Just ahead of Episode Twelve of Heart of Darkness, thank you again for your kind comments about this caper and all our other Tales for Our Time. April, a First Hour Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, was a bit wary of this one:
I wasn't sure I was up for this one. Glad I decided to join in. Each time I have read this tale, I found it just as disturbing as the previous readings. I was alone with Conrad's words on the page. Now hearing it read by a friendly voice, I have a somewhat different appreciation for it because I feel a little less alone in the darkness. Thanks, Mark.
Thank you, April. Glad you're sticking with it. In tonight's episode, our protagonist catches his first glimpse of the man who, on the voyage up the Congo, has haunted his imagination:
The knot of men with the stretcher had stopped, too, halfway to the steamer, as if petrified. I saw the man on the stretcher sit up, lank and with an uplifted arm, above the shoulders of the bearers... I resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situation, as if to be at the mercy of that atrocious phantom had been a dishonouring necessity. I could not hear a sound, but through my glasses I saw the thin arm extended commandingly, the lower jaw moving, the eyes of that apparition shining darkly far in its bony head that nodded with grotesque jerks. Kurtz—Kurtz—that means short in German—don't it? Well, the name was as true as everything else in his life—and death. He looked at least seven feet long.
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Please join me tomorrow for Part Thirteen of Heart of Darkness.