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

as a great captain of industry and a person of weighty counsel,whose popular designation would be soon replaced bya more solid title. ‘Eh, Don Carlos? No! What do you say?Conde de Sulaco—Eh?—or marquis …’He ceased. The air was cool on the Plaza, where a patrol ofcavalry rode round and round without penetrating into thestreets, which resounded with shouts and the strummingof guitars issuing from the open doors of pulperias. The orderswere not to interfere with the enjoyments of the people.And above the roofs, next to the perpendicular lines of thecathedral towers the snowy curve of Higuerota blocked alarge space of darkening blue sky before the windows of theIntendencia. After a time Pedrito Montero, thrusting hishand in the bosom of his coat, bowed his head with slowdignity. The audience was over.Charles Gould on going out passed his hand over hisforehead as if to disperse the mists of an oppressive dream,whose grotesque extravagance leaves behind a subtle senseof bodily danger and intellectual decay. In the passagesand on the staircases of the old palace Montero’s trooperslounged about insolently, smoking and making wayfor no one; the clanking of sabres and spurs resounded allover the building. Three silent groups of civilians in severeblack waited in the main gallery, formal and helpless, a littlehuddled up, each keeping apart from the others, as if in theexercise of a public duty they had been overcome by a desireto shun the notice of every eye. These were the deputationswaiting for their audience. The one from the ProvincialAssembly, more restless and uneasy in its corporate expres-