Chapter Twenty
Reports arrived from Ternate and Halmaheira that a terrible submarine earthquake had visited the surrounding group of islands, that whole villages had been washed away, that thousands of inhabitants had been rendered homeless. The telegrams caused greater consternation in Holland than in India, where people seemed more used to the convulsions of the sea, to the volcanic upheavals of the earth. They had been discussing the Dreyfus case for months, they were beginning to discuss the Transvaal, but Ternate was hardly mentioned. Nevertheless a central committee was formed at Batavia; and Van Oudijck called a meeting. It was resolved to hold a charity-bazaar, at the earliest possible date, in the club and the garden attached to it. Mrs. van Oudijck, as usual, delegated everything to Eva Eldersma and did not trouble herself at all.
For a fortnight Labuwangi was filled with excitement. In this silent little town, full of eastern slumber, a whirlwind of tiny passions, jealousies and enmities began to rise. Eva had her club of faithful adherents, the Van Helderens, the Doorn de Bruijns, the Rantzows, with which all sorts of tiny sets strove to compete. One was not on speaking terms with the other; this one would not take part because that one did; another insisted on taking part only because Mrs. Eldersma must not think that she was everybody; and this one and that one and the other considered that Eva was much too pretentious and need not fancy that she was the most important woman in the place because Mrs. van Oudijck left everything to her. Eva however had spoken to the resident and declared that she was willing to organize everything provided she received unlimited authority. She had not the slightest objection to his appointing some one else to set the ball rolling; but, if he appointed her, unlimited authority was an express condition, for to take twenty different tastes and opinions into account would mean that one would never get anywhere. Van Oudijck laughingly consented, but impressed upon her that she must not make people angry and that she must respect every one’s feelings and be as conciliatory as possible, so that the charity-bazaar might leave pleasant memories behind it. Eva promised: she was not naturally quarrelsome.
To get a thing done, to set a thing going, to put a thing through, to employ her artistic energies was her great delight: it was life to her, was the only consolation in her dreary life in India. For, though she had grown to love and admire many things in Java, the social life of the country, save for her little clique, lacked all charm for her. But now to prepare an entertainment on a large scale, the fame of which would reach as far as Surabaya, flattered alike her vanity and her love of work.
She sailed through every difficulty; and, because people saw that she knew best and was more practical than they, they gave way to her. But, while she was busy evolving her stalls and her tableaux-vivants, while the bustle of the preparations occupied the leading families of Labuwangi, something seemed also to occupy the soul of the native population, but something less cheerful than charitable entertainment. The chief of police, who brought Van Oudijck his short report every morning, usually in a few words—that he had gone his rounds and that everything was quiet and orderly—had of late had longer conversations with the resident, seemed to have more important things to communicate; the messengers whispered more mysteriously outside the office, the resident sent for Eldersma and Van Helderen; the secretary wrote to Ngadjiwa, to Vermalen the assistant-resident, to the major-commandant of the garrison; and the district controller went round the town with increased frequency and at unaccustomed hours. Amid all their fussing the ladies perceived little of these mysterious doings; and only Léonie, who took no part in the preparations, noticed in her husband an unusual silent concern. She was a quick and keen observer; and, because Van Oudijck, who was accustomed often to mention business in the domestic circle, had been mute for the last few days, she asked suddenly where the Regent of Ngadjiwa was, now that he had been dismissed by the government at Van Oudijck’s instance, and who was going to replace him. He made a vague reply; and she took alarm and became anxious. One morning, passing through her husband’s bedroom, she was struck by the whispered conversation between Van Oudijck and the chief of police and she stopped to listen, with her ear against the screen. The conversation was muffled because the garden-doors were open; the messengers were sitting on the garden-steps; a couple of gentlemen who wished to speak to the resident were walking up and down the side-verandah, after writing their names on the slate which the chief messenger brought in to the resident. But they had to wait, because the resident was engaged with the chief of police....
Léonie listened from behind the screen. And she turned pale at the sound of a word or two which she overheard. She returned silently to her room, feeling anxious. At lunch she asked if it would be really necessary for her to attend the fancy-fair, for she had had such a toothache lately and wanted to go to Surabaya, to the dentist. It would probably mean a few days: she had not been to the dentist for ever so long. But Van Oudijck, sterner than usual, in his sombre mood of secret concern and silence, told her that it was impossible, that on an evening like that of the fancy-fair she was bound to be present as the resident’s wife. She pouted and sulked and held her handkerchief to her mouth, so that Van Oudijck became distressed. That afternoon she did not sleep, did not read, did not dream, as a result of this unusual agitation. She was frightened, she wanted to get away. And at tea, in the garden, she began to cry, said that the toothache was making her head ache, that it was making her quite ill, that it was more than she could bear. Van Oudijck, distressed and careworn, was touched; he could never endure to see her tears. And he gave in, as he always did to her, where her personal affairs were in question. Next day she went off to Surabaya, staying at the resident’s and really having her teeth attended to.
It was always a good thing to do, once a year or so. This time she spent about five hundred guilders on the dentist. After this, incidentally, the other ladies also seemed to guess something of what was happening at Labuwangi behind a haze of mystery. For Ida van Helderen, the tragic white half-caste, her eyes starting out of her head with fright, told Eva Eldersma that her husband and Eldersma and the resident too were fearing a rebellion of the population, incited by the regent and his family, who would never forgive the dismissal of the Regent of Ngadjiwa. The men, however, were non-committal and reassured their wives. But a dark swirling tide continued to stir under the apparent calmness of their little up-country life. And gradually the gossip leaked out and alarmed the European inhabitants. Vague paragraphs in the newspapers, commenting on the dismissal of the regent, contributed to their alarm.
Meanwhile the bustle of preparation for the fancy-fair went on, but people no longer put their hearts into the work. They led a fussy, restless life and were becoming ill and nervous. At night they bolted and barred their houses, placed arms by their bed-sides, woke suddenly in terror, listening to the noises of the night, which sounded faintly in space outside. And they condemned the hastiness shown by Van Oudijck, who, after the scene at the race-ball, had been unable to restrain his patience any longer and had not hesitated to recommend the dismissal of the regent, whose house was firmly rooted in the soil of Labuwangi, was one with Labuwangi.
The resident had ordered, as a festival for the population, an evening market on the square outside the regent’s palace, to last for a few days, coinciding with the bazaar. There would be a people’s fair, numbers of little stalls and booths and a Malay theatre, with plays drawn from the Arabian Nights. He had done this in order to give the Javanese inhabitants a treat which they would value greatly, while the Europeans were enjoying themselves on their side. It was now a few days before the fancy-fair, on the previous day to which, as it chanced, the monthly council was to be held in the palace.
The anxiety, the fuss and a general nervousness filled the otherwise quiet little town with an emotion which made people almost ill. Mothers sent their children away and themselves were undecided what to do. But the fancy-fair made people stay. How could they avoid going to the fancy-fair? There was so seldom any amusement. But ... if there really were a rising! And they did not know what to do, whether to take the lowering menace, which they half-divined, seriously or make a light-hearted jest of it.
The day before the council, Van Oudijck asked for an interview with the raden-aju pangéran, who lived with her son. His carriage drove past the huts and booths in the square and through the triumphal arches of the market, formed of bamboo-stems bending towards each other, with a narrow strip of bunting rippling in the wind, so much so that, in Javanese, the decorations are known as “ripplings.” This evening was to be the first evening of the fair. Every one was busy with the final preparations; and, in the bustle of hammering and arranging, the natives sometimes neglected to cower at the passing of the resident’s carriage and paid no attention to the golden umbrella which the messenger on the box held in his hands like a furled sun. But, when the carriage turned by the flagstaff and up the drive leading to the palace and they saw that the resident was going to the regent’s, groups huddled together and spoke in eager whispers. They crowded at the entrance to the drive and stared. But the natives saw nothing save the empty market-place looming beyond the shadow of the banyans, with the rows of chairs in readiness. The chief of police, suddenly passing on his bicycle, caused the groups to break up as though by instinct.
