Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 12. CHAPTER TWELVE (continued)

Released, she hung her head, let fall her hands. The altar-cloth,
as if tossed by a great wind, lay far away from them, gleaming
white on the black ground.

"From fear of losing my hope of you," said Nostromo.

"You knew that you had my soul! You know everything! It was made
for you! But what could stand between you and me? What? Tell me!"
she repeated, without impatience, in superb assurance.

"Your dead mother," he said, very low.

"Ah! . . . Poor mother! She has always . . . She is a saint in
heaven now, and I cannot give you up to her. No, Giovanni. Only
to God alone. You were mad--but it is done. Oh! what have you
done? Giovanni, my beloved, my life, my master, do not leave me
here in this grave of clouds. You cannot leave me now. You must
take me away--at once--this instant--in the little boat.
Giovanni, carry me off to-night, from my fear of Linda's eyes,
before I have to look at her again."

She nestled close to him. The slave of the San Tome silver felt
the weight as of chains upon his limbs, a pressure as of a cold
hand upon his lips. He struggled against the spell.

"I cannot," he said. "Not yet. There is something that stands
between us two and the freedom of the world."

She pressed her form closer to his side with a subtle and naive
instinct of seduction.

"You rave, Giovanni--my lover!" she whispered, engagingly. "What
can there be? Carry me off--in thy very hands--to Dona
Emilia--away from here. I am not very heavy."

It seemed as though she expected him to lift her up at once in
his two palms. She had lost the notion of all impossibility.
Anything could happen on this night of wonder. As he made no
movement, she almost cried aloud--