ATDTDA (12) "The horror. The horror." [335:3-9 Redux]

[Keith]

[335:3-9 Redux] But a voice, unlike the others that spoke to Foley,  
had begun to speak and once begun, persisted. [...] "You suffered  
through the Wilderness and at last, at Cold Harbor, lay between the  
lines three days, between the worlds, and this is what you were saved  
for?  This mean, nervous, scheming servitude to an enfeebled  
conscience?"

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"Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the  
knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the  
wilderness found him out early, and had taken 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."
         --Joseph Conrad, _Heart of Darkness_

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Being a devout Christian and all, I still like the "Biblical allusion  
reading" of the wording of this passage; however, further research  
reveals that the references to "Wilderness" (note the capitalization)  
and "Cold Harbor" are also very specific references to historic  
battles in the Civil War where Foley almost died for Vibe's sins:

"The Battle of the Wilderness, fought from May 5 to May 7, 1864, was  
the first battle of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia  
Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate  
Army of Northern Virginia. Both armies suffered heavy casualties, a  
harbinger of a bloody war of attrition against Lee's army and,  
eventually, the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. The battle  
was tactically inconclusive, as Grant disengaged and continued his  
offensive."
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Wilderness

"The Battle of Cold Harbor, the final battle of Union Lt. Gen.  
Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign during the American Civil  
War, is remembered as one of American history's bloodiest, most  
lopsided battles. Thousands of Union soldiers were slaughtered in a  
hopeless frontal assault against the fortified troops of Confederate  
General Robert E. Lee. Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I  
have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever  
made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22d of May,  
1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained  
to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained.""
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Harbor

Plus, the reference "lay[ing] between the lines three days, between  
the worlds" is to a three day (June 5-7) semi-hiatus in the middle of  
the battle with horrendous conditions between the Union and  
Confederate lines:

The trenches were hot, dusty, and miserable, but conditions were  
worse between the lines, where thousands of wounded Federal soldiers  
suffered horribly without food, water, or medical assistance. Grant  
was reluctant to ask for a formal truce that would allow him to  
recover his wounded because that would be a signal he had lost the  
battle. He and Lee traded notes across the lines from June 5 to June  
7 without coming to an agreement, and when Grant formally requested a  
two-hour cessation of hostilities, it was too late for most of the  
unfortunate wounded, who were now bloated corpses. Grant was widely  
criticized in the Northern press for this lapse of judgment.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Harbor

"For the first time during Grant's campaign in that summer of 1864,  
correspondents from Democratic newspapers failed to exploit a bloody  
Federal setback and the horror of a battle's aftermath, even though  
the Battle of Cold Harbor had given them plenty of ammunition on both  
counts. In a matter of minutes, three Union corps had suffered more  
casualties than they had in 20 hours of terrible fighting at the  
Bloody Angle of Spotsylvania. And for three days after the battle,  
the no-man's land between the armies bore unspeakable horrors."
   http://www.historynet.com/magazines/civil_war_times/3706816.html

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