Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
But Pedrito had been struck by the splendor of a
brilliant court, and had conceived the idea of an existence for himself where, like the Duc de Morny, he
would associate the command of every pleasure with
the conduct of political affairs and enjoy power supremely in every way. Nobody could have guessed.
that. And yet this was one of the immediate causes
of the Monterist revolution. This will appear less
incredible by the reflection that the fundamental
causes were the same as ever, rooted in the political
immaturity of the people, in the indolence of the upper classes and the mental darkness of the lower.
Pedrito Montero saw, in the elevation of his brother, the road wide open to his wildest imaginings. This was what made the Monterist pronunciamiento so unpreventable. The general himself probably could have been bought off, pacified with flatteries, despatched on a diplomatic mission to Europe. It was his brother who had egged him on from first to last. He wanted to become the most brilliant statesman of South America. He did not desire supreme power. He would have been afraid of its labor and risk, in fact. Before all, Pedrito Montero, taught by his European experience, meant to acquire a serious fortune for himself. With this object in view he obtained from his brother, on the very morrow of the successful battle, the permission to push on over the mountains and take possession of Sulaco. Sulaco was the land of future prosperity, the chosen land of material progress, the only province in the republic of interest to European capitalists. Pedrito Montero, following the example of the Duc de Morny, meant to have his share of this pros-
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