Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


The Capataz, extending his hand, put out the candle suddenly. It was to
Decoud as if his companion had destroyed, by a single touch, the world
of affairs, of loves, of revolution, where his complacent superiority
analyzed fearlessly all motives and all passions, including his own.


He gasped a little. Decoud was affected by the novelty of his position.
Intellectually self-confident, he suffered from being deprived of the
only weapon he could use with effect. No intelligence could penetrate
the darkness of the Placid Gulf. There remained only one thing he was
certain of, and that was the overweening vanity of his companion. It was
direct, uncomplicated, naive, and effectual. Decoud, who had been
making use of him, had tried to understand his man thoroughly. He
had discovered a complete singleness of motive behind the varied
manifestations of a consistent character. This was why the man remained
so astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his conceit. And now
there was a complication. It was evident that he resented having been
given a task in which there were so many chances of failure. "I wonder,"
thought Decoud, "how he would behave if I were not here."

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