In this episode, we delve into the captivating world of Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness," brought to life through a dramatization by the NBC University Theater. The story, starring Brian Ahern as Marlowe, explores the haunting journey into the Congo, reflecting on the darkness within humanity and the enigmatic figure of Kurtz. As Marlowe recounts his experiences, listeners are drawn into a tale of intrigue, moral ambiguity, and the profound impact of Kurtz's character, whose voice and influence linger even after his death.
Through the adaptation, we explore themes of colonialism, the duality of human nature, and the psychological depths of Conrad's narrative. The episode also features insights from Granville Hicks, who discusses Conrad's literary journey and the enduring relevance of "The Heart of Darkness" in understanding the human condition. This episode invites listeners to reflect on the darkness within and the complexities of human ambition and morality.
Listen to our radio station Old Time Radio https://link.radioking.com/otradio
Listen to other Shows at My Classic Radio https://www.myclassicradio.net/
Entertainment Radio | Broadcasting Classic Radio Shows | Patreon
Remember that times have changed, and some shows might not reflect the standards of today’s politically correct society. The shows do not necessarily reflect the views, standards, or beliefs of Entertainment Radio
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
The game is on the line, and I've only got a shot clock's worth of time to tell you about Subway's six ninety nine foot long deal. That's right. Order now on the Subway app and get any foot long on the menu for just $6.99. Fresh sliced deli meat, fresh crispy veggies, too much good stuff. Get it now on the Subway app. Any footlong for just $6.99. Use code 699FL now. Only here for a limited time. Redeemable at participating US restaurants. Subway app online orders only. Add ons, additional plus tasks. Additional fees apply on delivery. Excludes footlong snacks. Limited time.
[00:00:43] Unknown:
This is the NBC University Theater, bringing you a full hour dramatization of The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, starring Brian Ahern. Today, a story by one of the most exciting writers of the last century, Joseph Conrad. He knew wherever he wrote, for he had been there. He was born in Poland. At 17 was a sailor of France, and not many years later was a master mariner of the seven seas. He knew the world and its wickedness and put both down on paper with great zest. Conrad is known as an English novelist, but he drew his imagery from the richness of three languages. The Heart of Darkness is one of his most masterful stories, drawing heavily on personal experience in The Congo.
Its hypnotic style and intensity of mood have been well captured in today's adaptation for radio by Morton Friedman. Here then, the heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad, starring one of Hollywood's most articulate gentlemen, mister Brian Ahern, as
[00:02:02] Unknown:
Marlowe.
[00:02:11] Unknown:
We are well separated, Kurz and I. We are separated by life and death. I live and Kurz does not. We are separated by a year. Exactly one year ago, I saw his body swallowed by the mud of a river bank in Africa. We are separated by thousands of miles. We are well separated, the courts and I. And yet, less than an hour ago, I saw him again. And again, I heard him, his magnificent voice whispering, peeling, proclaiming, begging. And again, I heard the beat of the drums, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart, the heart of a conquering darkness.
[00:03:09] Unknown:
I trust you will pardon this, intrusion, mademoiselle Marlowe, but I have come to see capital Marlowe on business, a company business.
[00:03:18] Unknown:
Oh, dear. How awkward. I'm afraid you can't see my nephew, monsieur. Can't? I mean now. He,
[00:03:27] Unknown:
I believe he's taking a nap. Just I must insist, mademoiselle, upon seeing your nephew the captain now. He is involved in the matter of the utmost gravity. The company is quite perturbed. But if he's napping, I can't wake him. That won't be necessary. He is awake. There is a light in his room, the corner room.
[00:03:47] Unknown:
Well, really now.
[00:03:50] Unknown:
You smell it? Tobacco. The Capeten is smoking.
[00:03:55] Unknown:
I'll tell him you're here if he's awake. Charlie.
[00:04:04] Unknown:
I'm awake, Arlene.
[00:04:06] Unknown:
The director of the company. I know. I heard you talking. Tell him to go away. I don't want to see him. Charlie, don't you think you ought to get it over and done with him? You know,
[00:04:16] Unknown:
I I coughed twice. You both were so engrossed. I'm afraid you didn't hear. Monsieur director. I'm so very glad to see you, captain.
[00:04:27] Unknown:
You can't imagine how anxiously I have looked forward to seeing you again. And to talk to me, monsieur director? To ask some questions, monsieur director? Some questions about Kurtz?
[00:04:40] Unknown:
Ah, I see you are an intelligent man, Capetaine.
[00:04:44] Unknown:
I am pleased. Oh, can't we dispense with a sham? You're not here as a friend, but as a representative of the company.
[00:04:51] Unknown:
Say rather both. As a friend and as a representative, as you put it, of the company.
[00:04:57] Unknown:
Both. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to go to my room. I think that's wise, auntie. Oh, there is no real need for you to go, mademoiselle. Whatever we have to say, your nephew and I, I I think I should be able to like you both better if I don't hear what you have to say to each other.
[00:05:14] Unknown:
Perhaps. Who knows? Now, captain, about, Kurtz. Shortly before this, unfortunate death, mister Kurtz gave you a package containing some papers of his. Did he not? Some papers and a photograph in a shoe box. Oh, you still have them. Where are they? Let me have them. I still have them. I have them with me, and I will not let you have them. I I beg your pardon. I meant to say if you had them, might I see the documents, quotes left in your case? Look here. When the manager of the central station told you I had the documents,
[00:05:53] Unknown:
he must also have told you that he tried to get them and couldn't. He did so report. And what makes you think I would change my mind because you asked me? Because they concern company territory.
[00:06:03] Unknown:
Very valuable territory.
[00:06:05] Unknown:
A completely unexplored portion of The Congo until mister Cook They have nothing in them in reference to commerce. They're all purely personal.
[00:06:13] Unknown:
There may be much of great value to science, geographers,
[00:06:17] Unknown:
anthropologists. Not very much if you're concerned with any values or any other profit than to yourself and the company.
[00:06:24] Unknown:
I confess I do not understand your obvious hostility,
[00:06:28] Unknown:
but you would do well to be civil. Oh, you're being ridiculous. After all, you insulted me first. You insulted my intelligence with your prattle about science.
[00:06:38] Unknown:
I do not make idle threats, captain Marlowe. So believe me, I shall You'll do nothing.
[00:06:45] Unknown:
Remember Kurtz's papers. There may be lots of profits in them, and I've got them. Remember?
[00:06:54] Unknown:
Let's be sensible. What do you want for those papers?
[00:06:58] Unknown:
How much? Oh, so that they may be used for the promotion of science, of course. Oh, of course.
[00:07:04] Unknown:
How much?
[00:07:06] Unknown:
I'll match your generosity, monsieur. Take it. For science. Free. Here. This little pamphlet on the bed table. This this is it? Been in front of me all this time. Alright. A report written by mister Kurtz entitled the suppression of savage customs.
[00:07:25] Unknown:
Oh, nothing. This is nothing. Not at all what I had expected. Keep it.
[00:07:39] Unknown:
Two days later, I had another caller, a man who said he was Kurtz's cousin. This self identified cousin was a musician. Yes. Yes. A musician,
[00:07:48] Unknown:
an organist. I have studied music for years, but did you know, sir, that my cousin Kurtz was essentially a great musician?
[00:07:57] Unknown:
No. I didn't. Plain truth, I couldn't tell what Kurtz's real profession was. He painted well, wrote well. I couldn't tell which of his many talents was the greatest. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. You are quite right, sir. Yes. Quite right. My cousin Kurtz was undoubtedly a universal genius. I agreed with the old chap. Kurtz undoubtedly was just that. Well, he left after a while, taking with him some family letters that had been among Kurtz's papers. Why couldn't I be done with it all? I wanted to forget to wipe my mind and memory clear of Kurtz and the horror, to use his own word, that was inextricably associated with them in my mind. The horror and the darkness and the death, but mostly the darkness.
Another caller. This time, a journalist, a self proclaimed colleague, of course. You should have heard him address large meetings.
[00:09:04] Unknown:
He could electrify them. He had the faith. Faith? Faith in what? Anything.
[00:09:10] Unknown:
Kurtz could get himself to believe in anything. And anything he believed in, he could get anyone to believe. He would have had a great career in politics. What a splendid leader of a party he would have been. What party, for example? Any party, so long as it was an extreme party. He was himself an extremist. Don't you agree?
[00:09:30] Unknown:
I evaded the answer, or rather the true answer, and gave him instead Kurtz's pamphlet. The journalist took it most eagerly and left with it, saying it would be published at once. So now I am left with a slim packet of letters and the girl's photograph. All that have been Kurzis, save these, have passed through my hands. His soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career. There remains only his memory and his intended. I have gone to see Coetzee's intended, the girl of the photograph, to return the letters and the picture, to surrender to his memory, and to wipe my memory clear of all that oppresses it and me.
We sit in the formal drawing room of her house. We sit and talk sporadically. She is still in deep mourning, although a year has now passed since his death. You knew him. You knew him well, didn't you? I, I knew him as,
[00:10:43] Unknown:
well, as well as it is possible for one man to know another. And you admired him. Oh, it was impossible to know him and not to admire him, wasn't it? He was a
[00:10:53] Unknown:
remarkable man, as you, as you say it was impossible not to not to Lock him? Oh, how true. How true. She talks about Kurtz. I hardly listen. For her words in the twilight gloom have conjured up for me again the vision of the man. I see him again, and only occasionally hear snatches of her voice as it pierces the phantom that that besets my mind and my eyes. He drew men towards him why by what was best in them.
[00:11:24] Unknown:
Oh, it is the gift of the great, and he had it. It's unbearable, the burden of observing her grief,
[00:11:31] Unknown:
a noble grief that comes from her core with nothing of pose or convention in it. And at the end,
[00:11:37] Unknown:
he whose goodness shown in his every act, he died as he lived.
[00:11:43] Unknown:
His end was, in every way,
[00:11:47] Unknown:
worthy of his life. And I was not with him. No one near him who understood.
[00:11:52] Unknown:
I was with him.
[00:11:54] Unknown:
To the very end.
[00:11:56] Unknown:
To the very end. Oh, please.
[00:12:00] Unknown:
Please, his last words to live with. Don't you understand? I loved him. I loved him.
[00:12:16] Unknown:
She is begging with her eyes and her heart in her eyes. She's begging, making the silence clamorous with the begging words she restrains, refusing to give the mutterance. I cannot answer. Oh, please.
[00:12:30] Unknown:
It's just his last words. Just tell me his last words.
