Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

J >> Joseph Conrad >> Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard


The sleepy people in the little clusters of huts, in the small ranches
near the road, recognized by the headlong sound the charge of the San
Tome silver escort towards the crumbling wall of the city on the Campo
side. They came to the doors to see it dash by over ruts and stones,
with a clatter and clank and cracking of whips, with the reckless rush
and precise driving of a field battery hurrying into action, and the
solitary English figure of the Senor Administrador riding far ahead in
the lead.

In the fenced roadside paddocks loose horses galloped wildly for a
while; the heavy cattle stood up breast deep in the grass, lowing
mutteringly at the flying noise; a meek Indian villager would glance
back once and hasten to shove his loaded little donkey bodily against a
wall, out of the way of the San Tome silver escort going to the sea; a
small knot of chilly leperos under the Stone Horse of the Alameda would
mutter: "Caramba!" on seeing it take a wide curve at a gallop and dart
into the empty Street of the Constitution; for it was considered the
correct thing, the only proper style by the mule-drivers of the San Tome
mine to go through the waking town from end to end without a check in
the speed as if chased by a devil.

The early sunshine glowed on the delicate primrose, pale pink, pale
blue fronts of the big houses with all their gates shut yet, and no face
behind the iron bars of the windows. In the whole sunlit range of empty
balconies along the street only one white figure would be visible
high up above the clear pavement--the wife of the Senor
Administrador--leaning over to see the escort go by to the harbour, a
mass of heavy, fair hair twisted up negligently on her little head, and
a lot of lace about the neck of her muslin wrapper. With a smile to her
husband's single, quick, upward glance, she would watch the whole thing
stream past below her feet with an orderly uproar, till she answered
by a friendly sign the salute of the galloping Don Pepe, the stiff,
deferential inclination with a sweep of the hat below the knee.

The string of padlocked carts lengthened, the size of the escort grew
bigger as the years went on. Every three months an increasing stream of
treasure swept through the streets of Sulaco on its way to the strong
room in the O.S.N. Co.'s building by the harbour, there to await
shipment for the North. Increasing in volume, and of immense value also;
for, as Charles Gould told his wife once with some exultation, there had
never been seen anything in the world to approach the vein of the
Gould Concession. For them both, each passing of the escort under the
balconies of the Casa Gould was like another victory gained in the
conquest of peace for Sulaco.

No doubt the initial action of Charles Gould had been helped at the
beginning by a period of comparative peace which occurred just about
that time; and also by the general softening of manners as compared with
the epoch of civil wars whence had emerged the iron tyranny of Guzman
Bento of fearful memory. In the contests that broke out at the end of
his rule (which had kept peace in the country for a whole fifteen years)
there was more fatuous imbecility, plenty of cruelty and suffering
still, but much less of the old-time fierce and blindly ferocious
political fanaticism. It was all more vile, more base, more
contemptible, and infinitely more manageable in the very outspoken
cynicism of motives. It was more clearly a brazen-faced scramble for a
constantly diminishing quantity of booty; since all enterprise had been
stupidly killed in the land. Thus it came to pass that the province of
Sulaco, once the field of cruel party vengeances, had become in a way
one of the considerable prizes of political career. The great of the
earth (in Sta. Marta) reserved the posts in the old Occidental State
to those nearest and dearest to them: nephews, brothers, husbands
of favourite sisters, bosom friends, trusty supporters--or prominent
supporters of whom perhaps they were afraid. It was the blessed province
of great opportunities and of largest salaries; for the San Tome mine
had its own unofficial pay list, whose items and amounts, fixed in
consultation by Charles Gould and Senor Avellanos, were known to a
prominent business man in the United States, who for twenty minutes or
so in every month gave his undivided attention to Sulaco affairs. At
the same time the material interests of all sorts, backed up by the
influence of the San Tome mine, were quietly gathering substance in that
part of the Republic. If, for instance, the Sulaco Collectorship was
generally understood, in the political world of the capital, to open the
way to the Ministry of Finance, and so on for every official post, then,
on the other hand, the despondent business circles of the Republic had
come to consider the Occidental Province as the promised land of safety,
especially if a man managed to get on good terms with the administration
of the mine. "Charles Gould; excellent fellow! Absolutely necessary to
make sure of him before taking a single step. Get an introduction to
him from Moraga if you can--the agent of the King of Sulaco, don't you
know."

