Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

"Teresa was right, too," he added in a low tone touched with awe.
He wondered whether she was dead in her anger with him or still
alive. As if in answer to this thought, half of remorse and half
of hope, with a soft flutter and oblique flight, a big owl, whose
appalling cry: "Ya-acabo! Ya-acabo!--it is finished; it is
finished"--announces calamity and death in the popular belief,
drifted vaguely like a large dark ball across his path. In the
downfall of all the realities that made his force, he was
affected by the superstition, and shuddered slightly. Signora
Teresa must have died, then. It could mean nothing else. The cry
of the ill-omened bird, the first sound he was to hear on his
return, was a fitting welcome for his betrayed individuality. The
unseen powers which he had offended by refusing to bring a priest
to a dying woman were lifting up their voice against him. She was
dead. With admirable and human consistency he referred everything
to himself. She had been a woman of good counsel always. And the
bereaved old Giorgio remained stunned by his loss just as he was
likely to require the advice of his sagacity. The blow would
render the dreamy old man quite stupid for a time.

As to Captain Mitchell, Nostromo, after the manner of trusted
subordinates, considered him as a person fitted by education
perhaps to sign papers in an office and to give orders, but
otherwise of no use whatever, and something of a fool. The
necessity of winding round his little finger, almost daily, the
pompous and testy self-importance of the old seaman had grown
irksome with use to Nostromo. At first it had given him an inward
satisfaction. But the necessity of overcoming small obstacles
becomes wearisome to a self-confident personality as much by the
certitude of success as by the monotony of effort. He mistrusted
his superior's proneness to fussy action. That old Englishman had
no judgment, he said to himself. It was useless to suppose that,
acquainted with the true state of the case, he would keep it to
himself. He would talk of doing impracticable things. Nostromo
feared him as one would fear saddling one's self with some
persistent worry. He had no discretion. He would betray the
treasure. And Nostromo had made up his mind that the treasure
should not be betrayed.