Page 525 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

they had been uttered, like the cry of a soul prevented from
making its peace with God, stirred the obscure superstition
of personal fortune from which even the greatest genius
amongst men of adventure and action is seldom free. They
reigned over Nostromo’s mind with the force of a potent
malediction. And what a curse it was that which her words
had laid upon him! He had been orphaned so young that he
could remember no other woman whom he called mother.
Henceforth there would be no enterprise in which he would
not fail. The spell was working already. Death itself would
elude him now…. He said violently—
‘Come, viejo! Get me something to eat. I am hungry!
Sangre de Dios! The emptiness of my belly makes me light-
headed.’
With his chin dropped again upon his bare breast above
his folded arms, barefooted, watching from under a gloomy
brow the movements of old Viola foraging amongst the
cupboards, he seemed as if indeed fallen under a curse—a
ruined and sinister Capataz.
Old Viola walked out of a dark corner, and, without a
word, emptied upon the table out of his hollowed palms a
few dry crusts of bread and half a raw onion.
While the Capataz began to devour this beggar’s fare,
taking up with stony-eyed voracity piece after piece lying
by his side, the Garibaldino went off, and squatting down
in another corner filled an earthenware mug with red wine
out of a wicker-covered demijohn. With a familiar gesture,
as when serving customers in the cafe, he had thrust his
pipe between his teeth to have his hands free.

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard