at the door of his cell. If there was any hope in the world it would
come from the river, by the river. For hours together he would stand in
sunlight while the sea breeze sweeping over the lonely reach fluttered
his ragged garments; the keen salt breeze that made him shiver now
and then under the flood of intense heat. He looked at the brown and
sparkling solitude of the flowing water, of the water flowing ceaseless
and free in a soft, cool murmur of ripples at his feet. The world seemed
to end there. The forests of the other bank appeared unattainable,
enigmatical, for ever beyond reach like the stars of heaven--and as
indifferent. Above and below, the forests on his side of the river came
down to the water in a serried multitude of tall, immense trees towering
in a great spread of twisted boughs above the thick undergrowth; great,
solid trees, looking sombre, severe, and malevolently stolid, like a
giant crowd of pitiless enemies pressing round silently to witness
his slow agony. He was alone, small, crushed. He thought of escape--of
something to be done. What? A raft! He imagined himself working at it,
feverishly, desperately; cutting down trees, fastening the logs together
and then drifting down with the current, down to the sea into the
straits. There were ships there--ships, help, white men. Men like
himself. Good men who would rescue him, take him away, take him far away
where there was trade, and houses, and other men that could understand
him exactly, appreciate his capabilities; where there was proper food,
and money; where there were beds, knives, forks, carriages, brass bands,
cool drinks, churches with well-dressed people praying in them. He would
pray also. The superior land of refined delights where he could sit on
a chair, eat his tiffin off a white tablecloth, nod to fellows--good
fellows; he would be popular; always was--where he could be virtuous,
correct, do business, draw a salary, smoke cigars, buy things in
shops--have boots . . . be happy, free, become rich. O God! What was
wanted? Cut down a few trees. No! One would do. They used to make canoes
by burning out a tree trunk, he had heard. Yes! One would do. One tree
to cut down . . . He rushed forward, and suddenly stood still as if
rooted in the ground. He had a pocket-knife.
And he would throw himself down on the ground by the riverside. He
was tired, exhausted; as if that raft had been made, the voyage
accomplished, the fortune attained. A glaze came over his staring eyes,
over his eyes that gazed hopelessly at the rising river where big logs
and uprooted trees drifted in the shine of mid-stream: a long procession
of black and ragged specks. He could swim out and drift away on one of
these trees. Anything to escape! Anything! Any risk! He could fasten
himself up between the dead branches. He was torn by desire, by fear;
his heart was wrung by the faltering of his courage. He turned over,
face downwards, his head on his arms. He had a terrible vision of
shadowless horizons where the blue sky and the blue sea met; or a
circular and blazing emptiness where a dead tree and a dead man drifted
together, endlessly, up and down, upon the brilliant undulations of the
straits. No ships there. Only death. And the river led to it.
He sat up with a profound groan.
Yes, death. Why should he die? No! Better solitude, better hopeless
waiting, alone. Alone. No! he was not alone, he saw death looking at him
from everywhere; from the bushes, from the clouds--he heard her speaking
to him in the murmur of the river, filling the space, touching his
heart, his brain with a cold hand. He could see and think of nothing
else. He saw it--the sure death--everywhere. He saw it so close that
he was always on the point of throwing out his arms to keep it off. It
poisoned all he saw, all he did; the miserable food he ate, the muddy
water he drank; it gave a frightful aspect to sunrises and sunsets, to
the brightness of hot noon, to the cooling shadows of the evenings. He
saw the horrible form among the big trees, in the network of creepers
in the fantastic outlines of leaves, of the great indented leaves that
seemed to be so many enormous hands with big broad palms, with stiff
fingers outspread to lay hold of him; hands gently stirring, or hands
arrested in a frightful immobility, with a stillness attentive and
watching for the opportunity to take him, to enlace him, to strangle
him, to hold him till he died; hands that would hold him dead, that
would never let go, that would cling to his body for ever till it
perished--disappeared in their frantic and tenacious grasp.
And yet the world was full of life. All the things, all the men he knew,
existed, moved, breathed; and he saw them in a long perspective, far
off, diminished, distinct, desirable, unattainable, precious . . . lost
for ever. Round him, ceaselessly, there went on without a sound the mad
turmoil of tropical life. After he had died all this would remain! He
wanted to clasp, to embrace solid things; he had an immense craving for
sensations; for touching, pressing, seeing, handling, holding on, to
all these things. All this would remain--remain for years, for ages, for
ever. After he had miserably died there, all this would remain, would
live, would exist in joyous sunlight, would breathe in the coolness of
serene nights. What for, then? He would be dead. He would be stretched
upon the warm moisture of the ground, feeling nothing, seeing nothing,
knowing nothing; he would lie stiff, passive, rotting slowly; while over
him, under him, through him--unopposed, busy, hurried--the endless and
minute throngs of insects, little shining monsters of repulsive shapes,
with horns, with claws, with pincers, would swarm in streams, in rushes,
in eager struggle for his body; would swarm countless, persistent,
ferocious and greedy--till there would remain nothing but the white
gleam of bleaching bones in the long grass; in the long grass that would
shoot its feathery heads between the bare and polished ribs. There would
be that only left of him; nobody would miss him; no one would remember
him.
Nonsense! It could not be. There were ways out of this. Somebody would
turn up. Some human beings would come. He would speak, entreat--use
force to extort help from them. He felt strong; he was very strong. He
would . . . The discouragement, the conviction of the futility of his
hopes would return in an acute sensation of pain in his heart. He would
begin again his aimless wanderings. He tramped till he was ready to
drop, without being able to calm by bodily fatigue the trouble of his
soul. There was no rest, no peace within the cleared grounds of his
prison. There was no relief but in the black release of sleep, of sleep
without memory and without dreams; in the sleep coming brutal and heavy,
like the lead that kills. To forget in annihilating sleep; to tumble
headlong, as if stunned, out of daylight into the night of oblivion, was
for him the only, the rare respite from this existence which he lacked
the courage to endure--or to end.
He lived, he struggled with the inarticulate delirium of his thoughts
under the eyes of the silent Aissa. She shared his torment in the
poignant wonder, in the acute longing, in the despairing inability to
understand the cause of his anger and of his repulsion; the hate of
his looks; the mystery of his silence; the menace of his rare words--of
those words in the speech of white people that were thrown at her with
rage, with contempt, with the evident desire to hurt her; to hurt her
who had given herself, her life--all she had to give--to that white man;
to hurt her who had wanted to show him the way to true greatness, who
had tried to help him, in her woman’s dream of everlasting, enduring,
unchangeable affection. From the short contact with the whites in the
crashing collapse of her old life, there remained with her the imposing
idea of irresistible power and of ruthless strength. She had found a man
of their race--and with all their qualities. All whites are alike. But
this man’s heart was full of anger against his own people, full of anger
existing there by the side of his desire of her. And to her it had been
an intoxication of hope for great things born in the proud and tender
consciousness of her influence. She had heard the passing whisper of
wonder and fear in the presence of his hesitation, of his resistance,
of his compromises; and yet with a woman’s belief in the durable
steadfastness of hearts, in the irresistible charm of her own
personality, she had pushed him forward, trusting the future, blindly,
hopefully; sure to attain by his side the ardent desire of her life, if
she could only push him far beyond the possibility of retreat. She did
not know, and could not conceive, anything of his--so exalted--ideals.
She thought the man a warrior and a chief, ready for battle, violence,
and treachery to his own people--for her. What more natural? Was he not
a great, strong man? Those two, surrounded each by the impenetrable
wall of their aspirations, were hopelessly alone, out of sight, out
of earshot of each other; each the centre of dissimilar and distant
horizons; standing each on a different earth, under a different sky.
She remembered his words, his eyes, his trembling lips, his outstretched
hands; she remembered the great, the immeasurable sweetness of her
surrender, that beginning of her power which was to last until death. He
remembered the quaysides and the warehouses; the excitement of a life in
a whirl of silver coins; the glorious uncertainty of a money hunt; his
numerous successes, the lost possibilities of wealth and consequent
glory. She, a woman, was the victim of her heart, of her woman’s belief
that there is nothing in the world but love--the everlasting thing.
He was the victim of his strange principles, of his continence, of his
blind belief in himself, of his solemn veneration for the voice of his
boundless ignorance.
In a moment of his idleness, of suspense, of discouragement, she had
come--that creature--and by the touch of her hand had destroyed his
future, his dignity of a clever and civilized man; had awakened in his
breast the infamous thing which had driven him to what he had done, and
to end miserably in the wilderness and be forgotten, or else remembered
with hate or contempt. He dared not look at her, because now whenever
he looked at her his thought seemed to touch crime, like an outstretched
hand. She could only look at him--and at nothing else. What else was
there? She followed him with a timorous gaze, with a gaze for ever
expecting, patient, and entreating. And in her eyes there was the wonder
and desolation of an animal that knows only suffering, of the incomplete
soul that knows pain but knows not hope; that can find no refuge from
the facts of life in the illusory conviction of its dignity, of an
exalted destiny beyond; in the heavenly consolation of a belief in the
momentous origin of its hate.
For the first three days after Lingard went away he would not even
speak to her. She preferred his silence to the sound of hated and
incomprehensible words he had been lately addressing to her with a wild
violence of manner, passing at once into complete apathy. And during
these three days he hardly ever left the river, as if on that muddy bank
he had felt himself nearer to his freedom. He would stay late; he would
stay till sunset; he would look at the glow of gold passing away amongst
sombre clouds in a bright red flush, like a splash of warm blood. It
seemed to him ominous and ghastly with a foreboding of violent death
that beckoned him from everywhere--even from the sky.
One evening he remained by the riverside long after sunset, regardless
of the night mist that had closed round him, had wrapped him up and
clung to him like a wet winding-sheet. A slight shiver recalled him to
his senses, and he walked up the courtyard towards his house. Aissa rose
from before the fire, that glimmered red through its own smoke, which
hung thickening under the boughs of the big tree. She approached him
from the side as he neared the plankway of the house. He saw her stop to
let him begin his ascent. In the darkness her figure was like the shadow
of a woman with clasped hands put out beseechingly. He stopped--could
not help glancing at her. In all the sombre gracefulness of the straight
figure, her limbs, features--all was indistinct and vague but the gleam
of her eyes in the faint starlight. He turned his head away and moved
on. He could feel her footsteps behind him on the bending planks, but he
walked up without turning his head. He knew what she wanted. She wanted
to come in there. He shuddered at the thought of what might happen in
the impenetrable darkness of that house if they were to find themselves
alone--even for a moment. He stopped in the doorway, and heard her say--
“Let me come in. Why this anger? Why this silence? . . . Let me watch
. . . by your side. . . . Have I not watched faithfully? Did harm ever
come to you when you closed your eyes while I was by? . . . I have
waited . .. I have waited for your smile, for your words . . . I can
wait no more.. . . Look at me . . . speak to me. Is there a bad spirit
in you? A bad spirit that has eaten up your courage and your love? Let
me touch you. Forget all . . . All. Forget the wicked hearts, the angry
faces . . . and remember only the day I came to you . . . to you! O my
heart! O my life!”
The pleading sadness of her appeal filled the space with the tremor of
her low tones, that carried tenderness and tears into the great peace
of the sleeping world. All around them the forests, the clearings, the
river, covered by the silent veil of night, seemed to wake up and listen
to her words in attentive stillness. After the sound of her voice had
died out in a stifled sigh they appeared to listen yet; and nothing
stirred among the shapeless shadows but the innumerable fireflies
that twinkled in changing clusters, in gliding pairs, in wandering and
solitary points--like the glimmering drift of scattered star-dust.
Willems turned round slowly, reluctantly, as if compelled by main force.
