"A thrilling collection of voices."
Category: A recent survey concluded that Americans read books for a reason, that is, that even readers of romance fiction or mystery fiction report that they read to learn about things like foreign locales, police procedures, etc. Okay, then.
The following paragraph is from the short story “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad. It is in the anthology “Short Story Masterpieces” edited by Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine. It has 36 tremendous stories and cost me a dollar used on amazon.com.
This paragraph comes late in the story. Two white men working for a British corporation at a trading station in Africa find that their assistant Makola has sold their workers and families into slavery in order to obtain the ivory the corporation seeks. The paragraph is describing what happened the day after they confronted Makola, but have done nothing to rescue the newly enslaved workers or to report the kidnappings. The ivory, after all, means that the men have been successful. The two men are named Kayerts and Carlier. Gobila is the leader of the village nearest to the outpost.
“At midday they made a hearty meal. Kayerts sighed from time to time. Whenever they mentioned Makola’s name they always added to it an opprobrious epithet. It eased their conscience. Makola gave himself a half-holiday, and bathed his children in the river. No one from Gobila’s village came near the station that day. No one came the next day, and the next, nor for a whole week. Gobila’s people might have been dead and buried for any sign of life they gave. But they were only mourning for those they had lost by the witchcraft of the white men, who had brought wicked people into their country. The wicked people were gone, but fear remained. Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath. In his fear, the mild old Gobila offered extra human sacrifices to all the Evil Spirits that had taken possession of his white friends. His heart was heavy. Some warriors spoke about burning and killing, but the cautious old savage dissuaded them. Who could foresee the woe those mysterious creatures, if irritated, might bring? They should be left alone. Perhaps in time they would disappear into the earth as the first one had disappeared. His people must keep away from them, and hope for the best.”
There is more to the story to come, but that paragraph alone says something about politics and global commerce.
