Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


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 de tenue_." After the triumph of the
Ribierists he had 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 Senor Moraga, the influential
agent of the San Tome 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 eyepatch 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 Senor Administrador, and had pronounced
that there was more sense in her little bridle-hand than in all the
female 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 senora." Then,
turning to the small knot of silent Europeans looking on within earshot,
he raised his voice protectingly--

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