LITERARY INSPIRATION: The African Mistress

In Joseph Conrad's novel, The Heart of Darkness, the reader is introduced to a greedy English imperialist who exploits the native Congolese in order to obtain ivory and wealth. While in the Congo, he takes a mistress whom he adorns with beautiful ornaments and baubles. The woman brings to mind tall, Amazonian models and stunning tribal queens.

"She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She held her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step."

The woman wears golden military accessories and gladiator shoes. She glitters with charms and gifts from voodoo men, like a gypsy dancing through the night sky.

"She opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace."

Her allure, strength and power is overwhelming. She is like a golden statue amidst the wild greenery, beckoning men, causing them fall to their knees in admiration.