….I want you to clearly understand that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there. They only showed that Mr Kurtz’s lacked the restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him-some small matter which when the pressing need arose could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can’t say. I think the knowledge came to him at last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken upon him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude-and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core…
Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”, 1899
