Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

Meantime, he had deviated from the straight course, inclining by
a sort of instinct to the right, towards the jetty and the
harbour, the scene of his daily labours. The great length of the
Custom House loomed up all at once like the wall of a factory.
Not a soul challenged his approach, and his curiosity became
excited as he passed cautiously towards the front by the
unexpected sight of two lighted windows.

They had the fascination of a lonely vigil kept by some
mysterious watcher up there, those two windows shining dimly upon
the harbour in the whole vast extent of the abandoned building.
The solitude could almost be felt. A strong smell of wood smoke
hung about in a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his
raised eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced in
the profound silence, the shrilling of innumerable cicalas in the
dry grass seemed positively deafening to his strained ears.
Slowly, step by step, he found himself in the great hall, sombre
and full of acrid smoke.

A fire built against the staircase had burnt down impotently to a
low heap of embers. The hard wood had failed to catch; only a few
steps at the bottom smouldered, with a creeping glow of sparks
defining their charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of light
from an open door. It fell upon the vast landing, all foggy with
a slow drift of smoke. That was the room. He climbed the stairs,
then checked himself, because he had seen within the shadow of a
man cast upon one of the walls. It was a shapeless,
highshouldered shadow of somebody standing still, with lowered
head, out of his line of sight. The Capataz, remembering that he
was totally unarmed, stepped aside, and, effacing himself upright
in a dark corner, waited with his eyes fixed on the door.

The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, unfinished, without
ceilings under its lofty roof, was pervaded by the smoke swaying
to and fro in the faint cross draughts playing in the obscurity
of many lofty rooms and barnlike passages. Once one of the
swinging shutters came against the wall with a single sharp
crack, as if pushed by an impatient hand. A piece of paper
scurried out from somewhere, rustling along the landing. The
man, whoever he was, did not darken the lighted doorway. Twice
the Capataz, advancing a couple of steps out of his corner,
craned his neck in the hope of catching sight of what he could be
at, so quietly, in there. But every time he saw only the
distorted shadow of broad shoulders and bowed head. He was doing
apparently nothing, and stirred not from the spot, as though he
were meditating--or, perhaps, reading a paper. And not a sound
issued from the room.