Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 11. CHAPTER ELEVEN (continued)

The doctor lowered his head. He could follow her silent thought.
Was it for this that her life had been robbed of all the intimate
felicities of daily affection which her tenderness needed as the
human body needs air to breathe? And the doctor, indignant with
Charles Gould's blindness, hastened to change the conversation.

"It is about Nostromo that I wanted to talk to you. Ah! that
fellow has some continuity and force. Nothing will put an end to
him. But never mind that. There's something inexplicable going
on--or perhaps only too easy to explain. You know, Linda is
practically the lighthouse keeper of the Great Isabel light. The
Garibaldino is too old now. His part is to clean the lamps and to
cook in the house; but he can't get up the stairs any longer. The
black-eyed Linda sleeps all day and watches the light all night.
Not all day, though. She is up towards five in the afternoon,
when our Nostromo, whenever he is in harbour with his schooner,
comes out on his courting visit, pulling in a small boat."

"Aren't they married yet?" Mrs. Gould asked. "The mother wished
it, as far as I can understand, while Linda was yet quite a
child. When I had the girls with me for a year or so during the
War of Separation, that extraordinary Linda used to declare quite
simply that she was going to be Gian' Battista's wife."

"They are not married yet," said the doctor, curtly. "I have
looked after them a little."

"Thank you, dear Dr. Monygham," said Mrs. Gould; and under the
shade of the big trees her little, even teeth gleamed in a
youthful smile of gentle malice. "People don't know how really
good you are. You will not let them know, as if on purpose to
annoy me, who have put my faith in your good heart long ago."

The doctor, with a lifting up of his upper lip, as though he were
longing to bite, bowed stiffly in his chair. With the utter
absorption of a man to whom love comes late, not as the most
splendid of illusions, but like an enlightening and priceless
misfortune, the sight of that woman (of whom he had been deprived
for nearly a year) suggested ideas of adoration, of kissing the
hem of her robe. And this excess of feeling translated itself
naturally into an augmented grimness of speech.