Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

She had watched her carriage roll away with the three guests from
the north. She smiled. Their three arms went up simultaneously to
their three hats. Captain Mitchell, the fourth, in attendance,
had already begun a pompous discourse. Then she lingered. She
lingered, approaching her face to the clusters of flowers here
and there as if to give time to her thoughts to catch up with her
slow footsteps along the straight vista of the corredor.

A fringed Indian hammock from Aroa, gay with coloured
featherwork, had been swung judiciously in a corner that caught
the early sun; for the mornings are cool in Sulaco. The cluster
of flor de noche buena blazed in great masses before the open
glass doors of the reception rooms. A big green parrot, brilliant
like an emerald in a cage that flashed like gold, screamed out
ferociously, "Viva Costaguana!" then called twice mellifluously,
"Leonarda! Leonarda!" in imitation of Mrs. Gould's voice, and
suddenly took refuge in immobility and silence. Mrs. Gould
reached the end of the gallery and put her head through the door
of her husband's room.

Charles Gould, with one foot on a low wooden stool, was already
strapping his spurs. He wanted to hurry back to the mine. Mrs.
Gould, without coming in, glanced about the room. One tall, broad
bookcase, with glass doors, was full of books; but in the other,
without shelves, and lined with red baize, were arranged
firearms: Winchester carbines, revolvers, a couple of shot-guns,
and even two pairs of double-barrelled holster pistols. Between
them, by itself, upon a strip of scarlet velvet, hung an old
cavalry sabre, once the property of Don Enrique Gould, the hero
of the Occidental Province, presented by Don Jose Avellanos, the
hereditary friend of the family.

Otherwise, the plastered white walls were completely bare, except
for a water-colour sketch of the San Tome mountain--the work of
Dona Emilia herself. In the middle of the red-tiled floor stood
two long tables littered with plans and papers, a few chairs, and
a glass show-case containing specimens of ore from the mine.
Mrs. Gould, looking at all these things in turn, wondered aloud
why the talk of these wealthy and enterprising men discussing the
prospects, the working, and the safety of the mine rendered her
so impatient and uneasy, whereas she could talk of the mine by
the hour with her husband with unwearied interest and
satisfaction. And dropping her eyelids expressively, she added--