[00:12:39] Unknown:
She bows to my silence. She sits immobile, grave. She has long since learned to accept silence and to bear. And I sit, and I cannot reply. I cannot tell her at the last, for I am caught up once more in the beginning. And in the silence, it begins again from the beginning, almost two years ago. Thirty days from the port in Europe to the coastal station of the company in Africa, the station where I first heard of Kurtz.
[00:13:22] Unknown:
Your boat, captain Marlow, is at the central station, 200 miles up the river. Oh, then I should be on my way there. You shall have to walk.
[00:13:29] Unknown:
200 miles?
[00:13:31] Unknown:
Yes. I know it sounds ridiculous, but everything here in this foul country is ridiculous or fatal or both. Usually with the next caravan for the central station. As I said, that will be in ten days. No. It may be longer. The caravan will leave the day after tomorrow, captain. Oh, I can't say I'll be sorry to leave. You have one interesting prospect. In the interior, you will no doubt meet mister Kurtz. And who is this interesting mister Kurtz? Oh, believe me, captain. Mister Kurtz is a remarkable person, a most unusual man. Oh, is he in charge of the central station? No. No. No. No. He is much further out in the very bottom of the Congo. His trading post is in the true ivory country.
He sends in as much ivory as all the others put together.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
Fifteen days after leaving the coastal station, I hobbled into the central station, where I was immediately taken into tow by a bearded young man who informed me that his name was Malaparte.
[00:14:53] Unknown:
Marlo.
[00:14:54] Unknown:
Captain Marlo. Oh, you are here to take charge of the boat. To run the boat too. Wherever it is, I'm supposed to run it.
[00:15:02] Unknown:
That's too bad, captain. How are you to run a boat that is at this moment at the bottom of the river? Too bad. What?
[00:15:10] Unknown:
How did this happen? No. No. It's quite all right. I assure you the manager himself was there. All is quite all right. All right. What my boat sunk. Can you see it all right now? Will explain.
[00:15:20] Unknown:
He's he's waiting. You must go see him at once.
[00:15:31] Unknown:
You're a very long time getting here, captain Marlowe. The delays were beyond my control, miss Yorena. I could not wait. As manager of the central station, I'm responsible for the agents at the up river stations. I had to start without you. But without a captain, why the risk to the boat was enormous. Are you questioning my judgment, captain? There were rumors that a very important station is in danger, that its chief, mister Kurtz, is ill. I do hope the rumors are false, mister Kurtz. I know all about mister Kurtz. Oh, well then, you can understand my anxiety.
Tell me, captain,
[00:16:08] Unknown:
how long will it take to get the boat off the bottom and repair it? Well, how the devil can I do? I haven't even seen a wreck yet. Beside, I I'm hungry and tired. I have walked 20 miles today, and I haven't beaten or sat down yet. Oh, it probably will take months. Months?
[00:16:25] Unknown:
Let's say three months. That ought to do it perfectly.
[00:16:37] Unknown:
The next day, I began operations to raise the boat from the bottom. How's the next down line? We'll keep bailing.
[00:16:46] Unknown:
Well, well, well. Well, captain Marley, you're an example of industry.
[00:16:51] Unknown:
Oh, hello, Malepard.
[00:16:52] Unknown:
Keep those pumps working.
[00:16:54] Unknown:
You will be able to repair the boat. Oh, worry about that later. Right now, the problem is to get her on the bank to work on her. Well, of course, you know all about these things.
[00:17:03] Unknown:
Tell me, captain, confidentially, what do you think about our manager, Bernard?
[00:17:10] Unknown:
Haven't thought about him at all. Why? Oh, nothing. Nothing. No reason. Just
[00:17:15] Unknown:
curious. I was wondering if you did not find it strange that one so obviously mediocre as he should be managing. I said I haven't thought about him at all. I must tell you in confidence, of course, that I used to find it strange when first I came out here. You're doing the talking, Malabar.
[00:17:38] Unknown:
I'll listen.
[00:17:41] Unknown:
You are more discreet. Very wise. However, do you know that I no longer find it strange that Renard is manager? He is manager because he is never ill. He inherited his position. Think of it. Nine years out here
[00:18:00] Unknown:
and never once ill. That's very interesting. So what? Nothing nothing.
[00:18:06] Unknown:
You know, you cannot imagine how many men have come here from Europe hoping to replace Renard as manager. And every one of them has failed. And do you know why? It's our magnificent simplicity, the answer. Renard outlays them. They die. Renard remains the manager.
[00:18:30] Unknown:
What are you getting at? Getting at? Oh,
[00:18:34] Unknown:
Captain Marlowe, I'm amazed. One might think that you suspected me of giving you a warning.
[00:18:52] Unknown:
I suspected Malepard of something, but of what I didn't know. Certainly, I couldn't credit the obvious inference that I'd come out to oust oust Reynard from his job as manager. There were 18 or 19 other white men at the station besides Malabar who whiled away the time with backbiting and petty intrigue, and it was not long before I learned that Malabar was the manager's spy. He had indeed been warning me, but why? Why?
[00:19:31] Unknown:
I do hope you don't mind my coming aboard the boat, captain Muller. You're aboard already. I brought something I thought might interest you. Painting. It's small but interesting, I think. Here. Look for yourself.
[00:19:45] Unknown:
Subject's interesting. Native girl holding a torch, looks like. Hey. That's not bad. Not bad at all. Who painted it?
[00:19:56] Unknown:
Mister Kurtz.
[00:19:58] Unknown:
Tell me, who is this mister Kurtz?
[00:20:01] Unknown:
The chief of the inner station.
[00:20:04] Unknown:
Much obliged. And you are the manager's spy. Everybody knows that too. Come, talk.
[00:20:12] Unknown:
Kurtz is a prodigy. Today, he is chief of the best station. Next, he will be assistant manager. In a year or two but I dare say you know what he'll be by then. You are of the new gang. I know.
[00:20:29] Unknown:
You know? Malabar, you've been reading the company's confidential correspondence. When mister Kurtz is general manager, you won't have the opportunity. The last repairs were being made on the steamboat when the station was invaded by a mob of pack animals, porters, and white men, calling themselves the El Dorado Exploring Expedition. The uncle of our manager, Reynard, was the leader. I found him so distasteful that to contain my temper, I took to staying aboard my steamboat. Well, the evening before the expedition left, I was stretched out on the deck when I heard the voices of the manager and his uncle on the bank against which the boat lay.
[00:21:20] Unknown:
I know I'm the manager, but I was ordered to send him there. Ordered. It is unpleasant,
[00:21:26] Unknown:
but the man has great influence.
[00:21:29] Unknown:
Influence enough to jeopardize my position and yours, my dear uncle.
[00:21:34] Unknown:
Is he alone there? Yes.
[00:21:37] Unknown:
Sent his assistant down the river with a note to me. I remember it word for word. Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of this sort. I'd rather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me. That's the note he sent me, the manager, me. Anything since then? Ivory. Lots of it. Prime stuff. Lots.
[00:22:01] Unknown:
But how? He's been without supplies for over nine months now. No goods, no stores.
[00:22:07] Unknown:
Perhaps some wandering white man who gets ivory from the natives.
[00:22:11] Unknown:
Well, perhaps the climate will do away with your problem, Renard.
[00:22:16] Unknown:
Yes. I know that. Don't worry then.
[00:22:20] Unknown:
Trust to the jungle, the river, the fever, the savages. Trust to this and your magnificent health. You stand the climate. You outlast them all. And at the worst, here, anything can be done.
[00:23:01] Unknown:
From Hollywood, the NBC University Theatre is bringing you Brian Ahern in a radio version of Joseph Conrad's the Heart of Darkness'. This play is part of a series devoted to the classic novels of Anglo American literature. If you're interested in supplementing your enjoyment of these productions with home study under college supervision, be sure to listen to the announcement at the close of this program. And now our intermission commentator, Mr. Granville Hicks, author of The Great Tradition, Small Town, and John Reed, The Making of a Revolutionary. Speaking from New York, here is Mr. Granville Hicks.
[00:23:41] Unknown:
The process by which Joseph Conrad became a master of English fiction was as full of coincidences as one of Thomas Hardy's novels. In the first place, he was not a native Englishman, and in the second place, he chose for himself a career that was far removed from literature. He was born in Poland in 1857, and when he was 17, he went to France to become a sailor, in itself a surprising decision for a youth who had grown up in an inland country. In 1878, quite by accident, he signed on a British ship. This led to other voyages under the British flag and eventually to his becoming a British citizen. While he was recuperating from a fever contracted in Africa, he began his first novel.
He intended to return to the scene, but his health had been impaired. The periods between voyages grew longer. He finished his first novel and began another. And so, without conscious intention, he drifted into the literary career that was to last until his death in 1924, and was so full of distinction. Like Herman Melville, Conrad based most of his novels on personal experience, and his most inspiring experiences, like Melville's, were associated with the sea. Heart of darkness, of course, is not a sea story, But so far as the setting goes, it is autobiographical.
Conrad did go to The Congo. The diary that he kept on that trip makes no mention of a mister Kurtz, but it demonstrates that he knew it firsthand of the heart of darkness. In a passage that has often been quoted, Conrad wrote, my task, which I am trying to achieve, is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel, it is before all to make you see. The reader of heart of darkness does see the Congo and the impenetrable African jungles, but feeling is for once more important than see. What makes the story great is the overwhelming power with which Conrad creates a mood, a mood of terrified anticipation and realized horror.
But there is something more in this tale than the evocation of a barbaric continent. Where is the heart of darkness anyway? In Africa or in mister Kurtz? That is to say, in man. Today, after what we have known of concentration camps and human slaughterhouses, the story has a new meaning. Where does Kurtz's ambition lead for all his idealistic professions? To participation in obscene rights and to that devastating postscript to his official report, exterminate the brutes. It is in more senses than one that we can say that Conrad knew the Heart of Darkness. Thank you, Mr. Hicks.
[00:26:32] Unknown:
Our radio version of the Heart of Darkness starring Brian Ahern will continue from Hollywood after a brief pause for station identification.
[00:27:09] Unknown:
The El Dorado expedition plunged into the patient wilderness the next day. And nine days later, the steering wheel of the steamboat began to churn the treacherous waters of the river and started upstream. It was two months of the day when we came to the bank below Kurzis Station. It was like a particularly torturous dream, that journey, the sort of dream one recognizes in the dreaming as a dream and yet is unable to escape by awakening. A great silence enveloped us, and all about us, over us, beside us, beneath us was darkness, ever darker as we penetrated further until it seemed that we would soon be within the very heart of darkness.
Trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up very high. And at their foot, hugging the bank, puffing feebly against the stream, crept the little steamboat like a small beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico. Where Malaparte and his fellow seekers of trading post imagined it crawled to, I don't know. Someplace where they expected to get something, I bet. But for me, it crawled toward Kurz exclusively. Some 50 miles below the inner station, the manager yelled up to me in the wheelhouse from the deck below.
[00:28:38] Unknown:
Captain, captain Marlowe, look over at the right bank. A flag of some sort. Can you make it out? Now shall we put in the shore and take a look? Yes. It may belong to one of our traders.
[00:29:00] Unknown:
There's a nice stack of wood all piled up. We can use it.
[00:29:05] Unknown:
That seems deserted. No signs of a struggle. Hello. Some meshes of some sort on that flat piece of board. Can you read it, Renard? Not without my glasses. It's so faded. See what you can make of
[00:29:20] Unknown:
it. It is faded. Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously. There's a signature too, but it's too faded to make out. It's a foolish message. Hurry up. Where? Approach cautiously. Where? Obviously not here. We weren't very cautious approaching. Idiot.
[00:29:39] Unknown:
Write some message if we were writing a telegram. The devil with it. Let's load the wood aboard and get on our way.
[00:30:00] Unknown:
This looks like a good place to anchor for the night, captain. According to my calculations, Renau, we're only eight miles from Kurzis Station. Let's keep going. Oh, oh,
[00:30:09] Unknown:
I'm afraid it would be too risky. Waters here are quite dangerous. Less than an hour of sunlight left. But we're so near. Besides recall the message. Approach cautiously. Now now I think we'd best wait for morning.
[00:30:35] Unknown:
The manager was right. Eight miles meant three hours steaming for us, and the water had many suspicious ripples. It was sensible. Still, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay. When the sun rose, there was a white fog, hot and clammy, more blinding than the night. It just lay there like something solid. At eight or nine, it lifted all at once like a shutter lift.
[00:30:58] Unknown:
Well, thank heavens for that, captain. I thought that fog was gonna lay in all day.
[00:31:04] Unknown:
You spoke too soon, Renan. It's rolling down on us again. Forget it. Drop anchor. Drop anchor.
[00:31:14] Unknown:
What was that? Sam. Did you did you hear that? Did you hear that? Malefire. Get the others. Get your rifle quickly. Cover all sides of the boat. Keep your rifles ready. Fire as soon as you see them.
[00:31:37] Unknown:
Finally, the fog lifted, and the boat headed into the western passage. It was narrower than it had seemed and shallower. The deeper water was near to the bank. I ordered my steersman, an athletic looking native whom I call boy or various of the more pungent names a sailor learns, to steer inshore whilst I kept a sharp eye ahead for snags and rocks.
[00:31:56] Unknown:
Alright, boy. Yeah. He's buona.
[00:31:58] Unknown:
Hard. I said blast you hard. Yeah. He's buona. Steady now. Steady. I looked below me where I could see the fireman, And suddenly, he stretched himself out prone on the deck. I was amazed. But then I had to look at the river again mighty quick. There was a snag dead ahead. And sticks, little sticks were flying about thick. Hard lift, boy. Hard left. Arrows. The little sticks were arrows. We were being shot at.
[00:32:39] Unknown:
Dearest good boy. Boy, boy, will I go.
[00:32:43] Unknown:
That fool native had left the wheel, grabbed the heavy rifle that was on the wall of the wheelhouse, opened the side shutter and was shooting. Grabbed the whistle cord and jerked out screech after screech while with the other hand, I held the wheel.
[00:32:58] Unknown:
The whistle checked the tumult and the attack ended as it began abruptly. Boy, the steersman was on the floor with what appeared to be a long cane sticking out of his back. It was the shaft of a spear that had pierced him through. He was gashed horribly. A pool of his blood gleamed dark red under the wheel. Captain, Captain, the manager wants it.
[00:33:19] Unknown:
Oh, no. Is is he dead? I suppose.
[00:33:25] Unknown:
Here. Hold the wheel. But I can't. I don't know Hold it, Blasch. Just hold it steady. I reached over, shut my eyes, pulled a spear out of him, and put him over the side with a single movement. The greatest strain was on my stomach, not my strength as I put my arms around that body. Marlowe. Good heavens, Marlowe. You're not going to oh, I do want to keep the body hanging about for to embalm it. The manager and Malaparte and the other whites were scandalized, and so was my crew and for a better reason. Oh, I admit their reason was inadmissible. Besides, I've made up my mind that if my late steersman was to be eaten, it would be by fish only.
[00:34:30] Unknown:
There is really very little point in going ahead. These savages have surely blown the station to the ground. Most probably.
[00:34:40] Unknown:
And Kurtz too then is undoubtedly dead.
[00:34:43] Unknown:
Now what do you wanna do then? Shall I turn the boat around and go back downstream? Oh, no. No. Not at all. We must examine the remains.
[00:34:51] Unknown:
If we can, give poor Kurtz Christian burial. Marlowe,
[00:34:56] Unknown:
fire does not always destroy ivory. The ivory he collected may still be ivory. Ivory.
[00:35:15] Unknown:
I felt sick. I felt like crying. All I could think was I will never hear Kurt speak. I felt somehow as if I'd been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life. I was gripped by the sense of tears in my being. I was mourning within me for I'd lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz.
[00:35:39] Unknown:
At least we're safer here, captain.
[00:35:41] Unknown:
Channel is well in midstream. Yeah. What's that up ahead?
[00:35:45] Unknown:
The station. It's Kurtz's station. What? Burned.
[00:35:48] Unknown:
Yeah. Hold the wheel, Renard. I wanna take a look through my glasses. As I a long decaying building perched on the summit of a naked hill swung into focus. There was no stockade or fence around it, but apparently there had been one for near the house half a dozen slim posts remain, roughly trimmed and ornamented on top with round carved balls. On the bank I saw a white man wearing a hat like a cartwheel waving his arm in frantic circles. As we pulled in close to the shore, I could see him clearly. Uhoy. You're there ashore. Are we in time? Yes. I think so.
[00:36:40] Unknown:
He's up there in the house. We've been attacked. I know. I know.
[00:36:45] Unknown:
It's alright. Come ashore. It's alright. Oh, you stay here with the boat, captain. The rest of you, come with me and bring your guns.
[00:37:02] Unknown:
The manager and the rest of them went ashore up to the hill and to the house, and the other chap came aboard.
[00:37:09] Unknown:
They are simple people, but I'm glad you have come. It it took me all my time to keep them off. Oh? They meant no harm. That is not exactly you you see, you just can't tell when they mean harm or no harm or or then again.
[00:37:35] Unknown:
Peter Randall, the way it's such a rady quite overwhelming. You seem to be trying to make up for lots of silence.
[00:37:40] Unknown:
I I'm I'm afraid I'm talking too much, but I can't help myself. I've got so much talk bottled up in me. Why? Don't you talk with mister Kurtz? Even mister Kurtz? No, my friend. You don't talk with that man. You listen to him, and I tell you this man has enlarged my mind. Not just me. No. The natives too. Not that I mean they have minds, but whatever it is they have, he has captured
[00:38:10] Unknown:
it. Then why did they attack us?
[00:38:13] Unknown:
Oh, they they don't want him to go.
[00:38:16] Unknown:
Oh, don't they? No.
[00:38:19] Unknown:
But you must take Kurtz away quick. Quick, I tell you. He he is very badly off. Very badly. I have been doing my best to keep him alive. Calm yourself. I'm sure you've done very well. No. No. I have no abilities, and there isn't a drop of medicine or invalid food. There hasn't been for months. So shamefully abandoned. A man like this with such ideas is shameful. I I can't do anymore. I I haven't slept for the last ten nights.
[00:39:01] Unknown:
I gave him a top from the brandy flask, medicinal. After a bit, he began to talk again. His words were satellites revolving about the sun that was Kurz.
[00:39:11] Unknown:
We, met by accident in the jungle. And ever since you've been with him? Oh, no. No. I hardly ever except twice when Kurtz was ill. Most of the time he'd be wandering through the jungle
[00:39:25] Unknown:
looking for rivalry. But he's had no goods to trade for for well nigh a year now.
[00:39:32] Unknown:
There's a good deal of cartridges left even yet.
[00:39:37] Unknown:
Oh, let's speak plainly. You mean Kurtz raided the country?
[00:39:42] Unknown:
Yes. But he couldn't do it alone, surely. They came from the villages around the lake.
[00:39:48] Unknown:
Kurt's got the tribe to follow him, did he? Well,
[00:39:51] Unknown:
you see, they adore him. What can you expect? He came to them with thunder and lightning. And don't you see? They have never seen anything like it before. He was terrible. Like, he could be very terrible. He sounds vile and horrible. No. No. No. You can't judge mister Kurtz as you would an ordinary man.
[00:40:25] Unknown:
He finally subsided into silence. I picked up my binoculars and looked more carefully than before at the fence that had once enclosed the house and at the round carved ball that ornamented the top of the pole. I felt my stomach drop. Quickly, I examined the top piece on each of the balls. They were all the same. Not ornaments, not round carved wooden balls, but black dried human skulls.
[00:41:01] Unknown:
Yeah. He should have taken them down, but I didn't dare. Not that I'm afraid of the natives. You understand? They wouldn't stir until mister Kurtz gave the word. He controlled them completely. Why, when the chiefs of the tribes come to see mister Kurtz, they would crawl. Stop. I I I don't want to know anything about the ceremony of approaching mister Kurtz. No. Don't judge him, captain. You don't know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz. Oh, well, then how has it tried a man like you? Me? What am I? Simple man. I I have no great thoughts.
I want nothing from anybody. How can you compare me to me? Nobody. Nothing. How can you compare me?
[00:42:02] Unknown:
We were silent, he and I. We watched the sudden tropic nightfall. It shadowed the house, and and the shadows were lengthening down the hill toward the river, which still glittered with a dazzling splendour. Not a living soul was to be seen on the shore, not a single bush rustled. Suddenly, around the corner of the house, a group of men appeared bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst. And instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, as if by enchantment, streams of human beings, naked human beings seem to rise from out the very ground to surround the group of men bearing the stretchers. If he doesn't say the right thing to the natures now, we are all done for. Let's hope that the man who can talk so convincingly will find some particular reason to do so and spare us this time. They're are so far away.
