In this second part of chapter one it seems that Marlow starts to not relate literally almost everything to darkness and gloom, although these words are still mentioned numerous times throughout the text. Rather than looking at the landscape and the river the whole time, Marlow continuously explains into great detail the people he meets at the Central Station, down to what their nose looks like, and what they do with their ridiculously long, unmanageable beards.
Marlow is a very spacey guy, and will randomly break out into rambling descriptions about how disgusting the land smells, or what the moon looks like on the water while he leans against his dismantled ship while someone tries to come up and talk to him. He seems a bit skeptical towards everything so far in his journey, and doesn't really know what to think of the people or places that he encounters, that's why i think he is always so judgmental on the new places and faces he sees.
The irony breaks loose when we find that after his long journey on foot to the central station that his boat lies on the bottom of the river some miles away. Normally a person whose boat has been sunk would be flipping out on the people who did it, but Marlow doesn't seem to care that much about his bottomed out boat. Even when he cannot seem to muster enough rivets to repair his hull all he does is lean against his landed ship at the station and observe the landscape in all its darkness and mystery.
I completely agree with you about how spacey Marlow is. It somewhat confused me when he would all of the sudden switch topics and I would have to go back and read the section a few times. I didn't really see the irony at the end until you explained it. We're one-third of the way done!
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