Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary (20 page)

Fine buildings. Position on a hill. Rather breezy.–

Left at 3
^h
pm. At the first heavy ascent met Mr Davis
²⁹
Miss[ionary] returning from a preaching trip. Rev. Bentley
³⁰
away in the south with his wife.–

This being off the road no section given–Distance traversed about 15 miles–Gen[eral] Direction ENE.–

At Luasi we get on again on to the gov[ernmen]
^t
road.–

Camped at 4½ pm. with Mr Heche in company.–

Today no sunshine–

Wind remarkably cold–

Gloomy day.–

 

Monday. 28
^th

Left camp at 6.30 after breakfasting with Heche–

Road at first hilly. Then walking along the ridges of hill chains with valleys on both sides.–The country more open and there is much more trees
³¹
growing in large clumps in the ravines.–

Passed Nzungi and camped 11
^h
on the right bank of Ngoma. A rapid little river with rocky bed. Village on a hill to the right.–

No sunshine. Gloomy cold day. Squalls.

 

Tuesday–29
^th

Left camp at 7
^h
after a good night's rest. Continuous ascent; rather easy at first.–Crossed wooded ravines and the river Lunzadi by a very decent bridge–

At 9
^h
met Mr Louette escorting a sick agent of the Comp[an]
^y
back to Matadi–Looking very well–Bad news from up the river–All the steamers disabled. One wrecked.
³²
–Country wooded–At 10.30 camped at Inkissi.

Sun visible at 6.30. Very warm day.–

 

29th

Inkissi River very rapid, is about 100 yards broad–Passage in canoes.–Banks wooded very densely and valley of the river rather deep but very narrow.–

Today did not set the tent but put up in gov[ernmen]
^t
shimbek.
³³

Zanzibari in charge–Very obliging.–Met ripe pineapple for the first time.–

On the road today passed a skeleton tied-up to a post. Also white man's grave–No name. Heap of stones in the form of a cross.

Health good now–

Wednesday–30th.

Left at 6 am intending to camp at Kinfumu–Two hours sharp walk brought me to Nsona na Nsefe–Market–½ hour after Harou arrived very ill with billious [
sic
] attack and fever.–Laid him down in gov[ernmen]
^t
shimbek–Dose of Ipeca.
³⁴
Vomiting bile in enormous quantities. At 11
^h
gave him 1 gramme of quinine and lots of hot tea. Hot fit ending in heavy perspiration. At 9
^h
p.m. put him in hammock and started for Kinfumu–Row with carriers
³⁵
all the way. Harou suffering much through the jerks of the hammock. Camped at a small stream.–

At 4
^h
Harou better. Fever gone.–

Up till noon, sky clouded and strong NW wind very chilling. From 1
^h
pm to 4
^h
pm sky clear and very hot day. Expect lots of battles with carriers to-morrow–Had them all called and made a speech which they did not understand.
³⁶
They promise good behaviour

 

Thursday–31st

Left at 6
^h
–Sent Harou ahead and followed in ½ an hour.–Road presents several sharp ascents and a few others easier but rather long. Notice in places sandy surface soil instead of hard clay as heretofore; think however that the layer of sand is not very thick and that the clay would be found under it. Great difficulty in carrying Harou.–Too heavy. Bother! Made two long halts to rest the carriers. Country wooded in valleys and on many of the ridges.

At 2.30 pm reached Luila at last and camped on right bank.–Breeze from SW

General direction of march about NE½E

Distance e[a]st[war]
^d
–16 miles

Congo very narrow and rapid. Kinzilu rushing in. A short distance up from the mouth fine waterfall.–

–Sun rose red–From 9
^h
a.m. infernally hot day.–

Harou very little better.

Self rather seedy. Bathed.

Luila about 60 feet wide. Shallow

 

Friday–1
^st
of August 1890

Left at 6.30 am after a very indifferently passed night–Cold, Heavy mists–Road in long ascents and sharp dips all the way to Mfumu Mbé–

After leaving there a long and painful climb up a very steep hill; then a long descent to Mfumu Koko where a long halt was made.

Left at 12.30pm–towards Nselemba. Many ascents–The aspect of the country entirely changed–Wooded hills with openings.–Path almost all the afternoon thro[ugh] a forest of light trees with dense undergrowth.–

After a halt on a wooded hillside reached Nselemba at 4
^h
10
^m
pm.

