Chapter Twenty-Three
Van Helderen’s two children, a boy and girl of six and seven, were staying at Eva’s; and Van Helderen came in regularly once a day for a meal. He no longer spoke of his intense feeling, as though unwilling to disturb the pleasant intimacy of their daily intercourse. And she accepted his daily visits, was powerless to keep him at a distance. He was the only man in her immediate circle with whom she could speak and think aloud; and he was a comfort to her in these days of dejection. She did not understand how she had come to this, but she gradually lapsed into an absolute apathy, a sort of annihilating condition of thinking nothing necessary. She had never been like this before. Her nature was lively and cheerful, seeking and admiring the beautiful in poetry and music and painting, things which, from her early childhood, from her childish books, she had seen about her and felt and discussed. In India she had gradually come to lack everything of which she felt a need. In her despair she succumbed to a sort of nihilism that made her ask:
“What is the reason of anything?... Why the world and the people in it and the mountains?... Why all this tiny whirl of life?”
And then, when she read of the social movements, of the great social problems in Europe, of the Eurasian question in Java, which was becoming more and more urgent, she thought to herself:
“Why should there be a world, if man eternally remains the same, small and suffering and oppressed by all the misery of his humanity?”
She did not see the purpose of it all. Half of mankind was suffering poverty and struggling upwards out of that darkness ... to what? The other half was stagnating stupidly and dully amid its riches. Between the two was a scale of gradations, from black poverty to dismal wealth. Over them stood the rainbow of the eternal illusions, love, art, the great notes of interrogation of justice and peace and an ideal future.... She felt that it was much ado about nothing, she failed to see the purpose and she thought of herself:
“Why is it all so?... And why the world and poor humanity?”
She had never felt like this before, but there was no struggling against it. Gradually, from day to day, India was making her so, making her sick at her very soul. Frans van Helderen was her only consolation. The young controller, who had never been to Europe, who had received all his education at Batavia, who had passed his examinations at Batavia, with his distinguished manners, his supple courtesy, his strange, enigmatic nationality, had grown dear to her in friendship because of his almost exotic development. She told him how she delighted in this friendship; and he no longer replied by offering his love. There was too much charm about their present relation. There was something ideal in it, which they both needed. In their everyday surroundings, that friendship shone before them like an exquisite halo of which they were both proud. He often called to see her, especially now that his wife was at Tosari; and they would walk in the evening twilight to the beacon which stood by the sea like a small Eiffel tower. These walks were much talked about, but they did not mind that. They sat down on the foundation of the beacon, looked out to sea and listened to the distance. Ghostly proas, with sails like night-birds’ wings, glided into the canal, to the droning sing-song of the fishermen. A melancholy of resignation, of a small world and small people hovered beneath the skies filled with twinkling stars, where gleamed the mystic diamonds of the Southern Cross or the Turkish crescent of the horned moon. And above that melancholy of the droning fishermen, of crazy proas, of small people at the foot of the little light-house, drifted a fathomless immensity of the skies and the eternal stars. And from out the immensity drifted the unutterable, as it were the superhumanly divine, wherein all that was small and human sank and melted away.
“Why attach any value to life when I may die to-morrow?” thought Eva. “Why all this confusion and turmoil of mankind, when to-morrow perhaps everything may have ceased to exist?”
And she put the question to him. He replied that each of us was not living for himself and the present age, but for all mankind and for the future. But she gave a bitter laugh, shrugged her shoulders, thought him commonplace. And she thought herself commonplace, to think such things that had so often been thought before. But still, notwithstanding her self-criticism, she continued under the obsession of the uselessness of life, when everything might be dead to-morrow. And an humiliating littleness, as of atoms, overcame them, both of them, as they sat gazing into the spaciousness of the skies and the eternal stars.
Yet they loved those moments, which were everything in their lives; for, when they did not feel their pettiness too keenly, they spoke of books, music, painting and the big, important things of life. And they felt that, in spite of the circulating library and the Italian opera at Surabaya, they were no longer in touch with the world. They felt the great, important things to be very far from them. And both of them now became seized with a nostalgia for Europe, a longing to feel so very small no longer. They would both have liked to get away, to go to Europe. But neither of them was able. Their petty, daily life held them captive. Then, as though spontaneously, in mutual harmony, they spoke of what was soul and being and all the mystery thereof.
All the mystery. They felt it in the sea, in the sky; but they also quietly sought it in the rapping leg of a table. They did not understand how a soul or spirit could reveal itself through a table on which they earnestly laid their hands and which through their magnetic fluid was transformed from dead to living matter. But, when they laid their hands upon it, the table lived and they were forced to believe. The letters which they counted out were often confused, according to some strange alphabet; and the table, as though directed by a mocking spirit, constantly showed a tendency to tease and confuse, to stop suddenly or to be coarse and indecent. Sometimes they read books on spiritualism and did not know whether to believe or not.
These were quiet days of quiet monotony in the little town swept by the rustling rain. Their life in common seemed unreal, like a dream that rose through the rain like a mist. And it was like a sudden awakening for Eva when, one afternoon, walking outside in the damp avenue waiting for Van Helderen, she saw Van Oudijck coming in her direction.
“I was just on my way to you!” he cried, excitedly. “I was just coming to ask a favour. Will you help me once more?”
“In what, resident?”
“But first tell me: aren’t you well? You’ve not been looking very fit lately.”
“It’s nothing serious,” she said, with a dreary laugh. “It’ll pass. What can I help you in, resident?”
“There’s something to be done, mevrouwtje, and we can’t manage without you. My wife herself was saying this morning, ‘Better ask Mrs. Eldersma.’”
“But tell me what it is.”
“You know Mrs. Staats, the station-master’s widow. The poor woman has been left without a thing, except her five children and some debts.”
“He committed suicide, didn’t he?”
“Yes, it’s very sad. And we really must help her. There’s a lot of money needed. Sending round a subscription-list won’t bring in much. People are very generous, but they’ve already made such sacrifices lately. They went mad at the fancy-fair. They can’t do much for the moment, so near the end of the month. But, early next month, in the first week of January, mevrouwtje, some theatricals by your Thalia society: you know, nothing elaborate, a couple of drawing-room sketches and no expenses. Seats at a guilder and a half, two guilders and a half, perhaps, and, if you set it going, the hall will be full; people will come over from Surabaya. You must help me, you will, won’t you?”
“But, resident,” said Eva, wearily, “we’ve just had those tableaux-vivants. Don’t be angry with me, but I don’t care to be always acting.”
“Yes, yes, you must this time,” Van Oudijck insisted, a little imperiously, greatly excited about his plan.
She became peevish. She liked her independence; and in these days of dejection particularly she was too disconsolate, in these days of dreaming she felt too much confused to accede at once with a good grace to his authoritative request:
“Really, resident, I can think of nothing this time,” she answered, curtly. “Why doesn’t Mrs. van Oudijck do it herself?”
She was startled when she had made this peevish remark. Walking beside her, the resident lost his composure; and his face clouded over. The animated, cheerful expression and the jovial smile around his thick moustache suddenly disappeared. She saw that she had been cruel; and she felt remorse for it. And for the first time, suddenly, she saw that, in love with his wife though he was, he did not approve of her withdrawing herself from everything. She saw that it gave him pain. It was as though this side of his character were being made clear to her: she was seeing it plainly for the first time.
He did not know what to reply: seeking for his words, he remained silent.
Then she said, coaxingly:
“Don’t be angry, resident. It wasn’t nice of me. I know that all that sort of bustle only bores Mrs. van Oudijck. I am glad to relieve her of it. I will do anything you wish.”
Her eyes were filled with nervous tears.
He was smiling now and gave her a penetrating sidelong glance:
“You’re a bit overstrung. But I knew that you had a good heart ... and would not leave me in the lurch ... and would consent to help poor old Mother Staats. But don’t throw away any money, mevrouwtje: no expense, no new scenery. Just your wit, your talent, your beautiful elocution: French or Dutch, as you please. We’re proud of all that at Labuwangi, you know; and all the beautiful acting—which you give us free of charge—is quite enough to make the performance a success. But how overstrung you are, mevrouwtje! Why are you crying? Aren’t you well? Tell me: is there anything I can do for you?”
“Don’t work my husband so hard, resident. I never see anything of him.”
He made a gesture to show that he could not help himself:
“It’s true,” he admitted. “There’s an awful lot to do. Is that the trouble?”
“And make me see the good side of India.”
“Is that it?”
“And a lot besides.”
“Are you becoming homesick? Don’t you care for India any longer, don’t you care for Labuwangi, where we all make so much of you?... You misjudge India. Try to see the good side of it.”
“I have tried.”
“Is it no use?”
“No.”
“You are too sensible not to perceive the good in this country.”
“You are too fond of it to be impartial. And I don’t know how to be impartial. But tell me the good things.”
“Which shall I begin with? The satisfaction of being able, as an official, to do good to the country and the people. The fine, delightful sense of working for this country and this people; the ample hard work that fills a man’s life out here.... I’m not speaking of all the office-work of your husband, who is district secretary. But I’m speaking of later on, when he becomes an assistant-resident!”
“It will be so long before that happens!”
“Well, then, the spacious material life?”
“The white ants gnaw everything.”
“That’s a poor joke, mevrouw.”
“Very possibly, resident. Everything is out of tune with me, inside and out: my wit, my piano and my poor soul.”
“Nature, then?”
“I don’t feel it all. Nature is conquering me and devouring me.”
“Your own activities?”
“My activities? One of the good things in India?”
“Yes. To inspire us material, practical people with your wit, now and again.”
“Resident! You’re paying me compliments!... Is this all on account of the theatricals?”
“And to do good to Mother Staats with that wit of yours!”
“Couldn’t I do good in Europe?”
“Certainly, certainly,” he said, bluffly. “Go to Europe, mevrouw, by all means. Go and live at the Hague; join the Charity Organization Society ... with a collecting-box at your door and a rix-dollar ... how often?”
She laughed:
“Now you’re becoming unjust. They do a lot of good in Holland too.”
“But do they ever do in Holland for one distressed person ... what we, what you are now going to do for Mother Staats? And don’t tell me that there’s less poverty here.”
“Well?”
“Well, then, there is a great deal of good for you here. Your special activities. Your material and moral work for others.... Don’t let Van Helderen get too much smitten with you, mevrouw. He’s a charming fellow, but he puts too much literature into his monthly reports.... I see him coming and I must be off. So I can rely on you?”
“Absolutely.”
“When shall we have the first meeting, with the committee and the ladies?”
“To-morrow evening, resident, at your house?”
“Right you are. I shall send round the subscription-lists. We must make a lot of money, mevrouw.”
“We’ll do our best for Mother Staats,” she said, gently.
He shook her hand and went away. She felt limp, she did not know why:
“The resident has been warning me against you, because you’re too literary!” she said to Van Helderen, teasingly.
