Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

"Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!"

"No," Charles Gould said, moodily; "it was impossible to leave it
alone."

"Perhaps it was impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly. Her
lips quivered a little, but she smiled with an air of dainty
bravado. "We have disturbed a good many snakes in that Paradise,
Charley, haven't we?"

"Yes, I remember," said Charles Gould, "it was Don Pepe who
called the gorge the Paradise of snakes. No doubt we have
disturbed a great many. But remember, my dear, that it is not now
as it was when you made that sketch." He waved his hand towards
the small water-colour hanging alone upon the great bare wall.
"It is no longer a Paradise of snakes. We have brought mankind
into it, and we cannot turn our backs upon them to go and begin a
new life elsewhere."

He confronted his wife with a firm, concentrated gaze, which Mrs.
Gould returned with a brave assumption of fearlessness before she
went out, closing the door gently after her.

In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly lit corredor
had a restful mysteriousness of a forest glade, suggested by the
stems and the leaves of the plants ranged along the balustrade of
the open side. In the streaks of light falling through the open
doors of the reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and
pale lilac, came out vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a
stream of sunshine; and Mrs. Gould, passing on, had the vividness
of a figure seen in the clear patches of sun that chequer the
gloom of open glades in the woods. The stones in the rings upon
her hand pressed to her forehead glittered in the lamplight
abreast of the door of the sala.

"Who's there?" she asked, in a startled voice. "Is that you,
Basilio?" She looked in, and saw Martin Decoud walking about,
with an air of having lost something, amongst the chairs and
tables.

"Antonia has forgotten her fan in here," said Decoud, with a
strange air of distraction; "so I entered to see."