双语·《黑暗的心》 第三章

Chapter Three
第三章

I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous.His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering.He was an insoluble problem.It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain-why he did not instantly disappear.‘I went a little further，’he said，‘then still a little further-till I had gone so far that I don’t know how I‘ll ever get back.Never mind.Plenty time.I can manage.You take Kurtz away quick-quick-I tell you.’The glamour of youth enveloped his particoloured rags, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings.For months-for years-his life hadn‘t been worth a day’s purchase；and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearance indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unrefecting audacity.I was seduced into something like admiration-like envy.Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed.He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through.His need was to exist, and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation.If the absolutely pure, uncalculating, impractical spirit of adventure had ever ruled a human being, it ruled this be-patched youth.I almost envied him the possession of this modest and clear fame.It seemed to have consumed all thought ofself so completely, that, even while he was talking to you, you forgot that it was he-the man before your eyes-who had gone through these things.I did not envy him his devotion to Kurtz, though.He had not meditated over it.It came to him, and he accepted it with a sort of eager fatalism.I must say that to me it appeared about the most dangerous thing in every way he had come upon so far.
我两眼发直地盯着他，惊讶得茫然无措。我面前的这个人，穿着花团锦簇的衣服，好像刚刚从一个哑剧团里逃了出来，依然充溢着铺张的热情。他的存在虚幻、诡异，完全是莫名其妙的，没有道理可讲。你根本无法想象他的人生是怎么样的，他竟然能够成功穿越千山万水至此，而且活了下来——他竟然没有立刻烟消云散。‘我往前走几步，’他说，‘又再走几步——突然有一天，我发现已经走得太远，找不到回头的路了。管他呢。反正我还年轻。我能活下去。您赶紧把库尔茨带走——赶紧——听我的。’他浑身上下都散发着青春的光辉，包裹住他花枝招展的破衣服，他的贫困，他的孤独，以及那份与徒劳无功的流浪形影相随的寂寞，蚀骨的寂寞。月复一月——年复一年——朝不保夕的岁月。他之所以依然能够在那里无畏无惧地活着，从不思前想后，全因为他年轻气盛，不知深浅。我不禁有点欣赏起他来——甚至有点嫉妒他。正是这种青春的光辉在催促他前行，并护佑着他。他当然对荒野别无所求，他要的只是能够让他自由呼吸和一往无前的空间。他只想活下去，走下去，不惜身犯险境，不惜困蹇无依。如果一种纯洁无瑕、毫无心计而不求实利的冒险精神确曾支配过一个人，那一定是这个花衣青年。我禁不住要嫉妒他，他身上竟燃烧着一股如此谦逊而纯粹的精神。它仿佛耗尽了他所有能够用来关注自我的精力，如此彻底，甚至当他还在跟你说话的时候，你便已经忘记了，正是他——眼前这个人——经历了这一切。不过对于他无限景仰库尔茨一事，我一点儿也不觉得有什么好嫉妒的。他对此确实有欠深思熟虑。库尔茨闯入了他的生命，他便带着狂热的宿命感，为他倾倒。我真的觉得，那是他生平所有的遭遇中最凶险的事。

They had come together unavoidably, like two ships becalmed near each other, and lay rubbing sides at last. I suppose Kurtz wanted an audience, because on a certain occasion, when encamped in the forest, they had talked all night, or more probably Kurtz had talked.‘We talked of everything，’he said, quite transported at the recollection.‘I forgot there was such a thing as sleep.The night did not seem to last an hour.Everything！Everything！……Of love too.’‘Ah, he talked to you of love！’I said, much amused.‘It isn’t what you think，‘he cried, almost passionately.’It was in general.He made me see things-things.
他们终于不可避免地相逢了，就像风止住后，两艘共同随水浮荡的船，终于擦碰在一起一样。我想，库尔茨先生一定是需要一个听众，因为当他们某次在森林里扎营的时候，曾经彻夜交谈，当然更可能的是库尔茨在说，他在听。‘我们无所不谈，’他说，谈起那个夜晚，依然满心激动，‘我都忘记了人还要睡觉。整个夜晚似乎还没有一个小时那么长。我们无所不谈，无所不谈！……还谈到了爱。’‘什么？他和你谈爱情！’我十分感兴趣地说。‘您别想歪了，’他血脉贲张地喊道，‘是那种笼统意义上的爱——他令我茅塞顿开——茅塞顿开。’

He threw his arms up. We were on deck at the time, and the headman of my wood-cutters, lounging near by, turned upon him his heavy and glittering eyes.I looked around, and I don‘t know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness.’And, ever since, you have been with him, of course?I said.
他高高地举起双臂。我们那时在甲板上，那个无所事事地坐在一旁的伐木工工头抬起头来看他，一双深邃的眼睛碎光流转。我环顾四周，不知怎的，但我向你们保证，这片土地，这条河，这片森林，这熊熊燃烧着的苍穹，在我看来如此绝望，如此黑暗，如此深不可测，对人类的弱点如此无情。‘这么说，你们从此当然是形影不离了？’我说。

On the contrary. It appears their intercourse had been very much broken by various causes.He had, as he informed me proudly, managed to nurse Kurtz through two illnesses（he alluded to it as you would to some risky feat），but as a rule Kurtz wandered alone, far in the depths of the forest.‘Very often coming to this station, I had to wait days and days before he would turn up，’he said.‘Ah, it was worth waiting for！—sometimes.’‘What was he doing?exploring or what?’I asked.‘Oh yes, ofcourse；’he had discovered lots of villages, a lake too-he did not know exactly in what direction；it was dangerous to inquire too much-but mostly his expeditions had been for ivory.‘But he had no goods to trade with by that time，’I objected.‘There’s a good lot of cartridges left even yet，‘he answered, looking away.’To speak plainly, he raided the country，‘I said.He nodded.’Not alone, surely！‘He muttered something about the villages round that lake.’Kurtz got the tribe to follow him, did he?‘I suggested.He fdgeted a little.’They adored him，‘he said.The tone of these words was so extraordinary that I looked at him searchingly.It was curious to see his mingled eagerness and reluctance to speak of Kurtz.The man flled his life, occupied his thoughts, swayed his emotions.’What can you expect?‘he burst out；’he came to them with thunder and lightning, you know-and they had never seen anything like it-and very terrible.He could be very terrible.You can‘t judge Mr.Kurtz as you would an ordinary man.No, no, no！Now-just to give you an idea-I don’t mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me too one day-but I don‘t judge him.’‘Shoot you！’I cried.‘What for?’‘Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of that village near my house gave me.You see I used to shoot game for them.Well, he wanted it, and wouldn’t hear reason.He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased.And it was true too.I gave him the ivory.What did I care！But I didn‘t clear out.No, no.I couldn’t leave him.I had to be careful, of course, till we got friendly again for a time.He had his second illness then.Afterwards I had to keep out of the way；but I didn‘t mind.He was living for the most part in those villages on the lake.When he came down to the river, sometimes he would talk to me, and sometimes it was better for me to be careful.This man suffered too much.He hated all this, and somehow he couldn’t getaway.When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time；I offered to go back with him.And he would say yes, and then he would remain；go off on another ivory hunt；disappear for weeks；forget himself amongst these people-forget himself-you know.‘’Why！he‘s mad，’I said.He protested indignantly.Mr.Kurtz couldn‘t be mad.If I had heard him talk, only two days ago, I wouldn’t dare hint at such a thing……I had taken up my binoculars while we talked, and was looking at the shore, sweeping the limit of the forest at each side and at the back of the house.The consciousness of there being people in that bush, so silent, so quiet-as silent and quiet as the ruined house on the hill-made me uneasy.There was no sign on the face of nature of this amazing tale that was not so much told as suggested to me in desolate exclamations, completed by shrugs, in interrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs.The woods were unmoved, like a mask-heavy, like the closed door of a prison-they looked with their air of hidden knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence.The Russian was explaining to me that it was only lately that Mr.Kurtz had come down to the river, bringing along with him all the fghting men of that lake tribe.He had been absent for several months-getting himself adored, I suppose-and had come down unexpectedly, with the intention to all appearance of making a raid either across the river or down stream.Evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the-what shall I say?—less material aspirations.However he had got much worse suddenly.‘I heard he was lying here helpless, and so I came up-took my chance，’said the Russian.‘Oh, he is bad, very bad.’I directed my glass to the house.There were no signs of life, but there was the ruined roof, the long mud wall peeping above the grass, with three little square window-holes, no two of the same size；all this brought within reach of my hand, as it were.And then I made a brusque movement, and one of the remaining posts of that vanishedfence leaped up in the feld of my glass.You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place.Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its frst result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow.Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake.These round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic；they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing-food for thought and also for the vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky；but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole.They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house.Only one, the frst I had made out, was facing my way.I was not so shocked as you may think.The start back I had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise.I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know.I returned deliberately to the frst I had seen-and there it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber.
事实正好相反。看来总有各种各样的原因中断他们的交往。他自豪地告诉我，库尔茨生过两次大病，都是在他的精心看护下才挺了过来（听他的口气，好像那是多么惊心动魄的丰功伟绩），但库尔茨行动的时候，照例是不带其他人的，总是孤身深入密林。‘想见他的时候，我就到这个贸易站来，但往往要等上很多很多天才能等到他。’他说，‘啊，但他值得等！——有的时候。’‘他去干什么了？探险吗？’我问。‘当然是了。’他发现了很多村庄，还有一个湖呢——其实他也说不清楚它们的确切方向。太好奇总是危险的——但他去探险，主要还是为了找象牙。‘但那时他手里已经没有货物了，拿什么换象牙呢？’我抗议道。‘但他还剩下很多弹药。’他回答道，转过脸去。‘你就把话说穿了吧，他就是在四处抢劫吧？’我说。他点点头。‘他肯定不是唯一一个这么干的人！’他吞吞吐吐地说了一些关于沿湖村庄的事情。‘库尔茨令那个部落对他唯命是从，是不是？’我暗示道。他有点窘迫。‘他们对他佩服得五体投地。’他说。他说这些话的声调奇怪得很，我不禁用锐利的目光看着他。他是如此热切地想要谈论库尔茨，却欲言又止，实在古怪之极。这个库尔茨，已经渗透他生命的每个角落，支配了他的思想，操控着他的感情。‘不然你想怎么样？’他爆发了，‘他带着雷鸣和闪电降临到他们面前——他们从来没有见过这种东西——真是太可怕了。他可以变得非常可怕。库尔茨不是普通人，不能用平常的标准来评判他。不，不，不！现在——我只是想让你知道——我不介意告诉你，他有一天连我都想射死——但我不会去评判他。’‘射死你！’我喊道，‘为什么？’‘因为，我有一点象牙，是我房子附近村子的首领给我的。我过去常常帮他们打猎的。他想据为己有，无论如何要据为己有。他正颜厉色地说，我必须把象牙给他，然后迅速离开那个地方，否则就要一枪杀了我，因为他可以这么做，并且也很想这么做，在这个地球上没有什么可以阻止他杀死任何想杀的人。他也说得没错。我把象牙给他了。有什么要紧！但我没有走。不，不，我离不开他。不过当然，我必须处处小心，直到时过境迁，我们重归于好。那时他再次病倒。等他好了，我只好避开他。但我毫不介意。他一般住在河边的村庄里，偶尔到河边来，有时候也会和我说说话，而有时候我还是谨慎一些比较好。这个人受了太多的苦。他也痛恨这一切，但不知怎的就是无法抽身。一有机会，我就恳求他尝试一下，赶在无可挽回之前离开。我还主动提出请他带我一起回去。他会说好，却依然我行我素，然后又出发去别的地方找象牙，一连消失好几个星期。他混在这些人中间，连自己是谁都忘掉了——忘掉了自己是谁——唉。’‘天啊！他这是疯了！’我说。他愤怒地否认。库尔茨先生是不会疯的。要是我听过他谈话，即使只是在两天前，也不敢这么随便地下判断……我们一边说着话，我已经拿起了望远镜朝岸边看，扫视楼房两边和背后的森林边缘。那片丛林，死一般沉默，死一般安静——沉默安静得就像山上那座黯败的房子一样，然而却有人潜藏在内——意识到这一点，我感到不寒而栗。这个骇人的故事并没有在这片荒野里留下丝毫痕迹，它的细节，也不曾被言明，我几乎完全是通过那一声声凄凉的呼喊，一次又一次的缩背耸肩，七零八落的字句，一遍遍伴随着长叹的闪烁其词，靠自己想象出来的。岿然不动的树林像一个面具——像紧闭的狱门一般，沉重得仿佛一直在往下坠——这些树木，仿佛无所不知，无限耐心，凛然难侵，静静地看着这一切。这个俄国人又向我说，库尔茨先生不久前刚来过河边，随身带着那个湖边部落的所有战士。他之前又消失了几个月——我想他是去显灵了吧——后来却突然回到这儿来，一副想要向河对岸或下游发动袭击的架势。显然，他对象牙的渴望压过了——怎么说呢——那些稍嫌不够务实的志向。然而他的身体突然垮掉了。‘听说他倒在这里，没人照顾，我就来了——想着趁机再劝他一次。’俄国人说，‘唉，他很不好，太不好了。’我把望远镜转向那座房子。它看起来已经完全荒废了，只有残败的屋顶，长长的泥墙从荒草堆里探出来，上面张着三个大小不同的正方形小窗洞：从望远镜里看去，仿佛这一切都触手可及。然后我猛地一转，望远镜里蓦然出现了一根木桩。篱笆朽坏了，木桩却残存了下来。你们还记得吗？我刚才说过，远远地望见这些木桩上的雕花圆饰时，我是多么的惊讶。在这片废墟里，竟然有人挣扎着要镂金描彩！现在它突然来到眼前，吓得我猛然把头向后一甩，就像要躲开迎面而来的一拳。然后我缓缓地一个木桩一个木桩看过去，发现之前我没看真切。这些圆球并不是装饰，而是饱含象征意义的，它们意味深长，却又莫名其妙，骇人又恶心——引人思考，也能引来正在空中鸟瞰觅食的秃鹫，但最终总不免被那些不畏辛劳地爬上木桩的蚂蚁享用。要不是脸朝那座房子，它们，那些木桩上的人头，本可以更加震撼人心。只有一个，我辨认出来的第一个，面朝着我。我并没有像你们所想的那么大惊失色。我之所以向后猛然甩头，完全是吃惊时的条件反射。我本来是想着会看到一个木球的嘛。我故意回头去看那第一个——就是它，又黑又干又皱，双眼紧闭——一个人头，仿佛在木桩上沉沉睡去了，而那干巴巴的嘴唇萎缩起来，窄窄地露出一线牙齿的白色，仿佛在笑，在止不住地笑，仿佛正在做着一个永不醒来的梦，一个令人忍俊不禁的梦。