She sat down in the front verandah. The skies burst asunder; a white curtain of rain descended in perpendicular streams. A plague of locusts came hopping along the verandah. A cloud of tiny flies hummed in the corners like an Æolian harp. Eva and Van Helderen placed their hands on the little table and it tilted its leg with a jerk, while the beetles buzzed around them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The subscription-lists went round. The plays were rehearsed and performed in three weeks’ time; and the committee handed the resident a sum of nearly fifteen hundred guilders for Mother Staats. Her debts were paid; a little house was rented for her; and she was set up in a small milliner’s shop, which Eva stocked from Paris. All the ladies in Labuwangi gave Mother Staats an order; and in less than a month not only was the woman saved from utter ruin, but her mode of life was established, her children were going to school again and she was enjoying a pleasant livelihood. All this had happened so swiftly and unostentatiously; the subscriptions were so munificent; the ladies so readily ordered a dress or a hat which they did not need that Eva was astounded. And she had to confess to herself that the egoism, the self-absorption, the unlovable qualities which she often observed in their social life—in their intercourse, conversation, intriguing and gossip—had been suddenly thrust into the background by a common gift for doing the right thing, quite simply, because it had to be done, because there was no question about it, because the woman had to be assisted. Roused from her depression by the bustle of the rehearsals, stimulated to brisk action, she appreciated the better and finer side of her environment and wrote of it so enthusiastically to Holland that her parents, to whom India was a closed book, smiled. But, although this episode had awakened a soft and gentle and appreciative feeling in her, it was only an episode; and she remained the same when the emotion of it was over. And, notwithstanding that she felt the disapproval of Labuwangi around her, she continued to find the main interest of her life in Van Helderen’s friendship.
For there was so little else. Her little circle of adherents, which she had gathered round her with so many illusions, which she invited to dinner, to which her doors were always open: what did it actually amount to? She now accepted the Doorn de Bruijns and the Rantzows as indifferent acquaintances, but no longer as friends. She suspected Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn of insincerity; Dr. Rantzow was too common, too vulgar; his wife was an insignificant German Hausfrau. True, they joined in the table-turning, but they relished the absurd ineptitudes, the indecent conversation of the mocking spirit. She and Van Helderen took the whole thing seriously, though she thought the table rather comical. And so no one but Van Helderen remained to interest her.
But Van Oudijck had won her admiration. She had suddenly obtained a glimpse of his character; and, though it entirely lacked the artistic charm which had hitherto exclusively attracted her in men, she saw the fine quality also in this man, who was not at all artistic, who had not the least conception of art, but who had so much that was beautiful in his simple, manly idea of duty and in the calmness with which he endured the disappointment of his domestic life. For Eva saw that, though he adored his wife, he did not approve of Léonie’s indifference to all the interests of which his own life was built up. If he saw nothing more, if he was blind to all the rest that went on in his domestic circle, this disappointment was his secret pain, to which he was not blind, deep down in himself.
And she admired him; and her admiration was as it were a revelation that art does not always stand highest in the affairs of this life. She suddenly understood that the exaggerated importance attaching to art in our time was a disease from which she had suffered and was still suffering. For what was she, what did she do? Nothing. Her parents, both of them, were great artists, true artists; and their house was like a temple and their bias was comprehensible and pardonable. But what of her? She played the piano pretty well; and that was all. She had a few ideas, a little taste; and that was all. But in her time she had gushed with other girls; and she now remembered all that foolish gushing, that trick of exchanging letters crammed with cheap philosophy and written in a modern style distantly aping that of the poets Kloos and Gorter. And thus, for all her depression, her meditation carried her a stage further and she underwent a certain development. For it seemed incredible that she, the child of her parents, should not always place art above everything else.
And she had in her that play and counterplay of seeking and thinking in order to find her way, now that she was quite lost in a country alien to her nature, among people on whom she looked down, without letting them perceive it. She strove to find the good in the country, in order to make it her own and cherish it; she was glad to find among the people those few who roused her sympathy and her admiration; but the good remained incidental to her, the few people remained exceptional; and, despite all her seeking and thinking, she did not find her way and retained the moodiness of a woman who was too European, too artistic, notwithstanding her self-knowledge and her consequent denial of her artistic capacity, to live quietly and contentedly in an up-country Javanese town, beside a husband wrapped up in his office-work, in a climate that upset her health, amid natural surroundings that overwhelmed her and among people whom she disliked.
And, in the most lucid moments of this play and counterplay, there was the obvious fear, the fear which she felt most definitely of all, the fear which she felt slowly approaching, she knew not whence, she knew not whither, but hovering over her head as with the thousand veils of a fate gliding through the sultry, rain-laden skies....
In these inharmonious moods, she had refrained from gathering her little clique around her, for she herself did not care to take the trouble and her friends did not understand her well enough to seek her out. They missed the cheerfulness in her which had attracted them at first. Envy and hostility were now given more rein; people began to speak freely of her: she was affected, pedantic, vain, proud; she had the pretention always to aim at being the leading person in the town; she behaved just as though she were the resident’s wife and ordered every one about. She was not really pretty, she had an impossible way of dressing, her house was preposterously arranged. And then her relation with Van Helderen, their evening walks to the light-house! Ida heard about it at Tosari, amid the band of gossips at the small, poky hotel, where the visitors are bored when they are not going on excursions and therefore sit about in their poky little verandahs, almost in one another’s pockets, peeping into one another’s rooms, listening at the thin partitions; Ida heard about it at Tosari and it was enough to rouse the little Indian woman’s instincts, the instincts of a white half-caste, and induce her suddenly, without stating any cause, to remove her children from Eva’s charge. Van Helderen, when he went up for the week-end, asked his wife for an explanation, asked her why she insulted Eva by taking the children away, without a reason, and having them up in the hills, thus increasing the hotel-bills. Ida made a scene, talking loudly, with hysterics that rang through the little hotel, made all the visitors prick up their ears and, like a gale of wind, whipped the cackling chatter into a storm. And, without further explanation, Ida broke with Eva.
