a bed-post, the very fatuity of the clenched hand so ineffectual at that
time and place--no, it wasn't worth much. And then, for him, an
accomplished craftsman in his trade, thinking was distinctly "bad
business." His business was to write a readable account. But I who had
nothing to write, I permitted myself to use my mind as we sat before our
still untouched glasses. And the disclosure which so often rewards a
moment of detachment from mere visual impressions gave me a thrill very
much approaching a shudder. I seemed to understand that, with the shock
of the agonies and perplexities of his trial, the imagination of that
man, whose moods, notions and motives wore frequently an air of grotesque
mystery--that his imagination had been at last roused into activity. And
this was awful. Just try to enter into the feelings of a man whose
imagination wakes up at the very moment he is about to enter the tomb . . . "

* * * * *

"You must not think," went on Marlow after a pause, "that on that morning
with Fyne I went consciously in my mind over all this, let us call it
information; no, better say, this fund of knowledge which I had, or
rather which existed, in me in regard to de Barral. Information is
something one goes out to seek and puts away when found as you might do a
piece of lead: ponderous, useful, unvibrating, dull. Whereas knowledge
comes to one, this sort of knowledge, a chance acquisition preserving in
its repose a fine resonant quality . . . But as such distinctions touch
upon the transcendental I shall spare you the pain of listening to them.
There are limits to my cruelty. No! I didn't reckon up carefully in my
mind all this I have been telling you. How could I have done so, with
Fyne right there in the room? He sat perfectly still, statuesque in
homely fashion, after having delivered himself of his effective assent:
"Yes. The convict," and I, far from indulging in a reminiscent excursion