Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

On the afternoon the news of that vote had reached Sulaco by the
usual roundabout postal way through Cayta, and up the coast by
steamer. Don Jose, who had been waiting for the mail in the
Goulds' drawing-room, got out of the rocking-chair, letting his
hat fall off his knees. He rubbed his silvery, short hair with
both hands, speechless with the excess of joy.

"Emilia, my soul," he had burst out, "let me embrace you! Let
me--"

Captain Mitchell, had he been there, would no doubt have made an
apt remark about the dawn of a new era; but if Don Jose thought
something of the kind, his eloquence failed him on this occasion.
The inspirer of that revival of the Blanco party tottered where
he stood. Mrs. Gould moved forward quickly and, as she offered
her cheek with a smile to her old friend, managed very cleverly
to give him the support of her arm he really needed.

Don Jose had recovered himself at once, but for a time he could
do no more than murmur, "Oh, you two patriots! Oh, you two
patriots!"--looking from one to the other. Vague plans of another
historical work, wherein all the devotions to the regeneration of
the country he loved would be enshrined for the reverent worship
of posterity, flitted through his mind. The historian who had
enough elevation of soul to write of Guzman Bento: "Yet this
monster, imbrued in the blood of his countrymen, must not be held
unreservedly to the execration of future years. It appears to be
true that he, too, loved his country. He had given it twelve
years of peace; and, absolute master of lives and fortunes as he
was, he died poor. His worst fault, perhaps, was not his
ferocity, but his ignorance;" the man who could write thus of a
cruel persecutor (the passage occurs in his "History of Misrule")
felt at the foreshadowing of success an almost boundless
affection for his two helpers, for these two young people from
over the sea.

Just as years ago, calmly, from the conviction of practical
necessity, stronger than any abstract political doctrine, Henry
Gould had drawn the sword, so now, the times being changed,
Charles Gould had flung the silver of the San Tome into the fray.
The Inglez of Sulaco, the "Costaguana Englishman" of the third
generation, was as far from being a political intriguer as his
uncle from a revolutionary swashbuckler. Springing from the
instinctive uprightness of their natures their action was
reasoned. They saw an opportunity and used the weapon to hand.