Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

0. Dedication and Author's Note (continued)

That's why I long sometimes for another glimpse of the "beautiful
Antonia" (or can it be the Other?) moving in the dimness of the
great cathedral, saying a short prayer at the tomb of the first
and last Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco, standing absorbed in
filial devotion before the monument of Don Jose Avellanos, and,
with a lingering, tender, faithful glance at the
medallion-memorial to Martin Decoud, going out serenely into the
sunshine of the Plaza with her upright carriage and her white
head; a relic of the past disregarded by men awaiting impatiently
the Dawns of other New Eras, the coming of more Revolutions.

But this is the idlest of dreams; for I did understand perfectly
well at the time that the moment the breath left the body of the
Magnificent Capataz, the Man of the People, freed at last from
the toils of love and wealth, there was nothing more for me to do
in Sulaco.

J. C.

October, 1917.