Читать книгу "Сердце тьмы / Heart of darkness (адаптированный английский B1)"

Suddenly, there was a growing noise of voices and many feet. A group of travelers had arrived. A loud, confused shouting was heard on the other side of the boards. All the workers were talking at once, and in the middle of the confusion, the chief agent's sad voice was heard giving up, for the twentieth time that day. He stood up slowly. "What a terrible noise," he said. He quietly walked across the room to check on the sick man, and coming back, said to me, "He can't hear." "What! Is he dead?" I asked, surprised. "No, not yet," he answered calmly. Then, gesturing towards the confusion in the yard, "When you have to make accurate records, you come to hate these people – hate them very much." He thought for a moment. "When you see Mr. Kurtz," he continued, "tell him from me that everything here" – he looked at the deck – "is fine. I don't like to write to him – with our messengers, you never know who might read your letter – at that main office." He looked at me for a moment with his gentle, wide eyes. "Oh, he will go far, very far," he started again. "He will be an important person in the government soon. The people in charge – the Council in Europe – want him to succeed."

He returned to his work. The noise outside had stopped, and as I left, I paused at the door. In the constant noise of flies, the sick agent lay still and unconscious; the other, bent over his books, was carefully recording perfectly normal business; and fifty feet below, I could see the still tops of the trees in the deadly forest.

The next day, I finally left the station with a group of sixty men. We were going on a long, 200-mile walk.

There's not much to tell you about that. Paths, paths everywhere – a network of paths across the empty land. They went through tall grass, burnt grass, bushes, up and down cool valleys, and over hot hills. It was very lonely; no one, not a single house. The people had left a long time ago. If a group of armed people suddenly started traveling between Deal and Gravesend, making local people carry heavy things for them, I imagine everyone would leave quickly. Here, though, the houses were gone too. I passed several abandoned villages. The ruined grass walls looked sadly. Day after day, I walked with sixty people behind me, each carrying a heavy load. We camped, cooked, slept, packed up, and marched. Sometimes, someone died, lying in the grass by the path, with their empty water bottle and walking stick. It was very quiet. Sometimes at night, you could hear distant drums, a faint, strange sound – maybe as meaningful as church bells. Once, I met a white man in a partly-buttoned uniform, camping with armed guards. He said he was looking after the road, but I didn’t see any road or any work being done, except maybe the body of a dead man I found a few miles later.

I had a white friend with me, a nice man, but overweight and he kept fainting in the heat. It was annoying having to hold my coat over him while he recovered. I asked him why he was there. "To make money, of course!" he said angrily. Then he got sick and had to be carried. Because he was very heavy, I had many arguments with the carriers. They refused to work, ran away, or stole things at night. So, I gave them a speech, and the next morning, they carried him. An hour later, I found him beaten. The heavy pole had hurt his nose. He wanted me to punish someone, but the carriers were gone. I remembered an old doctor saying it would be interesting to study how people’s minds change in such situations. I felt like I was becoming a study myself! Anyway, that’s beside the point. On the fifteenth day, I reached the river and arrived at the Central Station. It was surrounded by bushes and forest, with muddy banks and a broken fence. The gate was just a gap in the fence, and it was clear that things were not going well. Some white men with sticks came out to look at me, then went away. One man, a short, excited man, told me my boat was at the bottom of the river. I was shocked. He said it was "all right," the manager was there, and everyone had done a great job. He said I had to see the main manager immediately.

I didn't understand the real importance of the accident right away. I think I understand it now, but I'm not sure at all. It was incredibly silly, when I think about it, almost unbelievable. But at the time, it was just a huge problem. The steamboat sank. They'd left two days earlier in a rush, going up the river. The manager was on board, with a volunteer captain. Less than three hours later, they hit rocks and the boat sank near the south bank. I wondered what I'd do now that my boat was gone. Actually, I had plenty to do – getting my things out of the river. I started the next day. That, and the repairs at the station, took months.

My first meeting with the manager was strange. He didn't ask me to sit down after my long walk that morning. He was a regular: average looking, average height and build, with an average voice and manner. His eyes, a typical blue, were perhaps unusually cold, and his gaze could be intense and heavy. But the rest of him didn't seem to match that intensity. He had a strange, slight expression on his lips – something hidden, a sort of smile, but not quite. I can't describe it. But it became stronger for a moment after he spoke. It came at the end of his sentences, like a stamp on his words, making even simple things seem mysterious.