Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

tion to become a poet like that other foreigner of Spanishblood, Jose Maria Heredia. In other moments he had, topass the time, condescended to write articles on Europeanaffairs for the Semenario, the principal newspaper in Sta.Marta, which printed them under the heading ‘From ourspecial correspondent,’ though the authorship was an opensecret. Everybody in Costaguana, where the tale of compatriotsin Europe is jealously kept, knew that it was ‘theson Decoud,’ a talented young man, supposed to be movingin the higher spheres of Society. As a matter of fact, hewas an idle boulevardier, in touch with some smart journalists,made free of a few newspaper offices, and welcomedin the pleasure haunts of pressmen. This life, whose drearysuperficiality is covered by the glitter of universal blague,like the stupid clowning of a harlequin by the spangles ofa motley costume, induced in him a Frenchified—but mostun-French—cosmopolitanism, in reality a mere barren indifferentismposing as intellectual superiority. Of his owncountry he used to say to his French associates: ‘Imaginean atmosphere of opera-bouffe in which all the comic businessof stage statesmen, brigands, etc., etc., all their farcicalstealing, intriguing, and stabbing is done in dead earnest.It is screamingly funny, the blood flows all the time, andthe actors believe themselves to be influencing the fate ofthe universe. Of course, government in general, any governmentanywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality to adiscerning mind; but really we Spanish-Americans do overstepthe bounds. No man of ordinary intelligence can takepart in the intrigues of une farce macabre. However, these