In his utopian fantasy of love, Nostromo reverts to the language of possession and ownership, but with a twist: he will dedicate his wealth to Giselle. Allegorically, I read this passage as a vision of the happy future world, in which the People and their bride will have ownership of all the rich, fertile Earth. The "mastered treasure" can be read as both his wealth and, on the symbolic level, his inner soul, which he has "mastered" by diverting it from revenge to love. Note the repetition of the word "flung," equating the treasure with his soul, and implying that by flinging it at Giselle he has flung it "away," i.e., devoted it to something other than ego-gratification.

The narrator intervenes again, however, invoking for the second time the darkness of the gulf to remind us that we are in the realm of blind subjective desire. It may be an amoral realm, beyond the reach of God and the devil (see Chapter 1-1 ), wherein property relations don't apply, but it is also the realm of illusion, and Nostromo's dedication is exposed as a "supreme intoxication." The phrase recalls Decoud's "supreme illusion of a lover."

At any rate, though the aim be now love, the Marxist progression is still necessary, and the People must "grow rich" under the existing system in order to achieve the new one.