The old princess was awaiting the resident in the front-verandah. Her dignified features wore a serene expression and betrayed no trace of what was raging within her. She motioned the resident to a chair; and the conversation opened with a few ordinary phrases. Then four servants approached in a crouching posture: one with a bottle-stand; the second with a tray full of glasses; the third with a silver ice-pail full of broken ice; the fourth salaamed, without carrying anything. The princess asked the resident what he would drink; and he replied that he would like a whisky-and-soda. The fourth servant came crouching through the other three to prepare the drink, poured in the measure of whisky, opened the bottle of soda-water with a report as of a gun and dropped into the tumbler a lump of ice the size of a small glacier. Not another word was said. The resident waited for the drink to grow cold; and the four servants crouched away. Then at last Van Oudijck spoke and asked if he might speak to her in entire confidence, if he could say what he had in his mind. She begged him, civilly, to do so. And in his firm but hushed voice he told her, in Malay, in very courteous sentences, full of friendliness and flowery politeness, how great and exalted his love had been for the pangéran and still was for that prince’s glorious house, although he, Van Oudijck, to his intense regret, had been obliged to act counter to that love, because his duty commanded him so to act. And he asked her—presuming that it was possible for her, as a mother—to bear him no grudge for this exercise of his duty; he asked her, on the contrary, to show a motherly feeling for him, the European official, who had loved the pangéran as a father, and to cooperate with him, the official—she, the mother of the regent—by employing her great influence for the happiness and welfare of the population. Sunario had a tendency, in his piety and his remote gaze at things invisible, to forget the actual realities that lay before his eyes. Well, he, the resident, was asking her, the powerful, influential mother, to cooperate with him in ways which Sunario overlooked, to cooperate with him in love and unity. And, in his elegant Malay, he opened his heart to her entirely, describing the turmoil which for days and days had been seething among the inhabitants, like an evil poison which could not do other than make them wicked and drunk and would probably lead to things, to acts, which were bound to have lamentable results. He made her feel his unspoken view that the government would be the stronger, that a terrible punishment would overtake all who should prove guilty, high and low alike. But his language remained exceedingly cautious and his speech respectful, as of a son addressing a mother. She, though she understood him, valued the tactful grace of his manner; and the flowery depth and earnestness of his language made him rise in her esteem and almost surprised her ... in a low Hollander, without birth or breeding. But he continued. He did not tell her what he knew, that she was the instigatress of this obscure unrest; but he excused that unrest, said that he understood it, that the population shared her grief in respect of her unworthy son, himself a scion of the noble race, and that it was only natural that the people should sympathize deeply with their old soveran, even though the sympathy was ignorant and illogical. For the son was unworthy, the Regent of Ngadjiwa had proved himself unworthy and what had happened could not have happened otherwise.
His voice, for a moment, became severe; and she bowed her grey head, remained silent, seemed to agree. But his words now became gentler again; and once more he asked for her cooperation, asked her to use her influence for the best. He trusted her entirely. He knew that she held high the traditions of her family, loyalty to the Company, unimpeachable loyalty to the government. Well, he asked her to direct her power and influence, to use the love and reverence which the people bore her in such a way that she, in concert with him, would allay what was seething in the darkness; that she would move the thoughtless to reflection; that she would assuage and pacify what was secretly threatening, thoughtlessly and frivolously, against the firm and dignified authority of the government. And, while he flattered and threatened her in one breath, he felt that she—although she hardly spoke a single word and merely punctuated his words with her repeated saja—he felt that she was falling under his stronger influence, the influence of the man of tact and authority, and that he was giving her food for reflection. He felt that, as she reflected, her hatred was subsiding, her vindictiveness losing its force and that he was breaking the energy and pride of the ancient blood of the Maduran sultans. Under all the flowers of his speech, he allowed her to catch a glimpse of utter ruin, of terrible penalties, of the undeniably greater power of the government. And he bent her to the old pliant attitude of yielding before the might of the ruler. He reminded her, in her impulse to rebel and throw off the hated yoke, that it was better to be calm and reasonable and to adapt herself placidly to things as they were. She nodded her head softly in assent; and he felt that he had conquered her. And this aroused a certain pride within him.
And now she also spoke and gave the required promise, saying, in her broken, inwardly weeping voice, that she loved him as a son, that she would do what he wished and would assuredly use her influence, outside the palace, in the town, to still these threatening troubles. She denied her own complicity and said that the unrest arose from the unreflecting love of the people, who suffered with her, because of her son. She now echoed his own words, save that she did not speak of unworthiness. For she was a mother. And she repeated once again that he could trust her, that she would act according to his wish. Then he informed her that he would come to the council next day, with his subordinates and with the native head-men; and he said that he trusted her so completely that all of them, the Europeans, would be unarmed. He looked her in the eyes. He threatened her more by saying this than if he had spoken of arms. For he was threatening her—without a threatening word, merely by the intonation of his Malay speech—with the punishment, with the vengeance of the government, if a hair was injured of the least of its officials.
He had risen from his seat. She also rose, wrung her hands, entreated him not to speak like that, entreated him to have the fullest confidence in her and in her son. She sent for Sunario. The Regent of Labuwangi entered; and Van Oudijck again repeated that he hoped for peace and reason. And he felt, by the tone of the old princess in speaking to her son, that she wished for peace and reason. He felt that she, the mother, was omnipotent in the palace.
The regent bowed his head, agreed, promised, even said that he had already taken pacifying measures, that he had always regretted this excitement of the populace, that it grieved him greatly, now that the resident had noticed it, in spite of his, Sunario’s, attempts at pacification. The resident did not go further into this insincerity. He knew that the discontent was fanned from the Kabupaten, but he knew also that he had won. Once more, however, he impressed upon the regent his responsibility, if anything happened in the market-place, next day, during the council. The regent entreated him not to think of such a thing. And now, to part on friendly terms, he begged Van Oudijck to sit down again. Van Oudijck resumed his seat. In so doing, he knocked as though by accident against the tumbler, all frosted with the chill of the ice, which he had not yet put to his lips. It fell clattering to the ground. He apologized for his clumsiness. The raden-aju pangéran had remarked his movement and her old face turned pale. She said nothing, but beckoned to an attendant. And the four servants appeared again, crouching along the floor, and mixed a second whisky-and-soda. Van Oudijck at once lifted the glass to his lips.
There was a painful silence. To what degree the resident’s movement in upsetting the glass was justified would always remain a problem. He would never know. But he wished to show the princess that, when coming here, he was prepared for anything, before their conversation, and that, after this conversation, he meant to trust her utterly and completely, not only in respect of the drink which she offered him, but next day, at the council, where he and his officials would appear unarmed, and in respect of her influence for good, which would bring peace and tranquillity to the people. And, as though to show him that she understood him and that his confidence would be wholly justified, she rose and whispered a few words to an attendant whom she had beckoned to her. The Javanese disappeared and soon returned, crouching all the way through the front-verandah and carrying a long object in a yellow case. The princess took it from him and handed it to Sunario, who took a walking-stick from the yellow silk case and offered it to the resident as a token of their fraternal friendship. Van Oudijck accepted it, understanding the symbol. For the yellow silk case was of the colour and the material of authority, yellow or gold and silk; the stick was of a wood that serves as a protection against snake-bites and ill-luck; and the heavy knob was wrought of the metal of authority, gold, in the form of the ancient sultan’s crown. This stick, offered at such a moment, signified that the Adiningrats submitted anew and that Van Oudijck could trust them.
And, when he took his leave, he felt very proud and esteemed himself highly. For by exercising tact, diplomacy and knowledge of the Javanese he had won; he would have allayed the rebellion merely by words. That would be a fact.
That was so, that would be so: a fact. On that first evening of the public fair, lighted gaily with a hundred paraffin-lamps, scented alluringly with the trailing odours of cooking food, full of the motley whirl of the holiday-making populace, that first evening was wholly given up to rejoicing; and the people discussed with one another the long and friendly visit which the resident had paid to the regent and his mother; for they had seen the carriage with the umbrella waiting a long time in the drive and the regent’s attendants had told of the present of the walking-stick.
That was so: the fact existed and had happened as Van Oudijck had planned it in advance and compelled it to happen. And that he should be proud of this was human. But what he had not compelled or planned in advance was the hidden forces, which he never divined, whose existence he would deny, always, in his simple, natural life. What he did not see and hear and feel was the very hidden force, which had indeed subsided, but was yet smouldering, like a volcanic fire, under the apparently peaceful meadows of flowers and amity and peace; the hatred which would possess a power of impenetrable mystery, against which he, the European, was unarmed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Van Oudijck was fond of certain effects. He did not say much about his visit to the palace that day, nor in the evening, when Eldersma and Van Helderen came to speak to him about the council which would be held next morning. They felt more or less uneasy and asked if they should go armed. But Van Oudijck very firmly and decidedly forbade them to take arms with them and said that no one was allowed to do so. The officials gave way, but nobody felt comfortable. The council, however, took place in complete peace and harmony; only, there were more people moving about among the booths in the market-place, there were more police at the ornamental arches, with the rippling strips of bunting. But nothing happened. The wives indoors were anxious and felt relieved when their husbands were safely back home again. And Van Oudijck had obtained his effect. He now paid a few visits, feeling sure of his grip on things, relying on the raden-aju pangéran. He reassured the ladies and told them to think of nothing now except the fancy-fair. But they were none too confident. Some families, in the evening, bolted all their doors and remained in the middle gallery with their visitors and children and babus, armed, listening, on their guard.
Theo, to whom his father had spoken in an outburst of confidence, planned and played a practical joke with Addie. The two lads, one evening, went round the houses of those whom he knew to be most fidgety and made their way into the front-verandah and shouted to have the doors opened; and they could hear the cocking of fire-arms in the middle galleries. They had a merry evening of it.