Eva withdrew into herself. Even in Surabaya, where she went to do some shopping, she heard the scandalous chatter; and she became so sick of her world and her friends that she silently shrank back into herself. She wrote to Van Helderen not to call any more. She entreated him to become reconciled with his wife. She gave up seeing him. And she was now all alone. She felt that she was not in the mood to find comfort in any one around her. There was no sympathy and no understanding in India for such moods as hers. And so she shut herself up. Her husband was working hard, as usual. But she devoted herself more zealously to her little boy, she immersed herself in her love for her child. She withdrew herself into her love for her house. Well, this was her life of never going out, of never seeing any one, of never hearing any other music than her own. This was seeking comfort in her house, her child and her books. This was the personality that she had become, after her early illusions and strivings. She now constantly felt the yearning for Europe, for Holland, for her parents, for people of artistic culture. And now it developed into hatred for the country which she had at first seen in the overwhelming grandeur of its beauty, with its majestic mountains and the softly-creeping mystery that lurked in nature and humanity. Now she hated nature and humanity; and their mystery terrified her.
She filled her life with thoughts of her child. Her boy, little Otto, was three years old. She would guide him, make a man of him. From the day of his birth she had had vague illusions of later seeing her son a great artist, by preference a great writer, famous throughout the world. But she had learnt much since then. She felt that art does not always stand supreme. She felt that there are higher things, which sometimes, in her despondency, she denied, but which were there nevertheless, radiant and great. These things had to do with the shaping of the future; these things had to do above all with peace, justice and brotherhood. Oh, the great brotherhood of the poor and the rich! Now, in her loneliness, she contemplated this as the highest ideal at which one can work, as sculptors work on a monument. Justice and peace would follow. But human brotherhood must be aimed at first; and she wished her son to work at it. Where? In Europe? In India? She did not know; she did not see it before her. She saw it in Europe rather than in India, where the inexplicable, the enigmatical, the fearful remained in the foreground of her thoughts. How strange it was, how strange!...
She was a woman made for ideals. Perhaps this by itself was the simple explanation of what she felt and feared ... in India....
“Your impressions of India are altogether mistaken,” her husband would say. “You see India quite wrongly. Quiet? You think it’s quiet here? Why should I have to work so hard in India, if things were quiet at Labuwangi?... We have hundreds of interests at heart, of Europeans and Javanese alike. Agriculture is studied as eagerly in this country as anywhere. The population is increasing steadily.... Declining? A colony in which there is always so much going on? That’s one of Van Helderen’s imbecile ideas: speculative ideas, mere vapourings, which you just echo after him.... I can’t understand the way in which you regard India nowadays.... There was a time when you had eyes for all that was beautiful and interesting here. That time seems to be past. You ought to go home for a bit, really....”
But she knew that he would be very lonely without her; and for this reason she refused to go. Later, when her boy was older, she would have to go to Holland. But by then Eldersma would certainly be an assistant-resident. At present he still had seventeen controllers and district secretaries above him. It had been going on like this for years, that looking towards promotion in the distant future. It was like yearning after a mirage. Of ever becoming a resident he did not so much as think. Assistant-resident for a couple of years or so; and then to Holland, on a pension....
She thought it a heart-breaking existence, slaving one’s self to death like that ... for Labuwangi!...
She was down with malaria; and her maid, Saina, was giving her massage, kneading her aching limbs with supple fingers.
“It’s a nuisance, Saina, when I’m ill, for you to be living in the compound. You’d better move into the house this evening, with your four children.”
Saina thought it troublesome, a great fuss.
“Why?”
And the woman explained. Her cottage had been left to her by her husband. She was attached to it, though it was in an utterly dilapidated condition. Now that the rainy monsoon was on, the rain often came in through the roof; and then she was unable to cook and the children had to go without their food. To have it repaired was difficult. She had a rix-dollar a week from the mem-sahib. Sixty cents of that went on rice. Then there were a few cents daily for fish, coconut oil, betel-pepper; a few cents for fuel.... No, repairs were out of the question. She would be much better off with the mem-sahib, much better off on the estate. But it would be such a fuss to find a tenant for the cottage, because it was so dilapidated; and the mem-sahib knew that no house was allowed to remain unoccupied in the compound: there was a heavy fine attached to that.... So she would rather go on living in her damp cottage. She could easily stay and sit up with the mem-sahib at night; her eldest girl would look after the little ones.
And, resigned to her small existence of petty miseries, Saina passed her supple fingers, with a firm, gentle pressure, over her mistress’ ailing limbs.
And Eva thought it heart-rending, this living on a rix-dollar a week, with four children, in a house which let in the rain, so that it was impossible to cook there.
“Let me look after your second little daughter, Saina,” said Eva, a day or two after.
Saina hesitated, smiled: she would rather not, but dared not say so.
“Yes,” Eva insisted, “let her come to me: you will see her all day long; she will sleep in cook’s room; I shall provide her clothes; and she will have nothing to do but to see that my room is kept tidy. You can teach her that.”
“So young still, mem-sahib; only just ten.”
“No, no,” Eva insisted. “Let me do this to help you. What’s her name?”
“Mina, mem-sahib.”
“Mina? That won’t do,” said Eva. “That’s the seamstress’ name. We’ll find another for her.”
Saina brought the child, looking very shy, with a streak of moist rice-powder on her forehead; and Eva dressed her prettily. She was a very attractive little thing, with a soft brown skin covered with a downy bloom, and looked charming in her new clothes. She sedulously piled the sarongs in the press, with fragrant white flowers between the layers: the flowers were changed for fresh ones daily. For a joke, because she arranged the flowers so prettily, Eva called her Melati, after the East-Indian jasmine.
Two days later, Saina crouched down before her njonja.
“What is it, Saina?”
Might the little girl come back to the damp cottage in the compound? Saina asked.
“Why?” asked Eva, in amazement. “Isn’t your little girl happy here?”
Yes, she was, said Saina, bashfully, but she preferred the cottage. The mem-sahib was very kind, but little Mina would rather be in the cottage.
Eva was angry and let the child go home, with the new clothes, which Saina took away with her as a matter of course.
“Why wasn’t the child allowed to stay?” Eva asked of the latta cook.
Cook at first dared not say.
