ly. It was an effect of his
prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance.
And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an
occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part
because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it
could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island
piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the
dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in
secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible
source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as
if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay
too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on
another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay.
Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit
to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered
through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by
stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of
his thought upon the treasure.

A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a
malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace;
the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself,
and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence,
his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a
sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious,
mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after
putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night
expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as
if surprised they had left no stain on his skin.

He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The
necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused
his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was
fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio
himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic
wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There
was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody.

As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of
the two. They had some profo