Then at last the fancy-fair took place. Eva had organized a series of three tableaux from the Arthurian legend on the stage of the club: Vivien and Guinevere and Lancelot; in the middle of the garden was a Madura proa, fitted up like a Viking’s ship, in which iced punch was served; a neighbouring sugar-factory, always full of fun, famed for its jovial tone, had provided a complete Dutch fritters-stall, as a nostalgic memory of Holland, with the ladies dressed as Frisian peasant-girls and the young fellows from the factory as cooks; and the excitement over the Transvaal was represented by a Majuba Hill with ladies and gentlemen in fantastic Boer costumes. There was not a word about the tremendous seaquake at Ternate, although one half of the receipts was destined for the devastated districts. Under the glowing festoons of Chinese lanterns slung across the gardens, a great sense of fun prevailed, coupled with a readiness to spend pots of money, especially on behalf of the Transvaal. But amid the merriment there yet quivered a fear. Groups assembled, peering glances were cast at the road outside, where Eurasians, Javanese, Chinese and Arabs stood round the steaming portable kitchens. And the visitors, while tossing off a glass of champagne or toying with a plate of fritters, turned their ears in the direction of the square, where the public fair was in full swing. When Van Oudijck appeared with Doddie, received with the national anthem, generously scattering rixdollars and banknotes, he was constantly asked whispered questions. And, when it was seen that Mrs. van Oudijck was not coming, people began to ask one another where she was. She had been suffering so with her teeth, said one; she had gone to Surabaya to see the dentist. They did not think it nice of her; they did not like her when they did not see her. She was much discussed that evening; the most horrible scandals were told about her. Doddie took up her stand in the Madura proa as a saleswoman; and Van Oudijck, with Eldersma, Van Helderen and a couple of controllers from other districts, went round and treated the members of his council. When people asked their mysterious questions, with anxious glances at the road, with ears pricked towards the popular market, he reassured them with a majestic smile; nothing was going to happen, he pledged his word on it. They considered him extremely trusting, mightily sure of himself; but the jovial smile around his thick moustache was comforting. He urged all who belonged to his good town of Labuwangi to think of nothing but enjoyment and benevolence. And, when suddenly the Regent, Raden Adipati Sunario, and his wife, the young raden-aju, appeared at the entrance and paid for bouquets, programmes and fans with a hundred-guilder-note, the tension was relaxed throughout the garden. Everybody soon knew about the hundred-guilder-note. And they all breathed again, realizing that there was now no occasion for anxiety, that there would be no insurrection that night. They made much of the regent and his smiling young wife, who glittered with her beautiful jewels.
Out of sheer relief and relaxation of their tense anxiety, out of sheer craziness, they spent more and more money, trying to vie with the few wealthy Chinese—those dating from before the opium-monopoly, the owners of the white marble and stucco palaces—as these with their wives, in embroidered grey and green Chinese costumes, their shiny hair stuck full of flowers and precious stones, smelling strongly of sandalwood, distributed rixdollars broadcast. Money flowed like water, dripped as though in silver drops into the collecting-boxes of the delighted saleswomen. And the fancy-fair was a success. And, when Van Oudijck at last, little by little, here and there, said a word to Doorn de Bruijn, to Rantzow, to the officials from other residencies about his visit, about his interview with the raden-aju pangéran—assuming an air of humility and simplicity, but nevertheless, despite himself, beaming with happy pride, with delight in his triumph—then he attained his greatest effect.
The story ran round the garden, of the tact, the cleverness of the resident, who had laid the spectre of insurrection merely with a word. He received a sort of ovation. And he filled every glass with champagne, he bought up every fan, he purchased all the tickets in the tombola that remained unsold. It was his apotheosis, his greatest moment of success and popularity. And he joked with the ladies and flirted with them.
The entertainment was prolonged until daylight, until six o’clock in the morning. The merry cooks were drunk and danced around their fritters-stove. And, when Van Oudijck went home at last, he felt an inner mood of self-satisfaction, of strength, he was delighted, enraptured with himself. He felt a king in his little world and a diplomatist into the bargain and beloved by all whose quiet and peace he had assured. That evening made him rise in his own esteem and he valued himself more highly than he had ever done before. Never had he felt as happy as he felt now.
He had sent the carriage away and he walked home with Doddie. A few early salesmen were going to market. Doddie, dog-tired and half-asleep, dragged herself along on her father’s arm ... until some one passed close beside her and, feeling rather than seeing, she suddenly shuddered. She looked up. The figure had passed. She looked round and recognized the back of the hadji, hurrying away....
She turned cold and felt as though she would faint. But then, wearily, walking in her sleep, she reflected that she was half dreaming, dreaming of Addie, of Patjaram, of the moonlit night under the tjemaras, where the white hadji had startled her at the end of the avenue....
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eva Eldersma was in a more listless and dejected mood than she had yet experienced in Java. After her efforts, after the fuss and the success of the fancy-fair, after the shuddering fear of a rising, the little town conscientiously went to sleep again, as though well content to be able to slumber as usual. It was December and the heavy rains had begun, as usual, on the fifth of the month: the rainy monsoon invariably opened on St. Nicholas’ Day. The clouds which, for the past month, continually swelling, had piled themselves upon the lower horizons now rose curtain-wise, like water-laden sails higher against the skies, rent open as by a sudden fury of far-flashing lightning, pouring and lashing down as though this wealth of water could no longer be upheld, now that the swollen sails were torn apart, as though all their wanton abundance came streaming down from a single rent. Of an evening, Eva’s front-verandah was invaded by a crazy swarm of insects, which, drunk with light, rushed upon their destruction in the lamps, as in an apotheosis of fiery death, filling the lamp-chimneys and strewing the marble tables with their fluttering, dying bodies. Eva inhaled a cooler air, but a miasma of damp, arising from earth and leaves, soaked the walls, seemed to ooze from the furniture, dimming the mirrors, staining the silk hangings and covering boots and shoes with mildew, as though nature’s frenzied downpour were bent on the ruin of all that was fine and delicate, sparkling and graceful in human achievement. But the trees and foliage and grass shot up and expanded and rioted luxuriantly upwards, in a thousand shades of fresh green; and, in the reviving glory of verdant nature, the crouching human community of open-fronted villas, wet and humid with fungi, all the whiteness of the lime-washed pillars and flower-pots turned to a mouldy green.
Eva watched the slow and gradual ruin of her house, her furniture, her clothes. Day by day, inexorably, something was spoilt, something rotted away, something was covered with mildew or rust. And none of the æsthetic philosophy with which she had at first taught herself to love India, to appreciate the good in India, to seek in India for external plastic beauty and inward beauty of soul, was able to withstand the streaming water, the cracking of her furniture, the staining of her frocks and gloves, the damp, mildew and rust that wrecked the exquisite environment which she had designed and created all around her, as a comfort, to console her for living in India. All her logic, all her feeling of making the best of things, of finding something attractive and beautiful after all in the land of all-prevailing nature and of people eager for money and position, all this failed her and came to naught, now that she was every moment irritated and incensed as a housewife, as an elegant woman, an artistic woman. No, it was impossible in India to surround one’s self with taste and exquisiteness. She had been here for only two years and she was still able to make a certain fight for her western culture; but nevertheless she was now already better able than in the first days after her arrival to understand the laisser-aller of the men, after their hard work, and of the women, in their housekeeping. True, the servants with their soundless movements, working with gentle hands, willing, never impertinent, were to her thinking far superior to the noisy, pounding maids in Holland; but nevertheless she felt in all her household an eastern antagonism to her western ideas. It was always a struggle not to surrender to that laisser-aller, to the running to waste of the over-large grounds, invariably hung at the back with the dirty washing of the servants and strewn with nibbled mangoes; to the gradual spoiling and fading of the paint of the house, which was also too large, too open, too much exposed to wind and weather to be cared for with Dutch cleanliness; to the habit of sitting and rocking, undressed, in sarong and kabaai, with one’s bare feet in slippers, because it was really too hot, too sultry to dress one’s self in a frock or tea-gown, which only became soaked in perspiration. It was for her sake that her husband always dressed for dinner, in a black jacket and stand-up collar; but, when she saw his tired face, with that more and more fixed, overtired office expression above that stand-up collar, she herself begged him not to trouble to dress next time after his second bath and allowed him to dine in a white jacket, or even in pyjamas. She thought it terrible, thought it unspeakably dreadful; it shocked all her ideas of correctness; but really he was too tired and it was too sultry and oppressive for her to expect anything more from him. And she, after only two years in India, understood more and more easily that laisser-aller—in dress, in body and in soul—now that every day she lost something more of her fresh, Dutch blood and her western energy, now that she admitted, certainly, that in India men worked perhaps as in no other country, but that they worked with one sole object before their eyes: position, money, retirement, pension ... and home, back home to Europe. True, there were others, born in India, who had been out of India only once, for barely a year, who would not hear of Holland, who adored