“Come, cook, why wasn’t she?” asked Eva, insisting.
“Because the mem-sahib called the little girl Melati.... Names of flowers and fruits ... are given only ... to dancing-girls,” explained the cook, as though expounding a mystery.
“But why didn’t Saina tell me?” asked Eva, greatly incensed. “I had not the least idea of that!”
“Too shy,” said cook, by way of excusing Saina. “Beg pardon, mem-sahib.”
These were trivial incidents in the daily domestic life, little episodes of her housekeeping; but they made her feel sore, because she felt behind them as it were a wall that always existed between her and the people and things of India. She did not know the country, she would never know the people.
And the minor disappointment of the episodes filled her with the same soreness as the greater disappointment of her illusions, because her life, amid the daily trivialities of her housekeeping, was itself becoming more and more trivial.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The early hours of the day were often cool, washed clean by the abundant rains; and in the young sunshine of these morning hours the earth emitted a tender haze, a blue softening of every hard line and colour, so that the Lange Laan, with its villa-residences and fenced gardens, seemed to be surrounded with the vagueness and beauty of a dream-avenue: the dream-columns rose insubstantially, like a vision of pillared tranquillity; the lines of the roofs acquired distinction in their indefiniteness; the hues of the trees and the outlines of their leafy tops were etherealized into tender pastels of misty rose and even mistier blue, with a single brighter gleam of morning yellow and a distant purple streak of dawn. And over all this matutinal world fell a cool dew, like a fountain that rose from that drenched ground and fell back in pearly drops in the child-like gentleness of the first sunbeams. It was as though every morning the earth and her people were newly created, as though mankind were newly born to a youth of innocence and paradisal unconsciousness. But the illusion of the dawn lasted but a minute, barely a few moments: the sun, rising higher in the sky, shone forth from the virginal mist; boastfully it unfurled its proud halo of piercing rays, pouring down its burning gold, full of godlike pride because it was reigning over its brief moment of the day, for the clouds were already mustering, greyly advancing, like battle-hordes of dark phantoms, pressing eerily onwards: deep bluish-black and heavy lead-grey phantoms, overmastering the sun and crushing the earth under white torrents of rain. And the evening twilight, short and hurried, letting fall veil upon veil of crape, was like an overwhelming melancholy of earth, nature and life, in which one forgot that paradisal moment of the morning; the white rain rustled down like a flood-tide of melancholy; the road and the gardens were dripping, drinking up the falling torrents until they shone like marshy pools and flooded meadows in the dusky evening; a chill, spectral mist rose on high with a slow movement as of ghostly draperies, which hovered over the puddles; and the chilly houses, scantily lit with their smoking lamps, round which clouds of insects swarmed, falling on every hand and dying with singed wings, became filled with a yet chillier sadness, an over-shadowing fear of the menacing world out of doors, of the all-powerful cloud-hordes, of the boundless immensity that came whispering on the gusty winds from the far-off unknown, high as the heavens, wide as the firmament, against which the open houses appeared unprotected, while the inmates were small and petty for all their civilization and science and soulful feelings, small as wriggling insects, insignificant, abandoned to the play of the giant mysteries blowing up from the distance.
Léonie van Oudijck, in the half-lit back-verandah of the residency, was talking to Theo in a soft voice: and Oorip squatted beside her.
“It’s nonsense, Oorip!” she cried, peevishly.
“Really not, mem-sahib,” said the maid. “It’s not nonsense. I hear them every evening.”
“Where?” asked Theo.
“In the banyan-tree behind the house, high up, in the top branches.”
“It’s wild cats,” said Theo.
“It’s not wild cats, sahib,” the maid insisted. “Come, come! As if Oorip didn’t know how wild cats mew! Kriow, kriow: that’s how they go. What we hear every night is the ghosts. It’s the little children crying in the trees. The souls of the little children, crying in the trees.”
“It’s the wind, Oorip.”
“Come, come, mem-sahib: as if Oorip couldn’t hear the wind! Boo-ooh: that’s how the wind goes; and then the branches move. But this is the little children, moaning in the top boughs; and the branches don’t move then. This is a bad omen, mem-sahib.”
“And why should it be a bad omen?”
“Oorip knows but dares not tell. The mem-sahib is sure to be angry.”
“Come, Oorip, tell me.”
“It’s because of the excellency, sahib, because of the residèn.”
“Why?”
“The other day, with the evening-market in the square and the fancy-fair for the white people in the gardens.”
“Well, what about it?”
“The day wasn’t well-chosen, according to the portents. It was an unlucky day.... And with the new well....”
“What about the new well?”
“There was no sacrifice. So no one uses the new well. Every one fetches water from the old well.... The water’s not good either. For from the new well the woman rises with the bleeding hole in her breast.... And Miss Doddie....”
“What of her?”
“Miss Doddie has seen the white hadji going by! The white hadji is not a good hadji. He’s a ghost.... Miss Doddie saw him twice: at Patjaram and here.... Listen, mem-sahib!”
“What?”
“Don’t you hear? The children’s little souls are moaning in the top boughs. There’s no wind blowing at this moment. Listen, listen: that’s not wild cats. The wild cats go kriow, kriow, when they’re courting! These are the little souls!”
They all three listened. Léonie mechanically pressed closer to Theo. She looked deathly pale. The roomy back-verandah, with the table always laid, stretched away in the dim light of a single hanging lamp. The half-swamped back-garden gleamed wet out of the darkness of the banyan-trees, full of pattering drops but motionless in the impenetrable masses of their velvety foliage. And an inexplicable, almost imperceptible crooning, like a gentle mystery of little tormented souls, whimpered high above their heads, as though in the sky or in the topmost branches of the trees. Now it was a short cry, then a moan as of a sick child, then a soft sobbing as of little girls in misery.
“What sort of animal can it be?” asked Theo. “Is it birds or insects?”
