Identify the links between Marlow & Kurtz

As I said in class Wednesday, this is a blog in which your group posts its findings. Make the entry as complete as you can, and sign everyone's name at the bottom. Should be very interesting…

To re-cap, here's the prompt from class:

Heart of Darkness is not Kurtz’s story, but Marlow’s. In your group discussion, work to develop a better understanding of our enigmatic narrator. Start by re-reading his account of his job interview in the “Sepulchral City” (also the conversation with his aunt).

Note this later statement:

Part 1 ¶ 62

I would not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world—what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do.

What lie does Marlow tell for Kurtz, and why does he tell it? How does Marlow become entangled in a lie when he signs on as a steamboat captain in the Congo?

What is the nature of his attachment toward—loyalty for—Kurtz? Just a preference for hot-running devils?

Can you find any clue to the effects—physical & spiritual—of Marlow's experience in the Congo in Narrator One’s description of him?