Page 593 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

by the slow descent of heavy eyelids.
‘Behold thy husband, master, and benefactor.’ Old Viola’s
voice resounded with a force that seemed to fill the whole
gulf.
She stepped forward with her eyes nearly closed, like a
sleep-walker in a beatific dream.
Nostromo made a superhuman effort. ‘It is time, Linda,
we two were betrothed,’ he said, steadily, in his level, care-
less, unbending tone.
She put her hand into his offered palm, lowering her
head, dark with bronze glints, upon which her father’s hand
rested for a moment.
‘And so the soul of the dead is satisfied.’
This came from Giorgio Viola, who went on talking for
a while of his dead wife; while the two, sitting side by side,
never looked at each other. Then the old man ceased; and
Linda, motionless, began to speak.
‘Ever since I felt I lived in the world, I have lived for you
alone, Gian’ Battista. And that you knew! You knew it …
Battistino.’
She pronounced the name exactly with her mother’s into-
nation. A gloom as of the grave covered Nostromo’s heart.
‘Yes. I knew,’ he said.
The heroic Garibaldino sat on the same bench bowing
his hoary head, his old soul dwelling alone with its memo-
ries, tender and violent, terrible and dreary—solitary on the
earth full of men.
And Linda, his best-loved daughter, was saying, ‘I was
yours ever since I can remember. I had only to think of

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard