Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 7. CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)

Charles Gould assumed that if the appearance of listening to
deplorable balderdash must form part of the price he had to pay
for being left unmolested, the obligation of uttering balderdash
personally was by no means included in the bargain. He drew the
line there. To these provincial autocrats, before whom the
peaceable population of all classes had been accustomed to
tremble, the reserve of that English-looking engineer caused an
uneasiness which swung to and fro between cringing and
truculence. Gradually all of them discovered that, no matter what
party was in power, that man remained in most effective touch
with the higher authorities in Sta. Marta.

This was a fact, and it accounted perfectly for the Goulds being
by no means so wealthy as the engineer-in-chief on the new
railway could legitimately suppose. Following the advice of Don
Jose Avellanos, who was a man of good counsel (though rendered
timid by his horrible experiences of Guzman Bento's time),
Charles Gould had kept clear of the capital; but in the current
gossip of the foreign residents there he was known (with a good
deal of seriousness underlying the irony) by the nickname of
"King of Sulaco." An advocate of the Costaguana Bar, a man of
reputed ability and good character, member of the distinguished
Moraga family possessing extensive estates in the Sulaco Valley,
was pointed out to strangers, with a shade of mystery and
respect, as the agent of the San Tome mine--"political, you
know." He was tall, black-whiskered, and discreet. It was known
that he had easy access to ministers, and that the numerous
Costaguana generals were always anxious to dine at his house.
Presidents granted him audience with facility. He corresponded
actively with his maternal uncle, Don Jose Avellanos; but his
letters--unless those expressing formally his dutiful
affection--were seldom entrusted to the Costaguana Post Office.
There the envelopes are opened, indiscriminately, with the
frankness of a brazen and childish impudence characteristic of
some Spanish-American Governments. But it must be noted that at
about the time of the re-opening of the San Tome mine the
muleteer who had been employed by Charles Gould in his
preliminary travels on the Campo added his small train of animals
to the thin stream of traffic carried over the mountain passes
between the Sta. Marta upland and the Valley of Sulaco. There are
no travellers by that arduous and unsafe route unless under very
exceptional circumstances, and the state of inland trade did not
visibly require additional transport facilities; but the man
seemed to find his account in it. A few packages were always
found for him whenever he took the road. Very brown and wooden,
in goatskin breeches with the hair outside, he sat near the tail
of his own smart mule, his great hat turned against the sun, an
expression of blissful vacancy on his long face, humming day
after day a love-song in a plaintive key, or, without a change of
expression, letting out a yell at his small tropilla in front. A
round little guitar hung high up on his back; and there was a
place scooped out artistically in the wood of one of his
pack-saddles where a tightly rolled piece of paper could be
slipped in, the wooden plug replaced, and the coarse canvas
nailed on again. When in Sulaco it was his practice to smoke and
doze all day long (as though he had no care in the world) on a
stone bench outside the doorway of the Casa Gould and facing the
windows of the Avellanos house. Years and years ago his mother
had been chief laundry-woman in that family--very accomplished in
the matter of clear-starching. He himself had been born on one of
their haciendas. His name was Bonifacio, and Don Jose, crossing
the street about five o'clock to call on Dona Emilia, always
acknowledged his humble salute by some movement of hand or head.
The porters of both houses conversed lazily with him in tones of
grave intimacy. His evenings he devoted to gambling and to calls
in a spirit of generous festivity upon the peyne d'oro girls in
the more remote side-streets of the town. But he, too, was a
discreet man.