# Nostromo/Part Three/Chapter 7

VII
AT about that time, in the Intendencia of Sulaco, Charles Gould was assuring Pedrito Montero, who had sent a request for his presence there, that he would never let the mine pass out of his hand for the profit of a government who had robbed him of it. The Gould Concession could not be resumed. His father had not desired it. The son would never surrender it. He would never surrender it alive. And once dead, where was the power capable of resuscitating such an enterprise in all its vigor and wealth out of the ashes and ruin of destruction? There was no such power in the country. And where was the skill and capital abroad that would condescend to touch such an ill-omened corpse? Charles Gould talked in the impassive tone which had for many years served to conceal his anger and contempt. He suffered. He was disgusted with what he had to say. It was too much like heroics. In him the strictly practical instinct was in profound discord with the almost mystic-view he took of his right. The Gould Concession was symbolic of abstract justice. Let the heavens fall. But since the San Tomé mine had developed into world-wide fame his threat had enough force and effectiveness to reach the rudimentary intelligence of Pedro Montero, wrapped up as it was in the futilities of historical anecdotes. The Gould Concession was a se​rious asset in the country's finance, and, what was more, in the private budgets of many officials as well. It was traditional. It was known. It was staid. It was credible. Every Minister of Interior drew a salary from the San Tomé mine. It was natural. And Pedrito intended to be Minister of the Interior and President of the Council in his brother's government. The Duc de Morny had occupied those high posts during the Second French Empire with conspicuous advantage to himself.
A table, a chair, a wooden bedstead had been procured for his Excellency, who, after a short siesta, rendered absolutely necessary by the labors and the pomps of his entry into Sulaco, had been getting hold of the administrative machine by making appointments, giving orders, and signing proclamations. Alone with Charles Gould in the audience-room, his Excellency managed with his well-known skill to conceal his annoyance and consternation. He had begun at first to talk loftily of confiscation, but the want of all proper feeling and mobility in the Señor Administrador's features ended by affecting adversely his power of masterful expression. Charles Gould had repeated: "The government can certainly bring about the destruction of the San Tomé mine if it likes; but without me it can do nothing else." It was an alarming pronouncement, and well calculated to hurt the sensibilities of a politician whose mind is bent upon the spoils of victory. And Charles Gould said also that the destruction of the San Tomé mine would cause the ruin of other undertakings, the withdrawal of European capital, the withholding, most probably, of the ​last instalment of the foreign loan. That stony fiend of a man said all these things (which were accessible to his Excellency's intelligence) in a cold-blooded manner which made one shudder.
​Pedrito Montero surprised one at first sight by the vast development of his bald forehead, a shiny yellow expanse between the crinkly coal-black tufts of hair without any lustre, the engaging form of his mouth, and an unexpectedly cultivated voice. But his eyes, very glistening, as if freshly painted on each side of his hooked nose, had a round, hopeless, birdlike stare when opened fully. Now, however, he narrowed them agreeably, throwing his square chin up and speaking with closed teeth slightly through the nose with what he imagined to be the manner of a grand seigneur.
In that attitude he declared suddenly that the highest expression of democracy was Caesarism—the imperial rule based upon the direct popular vote. Caesarism was conservative. It was strong. It recognized the legitimate needs of democracy, which requires orders, titles, and distinctions. They would be showered upon deserving men. Caesarism was peace. It was progressive. It secured the prosperity of a country. Pedrito Montero was carried away. Look at what the Second Empire had done for France. It was a regime which delighted to honor men of Don Carlos's stamp. The Second Empire fell, but that was because its chief was devoid of that military genius which had raised General Montero to the pinnacle of fame and glory. Pedrito elevated his hand jerkily to help the idea of pinnacle of fame. "We shall have many talks yet. We shall understand each other thoroughly, Don Carlos!" he cried, in a tone of fellowship. Republicanism had done its work. Imperial democracy was the power of the future. Pedrito, the guerrillero, showing his hand, lowered his voice forcibly. ​ A man singled out by his fellow-citizens for the honorable nickname of El Rey de Sulaco could not but receive a full recognition from an imperial democracy as a great captain of industry and a person of weighty counsel, whose popular designation would be soon replaced by a more solid title. "Eh, Don Carlos? No! What do you say? Conde de Sulaco, eh?—or marquis . . ."
