Сердце тьмы. Юность

JOSEPH CONRAD

HEART OF DARKNESS

УДК 372.8
ББК  81.2 Англ 
К64

ISBN 978-5-9925-1323-3

Конрад, Джозеф.
К64  
Сердце тьмы. Юность : книга для чтения на английском языке / Дж. Конрад — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 
2018. — 208 с. — (Modern Prose).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1323-3.

Повесть классика английской литературы Джозефа Конрада 
«Сердце тьмы» (1902) является одним из первых произведений 
европейской литературы модернизма. Путешествие в глубину 
черного континента становится для главного героя книги Чарльза 
Марлоу путешествием в бездну собственного я, во тьму, таящуюся 
в душе каждого человека. Повесть послужила литературной основой сценария знаменитого фильма Фрэнсиса Форда Копполы «Апокалипсис сегодня».
В настоящее издание также вошла повесть «Юность» (1898) из 
цикла о Чарльзе Марлоу.
В книге приводится полный неадаптированный текст повестей.
УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ

© КАРО, 2018 
Все права защищены

HEART OF DARKNESS

HEART OF DARKNESS

I

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor 
without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood 
had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound 
down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and 
wait for the turn of the tide.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us 
like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In 
the offing the sea and the sky were welded together 
without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned 
sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed 
to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, 
with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the 
low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. 
The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back 

still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brood
ing motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town 
on earth.

The Director of Companies was our captain and our 

host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood 

in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there 

was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a 

pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. 
It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in 

Joseph CONRAD
4

the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.
Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts 
together through long periods of separation, it had the 
effect of making us tolerant of each other’s yarns — 
and even convictions. The Lawyer — the best of old 
fellows — had, because of his many years and many 
virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the 
only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a 
box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with 
the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning 
against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, 
with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, 

resembled an idol. The director, satisfied the anchor had 
good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. 

We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was 

silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we 
did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was 

ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The 
water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a 
benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on 
the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, 

hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low 

HEART OF DARKNESS

shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, 

brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre 
every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.
And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the 

sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull 
red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out 
suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom 
brooding over a crowd of men.
Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the 
serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The 
old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race 

that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity 

of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. 

We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush 

of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the 

august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is 
easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, “followed 

the sea” with reverence and affection, than to evoke the 
great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the 
Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceas
ing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it 

had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. 

It had known and served all the men of whom the nation 
is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, 

knights all, titled and untitled — the great knights-errant 

Joseph CONRAD
6

of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are 

like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden 

Hindreturning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to 
be visited by the Queen’s Highness and thus pass out of 

the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests — and that never returned. It had known 
the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, 
from Greenwich, from Erith — the adventurers and the 
settlers; kings’ ships and the ships of men on ‘Change; 

captains, admirals, the dark “interlopers” of the Eastern 
trade, and the commissioned “generals” of East India 

fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had 
gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often 

the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had 

not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an 
unknown earth!.. The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.
The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights 
began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone 

strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway — a great 

stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west 
on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town 

was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom 

in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.

HEART OF DARKNESS

“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one 
of the dark places of the earth.”
He was the only man of us who still “followed the 

sea.” The worst that could be said of him was that he did 
not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a 
wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so 
express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stayat-home order, and their home is always with them — 
the ship; and so is their country — the sea. One ship is 
very much like another, and the sea is always the same. 
In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign 
shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of 
life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a 

slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing myste
rious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the 
mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. 
For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or 
a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the 
secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the 
secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a 

direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within 
the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical 

(if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him 
the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel 
but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out 
only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one 

Joseph CONRAD
8

of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by 
the spectral illumination of moonshine.
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; and presently he said, very 
slow — 

“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 

Knights? 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. Imagine the feelings of a 
commander of a fine — what d’ye call ‘em? — trireme 
in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; 
run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge 
of one of these craft the legionaries — a wonderful lot 

of handy men they must have been, too — used to build, 

apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may 

believe what we read. Imagine him here — the very end 

of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of 
smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina — 
and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what 
you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages, — precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but 

Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going 

HEART OF DARKNESS

ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay — cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death — death skulking in the 

air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying 

like flies here. Oh, yes — he did it. Did it very well, too, no 

doubt, and without thinking much about it either, except 
afterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his 
time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the dark
ness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on 

a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by and by, 
if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful 
climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga — 

perhaps too much dice, you know — coming out here in 

the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even, 
to mend his fortunes. Land in a swamp, march through 

the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the 

utter savagery, had closed round him — all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the 
jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation 

either into such mysteries. 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.”
He paused.

Joseph CONRAD
10

“Mind,” he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his 
legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha 

preaching in European clothes and without a lotus-flow
er — “Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What 
saves us is efficiency — the devotion to efficiency. But 
these chaps were not much account, really. They were 

no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, 

and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and 
for that you want only brute force — nothing to boast 
of, when you have it, since your strength is just an acci
dent arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed 

what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It 

was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a 

great scale, and men going at it blind — as is very proper 
for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the 

earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those 

who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses 
than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into 
it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at 
the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; 

and an unselfish belief in the idea — something you can 
set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to...”

He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green 
flames, red flames, white flames, pursuing, overtaking, 

joining, crossing each other — then separating slowly or