[00:42:50] Unknown:
If only I could hear him. He's done it. They're gone.
[00:43:03] Unknown:
Gone? They disappeared. I was watching, and they never moved, and they were gone. As if the jungle had drawn them back with a single enormous sucking breath. They brought Kurtz aboard and put him in the little cabin next to mine. We brought along his mail, a year's worth of torn envelopes and open letters now littered his his bed. He waved one of the letters and looking at me, spoke.
[00:43:40] Unknown:
I'm glad to see you, captain. They write fine things about you. Gentlemen,
[00:43:47] Unknown:
would you leave us? Mister Kurtz and I have some matters to discuss.
[00:43:53] Unknown:
Did I describe his voice truthfully, captain? Did I? It's amazing.
[00:43:58] Unknown:
Such strength. And the sound of it, why he doesn't look strong enough to whisper.
[00:44:03] Unknown:
Hey. There is something on my heart. I I I feel you should know yet if it were known, it would affect mister Kurtz's reputation
[00:44:11] Unknown:
gravely. He couldn't see that Kurtz was already as good as in his grave. To him, I suspect Kurtz was one of the immortals.
[00:44:18] Unknown:
I don't want anything to happen to you or the others here, but I must consider mister Kurtz's reputation.
[00:44:25] Unknown:
Alright. I promise you, mister Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.
[00:44:30] Unknown:
The attack on your steamboat, mister Kurtz ordered it. He had sometimes the idea of being taken away. And and and then again, I don't quite understand it. I I am a simple man. He thought it would scare you away, that you would give it up thinking him dead. I have had an awful time of it this last month.
[00:44:57] Unknown:
He's alright now, though, isn't he? Yes. Thanks. I shall keep my eyes open.
[00:45:02] Unknown:
And your promise to keep that? As you would yourself. Thank you, captain. Goodbye.
[00:45:16] Unknown:
Before I could quite catch the full significance of his goodbye, he was gone, and I never saw him again. I stood there in the darkness, and suddenly like a clarion, Kurtz's voice rang out, although I was some considerable distance from the cabin where he and the manager Renard were closeted. Save me.
[00:45:36] Unknown:
Save the ivory, you mean. Don't tell me you've saved me. Why I had to save you. Now you're interrupting my plans. Sick. Not as sick as you'd like to believe. Never mind. I'll carry my ideas out yet. I'll return. I'll show you what can be done. You and your little peddling notions, you're interfering with me. I'll return.
[00:46:24] Unknown:
It was well after midnight when I awoke. I don't know why I should have, but I did. I walked out of the pilot house onto the deck. On top of the hill, a big fire was burning, and around the fire were several of the boat's crew and Malephardt or one of the manager's other jekylls keeping guard over the enormous store of ivory that Kurtz had assembled. I turned away from the rail for a moment and glanced casually into the little cabin. A light was burning in it, but Kurtz was not there. In that moment, I knew pure terror. Kurtz was going back, back to the jungle.
And once he reached the natives, he would order our massacre. He would never allow us to return to tell. I went ashore quickly, and as soon as I got on the bank, I saw a broad trail through the use of grass. It was obvious Kurtz was crawling on all fours, too weak to walk. I ran rapidly, bent close to the ground following the trail. And suddenly, so sudden that I almost fell over him, I was upon him. Go away. Hide yourself. Come back to the boat quietly with me.
[00:47:32] Unknown:
I was on the threshold of great things. Now this stupid scoundrel, this Renard Doesn't matter. Your success in Europe is assured in any event. I already have it here. Look there by the fire. See him.
[00:47:50] Unknown:
I looked. Not 30 yards away was a fire, and striding up and down before it, a black figure majestically erect, wearing horns, antelope horns, I think, on its head. He is a witch doctor, a priest, and I
[00:48:04] Unknown:
I am a god he worships. And all the rest of them, it is I. Love of your own, your family, the girl you are to marry,
[00:48:13] Unknown:
the awe and fear and respect of your own goods. Don't you want that?
[00:48:18] Unknown:
What more have I ever wanted?
[00:48:21] Unknown:
And yet your mind, Goetz, your mind and your talents, your genius, where can they receive proper recognition here? Who can appreciate them? Here.
[00:48:30] Unknown:
No one. And I am a great man. I am.
[00:48:45] Unknown:
It was a terrible contest. I couldn't appeal to him in the name of anything high or low. I had, even as the savages who worshiped him, to invoke him himself, his own exalted and terrible degradation. I struggled with him, and he struggled with himself too. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, but yet struggled with itself blindly. I had to half carry him back on
[00:49:25] Unknown:
the boat.
[00:49:26] Unknown:
The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us back with twice the speed of our journey into the jungle. And Kurtz's life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. And I saw it. He was not in the little cabin, but in the pilot house where there was more air. And Kurtz would talk, discourse abruptly without preamble or explanation, much as a gramophone record blares out music from whatever spot the needle is put to it.
[00:50:01] Unknown:
Did you know, captain Marlowe, that I have been commissioned by the international society for the suppression of savage customs to write a paper on the subject? Afraid I No. Of course not. I hadn't told you before.
[00:50:15] Unknown:
Now here, captain,
[00:50:18] Unknown:
read it for yourself.
[00:50:25] Unknown:
I read it, 17 pages of it. It was magnificent. It gave me the notion of an exotic immensity ruled by an august benevolence. It had had unbounded eloquence, noble burning words, but no practical suggestions to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note, scrawled evidently after the report proper had been written, that appeared at the foot of the last page. It was just this. Exterminate all the brutes. Why have we stopped, captain? It's only mid afternoon. When the engine's broken down, it'll be a few days before they're repaired, I'm afraid. Close the shutter.
[00:51:14] Unknown:
The jungler's looking in at me. Close it, please. Alright.
[00:51:19] Unknown:
Alright. Don't get excited, Kurtz.
[00:51:24] Unknown:
I can't bear to look at it. It laughs at me. It listens to me talking of my my ivory, my station, my river, my career, my intended it listens and it laughs. It knows all these belong to me. It knows, but it laughs because it knows that I belong to its own infernal powers of darkness. I'm sold to it. I was bought by never mind the vile purchase price. I know the price, and the jungle knows.
[00:52:11] Unknown:
Oh, come now, Kurtz. Your nerves are getting a little low. Yeah. Get some sleep. You'll feel better. No, captain.
[00:52:17] Unknown:
It won't be too much longer. That much is plain. I know it. You can see it. There's a shoebox under my bed. Take care of it for me. It's got some private papers and my intended photograph. That stinking fool, Renard, is capable of prying into my things, and I want you to see he does not. Alright. Alright. Please, would you mind leaving me alone for a bit? Well, not at all.
[00:52:50] Unknown:
Not at all. I spent the rest of the day working on the engine. It was evening before I returned to the pilot house. Kurtz lay on his bed, staring straight ahead, unblinking immobile.
[00:53:17] Unknown:
I'm lying here in the dark waiting for death.
[00:53:22] Unknown:
Oh, stop talking nonsense, Kurt. Why, there's a candle within a foot of your eyes. A change came over his face, a change I hope never to see again. It was as if he achieved a supreme moment of complete knowledge, and in that moment lived again every detail, every temptation, and every surrender of his life. And he cried out twice,
[00:53:54] Unknown:
the horror. Pass the salt, please, Malephardt.
[00:54:14] Unknown:
Here you are. Thank you. Salt, captain? Oh, no. It's all right as it is. Tell me how is Kurtz tonight? Oh, all right, I guess. I think I should pop in, say hello to him.
[00:54:26] Unknown:
Ask him if he's ready for his dinner. Right. I'll do that. You know, but I'll get back to Europe, Captain. I'm going to find the man who sells us this tinned beef, and I'm going to shoot him. Why not torture him? Make him eat some of it. That's very good, captain. That's very good.
[00:54:45] Unknown:
He's dead.
[00:54:47] Unknown:
Oh,
[00:54:48] Unknown:
come on. Let's see. Coming, captain. No. I haven't finished my dinner. I didn't eat anymore after they left. I hadn't gone because it was light in the dining room and so beastly dark out there. And besides, the voice was gone. Kurtz's voice was gone forever. And what else had there ever been?
[00:55:24] Unknown:
His last words, please. You must tell me, captain. Please, won't you won't you tell me his last words?
[00:55:34] Unknown:
Kurtz is intended. I had quite forgotten. I was in the drawing room of a house back in Europe. The House Of Kurz is intended. You've you've
[00:55:45] Unknown:
been thinking of of him, of Kurz, haven't you?
[00:55:51] Unknown:
Yes. Yes. I I oh, forgive me. Most impolite. I I understand.
[00:55:56] Unknown:
Often, I sit and I think of Kurtz, remember him, miss him, and never miss the hours that go by. Had I been remembering Kurtz for hours?
[00:56:08] Unknown:
I don't know. But the dusk is gone, and night and darkness fill the room. You will you will tell me, won't you?
[00:56:14] Unknown:
You will tell me his last words. Oh, you must.
[00:56:19] Unknown:
The last word he pronounced was, your name.
[00:56:27] Unknown:
I knew it. I was sure. I was so sure. So sure.
[00:56:44] Unknown:
I fled the room on the house. She was weeping. She didn't notice. I didn't matter. But I thought the house would collapse on me before I could escape. But the heavens would fall over my head. For I had lied, lied completely. I couldn't tell her the truth. I couldn't. It would have been too dark. Too dark all together.
[00:57:32] Unknown:
You have been listening to The Heart of Darkness, an NBC University Theatre production of the Joseph Conrad short story starring Brian Ahern as Marlow. Next week at this same time, we will bring you another classic of Anglo American literature, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. The present semester of the NBC University Theatre is devoted to the classics of Anglo American literature from the time of Henry Fielding to that of Henry James. If you wish, you may learn more about these authors and their works by enrolling in the college supervised courses now being offered in connection with the NBC University Theatre. The University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, Washington State College, and Kansas State Teachers College have now completed their plans for offering such a course in the coming months, thus joining the University of Louisville, whose established home study plan is already serving listeners in another area of the nation.
For information then as to how you may enhance your knowledge through these courses, write to NBC University Theatre in care of the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, Washington State College, Pullman, Washington, the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburgh, Kansas. The heart of darkness was adapted for radio by Morton Friedman. Our intermission commentator was Granville Hicks. The part of Marlowe was played by Brian Ahern, internationally celebrated star of stage and screen. Our cast included Rolf Sedan, Doris Lloyd, Tony Barrett, Lynn Allen, Roy Engel, Jerome Sheldon, Ben Wright, Whitfield Connor.
