the paradise of snakes

" Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in a soft and abundant light the four white walls of the room, with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of Henry Gould's cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the water-color sketch of the San Tomé gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazing at the last in its black wooden frame, sighed out:

"Ah, if we had left it alone, Charles!"

"No," Charles Gould said, moodily; "it was impossible to leave it alone."

"Perhaps it was impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted slowly. Her lips quivered a little, but she smiled with an air of dainty bravado, "We have disturbed a good many snakes in that paradise, Charley, haven't we?"

"Yes; I remember," said Charles Gould, "it was Don Pépé who called the gorge the paradise of snakes. No doubt we have disturbed a great many. But remember, my dear, that it is not now as it was when you made that sketch." He waved his hand towards the small water-color hanging alone upon the great bare wall. "It is no longer a paradise of snakes. We have brought mankind into it, and we cannot turn our backs upon them to go and begin a new life elsewhere."

He confronted his wife with a firm, concentrated gaze, which Mrs. Gould returned with a brave assumption of fearlessness before she went out, closing the door gently after her.

In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly lit corridor had a restful mysteriousness of a forest shade, suggested by the stems and the leaves of the plants ranged along the balustrade of the open side. In the streaks of light falling through the open door of the reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale lilac, came out vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a stream of sunshine; and Mrs. Gould, passing on, had the vividness of a figure seen in the clear patches of sun that checker the gloom of open glades in the woods. The stones in the rings upon her hand pressed to her forehead glittered in the lamp-light abreast of the door of the sala.

"Who's there?" she asked, in a startled voice. "

Joseph Conrad

Nostromo