Nostromo by Joseph Conrad (book recommendations .txt) 📕

“Is the silver gone off, then?” asked the doctor, moodily.

The chief engineer pulled out his watch. “By Captain Mitchell’s reckoning⁠—and he ought to know⁠—it has been gone long enough now to be some three or four miles outside the harbour; and, as Mitchell says, Nostromo is the sort of seaman to make the best of his opportunities.” Here the doctor grunted so heavily that the other changed his tone.

“You have a poor opinion of that move, doctor? But why? Charles Gould has got to play his game out, though he is not the man to formulate his conduct even to himself, perhaps, let alone to others. It may be that the game has been partly suggested to him by Holroyd; but it accords with his character, too; and that is why it has been so successful. Haven’t they come to calling him ‘El Rey de Sulaco’ in Sta. Marta? A nickname may be the best record of a success. That’s what I call putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth. My dear sir, when I first arrived in Sta. Marta I was struck by the way all those journalists, demagogues, members of Congress, and all those generals and judges cringed before a sleepy-eyed advocate without practice simply because he was the plenipotentiary of the Gould Concession. Sir John when he came out was impressed, too.”

“A new state, with that plump dandy, Decoud, for the first president,” mused Dr. Monygham, nursing his cheek and swinging his legs all the time.

“Upon my word, and why not?” the chief engineer retorted in an unexpectedly earnest and confidential voice. It was as if something subtle in the air of Costaguana had inoculated him with the local faith in “pronunciamientos.” All at once he began to talk, like an expert revolutionist, of the instrument ready to hand in the intact army at Cayta, which could be brought back in a few days to Sulaco if only Decoud managed to make his way at once down the coast. For the military chief there was Barrios, who had nothing but a bullet to expect from Montero, his former professional rival and bitter enemy. Barrios’s concurrence was assured. As to his army, it had nothing to expect from Montero either; not even a month’s pay. From that point of view the existence of the treasure was of enormous importance. The mere knowledge that it had been saved from the Monterists would be a strong inducement for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of the new state.

The doctor turned round and contemplated his companion for some time.

“This Decoud, I see, is a persuasive young beggar,” he remarked at last. “And pray is it for this, then, that Charles Gould has let the whole lot of ingots go out to sea in charge of that Nostromo?”

“Charles Gould,” said the engineer-in-chief, “has said no more about his motive than usual. You know, he doesn’t talk. But we all here know his motive, and he has only one⁠—the safety of the San Tome mine with the preservation of the Gould Concession in the spirit of his compact with Holroyd. Holroyd is another uncommon man. They understand each other’s imaginative side. One is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and they have been made for each other. To be a millionaire, and such a millionaire as Holroyd, is like being eternally young. The audacity of youth reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a millionaire has unlimited means in his hand⁠—which is better. One’s time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt. The introduction of a pure form of Christianity into this continent is a dream for a youthful enthusiast, and I have been trying to explain to you why Holroyd at fifty-eight is like a man on the threshold of life, and better, too. He’s not a missionary, but the San Tome mine holds just that for him. I assure you, in sober truth, that he could not manage to keep this out of a strictly business conference upon the finances of Costaguana he had with Sir John a couple of years ago. Sir John mentioned it with amazement in a letter he wrote to me here, from San Francisco, when on his way home. Upon my word, doctor, things seem to be worth nothing by what they are in themselves. I begin to believe that the only solid thing about them is the spiritual value which everyone discovers in his own form of activity⁠—”

“Bah!” interrupted the doctor, without stopping for an instant the idle swinging movement of his legs. “Self-flattery. Food for that vanity which makes the world go round. Meantime, what do you think is going to happen to the treasure floating about the gulf with the great capataz and the great politician?”

“Why are you uneasy about it, doctor?”

“I uneasy! And what the devil is it to me? I put no spiritual value into my desires, or my opinions, or my actions. They have not enough vastness to give me room for self-flattery. Look, for instance, I should certainly have liked to ease the last moments of that poor woman. And I can’t. It’s impossible. Have you met the impossible face to face⁠—or have you, the Napoleon of railways, no such word in your dictionary?”

“Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?” asked the chief engineer, with humane concern.

Slow, heavy footsteps moved across the planks above the heavy hard wood beams of the kitchen. Then down the narrow opening of the staircase made in the thickness of the wall, and narrow enough to be defended by one man against twenty enemies, came the murmur of two voices, one faint and broken, the other deep and gentle answering it, and in its graver tone covering the weaker sound.

The two men remained still and silent till the murmurs ceased, then the doctor shrugged