Page 205 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

The people returning from the harbour filled the pave-
ments; the shuffle of sandals and a low murmur of voices
ascended to the window. Now and then a coach rolled
slowly along the disjointed roadway of the Calle de la Con-
stitucion. There were not many private carriages in Sulaco;
at the most crowded hour on the Alameda they could be
counted with one glance of the eye. The great family arks
swayed on high leathern springs, full of pretty powdered
faces in which the eyes looked intensely alive and black.
And first Don Juste Lopez, the President of the Provincial
Assembly, passed with his three lovely daughters, solemn
in a black frock-coat and stiff white tie, as when directing
a debate from a high tribune. Though they all raised their
eyes, Antonia did not make the usual greeting gesture of a
fluttered hand, and they affected not to see the two young
people, Costaguaneros with European manners, whose ec-
centricities were discussed behind the barred windows of
the first families in Sulaco. And then the widowed Senora
Gavilaso de Valdes rolled by, handsome and dignified, in a
great machine in which she used to travel to and from her
country house, surrounded by an armed retinue in leather
suits and big sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their
saddles. She was a woman of most distinguished family,
proud, rich, and kind-hearted. Her second son, Jaime, had
just gone off on the Staff of Barrios. The eldest, a worthless
fellow of a moody disposition, filled Sulaco with the noise
of his dissipations, and gambled heavily at the club. The two
youngest boys, with yellow Ribierist cockades in their caps,
sat on the front seat. She, too, affected not to see the Senor

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