Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 7. CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)

"Give her a spoonful of this now and then, in water," he said.
"It will make her easier."

"And there is nothing more for her?" asked the old man,
patiently.

"No. Not on earth," said the doctor, with his back to him,
clicking the lock of the medicine case.

Nostromo slowly crossed the large kitchen, all dark but for the
glow of a heap of charcoal under the heavy mantel of the
cooking-range, where water was boiling in an iron pot with a loud
bubbling sound. Between the two walls of a narrow staircase a
bright light streamed from the sick-room above; and the
magnificent Capataz de Cargadores stepping noiselessly in soft
leather sandals, bushy whiskered, his muscular neck and bronzed
chest bare in the open check shirt, resembled a Mediterranean
sailor just come ashore from some wine or fruit-laden felucca. At
the top he paused, broad shouldered, narrow hipped and supple,
looking at the large bed, like a white couch of state, with a
profusion of snowy linen, amongst which the Padrona sat unpropped
and bowed, her handsome, black-browed face bent over her chest. A
mass of raven hair with only a few white threads in it covered
her shoulders; one thick strand fallen forward half veiled her
cheek. Perfectly motionless in that pose, expressing physical
anxiety and unrest, she turned her eyes alone towards Nostromo.

The Capataz had a red sash wound many times round his waist, and
a heavy silver ring on the forefinger of the hand he raised to
give a twist to his moustache.

"Their revolutions, their revolutions," gasped Senora Teresa.
"Look, Gian' Battista, it has killed me at last!"

Nostromo said nothing, and the sick woman with an upward glance
insisted. "Look, this one has killed me, while you were away
fighting for what did not concern you, foolish man."

"Why talk like this?" mumbled the Capataz between his teeth.
"Will you never believe in my good sense? It concerns me to keep
on being what I am: every day alike."