No wonder, then, that Sir John, coming from Europe to smooth the path
for his railway, had been meeting the name (and even the nickname) of
Charles Gould at every turn in Costaguana. The agent of the San Tome
Administration in Sta. Marta (a polished, well-informed gentleman, Sir
John thought him) had certainly helped so greatly in bringing about the
presidential tour that he began to think that there was something in
the faint whispers hinting at the immense occult influence of the Gould
Concession. What was currently whispered was this--that the San Tome
Administration had, in part, at least, financed the last revolution,
which had brought into a five-year dictatorship Don Vincente Ribiera, a
man of culture and of unblemished character, invested with a mandate
of reform by the best elements of the State. Serious, well-informed
men seemed to believe the fact, to hope for better things, for the
establishment of legality, of good faith and order in public life. So
much the better, then, thought Sir John. He worked always on a great
scale; there was a loan to the State, and a project for systematic
colonization of the Occidental Province, involved in one vast scheme
with the construction of the National Central Railway. Good faith,
order, honesty, peace, were badly wanted for this great development of
material interests. Anybody on the side of these things, and especially
if able to help, had an importance in Sir John's eyes. He had not been
disappointed in the "King of Sulaco." The local difficulties had fallen
away, as the engineer-in-chief had foretold they would, before Charles
Gould's mediation. Sir John had been extremely feted in Sulaco, next
to the President-Dictator, a fact which might have accounted for the
evident ill-humour General Montero displayed at lunch given on board
the Juno just before she was to sail, taking away from Sulaco the
President-Dictator and the distinguished foreign guests in his train.

The Excellentissimo ("the hope of honest men," as Don Jose had addressed
him in a public speech delivered in the name of the Provincial Assembly
of Sulaco) sat at the head of the long table; Captain Mitchell,
positively stony-eyed and purple in the face with the solemnity of
this "historical event," occupied the foot as the representative of the
O.S.N. Company in Sulaco, the hosts of that informal function, with the
captain of the ship and some minor officials from the shore around him.
Those cheery, swarthy little gentlemen cast jovial side-glances at the
bottles of champagne beginning to pop behind the guests' backs in the
hands of the ship's stewards. The amber wine creamed up to the rims of
the glasses.

Charles Gould had his place next to a foreign envoy, who, in a listless
undertone, had been talking to him fitfully of hunting and shooting.
The well-nourished, pale face, with an eyeglass and drooping yellow
moustache, made the Senor Administrador appear by contrast twice as
sunbaked, more flaming red, a hundred times more intensely and silently
alive. Don Jose Avellanos touched elbows with the other foreign
diplomat, a dark man with a quiet, watchful, self-confident demeanour,
and a touch of reserve. All etiquette being laid aside on the occasion,
General Montero was the only one there in full uniform, so stiff with
embroideries in front that his broad chest seemed protected by a cuirass
of gold. Sir John at the beginning had got away from high places for the
sake of sitting near Mrs. Gould.

The great financier was trying to express to her his grateful sense
of her hospitality and of his obligation to her husband's "enormous
influence in this part of the country," when she interrupted him by a
low "Hush!" The President was going to make an informal pronouncement.

The Excellentissimo was on his legs. He said only a few words, evidently
deeply felt, and meant perhaps mostly for Avellanos--his old friend--as
to the necessity of unremitting effort to secure the lasting welfare of
the country emerging after this last struggle, he hoped, into a period
of peace and material prosperity.

Mrs. Gould, listening to the mellow, slightly mournful voice, looking
at this rotund, dark, spectacled face, at the short body, obese to the
point of infirmity, thought that this man of delicate and melancholy
mind, physically almost a cripple, coming out of his retirement into a
dangerous strife at the call of his fellows, had the right to speak with
the authority of his self-sacrifice. And yet she was made uneasy. He
was more pathetic than promising, this first civilian Chief of the
State Costaguana had ever known, pronouncing, glass in hand, his simple
watchwords of honesty, peace, respect for law, political good faith
abroad and at home--the safeguards of national honour.