 

Put up at gov[ernmen]
^t
shanty.–

Row between the carriers and a man stating himself in gov[ernmen]
^t
employ, about a mat.–Blows with sticks raining hard–Stopped it. Chief came with a youth about 13 suffering from gunshot wound in the head. Bullet entered about an inch above the right eyebrow and came out a little inside the roots of the hair, fairly in the middle of the brow in a line with the bridge of the nose–Bone not damaged apparently. Gave him a little glycerine to put on the wound made by the bullet on coming out.

Harou not very well. Mosquitos–Frogs–Beastly. Glad to see the end of this stupid tramp. Feel rather seedy.

Sun rose red–Very hot day–Wind S[ou]
^th
.

General direction of march–NEbyN

Distance about 17 miles

The three stories in this volume
¹
lay no claim to unity of artistic purpose.
²
The only bond between them is that of the time in which they were written. They belong to the period immediately following the publication of the
Nigger of the ‘Narcissus,'
and preceding the first conception of
Nostromo
,
³
two books which, it seems to me, stand apart and by themselves in the body of my work. It is also the period during which I contributed to ‘Maga;'
⁴
a period dominated by
Lord Jim
and associated in my grateful memory with the late Mr William Blackwood's
⁵
encouraging and helpful kindness.

‘Youth' was not my first contribution
⁶
to ‘Maga.' It was the second. But that story marks the first appearance in the world of the man Marlow, with whom my relations have grown very intimate in the course of years.
⁷
The origins of that gentleman (nobody so far as I know has ever hinted that he was anything but that)–his origins have been the subject of some literary speculation of, I am glad to say, a friendly nature.

One would think that I am the proper person to throw a light on the matter; but in truth I find that it isn't so easy. It is pleasant to remember that nobody has charged him with fraudulent purposes or looked down on him as a charlatan; but apart from that he was supposed to be all sorts of things: a clever screen, a mere device, ‘a personator,' a familiar spirit, a whispering ‘daemon.'
⁸
I myself have been suspected of a mediated plan for his capture.

That is not so. I made no plans. The man Marlow and I came together in a casual manner of those health-resort acquaintances which sometimes ripen into friendships. This one has ripened. For all his assertiveness in matters of opinion he is not an intrusive person. He haunts my hours of solitude, when, in silence, we lay our heads together in great comfort and harmony; but as we part at the end of a tale I am never sure that it may not be for the last time. Yet I don't think that either of us would care much to survive the other. In his case, at any rate, his occupation would be gone
⁹
and he would suffer from that extinction, because I suspect him of some vanity in the Solomonian sense.
¹⁰
Of all my people he's the one that has never been a vexation to my spirit. A most discreet, understanding man….

Even before appearing in book-form ‘Youth' was very well received.
¹¹
It lies on me to confess at last, and this is as good a place for it as another, that I have been all my life–all my two lives
¹²
–the spoiled adopted child of Great Britain and even of the Empire; for it was Australia that gave me my first command.
¹³
I break out into this declaration not because of a lurking tendency towards megalomania, but, on the contrary, as a man who has no very notable illusions about himself. I follow the instincts of vain-glory and humility natural to all mankind. For it can hardly be denied that it is not their own deserts that men are most proud of, but rather of their prodigious luck, of their marvellous fortune: of that in their lives for which thanks and sacrifices must be offered on the altars of the inscrutable gods.

‘Heart of Darkness' also received a certain amount of notice from the first; and of its origins this much may be said: it is well known that curious men go prying into all sorts of places (where they have no business) and come out of them with all kinds of spoil. This story, and one other,
¹⁴
not in this volume, are all the spoil I brought out from the centre of Africa, where, really, I had no sort of business. More ambitious in its scope and longer in the telling, ‘Heart of Darkness' is quite as authentic in fundamentals as ‘Youth.' It is, obviously, written in another mood. I won't characterize the mood precisely, but anybody can see that it is anything but the mood of wistful regret, of reminiscent tenderness.

One more remark may be added. ‘Youth' is a feat of memory. It is a record of experience; but that experience, in its facts, in its inwardness and in its outward colouring, begins and ends in myself. ‘Heart of Darkness' is experience, too; but it is experience pushed a little (and only a very little) beyond the actual facts of the case for the perfectly legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it home to the minds and bosoms of the readers. There it was no longer a matter of sincere colouring. It was like another art altogether. That sombre theme had to be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear after the last note had been struck.

