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

his back against the rim of the fountain, fingering a guitardiscreetly, while two girls of the lower class, standing upbefore him, shuffled their feet a little and waved their arms,humming a popular dance tune.Most of the wounded during the two days of riotinghad been taken away already by their friends and relations,but several figures could be seen sitting up balancing theirbandaged heads in time to the music. Charles Gould dismounted.A sleepy mozo coming out of the bakery doortook hold of the horse’s bridle; the practicante endeavouredto conceal his guitar hastily; the girls, unabashed, steppedback smiling; and Charles Gould, on his way to the staircase,glanced into a dark corner of the patio at anothergroup, a mortally wounded Cargador with a woman kneelingby his side; she mumbled prayers rapidly, trying at thesame time to force a piece of orange between the stiffeninglips of the dying man.The cruel futility of things stood unveiled in the levityand sufferings of that incorrigible people; the cruel futilityof lives and of deaths thrown away in the vain endeavour toattain an enduring solution of the problem. Unlike Decoud,Charles Gould could not play lightly a part in a tragic farce.It was tragic enough for him in all conscience, but he couldsee no farcical element. He suffered too much under a convictionof irremediable folly. He was too severely practicaland too idealistic to look upon its terrible humours withamusement, as Martin Decoud, the imaginative materialist,was able to do in the dry light of his scepticism. To him, asto all of us, the compromises with his conscience appeared