PASSAGE I
PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from
Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness © 1899.
The Nellie, a cruising ship, swung to her anchor
without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The tide
had come in, the wind was nearly calm, and being
bound down the river, the only thing for the ship was
5 to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
The Director of Companies was our captain and
our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he
stood in the bow looking toward the sea. On the whole
river there was nothing that looked half so nautical.
10 He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness
personified. It was difficult to realize his work
was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind
him, within the brooding gloom.
Between us there was, as I have already said
15 somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our
hearts together through long periods of separation, it
had the effect of making us tolerant of each other’s
stories—and even convictions. The Lawyer—the best
of old fellows—had, because of his many years and
20 many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was
lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought
out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally
with the pieces. Marlow sat cross-legged,
leaning against the mast. He had sunken cheeks, a
25 yellow complexion, a straight back, and, with his arms
dropped, the palms of his hands outwards, resembled
an idol. The Director, satisfied the anchor had good
hold, made his way forward and sat down amongst us.
We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there
30 was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or
another we did not begin that game of dominoes. We
felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring.
“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been
one of the dark places of the earth.” He was the only
35 man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worst
that could be said of him was that he did not represent
his class—always the same. In their unchanging
surroundings, the foreign shores, the foreign faces glide
past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly
40 disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious
to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the
mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as destiny.
For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or
a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the
45 secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the
secret not worth knowing. The stories of seamen have
a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies
within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not
typical, and to him the meaning of an episode was not
50 inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale,
which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze,
in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes
are made visible by the spectral illumination of
moonshine.
55 His remark did not seem at all surprising. It was
just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one
took the trouble to grunt even; and presently he said,
very slow—“I was thinking of very old times, when
the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years
60 ago.” And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall,
the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to
a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to
go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that
gloom brooding over a crowd of men.
65 Marlow broke off. Flames glided in the river,
small green flames, red flames, white flames, pursuing,
overtaking, joining, crossing each other—then separating
slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great city went
on in the deepening night upon the sleepless river. We
70 looked on, waiting patiently—there was nothing else to
do; but it was only after a long silence, when he said,
in a hesitating voice, “I suppose you fellows remember
I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit,” that we
knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to
75 hear about one of Marlow’s inconclusive experiences.
The narrator’s point of view is that of:
