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

holds to it as some men hold to the idea of love or revenge.Unless I am much mistaken in the man, it must remain inviolateor perish by an act of his will alone. A passion hascrept into his cold and idealistic life. A passion which I canonly comprehend intellectually. A passion that is not likethe passions we know, we men of another blood. But it is asdangerous as any of ours.‘His wife has understood it, too. That is why she is such agood ally of mine. She seizes upon all my suggestions with asure instinct that in the end they make for the safety of theGould Concession. And he defers to her because he trustsher perhaps, but I fancy rather as if he wished to make upfor some subtle wrong, for that sentimental unfaithfulnesswhich surrenders her happiness, her life, to the seductionof an idea. The little woman has discovered that he lives forthe mine rather than for her. But let them be. To each hisfate, shaped by passion or sentiment. The principal thingis that she has backed up my advice to get the silver out ofthe town, out of the country, at once, at any cost, at anyrisk. Don Carlos’ mission is to preserve unstained the fairfame of his mine; Mrs. Gould’s mission is to save him fromthe effects of that cold and overmastering passion, whichshe dreads more than if it were an infatuation for anotherwoman. Nostromo’s mission is to save the silver. The planis to load it into the largest of the Company’s lighters, andsend it across the gulf to a small port out of Costaguanaterritory just on the other side the Azuera, where the firstnorthbound steamer will get orders to pick it up. The watershere are calm. We shall slip away into the darkness of the