Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 3. CHAPTER THREE (continued)

Martin Decoud said nothing of his plans. He not only never
breathed a word of them to any one, but only a fortnight later
asked the mistress of the Casa Gould (where he had of course
obtained admission at once), leaning forward in his chair with an
air of well-bred familiarity, whether she could not detect in him
that day a marked change--an air, he explained, of more excellent
gravity. At this Mrs. Gould turned her face full towards him with
the silent inquiry of slightly widened eyes and the merest ghost
of a smile, an habitual movement with her, which was very
fascinating to men by something subtly devoted, finely
self-forgetful in its lively readiness of attention. Because,
Decoud continued imperturbably, he felt no longer an idle
cumberer of the earth. She was, he assured her, actually
beholding at that moment the Journalist of Sulaco. At once Mrs.
Gould glanced towards Antonia, posed upright in the corner of a
high, straight-backed Spanish sofa, a large black fan waving
slowly against the curves of her fine figure, the tips of crossed
feet peeping from under the hem of the black skirt. Decoud's
eyes also remained fixed there, while in an undertone he added
that Miss Avellanos was quite aware of his new and unexpected
vocation, which in Costaguana was generally the speciality of
half-educated negroes and wholly penniless lawyers. Then,
confronting with a sort of urbane effrontery Mrs. Gould's gaze,
now turned sympathetically upon himself, he breathed out the
words, "Pro Patria!"

What had happened was that he had all at once yielded to Don
Jose's pressing entreaties to take the direction of a newspaper
that would "voice the aspirations of the province." It had been
Don Jose's old and cherished idea. The necessary plant (on a
modest scale) and a large consignment of paper had been received
from America some time before; the right man alone was wanted.
Even Senor Moraga in Sta. Marta had not been able to find one,
and the matter was now becoming pressing; some organ was
absolutely needed to counteract the effect of the lies
disseminated by the Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the
appeals to the people calling upon them to rise with their knives
in their hands and put an end once for all to the Blancos, to
these Gothic remnants, to these sinister mummies, these impotent
paraliticos, who plotted with foreigners for the surrender of the
lands and the slavery of the people.