He sat down. During the respectful, appreciative buzz of voices that
followed the speech, General Montero raised a pair of heavy, drooping
eyelids and rolled his eyes with a sort of uneasy dullness from face
to face. The military backwoods hero of the party, though secretly
impressed by the sudden novelties and splendours of his position (he
had never been on board a ship before, and had hardly ever seen the sea
except from a distance), understood by a sort of instinct the advantage
his surly, unpolished attitude of a savage fighter gave him amongst all
these refined Blanco aristocrats. But why was it that nobody was looking
at him? he wondered to himself angrily. He was able to spell out the
print of newspapers, and knew that he had performed the "greatest
military exploit of modern times."

"My husband wanted the railway," Mrs. Gould said to Sir John in the
general murmur of resumed conversations. "All this brings nearer the
sort of future we desire for the country, which has waited for it in
sorrow long enough, God knows. But I will confess that the other day,
during my afternoon drive when I suddenly saw an Indian boy ride out
of a wood with the red flag of a surveying party in his hand, I felt
something of a shock. The future means change--an utter change. And yet
even here there are simple and picturesque things that one would like to
preserve."

Sir John listened, smiling. But it was his turn now to hush Mrs. Gould.

"General Montero is going to speak," he whispered, and almost
immediately added, in comic alarm, "Heavens! he's going to propose my
own health, I believe."

General Montero had risen with a jingle of steel scabbard and a ripple
of glitter on his gold-embroidered breast; a heavy sword-hilt appeared
at his side above the edge of the table. In this gorgeous uniform, with
his bull neck, his hooked nose flattened on the tip upon a blue-black,
dyed moustache, he looked like a disguised and sinister vaquero.
The drone of his voice had a strangely rasping, soulless ring. He
floundered, lowering, through a few vague sentences; then suddenly
raising his big head and his voice together, burst out harshly--

"The honour of the country is in the hands of the army. I assure you
I shall be faithful to it." He hesitated till his roaming eyes met Sir
John's face upon which he fixed a lurid, sleepy glance; and the figure
of the lately negotiated loan came into his mind. He lifted his glass.
"I drink to the health of the man who brings us a million and a half of
pounds."

He tossed off his champagne, and sat down heavily with a half-surprised,
half-bullying look all round the faces in the profound, as if appalled,
silence which succeeded the felicitous toast. Sir John did not move.

"I don't think I am called upon to rise," he murmured to Mrs. Gould.
"That sort of thing speaks for itself." But Don Jose Avellanos came
to the rescue with a short oration, in which he alluded pointedly to
England's goodwill towards Costaguana--"a goodwill," he continued,
significantly, "of which I, having been in my time accredited to the
Court of St. James, am able to speak with some knowledge."

Only then Sir John thought fit to respond, which he did gracefully in
bad French, punctuated by bursts of applause and the "Hear! Hears!"
of Captain Mitchell, who was able to understand a word now and then.
Directly he had done, the financier of railways turned to Mrs. Gould--

"You were good enough to say that you intended to ask me for something,"
he reminded her, gallantly. "What is it? Be assured that any request
from you would be considered in the light of a favour to myself."

She thanked him by a gracious smile. Everybody was rising from the
table.

"Let us go on deck," she proposed, "where I'll be able to point out to
you the very object of my request."

An enormous national flag of Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with
two green palm trees in the middle, floated lazily at the mainmast head
of the Juno. A multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands
at the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a mysterious
crepitating noise half round the harbour. Now and then a lot of rockets,
swishing upwards invisibly, detonated overhead with only a puff of smoke
in the bright sky. Crowds of people could be seen between the town gate
and the harbour, under the bunches of multicoloured flags fluttering on
tall poles. Faint bursts of military music would be heard suddenly, and
the remote sound of shouting. A knot of ragged negroes at the end of the
wharf kept on loading and firing a small iron cannon time after time. A
greyish haze of dust hung thin and motionless against the sun.

Don Vincente Ribiera made a few steps under the deck-awning, leaning on
the arm of Senor Avellanos; a wide circle was formed round him, where
the mirthless smile of his dark lips and the sightless glitter of his
spectacles could be seen turning amiably from side to side. The
informal function arranged on purpose on board the Juno to give the
President-Dictator an opportunity to meet intimately some of his most
notable adherents in Sulaco was drawing to an end. On one side, General
Montero, his bald head covered now by a plumed cocked hat, remained
motionless on a skylight seat, a pair of big gauntleted hands folded
on the hilt of the sabre standing upright between his legs. The white
plume, the coppery tint of his broad face, the blue-black of the
moustaches under the curved beak, the mass of gold on sleeves and
breast, the high shining boots with enormous spurs, the working
nostrils, the imbecile and domineering stare of the glorious victor of
Rio Seco had in them something ominous and incredible; the exaggeration
of a cruel caricature, the fatuity of solemn masquerading, the atrocious
grotesqueness of some military idol of Aztec conception and European
bedecking, awaiting the homage of worshippers. Don Jose approached
diplomatically this weird and inscrutable portent, and Mrs. Gould turned
her fascinated eyes away at last.

Charles, coming up to take leave of Sir John, heard him say, as he bent
over his wife's hand, "Certainly. Of course, my dear Mrs. Gould, for a
protege of yours! Not the slightest difficulty. Consider it done."

Going ashore in the same boat with the Goulds, Don Jose Avellanos was
very silent. Even in the Gould carriage he did not open his lips for
a long time. The mules trotted slowly away from the wharf between the
extended hands of the beggars, who for that day seemed to have abandoned
in a body the portals of churches. Charles Gould sat on the back seat
and looked away upon the plain. A multitude of booths made of green
boughs, of rushes, of odd pieces of plank eked out with bits of canvas
had been erected all over it for the sale of cana, of dulces, of fruit,
of cigars. Over little heaps of glowing charcoal Indian women, squatting
on mats, cooked food in black earthen pots, and boiled the water for the
mate gourds, which they offered in soft, caressing voices to the country
people. A racecourse had been staked out for the vaqueros; and away to
the left, from where the crowd was massed thickly about a huge temporary
erection, like a circus tent of wood with a conical grass roof, came the
resonant twanging of harp strings, the sharp ping of guitars, with the
grave drumming throb of an Indian gombo pulsating steadily through the
shrill choruses of the dancers.

Charles Gould said presently--

"All this piece of land belongs now to the Railway Company. There will
be no more popular feasts held here."

Mrs. Gould was rather sorry to think so. She took this opportunity to
mention how she had just obtained from Sir John the promise that the
house occupied by Giorgio Viola should not be interfered with. She
declared she could never understand why the survey engineers ever talked
of demolishing that old building. It was not in the way of the projected
harbour branch of the line in the least.

She stopped the carriage before the door to reassure at once the old
Genoese, who came out bare-headed and stood by the carriage step.
She talked to him in Italian, of course, and he thanked her with calm
dignity. An old Garibaldino was grateful to her from the bottom of his
heart for keeping the roof over the heads of his wife and children. He
was too old to wander any more.

"And is it for ever, signora?" he asked.

"For as long as you like."

"Bene. Then the place must be named, It was not worth while before."

He smiled ruggedly, with a running together of wrinkles at the corners
of his eyes. "I shall set about the painting of the name to-morrow."

"And what is it going to be, Giorgio?"

"Albergo d'Italia Una," said the old Garibaldino, looking away for a
moment. "More in memory of those who have died," he added, "than for the
country stolen from us soldiers of liberty by the craft of that accursed
Piedmontese race of kings and ministers."

Mrs. Gould smiled slightly, and, bending over a little, began to inquire
about his wife and children. He had sent them into town on that day. The
padrona was better in health; many thanks to the signora for inquiring.

People were passing in twos and threes, in whole parties of men and
women attended by trotting children. A horseman mounted on a silver-grey
mare drew rein quietly in the shade of the house after taking off his
hat to the party in the carriage, who returned smiles and familiar
nods. Old Viola, evidently very pleased with the news he had just heard,
interrupted himself for a moment to tell him rapidly that the house was
secured, by the kindness of the English signora, for as long as he liked
to keep it. The other listened attentively, but made no response.

When the carriage moved on he took off his hat again, a grey sombrero
with a silver cord and tassels. The bright colours of a Mexican serape
twisted on the cantle, the enormous silver buttons on the embroidered
leather jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons down the seam of the
trousers, the snowy linen, a silk sash with embroidered ends, the silver
plates on headstall and saddle, proclaimed the unapproachable style of
the famous Capataz de Cargadores--a Mediterranean sailor--got up with
more finished splendour than any well-to-do young ranchero of the Campo
had ever displayed on a high holiday.

"It is a great thing for me," murmured old Giorgio, still thinking of
the house, for now he had grown weary of change. "The signora just said
a word to the Englishman."

"The old Englishman who has enough money to pay for a railway? He is
going off in an hour," remarked Nostromo, carelessly. "_Buon viaggio_,
then. I've guarded his bones all the way from the Entrada pass down to
the plain and into Sulaco, as though he had been my own father."

Old Giorgio only moved his head sideways absently. Nostromo pointed
after the Goulds' carriage, nearing the grass-grown gate in the old town
wall that was like a wall of matted jungle.

"And I have sat alone at night with my revolver in the Company's
warehouse time and again by the side of that other Englishman's heap of
silver, guarding it as though it had been my own."

Viola seemed lost in thought. "It is a great thing for me," he repeated
again, as if to himself.

"It is," agreed the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, calmly. "Listen,
Vecchio--go in and bring me, out a cigar, but don't look for it in my
room. There's nothing there."

Viola stepped into the cafe and came out directly, still absorbed in his
idea, and tendered him a cigar, mumbling thoughtfully in his moustache,
"Children growing up--and girls, too! Girls!" He sighed and fell silent.

"What, only one?" remarked Nostromo, looking down with a sort of comic
inquisitiveness at the unconscious old man. "No matter," he added, with
lofty negligence; "one is enough till another is wanted."

He lit it and let the match drop from his passive fingers. Giorgio Viola
looked up, and said abruptly--

"My son would have been just such a fine young man as you, Gian'
Battista, if he had lived."

"What? Your son? But you are right, padrone. If he had been like me he
would have been a man."

He turned his horse slowly, and paced on between the booths, checking
the mare almost to a standstill now and then for children, for the
groups of people from the distant Campo, who stared after him with
admiration. The Company's lightermen saluted him from afar; and the
greatly envied Capataz de Cargadores advanced, amongst murmurs of
recognition and obsequious greetings, towards the huge circus-like
erection. The throng thickened; the guitars tinkled louder; other
horsemen sat motionless, smoking calmly above the heads of the crowd; it
eddied and pushed before the doors of the high-roofed building, whence
issued a shuffle and thumping of feet in time to the dance music
vibrating and shrieking with a racking rhythm, overhung by the
tremendous, sustained, hollow roar of the gombo. The barbarous and
imposing noise of the big drum, that can madden a crowd, and that even
Europeans cannot hear without a strange emotion, seemed to draw Nostromo
on to its source, while a man, wrapped up in a faded, torn poncho,
walked by his stirrup, and, buffeted right and left, begged "his
worship" insistently for employment on the wharf. He whined, offering
the Senor Capataz half his daily pay for the privilege of being admitted
to the swaggering fraternity of Cargadores; the other half would
be enough for him, he protested. But Captain Mitchell's right-hand
man--"invaluable for our work--a perfectly incorruptible fellow"--after
looking down critically at the ragged mozo, shook his head without a
word in the uproar going on around.

The man fell back; and a little further on Nostromo had to pull up. From
the doors of the dance hall men and women emerged tottering, streaming
with sweat, trembling in every limb, to lean, panting, with staring eyes
and parted lips, against the wall of the structure, where the harps
and guitars played on with mad speed in an incessant roll of thunder.
Hundreds of hands clapped in there; voices shrieked, and then all at
once would sink low, chanting in unison the refrain of a love song, with
a dying fall. A red flower, flung with a good aim from somewhere in the
crowd, struck the resplendent Capataz on the cheek.

He caught it as it fell, neatly, but for some time did not turn his
head. When at last he condescended to look round, the throng near him
had parted to make way for a pretty Morenita, her hair held up by a
small golden comb, who was walking towards him in the open space.

Her arms and neck emerged plump and bare from a snowy chemisette; the
blue woollen skirt, with all the fullness gathered in front, scanty on
the hips and tight across the back, disclosed the provoking action of
her walk. She came straight on and laid her hand on the mare's neck with
a timid, coquettish look upwards out of the corner of her eyes.

"_Querido_," she murmured, caressingly, "why do you pretend not to see me
when I pass?"

"Because I don't love thee any more," said Nostromo, deliberately, after
a moment of reflective silence.

The hand on the mare's neck trembled suddenly. She dropped her head
before all the eyes in the wide circle formed round the generous, the
terrible, the inconstant Capataz de Cargadores, and his Morenita.