Her face was hidden in her hands, and he looked above her bent head,
into the sombre brilliance of the night. It was one of those nights that
give the impression of extreme vastness, when the sky seems higher, when
the passing puffs of tepid breeze seem to bring with them faint whispers
from beyond the stars. The air was full of sweet scent, of the scent
charming, penetrating and violent like the impulse of love. He looked
into that great dark place odorous with the breath of life, with the
mystery of existence, renewed, fecund, indestructible; and he felt
afraid of his solitude, of the solitude of his body, of the loneliness
of his soul in the presence of this unconscious and ardent struggle,
of this lofty indifference, of this merciless and mysterious purpose,
perpetuating strife and death through the march of ages. For the second
time in his life he felt, in a sudden sense of his significance, the
need to send a cry for help into the wilderness, and for the second time
he realized the hopelessness of its unconcern. He could shout for help
on every side--and nobody would answer. He could stretch out his hands,
he could call for aid, for support, for sympathy, for relief--and nobody
would come. Nobody. There was no one there--but that woman.
His heart was moved, softened with pity at his own abandonment. His
anger against her, against her who was the cause of all his misfortunes,
vanished before his extreme need for some kind of consolation.
Perhaps--if he must resign himself to his fate--she might help him to
forget. To forget! For a moment, in an access of despair so profound
that it seemed like the beginning of peace, he planned the deliberate
descent from his pedestal, the throwing away of his superiority, of
all his hopes, of old ambitions, of the ungrateful civilization. For
a moment, forgetfulness in her arms seemed possible; and lured by that
possibility the semblance of renewed desire possessed his breast in a
burst of reckless contempt for everything outside himself--in a savage
disdain of Earth and of Heaven. He said to himself that he would not
repent. The punishment for his only sin was too heavy. There was no
mercy under Heaven. He did not want any. He thought, desperately, that
if he could find with her again the madness of the past, the strange
delirium that had changed him, that had worked his undoing, he would be
ready to pay for it with an eternity of perdition. He was intoxicated by
the subtle perfumes of the night; he was carried away by the suggestive
stir of the warm breeze; he was possessed by the exaltation of the
solitude, of the silence, of his memories, in the presence of that
figure offering herself in a submissive and patient devotion; coming to
him in the name of the past, in the name of those days when he could see
nothing, think of nothing, desire nothing--but her embrace.
He took her suddenly in his arms, and she clasped her hands round his
neck with a low cry of joy and surprise. He took her in his arms and
waited for the transport, for the madness, for the sensations remembered
and lost; and while she sobbed gently on his breast he held her and felt
cold, sick, tired, exasperated with his failure--and ended by cursing
himself. She clung to him trembling with the intensity of her
happiness and her love. He heard her whispering--her face hidden on his
shoulder--of past sorrow, of coming joy that would last for ever; of her
unshaken belief in his love. She had always believed. Always! Even while
his face was turned away from her in the dark days while his mind was
wandering in his own land, amongst his own people. But it would never
wander away from her any more, now it had come back. He would forget the
cold faces and the hard hearts of the cruel people. What was there to
remember? Nothing? Was it not so? . . .
He listened hopelessly to the faint murmur. He stood still and rigid,
pressing her mechanically to his breast while he thought that there was
nothing for him in the world. He was robbed of everything; robbed of
his passion, of his liberty, of forgetfulness, of consolation. She, wild
with delight, whispered on rapidly, of love, of light, of peace, of
long years. . . . He looked drearily above her head down into the deeper
gloom of the courtyard. And, all at once, it seemed to him that he was
peering into a sombre hollow, into a deep black hole full of decay
and of whitened bones; into an immense and inevitable grave full of
corruption where sooner or later he must, unavoidably, fall.
In the morning he came out early, and stood for a time in the doorway,
listening to the light breathing behind him--in the house. She slept. He
had not closed his eyes through all that night. He stood swaying--then
leaned against the lintel of the door. He was exhausted, done up;
fancied himself hardly alive. He had a disgusted horror of himself that,
as he looked at the level sea of mist at his feet, faded quickly into
dull indifference. It was like a sudden and final decrepitude of his
senses, of his body, of his thoughts. Standing on the high platform, he
looked over the expanse of low night fog above which, here and there,
stood out the feathery heads of tall bamboo clumps and the round tops
of single trees, resembling small islets emerging black and solid from a
ghostly and impalpable sea. Upon the faintly luminous background of the
eastern sky, the sombre line of the great forests bounded that smooth
sea of white vapours with an appearance of a fantastic and unattainable
shore.
He looked without seeing anything--thinking of himself. Before his eyes
the light of the rising sun burst above the forest with the suddenness
of an explosion. He saw nothing. Then, after a time, he murmured
with conviction--speaking half aloud to himself in the shock of the
penetrating thought:
“I am a lost man.”
He shook his hand above his head in a gesture careless and tragic, then
walked down into the mist that closed above him in shining undulations
under the first breath of the morning breeze.
CHAPTER FOUR
Willems moved languidly towards the river, then retraced his steps to
the tree and let himself fall on the seat under its shade. On the other
side of the immense trunk he could hear the old woman moving about,
sighing loudly, muttering to herself, snapping dry sticks, blowing up
the fire. After a while a whiff of smoke drifted round to where he sat.
It made him feel hungry, and that feeling was like a new indignity added
to an intolerable load of humiliations. He felt inclined to cry. He felt
very weak. He held up his arm before his eyes and watched for a little
while the trembling of the lean limb. Skin and bone, by God! How thin
he was! . . . He had suffered from fever a good deal, and now he thought
with tearful dismay that Lingard, although he had sent him food--and
what food, great Lord: a little rice and dried fish; quite unfit for a
white man--had not sent him any medicine. Did the old savage think that
he was like the wild beasts that are never ill? He wanted quinine.
He leaned the back of his head against the tree and closed his eyes.
He thought feebly that if he could get hold of Lingard he would like
to flay him alive; but it was only a blurred, a short and a passing
thought. His imagination, exhausted by the repeated delineations of his
own fate, had not enough strength left to grip the idea of revenge.
He was not indignant and rebellious. He was cowed. He was cowed by
the immense cataclysm of his disaster. Like most men, he had carried
solemnly within his breast the whole universe, and the approaching end
of all things in the destruction of his own personality filled him
with paralyzing awe. Everything was toppling over. He blinked his eyes
quickly, and it seemed to him that the very sunshine of the morning
disclosed in its brightness a suggestion of some hidden and sinister
meaning. In his unreasoning fear he tried to hide within himself. He
drew his feet up, his head sank between his shoulders, his arms hugged
his sides. Under the high and enormous tree soaring superbly out of the
mist in a vigorous spread of lofty boughs, with a restless and eager
flutter of its innumerable leaves in the clear sunshine, he remained
motionless, huddled up on his seat: terrified and still.
Willems’ gaze roamed over the ground, and then he watched with idiotic
fixity half a dozen black ants entering courageously a tuft of long
grass which, to them, must have appeared a dark and a dangerous jungle.
Suddenly he thought: There must be something dead in there. Some dead
insect. Death everywhere! He closed his eyes again in an access of
trembling pain. Death everywhere--wherever one looks. He did not want to
see the ants. He did not want to see anybody or anything. He sat in the
darkness of his own making, reflecting bitterly that there was no peace
for him. He heard voices now. . . . Illusion! Misery! Torment! Who would
come? Who would speak to him? What business had he to hear voices? . . .
yet he heard them faintly, from the river. Faintly, as if shouted far
off over there, came the words “We come back soon.” . . . Delirium and
mockery! Who would come back? Nobody ever comes back! Fever comes back.
He had it on him this morning. That was it. . . . He heard unexpectedly
the old woman muttering something near by. She had come round to his
side of the tree. He opened his eyes and saw her bent back before
him. She stood, with her hand shading her eyes, looking towards the
landing-place. Then she glided away. She had seen--and now she was going
back to her cooking; a woman incurious; expecting nothing; without fear
and without hope.
She had gone back behind the tree, and now Willems could see a human
figure on the path to the landing-place. It appeared to him to be a
woman, in a red gown, holding some heavy bundle in her arms; it was an
apparition unexpected, familiar and odd. He cursed through his teeth
. . . It had wanted only this! See things like that in broad daylight!
He was very bad--very bad. . . . He was horribly scared at this awful
symptom of the desperate state of his health.
This scare lasted for the space of a flash of lightning, and in the
next moment it was revealed to him that the woman was real; that she was
coming towards him; that she was his wife! He put his feet down to the
ground quickly, but made no other movement. His eyes opened wide. He was
so amazed that for a time he absolutely forgot his own existence. The
only idea in his head was: Why on earth did she come here?
Joanna was coming up the courtyard with eager, hurried steps. She
carried in her arms the child, wrapped up in one of Almayer’s white
blankets that she had snatched off the bed at the last moment, before
leaving the house. She seemed to be dazed by the sun in her eyes;
bewildered by her strange surroundings. She moved on, looking quickly
right and left in impatient expectation of seeing her husband at any
moment. Then, approaching the tree, she perceived suddenly a kind of a
dried-up, yellow corpse, sitting very stiff on a bench in the shade and
looking at her with big eyes that were alive. That was her husband.
She stopped dead short. They stared at one another in profound
stillness, with astounded eyes, with eyes maddened by the memories
of things far off that seemed lost in the lapse of time. Their looks
crossed, passed each other, and appeared to dart at them through
fantastic distances, to come straight from the incredible.
Looking at him steadily she came nearer, and deposited the blanket with
the child in it on the bench. Little Louis, after howling with terror in
the darkness of the river most of the night, now slept soundly and did
not wake. Willems’ eyes followed his wife, his head turning slowly after
her. He accepted her presence there with a tired acquiescence in its
fabulous improbability. Anything might happen. What did she come for?
She was part of the general scheme of his misfortune. He half expected
that she would rush at him, pull his hair, and scratch his face. Why
not? Anything might happen! In an exaggerated sense of his great bodily
weakness he felt somewhat apprehensive of possible assault. At any rate,
she would scream at him. He knew her of old. She could screech. He had
thought that he was rid of her for ever. She came now probably to see
the end. . . .
Suddenly she turned, and embracing him slid gently to the ground.
This startled him. With her forehead on his knees she sobbed
noiselessly. He looked down dismally at the top of her head. What was
she up to? He had not the strength to move--to get away. He heard
her whispering something, and bent over to listen. He caught the word
“Forgive.”
That was what she came for! All that way. Women are queer. Forgive. Not
he! . . . All at once this thought darted through his brain: How did she
come? In a boat. Boat! boat!
He shouted “Boat!” and jumped up, knocking her over. Before she had time
to pick herself up he pounced upon her and was dragging her up by the
shoulders. No sooner had she regained her feet than she clasped him
tightly round the neck, covering his face, his eyes, his mouth, his
nose with desperate kisses. He dodged his head about, shaking her arms,
trying to keep her off, to speak, to ask her. . . . She came in a
boat, boat, boat! . . . They struggled and swung round, tramping in a
semicircle. He blurted out, “Leave off. Listen,” while he tore at her
hands. This meeting of lawful love and sincere joy resembled fight.
Louis Willems slept peacefully under his blanket.
At last Willems managed to free himself, and held her off, pressing
her arms down. He looked at her. He had half a suspicion that he was
dreaming. Her lips trembled; her eyes wandered unsteadily, always coming
back to his face. He saw her the same as ever, in his presence. She
appeared startled, tremulous, ready to cry. She did not inspire him with
confidence. He shouted--
“How did you come?”
She answered in hurried words, looking at him intently--
“In a big canoe with three men. I know everything. Lingard’s away. I
come to save you. I know. . . . Almayer told me.”
“Canoe!--Almayer--Lies. Told you--You!” stammered Willems in a
distracted manner. “Why you?--Told what?”
Words failed him. He stared at his wife, thinking with fear that
she--stupid woman--had been made a tool in some plan of treachery . . .
in some deadly plot.
She began to cry--
“Don’t look at me like that, Peter. What have I done? I come to beg--to
beg--forgiveness. . . . Save--Lingard--danger.”
He trembled with impatience, with hope, with fear. She looked at him and
sobbed out in a fresh outburst of grief--
“Oh! Peter. What’s the matter?--Are you ill? . . . Oh! you look so
ill . . .”
He shook her violently into a terrified and wondering silence.
“How dare you!--I am well--perfectly well. . . . Where’s that boat? Will
you tell me where that boat is--at last? The boat, I say . . .
You! . . .”
“You hurt me,” she moaned.
He let her go, and, mastering her terror, she stood quivering and
looking at him with strange intensity. Then she made a movement forward,
but he lifted his finger, and she restrained herself with a long sigh.
