第 二 章 · 第1章（2）

"We gave her her letters (I heard the men in that lonely ship were dying

of fever at the rate of three a day) and went on. We called at some more

places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade

goes on in a still and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb;

all along the formless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature

herself had tried to ward off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams

of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters,

thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to

writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did we

stop long enough to get a particularized impression, but the general

sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary

pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.

"It was upward of thirty days before I saw the mouth of the big river.

We anchored off the seat of the government. But my work would not begin

till some two hundred miles farther on. So as soon as I could I made a

start for a place thirty miles higher up.

"I had my passage on a little sea-going steamer. Her captain was a

Swede, and knowing me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. He was a

young man, lean, fair, and morose, with lanky hair and a shuffling gait.

As we left the miserable little wharf, he tossed his head contemptuously

at the shore. 'Been living there?' he asked. I said, 'Yes.' 'Fine lot

these government chaps--are they not?' he went on, speaking English

with great precision and considerable bitterness. 'It is funny what some

people will do for a few francs a month. I wonder what becomes of that

kind when it goes up country?' I said to him I expected to see that

soon. 'So-o-o!' he exclaimed. He shuffled athwart, keeping one eye ahead

vigilantly. 'Don't be too sure,' he continued. 'The other day I took

up a man who hanged himself on the road. He was a Swede, too.'

'Hanged himself! Why, in God's name?' I cried. He kept on looking

out watchfully. 'Who knows? The sun too much for him, or the country

perhaps.'

"At last we opened a reach. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up

earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others, with iron roofs, amongst a

waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of

the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A

lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty

projected into the river. A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times

in a sudden recrudescence of glare. 'There's your Company's station,'

said the Swede, pointing to three wooden barrack-like structures on the

rocky slope. 'I will send your things up. Four boxes did you say? So.

Farewell.'

"I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path

leading up the hill. It turned aside for the bowlders, and also for an

undersized railway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in

the air. One was off. The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some

animal. I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, a stack of rusty

rails. To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things

seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to

the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation

shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was

all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a

railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless

blasting was all the work going on.

"A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men

advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow,

balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept

time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and

the short ends behind wagged to and fro like tails. I could see every

rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an

iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain

whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another report

from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen

firing into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice; but

these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They

were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells,

had come to them, an insoluble mystery from over the sea. All their

meager breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered,

the eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches,

without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy

savages. Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of

the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its

middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white

man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. This

was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that

he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, and with a

large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take

me into partnership in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part

of the great cause of these high and just proceedings.

"Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left. My idea was to

let that chain-gang get out of sight before I climbed the hill. You know

I am not particularly tender; I've had to strike and to fend off.

I've had to resist and to attack sometimes--that's only one way of

resisting--without counting the exact cost, according to the demands

of such sort of life as I had blundered into. I've seen the devil of

violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by

all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed

and drove men--men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I

foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become

acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and

pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out

several months later and a thousand miles farther. For a moment I

stood appalled, as though by a warning. Finally I descended the hill,

obliquely, towards the trees I had seen.

"I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the

slope, the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. It wasn't

a quarry or a sandpit, anyhow. It was just a hole. It might have

been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals

something to do. I don't know. Then I nearly fell into a very narrow

ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that

a lot of imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been tumbled in

there. There wasn't one that was not broken. It was a wanton smash-up.

At last I got under the trees. My purpose was to stroll into the shade

for a moment; but no sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped

into a gloomy circle of some Inferno. The rapids were near, and an

uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful

stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved,

with a mysterious sound--as though the tearing pace of the launched

earth had suddenly become audible.

"Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the

trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within

the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.

Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the

soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the

place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.

"They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, they

were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,--nothing but black

shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish

gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality

of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar

food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl

away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air--and nearly as

thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of eyes under the trees. Then,

glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at

full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids

rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of

blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly.

The man seemed young--almost a boy--but you know with them it's hard to

tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede's

ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and

held--there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a

bit of white worsted round his neck--Why? Where did he get it? Was it a

badge--an ornament--a charm--a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at

all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this

bit of white thread from beyond the seas.

"Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs

drawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing,

in an intolerable and appalling manner: his brother phantom rested its

forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness; and all about others

were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture

of a massacre or a pestilence. While I stood horror-struck, one of these

creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards

the river to drink. He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the

sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his

woolly head fall on his breastbone.

"I didn't want any more loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards

the station. When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an

unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for

a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light

alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clear necktie, and varnished boots. No

hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a

big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear.

"I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was the Company's

chief accountant, and that all the bookkeeping was done at this station.

He had come out for a moment, he said, 'to get a breath of fresh air.'

The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion of sedentary

desk-life. I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all, only

it was from his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is

so indissolubly connected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I

respected the fellow. Yes; I respected his collars, his vast cuffs,

his brushed hair. His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's

dummy; but in the great demoralization of the land he kept up

his appearance. That's backbone. His starched collars and got-up

shirt-fronts were achievements of character. He had been out nearly

three years; and, later on, I could not help asking him how he managed

to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush, and said modestly,

'I've been teaching one of the native women about the station. It

was difficult. She had a distaste for the work.' This man had verily

accomplished something. And he was devoted to his books, which were in

apple-pie order.

"Everything else in the station was in a muddle,--heads, things,

buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and

departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads,

and brass-wire sent into the depths of darkness, and in return came a

precious trickle of ivory.

"I had to wait in the station for ten days--an eternity. I lived in a

hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into

the accountant's office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly

put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from

neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There was no need to

open the big shutter to see. It was hot there too; big flies buzzed

fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat generally on the

floor, while, of faultless appearance (and even slightly scented),

perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for

exercise. When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalided agent from

up-country) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance. 'The

groans of this sick person,' he said, 'distract my attention. And without

that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in this

climate.'

"One day he remarked, without lifting his head, 'In the interior you

will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he

said he was a first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at

this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, 'He is a very

remarkable person.' Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz

was at present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the

true ivory-country, at 'the very bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory

as all the others put together. . . .' He began to write again. The sick

man was too ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace.

"Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a great tramping of

feet. A caravan had come in. A violent babble of uncouth sounds burst

out on the other side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking

together, and in the midst of the uproar the lamentable voice of the

chief agent was heard 'giving it up' tearfully for the twentieth time

that day. . . . He rose slowly. 'What a frightful row,' he said. He

crossed the room gently to look at the sick man, and returning, said to

me, 'He does not hear.' 'What! Dead?' I asked, startled. 'No, not yet,'

he answered, with great composure. Then, alluding with a toss of the

head to the tumult in the station-yard, 'When one has got to make

correct entries, one comes to hate those savages--hate them to the

death.' He remained thoughtful for a moment. 'When you see Mr. Kurtz,'

he went on, 'tell him from me that everything here'--he glanced at the

desk--'is very satisfactory. I don't like to write to him--with those

messengers of ours you never know who may get hold of your letter--at

that Central Station.' He stared at me for a moment with his mild,

bulging eyes. 'Oh, he will go far, very far,' he began again. 'He

will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above--the

Council in Europe, you know--mean him to be.'

"He turned to his work. The noise outside had ceased, and presently

in going out I stopped at the door. In the steady buzz of flies the

homeward-bound agent was lying flushed and insensible; the other,

bent over his books, was making correct entries of perfectly correct

transactions; and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still

tree-tops of the grove of death.

"Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan of sixty men, for

a two-hundred-mile tramp.

"No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths, everywhere; a

stamped-in network of paths spreading over the empty land, through

long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly

ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze with heat; and a solitude, a

solitude, nobody, not a hut. The population had cleared out a long

time ago. Well, if a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of

fearful weapons suddenly took to traveling on the road between Deal and

Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads for

them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would get empty very

soon. Only here the dwellings were gone too. Still I passed through

several abandoned villages. There's something pathetically childish in

the ruins of grass walls. Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of

sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load. Camp,

cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier dead in harness,

at rest in the long grass near the path, with an empty water-gourd and

his long staff lying by his side. A great silence around and above.

Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking,

swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive,

and wild--and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells

in a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform,

camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very

hospitable and festive--not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep

of the road, he declared. Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless

the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead,

upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be

considered as a permanent improvement. I had a white companion too, not

a bad chap, but rather too fleshy and with the exasperating habit of

fainting on the hot hillsides, miles away from the least bit of shade

and water. Annoying, you know, to hold your own coat like a parasol over

a man's head while he is coming-to. I couldn't help asking him once what

he meant by coming there at all. 'To make money, of course. What do you

think?' he said, scornfully. Then he got fever, and had to be carried in

a hammock slung under a pole. As he weighed sixteen stone I had no end

of rows with the carriers. They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their

loads in the night--quite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a speech in

English with gestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of

eyes before me, and the next morning I started the hammock off in front

all right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concern wrecked in

a bush--man, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors. The heavy pole had

skinned his poor nose. He was very anxious for me to kill somebody,

but there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near. I remembered the old

doctor,--'It would be interesting for science to watch the mental

changes of individuals, on the spot.' I felt I was becoming

scientifically interesting. However, all that is to no purpose. On the

fifteenth day I came in sight of the big river again, and hobbled into

the Central Station. It was on a back water surrounded by scrub and

forest, with a pretty border of smelly mud on one side, and on the three

others inclosed by a crazy fence of rushes. A neglected gap was all the

gate it had, and the first glance at the place was enough to let you see

the flabby devil was running that show. White men with long staves in

their hands appeared languidly from amongst the buildings, strolling up

to take a look at me, and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of

them, a stout, excitable chap with black mustaches, informed me with

great volubility and many digressions, as soon as I told him who I was,

that my steamer was at the bottom of the river. I was thunderstruck.

What, how, why? Oh, it was 'all right.' The 'manager himself' was there.

All quite correct. 'Everybody had behaved splendidly! splendidly!'--'you

must,' he said in agitation, 'go and see the general manager at once. He

is waiting!'

"I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once. I fancy I

see it now, but I am not sure--not at all. Certainly the affair was too

stupid--when I think of it--to be altogether natural. Still. . . . But

at the moment it presented itself simply as a confounded nuisance. The

steamer was sunk. They had started two days before in a sudden hurry

up the river with the manager on board, in charge of some volunteer

skipper, and before they had been out three hours they tore the bottom

out of her on stones, and she sank near the south bank. I asked myself

what I was to do there, now my boat was lost. As a matter of fact, I had

plenty to do in fishing my command out of the river. I had to set about

it the very next day. That, and the repairs when I brought the pieces to

the station, took some months.

"My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not ask me to

sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. He was commonplace in

complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle

size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps

remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as

trenchant and heavy as an ax. But even at these times the rest of his

person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only

an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy--a

smile--not a smile--I remember it, but I can't explain. It was

unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it

got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like

a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase

appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader, from his youth

up employed in these parts--nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired

neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That

was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust--just uneasiness--nothing

more. You have no idea how effective such a . . . a . . . faculty can

be. He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even.

That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station.

He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to

him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill . . . He had served three

terms of three years out there . . . Because triumphant health in the

general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. When he went

home on leave he rioted on a large scale--pompously. Jack ashore--with

a difference--in externals only. This one could gather from his casual

talk. He originated nothing, he could keep the routine going--that's

all. But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was

impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave that

secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion

made one pause--for out there there were no external checks. Once when

various tropical diseases had laid low almost every 'agent' in the

station, he was heard to say, 'Men who come out here should have no

entrails.' He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though

it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping.

You fancied you had seen things--but the seal was on. When annoyed at

meal-times by the constant quarrels of the white men about precedence,

he ordered an immense round table to be made, for which a special house

had to be built. This was the station's mess-room. Where he sat was the

first place--the rest were nowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable

conviction. He was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed

his 'boy'--an overfed young negro from the coast--to treat the white

men, under his very eyes, with provoking insolence.

