Page 433 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

were very much alike in appearance, both bald, with bunch-
es of crisp hair above their ears, arguing the presence of
some negro blood. Only Pedro was smaller than the general,
more delicate altogether, with an ape-like faculty for imitat-
ing all the outward signs of refinement and distinction, and
with a parrot-like talent for languages. Both brothers had
received some elementary instruction by the munificence
of a great European traveller, to whom their father had been
a body-servant during his journeys in the interior of the
country. In General Montero’s case it enabled him to rise
from the ranks. Pedrito, the younger, incorrigibly lazy and
slovenly, had drifted aimlessly from one coast town to an-
other, hanging about counting-houses, attaching himself to
strangers as a sort of valet-de-place, picking up an easy and
disreputable living. His ability to read did nothing for him
but fill his head with absurd visions. His actions were usu-
ally determined by motives so improbable in themselves as
to escape the penetration of a rational person.
Thus at first sight the agent of the Gould Concession in
Sta. Marta had credited him with the possession of sane
views, and even with a restraining power over the gener-
al’s everlastingly discontented vanity. It could never have
entered his head that Pedrito Montero, lackey or inferior
scribe, lodged in the garrets of the various Parisian hotels
where the Costaguana Legation used to shelter its diplomat-
ic dignity, had been devouring the lighter sort of historical
works in the French language, such, for instance as the
books of Imbert de Saint Amand upon the Second Empire.
But Pedrito had been struck by the splendour of a brilliant

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard