8.05.2005

from Joseph Conrad's Nostromo :

Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and, seizing her hands, 
bent down, pressing them both to his lips. Before he straightened himself
up again to his full height she had disengaged one to smooth his cheek with
a light touch, as if he were a little boy.


"Try to get some rest for a couple of hours," she murmured, with a glance
at a hammock stretched in a distant part of the room. Her long train swished
softly after her on the red tiles. At the door she looked back.


Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in a soft and abundant light
the four white walls of the room, with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of
Henry Gould's cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the water-colour sketch
of the San Tome gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazing at the last in its black wooden
frame, sighed out--


"Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!"


"No," Charles Gould said, moodily; "it was impossible to leave it alone."


"Perhaps it was impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly. Her lips quivered a
little, but she smiled with an air of dainty bravado. "We have disturbed a good
many snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven't we?"

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