Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

Mr. Gould, senior, defended himself from this fatal favour with
many arguments and entreaties, but without success. He knew
nothing of mining; he had no means to put his concession on the
European market; the mine as a working concern did not exist. The
buildings had been burnt down, the mining plant had been
destroyed, the mining population had disappeared from the
neighbourhood years and years ago; the very road had vanished
under a flood of tropical vegetation as effectually as if
swallowed by the sea; and the main gallery had fallen in within a
hundred yards from the entrance. It was no longer an abandoned
mine; it was a wild, inaccessible, and rocky gorge of the Sierra,
where vestiges of charred timber, some heaps of smashed bricks,
and a few shapeless pieces of rusty iron could have been found
under the matted mass of thorny creepers covering the ground. Mr.
Gould, senior, did not desire the perpetual possession of that
desolate locality; in fact, the mere vision of it arising before
his mind in the still watches of the night had the power to
exasperate him into hours of hot and agitated insomnia.

It so happened, however, that the Finance Minister of the time
was a man to whom, in years gone by, Mr. Gould had,
unfortunately, declined to grant some small pecuniary assistance,
basing his refusal on the ground that the applicant was a
notorious gambler and cheat, besides being more than half
suspected of a robbery with violence on a wealthy ranchero in a
remote country district, where he was actually exercising the
function of a judge. Now, after reaching his exalted position,
that politician had proclaimed his intention to repay evil with
good to Senor Gould--the poor man. He affirmed and reaffirmed
this resolution in the drawing-rooms of Sta. Marta, in a soft and
implacable voice, and with such malicious glances that Mr.
Gould's best friends advised him earnestly to attempt no bribery
to get the matter dropped. It would have been useless. Indeed,
it would not have been a very safe proceeding. Such was also the
opinion of a stout, loud-voiced lady of French extraction, the
daughter, she said, of an officer of high rank (officier
superieur de l'armee), who was accommodated with lodgings within
the walls of a secularized convent next door to the Ministry of
Finance. That florid person, when approached on behalf of Mr.
Gould in a proper manner, and with a suitable present, shook her
head despondently. She was good-natured, and her despondency was
genuine. She imagined she could not take money in consideration
of something she could not accomplish. The friend of Mr. Gould,
charged with the delicate mission, used to say afterwards that
she was the only honest person closely or remotely connected with
the Government he had ever met. "No go," she had said with a
cavalier, husky intonation which was natural to her, and using
turns of expression more suitable to a child of parents unknown
than to the orphaned daughter of a general officer. "No; it's no
go. Pas moyen, mon garcon. C'est dommage, tout de meme. Ah! zut!
Je ne vole pas mon monde. Je ne suis pas ministre--moi! Vous
pouvez emporter votre petit sac."