Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

The tide of political speculation was beating high within the
four walls of the great sala, as if driven beyond the marks by a
great gust of hope. Don Juste's fan-shaped beard was still the
centre of loud and animated discussions. There was a
self-confident ring in all the voices. Even the few Europeans
around Charles Gould--a Dane, a couple of Frenchmen, a discreet
fat German, smiling, with down-cast eyes, the representatives of
those material interests that had got a footing in Sulaco under
the protecting might of the San Tome mine--had infused a lot of
good humour into their deference. Charles Gould, to whom they
were paying their court, was the visible sign of the stability
that could be achieved on the shifting ground of revolutions.
They felt hopeful about their various undertakings. One of the
two Frenchmen, small, black, with glittering eyes lost in an
immense growth of bushy beard, waved his tiny brown hands and
delicate wrists. He had been travelling in the interior of the
province for a syndicate of European capitalists. His forcible
"Monsieur l' Administrateur" returning every minute shrilled
above the steady hum of conversations. He was relating his
discoveries. He was ecstatic. Charles Gould glanced down at him
courteously.

At a given moment of these necessary receptions it was Mrs.
Gould's habit to withdraw quietly into a little drawing-room,
especially her own, next to the great sala. She had risen, and,
waiting for Antonia, listened with a slightly worried
graciousness to the engineer-in-chief of the railway, who stooped
over her, relating slowly, without the slightest gesture,
something apparently amusing, for his eyes had a humorous
twinkle. Antonia, before she advanced into the room to join Mrs.
Gould, turned her head over her shoulder towards Decoud, only for
a moment.

"Why should any one of us think his aspirations unrealizable?"
she said, rapidly.

"I am going to cling to mine to the end, Antonia," he answered,
through clenched teeth, then bowed very low, a little distantly.