Part 1

Beginning through Marlow’s being hired as a steamboat captain.

Summary: Part 1
At sundown, a pleasure ship called the Nellie lies anchored at the mouth of the Thames,
waiting for the tide to go out. Five men relax on the deck of the ship: the Director of Companies,
who is also the captain and host, the Lawyer, the Accountant, Marlow, and the unnamed
Narrator. The five men, old friends held together by “the bond of the sea,” are restless yet
meditative, as if waiting for something to happen. As darkness begins to fall, and the scene
becomes “less brilliant but more profound,” the men recall the great men and ships that have set
forth from the Thames on voyages of trade and exploration, frequently never to return. Suddenly
Marlow remarks that this very spot was once “one of the dark places of the earth.” He notes that
when the Romans first came to England, it was a great, savage wilderness to them. He imagines
what it must have been like for a young Roman captain or soldier to come to a place so far from
home and lacking in comforts.
This train of thought reminds Marlow of his sole experience as a “fresh-water sailor,”
when as a young man he captained a steamship going up the Congo River. He recounts that he
first got the idea when, after returning from a six-year voyage through Asia, he came across a
map of Africa in a London shop window, which reinvigorated his childhood fantasies about the
“blank spaces” on the map.
Marlow recounts how he obtained a job with the Belgian “Company” that trades on the
Congo River (the Congo was then a Belgian territory) through the influence of an aunt who had
friends in the Company’s administration. The Company was eager to send Marlow to Africa,
because one of the Company’s steamer captains had recently been killed in a scuffle with the
natives.

Part 1 (continued)
Marlow’s visit to the Company Headquarters through his parting with his aunt.
Summary: Part 1
After he hears that he has gotten the job, Marlow travels across the English Channel to a
city that reminds him of a “whited sepulchre” (probably Brussels) to sign his employment
contract at the Company’s office. First, however, he digresses to tell the story of his predecessor
with the Company, Fresleven. Much later, after the events Marlow is about to recount, Marlow
was sent to recover Fresleven’s bones, which he found lying in the center of a deserted African
village. Despite his reputation as mild mannered, Fresleven was killed in a scuffle over some
hens: after striking the village chief, he was stabbed by the chief’s son. He was left there to die,
and the superstitious natives immediately abandoned the village. Marlow notes that he never did
find out what became of the hens.
Arriving at the Company’s offices, Marlow finds two sinister women there knitting black
wool, one of whom admits him to a waiting room, where he looks at a map of Africa color-coded
by colonial powers. A secretary takes him into the inner office for a cursory meeting with the
head of the Company. Marlow signs his contract, and the secretary takes him off to be checked
over by a doctor. The doctor takes measurements of his skull, remarking that he unfortunately
doesn’t get to see those men who make it back from Africa. More important, the doctor tells
Marlow, “the changes take place inside.” The doctor is interested in learning anything that may
give Belgians an advantage in colonial situations.
 With all formalities completed, Marlow stops off to say goodbye to his aunt, who
expresses her hope that he will aid in the civilization of savages during his service to the
Company, “weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways.” Well aware that the
Company operates for profit and not for the good of humanity, and bothered by his aunt’s
naïveté, Marlow takes his leave of her. Before boarding the French steamer that is to take him to
Africa, Marlow has a brief but strange feeling about his journey: the feeling that he is setting off
for the center of the earth.
Part 1 (continued)
Marlow’s journey down the coast of Africa through his meeting with the chief accountant.
Summary: Part 1
The French steamer takes Marlow along the coast of Africa, stopping periodically to land
soldiers and customshouse officers. Marlow finds his idleness vexing, and the trip seems vaguely
nightmarish to him. At one point, they come across a French man-of-war shelling an apparently
uninhabited forested stretch of coast. They finally arrive at the mouth of the Congo River, where
Marlow boards another steamship bound for a point thirty miles upriver. The captain of the ship,
a young Swede, recognizes Marlow as a seaman and invites him on the bridge. The Swede
criticizes the colonial officials and tells Marlow about another Swede who recently hanged
himself on his way into the interior.
Marlow disembarks at the Company’s station, which is in a terrible state of disrepair. He
sees piles of decaying machinery and a cliff being blasted for no apparent purpose. He also sees a
group of black prisoners walking along in chains under the guard of another black man, who
wears a shoddy uniform and carries a rifle. He remarks that he had already known the “devils” of
violence, greed, and desire, but that in Africa he became acquainted with the “flabby, pretending,
weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly.” Finally, Marlow comes to a grove of trees
and, to his horror, finds a group of dying native laborers. He offers a biscuit to one of them;
seeing a bit of white European yarn tied around his neck, he wonders at its meaning. He meets a
nattily dressed white man, the Company’s chief accountant (not to be confused with Marlow’s
friend the Accountant from the opening of the book). Marlow spends ten days here waiting for a
caravan to the next station. One day, the chief accountant tells him that in the interior he will
undoubtedly meet Mr. Kurtz, a first-class agent who sends in as much ivory as all the others put
together and is destined for advancement. He tells Marlow to let Kurtz know that everything is
satisfactory at the Outer Station when he meets him. The chief accountant is afraid to send a
written message for fear it will be intercepted by undesirable elements at the Central Station.
Part 1 (continued)
Marlow’s journey to the Central Station through the arrival of the Eldorado Exploring
Expedition.
Summary: Part 1
Marlow travels overland for two hundred miles with a caravan of sixty men. He has one
white companion who falls ill and must be carried by the native bearers, who start to desert
because of the added burden. After fifteen days they arrive at the dilapidated Central Station.
Marlow finds that the steamer he was to command has sunk. The general manager of the Central
Station had taken the boat out two days before under the charge of a volunteer skipper, and they
had torn the bottom out on some rocks. In light of what he later learns, Marlow suspects the
damage to the steamer may have been intentional, to keep him from reaching Kurtz. Marlow
soon meets with the general manager, who strikes him as an altogether average man who leads
by inspiring an odd uneasiness in those around him and whose authority derives merely from his
resistance to tropical disease. The manager tells Marlow that he took the boat out in a hurry to
relieve the inner stations, especially the one belonging to Kurtz, who is rumored to be ill. He
praises Kurtz as an exceptional agent and takes note that Kurtz is talked about on the coast.
The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were
praying to it.
Marlow sets to work dredging his ship out of the river and repairing it, which ends up
taking three months. One day during this time, a grass shed housing some trade goods burns
down, and the native laborers dance delightedly as it burns. One of the natives is accused of
causing the fire and is beaten severely; he disappears into the forest after he recovers. Marlow
overhears the manager talking with the brickmaker about Kurtz at the site of the burned hut. He
enters into conversation with the brickmaker after the manager leaves, and ends up
accompanying the man back to his quarters, which are noticeably more luxurious than those of
the other agents. Marlow realizes after a while that the brickmaker is pumping him for
information about the intentions of the Company’s board of directors in Europe, about which, of
course, Marlow knows nothing. Marlow notices an unusual painting on the wall, of a blindfolded
woman with a lighted torch; when he asks about it, the brickmaker reveals that it is Kurtz’s
work.
The brickmaker tells Marlow that Kurtz is a prodigy, sent as a special emissary of
Western ideals by the Company’s directors and bound for quick advancement. He also reveals
that he has seen confidential correspondence dealing with Marlow’s appointment, from which he
has construed that Marlow is also a favorite of the administration. They go outside, and the
brickmaker tries to get himself into Marlow’s good graces—and Kurtz’s by proxy, since he
believes Marlow is allied with Kurtz. Marlow realizes the brickmaker had planned on being
assistant manager, and Kurtz’s arrival has upset his chances. Seeing an opportunity to use the
brickmaker’s influence to his own ends, Marlow lets the man believe he really does have
influence in Europe and tells him that he wants a quantity of rivets from the coast to repair his
ship. The brickmaker leaves him with a veiled threat on his life, but Marlow enjoys his obvious
distress and confusion.
