A Tale of the Seaboard Joseph Conrad - Penn State University

Joseph Conrad
defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor
alike—what then He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity,
greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver
into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the
feeling of his slavery—so irremediable and profound that often, in
his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither
dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth
on Azuera—weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza,
owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance
(and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the
western seaboard of a vast continent.
Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the
vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a
brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold
by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain
Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business,
as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he
had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and
Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro
between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe
or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen.
The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to
Cayta was not born yet.
Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for
himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but
modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to
keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the
progressive capital of the Occidental Republic.
Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious,
was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof
of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in
Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died
of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos)
in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink
a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up,
poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left
some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up
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