Do you see
anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain
attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation,
that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of
struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which
is of the very essence of dreams. . . ."

He was silent for a while.

". . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the
life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence,--that which
makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is
impossible. We live, as we dream--alone. . . ."

He paused again as if reflecting, then added--"Of course in this you
fellows see more than I could then. You see me, whom you know. . . ."

It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one
another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more
to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might
have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch
for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clew to the
faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself
without human lips in the heavy night-air of the river.

". . . Yes--I let him run on," Marlow began again, "and think what
he pleased about the powers that were behind me. I did! And there was
nothing behind me! There was nothing but that wretched, old, mangled
steamboat I was leaning against, while he talked fluently about 'the
necessity for every man to get on.' 'And when one comes out here, you
conceive, it is not to gaze at the moon.' Mr. Kurtz was a 'universal
genius,' but even a genius would find it easier to work with 'adequate
tools--intelligent men.' He did not make bricks--why, there was a
physical impossibility in the way--as I was well aware; and if he
did secretarial work for the manager, it was because 'no sensible man
rejects wantonly the confidence of his superiors.' Did I see it? I saw
it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven!
Rivets. To get on with the work--to stop the hole. Rivets I
wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast--cases--piled
up--burst--split! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step in that
station yard on the hillside. Rivets had rolled into the grove of death.
You could fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stooping
down--and there wasn't one rivet to be found where it was w