Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 9. CHAPTER NINE (continued)

"I tell you it is all right. Viola is all alone in there. I
looked in as I came out of the town. You will be perfectly safe
in that house till you leave it to make your name famous on the
Campo. I am going now to arrange for your departure with the
engineer-in-chief, and I shall bring you news here long before
daybreak."

Dr. Monygham, disregarding, or perhaps fearing to penetrate the
meaning of Nostromo's silence, clapped him lightly on the
shoulder, and starting off with his smart, lame walk, vanished
utterly at the third or fourth hop in the direction of the
railway track. Arrested between the two wooden posts for people
to fasten their horses to, Nostromo did not move, as if he, too,
had been planted solidly in the ground. At the end of half an
hour he lifted his head to the deep baying of the dogs at the
railway yards, which had burst out suddenly, tumultuous and
deadened as if coming from under the plain. That lame doctor with
the evil eye had got there pretty fast.

Step by step Nostromo approached the Albergo d'Italia Una, which
he had never known so lightless, so silent, before. The door, all
black in the pale wall, stood open as he had left it twenty-four
hours before, when he had nothing to hide from the world. He
remained before it, irresolute, like a fugitive, like a man
betrayed. Poverty, misery, starvation! Where had he heard these
words? The anger of a dying woman had prophesied that fate for
his folly. It looked as if it would come true very quickly. And
the leperos would laugh--she had said. Yes, they would laugh if
they knew that the Capataz de Cargadores was at the mercy of the
mad doctor whom they could remember, only a few years ago, buying
cooked food from a stall on the Plaza for a copper coin--like one
of themselves.

At that moment the notion of seeking Captain Mitchell passed
through his mind. He glanced in the direction of the jetty and
saw a small gleam of light in the O.S.N. Company's building. The
thought of lighted windows was not attractive. Two lighted
windows had decoyed him into the empty Custom House, only to fall
into the clutches of that doctor. No! He would not go near
lighted windows again on that night. Captain Mitchell was there.
And what could he be told? That doctor would worm it all out of
him as if he were a child.