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NOSTROMO
Morny, he would associate the command of every pleasure
with the conduct of political affairs and enjoy power supremely in every way. Nobody could have guessed that. And yet this
was one of the immediate causes of the Monterist Revolution.
This will appear less incredible by the refl ecti on that the fundamental causes were the same as ever, rooted in the political
immaturity of the people, in the indolence of the upper classes
and the mental darkness of the lower.
Pedrito Montero saw in the elevati on of his brother
the road wide open to his wildest imaginings. This was what
made the Monterist pronunciamiento so unpreventable.
The general himself probably could have been bought off, pacifi ed with fl atteries, despatched on a diplomatic mission to Europe. It was his brother who had egged him on from fi rst to last.
He wanted to become the most brilliant statesman of South
America. He did not desire supreme power. He would have
been afraid of its labour and risk, in fact. Before all, Pedrito
Montero, taught by his European experience, meant to acquire
a serious fortune for himself. With this object in view he obtained from his brother, on the very morrow of the successful
battle, the permission to push on over the mountains and take
possessi on of Sulaco. Sulaco was the land of future prosperity, the chosen land of material progress, the only province in
the Republic of interest to European capitalists. Pedrito Montero, following the example of the Duc de Morny, meant to
have his share of this prosperity. This is what he meant literally. Now his brother was master of the country, whether as
President, Dictator, or even as Emperor – why not as an Emperor? – he meant to demand a share in every enterprise – in
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JOSEPH CONRAD
railways, in mines, in sugar estates, in cott on mills, in land
companies, in each and every undertaking – as the price of
his protection. The desire to be on the spot early was the real
cause of the celebrated ride over the mountains with some two
hundred llaneros, an enterprise of which the dangers had not
appearedat fi rst clearly to his impatience. Coming from a series of victories, it seemed to him that a Montero had only to
appear to be master of the situation. This illusi on had betrayed him into a rashness of which he was becoming aware.
As he rodeat the head of his llaneros he regretted that there
were so few of them. The enthusiasm of the populace reassured him. They yelled «Viva Montero! Viva Pedrito!» In order to make them still more enthusiastic, and from the natural
pleasure he had in dissembling, he dropped the reins on his
horse’s neck, and with a tremendous effect of familiarity and
confi dence slipped his hands under the arms of Senores Fuentes and Gamacho. In that posture, with a ragged town mozo
holding his horse by the bridle, he rode triumphantly across
the Plaza to the door of the Intendencia. Its old gloomy walls
seemed to shake in the acclamations that rent the air and covered the crashing peals of the cathedral bells.
Pedro Montero, the brother of the general, dismounted
into a shouting and perspiring throng of enthusiasts whom
the ragged Nationals were pushing back fi ercely. Ascending a few steps he surveyed the large crowd gapingat him
and the bullet-speckled walls of the houses opposite lightly
veiled by a sunny haze of dust. The word «Pourvenir » in immense black capitals, alternating with broken windows, staredat him across the vast space; and he thought with delight of
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NOSTROMO
the hour of vengeance, because he was very sure of laying his
hands up on Decoud. On his left hand, Gamacho, big and hot,
wiping his hairy wet face, uncovered a set of yellow fangs in
a grin of stupid hilarity. On his right, Senor Fuentes, small and
lean, looked on with compressed lips. The crowd stared literally open-mouthed, lost in eager stillness, as though they had
expected the great guerrillero, the famous Pedrito, to begin
scatteringat once some sort of visible largesse. What he began was a speech. He began it with the shouted word «Citizens!» which reached even those in the middle of the Plaza.
Afterwards the greater part of the citizens remained fascinated by the orator’s acti on alone, his tip-toeing, the arms fl ung
above his head with the fi sts clenched, a hand laid fl at up on
the heart, the silver gleam of rolling eyes, the sweeping, pointing, embracing gestures, a hand laid familiarly on Gamacho’s
shoulder; a hand waved formally towards the little black-coated pers on of Senor Fuentes, advocate and politician and a true
friend of the people. The vivas of those nearest to the orator
bursting out suddenly propagated themselves irregularly to
the confi nes of the crowd, like fl ames running over dry grass,
and expired in the opening of the streets. In the intervals,
over the swarming Plaza brooded a heavy silence, in which
the mouth of the orator went on opening and shutting, and
detached phrases – “The happiness of the people», «Sons of
the country», «The entire world, el mundo entiero» – reached
even the packed steps of the cathedral with a feeble clear ring,
thin as the buzzing of a mosquito. But the orator struck his
breast; he seemed to prance between his two supporters. It was
the supreme effort of his peroration. Then the two smaller
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JOSEPH CONRAD
fi gures disappeared from the public gaze and the enormous
Gamacho, left alone, advanced, raising his hat high above his
head. Then he covered himself proudly and yelled out, «Ciudadanos!» A dull roar greeted Senor Gamacho, ex-pedlar of
the Campo, Commandante of the National Guards.
