Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


"He appeared to me in this very room like a haunting ghost,
sir"--Captain Mitchell was talking of his Nostromo with true warmth of
feeling and a touch of wistful pride. "You may imagine, sir, what an
effect it produced on me. He had come round by sea with Barrios, of
course. And the first thing he told me after I became fit to hear him
was that he had picked up the lighter's boat floating in the gulf!
He seemed quite overcome by the circumstance. And a remarkable enough
circumstance it was, when you remember that it was then sixteen days
since the sinking of the silver. At once I could see he was another man.
He stared at the wall, sir, as if there had been a spider or something
running about there. The loss of the silver preyed on his mind. The
first thing he asked me about was whether Dona Antonia had heard yet of
Decoud's death. His voice trembled. I had to tell him that Dona Antonia,
as a matter of fact, was not back in town yet. Poor girl! And just as I
was making ready to ask him a thousand questions, with a sudden, 'Pardon
me, senor,' he cleared out of the office altogether. I did not see him
again for three days. I was terribly busy, you know. It seems that he
wandered about in and out of the town, and on two nights turned up
to sleep in the baracoons of the railway people. He seemed absolutely
indifferent to what went on. I asked him on the wharf, 'When are you
going to take hold again, Nostromo? There will be plenty of work for the
Cargadores presently.'

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