He ceased. The air was cool on the Plaza, where a patrol of cavalry rode round and round without penetrating into the streets, which resounded with shouts and the strumming of guitars issuing from the open doors of pulperias. The orders were not to interfere with the enjoyments of the people. And above the roofs, next to the perpendicular lines of the cathedral towers, the snowy curve of Higuerota blocked a large space of darkening blue sky before the windows of the In- tendencia. After a time Pedrito Montero, thrusting his hand in the bosom of his coat, bowed his head with slow dignity. The audience was over.
Charles Gould, on going out, passed his hand over his forehead as if to disperse the mists of an oppressive dream whose grotesque extravagance leaves behind a subtle sense of bodily danger and intellectual decay. In the passages and on the staircases of the old palace Montero's troopers lounged about insolently, smoking, and making way for no one; the clanking of sabres and spurs resounded all over the building. Three silent groups of civilians in severe black waited in the main gallery, formal and helpless, a little huddled up, each keeping apart from the others, as if in the exercise of a public duty they had been over​come by a desire to shun the notice of every eye. These were the deputations waiting for their audience. The one from the Provincial Assembly, more restless and uneasy in its corporate expression, was overtopped by the big face of Don Juste Lopez, soft and white, with prominent eyelids and wreathed in impenetrable solemnity as if in a dense cloud. The President of the Provincial Assembly, coming bravely to save the last shred of parliamentary institutions (on the English model), averted his eyes from the administrador of the San Tomé mine as a dignified rebuke of his little faith in that only saving principle.
The mournful severity of that reproof did not affect Charles Gould, but he was sensible to the glances of the others directed upon him without reproach, as if only to read their own fate upon his face. All of them had talked, shouted, and declaimed in the great sala of the Casa Gould. The feeling of compassion for those men, struck with a strange impotence in the toils of moral degradation, did not induce him to make a sign. He suffered from his fellowship in evil with them too much. He crossed the plaza unmolested. The Amarilla Club was full of joyous ragamuffins. Their frowsy heads protruded from every window, and from behind came drunken shouts, the thumping of feet, and the twanging of harps. Broken bottles strewed the pavement below. Charles Gould found the doctor still in his house.
Dr. Monygham came away from the crack in the shutter through which he had been watching the street.
"Ah! You are back at last," he said, in a tone of re​ lief. "I have been telling Mrs. Gould that you were perfectly safe, but I was not by any means certain that the fellow would have let you go."
"Neither was I," confessed Charles Gould, laying his hat on the table.
"You will have to take action."
The silence of Charles Gould seemed to admit that this was the only course. This was as far as Charles Gould was accustomed to go towards expressing his intentions.
"I hope you did not warn Montero of what you mean to do," the doctor said, anxiously.
"I tried to make him see that the existence of the mine was bound up with my personal safety," continued Charles Gould, looking away from the doctor and fixing his eyes upon the water-color sketch upon the wall.
"He believed you?" the doctor asked, eagerly.
"God knows!" said Charles Gould. "I owed it to my wife to say that much. He is well enough informed. He knows that I have Don Pépé there. Fuentes must have told him. They know that the old major is perfectly capable of blowing up the San Tomé mine without hesitation or compunction. Had it not been for that I don't think I'd have left the Intendencia a free man. He would blow everything up from loyalty and from hate—from hate of these Liberals, as they call themselves. Liberals! The words one knows so well have a nightmarish meaning in this country. Liberty—democracy—patriotism—government. All of them have a flavor of folly and murder. Haven't they, doctor?... I alone can restrain Don Pépé. If ​they were to—to do away with me, nothing could prevent him."
"They will try to tamper with him," the doctor suggested, thoughtfully.
"It is very possible," Charles Gould said, very low, as if speaking to himself, and still gazing at the sketch of the San Tomé gorge upon the wall. "Yes, I expect they will try that." Charles Gould looked for the first time at the doctor. "It would give me time," he added.
"Exactly," said Dr. Monygham, suppressing his excitement. "Especially if Don Pépé" behaves diplomatically. Why shouldn't he give them some hope of success? Eh? Otherwise you wouldn't gain so much time. Couldn't he be instructed to—"
Charles Gould, looking at the doctor steadily, shook his head, but the doctor continued, with a certain amount of fire:
"Yes, to enter into negotiations for the surrender of the mine. It is a good notion. You would mature your plan. Of course I don't ask what it is. I don't want to know. I would refuse to listen to you if you tried to tell me. I am not fit for confidences."
