NOSTROMO had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence¹. 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 mere² act of getting it away from the island piecemeal³, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent⁴ detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible⁵ source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner⁶ were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded⁷ 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 humiliated⁹ him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure.

A transgression¹⁰, a crime, entering a man’s existence, eats it up like a malignant¹¹ 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

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