Nostromo : A Tale of the Seaboard
candle, half consumed and burning dimly with a long wick, lighted up from below his inclined face, whose expression, affected by the drawn-in cicatrices in the cheeks, had something vaguely unnatural, an exaggerated remorseful bitterness. As he sat there he had the air of meditating upon sinister things. The engineer-in-chief gazed at him for a time before he protested.
"I really don't see that. For me there seems to be nothing else. However—"
He was a wise man, but he could not quite conceal his contempt for that sort of paradox; in fact, Dr. Monygham was not liked by the Europeans of Sulaco. His outward aspect of an outcast, which he preserved even in Mrs. Gould's drawing-room, provoked unfavorable criticism. There could be no doubt of his intelligence; and, as he had lived for over twenty years in the country, the pessimism of his outlook could not be altogether ignored. But, instinctively, in self-defence of their activities and hopes, his hearers put it to the account of some hidden imperfection in the man's character. It was known that many years before, when quite young, he had been made by Guzman Bento chief medical officer of the army. Not one of the Europeans then in the service of Costaguana had been so much liked and trusted by the fierce old dictator.
Afterwards his story was not so clear. It lost itself among the innumerable tales of conspiracies and plots against the tyrant, as a stream is lost in an arid belt of sandy country before it emerges, diminished and troubled, perhaps, on the other side. He made no
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