Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 4. CHAPTER FOUR (continued)

Mrs. Gould smiled a good-bye at Barrios, nodded round to the
Europeans (who raised their hats simultaneously) with an engaging
invitation, "I hope to see you all presently, at home"; then said
nervously to Decoud, "Get in, Don Martin," and heard him mutter
to himself in French, as he opened the carriage door, "Le sort en
est jete." She heard him with a sort of exasperation. Nobody
ought to have known better than himself that the first cast of
dice had been already thrown long ago in a most desperate game.
Distant acclamations, words of command yelled out, and a roll of
drums on the jetty greeted the departing general. Something like
a slight faintness came over her, and she looked blankly at
Antonia's still face, wondering what would happen to Charley if
that absurd man failed. "A la casa, Ignacio," she cried at the
motionless broad back of the coachman, who gathered the reins
without haste, mumbling to himself under his breath, "Si, la
casa. Si, si nina."

The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the shadows
fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed with dark
bushes, mounds of turned-up earth, low wooden buildings with iron
roofs of the Railway Company; the sparse row of telegraph poles
strode obliquely clear of the town, bearing a single, almost
invisible wire far into the great campo--like a slender,
vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside for a moment of
peace to enter and twine itself about the weary heart of the
land.

The cafe window of the Albergo d'ltalia Una was full of sunburnt,
whiskered faces of railway men. But at the other end of the
house, the end of the Signori Inglesi, old Giorgio, at the door
with one of his girls on each side, bared his bushy head, as
white as the snows of Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage.
She seldom failed to speak to her protege; moreover, the
excitement, the heat, and the dust had made her thirsty. She
asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent the children indoors for
it, and approached with pleasure expressed in his whole rugged
countenance. It was not often that he had occasion to see his
benefactress, who was also an Englishwoman--another title to his
regard. He offered some excuses for his wife. It was a bad day
with her; her oppressions--he tapped his own broad chest. She
could not move from her chair that day.