Your announcer, Don Stanley. The original musical score was composed and conducted by doctor Albert Harris. The director of the NBC University Theatre is Andrew c Love. Next week, be with us again for the NBC University Theater dramatization of Edith Wharton's fine novel, The Age of Innocence, starring John Sutton. This program came to you from Hollywood's Radio City. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.
The game is on the line, and I've only got a shot clock's worth of time to tell you about Subway's six ninety nine foot long deal. That's right. Order now on the Subway app and get any foot long on the menu for just $6.99. Fresh sliced deli meat, fresh crispy veggies, too much good stuff. Get it now on the Subway app. Any footlong for just $6.99. Use code 699FL now. Only here for a limited time. Redeemable at participating US restaurants. Subway app online orders only. Add ons, additional plus tasks. Additional fees apply on delivery. Excludes footlong snacks. Limited time.
[00:00:43] Unknown:
This is the NBC University Theater, bringing you a full hour dramatization of The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, starring Brian Ahern. Today, a story by one of the most exciting writers of the last century, Joseph Conrad. He knew wherever he wrote, for he had been there. He was born in Poland. At 17 was a sailor of France, and not many years later was a master mariner of the seven seas. He knew the world and its wickedness and put both down on paper with great zest. Conrad is known as an English novelist, but he drew his imagery from the richness of three languages. The Heart of Darkness is one of his most masterful stories, drawing heavily on personal experience in The Congo.
Its hypnotic style and intensity of mood have been well captured in today's adaptation for radio by Morton Friedman. Here then, the heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad, starring one of Hollywood's most articulate gentlemen, mister Brian Ahern, as
[00:02:02] Unknown:
Marlowe.
[00:02:11] Unknown:
We are well separated, Kurz and I. We are separated by life and death. I live and Kurz does not. We are separated by a year. Exactly one year ago, I saw his body swallowed by the mud of a river bank in Africa. We are separated by thousands of miles. We are well separated, the courts and I. And yet, less than an hour ago, I saw him again. And again, I heard him, his magnificent voice whispering, peeling, proclaiming, begging. And again, I heard the beat of the drums, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart, the heart of a conquering darkness.
[00:03:09] Unknown:
I trust you will pardon this, intrusion, mademoiselle Marlowe, but I have come to see capital Marlowe on business, a company business.
[00:03:18] Unknown:
Oh, dear. How awkward. I'm afraid you can't see my nephew, monsieur. Can't? I mean now. He,
[00:03:27] Unknown:
I believe he's taking a nap. Just I must insist, mademoiselle, upon seeing your nephew the captain now. He is involved in the matter of the utmost gravity. The company is quite perturbed. But if he's napping, I can't wake him. That won't be necessary. He is awake. There is a light in his room, the corner room.
[00:03:47] Unknown:
Well, really now.
[00:03:50] Unknown:
You smell it? Tobacco. The Capeten is smoking.
[00:03:55] Unknown:
I'll tell him you're here if he's awake. Charlie.
[00:04:04] Unknown:
I'm awake, Arlene.
[00:04:06] Unknown:
The director of the company. I know. I heard you talking. Tell him to go away. I don't want to see him. Charlie, don't you think you ought to get it over and done with him? You know,
[00:04:16] Unknown:
I I coughed twice. You both were so engrossed. I'm afraid you didn't hear. Monsieur director. I'm so very glad to see you, captain.
[00:04:27] Unknown:
You can't imagine how anxiously I have looked forward to seeing you again. And to talk to me, monsieur director? To ask some questions, monsieur director? Some questions about Kurtz?
[00:04:40] Unknown:
Ah, I see you are an intelligent man, Capetaine.
[00:04:44] Unknown:
I am pleased. Oh, can't we dispense with a sham? You're not here as a friend, but as a representative of the company.
[00:04:51] Unknown:
Say rather both. As a friend and as a representative, as you put it, of the company.
[00:04:57] Unknown:
Both. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to go to my room. I think that's wise, auntie. Oh, there is no real need for you to go, mademoiselle. Whatever we have to say, your nephew and I, I I think I should be able to like you both better if I don't hear what you have to say to each other.
[00:05:14] Unknown:
Perhaps. Who knows? Now, captain, about, Kurtz. Shortly before this, unfortunate death, mister Kurtz gave you a package containing some papers of his. Did he not? Some papers and a photograph in a shoe box. Oh, you still have them. Where are they? Let me have them. I still have them. I have them with me, and I will not let you have them. I I beg your pardon. I meant to say if you had them, might I see the documents, quotes left in your case? Look here. When the manager of the central station told you I had the documents,
[00:05:53] Unknown:
he must also have told you that he tried to get them and couldn't. He did so report. And what makes you think I would change my mind because you asked me? Because they concern company territory.
[00:06:03] Unknown:
Very valuable territory.
[00:06:05] Unknown:
A completely unexplored portion of The Congo until mister Cook They have nothing in them in reference to commerce. They're all purely personal.
[00:06:13] Unknown:
There may be much of great value to science, geographers,
[00:06:17] Unknown:
anthropologists. Not very much if you're concerned with any values or any other profit than to yourself and the company.
[00:06:24] Unknown:
I confess I do not understand your obvious hostility,
[00:06:28] Unknown:
but you would do well to be civil. Oh, you're being ridiculous. After all, you insulted me first. You insulted my intelligence with your prattle about science.
[00:06:38] Unknown:
I do not make idle threats, captain Marlowe. So believe me, I shall You'll do nothing.
[00:06:45] Unknown:
Remember Kurtz's papers. There may be lots of profits in them, and I've got them. Remember?
[00:06:54] Unknown:
Let's be sensible. What do you want for those papers?
[00:06:58] Unknown:
How much? Oh, so that they may be used for the promotion of science, of course. Oh, of course.
[00:07:04] Unknown:
How much?
[00:07:06] Unknown:
I'll match your generosity, monsieur. Take it. For science. Free. Here. This little pamphlet on the bed table. This this is it? Been in front of me all this time. Alright. A report written by mister Kurtz entitled the suppression of savage customs.
[00:07:25] Unknown:
Oh, nothing. This is nothing. Not at all what I had expected. Keep it.
[00:07:39] Unknown:
Two days later, I had another caller, a man who said he was Kurtz's cousin. This self identified cousin was a musician. Yes. Yes. A musician,
[00:07:48] Unknown:
an organist. I have studied music for years, but did you know, sir, that my cousin Kurtz was essentially a great musician?
[00:07:57] Unknown:
No. I didn't. Plain truth, I couldn't tell what Kurtz's real profession was. He painted well, wrote well. I couldn't tell which of his many talents was the greatest. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. You are quite right, sir. Yes. Quite right. My cousin Kurtz was undoubtedly a universal genius. I agreed with the old chap. Kurtz undoubtedly was just that. Well, he left after a while, taking with him some family letters that had been among Kurtz's papers. Why couldn't I be done with it all? I wanted to forget to wipe my mind and memory clear of Kurtz and the horror, to use his own word, that was inextricably associated with them in my mind. The horror and the darkness and the death, but mostly the darkness.
Another caller. This time, a journalist, a self proclaimed colleague, of course. You should have heard him address large meetings.
[00:09:04] Unknown:
He could electrify them. He had the faith. Faith? Faith in what? Anything.
[00:09:10] Unknown:
Kurtz could get himself to believe in anything. And anything he believed in, he could get anyone to believe. He would have had a great career in politics. What a splendid leader of a party he would have been. What party, for example? Any party, so long as it was an extreme party. He was himself an extremist. Don't you agree?
[00:09:30] Unknown:
I evaded the answer, or rather the true answer, and gave him instead Kurtz's pamphlet. The journalist took it most eagerly and left with it, saying it would be published at once. So now I am left with a slim packet of letters and the girl's photograph. All that have been Kurzis, save these, have passed through my hands. His soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career. There remains only his memory and his intended. I have gone to see Coetzee's intended, the girl of the photograph, to return the letters and the picture, to surrender to his memory, and to wipe my memory clear of all that oppresses it and me.
We sit in the formal drawing room of her house. We sit and talk sporadically. She is still in deep mourning, although a year has now passed since his death. You knew him. You knew him well, didn't you? I, I knew him as,
[00:10:43] Unknown:
well, as well as it is possible for one man to know another. And you admired him. Oh, it was impossible to know him and not to admire him, wasn't it? He was a
[00:10:53] Unknown:
remarkable man, as you, as you say it was impossible not to not to Lock him? Oh, how true. How true. She talks about Kurtz. I hardly listen. For her words in the twilight gloom have conjured up for me again the vision of the man. I see him again, and only occasionally hear snatches of her voice as it pierces the phantom that that besets my mind and my eyes. He drew men towards him why by what was best in them.
[00:11:24] Unknown:
Oh, it is the gift of the great, and he had it. It's unbearable, the burden of observing her grief,
[00:11:31] Unknown:
a noble grief that comes from her core with nothing of pose or convention in it. And at the end,
[00:11:37] Unknown:
he whose goodness shown in his every act, he died as he lived.
[00:11:43] Unknown:
His end was, in every way,
[00:11:47] Unknown:
worthy of his life. And I was not with him. No one near him who understood.
[00:11:52] Unknown:
I was with him.
[00:11:54] Unknown:
To the very end.
[00:11:56] Unknown:
To the very end. Oh, please.
[00:12:00] Unknown:
Please, his last words to live with. Don't you understand? I loved him. I loved him.
[00:12:16] Unknown:
She is begging with her eyes and her heart in her eyes. She's begging, making the silence clamorous with the begging words she restrains, refusing to give the mutterance. I cannot answer. Oh, please.
[00:12:30] Unknown:
It's just his last words. Just tell me his last words.
[00:12:39] Unknown:
She bows to my silence. She sits immobile, grave. She has long since learned to accept silence and to bear. And I sit, and I cannot reply. I cannot tell her at the last, for I am caught up once more in the beginning. And in the silence, it begins again from the beginning, almost two years ago. Thirty days from the port in Europe to the coastal station of the company in Africa, the station where I first heard of Kurtz.
[00:13:22] Unknown:
Your boat, captain Marlow, is at the central station, 200 miles up the river. Oh, then I should be on my way there. You shall have to walk.
[00:13:29] Unknown:
200 miles?
