Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 5. CHAPTER FIVE (continued)

The people returning from the harbour filled the pavements; the
shuffle of sandals and a low murmur of voices ascended to the
window. Now and then a coach rolled slowly along the disjointed
roadway of the Calle de la Constitucion. There were not many
private carriages in Sulaco; at the most crowded hour on the
Alameda they could be counted with one glance of the eye. The
great family arks swayed on high leathern springs, full of pretty
powdered faces in which the eyes looked intensely alive and
black. And first Don Juste Lopez, the President of the Provincial
Assembly, passed with his three lovely daughters, solemn in a
black frock-coat and stiff white tie, as when directing a debate
from a high tribune. Though they all raised their eyes, Antonia
did not make the usual greeting gesture of a fluttered hand, and
they affected not to see the two young people, Costaguaneros with
European manners, whose eccentricities were discussed behind the
barred windows of the first families in Sulaco. And then the
widowed Senora Gavilaso de Valdes rolled by, handsome and
dignified, in a great machine in which she used to travel to and
from her country house, surrounded by an armed retinue in leather
suits and big sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their
saddles. She was a woman of most distinguished family, proud,
rich, and kind-hearted. Her second son, Jaime, had just gone off
on the Staff of Barrios. The eldest, a worthless fellow of a
moody disposition, filled Sulaco with the noise of his
dissipations, and gambled heavily at the club. The two youngest
boys, with yellow Ribierist cockades in their caps, sat on the
front seat. She, too, affected not to see the Senor Decoud
talking publicly with Antonia in defiance of every convention.
And he not even her novio as far as the world knew! Though, even
in that case, it would have been scandal enough. But the
dignified old lady, respected and admired by the first families,
would have been still more shocked if she could have heard the
words they were exchanging.

"Did you say I lost sight of the aim? I have only one aim in the
world."

She made an almost imperceptible negative movement of her head,
still staring across the street at the Avellanos's house, grey,
marked with decay, and with iron bars like a prison.