Dr. Monygham, disregarding, or perhaps fearing to penetrate the meaning of Nostromo’s silence, clapped him lightly on the shoulder, and starting off with his smart, lame walk, vanished utterly at the third or fourth hop in the direction of the railway track. Arrested between the two wooden posts for people to fasten their horses to, Nostromo did not move, as if he, too, had been planted solidly in the ground. At the end of half an hour he lifted his head to the deep baying of the dogs at the railway yards, which had burst out suddenly, tumultuous and deadened as if coming from under the plain. That lame doctor with the evil eye had got there pretty fast.
Step by step Nostromo approached the Albergo d’Italia Una, which he had never known so lightless, so silent, before. The door, all black
