黑暗的心 英文版 Heart of Darkness
约瑟夫.康拉德 Joseph Conrad
II Page 2
"I had been dimly aware for some time of a worrying noise,and when I lifted my eyes I saw the wood-pile was gone,and the manager, aided by all the pilgrims, was shouting atme from the river-side. I slipped the book into my pocket.I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself awayfrom the shelter of an old and solid friendship.
"I started the lame engine ahead. `It must be this miserable trader--this intruder,' exclaimed the manager, looking back malevolentlyat the place we had left. `He must be English,' I said.`It will not save him from getting into trouble if he is not careful,'muttered the manager darkly. I observed with assumed innocencethat no man was safe from trouble in this world.
"The current was more rapid now, the steamer seemed at herlast gasp, the stern-wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myselflistening on tiptoe for the next beat of the boat, for in sobertruth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment.It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled.Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure ourprogress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast.To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience.The manager displayed a beautiful resignation. I fretted and fumed and tookto arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz;but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speechor my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matterwho was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight.The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach,and beyond my power of meddling.
"Towards the evening of the second day we judged ourselvesabout eight miles from Kurtz's station. I wanted to push on;but the manager looked grave, and told me the navigation upthere was so dangerous that it would be advisable, the sun beingvery low already, to wait where we were till next morning.Moreover, he pointed out that if the warning to approachcautiously were to be followed, we must approach in daylight--not at dusk, or in the dark. This was sensible enough.Eight miles meant nearly three hours' steaming for us, and Icould also see suspicious ripples at the upper end of the reach.Nevertheless, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay,and most unreasonably too, since one night more could notmatter much after so many months. As we had plenty of wood,and caution was the word, I brought up in the middle of the stream.The reach was narrow, straight, with high sides like a railway cutting.The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set.The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility saton the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the creepersand every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changedinto stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf.It was not sleep--it seemed unnatural, like a state of trance.Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard.You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deaf--then the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well.About three in the morning some large fish leaped, and the loudsplash made me jump as though a gun had been fired.When the sun rose there was a white fog, very warm and clammy,and more blinding than the night. It did not shift or drive;it was just there, standing all round you like something solid.At eight or nine, perhaps, it lifted as a shutter lifts.We had a glimpse of the towering multitude of trees, of the immensematted jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun hangingover it--all perfectly still--and then the white shutter camedown again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves. I orderedthe chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again.Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry,as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air.It ceased. A complaining clamor, modulated in savage discords,filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hairstir under my cap. I don't know how it struck the others:to me it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so suddenly,and apparently from all sides at once, did this tumultuousand mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a hurried outbreakof almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short,leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and obstinatelylistening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence.`Good God! What is the meaning--?' stammered at my elbow one ofthe pilgrims,--a little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers,who wore side-spring boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks.Two others remained open-mouthed a whole minute, then dashedinto the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand dartingscared glances, with Winchesters at `ready' in their hands.What we could see was just the steamer we were on, her outlines blurredas though she had been on the point of dissolving, and a misty stripof water, perhaps two feet broad, around her--and that was all.The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and earswere concerned. Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared; swept offwithout leaving a whisper or a shadow behind.
"I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short,so as to be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat atonce if necessary. `Will they attack?' whispered an awed voice.`We will all be butchered in this fog,' murmured another.The faces twitched with the strain, the hands trembled slightly,the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious to see the contrastof expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew,who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we,though their homes were only eight hundred miles away.The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curiouslook of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row.The others had an alert, naturally interested expression;but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or twowho grinned as they hauled at the chain. Several exchanged short,grunting phrases, which seemed to settle the matter totheir satisfaction. Their headman, a young, broad-chested black,severely draped in dark-blue fringed cloths, with fiercenostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets,stood near me. `Aha!' I said, just for good fellowship's sake.`Catch `im,' he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyesand a flash of sharp teeth--'catch `im. Give `im to us.'`To you, eh?' I asked; `what would you do with them?' `Eat `im!'he said curtly, and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked outinto the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude.I would no doubt have been properly horrified, had it notoccurred to me that he and his chaps must be very hungry:that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for atleast this month past. They had been engaged for six months(I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time,as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belongedto the beginnings of time--had no inherited experience to teachthem as it were), and of course, as long as there was a pieceof paper written over in accordance with some farcical lawor other made down the river, it didn't enter anybody's headto trouble how they would live. Certainly they had broughtwith them some rotten hippo-meat, which couldn't have lastedvery long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn't, in the midstof a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantityof it overboard. It looked like a high-handed proceeding;but it was really a case of legitimate self-defense. You can'tbreathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the sametime keep your precarious grip on existence. Besides that,they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire,each about nine inches long; and the theory was they were to buytheir provisions with that currency in river-side villages.You can see how THAT worked. There were either no villages,or the people were hostile, or the director, who like the restof us fed out of tins, with an occasional old he-goat thrown in,didn't want to stop the steamer for some more or lessrecondite reason. So, unless they swallowed the wire itself,or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don't seewhat good their extravagant salary could be to them.I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large andhonorable trading company. For the rest, the only thing to eat--though it didn't look eatable in the least--I saw in theirpossession was a few lumps of some stuff like half-cooked dough,of a dirty lavender color, they kept wrapped in leaves,and now and then swallowed a piece of, but so small that itseemed done more for the looks of the thing than for any seriouspurpose of sustenance. Why in the name of all the gnawing devilsof hunger they didn't go for us--they were thirty to five--and have a good tuck in for once, amazes me now when I think of it.They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weighthe consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though theirskins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard.And I saw that something restraining, one of those humansecrets that baffle probability, had come into play there.I looked at them with a swift quickening of interest--not because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them beforevery long, though I own to you that just then I perceived--in a new light, as it were--how unwholesome the pilgrims looked,and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so--what shall I say?--so--unappetizing: a touch of fantasticvanity which fitted well with the dream-sensation that pervadedall my days at that time. Perhaps I had a little fever too.One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse.I had often `a little fever,' or a little touch of other things--the playful paw-strokes of the wilderness, the preliminary triflingbefore the more serious onslaught which came in due course.Yes; I looked at them as you would on any human being,with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities,weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorablephysical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint?Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear--or some kindof primitive honor? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patiencecan wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is;and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles,they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don't you knowthe devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment,its black thoughts, its somber and brooding ferocity? Well, I do.It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly.It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonor, and the perditionof one's soul--than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true.And these chaps too had no earthly reason for any kindof scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraintfrom a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield.But there was the fact facing me--the fact dazzling, to be seen,like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a ripple on anunfathomable enigma, a mystery greater--when I thought of it--than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in thissavage clamor that had swept by us on the river-bank, behindthe blind whiteness of the fog.
"Two pilgrims were quarreling in hurried whispers as towhich bank. `Left.' `No, no; how can you? Right, right, of course.'`It is very serious,' said the manager's voice behind me; `I would bedesolated if anything should happen to Mr. Kurtz before we came up.'I looked at him, and had not the slightest doubt he was sincere.He was just the kind of man who would wish to preserve appearances.That was his restraint. But when he muttered something aboutgoing on at once, I did not even take the trouble to answer him.I knew, and he knew, that it was impossible. Were we to let go ourhold of the bottom, we would be absolutely in the air--in space.We wouldn't be able to tell where we were going to--whether upor down stream, or across--till we fetched against one bankor the other,--and then we wouldn't know at first which it was.Of course I made no move. I had no mind for a smash-up. You couldn'timagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck. Whether drowned at onceor not, we were sure to perish speedily in one way or another.`I authorize you to take all the risks,' he said, after a short silence.`I refuse to take any,' I said shortly; which was just the answerhe expected, though its tone might have surprised him.`Well, I must defer to your judgment. You are captain,' he said,with marked civility. I turned my shoulder to him in sign ofmy appreciation, and looked into the fog. How long would it last?It was the most hopeless look-out. The approach to this Kurtz grubbingfor ivory in the wretched bush was beset by as many dangers as thoughhe had been an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle.`Will they attack, do you think?' asked the manager,in a confidential tone.
"I did not think they would attack, for several obvious reasons.The thick fog was one. If they left the bank in their canoes theywould get lost in it, as we would be if we attempted to move.Still, I had also judged the jungle of both banks quite impenetrable--and yet eyes were in it, eyes that had seen us. The river-sidebushes were certainly very thick; but the undergrowth behindwas evidently penetrable. However, during the short lift Ihad seen no canoes anywhere in the reach--certainly not abreastof the steamer. But what made the idea of attack inconceivableto me was the nature of the noise--of the cries we had heard.They had not the fierce character boding of immediate hostile intention.Unexpected, wild, and violent as they had been, they had given mean irresistible impression of sorrow. The glimpse of the steamboathad for some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief.The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a greathuman passion let loose. Even extreme grief may ultimately ventitself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy.. . .
"You should have seen the pilgrims stare! They had no heart to grin, or evento revile me; but I believe they thought me gone mad--with fright, maybe.I delivered a regular lecture. My dear boys, it was no good bothering.Keep a look-out? Well, you may guess I watched the fog for the signsof lifting as a cat watches a mouse; but for anything else our eyeswere of no more use to us than if we had been buried miles deep in a heapof cotton-wool. It felt like it too--choking, warm, stifling. Besides, allI said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to fact.What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt at repulse.The action was very far from being aggressive--it was not even defensive,in the usual sense: it was undertaken under the stress of desperation,and in its essence was purely protective.
