I.e., Charles Gould has placed the San Tomé mine politically in the "background," first behind Ribiera, then behind Decoud inasmuch as Decoud was the political leader of the Separatist plan. With Decoud's death, there is no politician for the mine to back; any action Gould takes will be openly his own.

Allegorically, the act of materialism hiding behind politics is the act of the inanimate hiding behind the dream-ideal. As the material interests step forward from behind politics, their true nature as an absolutely nonmoral, unhuman force becomes apparent. On this level, Decoud's "miserable death" actually refers ahead, to his death on the island, where in the extremity of his skepticism he becomes one with the inanimate and meaningless material world, in a sense bringing that world out from "the background" just as Charles Gould must now do.