Joseph Conrad – Heart of darkness
“The word ‘ivory’ would ring in the air for a while and on we went again into the silence along empty ridges round the still bends between the high walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow claps the ponderous beat of the sternwheel. Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high, and at their foot, hogging the bank against the stream, kept the little steamboat, like a sluggish beetle, crawling on the floor of a lofty portico. It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling”
“Why did they attack us?” I pursued. He hesitated. Then said shamefacedly: “They don’t want him to go.” “Don’t they?” I said curiously. He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom. “I tell you”, he cried, “this man has enlarged my mind.” He opened his arms wide, staring at me with his little blue eyes, that were perfectly round…”