He calmed down suddenly and surveyed her with cold criticism, with the
same appearance as when, in the old days, he used to find fault with the
household expenses. She found a kind of fearful delight in this abrupt
return into the past, into her old subjection.
He stood outwardly collected now, and listened to her disconnected
story. Her words seemed to fall round him with the distracting clatter
of stunning hail. He caught the meaning here and there, and straightway
would lose himself in a tremendous effort to shape out some intelligible
theory of events. There was a boat. A boat. A big boat that could take
him to sea if necessary. That much was clear. She brought it. Why did
Almayer lie to her so? Was it a plan to decoy him into some ambush?
Better that than hopeless solitude. She had money. The men were ready to
go anywhere . . . she said.
He interrupted her--
“Where are they now?”
“They are coming directly,” she answered, tearfully. “Directly. There
are some fishing stakes near here--they said. They are coming directly.”
Again she was talking and sobbing together. She wanted to be forgiven.
Forgiven? What for? Ah! the scene in Macassar. As if he had time to
think of that! What did he care what she had done months ago? He seemed
to struggle in the toils of complicated dreams where everything was
impossible, yet a matter of course, where the past took the aspects of
the future and the present lay heavy on his heart--seemed to take him by
the throat like the hand of an enemy. And while she begged, entreated,
kissed his hands, wept on his shoulder, adjured him in the name of God,
to forgive, to forget, to speak the word for which she longed, to look
at his boy, to believe in her sorrow and in her devotion--his eyes, in
the fascinated immobility of shining pupils, looked far away, far beyond
her, beyond the river, beyond this land, through days, weeks, months;
looked into liberty, into the future, into his triumph . . . into the
great possibility of a startling revenge.
He felt a sudden desire to dance and shout. He shouted--
“After all, we shall meet again, Captain Lingard.”
“Oh, no! No!” she cried, joining her hands.
He looked at her with surprise. He had forgotten she was there till the
break of her cry in the monotonous tones of her prayer recalled him
into that courtyard from the glorious turmoil of his dreams. It was very
strange to see her there--near him. He felt almost affectionate towards
her. After all, she came just in time. Then he thought: That other one.
I must get away without a scene. Who knows; she may be dangerous! . . .
And all at once he felt he hated Aissa with an immense hatred that
seemed to choke him. He said to his wife--
“Wait a moment.”
She, obedient, seemed to gulp down some words which wanted to come out.
He muttered: “Stay here,” and disappeared round the tree.
The water in the iron pan on the cooking fire boiled furiously, belching
out volumes of white steam that mixed with the thin black thread of
smoke. The old woman appeared to him through this as if in a fog,
squatting on her heels, impassive and weird.
Willems came up near and asked, “Where is she?”
The woman did not even lift her head, but answered at once, readily, as
though she had expected the question for a long time.
“While you were asleep under the tree, before the strange canoe came,
she went out of the house. I saw her look at you and pass on with a
great light in her eyes. A great light. And she went towards the place
where our master Lakamba had his fruit trees. When we were many here.
Many, many. Men with arms by their side. Many . . . men. And talk . . .
and songs . . .”
She went on like that, raving gently to herself for a long time after
Willems had left her.
Willems went back to his wife. He came up close to her and found he had
nothing to say. Now all his faculties were concentrated upon his wish to
avoid Aissa. She might stay all the morning in that grove. Why did those
rascally boatmen go? He had a physical repugnance to set eyes on her.
And somewhere, at the very bottom of his heart, there was a fear of her.
Why? What could she do? Nothing on earth could stop him now. He felt
strong, reckless, pitiless, and superior to everything. He wanted to
preserve before his wife the lofty purity of his character. He thought:
She does not know. Almayer held his tongue about Aissa. But if she finds
out, I am lost. If it hadn’t been for the boy I would . . . free of both
of them. . . . The idea darted through his head. Not he! Married. . . .
Swore solemnly. No . . . sacred tie. . . . Looking on his wife, he felt
for the first time in his life something approaching remorse. Remorse,
arising from his conception of the awful nature of an oath before the
altar. . . . She mustn’t find out. . . . Oh, for that boat! He must run
in and get his revolver. Couldn’t think of trusting himself unarmed with
those Bajow fellows. Get it now while she is away. Oh, for that boat!
. . . He dared not go to the river and hail. He thought: She might hear
me. . . . I’ll go and get . . . cartridges . . . then will be all ready
. . . nothing else. No.
And while he stood meditating profoundly before he could make up his
mind to run to the house, Joanna pleaded, holding to his arm--pleaded
despairingly, broken-hearted, hopeless whenever she glanced up at his
face, which to her seemed to wear the aspect of unforgiving
rectitude, of virtuous severity, of merciless justice. And she pleaded
humbly--abashed before him, before the unmoved appearance of the man she
had wronged in defiance of human and divine laws. He heard not a word of
what she said till she raised her voice in a final appeal--
“. . . Don’t you see I loved you always? They told me horrible things
about you. . . . My own mother! They told me--you have been--you have
been unfaithful to me, and I . . .”
“It’s a damned lie!” shouted Willems, waking up for a moment into
righteous indignation.
“I know! I know--Be generous.--Think of my misery since you went
away--Oh! I could have torn my tongue out. . . . I will never believe
anybody--Look at the boy--Be merciful--I could never rest till I found
you. . . . Say--a word--one word. . .”
“What the devil do you want?” exclaimed Willems, looking towards the
river. “Where’s that damned boat? Why did you let them go away? You
stupid!”
“Oh, Peter!--I know that in your heart you have forgiven me--You are so
generous--I want to hear you say so. . . . Tell me--do you?”
“Yes! yes!” said Willems, impatiently. “I forgive you. Don’t be a fool.”
“Don’t go away. Don’t leave me alone here. Where is the danger? I am so
frightened. . . . Are you alone here? Sure? . . . Let us go away!”
“That’s sense,” said Willems, still looking anxiously towards the river.
She sobbed gently, leaning on his arm.
“Let me go,” he said.
He had seen above the steep bank the heads of three men glide along
smoothly. Then, where the shore shelved down to the landing-place,
appeared a big canoe which came slowly to land.
