Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 11. CHAPTER ELEVEN (continued)

"Yes, but the material interests will not let you jeopardize
their development for a mere idea of pity and justice," the
doctor muttered grumpily. "And it is just as well perhaps."

The Cardinal-Archbishop straightened up his gaunt, bony frame.

"We have worked for them; we have made them, these material
interests of the foreigners," the last of the Corbelans uttered
in a deep, denunciatory tone.

"And without them you are nothing," cried the doctor from the
distance. "They will not let you."

"Let them beware, then, lest the people, prevented from their
aspirations, should rise and claim their share of the wealth and
their share of the power," the popular Cardinal-Archbishop of
Sulaco declared, significantly, menacingly.

A silence ensued, during which his Eminence stared, frowning at
the ground, and Antonia, graceful and rigid in her chair,
breathed calmly in the strength of her convictions. Then the
conversation took a social turn, touching on the visit of the
Goulds to Europe. The Cardinal-Archbishop, when in Rome, had
suffered from neuralgia in the head all the time. It was the
climate--the bad air.

When uncle and niece had gone away, with the servants again
falling on their knees, and the old porter, who had known Henry
Gould, almost totally blind and impotent now, creeping up to kiss
his Eminence's extended hand, Dr. Monygham, looking after them,
pronounced the one word--

"Incorrigible!"

Mrs. Gould, with a look upwards, dropped wearily on her lap her
white hands flashing with the gold and stones of many rings.