At the beginning of the second part of this novella, Marlow overhears two other employees of the Company, complaining of a colleague who overachieves in delivering ivory. Out of jealousy they suggest killing him. “Certainly, grunted the other; get him hanged! Why not? Anything—anything can be done in this country.” They are capable of twisting moral principles up to make their means justify their ends.
With the others, including Marlow, waiting on the deck of the yawl, the Nellie, the narrator reflects on the ambiance of the setting sun over the waters of the Thames, “We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid starring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance.”
A Long History of Conquest
At this meditative moment, the narrator considers the long heritage of adventurous conquests by “men of whom the nation is proud, Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled or untitled—the great knights-errant of the sea. It [the Thames] had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, full of treasure, …captains, admirals, the dark ‘interlopers’ of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned ‘generals’ of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, …bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire.”
The narrator ruminates over the long and “proud” history of conquerors and "interlopers" who sailed out to find power and booty from other lands.
Finally, when Marlow speaks, he responds to the narrator, posing his different perspective. And the narrator comments on Marlow’s “not typical” views. “His remark did not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even…”
Unlike the narrator or apparently any other man on the Nellie, Marlow’s speech delves into a broader and darker area of human history from its very origins, from the time of the Roman conquers of Gaul, turning their conquest into Empire. He opens a long soliloquy from a historical perspective in which England itself was once the target of invaders, the Romans, who came, saw, and seized…and pillaged for all the booty and bling they could get their hands on.
”I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago—the other day…Light came out of this river since—you say Kinghts? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.”
Marlow considers the personal motives of these Romans, as anyone regardless of historical period, why they came, “cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion…if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful climate.” These Romans, like the endless and nonstop line of conquerors, suffered the “the savagery, the utter savagery,…all the mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men…He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.”
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