"What nonsense!" muttered Charles Gould, with displeasure.
He disapproved of the doctor's sensitiveness about that far-off episode of his life. So much memory shocked Charles Gould. It was like morbidness. And again he shook his head. He refused to tamper with the open rectitude of Don Pépé's conduct both from taste and from policy. Instructions would have to be either verbal or in writing. In either case they ​ ran the risk of being intercepted. It was by no means certain that a messenger could reach the mine, and, besides, there was no one to send. It was on the tip of Charles's tongue to say that only the late capataz of cargadores could have been employed with some chance of success and the certitude of discretion. But he did not say that. He pointed out to the doctor that it would have been bad policy. Directly Don Pépé let it be supposed that he could be bought over, the administrador's personal safety and the safety of his friends would become endangered. For there would be then no reason for moderation. The incorruptibility of Don Pépé was the essential and restraining thing. The doctor hung his head and admitted that in a way it was so.
He couldn't deny to himself that the reasoning was sound enough. Don Pépé's usefulness consisted in his unstained character. As to his own usefulness, he reflected bitterly it was also in his own character. He declared to Charles Gould that he had the means of keeping Sotillo from joining his forces with Montero, at least for the present. "If you had had all this silver here," the doctor said, "or even if it had been known to be at the mine, you could have bribed Sotillo to throw off his recent Monterism. You could have induced him either to go away in his steamer or even to join you."
"Certainly not that last," Charles Gould declared, firmly. "What could one do with a man like that afterwards—tell me, doctor? The silver is gone and I am glad of it. It would have been an immediate and strong temptation. The scramble for that visible ​plunder would have precipitated a disastrous ending. I would have had to defend it too. I am glad we've removed it even if it is lost. It would have been a danger and a curse."
"Perhaps he is right," the doctor an hour later said, hurriedly, to Mrs. Gould, whom he met in the corridor. "The thing is done, and the shadow of the treasure may do just as well as the substance. Let me try to serve you to the whole extent of my evil reputation. I am off now to play my game of betrayal with Sotillo and keep him off the town."
She put out both her hands impulsively. "Dr. Monygham, you are running a terrible risk," she whispered, averting from his face her eyes full of tears for a short glance at the door of her husband's room. She pressed both his hands, and the doctor stood as if rooted to the spot, looking down at her and trying to twist his lips into a smile.
"Oh, I know you will defend my memory," he uttered at last, and ran tottering down the stairs, across the patio, and out of the house. In the street he kept up a great pace with his smart hobbling walk, a case of instruments under his arm. He was known for being loco. Nobody interfered with him. From under the seaward gate, across the dusty, arid plain interspersed with low bushes, he saw, more than a mile away, the ugly enormity of the custom-house and the two or three other buildings which at that time constituted the seaport of Sulaco. Far away to the south groves of palm-trees edged the curve of the harbor shore. The distant peaks of the Cordillera had lost their identity of clear-cut shapes in the steadily deepening blue of ​the eastern sky. The doctor walked briskly. A darkling shadow seemed to fall upon him from the zenith. The sun had set. For a time the snows of Higuerota continued to glow with the reflected glory of the west. The doctor, holding a straight course for the custom-house, appeared lonely, hopping among the dark bushes like a tall bird with a broken wing.
Tints of purple, gold, and crimson were mirrored in the clear water of the harbor. A long tongue of land, straight as a wall, with the grass-grown ruins of the fort making a sort of rounded green mound, plainly le from the inner shore, closed its circuit; and beyond, the Placid Gulf repeated those splendors of coloring on a greater scale with a more sombre magnificence. The great mass of cloud filling the head of the gulf had long, red smears among its convoluted folds of gray and black, as of a floating mantle stained with blood. The three Isabels, overshadowed and clear-cut in a great smoothness confounding the sea and sky, appeared suspended, purple-black, in the air. The little wavelets seemed to be tossing tiny red sparks upon the sandy beaches. The glassy bands of water along the horizon gave out a fiery red glow, as if fire and water had been mingled together in the vast bed of the ocean.