Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
nothing of his cares to "Son Gian' Battista." It was a touch of senile vanity. He wanted to show that he was equal yet to the task of guarding alone the honor of his house.
Nostromo went away early. As soon as he had disappeared, walking towards the beach, Linda stepped over the threshold and, with a haggard smile, sat down by the side of her father.
Ever since that Sunday when the infatuated and desperate Ramirez had waited for her on the wharf she had no doubts whatever. The jealous ravings of that man were no revelation. They had only ii with precision, as with a nail driven into her heart, that sense of unreality and deception which, instead of bliss and security, she had found in her intercourse with her promised husband. She had passed on, pouring indignation and scorn upon Ramirez; but that Sunday she nearly died of wretchedness and shame, lying on the carved and lettered stone of Teresa's grave, subscribed for l>v the engine-drivers and the fitters of the railway workshops, in sign of their respect for the hero of Italian unity. Old Viola had not been able to carry out his desire of burying his wife in the sea; and Linda wept upon the stone.
The gratuitous outrage appalled her. If he wished to break her heart well and good. Everything was permitted to Gian' Battista. But why trample upon the pieces? why seek to humiliate her spirit? Aha! He could not break that. She dried her tears. And Giselle! Giselle! The little one that, ever since she could toddle, had always clung to her skirt for protection. What duplicity! But she could not help it
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