"It developed itself, I should say, two hours after the fog lifted,and its commencement was at a spot, roughly speaking,about a mile and a half below Kurtz's station. We had justfloundered and flopped round a bend, when I saw an islet, a meregrassy hummock of bright green, in the middle of the stream.It was the only thing of the kind; but as we opened the reach more,I perceived it was the head of a long sandbank, or rather of a chainof shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river.They were discolored, just awash, and the whole lot was seenjust under the water, exactly as a man's backbone is seenrunning down the middle of his back under the skin.Now, as far as I did see, I could go to the right or tothe left of this. I didn't know either channel, of course.The banks looked pretty well alike, the depth appeared the same;but as I had been informed the station was on the west side,I naturally headed for the western passage.
"No sooner had we fairly entered it than I became aware it was muchnarrower than I had supposed. To the left of us there was the longuninterrupted shoal, and to the right a high, steep bank heavilyovergrown with bushes. Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks.The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to distancea large limb of some tree projected rigidly over the stream.It was then well on in the afternoon, the face of the forest was gloomy,and a broad strip of shadow had already fallen on the water.In this shadow we steamed up--very slowly, as you may imagine.I sheered her well inshore--the water being deepest near the bank,as the sounding-pole informed me.
Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure ourprogress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast.To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience.The manager displayed a beautiful resignation. I fretted and fumed and tookto arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz;but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speechor my silence,
"One of my hungry and forbearing friends was sounding in the bowsjust below me. This steamboat was exactly like a decked scow.On the deck there were two little teak-wood houses, with doors and windows.The boiler was in the fore-end, and the machinery right astern.Over the whole there was a light roof, supported on stanchions.The funnel projected through that roof, and in front of the funnela small cabin built of light planks served for a pilot-house.It contained a couch, two camp-stools, a loaded Martini-Henryleaning in one corner, a tiny table, and the steering-wheel.It had a wide door in front and a broad shutter at each side.All these were always thrown open, of course. I spent my days perchedup there on the extreme fore-end of that roof, before the door.At night I slept, or tried to, on the couch. An athletic blackbelonging to some coast tribe, and educated by my poor predecessor,was the helmsman. He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a bluecloth wrapper from the waist to the ankles, and thought all the worldof himself. He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen.He steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lostsight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk,and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the upper hand of himin a minute.
"I was looking down at the sounding-pole, and feeling much annoyedto see at each try a little more of it stick out of that river,when I saw my poleman give up the business suddenly, and stretch himselfflat on the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul his pole in.He kept hold on it though, and it trailed in the water.At the same time the fireman, whom I could also see below me,sat down abruptly before his furnace and ducked his head.I was amazed. Then I had to look at the river mighty quick,because there was a snag in the fairway. Sticks, little sticks,were flying about--thick: they were whizzing before my nose,dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilot-house.All this time the river, the shore, the woods, were very quiet--perfectly quiet. I could only hear the heavy splashing thumpof the stern-wheel and the patter of these things. We clearedthe snag clumsily. Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at!I stepped in quickly to close the shutter on the land side.That fool-helmsman, his hands on the spokes, was lifting his knees high,stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reined-in horse.Confound him! And we were staggering within ten feet of the bank.I had to lean right out to swing the heavy shutter, and I sawa face amongst the leaves on the level with my own, looking at mevery fierce and steady; and then suddenly, as though a veil hadbeen removed from my eyes, I made out, deep in the tangled gloom,naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes,--the bush was swarmingwith human limbs in movement, glistening, of bronze color.The twigs shook, swayed, and rustled, the arrows flew outof them, and then the shutter came to. `Steer her straight,'I said to the helmsman. He held his head rigid, face forward;but his eyes rolled, he kept on lifting and setting downhis feet gently, his mouth foamed a little. `Keep quiet!'I said in a fury. I might just as well have ordered a treenot to sway in the wind. I darted out. Below me there wasa great scuffle of feet on the iron deck; confused exclamations;a voice screamed, `Can you turn back?' I caught shape of aV-shaped ripple on the water ahead. What? Another snag!A fusillade burst out under my feet. The pilgrims had opened withtheir Winchesters, and were simply squirting lead into that bush.A deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove slowly forward.I swore at it. Now I couldn't see the ripple or the snag either.I stood in the doorway, peering, and the arrows came in swarms.They might have been poisoned, but they looked as thoughthey wouldn't kill a cat. The bush began to howl.Our wood-cutters raised a warlike whoop; the report of a riflejust at my back deafened me. I glanced over my shoulder,and the pilot-house was yet full of noise and smoke when I madea dash at the wheel. The fool-nigger had dropped everything,to throw the shutter open and let off that Martini-Henry. He stoodbefore the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him to come back,while I straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat.There was no room to turn even if I had wanted to, the snagwas somewhere very near ahead in that confounded smoke,there was no time to lose, so I just crowded her into the bank--right into the bank, where I knew the water was deep.