 | CHAPTER FOUR Nostromo: a Tale of the Seaboard / Joseph Conrad |  |
4. CHAPTER FOUR
PERHAPS it was in the exercise of his calling that he
had come to see the troops depart. The Porvenir of the
day after next would no doubt relate the event, but its
editor, leaning his side against the landau, seemed to
look at nothing. The front rank of the company of
infantry drawn up three deep across the shore end of the
jetty when pressed too close would bring their bayonets
to the charge ferociously, with an awful rattle; and then
the crowd of spectators swayed back bodily, even under
the noses of the big white mules. Notwithstanding the
great multitude there was only a low, muttering noise;
the dust hung in a brown haze, in which the horsemen,
wedged in the throng here and there, towered from the
hips upwards, gazing all one way over the heads. Almost
every one of them had mounted a friend, who
steadied himself with both hands grasping his shoulders
from behind; and the rims of their hats touching, made
like one disc sustaining the cones of two pointed crowns
with a double face underneath. A hoarse mozo would
bawl out something to an acquaintance in the ranks, or
a woman would shriek suddenly the word Adios!
followed by the Christian name of a man.
General Barrios, in a shabby blue tunic and white
peg-top trousers falling upon strange red boots, kept his
head uncovered and stooped slightly, propping himself
up with a thick stick. No! He had earned enough
military glory to satiate any man, he insisted to Mrs.
Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of gallantry
into his attitude. A few jetty hairs hung sparsely from
a black silk patch over one eye. His other eye, small
and deep-set, twinkled erratically in all directions,
aimlessly affable. The few European spectators, all
men, who had naturally drifted into the neighbourhood
of the Gould carriage, betrayed by the solemnity of their
faces their impression that the general must have had too
much punch (Swedish punch, imported in bottles by
Anzani) at the Amarilla Club before he had started with
his Staff on a furious ride to the harbour. But Mrs.
Gould bent forward, self-possessed, and declared her
conviction that still more glory awaited the general in
the near future.
"Señora!" he remonstrated, with great feeling, "in
the name of God, reflect! How can there be any glory
for a man like me in overcoming that bald-headed
embustero with the dyed moustaches?"
Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village alcalde, general
of division, commanding in chief the Occidental Military
district, did not frequent the higher society of the
town. He preferred the unceremonious gatherings of
men where he could tell jaguar-hunt stories, boast of
his powers with the lasso, with which he could perform
extremely difficult feats of the sort "no married man
should attempt," as the saying goes amongst the
llaneros; relate tales of extraordinary night rides, encounters
with wild bulls, struggles with crocodiles,
adventures in the great forests, crossings of swollen
rivers. And it was not mere boastfulness that prompted
the general's reminiscences, but a genuine love of that
wild life which he had led in his young days before he
turned his back for ever on the thatched roof of the
parental tolderia in the woods. Wandering away as
far as Mexico he had fought against the French by the
side (as he said) of Juarez, and was the only military
troops in the field. That fact shed a great lustre upon
his name till it became eclipsed by the rising star of
Montero. All his life he had been an inveterate gambler.
He alluded himself quite openly to the current
story how once, during some campaign (when in command
of a brigade), he had gambled away his horses,
pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes,
playing monte with his colonels the night before the
battle. Finally, he had sent under escort his sword
(a presentation sword, with a gold hilt) to the town in
the rear of his position to be immediately pledged for
five hundred pesetas with a sleepy and frightened
shop-keeper. By daybreak he had lost the last of that
money, too, when his only remark, as he rose calmly,
was, "Now let us go and fight to the death." From
that time he had become aware that a general could
lead his troops into battle very well with a simple stick
in his hand. "It has been my custom ever since," he
would say.
He was always overwhelmed with debts; even during
the periods of splendour in his varied fortunes of a
Costaguana general, when he held high military commands,
his gold-laced uniforms were almost always in
pawn with some tradesman. And at last, to avoid the
incessant difficulties of costume caused by the anxious
lenders, he had assumed a disdain of military trappings,
an eccentric fashion of shabby old tunics, which had
become like a second nature. But the faction Barrios
joined needed to fear no political betrayal. He was
too much of a real soldier for the ignoble traffic of buying
and selling victories. A member of the foreign
diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a
judgment upon him: "Barrios is a man of perfect
honesty and even of some talent for war, mais il manque
obtained the reputedly lucrative Occidental command,
mainly through the exertions of his creditors (the Sta.
Marta shopkeepers, all great politicians), who moved
heaven and earth in his interest publicly, and privately
besieged Señor Moraga, the influential agent of the
San Tomé mine, with the exaggerated lamentations
that if the general were passed over, "We shall all be
ruined." An incidental but favourable mention of his
name in Mr. Gould senior's long correspondence with
his son had something to do with his appointment, too;
but most of all undoubtedly his established political
honesty. No one questioned the personal bravery of
the Tiger-killer, as the populace called him. He was,
however, said to be unlucky in the field — but this was
to be the beginning of an era of peace. The soldiers
liked him for his humane temper, which was like a
strange and precious flower unexpectedly blooming on
the hotbed of corrupt revolutions; and when he rode
slowly through the streets during some military display,
the contemptuous good humour of his solitary eye roaming
over the crowds extorted the acclamations of the
populace. The women of that class especially seemed
positively fascinated by the long drooping nose, the
peaked chin, the heavy lower lip, the black silk eye-
patch and band slanting rakishly over the forehead.
His high rank always procured an audience of Caballeros
for his sporting stories, which he detailed very
well with a simple, grave enjoyment. As to the society
of ladies, it was irksome by the restraints it imposed
without any equivalent, as far as he could see. He had
not, perhaps, spoken three times on the whole to Mrs.
Gould since he had taken up his high command; but he
had observed her frequently riding with the Señor
Administrador, and had pronounced that there was
heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very
civil on parting to a woman who did not wobble in the
saddle, and happened to be the wife of a personality
very important to a man always short of money. He
even pushed his attentions so far as to desire the aide-de-
camp at his side (a thick-set, short captain with a Tartar
physiognomy) to bring along a corporal with a file of
men in front of the carriage, lest the crowd in its backward
surges should "incommode the mules of the
señora." Then, turning to the small knot of silent
Europeans looking on within earshot, he raised his
voice protectingly —
"Señores, have no apprehension. Go on quietly
making your Ferro Carril — your railways, your telegraphs.
Your — There's enough wealth in Costaguana
to pay for everything — or else you would not be
here. Ha! ha! Don't mind this little picardia of my
friend Montero. In a little while you shall behold his
dyed moustaches through the bars of a strong wooden
cage. Si, señores! Fear nothing, develop the country,
work, work!"
The little group of engineers received this exhortation
without a word, and after waving his hand at them
loftily, he addressed himself again to Mrs. Gould —
"That is what Don José says we must do. Be enterprising!
Work! Grow rich! To put Montero in a
cage is my work; and when that insignificant piece of
business is done, then, as Don José wishes us, we shall
grow rich, one and all, like so many Englishmen, because
it is money that saves a country, and —"
But a young officer in a very new uniform, hurrying
up from the direction of the jetty, interrupted his
interpretation of Señor Avellanos's ideals. The general
made a movement of impatience; the other went on
horses of the Staff had been embarked, the steamer's
gig was awaiting the general at the boat steps; and
Barrios, after a fierce stare of his one eye, began to take
leave. Don José roused himself for an appropriate
phrase pronounced mechanically. The terrible strain
of hope and fear was telling on him, and he seemed to
husband the last sparks of his fire for those oratorical
efforts of which even the distant Europe was to hear.
Antonia, her red lips firmly closed, averted her head
behind the raised fan; and young Decoud, though he
felt the girl's eyes upon him, gazed away persistently,
hooked on his elbow, with a scornful and complete detachment.
Mrs. Gould heroically concealed her dismay
at the appearance of men and events so remote
from her racial conventions, dismay too deep to be
uttered in words even to her husband. She understood
his voiceless reserve better now. Their confidential
intercourse fell, not in moments of privacy, but precisely
in public, when the quick meeting of their glances
would comment upon some fresh turn of events. She
had gone to his school of uncompromising silence, the
only one possible, since so much that seemed shocking,
weird, and grotesque in the working out of their purposes
had to be accepted as normal in this country.
Decidedly, the stately Antonia looked more mature and
infinitely calm; but she would never have known how
to reconcile the sudden sinkings of her heart with an
amiable mobility of expression.
Mrs. Gould smiled a good-bye at Barrios, nodded
round to the Europeans (who raised their hats simultaneously)
with an engaging invitation, "I hope to
see you all presently, at home"; then said nervously to
Decoud, "Get in, Don Martin," and heard him mutter
to himself in French, as he opened the carriage door,
exasperation. Nobody ought to have known better
than himself that the first cast of dice had been already
thrown long ago in a most desperate game. Distant
acclamations, words of command yelled out, and a roll
of drums on the jetty greeted the departing general.
Something like a slight faintness came over her, and she
looked blankly at Antonia's still face, wondering what
would happen to Charley if that absurd man failed.
"A la casa, Ignacio," she cried at the motionless broad
back of the coachman, who gathered the reins without
haste, mumbling to himself under his breath, "Si,
la casa. Si, si niña."
The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the
shadows fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed
with dark bushes, mounds of turned-up earth, low
wooden buildings with iron roofs of the Railway
Company; the sparse row of telegraph poles strode
obliquely clear of the town, bearing a single, almost invisible
wire far into the great campo — like a slender,
vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside for a
moment of peace to enter and twine itself about the
weary heart of the land.
The café window of the Albergo d'ltalia Una was full
of sunburnt, whiskered faces of railway men. But at
the other end of the house, the end of the Signori
Inglesi, old Giorgio, at the door with one of his girls on
each side, bared his bushy head, as white as the snows of
Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage. She
seldom failed to speak to her protégé; moreover, the
excitement, the heat, and the dust had made her
thirsty. She asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent
the children indoors for it, and approached with pleasure
expressed in his whole rugged countenance. It was not
often that he had occasion to see his benefactress,
regard. He offered some excuses for his wife. It
was a bad day with her; her oppressions — he tapped his
own broad chest. She could not move from her chair
that day.
Decoud, ensconced in the corner of his seat, observed
gloomily Mrs. Gould's old revolutionist, then, offhand —
"Well, and what do you think of it all, Garibaldino?"
Old Giorgio, looking at him with some curiosity, said
civilly that the troops had marched very well. One-
eyed Barrios and his officers had done wonders with the
recruits in a short time. Those Indios, only caught the
other day, had gone swinging past in double quick time,
like bersaglieri; they looked well fed, too, and had whole
uniforms. "Uniforms!" he repeated with a half-smile
of pity. A look of grim retrospect stole over his piercing,
steady eyes. It had been otherwise in his time
when men fought against tyranny, in the forests of
Brazil, or on the plains of Uruguay, starving on half-
raw beef without salt, half naked, with often only a
knife tied to a stick for a weapon. "And yet we
used to prevail against the oppressor," he concluded,
proudly.
His animation fell; the slight gesture of his hand
expressed discouragement; but he added that he had
asked one of the sergeants to show him the new rifle.
There was no such weapon in his fighting days; and if
Barrios could not —
"Yes, yes," broke in Don José, almost trembling
with eagerness. "We are safe. The good Señor Viola
is a man of experience. Extremely deadly — is it not
so? You have accomplished your mission admirably,
my dear Martin."
Decoud, lolling back moodily, contemplated old
Viola.
"Ah! Yes. A man of experience. But who are
you for, really, in your heart?"
Mrs. Gould leaned over to the children. Linda had
brought out a glass of water on a tray, with extreme
care; Giselle presented her with a bunch of flowers
gathered hastily.
"For the people," declared old Viola, sternly.
"We are all for the people — in the end."
"Yes," muttered old Viola, savagely. "And meantime
they fight for you. Blind. Esclavos!"
At that moment young Scarfe of the railway staff
emerged from the door of the part reserved for the
Signori Inglesi. He had come down to headquarters
from somewhere up the line on a light engine, and had
had just time to get a bath and change his clothes. He
was a nice boy, and Mrs. Gould welcomed him.
"It's a delightful surprise to see you, Mrs. Gould.
I've just come down. Usual luck. Missed everything,
of course. This show is just over, and I hear there has
been a great dance at Don Juste Lopez's last night. Is
it true?"
"The young patricians," Decoud began suddenly in
his precise English, "have indeed been dancing before
they started off to the war with the Great Pompey."
Young Scarfe stared, astounded. "You haven't
met before," Mrs. Gould intervened. "Mr. Decoud —
Mr. Scarfe."
"Ah! But we are not going to Pharsalia," protested
Don José, with nervous haste, also in English.
"You should not jest like this, Martin."
Antonia's breast rose and fell with a deeper breath.
The young engineer was utterly in the dark. "Great
what?" he muttered, vaguely.
"Luckily, Montero is not a Cæsar," Decoud continued.
"Not the two Monteros put together would
arms on his breast, looking at Señor Avellanos, who
had returned to his immobility. "It is only you, Don
José, who are a genuine old Roman — vir Romanus —
eloquent and inflexible."
Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced,
young Scarfe had been eager to express his simple feelings.
In a loud and youthful tone he hoped that this
Montero was going to be licked once for all and done
with. There was no saying what would happen to the
railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps
it would have to be abandoned. It would not be the
first railway gone to pot in Costaguana. "You know,
it's one of their so-called national things," he ran on,
wrinkling up his nose as if the word had a suspicious
flavour to his profound experience of South American
affairs. And, of course, he chatted with animation, it
had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his
age to get appointed on the staff "of a big thing like
that — don't you know." It would give him the pull
over a lot of chaps all through life, he asserted. "Therefore
— down with Montero! Mrs. Gould." His artless
grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity
of the faces turned upon him from the carriage; only
that "old chap," Don José, presenting a motionless,
waxy profile, stared straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did
not know the Avellanos very well. They did not give
balls, and Antonia never appeared at a ground-floor
window, as some other young ladies used to do attended
by elder women, to chat with the caballeros on
horseback in the Calle. The stares of these creoles did
not matter much; but what on earth had come to Mrs.
Gould? She said, "Go on, Ignacio," and gave him a
slow inclination of the head. He heard a short laugh
from that round-faced, Frenchified fellow. He coloured
fallen back with the children, hat in hand.
"I shall want a horse presently," he said with some
asperity to the old man.
"Si, señor. There are plenty of horses," murmured
the Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with his brown
hands, the two heads, one dark with bronze glints, the
other fair with a coppery ripple, of the two girls by his
side. The returning stream of sightseers raised a
great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the group.
"Go to your mother," he said. "They are growing up
as I am growing older, and there is nobody —"
He looked at the young engineer and stopped, as if
awakened from a dream; then, folding his arms on his
breast, took up his usual position, leaning back in the
doorway with an upward glance fastened on the white
shoulder of Higuerota far away.
In the carriage Martin Decoud, shifting his position
as though he could not make himself comfortable, muttered
as he swayed towards Antonia, "I suppose you
hate me." Then in a loud voice he began to congratulate
Don José upon all the engineers being convinced
Ribierists. The interest of all those foreigners
was gratifying. "You have heard this one. He is an
enlightened well-wisher. It is pleasant to think that
the prosperity of Costaguana is of some use to the
world."
"He is very young," Mrs. Gould remarked, quietly.
"And so very wise for his age," retorted Decoud.
"But here we have the naked truth from the mouth of
that child. You are right, Don José. The natural
treasures of Costaguana are of importance to the progressive
Europe represented by this youth, just as three
hundred years ago the wealth of our Spanish fathers
was a serious object to the rest of Europe — as represented
futility upon our character: Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza, chivalry and materialism, high-sounding sentiments
and a supine morality, violent efforts for an idea
and a sullen acquiescence in every form of corruption.
We convulsed a continent for our independence only to
become the passive prey of a democratic parody, the
helpless victims of scoundrels and cut-throats, our
institutions a mockery, our laws a farce — a Guzman
Bento our master! And we have sunk so low that when
a man like you has awakened our conscience, a stupid
barbarian of a Montero — Great Heavens! a Montero! —
becomes a deadly danger, and an ignorant, boastful
Indio, like Barrios, is our defender."
But Don José, disregarding the general indictment as
though he had not heard a word of it, took up the defence
of Barrios. The man was competent enough for
his special task in the plan of campaign. It consisted
in an offensive movement, with Cayta as base, upon the
flank of the Revolutionist forces advancing from the
south against Sta. Marta, which was covered by another
army with the President-Dictator in its midst. Don
José became quite animated with a great flow of speech,
bending forward anxiously under the steady eyes of his
daughter. Decoud, as if silenced by so much ardour,
did not make a sound. The bells of the city were striking
the hour of Oracion when the carriage rolled under
the old gateway facing the harbour like a shapeless
monument of leaves and stones. The rumble of wheels
under the sonorous arch was traversed by a strange,
piercing shriek, and Decoud, from his back seat, had a
view of the people behind the carriage trudging along
the road outside, all turning their heads, in sombreros
and rebozos, to look at a locomotive which rolled
quickly out of sight behind Giorgio Viola's house, under
breathless, hysterically prolonged scream of warlike
triumph. And it was all like a fleeting vision, the
shrieking ghost of a railway engine fleeing across the
frame of the archway, behind the startled movement
of the people streaming back from a military spectacle
with silent footsteps on the dust of the road. It was a
material train returning from the Campo to the palisaded
yards. The empty cars rolled lightly on the
single track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor
of the ground. The engine-driver, running past the
Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm, checked
his speed smartly before entering the yard; and when
the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for the
brakes had stopped, a series of hard, battering shocks,
mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings, made a
tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of
the gate.
| CHAPTER FOUR Nostromo: a Tale of the Seaboard / Joseph Conrad | |