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 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 flash 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 fit. He glanced through it
hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged 'it would do,' and took himself
off with this plunder.

"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 memory and 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
fulfillment of one of these ironic necessities that lurk in the facts of
human existence. I don't know. I can't tell. But I went.

"I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead that
acc