Marlow finds his foreman sitting on the deck of the ship and tells him that they will have
rivets in three weeks, and they both dance around exuberantly. The rivets do not come, however.
Instead, the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, a group of white men intent on “tear[ing] treasure
out of the bowels of the land,” arrives, led by the manager’s uncle, who spends his entire time at
the station talking conspiratorially with his nephew. Marlow gives up on ever receiving the rivets
he needs to repair his ship, and turns to wondering disinterestedly about Kurtz and his ideals.
Part 2
Marlow’s overhearing of the conversation between the manager and his uncle through the
beginning of his voyage up the river.
Summary: Part 2
One evening, as Marlow lies on the deck of his wrecked steamer, the manager and his
uncle appear within earshot and discuss Kurtz. The manager complains that Kurtz has come to
the Congo with plans to turn the stations into beacons of civilization and moral improvement,
and that Kurtz wants to take over the manager’s position. He recalls that about a year earlier
Kurtz sent down a huge load of ivory of the highest quality by canoe with his clerk, but that
Kurtz himself had turned back to his station after coming 300 miles down the river. The clerk,
after turning over the ivory and a letter from Kurtz instructing the manager to stop sending him
incompetent men, informs the manager that Kurtz has been very ill and has not completely
recovered.
Continuing to converse with his uncle, the manager mentions another man whom he finds
troublesome, a wandering trader. The manager’s uncle tells him to go ahead and have the trader
hanged, because no one will challenge his authority here. The manager’s uncle also suggests that
the climate may take care of all of his difficulties for him, implying that Kurtz simply may die of
tropical disease. Marlow is alarmed by the apparent conspiracy between the two men and leaps
to his feet, revealing himself to them. They are visibly startled but move off without
acknowledging his presence. Not long after this incident, the Eldorado Expedition, led by the
manager’s uncle, disappears into the wilderness.
In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that closed upon it as
the sea closes over a diver.
Much later, the cryptic message arrives that all the expedition’s donkeys have died. By
that time, the repairs on Marlow’s steamer are nearly complete, and Marlow is preparing to leave
on a two-month trip up the river to Kurtz, along with the manager and several “pilgrims.” The
river is treacherous and the trip is difficult; the ship proceeds only with the help of a crew of
natives the Europeans call cannibals, who actually prove to be quite reasonable people. The men
aboard the ship hear drums at night along the riverbanks and occasionally catch glimpses of
native settlements during the day, but they can only guess at what lies further inland. Marlow
feels a sense of kinship between himself and the savages along the riverbanks, but his work in
keeping the ship afloat and steaming keeps him safely occupied and prevents him from brooding
too much.
Part 2 (continued)
Marlow’s discovery of the stack of firewood through the attack on the steamer.
Summary: Part 2
Fifty miles away from Kurtz’s Inner Station, the steamer sights a hut with a stack of
firewood and a note that says, “Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously.” The signature is
illegible, but it is clearly not Kurtz’s. Inside the hut, Marlow finds a battered old book on
seamanship with notes in the margin in what looks like code. The manager concludes that the
wood must have been left by the Russian trader, a man about whom Marlow has overheard the
manager complaining. After taking aboard the firewood that serves as the ship’s fuel, the party
continues up the river, the steamer struggling and threatening at every moment to give out
completely. Marlow ponders Kurtz constantly as they crawl along toward him.
By the evening of the second day after finding the hut, they arrive at a point eight miles from
Kurtz’s station. Marlow wants to press on, but the manager tells him to wait for daylight, as the
waters are dangerous here. The night is strangely still and silent, and dawn brings an oppressive
fog. The fog lifts suddenly and then falls again just as abruptly. The men on the steamer hear a
loud, desolate cry, followed by a clamor of savage voices, and then silence again. They prepare
for attack. The whites are badly shaken, but the African crewmen respond with quiet alertness.
The leader of the cannibals tells Marlow matter-of-factly that his people want to eat the owners
of the voices in the fog. Marlow realizes that the cannibals must be terribly hungry, as they have
not been allowed to go ashore to trade for supplies, and their only food, a supply of rotting hippo
meat, was long since thrown overboard by the pilgrims.
The manager authorizes Marlow to take every risk in continuing on in the fog, but
Marlow refuses to do so, as they will surely ground the steamer if they proceed blindly. Marlow
says he does not think the natives will attack, particularly since their cries have sounded more
sorrowful than warlike. After the fog lifts, at a spot a mile and a half from the station, the natives
attempt to repulse the invaders. The steamer is in a narrow channel, moving along slowly next to
a high bank overgrown with bushes, when suddenly the air fills with arrows. Marlow rushes
inside the pilot-house. When he leans out to close the shutter on the window, he sees that the
brush is swarming with natives. Suddenly, he notices a snag in the river a short way ahead of the
steamer.
The pilgrims open fire with rifles from below him, and the cloud of smoke they produce
obscures his sight. Marlow’s African helmsman leaves the wheel to open the shutter and shoot
out with a one-shot rifle, and then stands at the open window yelling at the unseen assailants on
the shore. Marlow grabs the wheel and crowds the steamer close to the bank to avoid the snag.
As he does so, the helmsman takes a spear in his side and falls on Marlow’s feet. Marlow
frightens the attackers away by sounding the steam whistle repeatedly, and they give off a
prolonged cry of fear and despair. One of the pilgrims enters the pilot-house and is shocked to
see the wounded helmsman. The two white men stand over him as he dies quietly. Marlow
makes the repulsed and indignant pilgrim steer while he changes his shoes and socks, which are
covered in the dead man’s blood. Marlow expects that Kurtz is now dead as well, and he feels a
terrible disappointment at the thought.
One of Marlow’s listeners breaks into his narrative at this point to comment upon the
absurdity of Marlow’s behavior. Marlow laughs at the man, whose comfortable bourgeois
existence has never brought him into contact with anything the likes of Africa. He admits that his
own behavior may have been ridiculous—he did, after all, throw a pair of brand-new shoes
overboard in response to the helmsman’s death—but he notes that there is something legitimate
about his disappointment in thinking he will never be able to meet the man behind the legend of
Kurtz.
Part 2 (continued)
Marlow’s digression about Kurtz through his meeting with the Russian trader.
Summary: Part 2
Marlow breaks into the narrative here to offer a digression on Kurtz. He notes that Kurtz
had a fiancée, his Intended (as Kurtz called her), waiting for him in Europe. Marlow attaches no
importance to Kurtz’s fiancée, since, for him, women exist in an alternate fantasy world. What
Marlow does find significant about Kurtz’s Intended, though, is the air of possession Kurtz
assumed when speaking about her: indeed, Kurtz spoke of everything—ivory, the Inner Station,
the river—as being innately his. It is this sense of dark mastery that disturbs Marlow most.
Marlow also mentions a report Kurtz has written at the request of the International Society for
the Suppression of Savage Customs. The report is eloquent and powerful, if lacking in practical
suggestions. It concludes, however, with a handwritten postscript: “Exterminate all the brutes!”
Marlow suggests that this coda, the “exposition of [Kurtz’s] method,” is the result of Kurtz’s
absorption into native life—that by the time he came to write this note he had assumed a position
of power with respect to the natives and had been a participant in “unspeakable rites,” where
sacrifices had been made in his name. At this point, Marlow also reveals that he feels he is
responsible for the “care of [Kurtz’s] memory,” and that he has no choice but to remember and
continue to talk about the man.
At the time Marlow is telling his story, he is still unsure whether Kurtz was worth the
lives lost on his behalf; thus, at this point, he returns to his dead helmsman and the journey up
the river. Marlow blames the helmsman’s death on the man’s own lack of restraint: had the
helmsman not tried to fire at the men on the riverbank, he would not have been killed. Marlow
drags the helmsman’s body out of the pilot-house and throws it overboard. The pilgrims are
indignant that the man will not receive a proper burial, and the cannibals seem to mourn the loss
of a potential meal. The pilgrims have concluded Kurtz must be dead and the Inner Station
destroyed, but they are cheered at the crushing defeat they believe they dealt their unseen
attackers. Marlow remains skeptical and sarcastically congratulates them on the amount of
smoke they have managed to produce. Suddenly, the Inner Station comes into view, somewhat
decayed but still standing.
A white man, the Russian trader, beckons to them from the shore. He wears a gaudy
patchwork suit and babbles incessantly. He is aware they have been attacked but tells them that
everything will now be okay. The manager and the pilgrims go up the hill to retrieve Kurtz,
while the Russian boards the ship to converse with Marlow. He tells Marlow that the natives
mean no harm (although he is less than convincing on this point), and he confirms Marlow’s
theory that the ship’s whistle is the best means of defense, since it will scare the natives off. He
gives a brief account of himself: he has been a merchant seaman and was outfitted by a Dutch
trading house to go into the African interior. Marlow gives him the book on seamanship that had
been left with the firewood, and the trader is very happy to have it back. As it turns out, what
Marlow had thought were encoded notes are simply notes written in Russian. The Russian trader
tells Marlow that he has had trouble restraining the natives, and he suggests that the steamer was
attacked because the natives do not want Kurtz to leave. The Russian also offers yet another
enigmatic picture of Kurtz. According to the trader, one does not talk to Kurtz but listens to him.
The trader credits Kurtz for having “enlarged his mind.”
Part 3
The Russian trader’s description of Kurtz through the Russian trader’s departure from the Inner
Station.
Summary: Part 3
The Russian trader begs Marlow to take Kurtz away quickly. He recounts for Marlow his
initial meeting with Kurtz, telling him that Kurtz and the trader spent a night camped in the forest
together, during which Kurtz discoursed on a broad range of topics. The trader again asserts that
listening to Kurtz has greatly enlarged his mind. His connection to Kurtz, however, has gone
through periods of rise and decline. He nursed Kurtz through two illnesses but sometimes would
not see him for long periods of time, during which Kurtz was out raiding the countryside for
ivory with a native tribe he had gotten to follow him. Although Kurtz has behaved erratically and
once even threatened to shoot the trader over a small stash of ivory, the trader nevertheless
insists that Kurtz cannot be judged as one would judge a normal man. He has tried to get Kurtz to
return to civilization several times. The Russian tells Marlow that Kurtz is extremely ill now. As
he listens to the trader, Marlow idly looks through his binoculars and sees that what he had
originally taken for ornamental balls on the tops of fence posts in the station compound are
actually severed heads turned to face the station house. He is repelled but not particularly
surprised. The Russian apologetically explains that these are the heads of rebels, an explanation
that makes Marlow laugh out loud. The Russian makes a point of telling Marlow that he has had
no medicine or supplies with which to treat Kurtz; he also asserts that Kurtz has been shamefully
abandoned by the Company.
At that moment, the pilgrims emerge from the station-house with Kurtz on an improvised
stretcher, and a group of natives rushes out of the forest with a piercing cry. Kurtz speaks to the
natives, and the natives withdraw and allow the party to pass. The manager and the pilgrims lay
Kurtz in one of the ship’s cabins and give him his mail, which they have brought from the
Central Station. Someone has written to Kurtz about Marlow, and Kurtz tells him that he is
“glad” to see him. The manager enters the cabin to speak with Kurtz, and Marlow withdraws to
the steamer’s deck. From here he sees two natives standing near the river with impressive
headdresses and spears, and a beautiful native woman draped in ornaments pacing gracefully
along the shore. She stops and stares out at the steamer for a while and then moves away into the
forest. Marlow notes that she must be wearing several elephant tusks’ worth of ornaments. The
Russian implies that she is Kurtz’s mistress, and states that she has caused him trouble through
her influence over Kurtz. He adds that he would have tried to shoot her if she had tried to come
aboard. The trader’s comments are interrupted by the sound of Kurtz yelling at the manager
inside the cabin. Kurtz accuses the men of coming for the ivory rather than to help him, and he
threatens the manager for interfering with his plans.
The manager comes out and takes Marlow aside, telling him that they have done
everything possible for Kurtz, but that his unsound methods have closed the district off to the
Company for the time being. He says he plans on reporting Kurtz’s “complete want of judgment”
to the Company’s directors. Thoroughly disgusted by the manager’s hypocritical condemnation
of Kurtz, Marlow tells the manager that he thinks Kurtz is a “remarkable man.” With this
statement, Marlow permanently alienates himself from the manager and the rest of the Company
functionaries. Like Kurtz, Marlow is now classified among the “unsound.” As the manager walks
off, the Russian approaches again, to confide in Marlow that Kurtz ordered the attack on the
steamer, hoping that the manager would assume he was dead and turn back. After the Russian
asks Marlow to protect Kurtz’s reputation, Marlow tells the Russian that the manager has spoken
of having the Russian hanged. The trader is not surprised and, after hitting Marlow up for
tobacco, gun cartridges, and shoes, leaves in a canoe with some native paddlers.
Part 3 (continued)
Marlow’s nighttime pursuit of Kurtz through the steamship’s departure from the Inner Station.
Summary: Part 3
Remembering the Russian trader’s warning, Marlow gets up in the middle of the night
and goes out to look around for any sign of trouble. From the deck of the steamer, he sees one of
the pilgrims with a group of the cannibals keeping guard over the ivory, and he sees the fires of
the natives’ camp in the forest. He hears a drum and a steady chanting, which lulls him into a
brief sleep. A sudden outburst of yells wakes him, but the loud noise immediately subsides into a
rhythmic chanting once again. Marlow glances into Kurtz’s cabin only to find that Kurtz is gone.
He is unnerved, but he does not raise an alarm, and instead decides to leave the ship to search for
Kurtz himself.
He finds a trail in the grass and realizes that Kurtz must be crawling on all fours. Marlow
runs along the trail after him; Kurtz hears him coming and rises to his feet. They are now close to
the fires of the native camp, and Marlow realizes the danger of his situation, as Kurtz could
easily call out to the natives and have him killed. Kurtz tells him to go away and hide, and
Marlow looks over and sees the imposing figure of a native sorcerer silhouetted against the fire.
Marlow asks Kurtz if he knows what he is doing, and Kurtz replies emphatically that he does.
Despite his physical advantage over the invalid, Marlow feels impotent, and threatens to strangle
Kurtz if he should call out to the natives. Kurtz bemoans the failure of his grand schemes, and
Marlow reassures him that he is thought a success in Europe. Sensing the other man’s
vulnerability, Marlow tells Kurtz he will be lost if he continues on. Kurtz’s resolution falters, and
Marlow helps him back to the ship.
 The steamer departs the next day at noon, and the natives appear on the shore to watch it
go. Three men painted with red earth and wearing horned headdresses wave charms and shout
incantations at the ship as it steams away. Marlow places Kurtz in the pilot-house to get some
air, and Kurtz watches through the open window as his mistress rushes down to the shore and
calls out to him. The crowd responds to her cry with an uproar of its own. Marlow sounds the
whistle as he sees the pilgrims get out their rifles, and the crowd scatters, to the pilgrims’ dismay.
Only the woman remains standing on the shore as the pilgrims open fire, and Marlow’s view is
obscured by smoke.
Part 3 (continued)
Marlow’s journey back down the river through his falling ill.
