How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #34
"I like to think my summing-up would not have been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry – much better. It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, but abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory! That is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond, when a long time after I heard once more, not his own voice, but the echo of his magnificent eloquence thrown to me from a soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal." (3.48)
Marlow suspects that, had he faced such a challenge, he would not have had Kurtz’s courage to judge, to hang on to a true belief. His judgment would have been "a word of careless contempt," perhaps a meaningless one. This is why, he claims, he remains loyal to Kurtz – he wants something to believe in firmly and resolutely and unwaveringly, just as Kurtz did.
Quote #35
"And the memory of what I had heard him say afar there, with the horned shapes stirring at my back, in the glow of fires, within the patient woods, those broken phrases came back to me, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying simplicity. I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul. And later on I seemed to see his collected languid manner, when he said one day, 'This lot of ivory now is really mine. The Company did not pay for it. I collected it myself at a very great personal risk. I am afraid they will try to claim it as theirs though. H'm. It is a difficult case. What do you think I ought to do – resist? Eh? I want no more than justice.' […]." (3.51)
When having flashbacks, Marlow primarily remembers Kurtz’s words, emphasizing his conviction that Kurtz has only a voice, not a true presence.
Quote #36
[The Intended]: "‘I feel I can speak to you - and oh! I must speak. I want you – you who have heard his last words – to know I have been worthy of him. […] It is not pride. […] Yes! I am proud to know I understood him better than any one on earth – he told me so himself.’" (3.59)
The Intended equates speaking with understanding, begging Marlow to speak to her of Kurtz because he was one of the few who understood him as she did.