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

not connected with Nostromo, and in a tone which for himwas gentle), even to her, he had said once, ‘Really, it is mostunreasonable to demand that a man should think of otherpeople so much better than he is able to think of himself.’And Mrs. Gould had hastened to drop the subject. Therewere strange rumours of the English doctor. Years ago, inthe time of Guzman Bento, he had been mixed up, it waswhispered, in a conspiracy which was betrayed and, as peopleexpressed it, drowned in blood. His hair had turnedgrey, his hairless, seamed face was of a brick-dust colour;the large check pattern of his flannel shirt and his oldstained Panama hat were an established defiance to theconventionalities of Sulaco. Had it not been for the immaculatecleanliness of his apparel he might have been taken forone of those shiftless Europeans that are a moral eyesore tothe respectability of a foreign colony in almost every exoticpart of the world. The young ladies of Sulaco, adorning withclusters of pretty faces the balconies along the Street of theConstitution, when they saw him pass, with his limping gaitand bowed head, a short linen jacket drawn on carelesslyover the flannel check shirt, would remark to each other,‘Here is the Senor doctor going to call on Dona Emilia. Hehas got his little coat on.’ The inference was true. Its deepermeaning was hidden from their simple intelligence. Moreover,they expended no store of thought on the doctor. Hewas old, ugly, learned—and a little ‘loco’—mad, if not a bitof a sorcerer, as the common people suspected him of being.The little white jacket was in reality a concession to Mrs.Gould’s humanizing influence. The doctor, with his habit of