their land of sunshine. She knew that the De Luces were like this; and there were others as well, she knew. But in her own circle of civil servants and planters every one had the same object in life: position, money ... and then off, off to Europe. Every one calculated the years of work still before him. Every one saw before him in the future the illusion of that European retirement. An occasional friend, like Van Oudijck, an occasional civil servant, who perhaps loved his work for his work’s sake and because it suited his nature, feared the coming pensioned retirement, which would mean a stupid, vegetating existence. But Van Oudijck was an exception. The majority worked in the service and on the plantations for the sake of the rest to come. Her husband also, for instance, was toiling like a slave to become assistant-resident and, after some years, to draw his pension; he slaved and toiled for his illusion of rest. At present she felt her own energy leaving her with every drop of blood that she felt flowing more sluggishly through her weary veins. And, in these early days of the wet monsoon, while the eaves of the house incessantly discharged the thick, plashing shafts which irritated her with their clatter, while she watched the gradual ruin of all the material surroundings which she had selected with so much taste as her artistic consolation in India, she reached a more discordant mood of listlessness and dejection than she had ever gone through before. Her child was still too small to mean much to her, to be a kindred spirit. Her husband did nothing but work. He was a kind and thoughtful husband to her, a dear fellow in every way, a man of great simplicity, whom she had accepted—perhaps only because of this simplicity, because of the quiet serenity of his smiling, fair-skinned, Frisian face and the burliness of his broad shoulders—after one or two excited, juvenile romances of enthusiasm and misunderstanding and soulful discussions, romances dating from her girlhood. She, who was herself neither simple nor serene, had sought the simplicity of her life in a simple romance. But his qualities failed to satisfy her. Now especially, when she had been longer in India and was suffering defeat in her contest with the country that did not harmonize with her nature, his serene conjugal love failed to satisfy her.
She was beginning to feel unhappy. She was too versatile a woman to find all her happiness in her little boy. He certainly filled a part of her life, with the minor cares of the present and the thought of his future. She had even worked out a whole educational system for him. But he did not fill her life entirely. And a longing for Holland encompassed her, a longing for her parents, a longing for the beautiful, artistic home where you were always meeting painters, writers, musicians, the artistic salon—an exception in Holland—that gathered together for a brief moment the artistic elements which in Holland usually remained isolated.
The vision passed before her eyes like a vague and distant dream, while she listened to the approaching thunders that filled the air, sultry to bursting-point, while she gazed at the downpour that followed. Here she had nothing. Here she felt out of place. Here she had her little clique of adherents, who collected around her because she was cheerful; but she found no sort of deeper sympathy, no serious conversation ... except in Van Helderen. And with him she meant to be careful, so as to give him no illusions.
There was only Van Helderen. And she thought of all the other people around her at Labuwangi. She thought of people, people everywhere. And, very pessimistic in these days, she found in all of them the same egoism, the same self-complacency, the same unattractiveness, the same self-absorption: she could hardly express it to herself, distracted as she was by the terrific force of the pelting rain. But she found in everybody conscious and unconscious traits of unloveliness ... even in her faithful adherents ... and in her husband ... and in the men, young wives, girls, young men around her. There was nothing in any of them but his own ego. Not one of them had sufficient harmony of mind for himself and another. She disapproved of this in one, hated that in another; a third and a fourth she condemned entirely. This critical attitude made her despondent and melancholy, for it was against her nature: she preferred to like others. She liked to live, in spontaneous harmony, with a number of associates: originally she had a profound love of people, a love of humanity. Great questions moved her. But nothing that she felt met with any echo. She found herself empty and alone, in a country, a town, an environment in which all and everything, large and small, offended her soul, her body, her character, her nature. Her husband worked. Her child was already becoming thoroughly Indian. Her piano was out of tune.
She stood up and tried the piano, with long scales that ended in the Feuerzauber of Valkyrie. But the roar of the rain was louder than her playing. When she got up again, feeling desperately dejected, she saw Van Helderen standing before her.
“You startled me,” she said.
“May I stay to lunch?” he asked. “I am all by myself at home. Ida has gone to Tosari for her malaria and has taken the children with her. She went yesterday. It’s an expensive business. How I’m to keep going this month I do not know.”
“Send the children to us, after they’ve had a few days in the hills.”
“Won’t they bother you?”
“Of course not. I’ll write to Ida.”
“It’s really awfully good of you. It would certainly make things easier for me.”
She laughed softly.
“Aren’t you well?” he asked.
“I feel deadly,” she said.
“How do you mean?”
“I feel as if I were dying by inches.”
“Why?”
“It’s terrible here. We’ve been longing for the rains; and, now that they’ve come, they are driving me mad. And ... I don’t know what: I can’t stand it here any longer.”
“Where?”
“In India. I have taught myself to see the good, the beautiful in this country. It’s all no use. I can’t go on with it.”
“Go to Holland,” he said gently.
“My people would be glad to see me, no doubt. It would be good for my boy, because he’s forgetting his Dutch daily, though I had begun to teach it to him so conscientiously, and he speaks Malay ... or gibberish. But I can’t leave my husband here all alone. He would have nothing here without me. At least, I think so: that is one more sort of illusion. Perhaps it’s not so at all.”
“But, if you fall ill...?”
“Oh, I don’t know!”
Her whole being was filled with an unusual fatigue.
“Perhaps you’re exaggerating!” he began, cheerfully. “Come, perhaps you’re exaggerating! What’s upsetting you, what’s making you so unhappy? Let’s draw up an inventory together.”
“An inventory of my misfortunes? Very well. My garden is a marsh. Three chairs in my front-verandah are splitting to pieces. The white ants have devoured my beautiful Japanese mats. A new silk frock has come out all over stains, for no reason that I can make out. Another is all unravelled, simply with the heat, I believe. To say nothing of various minor miseries of the same order. To console myself I took refuge in the Feuerzauber. My piano was out of tune; I believe there are cockroaches walking among the strings.”
He gave a little laugh.
“We’re idiots here,” she continued, “we Europeans in this country! Why do we bring all the paraphernalia of our costly civilization with us, considering that it’s bound not to last? Why don’t we live in a cool bamboo hut, sleep on a mat, dress in a cotton sarong and a chintz kabaai, with a scarf over our shoulders and a flower in our hair. All your civilization by which you propose to grow rich ... is a western idea, which fails in the long run. Our whole administration ... is so tiring in the heat. Why—if we must be here—don’t we live simply and plant paddy and live on nothing?”
“You’re talking like a woman,” he said, with another little laugh.
“Possibly,” she said. “Perhaps I don’t mean quite all I say. But that I feel here, opposing me, opposing all my western notions, a force which is antagonistic to me ... that is certain. I am sometimes frightened. I always feel ... that I am on the point of being conquered, I don’t know what by: by something out of the ground, by a force of nature, by a secret in the soul of these black people, whom I don’t know.... I feel particularly afraid at night.”
“You’re overwrought,” he said, tenderly.
“Possibly,” she replied, wearily, seeing that he did not understand and too tired to go on explaining. “Let’s talk about something else. That table-turning’s very curious.”
“Very,” he said.
“The other day, the three of us: Ida, you and I....”
“It was certainly very curious.”
“Do you remember the first time? Addie de Luce: it seems to be true about him and Mrs. van Oudijck.... And the insurrection ... the table foretold it.”
“May we not have suggested it unconsciously?”
“I don’t know. But to think that we should all be playing fair and that that table should go tapping and talking to us by means of an alphabet!”
“I shouldn’t do it often, Eva, if I were you.”
“No, I think it inexplicable, and yet it’s already beginning to bore me. One grows so accustomed to the incomprehensible.”
“Everything’s incomprehensible.”
“Yes ... and everything’s a bore.”
“Eva!” he said, with a soft, reproachful laugh.
“I give up the fight. I shall just sit in my rocking-chair ... and look at the rain.”
“There was a time when you used to see the beautiful side of my country.”
“Your country? Which you would be glad to leave to-morrow to go to the Paris Exhibition!”
“I’ve never seen anything.”
“How humble you are to-day!”
“I am sad, because of you.”
“Oh, please don’t be that!”
“Play something more.”
“Well, then, have your gin-and-bitters. Help yourself. I shall play on my out-of-tune piano; it will sound as melodious as my soul, which is also all of a tangle....”
She went back to the middle gallery and played something from Parsifal. He remained sitting outside and listened. The rain was pouring furiously. The garden stood clean and empty. A violent thunder-clap seemed to split the world asunder. Nature was supreme; and in her gigantic manifestation the two people in that damp house were diminished, his love was nothing, her melancholy was nothing and the mystic music of the Grail was as a child’s ditty to the echoing mystery of that thunder-clap, whereat fate itself seemed to sail with heavenly cymbals over these doomed creatures in the Deluge.