Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


"I am not surprised," he muttered, abandoning his moustaches and
throwing one arm over the back of his chair. His face was calm with
that immobility of expression which betrays the intensity of a mental
struggle. He felt that this accident had brought to a point all the
consequences involved in his line of conduct, with its conscious
and subconscious intentions. There must be an end now of this silent
reserve, of that air of impenetrability behind which he had been
safeguarding his dignity. It was the least ignoble form of dissembling
forced upon him by that parody of civilized institutions which offended
his intelligence, his uprightness, and his sense of right. He was like
his father. He had no ironic eye. He was not amused at the absurdities
that prevail in this world. They hurt him in his innate gravity. He
felt that the miserable death of that poor Decoud took from him his
inaccessible position of a force in the background. It committed him
openly unless he wished to throw up the game--and that was impossible.
The material interests required from him the sacrifice of his
aloofness--perhaps his own safety too. And he reflected that Decoud's
separationist plan had not gone to the bottom with the lost silver.

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