Summary: Part 3
The current speeds the steamer’s progress back toward civilization. The manager, certain
that Kurtz will soon be dead, is pleased to have things in hand; he condescendingly ignores
Marlow, who is now clearly of the “unsound” but harmless party. The pilgrims are disdainful,
and Marlow, for the most part, is left alone with Kurtz. As he had done with the Russian trader,
Kurtz takes advantage of his captive audience to hold forth on a variety of subjects. Marlow is
alternately impressed and disappointed. Kurtz’s philosophical musings are interspersed with
grandiose and childish plans for fame and fortune.
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. . . .
The steamer breaks down, and repairs take some time. Marlow is slowly becoming ill,
and the work is hard on him. Kurtz seems troubled, probably because the delay has made him
realize that he probably will not make it back to Europe alive. Worried that the manager will gain
control of his “legacy,” Kurtz gives Marlow a bundle of papers for safekeeping. Kurtz’s
ramblings become more abstract and more rhetorical as his condition worsens. Marlow believes
he is reciting portions of articles he has written for the newspapers: Kurtz thinks it his “duty” to
disseminate his ideas. Finally, one night, Kurtz admits to Marlow that he is “waiting for death.”
As Marlow approaches, Kurtz seems to be receiving some profound knowledge or vision, and
the look on his face forces Marlow to stop and stare. Kurtz cries out—“The horror! The
horror!”—and Marlow flees, not wanting to watch the man die. He joins the manager in the
dining hall, which is suddenly overrun by flies. A moment later, a servant comes in to tell them,
“Mistah Kurtz—he dead.”
The pilgrims bury Kurtz the next day. Marlow succumbs to illness and nearly dies
himself. He suffers greatly, but the worst thing about his near-death experience is his realization
that in the end he would have “nothing to say.” Kurtz, he realizes, was remarkable because he
“had something to say. He said it.” Marlow remembers little about the time of his illness. Once
he has recovered sufficiently, he leaves Africa and returns to Brussels.
Part 3 (continued)
Marlow’s return to Brussels through the conclusion.
Summary: Part 3
Marlow barely survives his illness. Eventually he returns to the “sepulchral city,”
Brussels. He resents the people there for their petty self-importance and smug complacency. His
aunt nurses him back to health, but his disorder is more emotional than physical. A bespectacled
representative of the Company comes to retrieve the packet of papers Kurtz entrusted to Marlow,
but Marlow will give him only the pamphlet on the “Suppression of Savage Customs,” with the
postscript (the handwritten “Exterminate all the brutes!”) torn off. The man threatens legal action
to obtain the rest of the packet’s contents. Another man, calling himself Kurtz’s cousin, appears
and takes some letters to the family. The cousin tells him that Kurtz had been a great musician,
although he does not elaborate further. Marlow and the cousin ponder Kurtz’s myriad talents and
decide that he is best described as a “universal genius.” A journalist colleague of Kurtz’s appears
and takes the pamphlet for publication. This man believes Kurtz’s true skills were in popular or
extremist politics.
Finally, Marlow is left with only a few letters and a picture of Kurtz’s Intended. Marlow
goes to see her without really knowing why. Kurtz’s memory comes flooding back to him as he
stands on her doorstep. He finds the Intended still in mourning, though it has been over a year
since Kurtz’s death. He gives her the packet, and she asks if he knew Kurtz well. He replies that
he knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know another.
His presence fulfills her need for a sympathetic ear, and she continually praises Kurtz. Her
sentimentality begins to anger Marlow, but he holds back his annoyance until it gives way to
pity. She says she will mourn Kurtz forever, and asks Marlow to repeat his last words to give her
something upon which to sustain herself. Marlow lies and tells her that Kurtz’s last word was her
name. She responds that she was certain that this was the case. Marlow ends his story here, and
the narrator looks off into the dark sky, which makes the waterway seem “to lead into the heart
of an immense darkness.”