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NOSTROMO
a drooping moustache, a hide merchant from Esmeralda, who
had come overland to Sulaco, riding with a few peons across
the coast range. He was very full of his journey, undertaken
mostly for the purpose of seeing the Senor Administrador of
San Tome in relation to some assistance he required in his
hide-exporting business. He hoped to enlarge it greatly now
that the country was going to be settled. It was going to be
settled, he repeated several times, degrading by a strange,
anxious whine the sonority of the Spanish language, which
he pattered rapidly, like some sort of cringing jargon. A plain
man could carry on his little business now in the country,
and even think of enlarging it – with safety. Was it not so?
He seemed to beg Charles Gould for a confi rmatory word,
a grunt of assent, a simple nod even.
He could get nothing. His alarm increased, and in the pauses he would dart his eyes here and there; then, loth to give up,
he would branch off into feeling allusion to the dangers of his
journey. The audacious Hernandez, leaving his usual haunts,
had crossed the Campo of Sulaco, and was known to be lurking
in the ravines of the coast range. Yesterday, when distant only
a few hours from Sulaco, the hide merchant and his servants
had seen three men on the road arrested suspiciously, with
their horses’ heads together. Two of these rode offat once and
disappeared in a shallow quebrada to the left. «We stopped»,
continued the man from Esmeralda, «and I tried to hide behind a small bush. But none of my mozos would go forward to
fi nd out what it meant, and the third horseman seemed to be
waiting for us to come up. It was no use. We had been seen. So
we rode slowly on, trembling. He let us pass – a man on a grey
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JOSEPH CONRAD
horse with his hat down on his eyes – without a word of greeting; but by-and-by we heard him galloping after us. We faced
about, but that did not seem to intimidate him. He rode up
at speed, and touching my foot with the toe of his boot, asked
me for a cigar, with a blood-curdling laugh. He did not seem
armed, but when he put his hand back to reach for the matches I saw an enormous revolver strapped to his waist. I shuddered. He had very fi erce whiskers, D on Carlos, and as he
did not offer to go on we dared not move.At last, blowing
the smoke of my cigar into the air through his nostrils, he
said, ‘Senor, it would be perhaps better for you if I rode behind your party. You are not very far from Sulaco now. Go you
with God.’ What would you? We went on. There was no resisting him. He might have been Hernandez himself; though my
servant, who has been many times to Sulaco by sea, assured
me that he had recognized him very well for the Capataz of
the Steamship Company’s Cargadores. Later, that same evening, I saw that very man at the corner of the Plaza talking to
a girl, a Morenita, who stood by the stirrup with her hand on
the grey horse’s mane».
«I assure you, Senor Hirsch», murmured Charles Gould,
«that you ran no risk on this occasion».
«That may be, senor, though I tremble yet. A most fi erce
man – to look at. And what does it mean? A pers on employed by the Steamship Company talking with salteadores –
no less, senor; the other horsemen were salteadores – in
a lonely place, and behaving like a robber himself! A cigar
is nothing, but what was there to prevent him asking me for
my purse?»
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NOSTROMO
«No, no, Senor Hirsch», Charles Gould murmured, letting
his glance stray away a little vacantly from the round face, with
its hooked beak upturned towards him in an almost childlike
appeal. «If it was the Capataz de Cargadores you met – and
there is no doubt, is there? – you were perfectly safe».
«Thank you. You are very good. A very fi erce-looking man,
D on Carlos. He asked me for a cigar in a most familiar manner.
What would have happened if I had not had a cigar? I shudder yet. What business had he to be talking with robbers in
a lonely place?»
But Charles Gould, openly preoccupied now, gave not
a sign, made no sound. The impenetrability of the embodied
Gould Concessi on had its surface shades. To be dumb is merely a fatal affl iction; but the King of Sulaco had words enough to
give him all the mysterious weight of a taciturn force. His silences, backed by the power of speech, had as many shades of
signifi cance as uttered words in the way of assent, of doubt, of
negati on – even of simple comment. Some seemed to say
plainly, «Think it over”; others meant clearly, «Go ahead”;
a simple, low «I see», with an affi rmative nod,at the end of a patient listening half-hour was the equivalent of a verbal contract, which men had learned to trust implicitly, since behind
it all there was the great San Tome mine, the head and front of
the material interests, so strong that it depended on no man’s
goodwill in the whole length and breadth of the Occidental
Province – that is, on no goodwill which it could not buy ten
times over. But to the little hook-nosed man from Esmeralda,
anxious about the export of hides, the silence of Charles Gould
portended a failure. Evidently this was no time for extending
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JOSEPH CONRAD
a modest man’s business. He enveloped in a swift mental maledicti on the whole country, with all its inhabitants, partisans of
Ribiera and Montero alike; and there were incipient tears in
his mute angerat the thought of the innumerable ox-hides going to waste up on the dreamy expanse of the Campo, with its
single palms rising like shipsat sea within the perfect circle of
the horizon, its clumps of heavy timber motionless like solid
islands of leaves above the running waves of grass. There were
hides there, rotting, with no profi t to anybody – rotting where
they had been dropped by men called away to attend the urgent necessities of political revolutions. The practical, mercantile soul of Senor Hirsch rebelled against all that foolishness,
while he was taking a respectful but disconcerted leave of
the might and majesty of the San Tome mine in the pers on of
Charles Gould. He could not restrain a heart-broken murmur,
wrung out of his very aching heart, as it were.
«It is a great, great foolishness, D on Carlos, all this.
The price of hides in Hamburg is gone up – up. Of course
the Ribierist Government will do away with all that – when it
gets established fi rmly. Meantime –»
He sighed.
«Yes, meantime», repeated Charles Gould, inscrutably.
The other shrugged his shoulders. But he was not ready to
go yet. There was a little matter he would like to menti on very
much if permitted. It appeared he had some good friends in
Hamburg (he murmured the name of the fi rm) who were very
anxious to do business, in dynamite, he explained. A contract
for dynamite with the San Tome mine, and then, perhaps, later
on, other mines, which were sure to – The little man from Es-
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NOSTROMO
meralda was ready to enlarge, but Charles interrupted him.
It seemed as though the patience of the Senor Administrador
was giving wayat last.
«Senor Hirsch», he said, «I have enough dynamite stored up
at the mountain to send it down crashing into the valley» – his
voice rose a little – “to send half Sulaco into the air if I liked».
Charles Gould smiledat the round, startled eyes of the dealer in hides, who was murmuring hastily, «Just so. Just so». And
now he was going. It was impossible to do business in explosives with an Administrador so well provided and so discouraging. He had suffered agonies in the saddle and had exposed
himself to the atrocities of the bandit Hernandez for nothingat all. Neither hides nor dynamite – and the very shoulders of
the enterprising Israelite expressed dejection.At the door
he bowed low to the engineer-in-chief. Butat the bottom of
the stairs in the patio he stopped short, with his podgy hand
over his lips in an attitude of meditative astonishment.
«What does he want to keep so much dynamite for?» he
muttered. «And why does he talk like this to me?»
The engineer-in-chief, looking inat the door of the empty
sala, whence the political tide had ebbed out to the last insignifi cant drop, nodded familiarly to the master of the house,
standing motionless like a tall beac on amongst the deserted
shoals of furniture.
«Good-night, I am going. Got my bike downstairs. The railway will know where to go for dynamite should we get shortat any time. We have done cutting and chopping for a while
now. We shall begin soon to blast our way through».
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JOSEPH CONRAD
«Don’t come to me», said Charles Gould, with perfect
serenity. «I shan’t have an ounce to spare for anybody. Not
an ounce. Not for my own brother, if I had a brother, and he
were the engineer-in-chief of the most promising railway in
the world».
«What’s that?» asked the engineer-in-chief, with equanimity. «Unkindness?»
«No», said Charles Gould, stolidly. «Policy».
«Radical, I should think», the engineer-in-chief observed
from the doorway.
«Is that the right name?» Charles Gould said, from the middle of the room.
«I mean, going to the roots, you know», the engineer explained, with an air of enjoyment.
«Why, yes», Charles pronounced, slowly. «The Gould Concessi on has struck such deep roots in this country, in this
province, in that gorge of the mountains, that nothing but
dynamite shall be allowed to dislodge it from there. It’s my
choice. It’s my last card to play».
The engineer-in-chief whistled low. «A pretty game», he
said, with a shade of discretion. «And have you told Holroyd of
that extraordinary trump card you hold in your hand?»
«Card only when it’s played; when it fallsat the end of
the game. Till then you may call it a – a –»
«Weapon», suggested the railway man.
