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

vaguely about him, then dropped into the chair and tookthe pencil up again. He became aware he had not eaten anythingfor many hours.It occurred to him that no one could understand him sowell as his sister. In the most sceptical heart there lurks atsuch moments, when the chances of existence are involved,a desire to leave a correct impression of the feelings, like alight by which the action may be seen when personality isgone, gone where no light of investigation can ever reachthe truth which every death takes out of the world. Therefore,instead of looking for something to eat, or trying tosnatch an hour or so of sleep, Decoud was filling the pagesof a large pocket-book with a letter to his sister.In the intimacy of that intercourse he could not keepout his weariness, his great fatigue, the close touch of hisbodily sensations. He began again as if he were talking toher. With almost an illusion of her presence, he wrote thephrase, ‘I am very hungry.’‘I have the feeling of a great solitude around me,’ he continued.‘Is it, perhaps, because I am the only man with adefinite idea in his head, in the complete collapse of everyresolve, intention, and hope about me? But the solitude isalso very real. All the engineers are out, and have been fortwo days, looking after the property of the National CentralRailway, of that great Costaguana undertaking whichis to put money into the pockets of Englishmen, Frenchmen,Americans, Germans, and God knows who else. The silenceabout me is ominous. There is above the middle part of thishouse a sort of first floor, with narrow openings like loop-