I am not disclosing any trade secrets. In fact the manager said afterwards that Mr.Kurtz‘s methods had ruined the district.I have no opinion on that point, but I want you clearly to understand that there was nothing exactly proftable in these heads being there.They only showed that Mr.Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratifcation of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him-some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnifcent eloquence.Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can’t say.I think the knowledge came to him at last-only at the very last.But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance forthe fantastic invasion.I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude-and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating.It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core……I put down the glass, and the head that had appeared near enough to be spoken to seemed at once to have leaped away from me into inaccessible distance.
我可没有泄露商业机密。事实上，后来经理说库尔茨先生所用的手段对那个地区而言是毁灭性的。对这个观点，我没有什么想法，但我真的希望你们能够理解，把那么多人头插在木桩上根本毫无益处。它们只能表明库尔茨先生对自己的各种欲念束手无策，表明他缺乏某件东西——不是什么了不起的东西，然而每当欲念冲昏了他的头脑，在他的滔滔雄辩里却无论如何找不到它。他本人是否意识到这个缺陷，我不知道。我想他最后肯定有所醒悟——只是大限已至。但荒野一早就看透了他，对他那异想天开的侵略，进行了残忍的报复。我想，荒野一定曾经向他耳语，告诉他他所不知道的事情，关于他自己的秘密，告诉他，在他受教于这片无边的凄凉荒野之前无从想象的事情——事实证明，这些低语对他有着致命的诱惑力。它们在他身体里放肆地回响着，因为他已然只是一个空空如也的躯壳……我放下望远镜，那个离我近得几乎可以和它喁喁私语的人头似乎立刻跳了开去，消失在遥不可及的远方。

The admirer of Mr. Kurtz was a bit crestfallen.In a hurried, indistinct voice he began to assure me he had not dared to take these-say, symbols-down.He was not afraid of the natives；they would not stir till Mr.Kurtz gave the word.His ascendency was extraordinary.The camps of these people surrounded the place, and the chiefs came every day to see him.They would crawl……‘I don’t want to know anything of the ceremonies used when approaching Mr.Kurtz，‘I shouted.Curious, this feeling that came over me that such details would be more intolerable than those heads drying on the stakes under Mr.Kurtz’s windows.After all, that was only a savage sight, while I seemed at one bound to have been transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, being something that had a right to exist-obviously-in the sunshine.The young man looked at me with surprise.I suppose it did not occur to him Mr.Kurtz was no idol of mine.He forgot I hadn‘t heard any of these splendid monologues on, what was it?on love, justice, conduct of life-or what not.If it had come to crawling before Mr.Kurtz, he crawled as much as the veriest savage of them all.I had no idea of the conditions, he said：these heads were the heads of rebels.I shocked him excessively by laughing.Rebels！What would be the next defnition I was to hear?There had been enemies, criminals, workers-and these were rebels.Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks.’You don‘t know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz，’cried Kurtz‘s lastdisciple.’Well, and you?‘I said.’I！I！I am a simple man.I have no great thoughts.I want nothing from anybody.How can you compare me to……?‘His feelings were too much for speech, and suddenly he broke down.’I don‘t understand，’he groaned.‘I’ve been doing my best to keep him alive, and that‘s enough.I had no hand in all this.I have no abilities.There hasn’t been a drop of medicine or a mouthful of invalid food for months here.He was shamefully abandoned.A man like this, with such ideas.Shamefully！Shamefully！I-I—haven‘t slept for the last ten nights……’
库尔茨先生的这位信徒有点沮丧。他仓促含混地絮叨起来，想要让我相信他确实不敢把这些——嗯，标志——取下来。他不害怕本地的土人，库尔茨不点头，他们不敢胡来。他犹如天神下凡。这些土人密密麻麻地围绕在库尔茨的住处四周安营扎寨，首领们每天前去问安。他们会伏在地上……‘不要告诉我他们觐见库尔茨先生的时候要行什么礼。’我喊道。很奇怪地，我浑身上下毛发倒竖，感觉这个细节比库尔茨窗外那些在木桩上慢慢风干的人头更容易令人失控。毕竟，那只是一个野蛮的画面，然而我那时却仿佛觉得自己被送到一个一片漆黑的地区，到处弥漫着隐约的恐惧，在那里，坦白纯粹的野蛮本性对人而言是一种安慰，因为它有权利——理直气壮地——存在于光天化日之下。这个年轻人目瞪口呆地望着我。我猜他没有想到，我可一点儿也不崇拜库尔茨。他忘了，我从未听到过那些天花乱坠的演讲，那些关于，关于什么来着？关于爱，公正，为人之道——诸如此类——的演讲。如果让他伏在库尔茨脚边，他肯定顺服之极，一点也不输给那些最野蛮的人。我不知道当时发生了什么，他说那都是谋反者的人头。我忍不住狂笑起来，把他吓坏了。谋反者！下一次他们又会被叫作什么？我已经听到过敌人、罪犯、工人——而现在这些又成了谋反者。木桩上那些图谋不轨的人头，在我看来温柔和顺。‘你怎么能够想象，这样一种生活对像库尔茨先生这样的人来说有多么残酷！’库尔茨的最后一个信徒喊道。‘对你而言，也一样的残酷？’我说。‘我！我！我是个笨蛋。我只是井底之蛙。我对其他人一无所求。你怎么能拿我和……？’汹涌的感情把他噎住，忽然之间，他崩溃了。‘我真是不明白，’他痛苦地嘟哝道，‘我拼尽全力，只求他能活下去。对这一切，我一直置身事外。我无力插手。这么多个月了，这里连一滴药水，一口能给病人吃的食物都没有。他被抛弃了，多么可耻啊。把这样一个人抛弃了，这样一个满怀着高尚思想的人……可耻！可耻啊！我——我——我已经一连十天十夜无法合眼……’

His voice lost itself in the calm of the evening. The long shadows of the forest had slipped down hill while we talked, had gone far beyond the ruined hovel, beyond the symbolic row of stakes.All this was in the gloom, while we down there were yet in the sunshine, and the stretch of the river abreast of the clearing glittered in a still and dazzling splendour, with a murky and overshadowed bend above and below.Not a living soul was seen on the shore.The bushes did not rustle.
在宁静的暮色里，他的声音渐渐飘散如烟。在我们说话的时候，森林那长长的影子早已泻下了山坡，漫过那堆断垣残壁，漫过那排充满着象征意义的木桩。那一切全笼罩在阴暗之中，但我们在下面，仍然是金阳如水。河边空地对着的河道流光溢彩，却又沉静宁谧，而上下游的河湾都已隐没在冥漠的暮色之中。岸上一个人也没有，那片丛林也没有沙沙作响。

Suddenly round the corner of the house a group of men appeared, as though they had come up from the ground. They waded waist-deep in the grass, in a compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst.Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a sharp arrow fying straight to the very heart of the land；and, as if by enchantment, streams of human beings-of naked human beings-with spears in their hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances and savage movements, were poured into the clearing by the dark-faced and pensive forest.The bushes shook, the grass swayed for a time, and then everything stood still in attentive immobility.
突然，一群人从那座房子的边上簇拥而出，仿佛蓦地从地里钻了出来似的。他们紧紧挨在一起，穿过齐腰深的荒草，中间抬着一个临时草草做成的担架。在这片刚才仿佛空无一人的荒野中，平地响起一声尖叫，凄厉刺耳，就像一支利剑划破宁静的空气，直直刺进了这片土地的心脏。紧接着，跟变魔术似的，无数的人——裸体的——手执长矛、弓和盾，目露凶光，行为粗野，从那片阴郁凝重的森林里呼啸而出，涌进了河边的空地。丛林瑟瑟作抖，草丛也随之震颤，然而一切很快又复归平静，重新摆出一副凝神静思的姿态。

‘Now, if he does not say the right thing to them we are all done for，’said the Russian at my elbow. The knot of men with the stretcher had stopped too, half-way to the steamer, as if petrifed.I saw the man on the stretcher sit up, lank and with an uplifted arm, above the shoulders of thebearers.‘Let us hope that the man who can talk so well of love in general will fnd some particular reason to spare us this time，’I said.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-dont it?Well, the name was as true as everything else in his life-and death.He looked at least seven feet long.His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it pitiful and appalling as from a winding-sheet.I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving.It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze.I saw him open his mouth wide-it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.A deep voice reached me faintly.He must have been shouting.He fell back suddenly.The stretcher shook as the bearers staggered forward again, and almost at the same time I noticed that the crowd of savages was vanishing without any perceptible movement of retreat, as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration.
‘现在，要是他不发话救我们，我们就别想活了。’紧挨着我的俄国人说。这伙抬着担架的人本来朝着汽船走来，此刻也停下脚步，好像被石化了一样。我看见担架里的人坐起身，瘦骨嶙峋的他，举起一条细长的手臂，从抬着担架的那丛肩膀上，高高地探了出来。‘这个人能把笼统的爱谈得如此美妙动人，现在让我们看看他能不能举出个高明的理由来救活我们吧。’我说。我对这个令人困惑的险境有一种说不出的厌恶，好像我现在不得不向那个邪恶的幽灵摇尾乞怜似的，实在是有失身份。我什么都听不见，但通过望远镜，能看到那条干瘦的手臂在发号施令似的挥舞着，那个下巴在动，那个幽灵的眼睛透着寒光，深深陷在枯槁的头颅里，那个头一点一点的，仿佛正在抽搐，可笑之极。库尔茨——库尔茨——在德文里是‘短促’的意思——没错吧？名如其人，他生得匆忙——也死得急促。他看起来至少有七英尺高。盖在他身上的布已经滑了下来，露出身体，可怜，可怕，仿佛滑下来的是一块裹尸布。他那鸟笼一般的肋骨起伏着，他手臂的骨头涌动着。他多么像一个活了过来的死神雕像，用古老的象牙雕成的，正在向一群一动不动的青铜人偶，黑乎乎、亮闪闪的人偶，咄咄逼人地不停挥着手以示威胁。他张大了嘴——那副表情看起来古怪又贪婪，仿佛他想把眼前的一切全部吞进去，所有的空气，所有的泥土，所有的人。我隐约听到一个阴沉的声音，他肯定是在咆哮。突然他又倒了下去。那些人抬着担架继续蹒跚前行，担架在他们肩上摇来晃去。几乎与此同时，我注意到那一大群土人不动声色地撤回森林中去，仿佛那片突然把他们吐了出来的森林，现在长吸一口气，又把他们吞了回去。

Some of the pilgrims behind the stretcher carried his arms-two shot-guns, a heavy rife, and a light revolver-carbine-the thunderbolts of that pitiful Jupiter. The manager bent over him murmuring as he walked beside his head.They laid him down in one of the little cabins-just a room for a bed-place and a camp-stool or two, you know.We had brought his belated correspondence, and a lot of torn envelopes and open letters littered his bed.His hand roamed feebly amongst these papers.I wasstruck by the fre of his eyes and the composed languor of his expression.It was not so much the exhaustion of disease.He did not seem in pain.This shadow looked satiated and calm, as though for the moment it had had its fll of all the emotions.
担架后面跟着几个朝圣者，他们拿着他的武器——两杆猎枪，一杆沉重的来复枪，一把轻型左轮手枪——这些就是那个朱庇特的雷电，真够寒酸的。经理挨着他的头走着，向他弯下腰去耳语了几句话。他们把他安置在一个小小的船舱里——小得仅仅放得下一张床和几张小折脚凳那种。我们把那些未能按时送到他手里的信件带来了，现在他的床上散满撕破的信封和展开的信。他用虚弱的手在这些纸中间寻摸着。他那炙热的眼神仿佛正在燃烧，然而他疲倦的面容却沉静如冰，我不禁吃了一惊。他并不是因病萧索，看起来也并不痛苦。这个幽灵一脸满足安详，仿佛如今的它已经尝遍人间所有的酸甜苦辣、喜怒哀愁。

