" 'Repeat them,' she murmured in a heart-broken

  tone. 'I want -- I want -- something -- something -- to --

  to live with.'

  "I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you

  hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a per-

  sistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed

  to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising

  wind. 'The horror! The horror!'

  " 'His last word -- to live with,' she insisted. 'Don't

  you understand I loved him -- I loved him -- I loved

  him!'

  "I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.

  "'The last word he pronounced was -- your name.'

  "I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still,

  stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by

  the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable

  pain. 'I knew it -- I was sure!' . . . She knew. She was

  sure. I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face

  in her hands. It seemed to me that the house would

  collapse before I could escape, that the heavens

  would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The

  heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have

  fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice

  which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only

  justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would

  have been too dark -- too dark altogether...."

  Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent,

  in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved

  for a time. "We have lost the first of the ebb," said

  the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing

  was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tran-

  quil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the

  earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky -- seemed

  to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

  [End.]

 

 

  Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

  (Series: # )

 

 

 

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