Page 349 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

whose expression affected by the drawn-in cicatrices in the
cheeks, had something vaguely unnatural, an exaggerated
remorseful bitterness. As he sat there he had the air of med-
itating upon sinister things. The engineer-in-chief gazed at
him for a time before he protested.
‘I really don’t see that. For me there seems to be nothing
else. However——‘
He was a wise man, but he could not quite conceal his
contempt for that sort of paradox; in fact. Dr. Monygham
was not liked by the Europeans of Sulaco. His outward as-
pect of an outcast, which he preserved even in Mrs. Gould’s
drawing-room, provoked unfavourable criticism. There
could be no doubt of his intelligence; and as he had lived
for over twenty years in the country, the pessimism of his
outlook could not be altogether ignored. But instinctively,
in self-defence of their activities and hopes, his hearers put
it to the account of some hidden imperfection in the man’s
character. It was known that many years before, when quite
young, he had been made by Guzman Bento chief medical
officer of the army. Not one of the Europeans then in the
service of Costaguana had been so much liked and trusted
by the fierce old Dictator.
Afterwards his story was not so clear. It lost itself amongst
the innumerable tales of conspiracies and plots against the
tyrant as a stream is lost in an arid belt of sandy country
before it emerges, diminished and troubled, perhaps, on
the other side. The doctor made no secret of it that he had
lived for years in the wildest parts of the Republic, wander-
ing with almost unknown Indian tribes in the great forests

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard