Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
the black depths, covered at once by the slow descent of heavy eyelids.
"Behold thy husband, master, and benefactor."
Old Viola's voice resounded with a force that seemed to fill the whole gulf.
She stepped forward with her eyes nearly closed, like a sleep-walker in a beatific dream.
Nostromo made a superhuman effort. "It is time, Linda, we two were betrothed," he said, steadily, in his level, careless, unbending tone.
She put her hand into his offered palm, lowering her head, dark with bronze glints, upon which her father's hand rested for a moment.
"And so the soul of the dead is satisfied."
This came from Giorgio Viola, who went on talking for a while of his dead wife; while the two, sitting side by side, never looked at each other. Then the old man ceased; and Linda, motionless, began to speak.
"Ever since I felt I lived in the world, I have lived for you alone, Gian' Battista. And that you knew! You knew it ... Battistino."
She pronounced the name exactly with her mother's intonation. A gloom as of the grave covered Nostromo's heart.
"Yes. I knew," he said.
The heroic Garibaldino sat on the same bench bowing his hoary head, his old soul dwelling alone with its memories, tender and violent, terrible and dreary all alone on the earth full of men.
And Linda, his best-loved daughter, was saying, "I was yours ever since I can remember. I had only to think of you for the earth to become empty to my
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