Joseph Conrad 
Romance 

‘To yesterday and to to-day I say my polite ‘vaya usted con Dios.’ What

are these days to me? But that far-off day of my romance, when from

between the blue and white bales in Don Ramon’s darkened storeroom, at

Kingston, I saw the door open before the figure of an old man with the

tired, long, white face, that day I am not likely to forget. I remember

the chilly smell of the typical West Indian store, the indescribable

smell of damp gloom, of locos, of pimento, of olive oil, of new sugar,

of new rum; the glassy double sheen of Ramon’s great spectacles, the

piercing eyes in the mahogany face, while the tap, tap, tap of a cane

on the flags went on behind the inner door; the click of the latch; the

stream of light. The door, petulantly thrust inwards, struck against

some barrels….’