Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

This unexpected cry had the effect of stilling the noise. All the
eyes were directed to the window with an approving expectation;
but Decoud had already turned his back upon the room, and was
again leaning out over the quiet street.

"This is the quintessence of my journalism; that is the supreme
argument," he said to Antonia. "I have invented this definition,
this last word on a great question. But I am no patriot. I am no
more of a patriot than the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores, this
Genoese who has done such great things for this harbour--this
active usher-in of the material implements for our progress. You
have heard Captain Mitchell confess over and over again that till
he got this man he could never tell how long it would take to
unload a ship. That is bad for progress. You have seen him pass
by after his labours on his famous horse to dazzle the girls in
some ballroom with an earthen floor. He is a fortunate fellow!
His work is an exercise of personal powers; his leisure is spent
in receiving the marks of extraordinary adulation. And he likes
it, too. Can anybody be more fortunate? To be feared and admired
is--"

"And are these your highest aspirations, Don Martin?" interrupted
Antonia.

"I was speaking of a man of that sort," said Decoud, curtly. "The
heroes of the world have been feared and admired. What more could
he want?"

Decoud had often felt his familiar habit of ironic thought fall
shattered against Antonia's gravity. She irritated him as if she,
too, had suffered from that inexplicable feminine obtuseness
which stands so often between a man and a woman of the more
ordinary sort. But he overcame his vexation at once. He was very
far from thinking Antonia ordinary, whatever verdict his
scepticism might have pronounced upon himself. With a touch of
penetrating tenderness in his voice he assured her that his only
aspiration was to a felicity so high that it seemed almost
unrealizable on this earth.

She coloured invisibly, with a warmth against which the breeze
from the sierra seemed to have lost its cooling power in the
sudden melting of the snows. His whisper could not have carried
so far, though there was enough ardour in his tone to melt a
heart of ice. Antonia turned away abruptly, as if to carry his
whispered assurance into the room behind, full of light, noisy
with voices.