Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN (continued)

"No, don't, Giovanni. Not-to-night. Linda and father have been
talking together for a long time today."

"What about?"

"Ramirez, I fancy I heard. I do not know. I am afraid. I am
always afraid. It is like dying a thousand times a day. Your love
is to me like your treasure to you. It is there, but I can never
get enough of it."

He looked at her very still. She was beautiful. His desire had
grown within him. He had two masters now. But she was incapable
of sustained emotion. She was sincere in what she said, but she
slept placidly at night. When she saw him she flamed up always.
Then only an increased taciturnity marked the change in her. She
was afraid of betraying herself. She was afraid of pain, of
bodily harm, of sharp words, of facing anger, and witnessing
violence. For her soul was light and tender with a pagan
sincerity in its impulses. She murmured--

"Give up the palazzo, Giovanni, and the vineyard on the hills,
for which we are starving our love."

She ceased, seeing Linda standing silent at the corner of the
house.

Nostromo turned to his affianced wife with a greeting, and was
amazed at her sunken eyes, at her hollow cheeks, at the air of
illness and anguish in her face.

"Have you been ill?" he asked, trying to put some concern into
this question.

Her black eyes blazed at him. "Am I thinner?" she asked.

"Yes--perhaps--a little."

"And older?"

"Every day counts--for all of us."

"I shall go grey, I fear, before the ring is on my finger," she
said, slowly, keeping her gaze fastened upon him.

She waited for what he would say, rolling down her turned-up
sleeves.