«No. You may call it rather an argument», corrected
Charles Gould, gently. «And that’s how I’ve presented it to
Mr. Holroyd».
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NOSTROMO
«And what did he say to it?» asked the engineer, with undisguised interest.
«He» – Charles Gould spoke after a slight pause – “he said
something about holding on like grim death and putting our
trust in God. I should imagine he must have been rather startled. But then» – pursued the Administrador of the San Tome
mine – “but then, he is very far away, you know, and, as they
say in this country, God is very high above».
The engineer’s appreciative laugh died away down
the stairs, where the Madonna with the Child on her arm
seemed to look after his shaking broad back from her shallow niche.
CHAPTER VI
A profound stillness reigned in the Casa Gould. The master of the house, walking along the corredor, opened the door of
his room, and saw his wife sitting in a big armchair – his own
smoking armchair – thoughtful, contemplating her little
shoes. And she did not raise her eyes when he walked in.
«Tired?» asked Charles Gould.
«A little», said Mrs. Gould. Still without looking up, she
added with feeling, «There is an awful sense of unreality about
all this».
Charles Gould, before the long table strewn with papers, on which lay a hunting crop and a pair of spurs, stood
lookingat his wife: «The heat and dust must have been awful
this afterno on by the waterside», he murmured, sympathetically. «The glare on the water must have been simply terrible».
«One could close one’s eyes to the glare», said Mrs. Gould.
«But, my dear Charley, it is impossible for me to close my
eyes to our position; to this awful …»
She raised her eyes and lookedat her husband’s face, from
which all sign of sympathy or any other feeling had disappeared. «Why don’t you tell me something?» she almost wailed.
«I thought you had understood me perfectly from the fi rst»,
Charles Gould said, slowly. «I thought we had said all there
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NOSTROMO
was to say a long time ago. There is nothing to say now. There
were things to be done. We have done them; we have gone on
doing them. There is no going back now. I don’t suppose that,
even from the fi rst, there was really any possible way back.
And, what’s more, we can’t even afford to stand still».
«Ah, if one only knew how far you mean to go», said his
wife inwardly trembling, but in an almost playful tone.
«Any distance, any length, of course», was the answer, in
a matter-of-fact tone, which caused Mrs. Gould to make another effort to repress a shudder.
She stood up, smiling graciously, and her little fi gure
seemed to be diminished still more by the heavy mass of her
hair and the long train of her gown.
«But always to success», she said, persuasively.
Charles Gould, enveloping her in the steely blue glance of
his attentive eyes, answered without hesitati on –
«Oh, there is no alternative».
He put an immense assurance into his tone. As to the words,
this was all that his conscience would allow him to say.
Mrs. Gould’s smile remained a shade too long up on her
lips. She murmured –
«I will leave you; I’ve a slight headache. The heat, the dust,
were indeed – I suppose you are going back to the mine before
the morning?»
«At midnight», said Charles Gould. «We are bringing down
the silver to-morrow. Then I shall take three whole days off in
town with you».
«Ah, you are going to meet the escort. I shall be on the balconyat fi ve o’clock to see you pass. Till then, good-bye».
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JOSEPH CONRAD
Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and, seizing
her hands, bent down, pressing them both to his lips. Before
he straightened himself up again to his full height she had
disengaged one to smooth his cheek with a light touch, as if he
were a little boy.
«Try to get some rest for a couple of hours», she murmured,
with a glanceat a hammock stretched in a distant part of
the room. Her long train swished softly after her on the red
tiles.At the door she looked back.
Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in
a soft and abundant light the four white walls of the room,
with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of Henry Gould’s cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the water-colour sketch of
the San Tome gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazingat the last in its
black wooden frame, sighed out –
«Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!»
«No», Charles Gould said, moodily; «it was impossible to
leave it alone».
«Perhaps it was impossible», Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly.
Her lips quivered a little, but she smiled with an air of dainty
bravado. «We have disturbed a good many snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven’t we?»
«Yes, I remember», said Charles Gould, «it was D on Pepe
who called the gorge the Paradise of snakes. No doubt we
have disturbed a great many. But remember, my dear, that it
is not now as it was when you made that sketch». He waved
his hand towards the small water-colour hanging alone up on
the great bare wall. «It is no longer a Paradise of snakes. We
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