: Joseph Conrad
: Romance
: Seltzer Books
: 9781455302185
: 1
: CHF 0.10
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 350
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
'To yesterday and to to-day I say my polite 'vaya usted con Dios.' What
are these days to me? But that far-off day of my romance, when from
between the blue and white bales in Don Ramon's darkened storeroom, at
Kingston, I saw the door open before the figure of an old man with the
tired, long, white face, that day I am not likely to forget. I remember
the chilly smell of the typical West Indian store, the indescribable
smell of damp gloom, of locos, of pimento, of olive oil, of new sugar,
of new rum; the glassy double sheen of Ramon's great spectacles, the
piercing eyes in the mahogany face, while the tap, tap, tap of a cane
on the flags went on behind the inner door; the click of the latch; the
stream of light. The door, petulantly thrust inwards, struck against
some barrels....'

He dropped a gold ball into a silver basin that was by the bedside, and it sounded like a great bell. A nun in a sort of coif that took the lines of a buffalo's horns glided to him with a gold cup, from which he drank, raising himself a little. Then the religious went out with Tomas Castro, who gave me a last ferocious glower from his yellow eyes. Carlos smiled.

 

"They try to make my going easy," he said."_Vamos!_ The pillow is smooth for him who is well loved." He shut his eyes. Suddenly he said,"Why do you, alone, hate me, John Kemp? What have I done?"

 

"God knows I don't hate you, Carlos," I answered.

 

"You have always mistrusted me," he said."And yet I am, perhaps, nearer to you than many of your countrymen, and I have always wished you well, and you have always hated and mistrusted me. From the very first you mistrusted me. Why?"

 

It was useless denying it; he had the extraordinary incredulity of his kind. I remembered how I had idolized him as a boy at home.

 

"Your brother-in-law, my cousin Rooksby, was the very first to believe that I was a pirate. I, a vulgar pirate! I, Carlos Riego! Did he not believe it--and you?" He glanced a little ironically, and lifted a thin white finger towards the great coat-of-arms."That sort of thing," he said,"_amigo mio_, does not allow one to pick pockets." He suddenly turned a little to one side, and fixed me with his clear eyes."My friend," he said,"if I told you that Rooksby and your greatest Kent earls carried smugglers' tubs, you would say I was an ignorant fool. Yet they, too, are magistrates. The only use I have ever made of these ruffians was to-day, to bring you here. It was a necessity. That O'Brien had gone on to take you when you arrived. You would never have come alive out of Havana. I was saving your life. Once there, you could never have escaped from that man."

 

I saw suddenly that this might be the truth. There had been something friendly in Tomas Castro's desire not to compromise me before the people on board the s