Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 1. CHAPTER ONE (continued)

"Why are you uneasy about it, doctor?"

"I uneasy! And what the devil is it to me? I put no spiritual
value into my desires, or my opinions, or my actions. They have
not enough vastness to give me room for self-flattery. Look, for
instance, I should certainly have liked to ease the last moments
of that poor woman. And I can't. It's impossible. Have you met
the impossible face to face--or have you, the Napoleon of
railways, no such word in your dictionary?"

"Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?" asked the chief
engineer, with humane concern.

Slow, heavy footsteps moved across the planks above the heavy
hard wood beams of the kitchen. Then down the narrow opening of
the staircase made in the thickness of the wall, and narrow
enough to be defended by one man against twenty enemies, came the
murmur of two voices, one faint and broken, the other deep and
gentle answering it, and in its graver tone covering the weaker
sound.

The two men remained still and silent till the murmurs ceased,
then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and muttered--

"Yes, she's bound to. And I could do nothing if I went up now."

A long period of silence above and below ensued.

"I fancy," began the engineer, in a subdued voice, "that you
mistrust Captain Mitchell's Capataz."