Page 181 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

This was indeed the time for men of intellect and conscience
to rally round the endangered cause.
It was then that Martin Decoud, the adopted child of
Western Europe, felt the absolute change of atmosphere. He
submitted to being embraced and talked to without a word.
He was moved in spite of himself by that note of passion
and sorrow unknown on the more refined stage of Europe-
an politics. But when the tall Antonia, advancing with her
light step in the dimness of the big bare Sala of the Avella-
nos house, offered him her hand (in her emancipated way),
and murmured, ‘I am glad to see you here, Don Martin,’
he felt how impossible it would be to tell these two people
that he had intended to go away by the next month’s packet.
Don Jose, meantime, continued his praises. Every accession
added to public confidence, and, besides, what an example
to the young men at home from the brilliant defender of
the country’s regeneration, the worthy expounder of the
party’s political faith before the world! Everybody had read
the magnificent article in the famous Parisian Review. The
world was now informed: and the author’s appearance at
this moment was like a public act of faith. Young Decoud
felt overcome by a feeling of impatient confusion. His plan
had been to return by way of the United States through Cal-
ifornia, visit Yellowstone Park, see Chicago, Niagara, have
a look at Canada, perhaps make a short stay in New York,
a longer one in Newport, use his letters of introduction.
The pressure of Antonia’s hand was so frank, the tone of
her voice was so unexpectedly unchanged in its approving
warmth, that all he found to say after his low bow was—

1 0 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard