| s-102
| It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work. |
| s-103
| This man had verily accomplished something. |
| s-104
| And he was devoted to his books, which were in apple-pie order. |
| s-105
| Everything else in the station was in a muddle, – heads, things, buildings. |
| s-106
| Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire set into the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory. |
| s-107
| I had to wait in the station for ten days – an eternity. |
| s-108
| I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant's office. |
| s-109
| It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. |
| s-110
| There was no need to open the big shutter to see. |
| s-111
| It was hot there too; big flies buzzed fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed. |
| s-112
| I sat generally on the floor, while, of faultless appearance (and even slightly scented), perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote. |
| s-113
| Sometimes he stood up for exercise. |
| s-114
| When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalided agent from up-country) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance. |
| s-115
| The groans of this sick person, he said, distract my attention. |
| s-116
| And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in this climate. |
| s-117
| One day he remarked, without lifting his head, 'In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' |
| s-118
| On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, 'He is a very remarkable person.' |
| s-119
| Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was at present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the true ivory-country, at 'the very bottom of there. |
| s-120
| Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together.... |
| s-121
| He began to write again. |
| s-122
| The sick man was too ill to groan. |
| s-123
| The flies buzzed in a great peace. |
| s-124
| Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a great tramping of feet. |