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— Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)
‘What was he doing?
Exploring or what?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes, of course’; he had discovered lots of villages, a lake, too—he did not know exactly in what direction; it was dangerous to inquire too much—but mostly his expeditions had been for ivory.
‘But he had no goods to trade with by that time,’ I objected.
‘There’s a good lot of cartridges left even yet,’ he answered, looking away.
==‘To speak plainly, he raided the country,’ I said.
He nodded.== ‘Not alone, surely!’ He muttered something about the villages round that lake.
‘Kurtz got the tribe to follow him, did he?’ I suggested.
He fidgeted a little.
==‘They adored him,’ he said.
The tone of these words was so extraordinary that I looked at him searchingly.
It was curious to see his mingled eagerness and reluctance to speak of Kurtz.
The man filled his life, occupied his thoughts, swayed his emotions.
‘What can you expect?’ he burst out; ‘he came to them with thunder and lightning, you know—and they had never seen anything like it—and very terrible.
He could be very terrible.== You can’t judge Mr.
Kurtz as you would an ordinary man.
No, no, no!
==Now—just to give you an idea—I don’t mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me, too, one day—but I don’t judge him.’ ”Shoot you!’ I cried.
‘What for?’ ‘Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of that village near my house gave me.
You see I used to shoot game for them.
Well, he wanted it, and wouldn’t hear reason.
He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased.
And it was true, too.
I gave him the ivory.
What did I care!
But I didn’t clear out.
No, no.
I couldn’t leave him.== I had to be careful, of course, till we got friendly again for a time.
He had his second illness then.
Afterwards I had to keep out of the way; but I didn’t mind.
He was living for the most part in those villages on the lake.
When he came down to the river, sometimes he would take to me, and sometimes it was better for me to be careful.