[00:13:31] Unknown:
Yes. I know it sounds ridiculous, but everything here in this foul country is ridiculous or fatal or both. Usually with the next caravan for the central station. As I said, that will be in ten days. No. It may be longer. The caravan will leave the day after tomorrow, captain. Oh, I can't say I'll be sorry to leave. You have one interesting prospect. In the interior, you will no doubt meet mister Kurtz. And who is this interesting mister Kurtz? Oh, believe me, captain. Mister Kurtz is a remarkable person, a most unusual man. Oh, is he in charge of the central station? No. No. No. No. He is much further out in the very bottom of the Congo. His trading post is in the true ivory country.
He sends in as much ivory as all the others put together.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
Fifteen days after leaving the coastal station, I hobbled into the central station, where I was immediately taken into tow by a bearded young man who informed me that his name was Malaparte.
[00:14:53] Unknown:
Marlo.
[00:14:54] Unknown:
Captain Marlo. Oh, you are here to take charge of the boat. To run the boat too. Wherever it is, I'm supposed to run it.
[00:15:02] Unknown:
That's too bad, captain. How are you to run a boat that is at this moment at the bottom of the river? Too bad. What?
[00:15:10] Unknown:
How did this happen? No. No. It's quite all right. I assure you the manager himself was there. All is quite all right. All right. What my boat sunk. Can you see it all right now? Will explain.
[00:15:20] Unknown:
He's he's waiting. You must go see him at once.
[00:15:31] Unknown:
You're a very long time getting here, captain Marlowe. The delays were beyond my control, miss Yorena. I could not wait. As manager of the central station, I'm responsible for the agents at the up river stations. I had to start without you. But without a captain, why the risk to the boat was enormous. Are you questioning my judgment, captain? There were rumors that a very important station is in danger, that its chief, mister Kurtz, is ill. I do hope the rumors are false, mister Kurtz. I know all about mister Kurtz. Oh, well then, you can understand my anxiety.
Tell me, captain,
[00:16:08] Unknown:
how long will it take to get the boat off the bottom and repair it? Well, how the devil can I do? I haven't even seen a wreck yet. Beside, I I'm hungry and tired. I have walked 20 miles today, and I haven't beaten or sat down yet. Oh, it probably will take months. Months?
[00:16:25] Unknown:
Let's say three months. That ought to do it perfectly.
[00:16:37] Unknown:
The next day, I began operations to raise the boat from the bottom. How's the next down line? We'll keep bailing.
[00:16:46] Unknown:
Well, well, well. Well, captain Marley, you're an example of industry.
[00:16:51] Unknown:
Oh, hello, Malepard.
[00:16:52] Unknown:
Keep those pumps working.
[00:16:54] Unknown:
You will be able to repair the boat. Oh, worry about that later. Right now, the problem is to get her on the bank to work on her. Well, of course, you know all about these things.
[00:17:03] Unknown:
Tell me, captain, confidentially, what do you think about our manager, Bernard?
[00:17:10] Unknown:
Haven't thought about him at all. Why? Oh, nothing. Nothing. No reason. Just
[00:17:15] Unknown:
curious. I was wondering if you did not find it strange that one so obviously mediocre as he should be managing. I said I haven't thought about him at all. I must tell you in confidence, of course, that I used to find it strange when first I came out here. You're doing the talking, Malabar.
[00:17:38] Unknown:
I'll listen.
[00:17:41] Unknown:
You are more discreet. Very wise. However, do you know that I no longer find it strange that Renard is manager? He is manager because he is never ill. He inherited his position. Think of it. Nine years out here
[00:18:00] Unknown:
and never once ill. That's very interesting. So what? Nothing nothing.
[00:18:06] Unknown:
You know, you cannot imagine how many men have come here from Europe hoping to replace Renard as manager. And every one of them has failed. And do you know why? It's our magnificent simplicity, the answer. Renard outlays them. They die. Renard remains the manager.
[00:18:30] Unknown:
What are you getting at? Getting at? Oh,
[00:18:34] Unknown:
Captain Marlowe, I'm amazed. One might think that you suspected me of giving you a warning.
[00:18:52] Unknown:
I suspected Malepard of something, but of what I didn't know. Certainly, I couldn't credit the obvious inference that I'd come out to oust oust Reynard from his job as manager. There were 18 or 19 other white men at the station besides Malabar who whiled away the time with backbiting and petty intrigue, and it was not long before I learned that Malabar was the manager's spy. He had indeed been warning me, but why? Why?
[00:19:31] Unknown:
I do hope you don't mind my coming aboard the boat, captain Muller. You're aboard already. I brought something I thought might interest you. Painting. It's small but interesting, I think. Here. Look for yourself.
[00:19:45] Unknown:
Subject's interesting. Native girl holding a torch, looks like. Hey. That's not bad. Not bad at all. Who painted it?
[00:19:56] Unknown:
Mister Kurtz.
[00:19:58] Unknown:
Tell me, who is this mister Kurtz?
[00:20:01] Unknown:
The chief of the inner station.
[00:20:04] Unknown:
Much obliged. And you are the manager's spy. Everybody knows that too. Come, talk.
[00:20:12] Unknown:
Kurtz is a prodigy. Today, he is chief of the best station. Next, he will be assistant manager. In a year or two but I dare say you know what he'll be by then. You are of the new gang. I know.
[00:20:29] Unknown:
You know? Malabar, you've been reading the company's confidential correspondence. When mister Kurtz is general manager, you won't have the opportunity. The last repairs were being made on the steamboat when the station was invaded by a mob of pack animals, porters, and white men, calling themselves the El Dorado Exploring Expedition. The uncle of our manager, Reynard, was the leader. I found him so distasteful that to contain my temper, I took to staying aboard my steamboat. Well, the evening before the expedition left, I was stretched out on the deck when I heard the voices of the manager and his uncle on the bank against which the boat lay.
[00:21:20] Unknown:
I know I'm the manager, but I was ordered to send him there. Ordered. It is unpleasant,
[00:21:26] Unknown:
but the man has great influence.
[00:21:29] Unknown:
Influence enough to jeopardize my position and yours, my dear uncle.
[00:21:34] Unknown:
Is he alone there? Yes.
[00:21:37] Unknown:
Sent his assistant down the river with a note to me. I remember it word for word. Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of this sort. I'd rather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me. That's the note he sent me, the manager, me. Anything since then? Ivory. Lots of it. Prime stuff. Lots.
[00:22:01] Unknown:
But how? He's been without supplies for over nine months now. No goods, no stores.
[00:22:07] Unknown:
Perhaps some wandering white man who gets ivory from the natives.
[00:22:11] Unknown:
Well, perhaps the climate will do away with your problem, Renard.
[00:22:16] Unknown:
Yes. I know that. Don't worry then.
[00:22:20] Unknown:
Trust to the jungle, the river, the fever, the savages. Trust to this and your magnificent health. You stand the climate. You outlast them all. And at the worst, here, anything can be done.
[00:23:01] Unknown:
From Hollywood, the NBC University Theatre is bringing you Brian Ahern in a radio version of Joseph Conrad's the Heart of Darkness'. This play is part of a series devoted to the classic novels of Anglo American literature. If you're interested in supplementing your enjoyment of these productions with home study under college supervision, be sure to listen to the announcement at the close of this program. And now our intermission commentator, Mr. Granville Hicks, author of The Great Tradition, Small Town, and John Reed, The Making of a Revolutionary. Speaking from New York, here is Mr. Granville Hicks.
[00:23:41] Unknown:
The process by which Joseph Conrad became a master of English fiction was as full of coincidences as one of Thomas Hardy's novels. In the first place, he was not a native Englishman, and in the second place, he chose for himself a career that was far removed from literature. He was born in Poland in 1857, and when he was 17, he went to France to become a sailor, in itself a surprising decision for a youth who had grown up in an inland country. In 1878, quite by accident, he signed on a British ship. This led to other voyages under the British flag and eventually to his becoming a British citizen. While he was recuperating from a fever contracted in Africa, he began his first novel.
He intended to return to the scene, but his health had been impaired. The periods between voyages grew longer. He finished his first novel and began another. And so, without conscious intention, he drifted into the literary career that was to last until his death in 1924, and was so full of distinction. Like Herman Melville, Conrad based most of his novels on personal experience, and his most inspiring experiences, like Melville's, were associated with the sea. Heart of darkness, of course, is not a sea story, But so far as the setting goes, it is autobiographical.
Conrad did go to The Congo. The diary that he kept on that trip makes no mention of a mister Kurtz, but it demonstrates that he knew it firsthand of the heart of darkness. In a passage that has often been quoted, Conrad wrote, my task, which I am trying to achieve, is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel, it is before all to make you see. The reader of heart of darkness does see the Congo and the impenetrable African jungles, but feeling is for once more important than see. What makes the story great is the overwhelming power with which Conrad creates a mood, a mood of terrified anticipation and realized horror.
But there is something more in this tale than the evocation of a barbaric continent. Where is the heart of darkness anyway? In Africa or in mister Kurtz? That is to say, in man. Today, after what we have known of concentration camps and human slaughterhouses, the story has a new meaning. Where does Kurtz's ambition lead for all his idealistic professions? To participation in obscene rights and to that devastating postscript to his official report, exterminate the brutes. It is in more senses than one that we can say that Conrad knew the Heart of Darkness. Thank you, Mr. Hicks.
[00:26:32] Unknown:
Our radio version of the Heart of Darkness starring Brian Ahern will continue from Hollywood after a brief pause for station identification.
[00:27:09] Unknown:
The El Dorado expedition plunged into the patient wilderness the next day. And nine days later, the steering wheel of the steamboat began to churn the treacherous waters of the river and started upstream. It was two months of the day when we came to the bank below Kurzis Station. It was like a particularly torturous dream, that journey, the sort of dream one recognizes in the dreaming as a dream and yet is unable to escape by awakening. A great silence enveloped us, and all about us, over us, beside us, beneath us was darkness, ever darker as we penetrated further until it seemed that we would soon be within the very heart of darkness.
Trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up very high. And at their foot, hugging the bank, puffing feebly against the stream, crept the little steamboat like a small beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico. Where Malaparte and his fellow seekers of trading post imagined it crawled to, I don't know. Someplace where they expected to get something, I bet. But for me, it crawled toward Kurz exclusively. Some 50 miles below the inner station, the manager yelled up to me in the wheelhouse from the deck below.
[00:28:38] Unknown:
Captain, captain Marlowe, look over at the right bank. A flag of some sort. Can you make it out? Now shall we put in the shore and take a look? Yes. It may belong to one of our traders.
[00:29:00] Unknown:
There's a nice stack of wood all piled up. We can use it.
[00:29:05] Unknown:
That seems deserted. No signs of a struggle. Hello. Some meshes of some sort on that flat piece of board. Can you read it, Renard? Not without my glasses. It's so faded. See what you can make of
[00:29:20] Unknown:
it. It is faded. Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously. There's a signature too, but it's too faded to make out. It's a foolish message. Hurry up. Where? Approach cautiously. Where? Obviously not here. We weren't very cautious approaching. Idiot.
[00:29:39] Unknown:
Write some message if we were writing a telegram. The devil with it. Let's load the wood aboard and get on our way.
[00:30:00] Unknown:
This looks like a good place to anchor for the night, captain. According to my calculations, Renau, we're only eight miles from Kurzis Station. Let's keep going. Oh, oh,
[00:30:09] Unknown:
I'm afraid it would be too risky. Waters here are quite dangerous. Less than an hour of sunlight left. But we're so near. Besides recall the message. Approach cautiously. Now now I think we'd best wait for morning.
[00:30:35] Unknown:
The manager was right. Eight miles meant three hours steaming for us, and the water had many suspicious ripples. It was sensible. Still, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay. When the sun rose, there was a white fog, hot and clammy, more blinding than the night. It just lay there like something solid. At eight or nine, it lifted all at once like a shutter lift.
[00:30:58] Unknown:
Well, thank heavens for that, captain. I thought that fog was gonna lay in all day.
[00:31:04] Unknown:
You spoke too soon, Renan. It's rolling down on us again. Forget it. Drop anchor. Drop anchor.
[00:31:14] Unknown:
What was that? Sam. Did you did you hear that? Did you hear that? Malefire. Get the others. Get your rifle quickly. Cover all sides of the boat. Keep your rifles ready. Fire as soon as you see them.
[00:31:37] Unknown:
Finally, the fog lifted, and the boat headed into the western passage. It was narrower than it had seemed and shallower. The deeper water was near to the bank. I ordered my steersman, an athletic looking native whom I call boy or various of the more pungent names a sailor learns, to steer inshore whilst I kept a sharp eye ahead for snags and rocks.
[00:31:56] Unknown:
Alright, boy. Yeah. He's buona.
[00:31:58] Unknown:
Hard. I said blast you hard. Yeah. He's buona. Steady now. Steady. I looked below me where I could see the fireman, And suddenly, he stretched himself out prone on the deck. I was amazed. But then I had to look at the river again mighty quick. There was a snag dead ahead. And sticks, little sticks were flying about thick. Hard lift, boy. Hard left. Arrows. The little sticks were arrows. We were being shot at.
[00:32:39] Unknown:
Dearest good boy. Boy, boy, will I go.
[00:32:43] Unknown:
That fool native had left the wheel, grabbed the heavy rifle that was on the wall of the wheelhouse, opened the side shutter and was shooting. Grabbed the whistle cord and jerked out screech after screech while with the other hand, I held the wheel.
[00:32:58] Unknown:
The whistle checked the tumult and the attack ended as it began abruptly. Boy, the steersman was on the floor with what appeared to be a long cane sticking out of his back. It was the shaft of a spear that had pierced him through. He was gashed horribly. A pool of his blood gleamed dark red under the wheel. Captain, Captain, the manager wants it.
[00:33:19] Unknown:
Oh, no. Is is he dead? I suppose.
[00:33:25] Unknown:
Here. Hold the wheel. But I can't. I don't know Hold it, Blasch. Just hold it steady. I reached over, shut my eyes, pulled a spear out of him, and put him over the side with a single movement. The greatest strain was on my stomach, not my strength as I put my arms around that body. Marlowe. Good heavens, Marlowe. You're not going to oh, I do want to keep the body hanging about for to embalm it. The manager and Malaparte and the other whites were scandalized, and so was my crew and for a better reason. Oh, I admit their reason was inadmissible. Besides, I've made up my mind that if my late steersman was to be eaten, it would be by fish only.
[00:34:30] Unknown:
There is really very little point in going ahead. These savages have surely blown the station to the ground. Most probably.
[00:34:40] Unknown:
And Kurtz too then is undoubtedly dead.
[00:34:43] Unknown:
Now what do you wanna do then? Shall I turn the boat around and go back downstream? Oh, no. No. Not at all. We must examine the remains.
[00:34:51] Unknown:
If we can, give poor Kurtz Christian burial. Marlowe,
[00:34:56] Unknown:
fire does not always destroy ivory. The ivory he collected may still be ivory. Ivory.
[00:35:15] Unknown:
I felt sick. I felt like crying. All I could think was I will never hear Kurt speak. I felt somehow as if I'd been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life. I was gripped by the sense of tears in my being. I was mourning within me for I'd lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz.
[00:35:39] Unknown:
At least we're safer here, captain.
[00:35:41] Unknown:
Channel is well in midstream. Yeah. What's that up ahead?
[00:35:45] Unknown:
The station. It's Kurtz's station. What? Burned.
[00:35:48] Unknown:
Yeah. Hold the wheel, Renard. I wanna take a look through my glasses. As I a long decaying building perched on the summit of a naked hill swung into focus. There was no stockade or fence around it, but apparently there had been one for near the house half a dozen slim posts remain, roughly trimmed and ornamented on top with round carved balls. On the bank I saw a white man wearing a hat like a cartwheel waving his arm in frantic circles. As we pulled in close to the shore, I could see him clearly. Uhoy. You're there ashore. Are we in time? Yes. I think so.
[00:36:40] Unknown:
He's up there in the house. We've been attacked. I know. I know.
[00:36:45] Unknown:
It's alright. Come ashore. It's alright. Oh, you stay here with the boat, captain. The rest of you, come with me and bring your guns.
[00:37:02] Unknown:
The manager and the rest of them went ashore up to the hill and to the house, and the other chap came aboard.
[00:37:09] Unknown:
They are simple people, but I'm glad you have come. It it took me all my time to keep them off. Oh? They meant no harm. That is not exactly you you see, you just can't tell when they mean harm or no harm or or then again.
[00:37:35] Unknown:
Peter Randall, the way it's such a rady quite overwhelming. You seem to be trying to make up for lots of silence.
[00:37:40] Unknown:
I I'm I'm afraid I'm talking too much, but I can't help myself. I've got so much talk bottled up in me. Why? Don't you talk with mister Kurtz? Even mister Kurtz? No, my friend. You don't talk with that man. You listen to him, and I tell you this man has enlarged my mind. Not just me. No. The natives too. Not that I mean they have minds, but whatever it is they have, he has captured
[00:38:10] Unknown:
it. Then why did they attack us?
[00:38:13] Unknown:
Oh, they they don't want him to go.
[00:38:16] Unknown:
Oh, don't they? No.
[00:38:19] Unknown:
But you must take Kurtz away quick. Quick, I tell you. He he is very badly off. Very badly. I have been doing my best to keep him alive. Calm yourself. I'm sure you've done very well. No. No. I have no abilities, and there isn't a drop of medicine or invalid food. There hasn't been for months. So shamefully abandoned. A man like this with such ideas is shameful. I I can't do anymore. I I haven't slept for the last ten nights.
[00:39:01] Unknown:
I gave him a top from the brandy flask, medicinal. After a bit, he began to talk again. His words were satellites revolving about the sun that was Kurz.
[00:39:11] Unknown:
We, met by accident in the jungle. And ever since you've been with him? Oh, no. No. I hardly ever except twice when Kurtz was ill. Most of the time he'd be wandering through the jungle
[00:39:25] Unknown:
looking for rivalry. But he's had no goods to trade for for well nigh a year now.
[00:39:32] Unknown:
There's a good deal of cartridges left even yet.
[00:39:37] Unknown:
Oh, let's speak plainly. You mean Kurtz raided the country?
[00:39:42] Unknown:
Yes. But he couldn't do it alone, surely. They came from the villages around the lake.
[00:39:48] Unknown:
Kurt's got the tribe to follow him, did he? Well,
[00:39:51] Unknown:
you see, they adore him. What can you expect? He came to them with thunder and lightning. And don't you see? They have never seen anything like it before. He was terrible. Like, he could be very terrible. He sounds vile and horrible. No. No. No. You can't judge mister Kurtz as you would an ordinary man.
[00:40:25] Unknown:
He finally subsided into silence. I picked up my binoculars and looked more carefully than before at the fence that had once enclosed the house and at the round carved ball that ornamented the top of the pole. I felt my stomach drop. Quickly, I examined the top piece on each of the balls. They were all the same. Not ornaments, not round carved wooden balls, but black dried human skulls.
[00:41:01] Unknown:
Yeah. He should have taken them down, but I didn't dare. Not that I'm afraid of the natives. You understand? They wouldn't stir until mister Kurtz gave the word. He controlled them completely. Why, when the chiefs of the tribes come to see mister Kurtz, they would crawl. Stop. I I I don't want to know anything about the ceremony of approaching mister Kurtz. No. Don't judge him, captain. You don't know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz. Oh, well, then how has it tried a man like you? Me? What am I? Simple man. I I have no great thoughts.
I want nothing from anybody. How can you compare me to me? Nobody. Nothing. How can you compare me?
[00:42:02] Unknown:
We were silent, he and I. We watched the sudden tropic nightfall. It shadowed the house, and and the shadows were lengthening down the hill toward the river, which still glittered with a dazzling splendour. Not a living soul was to be seen on the shore, not a single bush rustled. Suddenly, around the corner of the house, a group of men appeared bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst. And instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, as if by enchantment, streams of human beings, naked human beings seem to rise from out the very ground to surround the group of men bearing the stretchers. If he doesn't say the right thing to the natures now, we are all done for. Let's hope that the man who can talk so convincingly will find some particular reason to do so and spare us this time. They're are so far away.
[00:42:50] Unknown:
If only I could hear him. He's done it. They're gone.
[00:43:03] Unknown:
Gone? They disappeared. I was watching, and they never moved, and they were gone. As if the jungle had drawn them back with a single enormous sucking breath. They brought Kurtz aboard and put him in the little cabin next to mine. We brought along his mail, a year's worth of torn envelopes and open letters now littered his his bed. He waved one of the letters and looking at me, spoke.
[00:43:40] Unknown:
I'm glad to see you, captain. They write fine things about you. Gentlemen,
[00:43:47] Unknown:
would you leave us? Mister Kurtz and I have some matters to discuss.
[00:43:53] Unknown:
Did I describe his voice truthfully, captain? Did I? It's amazing.
