Mr. Kurtz!' broke the stick of sealing-waxand seemed dumbfounded by the accident. Next thing he wantedto know `how long it would take to' . . . I interrupted him again.Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too, I was getting savage.`How could I tell,' I said. `I hadn't even seen the wreck yet--some months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me so futile.`Some months,' he said. `Well, let us say three months before wecan make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung outof his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of veranda)muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot.Afterwards I took it back when it was borne in upon me startlinglywith what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisitefor the `affair.'
"I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my backon that station. In that way only it seemed to me I couldkeep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one mustlook about sometimes; and then I saw this station, these menstrolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard.I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wanderedhere and there with their absurd long staves in their hands,like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence.The word `ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed.You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecilerapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse.By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life.And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this clearedspeck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible,like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing awayof this fantastic invasion.
"Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things happened.One evening a grass shed full of calico, cotton prints, beads, and I don'tknow what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have thoughtthe earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash.I was smoking my pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and sawthem all cutting capers in the light, with their arms lifted high,when the stout man with mustaches came tearing down to the river, a tinpail in his hand, assured me that everybody was `behaving splendidly,splendidly,' dipped about a quart of water and tore back again.I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail.
"I strolled up. There was no hurry. You see the thing had gone offlike a box of matches. It had been hopeless from the very first.The flame had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everything--and collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely.A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the firein some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly.I saw him, later on, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade lookingvery sick and trying to recover himself: afterwards he arose and went out--and the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again.As I approached the glow from the dark I found myself at the back oftwo men, talking. I heard the name of Kurtz pronounced, then the words, `takeadvantage of this unfortunate accident.' One of the men was the manager.I wished him a good evening. `Did you ever see anything like it--eh? it is incredible,' he said, and walked off. The other man remained.He was a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved,with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He was stand-offishwith the other agents, and they on their side said he was the manager'sspy upon them. As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him before.We got into talk, and by-and-by we strolled away from the hissing ruins.Then he asked me to his room, which was in the main building of the station.He struck a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not onlya silver-mounted dressing-case but also a whole candle all to himself.Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have anyright to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls; a collectionof spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies.The business intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks--so I had been informed; but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywherein the station, and he had been there more than a year--waiting. It seemshe could not make bricks without something, I don't know what--straw maybe.Anyways, it could not be found there, and as it was not likely to be sentfrom Europe, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for.An act of special creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting--all the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of them--for something; and uponmy word it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the way theytook it, though the only thing that ever came to them was disease--as far as I could see. They beguiled the time by backbiting andintriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an airof plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of course.It was as unreal as everything else--as the philanthropic pretense of thewhole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work.The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-postwhere ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages.They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account,--but as to effectually lifting a little finger--oh, no. By heavens! thereis something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horsewhile another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out.Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a wayof looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saintsinto a kick.