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NOSTROMO
«No, I don’t see myself how we could questi on that wretched Hirsch’s tale. It’s only too true, I fear».
She sat down desolatelyat the head of the table and looked
from one to the other. The two men, without absolutely turning their heads away, tried to avoid her glance. The doctor even
made a show of being hungry; he seized his knife and fork, and
began to eat with emphasis, as if on the stage. Charles Gould
made no pretence of the sort; with his elbows raised squarely,
he twisted both ends of his fl aming moustaches – they were so
long that his hands were quite away from his face.
«I am not surprised», he muttered, abandoning his moustaches and throwing one arm over the back of his chair. His
face was calm with that immobility of expressi on which betrays the intensity of a mental struggle. He felt that this accident had brought to a point all the consequences involved in
his line of conduct, with its conscious and subconscious intentions. There must be an end now of this silent reserve, of that
air of impenetrability behind which he had been safeguarding his dignity. It was the least ignoble form of dissembling
forced up on him by that parody of civilized institutions which
offended his intelligence, his uprightness, and his sense of
right. He was like his father. He had no ironic eye. He was not
amusedat the absurdities that prevail in this world. They hurt
him in his innate gravity. He felt that the miserable death of
that poor Decoud took from him his inaccessible positi on of
a force in the background. It committed him openly unless
he wished to throw up the game – and that was impossible.
The material interests required from him the sacrifi ce of his
aloofness – perhaps his own safety too. And he refl ected that
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JOSEPH CONRAD
Decoud’s separationist plan had not gone to the bottom with
the lost silver.
The only thing that was not changed was his positi on towards Mr. Holroyd. The head of silver and steel interests had
entered into Costaguana affairs with a sort of passion. Costaguana had become necessary to his existence; in the San Tome
mine he had found the imaginative satisfacti on which other
minds would get from drama, from art, or from a risky and
fascinating sport. It was a special form of the great man’s extravagance, sanctioned by a moral intention, big enough to
fl atter his vanity. Even in this aberrati on of his genius he
served the progress of the world. Charles Gould felt sure of
being understood with precisi on and judged with the indulgence of their comm on passion. Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man. And Charles Gould imagined
himself writing a letter to San Francisco in some such words:
«….The menat the head of the movement are dead or have fl ed;
the civil organizati on of the province isat an end for the present; the Blanco party in Sulaco has collapsed inexcusably, but
in the characteristic manner of this country. But Barrios, untouched in Cayta, remains still available. I am forced to take up
openly the plan of a provincial revoluti on as the only way of
placing the enormous material interests involved in the prosperity and peace of Sulaco in a positi on of permanent safety…».
That was clear. He saw these words as if written in letters of
fi re up on the wallat which he was gazing abstractedly.
Mrs Gould watched his abstracti on with dread. It was a domestic and frightful phenomen on that darkened and chilled
the house for her like a thundercloud passing over the sun.
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NOSTROMO
Charles Gould’s fi ts of abstracti on depicted the energetic concentrati on of a will haunted by a fi xed idea. A man haunted by a fi xed idea is insane. He is dangerous even if that idea is
an idea of justice; for may he not bring the heaven down pitilessly up on a loved head? The eyes of Mrs. Gould, watching
her husband’s profi le, fi lled with tears again. And again she
seemed to see the despair of the unfortunate Antonia.
«What would I have done if Charley had been drowned
while we were engaged?» she exclaimed, mentally, with horror. Her heart turned to ice, while her cheeks fl amed up as
if scorched by the blaze of a funeral pyre consuming all her
earthly affections. The tears burst out of her eyes.
«Antonia will kill herself!» she cried out.
This cry fell into the silence of the room with strangely little effect. Only the doctor, crumbling up a piece of bread, with
his head inclined on one side, raised his face, and the few long
hairs sticking out of his shaggy eyebrows stirred in a slight
frown. Dr. Monygham thought quite sincerely that Decoud
was a singularly unworthy object for any woman’s affection.
Then he lowered his head again, with a curl of his lip, and his
heart full of tender admirati on for Mrs. Gould.
«She thinks of that girl», he said to himself; «she thinks of
the Viola children; she thinks of me; of the wounded; of
the miners; she always thinks of everybody who is poor and
miserable! But what will she do if Charles gets the worst of it
in this infernal scrimmage those confounded Avellanos have
drawn him into? No one seems to be thinking of her».
Charles Gould, staringat the wall, pursued his refl ections
subtly.
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JOSEPH CONRAD
«I shall write to Holroyd that the San Tome mine is big
enough to take in hand the making of a new State. It’ll please
him. It’ll reconcile him to the risk».
But was Barrios really available? Perhaps. But he was inaccessible. To send off a boat to Cayta was no longer possible,
since Sotillo was master of the harbour, and had a steamerat his disposal. And now, with all the democrats in the province up, and every Campo township in a state of disturbance,
where could he fi nd a man who would make his way successfully overland to Cayta with a message, a ten days’ rideat least;
a man of courage and resolution, who would avoid arrest or
murder, and if arrested would faithfully eat the paper? The Capataz de Cargadores would have been just such a man. But
the Capataz of the Cargadores was no more.
And Charles Gould, withdrawing his eyes from the wall,
said gently, «That Hirsch! What an extraordinary thing! Saved
himself by clinging to the anchor, did he? I had no idea that
he was still in Sulaco. I thought he had gone back overland to
Esmeralda more than a week ago. He came here once to talk to
me about his hide business and some other things. I made it
clear to him that nothing could be done».
«He was afraid to start back on account of Hernandez being about», remarked the doctor.
«And but for him we might not have known anything of
what has happened», marvelled Charles Gould.
Mrs. Gould cried out –
«Antonia must not know! She must not be told. Not now».
«Nobody’s likely to carry the news», remarked the doctor.
«It’s no one’s interest. Moreover, the people here are afraid of
424
NOSTROMO
Hernandez as if he were the devil». He turned to Charles
Gould. «It’s even awkward, because if you wanted to communicate with the refugees you could fi nd no messenger. When
Hernandez was ranging hundreds of miles away from here
the Sulaco populace used to shudderat the tales of him roasting his prisoners alive».
«Yes», murmured Charles Gould; «Captain Mitchell’s Capataz was the only man in the town who had seen Hernandez eye to eye. Father Corbelan employed him. He opened
the communications fi rst. It is a pity that –»
His voice was covered by the booming of the great bell of
the cathedral. Three single strokes, one after another, burst
out explosively, dying away in deep and mellow vibrations.
And then all the bells in the tower of every church, convent,
or chapel in town, even those that had remained shut up for
years, pealed out together with a crash. In this furious fl ood of
metallic uproar there was a power of suggesting images of strife
and violence which blanched Mrs. Gould’s cheek. Basilio, who
had been waitingat table, shrinking within himself, clung to
the sideboard with chattering teeth. It was impossible to hear
yourself speak.
«Shut these windows!» Charles Gould yelledat him, angrily. All the other servants, terrifi edat what they took for the signal of a general massacre, had rushed upstairs, tumbling over
each other, men and women, the obscure and generally invisible populati on of the ground fl oor on the four sides of the patio.
The women, screaming «Misericordia!» ran right into the room,
and, falling on their knees against the walls, began to cross
themselves convulsively. The staring heads of men blocked
425
JOSEPH CONRAD
the doorway in an instant – mozos from the stable, gardeners,
nondescript helpers living on the crumbs of the munifi cent
house – and Charles Gould beheld all the extent of his domestic establishment, even to the gatekeeper. This was a halfparalyzed old man, whose long white locks fell down to his
shoulders: an heirloom taken up by Charles Gould’s familial
piety. He could remember Henry Gould, an Englishman and
a Costaguanero of the second generation, chief of the Sulaco
province; he had been his personal mozo years and years ago
in peace and war; had been allowed to attend his master in
prison; had, on the fatal morning, followed the fi ring squad;
and, peeping from behind one of the cypresses growing along
the wall of the Franciscan Convent, had seen, with his eyes
starting out of his head, D on Enrique throw up his hands and
fall with his face in the dust. Charles Gould noted particularly
the big patriarchal head of that witness in the rear of the other
servants. But he was surprised to see a shrivelled old hag or
two, of whose existence within the walls of his house he had
not been aware. They must have been the mothers, or even
the grandmothers of some of his people. There were a few children, too, more or less naked, crying and clinging to the legs of
their elders. He had never before noticed any sign of a child in
his patio. Even Leonarda, the camerista, came in a fright, pushing through, with her spoiled, pouting face of a favourite maid,
leading the Viola girls by the hand. The crockery rattled on
table and sideboard, and the whole house seemed to sway in
the deafening wave of sound.
CHAPTER V
During the night the expectant populace had taken possessi on of all the belfries in the town in order to welcome
Pedrito Montero, who was making his entry after having slept
the night in Rincon. And fi rst came straggling in through
the land gate the armed mob of all colours, complexions,
types, and states of raggedness, calling themselves the Sulaco National Guard, and commanded by Senor Gamacho.
Through the middle of the street streamed, like a torrent of
rubbish, a mass of straw hats, ponchos, gun-barrels, with
an enormous green and yellow fl ag fl apping in their midst, in
a cloud of dust, to the furious beating of drums. The spectators recoiled against the walls of the houses shouting their Vivas! Behind the rabble could be seen the lances of the cavalry,
the «army» of Pedro Montero. He advanced between Senores
Fuentes and Gamachoat the head of his llaneros, who had accomplished the feat of crossing the Paramos of the Higuerota in a snow-storm. They rode four abreast, mounted on confi scated Campo horses, clad in the heterogeneous stock of
roadside stores they had looted hurriedly in their rapid ride
through the northern part of the province; for Pedro Montero
had been in a great hurry to occupy Sulaco. The handkerchiefs
knotted loosely around their bare throats were glaringly new,
427
JOSEPH CONRAD
and all the right sleeves of their cott on shirts had been cut
off close to the shoulder for greater freedom in throwing
the lazo. Emaciated greybeards rode by the side of lean dark
youths, marked by all the hardships of campaigning, with
strips of raw beef twined round the crowns of their hats, and
huge ir on spurs fastened to their naked heels. Those that
in the passes of the mountain had lost their lances had provided themselves with the goads used by the Campo cattlemen: slender shafts of palm fully ten feet long, with a lot of
loose rings jingling under the ironshod point. They were
armed with knives and revolvers. A haggard fearlessness
characterized the expressi on of all these sun-blacked countenances; they glared down haughtily with their scorched
eyesat the crowd, or, blinking upwards insolently, pointed
out to each other some particular head amongst the womenat the windows. When they had ridden into the Plaza and
caught sight of the equestrian statue of the King dazzlingly
white in the sunshine, towering enormous and motionless
above the surges of the crowd, with its eternal gesture of saluting, a murmur of surprise ran through their ranks. «What
is that saint in the big hat?» they asked each other.
They were a good sample of the cavalry of the plains with
which Pedro Montero had helped so much the victorious
career of his brother the general. The infl uence which that
man, brought up in coast towns, acquired in a short time over
the plainsmen of the Republic can be ascribed only to a genius for treachery of so effective a kind that it must have appeared to those violent men but little removed from a state of
utter savagery, as the perfecti on of sagacity and virtue.
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NOSTROMO
The popular lore of all nations testifi es that duplicity and cunning, together with bodily strength, were looked upon, even
more than courage, as heroic virtues by primitive mankind.
To overcome your adversary was the great affair of life. Courage was taken for granted. But the use of intelligence awakened wonder and respect. Stratagems, providing they did not
fail, were honourable; the easy massacre of an unsuspecting
enemy evoked no feelings but those of gladness, pride, and admiration. Not perhaps that primitive men were more faithless
than their descendants of to-day, but that they went straighter to their aim, and were more artless in their recogniti on of
success as the only standard of morality.
We have changed since. The use of intelligence awakens
little wonder and less respect. But the ignorant and barbarous
plainsmen engaging in civil strife followed willingly a leader who often managed to deliver their enemies bound, as it
were, into their hands. Pedro Montero had a talent for lulling his adversaries into a sense of security. And as men learn
wisdom with extreme slowness, and are always ready to believe promises that fl atter their secret hopes, Pedro Montero
was successful time after time. Whether only a servant or some
inferior offi cial in the Costaguana Legati on in Paris, he had
rushed back to his country directly he heard that his brother had emerged from the obscurity of his frontier commandancia. He had managed to deceive by his gift of plausibility
the chiefs of the Ribierist movement in the capital, and even
the acute agent of the San Tome mine had failed to understand him thoroughly.At once he had obtained an enormous
infl uence over his brother. They were very much alike in ap-
429
JOSEPH CONRAD
pearance, both bald, with bunches of crisp hair above their
ears, arguing the presence of some negro blood. Only Pedro
was smaller than the general, more delicate altogether, with
an ape-like faculty for imitating all the outward signs of refi nement and distinction, and with a parrot-like talent for
languages. Both brothers had received some elementary instructi on by the munifi cence of a great European traveller, to
whom their father had been a body-servant during his journeys in the interior of the country. In General Montero’s case
it enabled him to rise from the ranks. Pedrito, the younger,
incorrigibly lazy and slovenly, had drifted aimlessly from one
coast town to another, hanging about counting-houses, attaching himself to strangers as a sort of valet-de-place, picking up
an easy and disreputable living. His ability to read did nothing
for him but fi ll his head with absurd visions. His actions were
usually determined by motives so improbable in themselves
as to escape the penetrati on of a rational person.
Thusat fi rst sight the agent of the Gould Concessi on in
Sta. Marta had credited him with the possessi on of sane views,
and even with a restraining power over the general’s everlastingly discontented vanity. It could never have entered his
head that Pedrito Montero, lackey or inferior scribe, lodged in
the garrets of the various Parisian hotels where the Costaguana Legati on used to shelter its diplomatic dignity, had been
devouring the lighter sort of historical works in the French
language, such, for instance as the books of Imbert de Saint
Amand up on the Second Empire. But Pedrito had been
struck by the splendour of a brilliant court, and had conceived
the idea of an existence for himself where, like the Duc de
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