Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 7. CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)

After having written so far, Don Martin Decoud, the exotic dandy
of the Parisian boulevard, got up and walked across the sanded
floor of the cafe at one end of the Albergo of United Italy, kept
by Giorgio Viola, the old companion of Garibaldi. The highly
coloured lithograph of the Faithful Hero seemed to look dimly, in
the light of one candle, at the man with no faith in anything
except the truth of his own sensations. Looking out of the
window, Decoud was met by a darkness so impenetrable that he
could see neither the mountains nor the town, nor yet the
buildings near the harbour; and there was not a sound, as if the
tremendous obscurity of the Placid Gulf, spreading from the
waters over the land, had made it dumb as well as blind.
Presently Decoud felt a light tremor of the floor and a distant
clank of iron. A bright white light appeared, deep in the
darkness, growing bigger with a thundering noise. The rolling
stock usually kept on the sidings in Rincon was being run back to
the yards for safe keeping. Like a mysterious stirring of the
darkness behind the headlight of the engine, the train passed in
a gust of hollow uproar, by the end of the house, which seemed to
vibrate all over in response. And nothing was clearly visible
but, on the end of the last flat car, a negro, in white trousers
and naked to the waist, swinging a blazing torch basket
incessantly with a circular movement of his bare arm. Decoud did
not stir.

Behind him, on the back of the chair from which he had risen,
hung his elegant Parisian overcoat, with a pearl-grey silk
lining. But when he turned back to come to the table the
candlelight fell upon a face that was grimy and scratched. His
rosy lips were blackened with heat, the smoke of gun-powder. Dirt
and rust tarnished the lustre of his short beard. His shirt
collar and cuffs were crumpled; the blue silken tie hung down his
breast like a rag; a greasy smudge crossed his white brow. He had
not taken off his clothing nor used water, except to snatch a
hasty drink greedily, for some forty hours. An awful restlessness
had made him its own, had marked him with all the signs of
desperate strife, and put a dry, sleepless stare into his eyes.
He murmured to himself in a hoarse voice, "I wonder if there's
any bread here," looked vaguely about him, then dropped into the
chair and took the pencil up again. He became aware he had not
eaten anything for many hours.