Heart of Darkness 1
The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without
a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made,
the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river,
the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of
the tide.
2
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the
beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the
sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and
in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges
drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of
varnished spirits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran
out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above
Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a
mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and
the greatest, town on earth.
3
The Director of Companies was our captain and our host.
We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the
bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was
nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot,
which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was
difficult to realize his work was not out there in the
luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding

which statement from the passage displays the impact of the setting
upon the characters?
A) The day was ending in a serenity of still and
exquisite brilliance.
B) Between us there was, as I have already said
somewhere, the bond of the sea.
C) We four affectionately watched his back as he stood
in the bows looking to seaward.
D) The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor
without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest.