Page 75 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the ground that a man with such a valuable concession in
his pocket could not refuse his financial assistance to the
Government of the Republic. The last of his fortune was
passing away from him against worthless receipts, he wrote,
in a rage, whilst he was being pointed out as an individual
who had known how to secure enormous advantages from
the necessities of his country. And the young man in Eu-
rope grew more and more interested in that thing which
could provoke such a tumult of words and passion.
He thought of it every day; but he thought of it without
bitterness. It might have been an unfortunate affair for his
poor dad, and the whole story threw a queer light upon the
social and political life of Costaguana. The view he took of
it was sympathetic to his father, yet calm and reflective. His
personal feelings had not been outraged, and it is difficult
to resent with proper and durable indignation the physical
or mental anguish of another organism, even if that other
organism is one’s own father. By the time he was twenty
Charles Gould had, in his turn, fallen under the spell of
the San Tome mine. But it was another form of enchant-
ment, more suitable to his youth, into whose magic formula
there entered hope, vigour, and self-confidence, instead of
weary indignation and despair. Left after he was twenty to
his own guidance (except for the severe injunction not to
return to Costaguana), he had pursued his studies in Bel-
gium and France with the idea of qualifying for a mining
engineer. But this scientific aspect of his labours remained
vague and imperfect in his mind. Mines had acquired for
him a dramatic interest. He studied their peculiarities from

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard