The final chapter of Nostromo brings the title character's allegoric romance to a tragic finale. Nostromo, postponing indefinitely his elopement with Giselle while he purloins ever more silver, is mistaken for Ramirez one night and shot by Giorgio Viola. The denouement serves to indict equally the People (who could not relinquish their dreams of wealth), the so-called Republican Society (which turns to intolerance in the end) and especially the dream-ideal of utopian socialism, which is revealed to be an impossible fantasy. In a critical deathbed scene with Mrs Gould, Nostromo tries to impart his final wisdom, but in the perverse sprit of the novel a miscommunication takes place and the symbolic treasure is abandoned to secrecy forever. His last breath is drawn in the company of the anti-capitalist photographer, signfiying the violent next generation of the People (even as the novel ends, revolts are breaking out at the silver mine), and his last gesture is "a glance of enigmatic and profound inquiry" that epitomizes the novel itself. When we take our leave of Costaguana it is from the sternsheets of a police-galley, hearing Linda's cry of "undying passion" circle the symbolic geography of the Gulf to sound the mingled triumphs of Man and Man's delusions.