Edgewood

call酱做出了一个明智的选择，就是读译本……英语是康拉德掌握的最后一门外语，而且是在法国学的，他的英文读起来那是相当纠结，连美国人都觉得纠结，稍稍减轻了挫败感_(:з」∠)_

书摘第一段是Marlow的话，关于殖民的。因为书还没看完，不好做什么判断。后面的就不是直接与殖民相关的了，只是因为写得好而摘出来。虽说康拉德的英文读起来很虐，但突然冒出来的深沉动人的句子还是具有很大杀伤力TUT。

"Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency -- the devotion of efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force -- nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind -- as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea -- something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to..."

"...Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I'm trying to tell you a dream -- making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...."

"...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence -- that which makes its truth, its meaning -- its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream -- alone...."