There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and
Marlow's lean face appeared, worn, hollow, with downward folds and
dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention; and as he
took vigorous draws at his pipe, it seemed to retreat and advance out of
the night in the regular flicker of tiny flame. The match went out.
"Absurd!" he cried. "This is the worst of trying to tell. . . . Here
you all are, each moored with two good addresses, like a hulk with
two anchors, a butcher round one corner, a policeman round another,
excellent appetites, and temperature normal--you hear--normal from
year's end to year's end. And you say, Absurd! Absurd be--exploded!
Absurd! My dear boys, what can you expect from a man who out of sheer
nervousness had just flung overboard a pair of new shoes! Now I think of
it, it is amazing I did not shed tears. I am, upon the whole, proud
of my fortitude. I was cut to the quick at the idea of having lost the
inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz. Of course I
was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. Oh, yes, I heard more than
enough. And I was right, too. A voice. He was very little more than a
voice. And I heard--him--it--this voice--other voices--all of them were
so little more than voices--and the memory of that time itself lingers
around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration of one immense jabber,
silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, without any kind of
sense. Voices, voices--even the girl herself--now--"
|