In line 44, ‘“drollery”’ most likely means
(a) boredom
(b) contention
(c) sadness
(d) dark absurdity
(e) insanity

passage 3. joseph conrad, heart of darkness
“i left in a french steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out
there, for, as far as i could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-
house offi cers. i watched the coast. watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like
thinking about an enigma. th ere it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting,
grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, ‘come
and fi nd out.’ th is one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an
aspect of monotonous grimness. th e edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to
be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away
along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. th e sun was fi erce,
the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. here and there greyish-whitish
specks showed up clustered inside the white surf, with a fl ag fl ying above them
perhaps. settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than pinheads on
the untouched expanse of their background. we pounded along, stopped, landed
soldiers; went on, landed custom-house clerks to levy toll in what looked like a
god-forsaken wilderness, with a tin shed and a fl ag-pole lost in it; landed more
soldiers—to take care of the custom-house clerks, presumably. some, i heard, got
drowned in the surf; but whether they did or not, nobody seemed particularly to
care. th ey were just fl ung out there, and on we went. every day the coast looked
the same, as though we had not moved; but we passed various places—trading
places—with names like gran’ bassam, little popo; names that seemed to belong
to some sordid farce acted in front of a sinister back-cloth. th e idleness of a passenger,
my isolation amongst all these men with whom i had no point of contact,
the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me
away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion.
th e voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech
of a brother. it was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning.
now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality.
it was paddled by black fellows. you could see from afar the white of their eyeballs
glistening. th ey shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had
faces like grotesque masks—these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality,
an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their
coast. th ey wanted no excuse for being there. th ey were a great comfort to look
at. for a time i would feel i belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but
the feeling would not last long. something would turn up to scare it away. once, i
remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. th ere wasn’t even
a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. it appears the french had one of their
wars going on thereabouts. her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the
long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung
her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. in the empty immensity of
earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, fi ring into a continent. pop,
would go one of the six-inch guns; a small fl ame would dart and vanish, a little
white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and
nothing happened. nothing could happen. th ere was a touch of insanity in the
proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by
somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives—he called
them enemies! —hidden out of sight somewhere.”