Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 4. CHAPTER FOUR (continued)

Don Juste, astonishingly changed by having shaved off altogether
his damaged beard, had lost with it ninetenths of his outward
dignity. Even at that time of serious pre-occupation Charles
Gould could not help noting the revealed ineptitude in the aspect
of the man. His companions looked crestfallen and sleepy. One
kept on passing the tip of his tongue over his parched lips; the
other's eyes strayed dully over the tiled floor of the corredor,
while Don Juste, standing a little in advance, harangued the
Senor Administrador of the San Tome mine. It was his firm opinion
that forms had to be observed. A new governor is always visited
by deputations from the Cabildo, which is the Municipal Council,
from the Consulado, the commercial Board, and it was proper that
the Provincial Assembly should send a deputation, too, if only to
assert the existence of parliamentary institutions. Don Juste
proposed that Don Carlos Gould, as the most prominent citizen of
the province, should join the Assembly's deputation. His position
was exceptional, his personality known through the length and
breadth of the whole Republic. Official courtesies must not be
neglected, if they are gone through with a bleeding heart. The
acceptance of accomplished facts may save yet the precious
vestiges of parliamentary institutions. Don Juste's eyes glowed
dully; he believed in parliamentary institutions--and the
convinced drone of his voice lost itself in the stillness of the
house like the deep buzzing of some ponderous insect.

Charles Gould had turned round to listen patiently, leaning his
elbow on the balustrade. He shook his head a little, refusing,
almost touched by the anxious gaze of the President of the
Provincial Assembly. It was not Charles Gould's policy to make
the San Tome mine a party to any formal proceedings.

"My advice, senores, is that you should wait for your fate in
your houses. There is no necessity for you to give yourselves up
formally into Montero's hands. Submission to the inevitable, as
Don Juste calls it, is all very well, but when the inevitable is
called Pedrito Montero there is no need to exhibit pointedly the
whole extent of your surrender. The fault of this country is the
want of measure in political life. Flat acquiescence in
illegality, followed by sanguinary reaction--that, senores, is
not the way to a stable and prosperous future."