Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness

2. PART II (continued)

"The pipe soothed him, and gradually I made out he had run away from school, had gone to sea in a Russian ship; ran away again; served some time in English ships; was now reconciled with the arch-priest. He made a point of that. `But when one is young one must see things, gather experience, ideas; enlarge the mind.' `Here!' I interrupted. `You can never tell! Here I have met Mr. Kurtz,' he said, youthfully solemn and reproachful. I held my tongue after that. It appears he had persuaded a Dutch trading-house on the coast to fit him out with stores and goods, and had started for the interior with a light heart, and no more idea of what would happen to him than a baby. He had been wandering about that river for nearly two years alone, cut off from everybody and everything. `I am not so young as I look. I am twenty-five,' he said. `At first old Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil,' he narrated with keen enjoyment; `but I stuck to him, and talked and talked, till at last he got afraid I would talk the hind-leg off his favorite dog, so he gave me some cheap things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he would never see my face again. Good old Dutchman, Van Shuyten. I've sent him one small lot of ivory a year ago, so that he can't call me a little thief when I get back. I hope he got it. And for the rest I don't care. I had some wood stacked for you. That was my old house. Did you see?'

"I gave him Towson's book. He made as though he would kiss me, but restrained himself. `The only book I had left, and I thought I had lost it,' he said, looking at it ecstatically. `So many accidents happen to a man going about alone, you know. Canoes get upset sometimes--and sometimes you've got to clear out so quick when the people get angry.' He thumbed the pages. `You made notes in Russian?' I asked. He nodded. `I thought they were written in cipher,' I said. He laughed, then became serious. `I had lots of trouble to keep these people off,' he said. `Did they want to kill you?' I asked. `Oh no!' he cried, and checked himself. `Why did they attack us?' I pursued. He hesitated, then said shamefacedly, `They don't want him to go.' `Don't they?' I said, curiously. He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom. `I tell you,' he cried, `this man has enlarged my mind.' He opened his arms wide, staring at me with his little blue eyes that were perfectly round."