Heart of Darkness

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documents/SILVANA/libros%20en%20ingles/hdark10.txt

HEART OF DARKNESSby Joseph ConradIThe Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor withouta flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made,the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down theriver, the only thing for it was to come to and wait forthe turn of the tide.The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us likethe beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offingthe sea and the sky were welded together without a joint,and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the bargesdrifting up with the tide seemed to stand still inred clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores thatran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensedinto a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over thebiggest, and the greatest, town on earth.The Director of Companies was our captain and ourhost. We four affectionately watched his back as he stoodin the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river therewas nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled apilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified.It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in theluminous estuary, but behind him, within the broodinggloom.Between us there was, as I have already said some-where, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our heartstogether through long periods of separation, it had theeffect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns--and even convictions. The Lawyer--the best of old fel-lowys--had, because of his many years and many virtues,ythe only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug.The Accountant had brought out already a box of dom-inoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Mar-low sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, astraight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%2...cuments/SILVANA/libros%20en%20ingles/hdark10.txt (1 de 89)01/03/2009 09:48:15 a.m.

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documents/SILVANA/libros%20en%20ingles/hdark10.txt

dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled anidol. The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold,made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchangeda few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence onboard the yacht. For some reason or other we did notbegin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fitfor nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in aserenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shonepacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign im-mensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essexmarsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung fromthe wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores indiaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, broodingover the upper reaches, became more sombre every min-ute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sunsank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull redwithout rays and without heat, as if about to go out sud-denly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brood-ing over a crowd of men.Forthwith a change came over the waters, and theserenity became less brilliant but more profound. Theold river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the declineof day, after ages of good service done to the race thatpeopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of awaterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. Welooked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of ashort day that comes and departs for ever, but in theaugust light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing iseasier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, "followedthe sea" with reverence and affection, that to evoke thegreat spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of theThames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasingservice, crowded with memories of men and ships it hadborne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. Ithad known and served all the men of whom the nation isyproud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin,knights all, titled and untitled--the great knights-errantof the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the GOLDEN HINDreturning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to bevisited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the EREBUS and TERROR, bound onother conquests--and that never returned. It had known

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%2...cuments/SILVANA/libros%20en%20ingles/hdark10.txt (2 de 89)01/03/2009 09:48:15 a.m.

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documents/SILVANA/libros%20en%20ingles/hdark10.txt

the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford,from Greenwich, from Erith--the adventurers and thesettlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change;captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" of the Easterntrade, and the commissioned "generals" of East Indiafleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they allhad gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and oftenthe torch, messengers of the might within the land, bear-ers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness hadnot floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of anunknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of com-monwealths, the germs of empires.The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lightsbegan to appear along the shore. The Chapman light-house, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shonestrongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway--a greatstir of lights going up and going down. And farther weston the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town wasstill marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom insunshine, a lurid glare under the stars."And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been oneof the dark places of the earth."He was the only man of us who still "followed the sea."The worst that could be said of him was that he did notrepresent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wan-derer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so ex-press it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them--theship; and so is their country--the sea. One ship is verymuch like another, and the sea is always the same. In theimmutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, theforeign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past,veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly dis-dainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to ayseaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistressof his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For therest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casualspree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of awhole continent, and generally he finds the secret notworth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a directsimplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shellof a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if hispropensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%2...cuments/SILVANA/libros%20en%20ingles/hdark10.txt (3 de 89)01/03/2009 09:48:15 a.m.

Category:	Uncategorized.
Rating:	(1 Rating)
Upload Date:	03/01/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	Fiction English Fiction English (fewer)

Documents

People