The moaning and sobbing was very distinct. Léonie looked white as a sheet and was trembling all over.
“Don’t be so frightened,” said Theo. “Of course it’s animals.”
But he himself was white as chalk with fear; and, when they looked each other in the eyes, she understood that he too was afraid. She clutched his arm, nestled up against him. The maid squatted low, humbly, as though accepting all fate as an impenetrable mystery. She did not wish to run away. But the eyes of the white man and woman held only one idea, the idea of escaping. Suddenly, both of them, the step-mother and the step-son, who were bringing shame upon the house, were afraid, as with a single fear, afraid as of a threatening punishment. They did not speak, they said nothing to each other; they leant against each other, understanding each other’s trembling, two white children of this mysterious Indian soil, who from their childhood had breathed the mystic air of Java and had unconsciously heard the vague, stealthily approaching mystery, as an accustomed music, a music which they had not noticed, as though mystery were an accustomed thing. As they stood thus, trembling and looking at each other, the wind rose, bearing away with it the secret of the tiny souls, bearing away with it the little souls themselves; the interlacing branches swayed angrily and the rain began to fall once more. A shuddering chill came fanning up, filling the house; a sudden draught blew out the lamp. And they remained in the dark, a little longer, she, despite the openness of the verandah, almost in the arm of her step-son and lover; the maid crouching at their feet. But then she flung off his arm, flung off the black oppression of darkness and fear, filled with the rustling of the rain; the wind was cold and shivery and she staggered indoors, on the verge of fainting. Theo and Oorip followed her. The middle gallery was lighted. Van Oudijck’s office was open. He was working. Léonie stood irresolute, with Theo, not knowing what to do. The maid disappeared, muttering. It was then that she heard a whizzing sound and a small round stone flew through the gallery, fell somewhere near at hand. She gave a cry; and, behind the screen which divided the gallery from the office where Van Oudijck sat at his writing-table, she flung herself once more into Theo’s arms, abandoning all her caution. They stood shivering in each other’s arms. Van Oudijck had heard her: he stood up, came from behind the screen. His eyes blinked, as though tired with working. Léonie and Theo had recovered themselves.
“What is it, Léonie?”
“Nothing,” she said, not daring to tell him of the little souls or of the stone, afraid of the threatening punishment.
She and Theo stood there like criminals, both of them white and trembling. Van Oudijck, his mind still on his work, did not notice anything.
“Nothing,” she repeated. “The mat is frayed and ... and I nearly stumbled. But there was something I wanted to tell you, Otto.”
Her voice shook, but he did not hear it, blind to what she did, deaf to what she said, still absorbed in his papers:
“What’s that?”
“Oorip has suggested that the servants would like to have a sacrifice, because a new well has been built in the grounds....”
“That well which is two months old?”
“They don’t make use of the water.”
“Why not?”
“They are superstitious, you know; they refuse to use the water before the sacrifice has been offered.”
“Then it ought to have been done at once. Why didn’t they tell Kario at once to ask me? I can’t think of all that nonsense myself. But I would have given them the sacrifice then. Now it’s like mustard after meat. The well is two months old.”
“It would be a good thing all the same, Papa,” said Theo. “You know what the Javanese are like: they won’t use the well as long as they’ve not had a sacrifice.”
“No,” said Van Oudijck, unwillingly, shaking his head. “To give them a sacrifice now would have no sense in it. I would have done so gladly; but now, after two months, it would be absurd. They ought to have asked for it at once.”
“Do, Otto,” Léonie entreated. “I should give them the sacrifice. You’ll please me if you do.”
“Mamma half-promised Oorip,” Theo insisted gently.
They stood trembling before him, white in the face, like petitioners. But he, weary and thinking of his papers, was seized with a stubborn unwillingness, though he was seldom able to refuse his wife anything.
“No, Léonie,” he said, firmly. “And you must never promise things of which you’re not certain.”
He turned away, went round the screen and sat down to his work.
They looked at each other, the mother and the step-son. Slowly, aimlessly, they moved away, to the front-verandah, where a moist, dripping darkness drifted between the stately pillars. They saw a white form coming through the swamped garden. They started, for they were now afraid of everything, thinking at the sight of every figure of the chastisement that would overtake them like some strange thing, if they remained in the paternal house which they had covered with shame. But, when they looked more closely, they saw that it was Doddie. She had come home; she said, trembling, that she had been at Eva Eldersma’s. Actually she had been walking with Addie de Luce; and they had sheltered from the rain in the compound. She was very pale, she was trembling; but Léonie and Theo did not notice it in the dark verandah, even as she herself did not see that her step-mother and Theo were pale. She was trembling like that because in the garden—Addie had brought her to the gate—stones had been thrown at her. It must have been some impudent Javanese, who hated her father and his house and his household; but, in the dark verandah, where she saw her step-mother and her brother sitting side by side in silence, as though in despair, she suddenly felt, she did not know why, that it was not an impudent Javanese....
She sat down by them, silently. They looked out at the damp, dark garden, over which the spacious night was hovering as on the wings of a gigantic bat. And, in the mute melancholy which drifted like a grey twilight between the tall white pillars, all three of them—Doddie singly, but the step-mother and step-son together—felt frightened to death and crushed by the strange thing that was about to befall them....
Chapter Twenty-Six
And, despite their anxiety, the two sought each other all the oftener, feeling themselves now bound by indissoluble bonds. In the afternoon he would steal to her room; and, despite their anxiety, they lost themselves in wild embraces and then remained close together.
“It must be nonsense, Léonie,” he whispered.
“Yes, but then what is it?” she murmured in return. “After all, I heard the moaning and heard the stone whizz through the air.”
“And then?”
“What?”
“If it is something ... suppose it is something that we can’t explain?”
“But I don’t believe in it!”
“Nor I.... Only....”
“What?”
“If it’s something ... if it’s something that we can’t explain, then....”
“Then what?”
“Then ... it’s not because of us!” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “Why, Oorip said so herself! It’s because of papa!”
“Oh, but it’s too silly!”
“I don’t believe in that nonsense either.”
“The moaning ... of those animals.”
“And that stone ... must have been thrown by some wretched fellow ... one of the servants, a beggar who is putting himself forward ... or who has been bribed....”
“Bribed? By whom?”
“By ... by the regent....”
“Why, Theo!”
“Oorip said the moaning came from the palace....”
“What do you mean?”
“And that they wanted to torment papa from there....”
“To torment him?”
“Because the Regent of Ngadjiwa has been dismissed.”
“Does Oorip say that?”
“No, I do. Oorip said that the regent had occult powers. That’s nonsense, of course. The fellow’s a scoundrel. He has bribed people ... to worry papa.”
“But papa notices none of it....”
“No.... We mustn’t tell him either.... That’s the best thing to do.... We must ignore it.”
“And the white hadji, Theo, whom Doddie saw twice.... And, when they do table-turning at Van Helderen’s, Ida sees him too....”
“Oh, another tool of the regent’s, of course!”
“Yes, I expect that’s true.... But it’s wretched all the same, Theo.... Theo darling, I’m so frightened!”
“Of that nonsense? Come, come!”
“If it’s anything, Theo ... it has nothing to do with us, you say?”
He laughed:
“What next? What could it have to do with us? I tell you, it’s a practical joke of the regent’s.”
“We oughtn’t to be together any more.”
“No, no, I love you, I’m mad with love for you!”
He kissed her fiercely. They were both afraid. But he rallied Léonie:
“Come, Léonie, don’t be so superstitious!”
“When I was a child, my babu told me....”
She whispered a story in his ear. He turned pale:
“Léonie, what rot!”
“Strange things happen here, in India.... If they bury something belonging to you, a pocket-handkerchief or a lock of hair, they are able—simply by witchcraft—to make you fall ill and pine away and die ... and not a doctor can tell what the illness is....”
“That’s rubbish!”
“It’s really true!”
“I didn’t know you were so superstitious!”
“I used never to think of it. I’ve begun to think of it just lately.... Theo, can there be anything!”
“There’s nothing ... but kissing.”
“No, Theo, don’t, be quiet, I’m frightened!... It’s quite late. It gets dark so quickly. Papa has finished his sleep, Theo. Go away now, Theo ... through the boudoir. I want to take my bath quickly. I’m frightened nowadays when it gets dark. There’s no twilight, with the rains. The evenings come all of a sudden.... The other day, I had not told them to bring a light into the bathroom ... and already it was so dark ... at only half-past five ... and two bats were flying all over the place: I was so afraid that they would catch in my hair.... Hush! Is that papa?”
“No, it’s Doddie: she’s playing with her cockatoo.”
“Go now, Theo.”
He went through the boudoir, and wandered into the garden. She got up, flung a kimono over the sarong which she had knotted loosely under her arms and called to Oorip:
“Bring the bath-things.”
“Yes, mem-sahib.”
“Where are you, Oorip?”
“Here, mem-sahib.”
“Where were you?”
“Here, outside the garden-door, mem-sahib.... I was waiting,” said the girl, meaningly, implying that she was waiting until Theo had gone.
“Is the excellency sahib up?”
“Yes ... had his bath, mem-sahib.”
“Then fetch the things for my bath.... Light the little lamp in the bathroom.... Yesterday evening the glass was broken and the lamp not filled....”
“The mem-sahib never used to have the lamp lit in the bathroom.”
“Oorip ... has anything happened ... this afternoon?”
“No, everything has been quiet.... But oh, when the night comes!... All the servants are frightened, mem-sahib.... Cook says she won’t stay....”
“Oh, what a fuss!... Oorip, promise her five guilders ... as a present ... if she stays....”
“The butler is frightened too, mem-sahib.”
“Oh, what a fuss!... I’ve never known such a fuss, Oorip....”
“No, mem-sahib.”
“I have always been able to arrange matters so well.... But these are things...!”
“What can one do, mem-sahib?... Things are stronger than men....”
“Mightn’t it really be wild cats ... and a man throwing stones?”
“Come, come, mem-sahib!”
“Well, bring my bath-things.... Don’t forget to light the little lamp....”
The maid left the room. The dusk began to fall softly through the air, soft as velvet after the rain. The great residency stood still as death amid the darkness of its giant banyans. And the lamps were not yet lit. In the front-verandah, Van Oudijck, by himself, lay in his pyjamas on a wicker chair, drinking tea. In the garden, the dense shadows were gathering like strips of immaterial velvet falling heavily from the trees.
“Lamp-boy!”
“Yes, mem-sahib.”
“Come, light the lamps! Why do you begin so late? Light the lamp in my bedroom first....”
She went to the bathroom. She went past the long row of store-rooms and servants’ rooms which shut off the back-garden. She looked up at the banyan-tree in whose top branches she had heard the little souls moaning. The branches did not move, there was not a breath of wind, the air was sultry and oppressive with a threatening storm, with rain too heavy to fall. In the bathroom, Oorip was lighting the little lamp.
“Have you brought everything, Oorip?”
“Yes, mem-sahib.”
“Haven’t you forgotten the big bottle with the white toilet-water?”
“Isn’t this it, mem-sahib?”
“Yes, that’s right.... But do give me a fine towel for my face in future. I’m always telling you to give me a fine towel. I hate these coarse ones....”
“I’ll run and fetch one.”
“No, no! Stay here, stay and sit by the door.”
“Yes, mem-sahib.”
“And you must have the keys seen to by a locksmith.... We can’t lock the bathroom-door.... It’s too silly, when there are visitors.”
“I’ll remember to-morrow.”