[00:43:58] Unknown:
Such strength. And the sound of it, why he doesn't look strong enough to whisper.
[00:44:03] Unknown:
Hey. There is something on my heart. I I I feel you should know yet if it were known, it would affect mister Kurtz's reputation
[00:44:11] Unknown:
gravely. He couldn't see that Kurtz was already as good as in his grave. To him, I suspect Kurtz was one of the immortals.
[00:44:18] Unknown:
I don't want anything to happen to you or the others here, but I must consider mister Kurtz's reputation.
[00:44:25] Unknown:
Alright. I promise you, mister Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.
[00:44:30] Unknown:
The attack on your steamboat, mister Kurtz ordered it. He had sometimes the idea of being taken away. And and and then again, I don't quite understand it. I I am a simple man. He thought it would scare you away, that you would give it up thinking him dead. I have had an awful time of it this last month.
[00:44:57] Unknown:
He's alright now, though, isn't he? Yes. Thanks. I shall keep my eyes open.
[00:45:02] Unknown:
And your promise to keep that? As you would yourself. Thank you, captain. Goodbye.
[00:45:16] Unknown:
Before I could quite catch the full significance of his goodbye, he was gone, and I never saw him again. I stood there in the darkness, and suddenly like a clarion, Kurtz's voice rang out, although I was some considerable distance from the cabin where he and the manager Renard were closeted. Save me.
[00:45:36] Unknown:
Save the ivory, you mean. Don't tell me you've saved me. Why I had to save you. Now you're interrupting my plans. Sick. Not as sick as you'd like to believe. Never mind. I'll carry my ideas out yet. I'll return. I'll show you what can be done. You and your little peddling notions, you're interfering with me. I'll return.
[00:46:24] Unknown:
It was well after midnight when I awoke. I don't know why I should have, but I did. I walked out of the pilot house onto the deck. On top of the hill, a big fire was burning, and around the fire were several of the boat's crew and Malephardt or one of the manager's other jekylls keeping guard over the enormous store of ivory that Kurtz had assembled. I turned away from the rail for a moment and glanced casually into the little cabin. A light was burning in it, but Kurtz was not there. In that moment, I knew pure terror. Kurtz was going back, back to the jungle.
And once he reached the natives, he would order our massacre. He would never allow us to return to tell. I went ashore quickly, and as soon as I got on the bank, I saw a broad trail through the use of grass. It was obvious Kurtz was crawling on all fours, too weak to walk. I ran rapidly, bent close to the ground following the trail. And suddenly, so sudden that I almost fell over him, I was upon him. Go away. Hide yourself. Come back to the boat quietly with me.
[00:47:32] Unknown:
I was on the threshold of great things. Now this stupid scoundrel, this Renard Doesn't matter. Your success in Europe is assured in any event. I already have it here. Look there by the fire. See him.
[00:47:50] Unknown:
I looked. Not 30 yards away was a fire, and striding up and down before it, a black figure majestically erect, wearing horns, antelope horns, I think, on its head. He is a witch doctor, a priest, and I
[00:48:04] Unknown:
I am a god he worships. And all the rest of them, it is I. Love of your own, your family, the girl you are to marry,
[00:48:13] Unknown:
the awe and fear and respect of your own goods. Don't you want that?
[00:48:18] Unknown:
What more have I ever wanted?
[00:48:21] Unknown:
And yet your mind, Goetz, your mind and your talents, your genius, where can they receive proper recognition here? Who can appreciate them? Here.
[00:48:30] Unknown:
No one. And I am a great man. I am.
[00:48:45] Unknown:
It was a terrible contest. I couldn't appeal to him in the name of anything high or low. I had, even as the savages who worshiped him, to invoke him himself, his own exalted and terrible degradation. I struggled with him, and he struggled with himself too. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, but yet struggled with itself blindly. I had to half carry him back on
[00:49:25] Unknown:
the boat.
[00:49:26] Unknown:
The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us back with twice the speed of our journey into the jungle. And Kurtz's life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. And I saw it. He was not in the little cabin, but in the pilot house where there was more air. And Kurtz would talk, discourse abruptly without preamble or explanation, much as a gramophone record blares out music from whatever spot the needle is put to it.
[00:50:01] Unknown:
Did you know, captain Marlowe, that I have been commissioned by the international society for the suppression of savage customs to write a paper on the subject? Afraid I No. Of course not. I hadn't told you before.
[00:50:15] Unknown:
Now here, captain,
[00:50:18] Unknown:
read it for yourself.
[00:50:25] Unknown:
I read it, 17 pages of it. It was magnificent. It gave me the notion of an exotic immensity ruled by an august benevolence. It had had unbounded eloquence, noble burning words, but no practical suggestions to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note, scrawled evidently after the report proper had been written, that appeared at the foot of the last page. It was just this. Exterminate all the brutes. Why have we stopped, captain? It's only mid afternoon. When the engine's broken down, it'll be a few days before they're repaired, I'm afraid. Close the shutter.
[00:51:14] Unknown:
The jungler's looking in at me. Close it, please. Alright.
[00:51:19] Unknown:
Alright. Don't get excited, Kurtz.
[00:51:24] Unknown:
I can't bear to look at it. It laughs at me. It listens to me talking of my my ivory, my station, my river, my career, my intended it listens and it laughs. It knows all these belong to me. It knows, but it laughs because it knows that I belong to its own infernal powers of darkness. I'm sold to it. I was bought by never mind the vile purchase price. I know the price, and the jungle knows.
[00:52:11] Unknown:
Oh, come now, Kurtz. Your nerves are getting a little low. Yeah. Get some sleep. You'll feel better. No, captain.
[00:52:17] Unknown:
It won't be too much longer. That much is plain. I know it. You can see it. There's a shoebox under my bed. Take care of it for me. It's got some private papers and my intended photograph. That stinking fool, Renard, is capable of prying into my things, and I want you to see he does not. Alright. Alright. Please, would you mind leaving me alone for a bit? Well, not at all.
[00:52:50] Unknown:
Not at all. I spent the rest of the day working on the engine. It was evening before I returned to the pilot house. Kurtz lay on his bed, staring straight ahead, unblinking immobile.
[00:53:17] Unknown:
I'm lying here in the dark waiting for death.
[00:53:22] Unknown:
Oh, stop talking nonsense, Kurt. Why, there's a candle within a foot of your eyes. A change came over his face, a change I hope never to see again. It was as if he achieved a supreme moment of complete knowledge, and in that moment lived again every detail, every temptation, and every surrender of his life. And he cried out twice,
[00:53:54] Unknown:
the horror. Pass the salt, please, Malephardt.
[00:54:14] Unknown:
Here you are. Thank you. Salt, captain? Oh, no. It's all right as it is. Tell me how is Kurtz tonight? Oh, all right, I guess. I think I should pop in, say hello to him.
[00:54:26] Unknown:
Ask him if he's ready for his dinner. Right. I'll do that. You know, but I'll get back to Europe, Captain. I'm going to find the man who sells us this tinned beef, and I'm going to shoot him. Why not torture him? Make him eat some of it. That's very good, captain. That's very good.
[00:54:45] Unknown:
He's dead.
[00:54:47] Unknown:
Oh,
[00:54:48] Unknown:
come on. Let's see. Coming, captain. No. I haven't finished my dinner. I didn't eat anymore after they left. I hadn't gone because it was light in the dining room and so beastly dark out there. And besides, the voice was gone. Kurtz's voice was gone forever. And what else had there ever been?
[00:55:24] Unknown:
His last words, please. You must tell me, captain. Please, won't you won't you tell me his last words?
[00:55:34] Unknown:
Kurtz is intended. I had quite forgotten. I was in the drawing room of a house back in Europe. The House Of Kurz is intended. You've you've
[00:55:45] Unknown:
been thinking of of him, of Kurz, haven't you?
[00:55:51] Unknown:
Yes. Yes. I I oh, forgive me. Most impolite. I I understand.
[00:55:56] Unknown:
Often, I sit and I think of Kurtz, remember him, miss him, and never miss the hours that go by. Had I been remembering Kurtz for hours?
[00:56:08] Unknown:
I don't know. But the dusk is gone, and night and darkness fill the room. You will you will tell me, won't you?
[00:56:14] Unknown:
You will tell me his last words. Oh, you must.
[00:56:19] Unknown:
The last word he pronounced was, your name.
[00:56:27] Unknown:
I knew it. I was sure. I was so sure. So sure.
[00:56:44] Unknown:
I fled the room on the house. She was weeping. She didn't notice. I didn't matter. But I thought the house would collapse on me before I could escape. But the heavens would fall over my head. For I had lied, lied completely. I couldn't tell her the truth. I couldn't. It would have been too dark. Too dark all together.
[00:57:32] Unknown:
You have been listening to The Heart of Darkness, an NBC University Theatre production of the Joseph Conrad short story starring Brian Ahern as Marlow. Next week at this same time, we will bring you another classic of Anglo American literature, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. The present semester of the NBC University Theatre is devoted to the classics of Anglo American literature from the time of Henry Fielding to that of Henry James. If you wish, you may learn more about these authors and their works by enrolling in the college supervised courses now being offered in connection with the NBC University Theatre. The University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, Washington State College, and Kansas State Teachers College have now completed their plans for offering such a course in the coming months, thus joining the University of Louisville, whose established home study plan is already serving listeners in another area of the nation.
For information then as to how you may enhance your knowledge through these courses, write to NBC University Theatre in care of the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, Washington State College, Pullman, Washington, the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburgh, Kansas. The heart of darkness was adapted for radio by Morton Friedman. Our intermission commentator was Granville Hicks. The part of Marlowe was played by Brian Ahern, internationally celebrated star of stage and screen. Our cast included Rolf Sedan, Doris Lloyd, Tony Barrett, Lynn Allen, Roy Engel, Jerome Sheldon, Ben Wright, Whitfield Connor.
Your announcer, Don Stanley. The original musical score was composed and conducted by doctor Albert Harris. The director of the NBC University Theatre is Andrew c Love. Next week, be with us again for the NBC University Theater dramatization of Edith Wharton's fine novel, The Age of Innocence, starring John Sutton. This program came to you from Hollywood's Radio City. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.
Introduction to The Heart of Darkness
Marlowe's Reflections on Kurtz
The Company's Interest in Kurtz's Papers
Encounters with Kurtz's Acquaintances
Journey to the Central Station
Intrigues at the Central Station
The Journey to Kurtz's Station
Meeting Kurtz
Kurtz's Final Days
Marlowe's Visit to Kurtz's Intended
