Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 4. CHAPTER FOUR (continued)

Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced, young Scarfe
had been eager to express his simple feelings. In a loud and
youthful tone he hoped that this Montero was going to be licked
once for all and done with. There was no saying what would happen
to the railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps it
would have to be abandoned. It would not be the first railway
gone to pot in Costaguana. "You know, it's one of their so-called
national things," he ran on, wrinkling up his nose as if the word
had a suspicious flavour to his profound experience of South
American affairs. And, of course, he chatted with animation, it
had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his age to get
appointed on the staff "of a big thing like that--don't you
know." It would give him the pull over a lot of chaps all through
life, he asserted. "Therefore--down with Montero! Mrs. Gould."
His artless grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity
of the faces turned upon him from the carriage; only that "old
chap," Don Jose, presenting a motionless, waxy profile, stared
straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did not know the Avellanos very
well. They did not give balls, and Antonia never appeared at a
ground-floor window, as some other young ladies used to do
attended by elder women, to chat with the caballeros on horseback
in the Calle. The stares of these creoles did not matter much;
but what on earth had come to Mrs. Gould? She said, "Go on,
Ignacio," and gave him a slow inclination of the head. He heard a
short laugh from that round-faced, Frenchified fellow. He
coloured up to the eyes, and stared at Giorgio Viola, who had
fallen back with the children, hat in hand.

"I shall want a horse presently," he said with some asperity to
the old man.

"Si, senor. There are plenty of horses," murmured the
Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with his brown hands, the two
heads, one dark with bronze glints, the other fair with a coppery
ripple, of the two girls by his side. The returning stream of
sightseers raised a great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the
group. "Go to your mother," he said. "They are growing up as I
am growing older, and there is nobody--"