“Mind you don’t forget.”
She shut the door. The maid squatted down outside the closed door, patient and resigned under the big and little things of life, knowing nothing but loyalty to her mistress, who loaded her with pretty sarongs and paid her wages in advance as often as she wanted them.
In the bathroom the little nickel lamp gleamed faintly over the pale-green marble of the wet floor; over the water brimming in the square sunk bath.
“I’ll have my evening bath a little earlier in future,” thought Léonie.
She removed her kimono and sarong; and, standing naked, she glanced in the mirror at her soft, milk-white contours, the rounded outlines of an amorous woman. Her fair hair shone like gold; and a pearly lustre spread from her shoulders over her bosom and vanished in the shadow of her small, round breasts. She lifted her hair, admiring herself, examining herself for a chance wrinkle, feeling whether her flesh was hard and firm. One of her hips arched outwards, as she rested her weight on one leg; and a long white high-light curved caressingly past her thigh and knee, disappearing at the instep. But she gave a start as she stood thus absorbed in admiration: she had meant to hurry. She quickly tied her hair into a knot, covered herself with a lather of soap and, taking the scoop, poured the water over her body. It flowed heavily down her in long smooth streams; and her gleaming shoulders, breasts and hips shone like marble in the light of the little lamp.... Yes, she would bathe earlier in future. It was already dark outside.
She dried herself hurriedly, with a rough towel. She just rubbed herself, briskly, with the white ointment which Oorip always prepared, her magic elixir of youth, suppleness and firm whiteness.... At that moment, she saw on her thigh a small red spot. She paid no attention to it, thinking that there must have been something in the water, a tiny leaf, a dead insect. She rubbed it off. But, while rubbing herself, she saw two or three larger spots, deep scarlet, on her chest. She turned suddenly cold, not knowing what it was, not understanding. She rubbed herself down again; and she took the towel, on which the spots had left something slimy, like clotted blood. A shiver ran over her from head to foot. And suddenly she saw. The spots came out of the corners of the bathroom—how and where she did not see—first small, then large, as though spat out by a dribbling, betel-chewing mouth. Cold as ice, she gave a scream. The spots, now closer together, became full, like blobs of purple saliva spat against her. Her body was soiled and filthy with a grimy, dribbling redness. One spot struck her in the eye....”
The slimy blobs of spittle marked the greenish white of the floor and floated in the water that had not yet run off. They also fouled the water in the bath and dissolved in filth. She was all red, stained and unclean, as though defiled by a foul scarlet shame which invisible betel-chewing mouths hawked and spat upon her from the corners of the room, aiming at her hair, her eyes, her breasts, her flanks. She uttered yell upon yell, driven crazy by the strangeness of what was happening. She rushed to the door, tried to open it, but there was something amiss with the handle. For the key was not turned in the lock, the bolt was not shot. She felt her back spat upon again and again; and the red dripped off her. She screamed for Oorip and heard the girl outside the door, pulling and pushing.
At last the door yielded. And, desperate, mad, distraught, insane, naked, befouled, she threw herself into her maid’s arms. The servants came running up. She saw Van Oudijck, Theo and Doddie hastening from the back-verandah. In her utter madness, with her eyes staring widely, she felt ashamed not of her nudity but of her defilement. The maid had snatched the kimono, also befouled, from the handle of the door and threw it round her mistress.
“Keep away!” Léonie yelled, desperately. “Don’t come any nearer!” she screamed, madly. “Oorip, Oorip, take me to the swimming-bath! A lamp, a lamp ... in the swimming-bath!”
“What is it, Léonie?”
She refused to say:
“I’ve ... trodden ... on a ... toad!” she screamed. “I’m afraid ... of itch!... Don’t come any nearer! I’ve got nothing on!... on upper line?] Keep away! Keep away!... A lamp, a lamp ... a lamp, I tell you ... in the swimming-bath!... No, Otto! Keep away! Keep away! I’m undressed! Keep away!... Bring a la-amp!”
The servants scurried past one another. One of them brought a lamp to the swimming-bath.
“Oorip! Oorip!”
She clutched her maid:
“They’ve spat at me ... with betel-juice!... They’ve spat ... at me ... with betel-juice!... They’ve spat ... at me ... with betel-juice!”
“Hush, mem-sahib!... Come along ... to the swimming-bath!”
“Wash me, Oorip!... Oorip, my hair, my eyes!... O God, I can taste it in my mouth!...”
She sobbed despairingly; the maid dragged her along.
“Oorip! First look ... look and see ... if they’re spitting ... in the swimming-bath too!”
The maid went in, shivering:
“There’s nothing there, mem-sahib.”
“Quick then, Oorip, bathe me, wash me.”
She flung off the kimono; her beautiful body became visible in the light of the lamp, as though soiled with dirty blood.
“Oorip, wash me.... No, don’t go for soap: water will do!... Don’t leave me alone! Oorip, wash me here, can’t you?... Burn the kimono! Oorip!”
She ducked in the swimming-bath and swam round desperately; the maid, half-undressed, went in after her and washed her.
“Quick, Oorip! Quick: only the worst places!... I’m frightened! Presently ... presently they’ll be spitting here!... In the bedroom next, Oorip!... Call out that there’s to be no one in the garden! I won’t put the kimono on again! Quickly, Oorip, call out! I want to get away!”
The maid called across the garden, in Javanese.
Léonie, all dripping, stepped out of the water and, naked and wet, flew past the servants’ rooms, with the maid behind her. Inside the house, Van Oudijck, frantic with anxiety, came running towards her.
“Go away, Otto! Leave me alone! I’ve ... I’ve got nothing on!” she screamed.
And she rushed into her room and, when Oorip had followed her, locked all the doors.
In the garden, the servants crept together, under the sloping roof of the verandah, close to the house. The thunder was muttering softly and a silent rain was beginning to fall....