Read the excerpt from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory—like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment. Read the excerpt from "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” It is important to note that Conrad, careful as ever with his words, is concerned not so much about "distant kinship" as about someone laying a claim on it. The black man lays a claim on the white man which is well-nigh intolerable. It is the laying of this claim which frightens and at the same time fascinates Conrad. What does Achebe’s use of the phrase "laying a claim” suggest about his perception of Conrad?