“What is it you say?”
“If he could speak he would say the same thing,” pursued Nostromo, with
a nod of his shadowy head silhouetted against the starlit window.
“I do not understand you,” said Dr. Monygham, faintly.
“No? Perhaps, if you had not confirmed Sotillo in his madness, he would
have been in no haste to give the estrapade to that miserable Hirsch.”
The doctor started at the suggestion. But his devotion, absorbing all
his sensibilities, had left his heart steeled against remorse and pity.
Still, for complete relief, he felt the necessity of repelling it loudly
and contemptuously.
“Bah! You dare to tell me that, with a man like Sotillo. I confess I
did not give a thought to Hirsch. If I had it would have been useless.
Anybody can see that the luckless wretch was doomed from the moment he
caught hold of the anchor. He was doomed, I tell you! Just as I myself
am doomed--most probably.”
This is what Dr. Monygham said in answer to Nostromo’s remark, which was
plausible enough to prick his conscience. He was not a callous man. But
the necessity, the magnitude, the importance of the task he had taken
upon himself dwarfed all merely humane considerations. He had undertaken
it in a fanatical spirit. He did not like it. To lie, to deceive, to
circumvent even the basest of mankind was odious to him. It was odious
to him by training, instinct, and tradition. To do these things in the
character of a traitor was abhorrent to his nature and terrible to his
feelings. He had made that sacrifice in a spirit of abasement. He had
said to himself bitterly, “I am the only one fit for that dirty work.”
And he believed this. He was not subtle. His simplicity was such that,
though he had no sort of heroic idea of seeking death, the risk, deadly
enough, to which he exposed himself, had a sustaining and comforting
effect. To that spiritual state the fate of Hirsch presented itself
as part of the general atrocity of things. He considered that episode
practically. What did it mean? Was it a sign of some dangerous change in
Sotillo’s delusion? That the man should have been killed like this was
what the doctor could not understand.
“Yes. But why shot?” he murmured to himself.
Nostromo kept very still.