Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

"Oh, but that's different," protested Mrs. Gould, almost shocked.
The allusion was not to the point. Don Jose was a dear good man,
who talked very well, and was enthusiastic about the greatness of
the San Tome mine. "How can you compare them, Charles?" she
exclaimed, reproachfully. "He has suffered--and yet he hopes."

The working competence of men--which she never questioned--was
very surprising to Mrs. Gould, because upon so many obvious
issues they showed themselves strangely muddle-headed.

Charles Gould, with a careworn calmness which secured for him at
once his wife's anxious sympathy, assured her that he was not
comparing. He was an American himself, after all, and perhaps he
could understand both kinds of eloquence--"if it were worth while
to try," he added, grimly. But he had breathed the air of England
longer than any of his people had done for three generations, and
really he begged to be excused. His poor father could be
eloquent, too. And he asked his wife whether she remembered a
passage in one of his father's last letters where Mr. Gould had
expressed the conviction that "God looked wrathfully at these
countries, or else He would let some ray of hope fall through a
rift in the appalling darkness of intrigue, bloodshed, and crime
that hung over the Queen of Continents."

Mrs. Gould had not forgotten. "You read it to me, Charley," she
murmured. "It was a striking pronouncement. How deeply your
father must have felt its terrible sadness!"

"He did not like to be robbed. It exasperated him," said Charles
Gould. "But the image will serve well enough. What is wanted here
is law, good faith, order, security. Any one can declaim about
these things, but I pin my faith to material interests. Only let
the material interests once get a firm footing, and they are
bound to impose the conditions on which alone they can continue
to exist. That's how your money-making is justified here in the
face of lawlessness and disorder. It is justified because the
security which it demands must be shared with an oppressed
people. A better justice will come afterwards. That's your ray of
hope." His arm pressed her slight form closer to his side for a
moment. "And who knows whether in that sense even the San Tome
mine may not become that little rift in the darkness which poor
father despaired of ever seeing?"