He rustled one of the letters, and looking straight in my face said，‘I am glad.’Somebody had been writing to him about me. These special recommendations were turning up again.The volume of tone he emitted without effort, almost without the trouble of moving his lips, amazed me.A voice！a voice！It was grave, profound, vibrating, while the man did not seem capable of a whisper.However, he had enough strength in him-factitious no doubt-to very nearly make an end of us, as you shall hear directly.
他沙沙地摩挲着其中一封信，直直地盯着我的脸说：‘很高兴见到您。’一直有人在给他写信，向他推荐我。又是那时流行的推荐信。他毫不费力就能声如洪钟地说出话来，几乎都不需要费事去动动嘴唇，真是太惊人了。一个声音！就是这个声音！低沉，深邃，震天动地，然而这个人看起来却已经如此有气无力。可是，他残存的力量仍然足以——当然已是强弩之末——把我们逼入绝境，我马上就会讲到。

The manager appeared silently in the doorway；I stepped out at once and he drew the curtain after me. The Russian, eyed curiously by the pilgrims, was staring at the shore.I followed the direction of his glance.
经理悄无声息地出现在门廊里。我马上走出去，他一把拉上我身后的门帘。朝圣者们充满好奇地看着那个俄国人，他正凝视着岸边。我随着他的目光看过去。

Dark human shapes could be made out in the distance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest, and near the river two bronze fgures, leaning on tall spears, stood in the sunlight under fantastic head-dresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in statuesque repose. And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman.
远处，隐隐约约地有些灰黑的人影在森林昏暗的边缘晃来晃去，河边有两个青铜色皮肤的人，倚着高高的矛，站在阳光中，戴着用布满斑点的兽皮做成的奇异头饰，严阵以待，岿然不动，仿佛两座雕塑。在洒满了金色阳光的岸边，一个狂野豪放、艳光四射的女人，幽灵一般，沿河从右往左走着。

She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high；her hair was done in the shape of a helmet；she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck；bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step.She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her.She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnifcent；there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress.And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
她稳稳迈着脚步，身披垂满流苏的彩纹布，昂然地踩在泥土上，一身蛮俗的饰物叮咚作响，灿然生辉。她高高地昂着头，头发盘成一个黑盔。她缠着及膝高的古铜色绑腿，手臂上套着金黄色的铜钏儿，黄褐的脸颊上描了一块猩红色，脖子上挂满了玻璃珠子项链。种种狰狞的物件，符咒，巫师的赠礼，垂在她身上，每走一步都光摇影颤。她这一身装束，肯定值好几根象牙。她野蛮却美艳绝伦，狂暴却辉煌富丽。她从容的步子，既含着不祥之感，也透着庄严之气。在忽从天降，笼罩住这片哀土的寂静里，无涯的荒野那肥沃而神秘的身躯，生灵涌动，仿佛正在凝视着她，沉吟不已，仿佛那就是它自己的灵魂，变幻莫测，却热情汹涌。

She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us. Her long shadow fell to the waters edge.Her face had a tragic and ferce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve.She stood looking at us without a stir and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose.A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward.There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her.The young fellow by my side growled.The pilgrims murmured at my back.She looked at us all as if her life had depended upon the unswerving steadiness of her glance.Suddenly she opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace.A formidable silence hung over the scene.
她走到汽船前面，面朝我们站定。她长长的影子拖进河里。她的表情忧伤而凶狠，原始的悲哀，滞闷的痛苦，以及由蠢蠢欲动却难以坚定的决心所带来的恐惧，一团乱麻般纠缠在一起。她纹丝不动地站在那里盯着我们，就像荒野的化身，那神态仿佛在筹划着某个险恶的阴谋。过了整整一分钟，她才向前迈了一步，浑身沙沙轻响，黄色的金属流光溢彩，缀满流苏的彩布飘拂摇漾。她没有再前进，仿佛心痛得无法动弹。我身旁的年轻人咆哮起来，朝圣者们在我背后嗡嗡地交头接耳。她盯着我们所有人，仿佛全靠这坚如磐石的目光，她才得以保全性命。忽然间，她张开裸露的双臂，高高举在头上，一动不动，好像被无法抑制的渴望攫住，歇斯底里地想要触碰天空。与此同时，阴影迅疾地包裹上来，遮暗了河面，把汽船也裹入怀中。牢不可破的寂静沉沉地笼罩下来。

She turned away slowly, walked on, following the bank, and passed into the bushes to the left. Once only her eyes gleamed back at us in the dusk of the thickets before she disappeared.
她缓缓转身离去，沿着河岸继续走，走进左边的丛林里。只有一次，在她即将要融进昏冥的丛林时，回眸看了我们一眼。

‘If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried to shoot her，’said the man of patches, nervously.‘I had been risking my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. She got in though one day and kicked up a row about those miserable rags I picked up in the storeroom to mend my clothes with.I wasn’t decent.At least it must have been that, for she talked like a fury to Kurtz for an hour, pointing at me now and then.I don‘t understand the dialect of this tribe.Luckily for me, I fancy Kurtz felt too ill that day to care, or there would have been mischief.I don’t understand……No-it‘s too much for me.Ah, well, it’s all over now.
‘要是她要上船，我恐怕要向她开枪。’那位浑身补丁的男士心惊肉跳地说，‘过去这两周，我拼了命才把她挡在屋外。可后来她还是进来了，大吵大闹，责怪我把储物间里那点子破布拿去补我的衣服。我也有点按捺不住。我肯定回击了，因为她发了疯一般对着库尔茨大喊大叫足足有一个小时，还不时狠狠地指着我。我听不懂这个部落的方言。好在那天库尔茨大概是病得太难受，没精神理她，不然真不知道怎么收场。我真不明白……不——真是够呛。唉，现在总算结束了。’

At this moment I heard Kurtz‘s deep voice behind the curtain，’Save me！—save the ivory, you mean. Don‘t tell me.Save me！Why, I’ve had to save you.You are interrupting my plans now.Sick！Sick！Not so sick as you would like to believe.Never mind.I‘ll carry my ideas out yet-I will return.I’ll show you what can be done.You with your little peddling notions-you are interfering with me.I will return.I……
这时帘后传来库尔茨深沉的声音：‘救我！——你要救的是那些象牙吧。别跟我扯这个。救我！为什么？我之前不也被迫救过你一命吗？你这是在破坏我的计划。生病！生病！我还没像你们希望的病得那么重！不要紧，我不会放弃我的计划——我会东山再起。咱们走着瞧。你，还有你到处兜售的那些蠢主意——你这是要拆我的台。我会卷土重来的。我……’

“The manager came out. He did me the honour to take me under the arm and lead me aside.‘He is very low, very low，’he said.He considered it necessary to sigh, but neglected to be consistently sorrowful.‘We have done all we could for him-haven’t we?But there is no disguising the fact, Mr.Kurtz has done more harm than good to the Company.He did not see the time was not ripe for vigorous action.Cautiously, cautiously-that‘s my principle.We must be cautious yet.The district is closed to us for a time.Deplorable！Upon the whole, the trade will suffer.I don’t deny there is a remarkable quantity of ivory-mostly fossil.We must save it, at all events-but look how precarious the position is-and why?Because the method is unsound.‘’Do you，‘said I, looking at the shore，’call it”unsound method?‘’Without doubt，‘he exclaimed, hotly.’Don‘t you?’……‘No method at all，’I murmured after a while.‘Exactly，’he exulted.‘I anticipated this.Shows a complete want of judgment.It is my duty to point it out in the proper quarters.’‘Oh，’said I，‘that fellow-what’s his name?—the brickmaker, will make a readable report for you.‘He appeared confounded for a moment.It seemed to me I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile, and I turned mentally to Kurtz for relief-positively for relief.’Nevertheless I think Mr.Kurtz is a remarkable man，‘I said with emphasis.He started, dropped on me a cold heavy glance, said very quietly，’He was，and turned his back on me.My hour of favor was over.I found myself lumped along with Kurtz as a partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe.I was unsound！Ah！but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares.
“经理出来了。他纡尊降贵地挽着我的手臂，把我拉到一边，真是意外的荣宠。‘他情绪很低落，非常低落。’他说。他觉得有必要唉声叹气一番，但忘了同步地装出悲伤的样子。‘我们对他已经仁至义尽，不是吗？但不必讳言，库尔茨先生对公司而言已然弊大于利。他估计错误，现在动武，时机还不成熟。谨慎再谨慎——那是我的原则。我们还要继续谨慎下去。我们对这个地区暂时还无能为力。多么不幸！总体而言，公司的贸易利益必将受损。我不否认他获得的象牙数量惊人——但大部分都朽坏了。无论如何，我们必须把它们拯救出来——但您看，我们现在的处境是多么凶险——为什么？因为他使用了龌龊的手段。’‘你，’我望着河岸说，说那是”龌龊的手段？‘’还有什么疑问吗，‘他愤怒地高声说道，’难道您不认为是这样吗？……‘那根本谈不上是什么手段。’过了一会儿，我低声说道。‘确实如此，’他兴高采烈地说。‘这种局面我早就预见到了。这充分说明他缺乏判断力。我有责任向有关方面汇报这一情况。’‘哼，’我说，‘那个家伙——他的名字是什么来着？——那个制砖商，会帮你把那份报告写得精彩绝伦的。’他惊讶得哑口无言了好一阵子。他简直是污染空气，我从来没有感到如此窒息过。我在精神上走投无路地倒向了库尔茨，但求解脱——确实是但求解脱。‘然而我认为库尔茨先生是一个卓绝不凡的人物。’我咬牙切齿地说。他吓了一跳，冰冷阴沉地白了我一眼，静静地说：‘他以前是。’便转过身去背对着我。我就这样失宠了。我发现自己转瞬之间变成了库尔茨的同党，盲目地赞成使用那个时机不成熟的手段：我是多么龌龊！啊！但起码我自己选择了要做的噩梦是哪一个。

I had turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz, who, I was ready to admit, was as good as buried.And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also were buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets.I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night……The Russian tapped me on the shoulder.I heard him mumbling and stammering something about‘brother seaman-couldn’t conceal-knowledge of matters that would affect Mr.Kurtz‘s reputation.’I waited.For him evidently Mr.Kurtz was not in his grave.I suspect that for him Mr.Kurtz was one of the immortals.‘Well！’said I at last，‘speak out.As it happens, I am Mr.Kurtz’s friend-in a way.
事实上，我是倒向了荒野，而不是库尔茨先生。坦白讲，我觉得库尔茨等于已经被埋掉了。而有那么一会儿，我感觉自己也仿佛被埋在一个巨大的坟墓里，和许多令人不齿的秘密一起。好像有什么在压迫着我的胸膛，沉重得无法忍受，我闻到潮腐的泥土味，所向披靡的腐败无形无迹，却又阴魂不散，我能看见的，只有看不穿的暗夜，一片漆黑……俄国人拍拍我的肩膀。我听见他在口齿不清、结结巴巴地说着什么‘同行兄弟——纸是包不住火的——我知道一些会败坏库尔茨先生名声的事情’。我没有打断他。对他而言，库尔茨先生明显还没有被埋掉。我怀疑在他看来，库尔茨先生是长生不死的。‘说吧！’我最后说，‘没关系！正巧我也是库尔茨先生的朋友——从某种意义上说。’

He stated with a good deal of formality that had we not been‘of the same profession，’he would have kept the matter to himself without regard to consequences.‘He suspected there was an active ill-will towards him on the part of these white men that—’You are right，‘I said, remembering a certain conversation I had overheard.’The manager thinks you ought to be hanged.‘He showed a concern at this intelligence which amused me at frst.’I had better get out of the way quietly，‘he said, earnestly.’I can do no more for Kurtz now, and they would soon fnd some excuse. What‘s to stop them?There’s a military post three hundred miles from here.‘’Well, upon my word，‘said I，’perhaps you had better go if you have any friends amongst the savages near by.‘’Plenty，‘he said.’They are simple people-and I want nothing, you know.‘He stood biting his lip, then：’I don‘t want any harm to happen to these whites here, but of course I wasthinking of Mr.Kurtz’s reputation-but you are a brother seaman and—‘’All right，‘said I, after a time.’Mr.Kurtz‘s reputation is safe with me.’I did not know how truly I spoke.
他讲了一大堆冠冕堂皇的开场白，说什么要不是看在我们是‘同行’的分上，他将誓死对我守口如瓶。‘他怀疑这些白人对他不怀好意——’‘你说得没错。’我说，想起无意中听到的那次谈话。‘经理想绞死你。’乍一听到这个情报，我觉得还挺可笑的，但他却显得忧心忡忡。‘我最好不声不响地离开，’他郑重其事地说，‘我现在对库尔茨已经没有什么用处了，他们很快就会随便找个借口把我赶走。还有什么可以阻止他们呢？离这里三百英里就有一个军营。’‘既然如此，’我说，‘要是你在附近有土人朋友，也许你最好尽快去投奔他们。’‘有很多，’他说，‘他们都很单纯——反正我也无求于他们。’他咬着唇站着，又说：‘我不希望这里的白人受到任何伤害，但当然我更为关心的是库尔茨先生的名声——但您是我的同行兄弟，因此——’‘别担心，’我过了一会儿说，‘我会好好保全库尔茨先生的名声。’我自己也不知道，说这句话有几分是出于真心实意。

