Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

Decoud had no answer to make. It was not a position for argument,
for a display of scruples or feelings. There were a thousand
ways in which a panic-stricken man could make himself dangerous.
It was evident that Hirsch could not be spoken to, reasoned with,
or persuaded into a rational line of conduct. The story of his
own escape demonstrated that clearly enough. Decoud thought that
it was a thousand pities the wretch had not died of fright.
Nature, who had made him what he was, seemed to have calculated
cruelly how much he could bear in the way of atrocious anguish
without actually expiring. Some compassion was due to so much
terror. Decoud, though imaginative enough for sympathy, resolved
not to interfere with any action that Nostromo would take. But
Nostromo did nothing. And the fate of Senor Hirsch remained
suspended in the darkness of the gulf at the mercy of events
which could not be foreseen.

The Capataz, extending his hand, put out the candle suddenly. It
was to Decoud as if his companion had destroyed, by a single
touch, the world of affairs, of loves, of revolution, where his
complacent superiority analyzed fearlessly all motives and all
passions, including his own.

He gasped a little. Decoud was affected by the novelty of his
position. Intellectually self-confident, he suffered from being
deprived of the only weapon he could use with effect. No
intelligence could penetrate the darkness of the Placid Gulf.
There remained only one thing he was certain of, and that was the
overweening vanity of his companion. It was direct,
uncomplicated, naive, and effectual. Decoud, who had been making
use of him, had tried to understand his man thoroughly. He had
discovered a complete singleness of motive behind the varied
manifestations of a consistent character. This was why the man
remained so astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his
conceit. And now there was a complication. It was evident that he
resented having been given a task in which there were so many
chances of failure. "I wonder," thought Decoud, "how he would
behave if I were not here."

He heard Nostromo mutter again, "No! there is no room for fear on
this lighter. Courage itself does not seem good enough. I have a
good eye and a steady hand; no man can say he ever saw me tired
or uncertain what to do; but por Dios, Don Martin, I have been
sent out into this black calm on a business where neither a good
eye, nor a steady hand, nor judgment are any use. . . ." He swore
a string of oaths in Spanish and Italian under his breath.
"Nothing but sheer desperation will do for this affair."