Upstairs Pedrito Montero walked about rapidly from one
wrecked room of the Intendencia to another, snarling incessantly –
«What stupidity! What destruction!»
Senor Fuentes, following, would relax his taciturn disposition to murmur –
«It is all the work of Gamacho and his Nationals;» and then,
inclining his head on his left shoulder, would press together
his lips so fi rmly that a little hollow would appearat each corner. He had his nominati on for Political Chief of the town in
his pocket, and was all impatience to enter up on his functions.
In the long audience room, with its tall mirrors all starred by
stones, the hangings torn down and the canopy over the platformat the upper end pulled to pieces, the vast, deep muttering of the crowd and the howling voice of Gamacho speaking
just below reached them through the shutters as they stood
idly in dimness and desolation.
«The brute!» observed his Excellency D on Pedro Montero through clenched teeth. «We must contrive as quickly
as possible to send him and his Nationals out there to fi ght
Hernandez».
The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways, and
took a puffat his cigarette in sign of his agreement with this
434
NOSTROMO
method for ridding the town of Gamacho and his inconvenient rabble.
Pedrito Montero looked with disgustat the absolutely
bare fl oor, andat the belt of heavy gilt picture-frames running round the room, out of which the remnants of torn and
slashed canvases fl uttered like dingy rags.
«We are not barbarians», he said.
This was what said his Excellency, the popular Pedrito,
the guerrillero skilled in the art of laying ambushes, charged by
his brotherat his own demand with the organizati on of Sulaco on democratic principles. The night before, during the consultati on with his partisans, who had come out to meet him
in Rincon, he had opened his intentions to Senor Fuentes –
«We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, confi ding the destinies of our beloved country to the wisdom and
valiance of my heroic brother, the invincible general. A plebiscite. Do you understand?»
And Senor Fuentes, puffi ng out his leathery cheeks, had
inclined his head slightly to the left, letting a thin, bluish jet of
smoke escape through his pursed lips. He had understood.
His Excellency was exasperatedat the devastation. Not
a single chair, table, sofa, etagere or console had been left in
the state rooms of the Intendencia. His Excellency, though
twitching all over with rage, was restrained from bursting into
violence by a sense of his remoteness and isolation. His heroic brother was very far away. Meantime, how was he going to
take his siesta? He had expected to fi nd comfort and luxury
in the Intendencia after a year of hard camp life, ending with
the hardships and privations of the daring dash up on Sulaco –
435
JOSEPH CONRAD
up on the province which was worth more in wealth and infl uence than all the rest of the Republic’s territory. He would get
even with Gamacho by-and-by. And Senor Gamacho’s oration,
delectable to popular ears, went on in the heat and glare of
the Plaza like the uncouth howlings of an inferior sort of devil
cast into a white-hot furnace. Every moment he had to wipe
his streaming face with his bare fore-arm; he had fl ung off his
coat, and had turned up the sleeves of his shirt high above
the elbows; but he kept on his head the large cocked hat with
white plumes. His ingenuousness cherished this sign of his
rank as Commandante of the National Guards. Approving and
grave murmurs greeted his periods. His opini on was that war
should be declaredat once against France, England, Germany,
and the United States, who, by introducing railways, mining
enterprises, colonization, and under such other shallow pretences, aimedat robbing poor people of their lands, and with
the help of these Goths and paralytics, the aristocrats would
convert them into toiling and miserable slaves. And the leperos, fl inging about the corners of their dirty white mantas,
yelled their approbation. General Montero, Gamacho howled
with conviction, was the only man equal to the patriotic task.
They assented to that, too.
The morning was wearing on; there were already signs of
disruption, currents and eddies in the crowd. Some were seeking the shade of the walls and under the trees of the Alameda.
Horsemen spurred through, shouting; groups of sombreros
set level on heads against the vertical sun were drifting away
into the streets, where the open doors of pulperias revealed
an enticing gloom resounding with the gentle tinkling of
436
NOSTROMO
guitars. The National Guards were thinking of siesta, and
the eloquence of Gamacho, their chief, was exhausted. Later
on, when, in the cooler hours of the afternoon, they tried to
assemble again for further considerati on of public affairs,
detachments of Montero’s cavalry camped on the Alameda charged them without parley,at speed, with long lances
levelledat their fl ying backs as far as the ends of the streets.
The National Guards of Sulaco were surprised by this proceeding. But they were not indignant. No Costaguanero had ever
learned to questi on the eccentricities of a military force. They
were part of the natural order of things. This must be, they
concluded, some kind of administrative measure, no doubt.
But the motive of it escaped their unaided intelligence, and
their chief and orator, Gamacho, Commandante of the National Guard, was lying drunk and asleep in the bosom of his
family. His bare feet were upturned in the shadows repulsively, in the manner of a corpse. His eloquent mouth had dropped
open. His youngest daughter, scratching her head with one
hand, with the other waved a green bough over his scorched
and peeling face.
CHAPTER VI
The declining sun had shifted the shadows from west to
east amongst the houses of the town. It had shifted them
up on the whole extent of the immense Campo, with the white
walls of its haciendas on the knolls dominating the green
distances; with its grass-thatched ranches crouching in
the folds of ground by the banks of streams; with the dark islands of clustered trees on a clear sea of grass, and the precipitous range of the Cordillera, immense and motionless, emerging from the billows of the lower forests like the barren coast of
a land of giants. The sunset rays striking the snow-slope of
Higuerota from afar gave it an air of rosy youth, while the serrated mass of distant peaks remained black, as if calcined in
the fi ery radiance. The undulating surface of the forests seemed
powdered with pale gold dust; and away there, beyond Rincon,
hidden from the town by two wooded spurs, the rocks of
the San Tome gorge, with the fl at wall of the mountain itself
crowned by gigantic ferns, took on warm tones of brown and
yellow, with red rusty streaks, and the dark green clumps of
bushes rooted in crevices. From the plain the stamp sheds and
the houses of the mine appeared dark and small, high up, like
the nests of birds clustered on the ledges of a cliff. The zigzag paths resembled faint tracings scratched on the wall of
438
NOSTROMO
a cyclopean blockhouse. To the two serenos of the mine on
patrol duty, strolling, carbine in hand, and watchful eyes, in
the shade of the trees lining the stream near the bridge, D on
Pepe, descending the path from the upper plateau, appeared
no bigger than a large beetle.
With his air of aimless, insect-like going to and fro up on
the face of the rock, D on Pepe’s fi gure kept on descending steadily, and, when near the bottom, sankat last behind
the roofs of store-houses, forges, and workshops. For a time
the pair of serenos strolled back and forth before the bridge, on
which they had stopped a horseman holding a large white
envelope in his hand. Then D on Pepe, emerging in the village street from amongst the houses, not a stone’s throw from
the frontier bridge, approached, striding in wide dark trousers
tucked into boots, a white linen jacket, sabreat his side, and
revolverat his belt. In this disturbed time nothing could fi nd
the Senor Gobernador with his boots off, as the saying is.
At a slight nod from one of the serenos, the man, a messenger from the town, dismounted, and crossed the bridge, leading his horse by the bridle.
D on Pepe received the letter from his other hand, slapped
his left side and his hips in succession, feeling for his spectacle case. After settling the heavy silvermounted affair astride
his nose, and adjusting it carefully behind his ears, he opened
the envelope, holding it up at about a foot in front of his eyes.
The paper he pulled out contained some three lines of writing.
He lookedat them for a long time. His grey moustache moved
slightly up and down, and the wrinkles, radiatingat the cor-
439
JOSEPH CONRAD
ners of his eyes, ran together. He nodded serenely. «Bueno», he
said. «There is no answer».
Then, in his quiet, kindly way, he engaged in a cautious conversati on with the man, who was willing to talk cheerily, as if
something lucky had happened to him recently. He had seen
from a distance Sotillo’s infantry camped along the shore of
the harbour on each side of the Custom House. They had
done no damage to the buildings. The foreigners of the railway remained shut up within the yards. They were no longer
anxious to shoot poor people. He cursed the foreigners; then
he reported Montero’s entry and the rumours of the town.
The poor were going to be made rich now. That was very good.
More he did not know, and, breaking into propitiatory smiles,
he intimated that he was hungry and thirsty. The old major directed him to go to the alcalde of the fi rst village. The man rode
off, and D on Pepe, striding slowly in the directi on of a little
wooden belfry, looked over a hedge into a little garden, and
saw Father Roman sitting in a white hammock slung between
two orange trees in front of the presbytery.
An enormous tamarind shaded with its dark foliage
the whole white framehouse. A young Indian girl with long
hair, big eyes, and small hands and feet, carried out a wooden
chair, while a thin old woman, crabbed and vigilant, watched
her all the time from the verandah.
D on Pepe sat down in the chair and lighted a cigar;
the priest drew in an immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his palm. On his reddish-brown face, worn, hollowed as
if crumbled, the eyes, fresh and candid, sparkled like two black
diamonds.
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