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

whose expression affected by the drawn-in cicatrices in thecheeks, had something vaguely unnatural, an exaggeratedremorseful bitterness. As he sat there he had the air of meditatingupon sinister things. The engineer-in-chief gazed athim for a time before he protested.‘I really don’t see that. For me there seems to be nothingelse. However——‘He was a wise man, but he could not quite conceal hiscontempt for that sort of paradox; in fact. Dr. Monyghamwas not liked by the Europeans of Sulaco. His outward aspectof an outcast, which he preserved even in Mrs. Gould’sdrawing-room, provoked unfavourable criticism. Therecould be no doubt of his intelligence; and as he had livedfor over twenty years in the country, the pessimism of hisoutlook could not be altogether ignored. But instinctively,in self-defence of their activities and hopes, his hearers putit to the account of some hidden imperfection in the man’scharacter. It was known that many years before, when quiteyoung, he had been made by Guzman Bento chief medicalofficer of the army. Not one of the Europeans then in theservice of Costaguana had been so much liked and trustedby the fierce old Dictator.Afterwards his story was not so clear. It lost itself amongstthe innumerable tales of conspiracies and plots against thetyrant as a stream is lost in an arid belt of sandy countrybefore it emerges, diminished and troubled, perhaps, onthe other side. The doctor made no secret of it that he hadlived for years in the wildest parts of the Republic, wanderingwith almost unknown Indian tribes in the great forests