After saying so much there remains the last tale of the book, still untouched. ‘The End of the Tether' is a story of sea-life in a rather special way; and the most intimate thing I can say of it is this; that having lived that life fully, amongst its men, its thoughts and sensations, I have found it possible, without the slightest misgiving, in all sincerity of heart and peace of conscience, to conceive the existence of Captain Whalley's personality and to relate the manner of his end. This statement acquires some force from the circumstance that the pages of that story–a fair half of the book–are also the product of experience. That experience belongs (like ‘Youth”s) to the time before I ever thought of putting pen to paper.
¹⁵
As to its ‘reality,' that is for the readers to determine. One had to pick up one's facts here and there. More skill would have made them more real and the whole composition more interesting. But here we are approaching the veiled region of artistic values which it would be improper and indeed dangerous for me to enter. I have looked over the proofs, have corrected a misprint or two, have changed a word or two–and that's all. It is not very likely that I shall ever read ‘The End of the Tether' again. No more need be said. It accords best with my feelings to part from Captain Whalley in affectionate silence.

1917
J.C.

NOTES

1.
volume: Heart of Darkness
was collected, with ‘Youth' and ‘The End of the Tether', in
Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories
(Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1902).

2.
unity of artistic purpose
: Conrad later revised his view that the volume had ‘no claim to unity', writing to his American publisher F. N. Doubleday in February 1924: ‘Or take the volume of
Youth
, which in its component parts presents the three ages of man (for that is what it really is, and I knew very well what I was doing when I wrote “The End of the Tether” to be the last of that trio). I can't somehow imagine any of those stories taken out of it and bound cheek and jowl with a story from another volume. It is in fact unthinkable' (
Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters
, ed. G. Jean-Aubry (London: Heinemann, 1927), vol. II, pp. 338–9).

3.
They belong to the period
…
Nostromo
: That is, roughly from December 1897 to December 1902.

4.
‘Maga'
: A familiar abbreviation for
Blackwood's Magazine
, a Tory monthly founded in 1817. It published much of Conrad's fiction during the period 1898–1902.

5.
Blackwood's
: William Blackwood (1836–1912), grandson of the original publisher, headed the firm from 1879 until his death.

6.
first contribution
: The first contribution was ‘Karain: A Memory', published in the November 1897 issue of
Blackwood's Magazine
and collected in
Tales of Unrest
(1898).

7.
Marlow
: In addition to his appearances in ‘Youth' and
Heart of Darkness
, Marlow figures in
Lord Jim
(1900) and
Chance
(1913).

8.
daemon
: An inner or attendant spirit, often associated with the genius of creativity.

9.
his occupation would be gone
: Cf. ‘Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!', Shakespeare,
Othello
, III. iii.358.

10.
Solomonian sense
: The wise Solomon delivered many aphorisms on the vanity of human wishes (see Proverbs 1–29), although none describing vanity as a ‘vexation' of the spirit. For this description, Conrad seems rather to echo Ecclesiastes 1:14: ‘I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all
is
vanity and vexation of spirit.'

11.
well received
: Some three years before the publication of ‘Youth' in book form, the critic and man of letters A. T. Quiller-Couch and the novelist Arnold Bennett, who had read the story in
Blackwood's Magazine
, praised it in print.

12.
my two lives
: That is, as a merchant seaman until 1894 and subsequently as a writer.

13.
my first command
: Conrad's only permanent command was of the Australian-owned barque, the
Otago
. He joined the ship in Bangkok on 24 January 1888, and arrived in Sydney on 7 May. This protracted voyage to Australia provides the basis for
The Shadow
-
Line
, while a later voyage in the
Otago
, from Australia to Mauritius, lies behind ‘The Smile of Fortune'. Conrad resigned his command at the end of March 1889.

14.
one other
: ‘An Outpost of Progress', written in 1896 and collected in
Tales of Unrest
(1898).

15.
the pages of that story…pen to paper
: If Conrad did indeed submit a short story, ‘The Black Mate', to a
Tit-Bits
competition in 1886 (see Chronology), then this statement is not strictly true. Some of his South-East Asian experience that finds its way into ‘The End of the Tether' belongs to the period immediately following 1886.