He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer.‘He hated sometimes the idea of being taken away-and then again……But I don’t understand these matters. I am a simple man.He thought it would scare you away-that you would give it up, thinking him dead.I could not stop him.Oh, I had an awful time of it this last month.‘’Very well，‘I said.’He is all right now.‘’Ye-e-es，‘he muttered, not very convinced apparently.’Thanks，‘said I；’I shall keep my eyes open.‘’But quiet-eh?‘he urged, anxiously.’It would be awful for his reputation if anybody here—‘I promised a complete discretion with great gravity.’I have a canoe and three black fellows waiting not very far.I am off.Could you give me a few Martini-Henry cartridges?‘I could, and did, with proper secrecy.He helped himself, with a wink at me, to a handful of my tobacco.’Between sailors-you know-good English tobacco.‘At the door of the pilot-house he turned round—’I say, haven‘t you a pair of shoes you could spare?’He raised one leg.‘Look.’The soles were tied with knotted strings sandal-wise under his bare feet.I rooted out an old pair, at which he looked with admiration before tucking it under his left arm.One of his pockets（bright red）was bulging with cartridges, from the other（dark blue）peeped‘Towson’s Inquiry，‘etc.，etc.He seemed to think himself excellently well equipped for a renewed encounter with the wilderness.’Ah！I‘ll never, never meet such a man again.You ought to have heard him recite poetry-his own too it was, he told me.Poetry！’He rolled his eyes at the recollection of these delights.‘Oh, he enlarged my mind！’‘Goodbye，’said I.He shook hands and vanished in the night.Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever really seen him-whether it was possible to meet sucha phenomenon！……
他压低声音对我说，正是库尔茨先生命令向汽船发动攻击的。‘有时他想到有人要把他赶走，就满心怨恨——那时就是……但我想不明白这些事情，我的头脑太简单。他以为那能把你们吓跑——你们会以为他已经死了，就知难而退。我阻止不了他。唉，最近这一个月真是太折磨人了。’‘现在好了，’我说，‘他没事了。’‘也许——是吧。’他咕哝道，明显还有几分怀疑。‘谢谢，’我说，‘我会小心注意的。’‘记得不要说出去——好吗？’他紧张地恳求我，‘要是这里有人——他可就身败名裂了。’我极其严肃地向他发誓，保证只字不提。‘有一只独木舟和三个黑人兄弟在等着我，就在这附近。我这就走。你能给我一些马蒂尼-亨利枪的子弹吗？’当然没问题，我赶紧偷偷给了他一些，没有人注意到。他向我眨眨眼，不问自取地从我那里抓了一把烟丝。‘咱们可是好兄弟——多么棒的英国烟丝。’他刚走到驾驶室的门口，又转过身来——‘喂，你有没有多余的鞋子？’他把一条腿抬起来。‘看。’他拿几根打满结的绳子把鞋底捆在光脚下面，跟穿着草鞋似的。我翻出一双旧鞋来，他美美地看了一眼，就把它塞进左边腋下。他许多口袋中的一个（红得发亮的）被子弹绷得鼓鼓的，另一个（暗蓝色）塞着《陶森格物录》，其他口袋也装满了东西。他似乎认为自己这身装备已经无懈可击，完全可以再去与荒野缠斗一番。‘啊，我将永远，永远不会再遇到这样一个人了。你真该听听他的诗朗诵——而且他告诉我那是他自己写的诗！他会写诗啊！’回想起这些快乐的时光，他的眼里泛起幸福的光彩。‘啊，他使我豁然开朗！’‘再会。’我说。他和我握握手，走进凄迷的夜色之中。有时候，我不禁问自己，我到底是否真的见过他——世间到底有没有这样一个奇人呢！……

When I woke up shortly after midnight his warning came to my mind with its hint of danger that seemed, in the starred darkness, real enough to make me get up for the purpose of having a look round. On the hill a big fre burned, illuminating ftfully a crooked corner of the station-house.One of the agents with a picket of a few of our blacks, armed for the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory；but deep within the forest, red gleams that wavered, that seemed to sink and rise from the ground amongst confused columnar shapes of intense blackness, showed the exact position of the camp where Mr.Kurtzs adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil.The monotonous beating of a big drum flled the air with muffed shocks and a lingering vibration.A steady droning sound of many men chanting each to himself some weird incantation came out from the black, fat wall of the woods as the humming of bees comes out of a hive, and had a strange narcotic effect upon my half-awake senses.I believe I dozed off leaning over the rail, till an abrupt burst of yells, an overwhelming outbreak of a pent-up and mysterious frenzy, woke me up in a bewildered wonder.It was cut short all at once, and the low droning went on with an effect of audible and soothing silence.I glanced casually into the little cabin.A light was burning within, but Mr.Kurtz was not there.
刚过午夜，我猛然醒来，想起他的警告。这个夜晚繁星点点，那个警告里暗示的危险，越想越真实。我赶忙起身四处走动，看看有没有什么风吹草动。山上有一个大火堆，明明灭灭地照出贸易站大楼一个塌陷了的角落。一个代理人带着船上的几个黑人正在巡逻，手持武器，把守着那些象牙。而在森林深处，红光闪烁不定，仿佛躲在一堆漆黑的乱柱后面，忽而蹿出地面，忽而又逃回地底。库尔茨的信徒们就驻扎在那里，忐忑不安地彻夜守望着。满耳都是单调的鼓声，滞闷沉重，震颤不绝。树林像一堵漆黑平滑的墙，背后有很多男人绵绵不绝地自顾自念着某种怪异的咒语，那声音好像从蜂巢里传出来的嗡嗡声一样，听得半梦半醒的我昏昏欲睡。我想我一定是倚在汽船的栏杆上睡着了。一阵平地惊雷一般的嘶吼声，仿佛是某种诡异的愤怒之情在久遭压抑之后突然爆发，把我惊醒了，我在迷糊中有点手足无措。嘶吼声戛然而止，只剩下那低低的嗡嗡声，仿佛是听得见的寂静，让人心下安然。我下意识地朝小木屋扫了一眼。屋里点着一盏灯，但库尔茨先生不见了。

I think I would have raised an outcry if I had believed my eyes. But I didnt believe them at frst-the thing seemed so impossible.The fact is I was completely unnerved by a sheer blank fright, pure abstract terror, unconnected with any distinct shape of physical danger.What made this emotion so overpowering was-how shall I defne it?—the moral shock I received, as if something altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought and odious to the soul, had been thrust upon me unexpectedly.This lasted of course the merest fraction of a second, and then the usual sense of commonplace, deadly danger, the possibility of a sudden onslaughtand massacre, or something of the kind, which I saw impending, was positively welcome and composing.It pacifed me, in fact, so much, that I did not raise an alarm.
如果我当时相信了自己的眼睛，一定会当即尖叫一声。但我一开始真的无法相信它们——那种事实在是太离奇。实际上，我被吓坏了，这种恐惧毫无内容，纯粹是恐惧本身，与有形的切身危险一点关系也没有。这种感情之所以如此排山倒海——我该怎么说？——是因为我受到了精神上的震撼，好像有人把某种狰狞可怖的东西，不堪细思，令人本能地厌恶的，突如其来地塞进我的怀里。这当然只是转瞬即逝的感觉，紧接着涌上来的，是那种普通的危机感，也许致命的危险近在咫尺，突袭和大屠杀随时可能爆发，诸如此类的，都是燃眉之急。然而，这种感觉真的舒服得多。我迅速镇静了下来，实际上，它的效果是如此明显，以至于我没有高声发出警报。

There was an agent buttoned up inside an ulster and sleeping on a chair on deck within three feet of me. The yells had not awakened him；he snored very slightly；I left him to his slumbers and leaped ashore.I did not betray Mr.Kurtz-it was ordered I should never betray him-it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.I was anxious to deal with this Shadow by myself alone-and to this day I dont know why I was so jealous of sharing with any one the peculiar blackness of that experience.
有一个代理人，穿着一件阿尔斯特宽大衣，把扣子扣得严严实实，睡在甲板上一张椅子里，距离我不到三英尺。那阵喊叫声没有吵醒他，他鼾声细细。我没有扰他清梦，兀自跳上了岸。我没有出卖库尔茨先生——这是上天的命令——我选择了这个噩梦，这是我的命。我迫不及待地要与这个幽灵单打独斗——直到今天，我也不知道为什么我如此吝啬于与任何其他人分享那段极端邪恶的经历。

As soon as I got on the bank I saw a trail-a broad trail through the grass. I remember the exultation with which I said to myself，‘He can’t walk-he is crawling on all-fours-I‘ve got him.’The grass was wet with dew.I strode rapidly with clenched fsts.I fancy I had some vague notion of falling upon him and giving him a drubbing.I dont know.I had some imbecile thoughts.The knitting old woman with the cat obtruded herself upon my memory as a most improper person to be sitting at the other end of such an affair.I saw a row of pilgrims squirting lead in the air out of Winchesters held to the hip.I thought I would never get back to the steamer, and imagined myself living alone and unarmed in the woods to an advanced age.Such silly things-you know.And I remember I confounded the beat of the drum with the beating of my heart, and was pleased at its calm regularity.
一上岸，我就看见一条刚刚被人踩出来的小路——穿过草丛，很宽。我记得自己高兴极了，对自己说：‘他走不了——他是用四肢在爬——他跑不掉的。’草叶湿湿的，沾满了露水。我握着拳头，大步流星地向前走。我一定是在模模糊糊地想，我要扑到他身上打他一顿。我记不清了。当时我的脑海里萌生出一些很蠢的念头。那个织毛线的老女人和那她膝上那只猫闯进了我的记忆，在这样一件壮举的另一端，竟然如此不合时宜地坐着那样一个人。我看见朝圣者们一字排开，把温彻斯特步枪抵在髋骨上，朝天开枪。我想，我永远也不要回到汽船上，我开始想象自己手无寸铁地孤身生活在森林中，直到白发苍苍，老态龙钟。就是诸如此类的蠢念头。我还记得自己把鼓声听成了心跳声，那平稳的节律让我心情愉悦。

I kept to the track though-then stopped to listen. The night was very clear：a dark blue space, sparkling with dew and starlight, in which black things stood very still.I thought I could see a kind of motion ahead of me.I was strangely cocksure of everything that night.I actually left the track and ran in a wide semicircle（I verily believe chuckling to myself）so as to get in front of that stir, of that motion I had seen-if indeed I had seen anything.I was circumventing Kurtz as though it had been a boyish game.
尽管如此，我一直沿那条小路走着——不时停下脚步，凝神静听。夜色澄莹，四周一片玄青色，露珠和星星清辉点点，然而在这片夜色里，仿佛潜伏着许多黑影。我好像看到前头有什么东西在动。很奇怪地，那天晚上我在每一件事情上都毫无道理地充满了自信。我离开了那条小路，绕了一个大弯（我毫不怀疑，自己当时一定在暗暗发笑），以便绕到那些骚动不安的东西前头——如果我真的看见了什么东西的话。我要去截住库尔茨，好像正在玩小孩的追逐游戏一样。

I came upon him, and, if he had not heard me coming, I would have fallen over him too, but he got up in time. He rose, unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapour exhaled by the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me；while at my back the fres loomed between the trees, and the murmur of many voices issued from the forest.I had cut him off cleverly；but when actually confronting him I seemed to come to my senses, I saw the danger in its right proportion.It was by no means over yet.Suppose he began to shout?Though he could hardly stand, there was still plenty of vigour in his voice.‘Go away-hide yourself，’he said, in that profound tone.It was very awful.I glanced back.We were within thirty yards from the nearest fire.A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms, across the glow.It had horns-antelope horns, I think-on its head.Some sorcerer, some witch-man, no doubt：it looked fend-like enough.‘Do you know what you are doing?’I whispered.‘Perfectly，’he answered, raising his voice for that single word：it sounded to me far off and yet loud, like a hail through a speaking-trumpet.If he makes a row we are lost, I thought to myself.This clearly was not a case for fsticuffs, even apart from the very natural aversion I had to beat that Shadow-this wandering and tormented thing.‘You will be lost，’I said—‘utterly lost.’One gets sometimes such a fash of inspiration, you know.I did say the right thing, though indeed he could not have been more irretrievably lost than he was at this very moment, when the foundations of our intimacy were being laid-to endure-to endure-even to the end-even beyond.
我一头撞上了他。要不是他听到了我的脚步声，我肯定会摔到他身上去。他连忙颤颤巍巍地站了起来，细长，苍白，虚弱，好像从泥土里冒出来的一缕水蒸气，朦朦胧胧地在我面前袅袅升起，悄无声息。与此同时，在我身后，火光在树与树之间跳跃着，一片嗡嗡的低语声从森林里流淌而出。我敏捷地截住了他，而等我终于站在他的面前，我似乎猛然惊醒，一下子意识到情况的严峻。危机远未过去。他要喊起来怎么办？尽管他几乎连站都站不稳，他的声音依然浑厚有力。‘快走开——去躲起来。’他声音深沉地说，听得我毛骨悚然。我回头看了一眼。我们离最近的火堆还不到三十码。一个黑乎乎的人影站了起来，迈开又黑又长的双腿，摇摆着一双又黑又长的手臂，在火光中走来走去。这是个头上长着角的黑影——大概是羚羊角吧。他一定是个魔法师或巫师：简直像一个恶鬼。‘你知不知道自己在干什么？’我低声说。‘我很清楚。’他故意大声说出这几个字来，听起来是如此的遥远，却又如此响亮，好像是用扩音喇叭喊出来的。如果他嚷嚷起来，我们就遭殃了，我暗暗想道。此时此境并不适合动武，况且对这个幽灵——这个流离无依且饱受折磨的可怜虫，我也下不去手。‘你这是有去无回，’我说，‘你会彻底完蛋的。’人有时候就是会这样灵光一闪，是不是？我确实讲得没错，尽管实际上当时他已经一败涂地，不可能输得更惨。而也正是在那一刻，我们建立起了坚实的友谊，变得亲密无间——并将一直——一直亲密下去——直到世界末日——甚至更久。