"He began to speak as soon as he saw me. I had been very long on the

road. He could not wait. Had to start without me. The up-river stations

had to be relieved. There had been so many delays already that he did

not know who was dead and who was alive, and how they got on--and so on,

and so on. He paid no attention to my explanations, and, playing with

a stick of sealing-wax, repeated several times that the situation

was 'very grave, very grave.' There were rumors that a very important

station was in jeopardy, and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was

not true. Mr. Kurtz was . . . I felt weary and irritable. Hang Kurtz,

I thought. I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the

coast. 'Ah! So they talk of him down there,' he murmured to himself.

Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, an

exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company; therefore

I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said, 'very, very uneasy.'

Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a good deal, exclaimed, 'Ah, Mr.

Kurtz!' broke the stick of sealing-wax and seemed dumbfounded by the

accident. Next thing he wanted to know 'how long it would take to' . . .

I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet

too, I was getting savage. 'How could I tell,' I said. 'I hadn't even

seen the wreck yet--some months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me

so futile. 'Some months,' he said. 'Well, let us say three months before

we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung out

of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of veranda)

muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot.

Afterwards I took it back when it was borne in upon me startlingly

with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite for the

'affair.'

"I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on that

station. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the

redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes; and then

I saw this station, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine

of the yard. I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered

here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot

of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory'

rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were

praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a

whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in

my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared

speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like

evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic

invasion.

"Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things happened. One

evening a grass shed full of calico, cotton prints, beads, and I don't

know what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have

thought the earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that

trash. I was smoking my pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw

them all cutting capers in the light, with their arms lifted high, when

the stout man with mustaches came tearing down to the river, a tin

pail in his hand, assured me that everybody was 'behaving splendidly,

splendidly,' dipped about a quart of water and tore back again. I

noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail.

"I strolled up. There was no hurry. You see the thing had gone off like

a box of matches. It had been hopeless from the very first. The flame

had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everything--and

collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A

nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire in

some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly. I saw him,

later on, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking very sick

and trying to recover himself: afterwards he arose and went out--and

the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again. As I

approached the glow from the dark I found myself at the back of two men,

talking. I heard the name of Kurtz pronounced, then the words, 'take

advantage of this unfortunate accident.' One of the men was the manager.

I wished him a good evening. 'Did you ever see anything like it--eh? it

is incredible,' he said, and walked off. The other man remained. He was

a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked

little beard and a hooked nose. He was stand-offish with the other

agents, and they on their side said he was the manager's spy upon them.

As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him before. We got into talk, and

by-and-by we strolled away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me to

his room, which was in the main building of the station. He struck

a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a

silver-mounted dressing-case but also a whole candle all to himself.

Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have any

right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls; a collection of

spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies. The business

intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks--so I had been

informed; but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the

station, and he had been there more than a year--waiting. It seems he

could not make bricks without something, I don't know what--straw maybe.

Anyways, it could not be found there, and as it was not likely to be

sent from Europe, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for.

An act of special creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting--all

the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of them--for something; and upon my word

it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the way they took it,

though the only thing that ever came to them was disease--as far as I

could see. They beguiled the time by backbiting and intriguing against

each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an air of plotting about

that station, but nothing came of it, of course. It was as unreal as

everything else--as the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern, as

their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real

feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory

was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued

and slandered and hated each other only on that account,--but as to

effectually lifting a little finger--oh, no. By heavens! there is

something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while

another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very

well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking

at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a

kick.

"I had no idea why he wanted to be sociable, but as we chatted in there

it suddenly occurred to me the fellow was trying to get at something--in

fact, pumping me. He alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was

supposed to know there--putting leading questions as to my acquaintances

in the sepulchral city, and so on. His little eyes glittered like

mica discs--with curiosity,--though he tried to keep up a bit of

superciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon I became

awfully curious to see what he would find out from me. I couldn't

possibly imagine what I had in me to make it worth his while. It was

very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth my body was full

of chills, and my head had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat

business. It was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless

prevaricator. At last he got angry, and to conceal a movement of furious

annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch in oils,

on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a

lighted torch. The background was somber--almost black. The movement of

the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was

sinister.