Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

She did. She would. And immediately the future hostess of all the
Europeans in Sulaco had the physical experience of the earth
falling away from under her. It vanished completely, even to the
very sound of the bell. When her feet touched the ground again,
the bell was still ringing in the valley; she put her hands up to
her hair, breathing quickly, and glanced up and down the stony
lane. It was reassuringly empty. Meantime, Charles, stepping with
one foot into a dry and dusty ditch, picked up the open parasol,
which had bounded away from them with a martial sound of drum
taps. He handed it to her soberly, a little crestfallen.

They turned back, and after she had slipped her hand on his arm,
the first words he pronounced were--

"It's lucky that we shall be able to settle in a coast town.
You've heard its name. It is Sulaco. I am so glad poor father did
get that house. He bought a big house there years ago, in order
that there should always be a Casa Gould in the principal town of
what used to be called the Occidental Province. I lived there
once, as a small boy, with my dear mother, for a whole year,
while poor father was away in the United States on business. You
shall be the new mistress of the Casa Gould."

And later, in the inhabited corner of the Palazzo above the
vineyards, the marble hills, the pines and olives of Lucca, he
also said--

"The name of Gould has been always highly respected in Sulaco. My
uncle Harry was chief of the State for some time, and has left a
great name amongst the first families. By this I mean the pure
Creole families, who take no part in the miserable farce of
governments. Uncle Harry was no adventurer. In Costaguana we
Goulds are no adventurers. He was of the country, and he loved
it, but he remained essentially an Englishman in his ideas. He
made use of the political cry of his time. It was Federation. But
he was no politician. He simply stood up for social order out of
pure love for rational liberty and from his hate of oppression.
There was no nonsense about him. He went to work in his own way
because it seemed right, just as I feel I must lay hold of that
mine."