Marlow learns that his steamer is sunk and it will take three months to repair (89).
Lack of efficiency at central station:
Europeans constantly get sick with disease and are bedridden.
-pail with holes is no use for putting out fire….(90)
-“backbiting and intriguing against each other” at central station (91)
-“it was unreal as everything else – as the philanthropic pretence of the
whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work.” (91)
Manager of central station never gets sick, and thus, he maintains his role and position. “He originated nothing, he could keep the routine going – that’s all. But he was great. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such suspicion made one pause – for out there there were no external checks.” (88)
Manager states: “Men who come out here should have no entrails.” (88)
What are entrails? What are you if you don’t have entrails? Is that the secret to manager’s longevity?
The brickmaker explains “(Kurtz) is an emissary of pity and science and progress… a special being….(with) higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose (as entrusted by Europe)” (92)
Marlow discovers from brickmaker that of all people, he should know. Marlow asks what he means. Brickmaker explains that Marlow is “of the new gang – the gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you.” (92)
Kurtz is a fast rising agent, the best plunderer of ivory “ Today he is chief of the best station,next year he will be assistant-manager, two years more…..” (92)
Marlow states: “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…” (91)
Marlow realizes brickmaker is “pumping” him for information and “constantly alludes to Europe, to the people I was supposed to know there…. I became awfully curious to see what he would find out from me.” (92)
Marlow notices a small sketch of oils that Kurtz had painted, “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.” (92)
Who are the “acquaintances” of the influential Europeans? (92)
How does Marlow threaten the brickmaker? (92)
The brickmaker responds, (after blowing out a candle), that “My dear sir, I don’t want to be misunderstood, and especially by you, who meet will Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure. I wouldn’t like him to get a false idea of my disposition….” (93)
Marlow states: “I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but loose dirt, maybe.” (93)
Marlow states: “I would not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to lie. You know I hate, detest, and cant bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world – what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose. Well, I went near enough to it by letting that young fool there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence in Europe.” (94)
Marlow didn’t know Kurtz, couldn’t see him, and neither could his listeners on Thames….
Narrator states: “It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. (Marlow) sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice.” (95)
The brickmaker did not make bricks. Kurtz was a “universal genius.” And all Marlow needed were rivets to stop the holes.” (95) Phallic Symbol? rivet :
a short metal pin or bolt for holding together two plates of metal, its headless end being beaten out or pressed down when in place.
How does the brickmaker threaten Marlow? (96)
Part II
How does Marlow reassert his thoughts on truth, but also insult his friends on Thames?
While driving the steamer, “I had to keep a lookout for the signs of dead wood we would cut up in the night for next day’s steaming. When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality—the reality, I tell you --- fades. The inner truth is hidden--- luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective tight-ropes for – what is it? Half-a –crown a tumble ---“
“Try to be civil, Marlow,” growled a voice on the River Thames. (103)
What, according to Marlow, is the true essence of civility? The cannibals, of all people, seem to be the most civil. Why?? (112-113)
The native attack in the fog. The bloody boots. The end of part II.