LPPM MMV "Mistah Kurtz--He Dead"

[Dave Monroe]

"Ten seconds later the door opened again and Lupescu
stuck his head in and winked. 'Mistah Kurtz--he dead,'
he announced owlishly and disappeared." (MMV, p. 3)


"Mistah Kurtz--he dead"

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)

   "His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him
as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom
of a precipice where the sun never shines. But I had
not much time to give him, because I was helping the
engine-driver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders,
to straighten a bent connecting-rod, and in other such
matters. I lived in an infernal mess of rust, filings,
nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers, ratchet-drills--things
I abominate, because I don't get on with them. I
tended the little forge we fortunately had aboard; I
toiled wearily in a wretched scrap-heap--unless I had
the shakes too bad to stand. 
  "One evening coming in with a candle I was startled
to hear him say a little tremulously, 'I am lying here
in the dark waiting for death.' The light was within a
foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, 'Oh,
nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed. 
   "Anything approaching the change that came over his
features I have never seen before, and hope never to
see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It
was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that
ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless
power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless
despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of
desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme
moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at
some image, at some vision,--he cried out twice, a cry
that was no more than a breath-- 
  "'The horror! The horror!' 
  "I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The
pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my
place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to
give me a questioning glance, which I successfully
ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar
smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his
meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed
upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and
faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent
black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of
scathing contempt-- 
  "'Mistah Kurtz--he dead.'"

http://www.classic-novels.com/author/joseph_conrad/heart_of_darkness/heart021.htm

http://www.classic-novels.com/author/joseph_conrad/heart_of_darkness/heartarchive.htm

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.online-literature.com/conrad/heart_of_darkness/

http://wyllie.lib.virginia.edu:8086/perl/toccer-new?id=ConDark.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" (1925)

MISTAH KURTZ--HE DEAD.
A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.  Alas! ...

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem74.html

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/hollow.htm


"owlishly"

Main Entry: owl·ish 
Pronunciation: 'au-lish
Function: adjective
: resembling or suggesting an owl
- owl·ish·ly adverb ...

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=owlishly

Huh?  "Stuck in his head and winked"?  But do note
that Lupescu has been quoting passages also quoted by
Eliot, or, perhaps, quoting Eliot quoting other
authors (Baudelaire, Conrad).  Tres postmoderniste ...


		
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