‘I had immense plans，’he muttered irresolutely.‘Yes，’said I；‘but if you try to shout I’ll smash your head with—‘There was not a stick ora stone near.’I will throttle you for good，‘I corrected myself.’I was on the threshold of great things，‘he pleaded, in a voice of longing, with a wistfulness of tone that made my blood run cold.’And now for this stupid scoundrel—‘’Your success in Europe is assured in any case，‘I affrmed, steadily. I did not want to have the throttling of him, you understand-and indeed it would have been very little use for any practical purpose.I tried to break the spell-the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness-that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratifed and monstrous passions.This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fres, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations；this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations.And, don’t you see, the terror of the position was not in being knocked on the head-though I had a very lively sense of that danger too-but in this, that I had to deal with a being to whom I could not appeal in the name of anything high or low.I had, even like the niggers, to invoke him-himself-his own exalted and incredible degradation.There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it.He had kicked himself loose of the earth.Confound the man！he had kicked the very earth to pieces.He was alone, and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground or foated in the air.I‘ve been telling you what we said-repeating the phrases we pronounced-but what’s the good?They were common everyday words-the familiar, vague sounds exchanged on every waking day of life.But what of that?They had behind them, to my mind, the terrifc suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares.Soul！If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man.And I wasn‘t arguing with a lunatic either.Believe me or not, his intelligence was perfectly clear-concentrated, it is true, upon himself with horrible intensity, yet clear；and therein was my onlychance-barring, of course, the killing him there and then, which wasn’t so good, on account of unavoidable noise.But his soul was mad.Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens！I tell you, it had gone mad.I had-for my sins, I suppose-to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself.No eloquence could have been so withering to ones belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity.He struggled with himself, too.I saw it-I heard it.I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.I kept my head pretty well；but when I had him at last stretched on the couch, I wiped my forehead, while my legs shook under me as though I had carried half a ton on my back down that hill.And yet I had only supported him, his bony arm clasped round my neck-and he was not much heavier than a child.
‘我有许多宏伟的计划。’他吞吞吐吐地嘟囔道。‘我知道，’我说，‘但要是你敢喊出来，我就立马砸碎你的脑袋，用——’附近一根棍子、一块石头也看不见，‘我就立马掐死你，一了百了。’我改口说。‘我正准备干一番惊天动地的大事业，’他用充满热望的声音和满怀憧憬的语气哀求道，听得我心都凉了，‘现在却因为这个愚蠢的混账家伙——’‘你放心，回到欧洲，人们一定还会把你当成英雄。’我坚定地断言道。我不想掐死他——那样做没有半点实际的好处。我是想破除施在他身上的魔咒——荒野施在他身上的魔咒，无声无息，却犹如千钧重负，似乎是想通过唤醒遗失于记忆深处的兽性本能，唤醒扭曲的欲望和畸形的热情得到满足时的回忆，把他拉入自己那冷酷无情的怀抱。我相信，正是这个魔咒牵引着他，把他引到这片森林的边缘，引入丛林里，引他飞蛾扑火一般扑向那熊熊火光，那隆隆鼓声和那诵念诡异咒语的嗡嗡声。正是这个魔咒，蛊惑了他不安分的灵魂，使他犯下了人神共愤的罪行。而且，你们还不明白吗，那时的危险并不在于被人一棍打破脑袋——尽管我非常强烈地感到那随时可能发生——而在于我不得不与这个人周旋，不论我对他讲最崇高的话，或使用最下流的手段，他都无动于衷。我甚至不得不像那些黑人一样乞求他的庇佑——求助于他本人——求助于他引以为傲，却令人难以置信的堕落无耻。没有比他更崇高的事物，也没有比他更下流的事物，对此我心知肚明。他已经一脚把地球踢开了。这个魔鬼！他还把这个地球踢得支离破碎。他超然绝世，在他面前，我不知道自己是站在地上还是悬在空中。我一直在跟你们讲我们谈话的内容——重复一字一句——但那又有什么意义呢？它们只是再平常不过的日常用语——熟悉而模糊的声音，我们在生命中每一个清醒的日子里跟别人聊天时都会用到。尽管如此，我却觉得在这些字句背后，隐藏着梦里听到的话语，做噩梦时的梦呓，暗含骇人的启示。灵魂！如果曾经有人与一个灵魂苦苦缠斗过，这个人就是我。而且这个与我争论的人并不是一个疯子。你们相信也罢，不信也罢，他绝对神志清醒——他的确把全副精神只放在了自己身上，专注得可怖，但他的思维纹丝不乱。意识到这一点，我看到了一线生机——我当然不能在彼时彼地杀死他，因为他一定会大喊大叫，那我就完了。但他的灵魂已经疯掉了。在荒野中，它是如此孤独，它看透了自己，天啊！它怎么能不发疯。我也被迫——我想我也算是罪有应得——亲身经受把它看透的痛苦。他临终倾吐的由衷之言，令人对人类彻底寒心，与之相比，一切滔滔雄辩都显得苍白无力。他也在与自己苦苦搏斗，我看得出来——我听得出来。我看到了这个灵魂里难以想象的奥秘，它天不怕地不怕，不信神不信鬼，无畏无惧，只知道盲目地和自己过不去。我的头脑一直很清醒，但当我终于把他放进沙发，帮他平躺好，我已经满头大汗，两条腿直打战，好像我是背了半吨重的东西下山。可实际上我不过是搀着他走，他也只是把一条瘦骨嶙峋的手臂紧紧扣在我的脖子上——而且，他并不比一个孩子重多少。

When next day we left at noon, the crowd, of whose presence behind the curtain of trees I had been acutely conscious all the time, fowed out of the woods again, flled the clearing, covered the slope with a mass of naked, breathing, quivering bronze bodies. I steamed up a bit, then swung down-stream, and two thousand eyes followed the evolutions of the splashing, thumping, fery river-demon beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air.In front of the first rank, along the river, three men, plastered with bright red earth from head to foot, strutted to and fro restlessly.When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies；they shook towards the ferce river-demon a bunch of black feathers, a mangy skin with a pendent tail-something that looked like a dried gourd；they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language；and the deep murmurs of the crowd, interrupted suddenly, were like the responses of some satanic litany.
第二天中午我们开船的时候，一直躲在树幕背后的那群人又从森林里汹涌而出，挤满了空地，占满了山坡，到处是青铜色的身体，裸露着，呼吸着，颤抖着。其实我早就敏锐地察觉到他们躲在那里了。我往上游驶了一段，然后掉头向下游开去。两千双眼睛盯着这个狂怒的河中巨魔，看着它嘭嘭咚咚地前进，溅起阵阵水花，一边用一条可怕的尾巴拍着水，向天空呼出滚滚黑烟。在沿河第一排土人的面前，有三个从头到脚涂满鲜红色泥土的人，焦急地来回踱着步。我们再次经过时，他们面朝河流不断跺脚，使劲儿点着戴着犄角装饰的头，猩红色的身体左摇右摆。他们冲狂怒的河魔晃动一捆黑色的羽毛，一张拖着尾巴的斑纹兽皮——那兽皮看起来像个干葫芦。他们隔一会儿就喊出一连串古怪的话，不像是人类的语言。而那片突然被打断的嗡嗡声，低沉深邃，仿佛是对某种邪恶祷文的回应。

We had carried Kurtz into the pilot-house：there was more air there. Lying on the couch, he stared through the open shutter.There was an eddy in the mass of human bodies, and the woman with helmeted head and tawny cheeks rushed out to the very brink of the stream.She put out her hands, shouted something, and all that wild mob took up the shout in a roaring chorus of articulated, rapid, breathless utterance.
我们把库尔茨抬进了驾驶室：那里空气更充足。他躺在沙发上，百叶窗没有放下来，他总是望出窗外。岸上人潮涌动。那个把头发盘成黑盔的黄褐色皮肤女人从人群中冲出来，跑到河边。她伸出双手喊了一句不知道什么话，那群狂暴的土人马上齐声怒号起来。那片怒号，清晰，急促，声嘶力竭。

‘Do you understand this?’I asked.
‘您听得懂他们在喊什么吗？’我问。

He kept on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes, with a mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He made no answer, but I saw a smile, a smile of indefnable meaning, appear on his colourless lips that a moment after twitched convulsively.‘Do I not?’he said slowly, gasping, as if the words had been torn out of him by a supernatural power.
他越过我看过去，怒火熊熊的目光里充满渴望，脸上交织着惆怅和憎恨的表情。他没有答话，但我看见，他那苍白的嘴唇露出一丝微笑，一丝耐人寻味的微笑。片刻之后，它抽搐了一下。‘我怎么会听不懂？’他缓缓地说，喘着气，好像这句话是一个超自然的力量从他身上撕下来的。

I pulled the string of the whistle, and I did this because I saw the pilgrims on deck getting out their rifes with an air of anticipating a jolly lark. At the sudden screech there was a movement of abject terror through that wedged mass of bodies.‘Don’t！don‘t you frighten them away，’cried someone on deck disconsolately.I pulled the string time after time.They broke and ran, they leaped, they crouched, they swerved, they dodged the fying terror of the sound.The three red chaps had fallen fat, face down on the shore, as though they had been shot dead.Only the barbarous and superb woman did not so much as finch, and stretched tragically her bare arms after us over the sombre and glittering river.
“我拉响了汽笛。我这么做是因为我看到甲板上的朝圣者们都兴冲冲地跑去拿来复枪，看他们的神情，好像对这个快乐的游戏期待万分。听到突如其来的汽笛尖叫声，一种无助的恐惧席卷了那个楔形的人群。”停手！别吓跑他们！甲板上有人恼火地喊道。我拉了一下又一下，土人们四散奔走，有的跳来跳去，有的蹲下身，有的团团打转，竭力想避开随着汽笛声飞过去的恐怖灾难。那三个猩红色的家伙吓得贴着地趴在河边，好像被射死了一样。唯独那个野蛮却艳丽的女人毫不畏缩，在我们后面，隔着那条波光粼粼却森冷阴郁的河流，哀伤地张开了裸露的双臂。

And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their little fun, and I could see nothing more for smoke.
接着，下面甲板上那群蠢材开始玩他们的小游戏，一阵浓烟挡住了我的视线。

The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress；and Kurtz‘s life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. The manager was very placid, he had no vital anxieties now, he took us both in with a comprehensive and satisfedglance：the’affair‘had come off as well as could be wished.I saw the time approaching when I would be left alone of the party of’unsound method.The pilgrims looked upon me with disfavor.I was, so to speak, numbered with the dead.It is strange how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, this choice of nightmares forced upon me in the tenebrous land invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms.
褐色的河水迅疾地从黑暗深处奔腾而下，把我们送往大海，速度是我们沿河上溯时的两倍。库尔茨的生命也在急促流逝，退潮一般，从他内心涌退，退入无情的时间之海里。经理一副安详的样子，现在他再不必为致命的危险担惊受怕了。他偷偷用深远而满足的眼神瞥了我们两人一眼：这个‘事件’的收场，不能再美满了。我看得出，很快我就会变成‘龌龊的手段’的唯一拥护者。朝圣者们都对我嗤之以鼻。这么说吧，我和这个濒死的人是一丘之貉。在那片横遭这帮刻薄贪婪的恶鬼入侵的神秘土地上，我竟然在毫无准备的情况下，心甘情愿地跟库尔茨站在了一边，并且义无反顾地接受了这个强加在我身上的噩梦，说起来也真是够奇怪的。

Kurtz discoursed. A voice！a voice！It rang deep to the very last.It survived his strength to hide in the magnifcent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart.Oh, he struggled！he struggled！The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images now-images of wealth and fame revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression.My Intended, my ivory, my station, my career, my ideas-these were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments.The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mould of primeval earth.But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteries it had penetrated fought for the possession of that soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power.
库尔茨又开腔了。一个声音！一个声音！直到最后一刻，它依然是如此的深沉浑厚。在生龙活虎的时候，库尔茨能用那些雄奇瑰丽的言辞掩盖住内心那片空虚的黑暗，直到现在，即使他已经油尽灯枯，那声音依然萦绕不散。啊，他也斗争过！他斗争过！现在，他的精神已经疲倦不堪，只剩一片废墟坏址，那些阴暗的鬼影却徘徊不去——名和利的鬼影，众星捧月一般，低眉顺眼地围着他卓绝高贵的不朽辩才团团转。我的未婚妻，我的象牙，我的贸易站，我的事业，我的思想——都是偶然会泄露出说话者高尚情怀的话题。从前那个库尔茨的幽灵常常在这个空洞的躯壳旁边出没，这个躯壳只是一个赝品，注定马上就要被埋进这片原始土地的一个土丘里。这个赝品曾彻悟到谜一样的人生里包含的残忍的爱和超脱的恨，而这爱和恨，你争我夺，都想把这个浸满原始感情的灵魂，这个汲汲于镜花水月般的功名利禄的灵魂据为己有。

Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have kings meet him at railway-stations on his return from some ghastly Nowhere, where he intended to accomplish great things.‘You show them you have in hand something that is really proftable, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability，’he would say.‘Of course you must take care of the motives-right motives-always.’The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings.I looked ahead-piloting.‘Close the shutter，’said Kurtz suddenly one day；‘I can’t bear to look at this.‘I did so.There was a silence.’Oh, but I will wring your heart yet！he cried at the invisible wilderness.
他有时幼稚得令人生厌。他满心憧憬着，当有朝一日他从某个蛮荒之地成就了丰功伟业之后，衣锦还乡之时，会看到许多国王在火车站恭迎他。‘只要你能向他们展示出赚钱的本领，他们就会无限度地认可你的能力。’他会这么说，‘当然你不能为非作歹——动机一定要冠冕堂皇——谨记。’汽船在一成不变的漫长河道上前行着，驶过如出一辙的河湾，那些葱茏的原始大树，耐心地目送着它，这来自另一个世界的肮脏碎片，变革、征服、贸易、屠杀和幸福生活的先驱。我头也不回——我在驾船。‘关掉百叶窗，’一天库尔茨突然说，‘这景色令我发狂。’我照做了。驾驶室陷入一片寂静之中。‘啊！我还会回来把你折磨得肝肠寸断的！’他对着看不见的荒野大喊。

We broke down-as I had expected-and had to lie up for repairs at the head of an island. This delay was the frst thing that shook Kurtz‘s confidence.One morning he gave me a packet of papers and a photograph-the lot tied together with a shoe-string.’Keep this for me，‘he said.’This noxious fool‘（meaning the manager）’is capable of prying into my boxes when I am not looking.‘In the afternoon I saw him.He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly, but I heard him mutter，’Live rightly, die, die……‘I listened.There was nothing more.Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep, or was it a fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article?He had been writing for the papers and meant to do so again，’for the furthering of my ideas.It‘s a duty.’
汽船坏掉了——不出我所料——我们只好在一个小岛的一角停船维修。这次耽搁破天荒地动摇了库尔茨的自信心。一天早晨他交给我一包文件和照片——用一根鞋带捆在一起的。‘请帮我保存好它。’他说，‘这个可恶的笨蛋（指经理）一趁我注意不到，就会把我的箱子翻个底朝天，他真做得出来。’下午我去看他时，他仰躺着，双目紧闭，我便安静地离开，但忽然听见他模糊不清地说：‘光明磊落地活着，死，死……’我侧耳倾听。他没有再说话。他是在梦中排练着某次演讲，还是在斟酌着某篇报文的字句？他一直有给报纸写文章，并打算继续写下去：‘为了传播我的思想。这是一个义务。’

His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines.But I had not much time to give him, because I was helping the engine-driver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders, to straighten a bent connecting-rod, and in other such matters.I lived in an infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers, ratchet-drills-things I abominate, because I dont get on with them.I tended the little forge we fortunately had aboard；I toiled wearily in a wretched scrapheap-unless I had the shakes too bad to stand.
他是一片密不透风的黑暗。我看着他，就好像在俯瞰一个躺在悬崖底的男人，阳光永远无法到达的悬崖底。但我能用来照顾他的时间并不多，因为我要帮轮机师拆开漏水的气缸，掰直弯掉的连杆，还有其他诸如此类的事情。我每天都生活在一大堆混乱的锈铁、锉刀、螺母、螺丝、扳手、锤子和曲柄钻之中，恍如置身地狱——我恨透了它们，因为它们非常不听使唤。我不得不频繁地跑到那个小小的打铁房里去，谢天谢地我们船上有一个打铁房。我在这堆废铜烂铁中没日没夜地拼命工作着——直到两条腿颤得站不住才去休息。

One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously，‘I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.’The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur，‘Oh, nonsense！’and stood over him as if transfxed.
一天晚上，我点着一根蜡烛走进驾驶室，听见他在微微颤抖着说：‘我这是躺在黑暗中等死。’把我吓了一跳。我把蜡烛凑近他的脸，离他的眼睛不到一英尺，勉强低声说道：‘唉，别胡说！’我呆若木鸡地站在他身旁，低头看着他。

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasnt touched.Iwas fascinated.It was as though a veil had been rent.I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror-of an intense and hopeless despair.Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge?He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision-he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—
他的容貌扭曲了，我从没见过这种变化，哪怕是近似的变化也没有见过，也不想再见到。啊，我不是悲伤难抑，而是被迷住了。仿佛有人撕碎了他的面纱，那张象牙色的脸上，交织着阴森的骄傲、冷酷的威雄、懦弱的恐惧——一种激烈而彻底的绝望表情。在这个超凡的时刻，在他即将要大彻大悟之际，他是否在重温他的人生，抽丝剥茧地反思每一个欲望、每一种诱惑和每一次堕落？他轻轻地喊出声来，也许是对某个人影，也许是对某个场景——他喊了两声，轻得像是在喘气——

‘The horror！The horror！’
‘好可怕！好可怕！’

I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored.He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness.A continuous shower of small fies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces.Suddenly the managers boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt—
我吹熄蜡烛，离开了驾驶室。朝圣者们正在食堂吃饭，我在经理对面坐下，他抬起头，向我投来一瞥询问的眼光，我不露痕迹地假装没有看见。他向后靠到椅背上，一脸安宁，带着他特有的微笑，把他那深不见底的卑鄙轻轻藏起。无数小小的苍蝇不断地扑到油灯上，桌布上，我们的手上和脸上。经理的跟班突然从门外把那个傲慢无礼的黑脑袋伸进来，用尖厉的轻蔑口吻说——

‘Mistah Kurtz-he dead.’
‘库尔茨先生——死了。’

All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner.I believe I was considered brutally callous.However, I did not eat much.There was a lamp in there-light, dont you know-and outside it was so beastly, beastly dark.I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth.The voice was gone.What else had been there?But I am of course aware that next day the pilgrims buried something in a muddy hole.
所有的朝圣者都冲出去看热闹。我一动不动，继续吃饭。他们肯定认为我铁石心肠。但我不太吃得下。食堂里有一盏油灯——有一点光——而食堂外面是如此的黑暗，黑暗得狰狞凶残。我再也没有回到那个卓越的男人身旁，他对于自己的灵魂在这个地球上的冒险之旅，已经宣布了最终定论。那个声音消逝了。那里可曾有过什么东西？可我当然知道，第二天朝圣者们把一个什么东西埋进了一个脏污的泥洞里。

And then they very nearly buried me.
而他们差点连我也埋掉了。

However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz there and then. I did not.I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more.Destiny.My destiny！Droll thing life is-that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose.The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself-thatcomes too late-a crop of unextinguishable regrets.I have wrestled with death.It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine.It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be.I was within a hair‘s-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say.This is the reason why I affrm that Kurtz was a remarkable man.He had something to say.He said it.Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the fame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness.He had summed up-he had judged.’The horror！He was a remarkable man.After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief；it had candour, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth-the strange commingling of desire and hate.And it is not my own extremity I remember best-a vision of greyness without form filled with physical pain, and a careless contempt for the evanescence of all things-even of this pain itself.No！It is his extremity that I seem to have lived through.True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot.And perhaps in this is the whole difference；perhaps all wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible.Perhaps！I like to think that my summing-up would not have been a word of careless contempt.Better his cry-much better.It was an affrmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions.But it was a victory！That is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond, when a long time after I heard once more, not his own voice, but the echo of his magnifcent eloquence thrown to me from a soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal.
但是，你们也看见了，我没有当即随库尔茨而去。我没有。我要留下来把这个噩梦做完，并再次表达我对库尔茨的忠诚。命，这都是命！人生真令人哭笑不得——寡情少义的逻辑做出了种种神秘的安排，为的竟是让人白辛苦一场！它能给你的，至多也不过是你对自己的一点点认识——却又总是来得太迟——只是一腔令人死不瞑目的余恨。我曾不顾一切地与死神搏斗。你们想象不出那有多无聊。身处一片混沌的灰色之中，脚下空无一物，四周空无一物，没有观众，无人喝彩，毫不光荣，人既不无限渴望胜利，也不极度害怕失败，那种气氛温温吞吞、犹犹豫豫，令人作呕，使你怀疑自己的权利，更加怀疑对手的权利。如果最高的智慧表现出来就是这副模样，那人生必定是一个更大的谜，比某些人所想象的更为神秘。我当时差点就有机会说出我对人生的定论，但我很羞耻地发现，即使我真的要说，也一个字都说不出来。这就是我敢确定库尔茨很了不起的原因。他有话讲。他讲了出来。正因为我窥视到那条边界另一边的景象，我能更深刻地理解他的凝视，他看不到烛光，但那凝视是如此壮阔，足以容下整个宇宙，又是如此锐利，足以看透所有在黑暗中跳动着的心。他做出了总结——他下了定论。‘好可怕！’他是个了不起的人。毕竟，他表达了某种信念，内里有坦率，有坚定，他颤抖着轻声喊出了反抗的意念，让我瞥见了人生真相的狰狞画面——欲望和憎恨离奇地相互纠缠着。最令我刻骨铭心的，不是我当时面临的困境——而是一个无形的灰色场景，里面充满了肉身的痛苦，以及对一切事物的幻灭都漠不关心的轻蔑——甚至包括这些痛苦本身的幻灭。不！我经历的仿佛是他的困境。没错，在我获准撤回犹疑的脚步之时，他迈出了那最后的一步，越过了边界。也许正是这造成了天壤之别，也许所有的智慧，所有的真相，所有的诚意，全都压缩在了那个惊鸿一瞥的时刻之中，在我们迈过门槛，步入看不见的世界那一刻。也许是吧！我真希望自己对人生的总结不会是一句冷漠而轻蔑的话。他的喊声要好得多——好得多。那是一个断言，一个道德上的胜利，用无数的失败、可憎的恐惧和可憎的满足作为代价换来的。但它是一个胜利！正因为如此，我直到最终，甚至更长久地，都会对库尔茨忠心耿耿。直到很久之后，当我又一次听见，不是他本人的声音，而是他那滔滔雄辩的回响，仿佛从一个像水晶悬崖般透亮的灵魂向我发出来的，我对他的忠诚依然如故。

