1 We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.
2 It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart.
3 And I remember I confounded the beat of the drum with the beating of my heart, and was pleased at its calm regularity.
4 There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her.
5 I heard a light sigh, and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain.
6 I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold.
7 It appears he had persuaded a Dutch trading-house on the coast to fit him out with stores and goods, and had started for the interior with a light heart, and no more idea of what would happen to him than a baby.
8 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, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.
9 Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness.