Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


Don Jose Avellanos loved his country. He had served it lavishly with
his fortune during his diplomatic career, and the later story of his
captivity and barbarous ill-usage under Guzman Bento was well known
to his listeners. It was a wonder that he had not been a victim of
the ferocious and summary executions which marked the course of that
tyranny; for Guzman had ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of
political fanaticism. The power of Supreme Government had become in his
dull mind an object of strange worship, as if it were some sort of
cruel deity. It was incarnated in himself, and his adversaries, the
Federalists, were the supreme sinners, objects of hate, abhorrence, and
fear, as heretics would be to a convinced Inquisitor. For years he had
carried about at the tail of the Army of Pacification, all over the
country, a captive band of such atrocious criminals, who considered
themselves most unfortunate at not having been summarily executed. It
was a diminishing company of nearly naked skeletons, loaded with irons,
covered with dirt, with vermin, with raw wounds, all men of position,
of education, of wealth, who had learned to fight amongst themselves for
scraps of rotten beef thrown to them by soldiers, or to beg a negro
cook for a drink of muddy water in pitiful accents. Don Jose Avellanos,
clanking his chains amongst the others, seemed only to exist in order to
prove how much hunger, pain, degradation, and cruel torture a human
body can stand without parting with the last spark of life. Sometimes
interrogatories, backed by some primitive method of torture, were
administered to them by a commission of officers hastily assembled in a
hut of sticks and branches, and made pitiless by the fear for their own
lives. A lucky one or two of that spectral company of prisoners would
perhaps be led tottering behind a bush to be shot by a file of soldiers.
Always an army chaplain--some unshaven, dirty man, girt with a sword and
with a tiny cross embroidered in white cotton on the left breast of
a lieutenant's uniform--would follow, cigarette in the corner of the
mouth, wooden stool in hand, to hear the confession and give absolution;
for the Citizen Saviour of the Country (Guzman Bento was called thus
officially in petitions) was not averse from the exercise of rational
clemency. The irregular report of the firing squad would be heard,
followed sometimes by a single finishing shot; a little bluish cloud
of smoke would float up above the green bushes, and the Army of
Pacification would move on over the savannas, through the forests,
crossing rivers, invading rural pueblos, devastating the haciendas of
the horrid aristocrats, occupying the inland towns in the fulfilment of
its patriotic mission, and leaving behind a united land wherein the evil
taint of Federalism could no longer be detected in the smoke of burning
houses and the smell of spilt blood. Don Jose Avellanos had survived
that time. Perhaps, when contemptuously signifying to him his release,
the Citizen Saviour of the Country might have thought this benighted
aristocrat too broken in health and spirit and fortune to be any longer
dangerous. Or, perhaps, it may have been a simple caprice. Guzman Bento,
usually full of fanciful fears and brooding suspicions, had sudden
accesses of unreasonable self-confidence when he perceived himself
elevated on a pinnacle of power and safety beyond the reach of mere
mortal plotters. At such times he would impulsively command the
celebration of a solemn Mass of thanksgiving, which would be sung in
great pomp in the cathedral of Sta. Marta by the trembling, subservient
Archbishop of his creation. He heard it sitting in a gilt armchair
placed before the high altar, surrounded by the civil and military heads
of his Government. The unofficial world of Sta. Marta would crowd into
the cathedral, for it was not quite safe for anybody of mark to stay
away from these manifestations of presidential piety. Having thus
acknowledged the only power he was at all disposed to recognize as
above himself, he would scatter acts of political grace in a sardonic
wantonness of clemency. There was no other way left now to enjoy his
power but by seeing his crushed adversaries crawl impotently into the
light of day out of the dark, noisome cells of the Collegio. Their
harmlessness fed his insatiable vanity, and they could always be got
hold of again. It was the rule for all the women of their families to
present thanks afterwards in a special audience. The incarnation of that
strange god, El Gobierno Supremo, received them standing, cocked hat on
head, and exhorted them in a menacing mutter to show their gratitude
by bringing up their children in fidelity to the democratic form of
government, "which I have established for the happiness of our country."
His front teeth having been knocked out in some accident of his former
herdsman's life, his utterance was spluttering and indistinct. He
had been working for Costaguana alone in the midst of treachery and
opposition. Let it cease now lest he should become weary of forgiving!

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