No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of time which I remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no desire. I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignifcant and silly dreams.They trespassed upon my thoughts.They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew.Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous fauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend.I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some diffculty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.I dare say I was not very well at that time.I tottered about the streets-there were various affairs to settle-grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons.I admit my behaviour was inexcusable, but then my temperature was seldom normal in these days.My dear aunt‘s endeavours to’nurse up my strength‘seemed altogether beside the mark.It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing.I kept the bundle of papers given me by Kurtz, not knowing exactly what to do with it.His mother had died lately, watched over, as I was told, by his Intended.A clean-shaved man, with an official manner and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, called on me one day and made inquiries, at first circuitous, afterwards suavely pressing, about what he was pleased to denominate certain’documents.‘I was not surprised, because I had had two rows with the manager on the subject out there.I had refused to give up the smallest scrap out of that package, and I took the same attitude with the spectacled man.He became darkly menacing at last, and with much heat argued that the Company had the right to every bit of information about its’territories.‘And, said he，’Mr.Kurtz‘s knowledge of unexplored regions must have been necessarily extensive and peculiar-owing to his great abilities and to the deplorable circumstances in which he had been placed：therefore—’I assured him Mr.Kurtz‘s knowledge, however extensive, did not bear upon the problems of commerce or administration.He invoked then the name of science.’It would be an incalculable loss if，‘etc.，etc.I offered him the report on the’Suppression of Savage Customs，‘with the postscriptum torn off.He took it up eagerly, but ended by sniffng at it with an air of contempt.’This is not what we had a right to expect，‘he remarked.’Expect nothing else，‘I said.’There are only private letters.‘He withdrew upon some threat of legal proceedings, and I saw him no more；but another fellow, calling himself Kurtz’s cousin, appeared two days later, and was anxious to hear all the details about his dear relative‘s last moments.Incidentally he gave me to understand that Kurtz had been essentially a great musician.’There was the making of an immense success，‘said the man, who was an organist, I believe, with lank grey hair flowing over a greasy coat-collar.I had no reason to doubt his statement；and to this day I am unable to say what was Kurtz’s profession, whether he ever had any-which was the greatest of his talents.I had taken him for a painter who wrote for the papers, or else for a journalist who could paint-but even the cousin（who took snuff during the interview）could not tell mewhat he had been-exactly.He was a universal genius-on that point I agreed with the old chap, who thereupon blew his nose noisily into a large cotton handkerchief and withdrew in senile agitation, bearing off some family letters and memoranda without importance.Ultimately a journalist anxious to know something of the fate of his‘dear colleague’turned up.This visitor informed me Kurtz‘s proper sphere ought to have been politics’on the popular side.‘He had furry straight eyebrows, bristly hair cropped short, an eye-glass on a broad black ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that Kurtz really couldn’t write a bit—‘but heavens！how that man could talk！He electrified large meetings.He had faith-don’t you see?—he had the faith.He could get himself to believe anything-anything.He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.‘’What party?‘I asked.’Any party，‘answered the other.’He was an-an-extremist.‘Did I not think so?I assented.Did I know, he asked, with a sudden fash of curiosity，’what it was that had induced him to go out there?‘’Yes，‘said I, and forthwith handed him the famous Report for publication, if he thought ft.He glanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged’it would do，and took himself off with this plunder.
不，他们没有把我埋掉。尽管我模糊地记得，有一段时间，我好像走在一条通道里，那通道穿过某个不可思议的世界，那里既没有希望，也没有欲望。每次想起来都有点毛骨悚然。我发现自己又回到了那个阴森的城市，无比憎恶地看着人们匆匆忙忙地穿过街道，赶着去从彼此身上占点小便宜，去风卷残云般吃掉恶心的饭食，去开怀畅饮肮脏的啤酒，去做无聊又愚蠢的梦。他们践踏了我的思想。他们是入侵者，在我眼里，他们只不过是自欺欺人地装作很了解人生，简直令人生气，因为我能感觉到，他们绝对不可能知道我所知道的事情。他们的神态举止，纵使平凡得无可厚非，是平民百姓在高枕无忧、安居乐业时的平常表现，我却越看越恼火，仿佛看到的是一群蠢材，危险已逼近眼前，他们不仅无法理解，浑然不觉，还要在那里大肆炫耀自己的愚蠢。我们没有冲动要去唤醒他们，但我不太克制得住自己当面嘲笑他们有多么愚蠢，多么自以为是。我想我那时不太舒服。我在街上踉跄乱撞——有各种事要办——向可敬之极的人勉强挤出笑容。我承认我的所作所为简直荒谬，但在那段日子里，我的体温几乎没有正常过。我亲爱的姨妈绞尽脑汁地想帮我‘固本培元’，但那么做完全是南辕北辙。我不需要保养身体恢复元气，我是胡思乱想过甚，心灵需要抚慰。我留着库尔茨给我的那捆信，想不出到底应该怎么处理它。他母亲不久前过世了，听说逝前一直是他的未婚妻在侍汤奉药。一天有人来拜访我，他把胡子刮得干干净净，戴着金边眼镜，摆出一副公事公办的样子，提出许多问题，开始的时候还算委婉，后来就彬彬有礼地逼问我，要我说出那些他很乐意称之为‘文件’的东西到底在哪里。我并不惊讶，还没回来的时候，我就已经为此和经理吵过两架。我对经理说，我一张纸也不会给他，对这个戴眼镜的男人我也采取了相同的态度。最后他阴沉着脸，摆出一副威胁的样子，面红耳赤地争辩说公司有权利收回关于其‘领地’的一切信息。然后他说：‘鉴于库尔茨先生的伟大才能，以及他所处环境之恶劣，他对这片未开发地区的知识，肯定尤为全面独到，因此——’我向他申明，库尔茨的知识，不论多么全面，都与贸易或者公司行政方面的问题没有直接关系。接着他把科学搬了出来。‘如果……将会造成不可估量之损失’云云。我把那份‘破除野蛮传统’的报告交给他，不过注释已经被我事先撕掉了。他急不可耐地一把接了过去，看完后却轻蔑地对它嗤之以鼻。‘我们有权期望获得的并非这份文件。’他说。‘那就不要再白费心机了，’我说，‘剩下的全是私人信件。’他威胁要走法律途径，然后灰溜溜地走了，我再也没见过他。但两天后，另一个家伙来了，自称是库尔茨的表亲，急切地想知道他亲爱的亲戚临终时的全部细节。他不经意地向我透露，其实库尔茨本来是一个了不起的音乐家。‘差不多就要扬名四海了。’那人说，我相信他是一个风琴手，他灰白的长发瀑布般披在油汪汪的大衣衣领上。我没有理由怀疑他的话，但直到今天，我依然说不清楚库尔茨究竟所司何职，他又是否有过固定的职业——有什么职业能让他施展他最了不起的才华呢？我曾把他看成是会给报纸写文章的画家，或者是擅长绘画的记者——但就连这个表亲（在拜访期间一直吸鼻烟吸个不停）都说不上来他曾经是做什么职业的——准确地。他是个全面的天才——在这一点上，我同意这个老家伙的意见。他马上拿出一方巨大的棉布手帕，震耳欲聋地擤了擤鼻子，老气横秋、激动不已地与我告别，卷走了一些无关紧要的家庭信件和备忘录。最后拜访我的，是一个急于知道他‘亲爱的同事’命运如何的记者。这位来客告诉我，库尔茨的真正职业应该是‘站在大众的一边’的政客。他有一双毛茸茸的剑眉，一头硬挺挺的短发，眼镜上穿着黑色的粗带子。他突然说得兴起，承认他认为库尔茨根本不会写文章——‘但是，天啊！他太能说了！他能震慑住整个会场。他信念坚定——明白吗？——他有坚定的信念。他能让自己相信任何事情——任何事情。他要是参加极端的党派，一定能成为了不起的领袖。’‘什么党派？’我问。‘随便一个党派，’对方回答，‘他是个——一个——极端主义者。’我不也是这样想的吗？我表示赞成。他忽然好奇地问我知不知道‘到底是什么诱使他到那里去的？’‘我知道。’我说，立刻把那份著名的报告交给他，并请他出版，如果他认为合适的话。他草草扫了一眼，一边不停地喃喃自语，断言它‘会卖座的’，就把它顺走了。

Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of letters and the girl‘s portrait. She struck me as beautiful-I mean she had a beautiful expression.I know that the sunlight can be made to lie too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those features.She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation, without suspicion, without a thought for herself.I concluded I would go and give her back her portrait and those letters myself.Curiosity?Yes；and also some other feeling perhaps.All that had been Kurtz’s had passed out of my hands：his soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career.There remained only his memoryand his Intended-and I wanted to give that up too to the past, in a way-to surrender personally all that remained of him with me to that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate.I don‘t defend myself.I had no clear perception of what it was I really wanted.Perhaps it was an impulse of unconscious loyalty, or the fulfllment of one of these ironic necessities that lurk in the facts of human existence.I don’t know.I cant tell.But I went.
就这样，我终于只剩下一小包信和那个姑娘的画像。我惊讶于她的美——我要说的是，她的表情很美。我知道阳光有时也会被迫撒谎，但我不禁感到，她脸上那种柔和而真挚的神情，不是靠操控光线和姿势能制造出来的。她看起来随时准备好在精神上毫无保留地倾听，不带丝毫的怀疑，完全把自身置之度外。我决定亲自去拜访她，把她的画像和那些信件还给她。出于好奇？没错，也许还出于其他心情。所有曾经属于库尔茨的一切，都从我的手上交了出去：他的灵魂，他的身体，他的贸易站，他的宏图大计，他的象牙，他的事业。只剩下他的回忆和他的未婚妻——我也想交出去了，从某种意义上讲，交给过去——我要亲手将他留给我的一切，全部交给那两个字：遗忘。所有人最终都免不了要遗忘。我没有在为自己辩护。我也不知道自己真正需要的到底是什么。也许那只是一时的心血来潮，由潜意识里的忠诚引起的，也许只是想要完成某个荒唐的任务，人生在世，不就是为了完成种种说不清道不明的任务么？我不知道。我无法分辨。但我去了。

I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead that accumulate in every man‘s life-a vague impress on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in their swift and fnal passage；but before the high and ponderous door, between the tall houses of a street as still and decorous as a well-kept alley in a cemetery, I had a vision of him on the stretcher, opening his mouth voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind. He lived then before me；he lived as much as he had ever lived-a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities；a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence.The vision seemed to enter the house with me-the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshipers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffed like the beating of a heart-the heart of a conquering darkness.It was a moment of triumph for the wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush which, it seemed to me, I would have to keep back alone for the salvation of another soul.And the memory of what I had heard him say afar there, with the horned shapes stirring at my back, in the glow of fres, within the patient woods, those broken phrases came back to me, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying simplicity.I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul.And later on I seemed to see hiscollected languid manner, when he said one day，’This lot of ivory now is really mine.The Company did not pay for it.I collected it myself at a very great personal risk.I am afraid they will try to claim it as theirs though.H‘m.It is a diffcult case.What do you think I ought to do-resist?Eh?I want no more than justice.’……He wanted no more than justice-no more than justice.I rang the bell before a mahogany door on the frst foor, and while I waited he seemed to stare at me out of the glassy panel-stare with that wide and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all the universe.I seemed to hear the whispered cry，‘The horror！The horror！’
我原本以为，对他的记忆与对其他死者的毫无二致，在每个人的一生中，这种记忆都会慢慢地越积越多——只是一个模糊的印象，影子一般掠过脑海，转瞬即逝。但当我来到那扇又高又沉的门前，站在街上高高的楼房中间，我却觉得那些楼房犹如一个精心维护的墓地里死寂却富丽的两排墓碑，我仿佛看到了他坐在担架上的幻象，贪婪地张大嘴巴，好像要吞掉整个地球和所有的人类。那一刻，他又在我面前活了过来，跟过去一样栩栩如生——一个影子，不知餍足地追求着外表的辉煌，追求着狰狞的现实，比黑夜的影子还要黑暗，披着卓绝辩才的高贵外衣。这个幻象似乎和我一起进入了房子——那个担架，抬担架的鬼影，他那群狂热却顺从的崇拜者，那群土人，森林的幽暗，烟水迷茫的河湾之间，河面的寒光，那鼓声，滞闷而规律的，宛如心跳声——那片被征服了的黑暗的心跳声。那是荒野的胜利时刻，一次狂暴的侵略和复仇，而我，要独自抵挡它，以拯救另一个灵魂。我又想起了他在那个远方说过的话，在我背后的火光中，在那片耐心的森林里，顶着羚羊角的人影在扭动着，我又听到了那些破碎的字句，简单得凶险，简单得令人惊颤。我记得他卑怯的央求，卑怯的威胁，卑怯而巨大的邪恶欲念，他灵魂里的卑鄙、苦恼，以及暴风雨般的痛苦。后来，我有一天去看他的时候，他似乎已经镇定下来，但样子十分憔悴。他说：‘此时此刻，这批象牙完全属于我所有，公司还没有为它们出过一分钱。是我自己一个人出生入死收集来的。但我担心他们将来一定会宣称那为公司所有。哼，真是棘手。你认为我应该怎么做呢——反抗？是吗？我只想他们还我一个公道。’……他想要的只是一个公道——只是公道。我上了二层，在一扇桃花心木门前按了按门铃。在我等候之时，他似乎躲在玻璃嵌板后面盯着我——用那个广阔无际的凝视，那个拥抱着、谴责着、憎恶着整个宇宙的凝视。我仿佛听到他在低声喊着：‘好可怕！好可怕！’

The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty drawing-room with three long windows from floor to ceiling that were like three luminous and bedraped columns.The bent gilt legs and backs of the furniture shone in indistinct curves.The tall marble freplace had a cold and monumental whiteness.A grand piano stood massively in a corner, with dark gleams on the fat surfaces like a sombre and polished sarcophagus.A high door opened-closed.I rose.
暮色渐浓。我必须在高高的客厅里等候。客厅里有三扇长长的落地窗，从天花板一直拖到地面，仿佛三根包裹着彩幔的大圆柱，隐隐生光。家具的弯腿和靠背镀了金，璀璨生辉，映照成模糊的曲线。高高的大理石壁炉是苍白色的，白得冰冷、哀伤。一个角落里摆着一架沉重的大钢琴，平滑的琴面泛着黑暗的光芒，整个地像一口暗淡而磨光的石棺。一扇高高的门开了——关了。我站起来。

She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, foating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning.It was more than a year since his death, more than a year since the news came；she seemed as though she would remember and mourn for ever.She took both my hands in hers and murmured，‘I had heard you were coming.’I noticed she was not very young-I mean not girlish.She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering.The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead.This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me.Their glance was guileless, profound, confdent, and trustful.She carried her sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow, as though she would say, I-I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.‘But while we were stillshaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time.For her he had died only yesterday.And, by Jove！the impression was so powerful that for me too he seemed to have died only yesterday-nay, this very minute.I saw her and him in the same instant of time-his death and her sorrow-I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death.Do you understand?I saw them together-I heard them together.She had said, with a deep catch of the breath，’I have survived；‘while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly, mingled with her tone of despairing regret, the summing-up whisper of his eternal condemnation.I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not ft for a human being to behold.She motioned me to a chair.We sat down.I laid the packet gently on the little table, and she put her hand over it……’You knew him well，she murmured, after a moment of mourning silence.
她走上前来，一身黑衣，脸色苍白，在暮色中仿佛是在朝我飘来。她正在服丧。距离他去世之日已经有一年多了，距离死讯传来之日也已经有一年多了，可是，看她的样子，她永远会记得那一天，永远为他服丧。她握起我的双手，喃喃道：‘我早就听说您要来。’我注意到她并不是很年轻——我是说，她并不天真烂漫。她已经足够成熟，有能力驾驭忠诚、信仰与苦难。房间似乎越来越暗了，好像在那个浓云密布的黄昏，所有忧伤的光线都避祸一般聚集到她的额头上。那淡金的头发，苍白的面容，精致的蛾眉，似乎围绕在一个灰蒙蒙的光环里，那双黑色的眼睛，望穿了光环，定定地看着我。这目光诚实，深邃，自信，深信不疑。她高高地昂着悲伤的头，仿佛对这份悲伤倍感自豪，好像她要说：‘我——只有我懂得怎样得体地为他服丧。’但当我们还在握手的时候，她脸上浮现出一种凄荒得可怕的表情，我便察觉到，她属于绝不甘于沦为时间之神的玩物那类人。对她而言，库尔茨仿佛昨日才去世。而且，天啊！那个表情太动人心魄了，竟然使我也觉得，库尔茨是昨天刚去世的——不，库尔茨刚刚才去世。刹那间，我看见库尔茨和她同在——库尔茨的死和她的悲伤——我看见在库尔茨死去那一刻，她眼里的悲伤。你们能理解吗？我看见他们同在——我听见他们同在。她深深叹了一口气，哽咽着说：‘我活了下来。’然而我那紧绷的耳朵似乎无限清晰地听到，与她那绝望悔恨的声调交融在一起的，是库尔茨那个低喊，库尔茨下的那个定论，那个永恒的谴责。我问自己，我在那里做什么，心中万分惊恐，仿佛我不慎闯进了一个人类看不得的地方，里面满是残忍而怪诞的谜。她示意我坐到一张椅子上，我们坐下来。我把那个小小的包裹轻轻地放到一张小桌子上，她把手放在上面……‘您一定非常了解他。’悲痛地沉默了片刻之后，她喃喃说道。

