Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


"I am waiting for him here now. On arriving at the posada kept by Viola
we found the children alone down below, and the old Genoese shouted to
his countryman to go and fetch the doctor. Otherwise we would have gone
on to the wharf, where it appears Captain Mitchell with some volunteer
Europeans and a few picked Cargadores are loading the lighter with the
silver that must be saved from Montero's clutches in order to be used
for Montero's defeat. Nostromo galloped furiously back towards the town.
He has been long gone already. This delay gives me time to talk to you.
By the time this pocket-book reaches your hands much will have happened.
But now it is a pause under the hovering wing of death in this silent
house buried in the black night, with this dying woman, the two children
crouching without a sound, and that old man whom I can hear through the
thickness of the wall passing up and down with a light rubbing noise no
louder than a mouse. And I, the only other with them, don't really know
whether to count myself with the living or with the dead. 'Quien sabe?'
as the people here are prone to say in answer to every question. But no!
feeling for you is certainly not dead, and the whole thing, the house,
the dark night, the silent children in this dim room, my very presence
here--all this is life, must be life, since it is so much like a dream."

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~
Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.