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

to grow rich eventually if possible, but at any rate to putsome money at once in his pocket. No. Even if it had beenfeasible—which I doubt—I would not have done so. Poor fatherdid not understand. He was afraid I would hang on tothe ruinous thing, waiting for just some such chance, andwaste my life miserably. That was the true sense of his prohibition,which we have deliberately set aside.’They were walking up and down the corredor. Her headjust reached to his shoulder. His arm, extended downwards,was about her waist. His spurs jingled slightly.‘He had not seen me for ten years. He did not know me.He parted from me for my sake, and he would never let mecome back. He was always talking in his letters of leavingCostaguana, of abandoning everything and making hisescape. But he was too valuable a prey. They would havethrown him into one of their prisons at the first suspicion.’His spurred feet clinked slowly. He was bending over hiswife as they walked. The big parrot, turning its head askew,followed their pacing figures with a round, unblinking eye.‘He was a lonely man. Ever since I was ten years old heused to talk to me as if I had been grown up. When I was inEurope he wrote to me every month. Ten, twelve pages everymonth of my life for ten years. And, after all, he did notknow me! Just think of it—ten whole years away; the years Iwas growing up into a man. He could not know me. Do youthink he could?’Mrs. Gould shook her head negatively; which was justwhat her husband had expected from the strength of the argument.But she shook her head negatively only because she