‘Intimacy grows quick out there，’I said.‘I knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know another.’
‘在那种地方，人和人很容易变得亲密起来。’我说，‘我对他的了解，深入得可谓无以复加。’

‘And you admired him，’she said.‘It was impossible to know him and not to admire him. Was it?’
‘而且您也很欣赏他吧，’她说，‘了解他的人不可能不欣赏他，是吗？’

‘He was a remarkable man，’I said, unsteadily. Then before the appealing fxity of her gaze, that seemed to watch for more words on my lips, I went on，‘It was impossible not to—’
‘他是个非凡卓绝的人。’我迟疑地说。她若有所求地定定看着我，似乎满心期待我说下去。我又说：‘了解他的人，不可能不——’

‘Love him，’she finished eagerly, silencing me into an appalled dumbness.‘How true！how true！But when you think that no one knew him so well as I！I had all his noble confdence. I knew him best.’
‘爱他。’她迫不及待地替我把话说完，把我吓得哑口无言，‘说得真对！说得真对！但请您知道，没人比我更了解他！他把自己所有高贵的信赖，都毫无保留地交给了我。我最懂他。’

‘You knew him best，’I repeated. And perhaps she did.But with every word spoken the room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illumined by the unextinguishable light of belief and love.
‘您最懂他。’我重复道。而也许她确实最懂他。但我们每说一句话，房间似乎就变得更暗一些，只有她细滑而白皙的额头，仍然被信仰和爱的永恒光芒映照得光亮如雪。

‘You were his friend，’she went on.‘His friend，’she repeated, a little louder.‘You must have been, if he had given you this, and sent you to me. I feel I can speak to you-and oh！I must speak.I want you-you who have heard his last words-to know I have been worthy of him……It is not pride……Yes！I am proud to know I understood him better than any one on earth-he told me so himself.And since his mother died I have had no one-no one-to-to—’
‘您是他的朋友，’她继续说，‘他的朋友。’她重复道，稍微提高了一点声音，‘您当然是他的朋友，因为他把这个包裹交了给您，并请您来见我。我感觉我可以和您推心置腹地谈一谈——啊！我一定要说出来。我希望您能——您这个听到了他临终遗言的人——您能明白我对他是多么重要……我并不是要以此为豪……没错，我确实很自豪地认为，我比地球上任何人都更加了解他——他也曾亲口对我这么说过。但自从他母亲过世之后，我就找不到人——没有人——来——来——’

I listened. The darkness deepened.I was not even sure whether he had given me the right bundle.I rather suspect he wanted me to take care of another batch of his papers which, after his death, I saw the manager examining under the lamp.And the girl talked, easing her pain in the certitude of my sympathy；she talked as thirsty men drink.I had heard that her engagement with Kurtz had been disapproved by her people.He wasn‘t rich enough or something.And indeed I don’t know whether he had not been a pauper all his life.He had given me some reason to infer that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there.
我静静听着。暮色越来越浓了。我甚至不确定库尔茨是不是把对的那个包裹交给了我。我相当地怀疑，他想交给我保管的，是另一包信件，他死后经理在灯下细细检查的那包。这位姑娘不停地说着话，她深信我在同情她，希望能从我身上得到安慰。她如饥似渴地倾诉着。她说她的家人十分反对这桩婚事，仿佛是因为库尔茨不够富有。实际上，我也不知道库尔茨是否自始至终都是一个穷小子。通过与他的接触，我绝对有理由推断，正是由于厌倦了自己不够富有，他才义无反顾地跑到了那个地方去。

‘……Who was not his friend who had heard him speak once?’she was saying.‘He drew men towards him by what was best in them.’She looked at me with intensity.‘It is the gift of the great，’she went on, and the sound of her low voice seemed to have the accompaniment of all the other sounds, full of mystery, desolation, and sorrow, I had ever heard-the ripple of the river, the soughing of the trees swayed by the wind, the murmurs of wild crowds, the faint ring of incomprehensible words cried from afar, the whisper of a voice speaking from beyond the threshold of an eternal darkness.‘But you have heard him！You know！’she cried.
‘……只要有幸一闻其声，有谁能不为他倾倒呢？’她在说着，‘他能唤起人们内心最美好的情感，使人们归心于他。’她神色庄重地看着我，‘这是伟人的天赋。’她继续说道，她的声音，似乎淹没在缭乱的伴奏声中，那伴奏里，满是谜样的神秘、孤寂的凄凉和愁肠百结的悲伤，我曾在哪里听到过的——河水潺潺，风中的绿树飒飒，野人群的怪语嗡嗡，从远处传来的回响细细，如此的深邃难解，还有一个微弱的低语声，越过那个永恒的黑暗世界的门槛，幽幽传来。‘但您听见他说的话了！您听见了！’她叫了起来。

‘Yes, I know，’I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her-fromwhich I could not even defend myself.
‘是的，没错，我听见了。’我怀着某种近似绝望的情绪说，在她心中坚定的信仰面前，在那伟大得足以救赎一切罪孽的幻象面前，我看见那幻象在黑暗中闪耀着天堂的光彩，我屈服了。在那片不可一世的黑暗中，我没有能力保护她——我甚至没有办法保护我自己。

‘What a loss to me-to us！’—she corrected herself with beautiful generosity；then added in a murmur，‘To the world.’By the last gleams of twilight I could see the glitter of her eyes, full of tears-of tears that would not fall.
‘对我而言，这是一个多么大的损失——不，应该是对我们而言！’她非常有风度地改口道，真是慷慨。然后又低声补充道：‘对于整个世界而言。’在黄昏最后一丝光线里，我看得见她闪着光的眼里饱含泪水——她一直强忍着的泪水。

‘I have been very happy-very fortunate-very proud，’she went on.‘Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while.And now I am unhappy for-for life.’
‘我曾经是多么高兴——多么幸运——多么自豪，’她继续说道，‘太幸运了。有那么一阵子，我实在是太快乐了。而现在，我是如此不幸——抱恨终身。’

She stood up；her fair hair seemed to catch all the remaining light in a glimmer of gold. I rose too.
她站起来，淡金色的头发仿佛聚拢了所有黄昏的余光，熠熠生辉。我也站起身来。

‘And of all this，’she went on, mournfully，‘of all his promise, and of all his greatness, of his generous mind, of his noble heart, nothing remains-nothing but a memory. You and I—’
‘而所有的这一切，’她继续摧心剖肝地说道，‘他所有的承诺，所有的伟大，所有的宏伟思想，他高贵的心灵，都荡然无存了——逝去了，只剩下回忆。您和我——’

‘We shall always remember him，’I said, hastily.
‘我们会永远缅怀他。’我连忙说。

‘No！’she cried.‘It is impossible that all this should be lost-that such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothing-but sorrow. You know what vast plans he had.I knew of them too-I could not perhaps understand-but others knew of them.Something must remain.His words, at least, have not died.’
‘不！’她叫道，‘这一切不可能就这样灰飞烟灭——这样一个人牺牲之后，怎么可能不留下只鳞片羽——除去不尽的悲伤之外？您知道他胸中的宏图伟业，我也知道——也许我无能力去理解——但有其他人听闻过。一定有什么东西留存了下来。至少，他的高谈阔论仍然充满了生命力。’

‘His words will remain，’I said.
‘他的高谈阔论是不朽的。’我说。

‘And his example，’she whispered to herself.‘Men looked up to him-his goodness shone in every act. His example—’
‘而且他也树立起了一个榜样，’她轻声自语道，‘人们会景仰他——他的一言一行，都闪耀着美德的光辉。他是一个绝佳的榜样——’

‘True，’I said；‘his example too. Yes, his example.I forgot that.’
‘是的，’我说，‘他还树立起了一个榜样。是的，榜样。我给忘了。’

‘But I do not. I cannot-I cannot believe-not yet.I cannot believe that I shall never see him again, that nobody will see him again, never, never, never！’
‘但我没有。我不能——我不能够相信——还是不能。我不能相信永远都见不到他了，没有任何人会再见到他了，永远，永远，永远！’

She put out her arms as if after a retreating fgure, stretching them black and with clasped pale hands across the fading and narrow sheen of the window. Never see him！I saw him clearly enough then.I shall see thiseloquent phantom as long as I live, and I shall see her too, a tragic and familiar Shade, resembling in this gesture another one, tragic also, and bedecked with powerless charms, stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the infernal stream, the stream of darkness.She said suddenly very low，‘He died as he lived.’
她伸开双臂，仿佛在目送一个面朝着她渐行渐远的人，她把手深入黑暗之中，在窗户逐渐暗淡下去的狭窄光亮之中，轻轻扣住一双苍白的手。再也看不见他！我那个时候已经清清楚楚地看见了他。终我一生，我将一直看得见这个雄辩滔滔的幽灵，而我也会看见她，一个哀伤而熟悉的阴影。她现在的姿势，跟另一个人如出一辙，那个同样哀伤的阴影，浑身挂满了无能为力的符咒，在那条黑暗之河上，张开了裸露的棕色手臂。她突然非常低沉地说：‘他虽死犹生。’

‘His end，’said I, with dull anger stirring in me，‘was in every way worthy of his life.’
‘这个结局，’我说，闷在心中的愤怒翻江倒海，‘完全对得起他的人生。’

‘And I was not with him，’she murmured. My anger subsided before a feeling of infnite pity.
‘但我没能陪伴他到最后。’她低声道。我突然对她生出无限的怜悯，不生气了。

‘Everything that could be done—’I mumbled.
‘我们尽力了——’我嘟囔道。

‘Ah, but I believed in him more than anyone on earth-more than his own mother, more than-himself. He needed me！Me！I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance.’
‘啊，但我对他的信仰之深，超过了地球上任何一个人——比他自己的母亲还要多，比——他自己还要多。他离不开我！我！他的每声叹息，每句话，每个手势，每个眼神，我都将无比珍重爱惜。’

I felt like a chill grip on my chest.‘Don’t，I said, in a muffed voice.
我感到一阵寒气冰住了我的心。‘别这样。’我强压着声音说。

‘Forgive me. I-I—have mourned so long in silence-in silence……You were with him-to the last?I think of his loneliness.Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood.Perhaps no one to hear……’
‘对不起。我——我——服丧了这么久，如此孤寂——如此孤寂……您和他在一起——您在他临终时陪伴在旁？我常常想，他是多么孤独啊！身边没有如我一般了解他的人，也许连听他说话的人都没有……’

‘To the very end，’I said, shakily.‘I heard his very last words……’I stopped in a fright.
‘我一直陪伴在他身旁，’我颤抖着说，‘我听见了他的临终遗言……’我害怕得不敢往下说。

‘Repeat them，’she said in a heart-broken tone.‘I want-I want-something-something-to-to live with.’
‘请您重复一次好吗，’她肝肠寸断地低声说，‘我想要——想要——某些东西——某些东西——来——来支撑我活下去。’

I was on the point of crying at her，‘Don’t you hear them?‘The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the frst whisper of a rising wind.’The horror！The horror！
我简直马上就要向她咆哮道：‘您不是听见了吗？’那句话在暮色中低声回荡着，一声紧似一声，仿佛风刚起时的轻响，咄咄逼人地越刮越烈。‘好可怕！好可怕！’

‘His last word-to live with，’she murmured.‘Don’t you understand I loved him-I loved him-I loved him！
‘他的临终遗言——支撑我活下去，’她低声道，‘难道您不明白我爱他——我爱他——我爱他！’

I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.
我用尽浑身气力，缓缓地说了一句话。

‘The last word he pronounced was-your name.’
‘他最后说的是——您的名字。’

“I heard a light sigh, and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain.‘I knew it-I was sure！’……She knew. She was sure.I heard her weeping；she had hidden her face in her hands.It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head.But nothing happened.The heavens do not fall for such a trife.Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due?Hadn‘t he said he wanted only justice?But I couldn’t.I could not tell her.It would have been too dark-too dark altogether……”
“我听见一声轻微的叹息，我的心脏仿佛被冻住了。一声狂喜却凄厉的尖叫，充满胜利的神秘喜悦，无可言说的痛苦，把我的心完全石化了。‘我就知道——我从未怀疑过！’……她知道，她从未怀疑过。我听见她哭得梨花带雨，她把脸深深地埋在手里。我似乎感到，我还来不及逃走，这座房子就会塌掉，天也会塌下来砸死我。但一切如故。天才不会为了这样一件小事就塌掉。我真想知道，如果我能替库尔茨争取到他想要的公道，天会塌下来吗？他不是说了，他想要的只是公道吗？但我帮不了他。我不能告诉这个姑娘。那实在是太黑暗了——黑暗得太凶残了……”

Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time.“We have lost the frst of the ebb，”said the Director, suddenly.I raised my head.The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth fowed sombre under an overcast sky-seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
马洛讲完了。他坐在一边，朦胧，寂静，那姿势仿佛一座正在修行悟道的佛像。有那么一阵子，众人一动不动。“我们错过了第一次退潮。”主任突然说。我把头抬起来。海面上横遮着一堆乌云，那条通向天涯海角的河道，在阴沉的天空下，忧伤地流淌着——仿佛头也不回地，要流入一片庞大的黑暗的心中。