Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 1. CHAPTER ONE (continued)

Don Jose Avellanos had known this forgiveness.

He was broken in health and fortune deplorably enough to present
a truly gratifying spectacle to the supreme chief of democratic
institutions. He retired to Sulaco. His wife had an estate in
that province, and she nursed him back to life out of the house
of death and captivity. When she died, their daughter, an only
child, was old enough to devote herself to "poor papa."

Miss Avellanos, born in Europe and educated partly in England,
was a tall, grave girl, with a self-possessed manner, a wide,
white forehead, a wealth of rich brown hair, and blue eyes.

The other young ladies of Sulaco stood in awe of her character
and accomplishments. She was reputed to be terribly learned and
serious. As to pride, it was well known that all the Corbelans
were proud, and her mother was a Corbelan. Don Jose Avellanos
depended very much upon the devotion of his beloved Antonia. He
accepted it in the benighted way of men, who, though made in
God's image, are like stone idols without sense before the smoke
of certain burnt offerings. He was ruined in every way, but a man
possessed of passion is not a bankrupt in life. Don Jose
Avellanos desired passionately for his country: peace,
prosperity, and (as the end of the preface to "Fifty Years of
Misrule" has it) "an honourable place in the comity of civilized
nations." In this last phrase the Minister Plenipotentiary,
cruelly humiliated by the bad faith of his Government towards the
foreign bondholders, stands disclosed in the patriot.

The fatuous turmoil of greedy factions succeeding the tyranny of
Guzman Bento seemed to bring his desire to the very door of
opportunity. He was too old to descend personally into the centre
of the arena at Sta. Marta. But the men who acted there sought
his advice at every step. He himself thought that he could be
most useful at a distance, in Sulaco. His name, his connections,
his former position, his experience commanded the respect of his
class. The discovery that this man, living in dignified poverty
in the Corbelan town residence (opposite the Casa Gould), could
dispose of material means towards the support of the cause
increased his influence. It was his open letter of appeal that
decided the candidature of Don Vincente Ribiera for the
Presidency. Another of these informal State papers drawn up by
Don Jose (this time in the shape of an address from the Province)
induced that scrupulous constitutionalist to accept the
extraordinary powers conferred upon him for five years by an
overwhelming vote of congress in Sta. Marta. It was a specific
mandate to establish the prosperity of the people on the basis of
firm peace at home, and to redeem the national credit by the
satisfaction of all just claims abroad.