a run of bad luck at monte in the
low, smoky room of Domingo's posada, where the fraternity of Cargadores
gambled, sang, and danced of an evening; to remain with empty pockets
after a burst of public generosity to some peyne d'oro girl or other
(for whom he did not care), had none of the humiliation of destitution.
He remained rich in glory and reputation. But since it was no longer
possible for him to parade the streets of the town, and be hailed with
respect in the usual haunts of his leisure, this sailor felt himself
destitute indeed.

His mouth was dry. It was dry with heavy sleep and extremely anxious
thinking, as it had never been dry before. It may be said that Nostromo
tasted the dust and ashes of the fruit of life into which he had bitten
deeply in his hunger for praise. Without removing his head from between
his fists, he tried to spit before him--"Tfui"--and muttered a curse
upon the selfishness of all the rich people.

Since everything seemed lost in Sulaco (and that was the feeling of his
waking), the idea of leaving the country altogether had presented itself
to Nostromo. At that thought he had seen, like the beginning of another
dream, a vision of steep and tideless shores, with dark pines on the
heights and white houses low down near a very blue sea. He saw the quays
of a big port, where the coasting feluccas, with their lateen sails
outspread like motionless wings, enter gliding silently between the
end of long moles of squared blocks that project angularly towards
each other, hugging a cluster of shipping to the superb bosom of a hill
covered with palaces. He remembered these sights not without some filial
emotion, though he had been habitually and severely beaten as a boy
on one of these feluccas by a short-necked, shaven Genoese, with a
deliberate and distrustful manner, who (he firmly believed) had cheated
him out of his orphan's inheritance. But it is mercifully decreed that
the evils of the past should appear but faintly in retrospect. Under
the sense of loneliness, abandonment, and failure, the idea of return to
these things appeared tolerable. But, what? Return? With bare feet
and head, with one check shirt and a pair of cotton calzoneros for all
worldly possessions?

The renowned Capataz, his elbows on his knees and a fist dug into each
cheek, laughed with self-derision, as he had spat with disgust, straight
out before him into the night. The confused and intimate impressions
of universal di