“Here they are,” he went on, briskly. “I must get my revolver.”
He made a few hurried paces towards the house, but seemed to catch sight
of something, turned short round and came back to his wife. She stared
at him, alarmed by the sudden change in his face. He appeared much
discomposed. He stammered a little as he began to speak.
“Take the child. Walk down to the boat and tell them to drop it out of
sight, quick, behind the bushes. Do you hear? Quick! I will come to you
there directly. Hurry up!”
“Peter! What is it? I won’t leave you. There is some danger in this
horrible place.”
“Will you do what I tell you?” said Willems, in an irritable whisper.
“No! no! no! I won’t leave you. I will not lose you again. Tell me, what
is it?”
From beyond the house came a faint voice singing. Willems shook his wife
by the shoulder.
“Do what I tell you! Run at once!”
She gripped his arm and clung to him desperately. He looked up to heaven
as if taking it to witness of that woman’s infernal folly.
The song grew louder, then ceased suddenly, and Aissa appeared in sight,
walking slowly, her hands full of flowers.
She had turned the corner of the house, coming out into the full
sunshine, and the light seemed to leap upon her in a stream brilliant,
tender, and caressing, as if attracted by the radiant happiness of her
face. She had dressed herself for a festive day, for the memorable day
of his return to her, of his return to an affection that would last for
ever. The rays of the morning sun were caught by the oval clasp of the
embroidered belt that held the silk sarong round her waist. The dazzling
white stuff of her body jacket was crossed by a bar of yellow and silver
of her scarf, and in the black hair twisted high on her small head
shone the round balls of gold pins amongst crimson blossoms and white
star-shaped flowers, with which she had crowned herself to charm his
eyes; those eyes that were henceforth to see nothing in the world but
her own resplendent image. And she moved slowly, bending her face over
the mass of pure white champakas and jasmine pressed to her breast, in a
dreamy intoxication of sweet scents and of sweeter hopes.
She did not seem to see anything, stopped for a moment at the foot of
the plankway leading to the house, then, leaving her high-heeled wooden
sandals there, ascended the planks in a light run; straight, graceful,
flexible, and noiseless, as if she had soared up to the door on
invisible wings. Willems pushed his wife roughly behind the tree, and
made up his mind quickly for a rush to the house, to grab his revolver
and . . . Thoughts, doubts, expedients seemed to boil in his brain. He
had a flashing vision of delivering a stunning blow, of tying up that
flower bedecked woman in the dark house--a vision of things done swiftly
with enraged haste--to save his prestige, his superiority--something of
immense importance. . . . He had not made two steps when Joanna bounded
after him, caught the back of his ragged jacket, tore out a big piece,
and instantly hooked herself with both hands to the collar, nearly
dragging him down on his back. Although taken by surprise, he managed to
keep his feet. From behind she panted into his ear--
“That woman! Who’s that woman? Ah! that’s what those boatmen were
talking about. I heard them . . . heard them . . . heard . . . in the
night. They spoke about some woman. I dared not understand. I would not
ask . . . listen . . . believe! How could I? Then it’s true. No. Say no.
. . . Who’s that woman?”
He swayed, tugging forward. She jerked at him till the button gave way,
and then he slipped half out of his jacket and, turning round, remained
strangely motionless. His heart seemed to beat in his throat. He
choked--tried to speak--could not find any words. He thought with fury:
I will kill both of them.
For a second nothing moved about the courtyard in the great vivid
clearness of the day. Only down by the landing-place a waringan-tree,
all in a blaze of clustering red berries, seemed alive with the stir of
little birds that filled with the feverish flutter of their feathers
the tangle of overloaded branches. Suddenly the variegated flock rose
spinning in a soft whirr and dispersed, slashing the sunlit haze with
the sharp outlines of stiffened wings. Mahmat and one of his brothers
appeared coming up from the landing-place, their lances in their hands,
to look for their passengers.
Aissa coming now empty-handed out of the house, caught sight of the two
armed men. In her surprise she emitted a faint cry, vanished back and in
a flash reappeared in the doorway with Willems’ revolver in her hand.
To her the presence of any man there could only have an ominous meaning.
There was nothing in the outer world but enemies. She and the man she
loved were alone, with nothing round them but menacing dangers. She did
not mind that, for if death came, no matter from what hand, they would
die together.
Her resolute eyes took in the courtyard in a circular glance. She
noticed that the two strangers had ceased to advance and now were
standing close together leaning on the polished shafts of their weapons.
The next moment she saw Willems, with his back towards her, apparently
struggling under the tree with some one. She saw nothing distinctly,
and, unhesitating, flew down the plankway calling out: “I come!”
He heard her cry, and with an unexpected rush drove his wife backwards
to the seat. She fell on it; he jerked himself altogether out of his
jacket, and she covered her face with the soiled rags. He put his lips
close to her, asking--
“For the last time, will you take the child and go?”
She groaned behind the unclean ruins of his upper garment. She mumbled
something. He bent lower to hear. She was saying--
“I won’t. Order that woman away. I can’t look at her!”
“You fool!”
He seemed to spit the words at her, then, making up his mind, spun round
to face Aissa. She was coming towards them slowly now, with a look of
unbounded amazement on her face. Then she stopped and stared at him--who
stood there, stripped to the waist, bare-headed and sombre.
Some way off, Mahmat and his brother exchanged rapid words in calm
undertones. . . . This was the strong daughter of the holy man who had
died. The white man is very tall. There would be three women and the
child to take in the boat, besides that white man who had the money
. . . . The brother went away back to the boat, and Mahmat remained
looking on. He stood like a sentinel, the leaf-shaped blade of his
lance glinting above his head.
Willems spoke suddenly.
“Give me this,” he said, stretching his hand towards the revolver.
Aissa stepped back. Her lips trembled. She said very low: “Your people?”
He nodded slightly. She shook her head thoughtfully, and a few delicate
petals of the flowers dying in her hair fell like big drops of crimson
and white at her feet.
“Did you know?” she whispered.
“No!” said Willems. “They sent for me.”
“Tell them to depart. They are accursed. What is there between them and
you--and you who carry my life in your heart!”
Willems said nothing. He stood before her looking down on the ground and
repeating to himself: I must get that revolver away from her, at
once, at once. I can’t think of trusting myself with those men without
firearms. I must have it.
She asked, after gazing in silence at Joanna, who was sobbing gently--
“Who is she?”
“My wife,” answered Willems, without looking up. “My wife according to
our white law, which comes from God!”
“Your law! Your God!” murmured Aissa, contemptuously.
“Give me this revolver,” said Willems, in a peremptory tone. He felt an
unwillingness to close with her, to get it by force.
She took no notice and went on--
“Your law . . . or your lies? What am I to believe? I came--I ran to
defend you when I saw the strange men. You lied to me with your lips,
with your eyes. You crooked heart! . . . Ah!” she added, after an abrupt
pause. “She is the first! Am I then to be a slave?”
“You may be what you like,” said Willems, brutally. “I am going.”
Her gaze was fastened on the blanket under which she had detected a
slight movement. She made a long stride towards it. Willems turned half
round. His legs seemed to him to be made of lead. He felt faint and so
weak that, for a moment, the fear of dying there where he stood, before
he could escape from sin and disaster, passed through his mind in a wave
of despair.
She lifted up one corner of the blanket, and when she saw the sleeping
child a sudden quick shudder shook her as though she had seen something
inexpressibly horrible. She looked at Louis Willems with eyes fixed in
an unbelieving and terrified stare. Then her fingers opened slowly, and
a shadow seemed to settle on her face as if something obscure and fatal
had come between her and the sunshine. She stood looking down, absorbed,
as though she had watched at the bottom of a gloomy abyss the mournful
procession of her thoughts.
Willems did not move. All his faculties were concentrated upon the idea
of his release. And it was only then that the assurance of it came to
him with such force that he seemed to hear a loud voice shouting in the
heavens that all was over, that in another five, ten minutes, he would
step into another existence; that all this, the woman, the madness, the
sin, the regrets, all would go, rush into the past, disappear, become as
dust, as smoke, as drifting clouds--as nothing! Yes! All would vanish in
the unappeasable past which would swallow up all--even the very memory
of his temptation and of his downfall. Nothing mattered. He cared for
nothing. He had forgotten Aissa, his wife, Lingard, Hudig--everybody, in
the rapid vision of his hopeful future.
After a while he heard Aissa saying--
“A child! A child! What have I done to be made to devour this sorrow and
this grief? And while your man-child and the mother lived you told me
there was nothing for you to remember in the land from which you came!
And I thought you could be mine. I thought that I would . . .”
Her voice ceased in a broken murmur, and with it, in her heart, seemed
to die the greater and most precious hope of her new life.
She had hoped that in the future the frail arms of a child would bind
their two lives together in a bond which nothing on earth could break,
a bond of affection, of gratitude, of tender respect. She the first--the
only one! But in the instant she saw the son of that other woman she
felt herself removed into the cold, the darkness, the silence of
a solitude impenetrable and immense--very far from him, beyond the
possibility of any hope, into an infinity of wrongs without any redress.
She strode nearer to Joanna. She felt towards that woman anger, envy,
jealousy. Before her she felt humiliated and enraged. She seized the
hanging sleeve of the jacket in which Joanna was hiding her face and
tore it out of her hands, exclaiming loudly--
“Let me see the face of her before whom I am only a servant and a slave.
Ya-wa! I see you!”
Her unexpected shout seemed to fill the sunlit space of cleared grounds,
rise high and run on far into the land over the unstirring tree-tops
of the forests. She stood in sudden stillness, looking at Joanna with
surprised contempt.
“A Sirani woman!” she said, slowly, in a tone of wonder.
Joanna rushed at Willems--clung to him, shrieking: “Defend me, Peter!
Defend me from that woman!”
“Be quiet. There is no danger,” muttered Willems, thickly.
Aissa looked at them with scorn. “God is great! I sit in the dust at
your feet,” she exclaimed jeeringly, joining her hands above her head in
a gesture of mock humility. “Before you I am as nothing.” She turned to
Willems fiercely, opening her arms wide. “What have you made of me?” she
cried, “you lying child of an accursed mother! What have you made of me?
The slave of a slave. Don’t speak! Your words are worse than the poison
of snakes. A Sirani woman. A woman of a people despised by all.”
She pointed her finger at Joanna, stepped back, and began to laugh.
“Make her stop, Peter!” screamed Joanna. “That heathen woman. Heathen!
Heathen! Beat her, Peter.”
Willems caught sight of the revolver which Aissa had laid on the seat
near the child. He spoke in Dutch to his wife, without moving his head.
“Snatch the boy--and my revolver there. See. Run to the boat. I will
keep her back. Now’s the time.”
Aissa came nearer. She stared at Joanna, while between the short gusts
of broken laughter she raved, fumbling distractedly at the buckle of her
belt.
“To her! To her--the mother of him who will speak of your wisdom, of
your courage. All to her. I have nothing. Nothing. Take, take.”
She tore the belt off and threw it at Joanna’s feet. She flung down
with haste the armlets, the gold pins, the flowers; and the long hair,
released, fell scattered over her shoulders, framing in its blackness
the wild exaltation of her face.
“Drive her off, Peter. Drive off the heathen savage,” persisted Joanna.
She seemed to have lost her head altogether. She stamped, clinging to
Willems’ arm with both her hands.
“Look,” cried Aissa. “Look at the mother of your son! She is afraid. Why
does she not go from before my face? Look at her. She is ugly.”
Joanna seemed to understand the scornful tone of the words. As Aissa
stepped back again nearer to the tree she let go her husband’s arm,
rushed at her madly, slapped her face, then, swerving round, darted at
the child who, unnoticed, had been wailing for some time, and, snatching
him up, flew down to the waterside, sending shriek after shriek in an
access of insane terror.
Willems made for the revolver. Aissa passed swiftly, giving him an
unexpected push that sent him staggering away from the tree. She caught
up the weapon, put it behind her back, and cried--
“You shall not have it. Go after her. Go to meet danger. . . . Go to
meet death. . . . Go unarmed. . . . Go with empty hands and sweet words
. . . as you came to me. . . . Go helpless and lie to the forests, to
the sea . . . to the death that waits for you. . . .”
She ceased as if strangled. She saw in the horror of the passing
seconds the half-naked, wild-looking man before her; she heard the faint
shrillness of Joanna’s insane shrieks for help somewhere down by the
riverside. The sunlight streamed on her, on him, on the mute land, on
the murmuring river--the gentle brilliance of a serene morning that,
to her, seemed traversed by ghastly flashes of uncertain darkness. Hate
filled the world, filled the space between them--the hate of race, the
hate of hopeless diversity, the hate of blood; the hate against the man
born in the land of lies and of evil from which nothing but misfortune
comes to those who are not white. And as she stood, maddened, she heard
a whisper near her, the whisper of the dead Omar’s voice saying in her
ear: “Kill! Kill!”
She cried, seeing him move--
“Do not come near me . . . or you die now! Go while I remember yet . . .
remember. . . .”
Willems pulled himself together for a struggle. He dared not go unarmed.
He made a long stride, and saw her raise the revolver. He noticed that
she had not cocked it, and said to himself that, even if she did fire,
she would surely miss. Go too high; it was a stiff trigger. He made a
step nearer--saw the long barrel moving unsteadily at the end of her
extended arm. He thought: This is my time . . . He bent his knees
slightly, throwing his body forward, and took off with a long bound for
a tearing rush.
He saw a burst of red flame before his eyes, and was deafened by a
report that seemed to him louder than a clap of thunder. Something
stopped him short, and he stood aspiring in his nostrils the acrid smell
of the blue smoke that drifted from before his eyes like an immense
cloud. . . . Missed, by Heaven! . . . Thought so! . . . And he saw her
very far off, throwing her arms up, while the revolver, very small, lay
on the ground between them. . . . Missed! . . . He would go and pick it
up now. Never before did he understand, as in that second, the joy,
the triumphant delight of sunshine and of life. His mouth was full of
something salt and warm. He tried to cough; spat out. . . . Who
shrieks: In the name of God, he dies!--he dies!--Who dies?--Must pick
up--Night!--What? . . . Night already. . . .
* * * * * *
Many years afterwards Almayer was telling the story of the great
revolution in Sambir to a chance visitor from Europe. He was a
Roumanian, half naturalist, half orchid-hunter for commercial purposes,
who used to declare to everybody, in the first five minutes of
acquaintance, his intention of writing a scientific book about tropical
countries. On his way to the interior he had quartered himself upon
Almayer. He was a man of some education, but he drank his gin neat, or
only, at most, would squeeze the juice of half a small lime into the
raw spirit. He said it was good for his health, and, with that medicine
before him, he would describe to the surprised Almayer the wonders of
European capitals; while Almayer, in exchange, bored him by expounding,
with gusto, his unfavourable opinions of Sambir’s social and political
life. They talked far into the night, across the deal table on the
verandah, while, between them, clear-winged, small, and flabby insects,
dissatisfied with moonlight, streamed in and perished in thousands round
the smoky light of the evil-smelling lamp.
Almayer, his face flushed, was saying--
“Of course, I did not see that. I told you I was stuck in the creek on
account of father’s--Captain Lingard’s--susceptible temper. I am sure I
did it all for the best in trying to facilitate the fellow’s escape; but
Captain Lingard was that kind of man--you know--one couldn’t argue with.
Just before sunset the water was high enough, and we got out of the
creek. We got to Lakamba’s clearing about dark. All very quiet; I
thought they were gone, of course, and felt very glad. We walked up the
courtyard--saw a big heap of something lying in the middle. Out of
that she rose and rushed at us. By God. . . . You know those stories of
faithful dogs watching their masters’ corpses . . . don’t let anybody
approach . . . got to beat them off--and all that. . . . Well, ‘pon my
word we had to beat her off. Had to! She was like a fury. Wouldn’t let
us touch him. Dead--of course. Should think so. Shot through the lung,
on the left side, rather high up, and at pretty close quarters too, for
the two holes were small. Bullet came out through the shoulder-blade.
After we had overpowered her--you can’t imagine how strong that woman
was; it took three of us--we got the body into the boat and shoved off.
We thought she had fainted then, but she got up and rushed into the
water after us. Well, I let her clamber in. What could I do? The river’s
full of alligators. I will never forget that pull up-stream in the night
as long as I live. She sat in the bottom of the boat, holding his head
in her lap, and now and again wiping his face with her hair. There was
a lot of blood dried about his mouth and chin. And for all the six hours
of that journey she kept on whispering tenderly to that corpse! . . .
I had the mate of the schooner with me. The man said afterwards that
he wouldn’t go through it again--not for a handful of diamonds. And I
believed him--I did. It makes me shiver. Do you think he heard? No! I
mean somebody--something--heard? . . .”
“I am a materialist,” declared the man of science, tilting the bottle
shakily over the emptied glass.
Almayer shook his head and went on--
“Nobody saw how it really happened but that man Mahmat. He always said
that he was no further off from them than two lengths of his lance. It
appears the two women rowed each other while that Willems stood between
them. Then Mahmat says that when Joanna struck her and ran off, the
other two seemed to become suddenly mad together. They rushed here
and there. Mahmat says--those were his very words: ‘I saw her standing
holding the pistol that fires many times and pointing it all over the
campong. I was afraid--lest she might shoot me, and jumped on one side.
Then I saw the white man coming at her swiftly. He came like our master
the tiger when he rushes out of the jungle at the spears held by men.
She did not take aim. The barrel of her weapon went like this--from side
to side, but in her eyes I could see suddenly a great fear. There was
only one shot. She shrieked while the white man stood blinking his eyes
and very straight, till you could count slowly one, two, three; then
he coughed and fell on his face. The daughter of Omar shrieked without
drawing breath, till he fell. I went away then and left silence behind
me. These things did not concern me, and in my boat there was that other
woman who had promised me money. We left directly, paying no attention
to her cries. We are only poor men--and had but a small reward for our
trouble!’ That’s what Mahmat said. Never varied. You ask him yourself.
He’s the man you hired the boats from, for your journey up the river.”
“The most rapacious thief I ever met!” exclaimed the traveller, thickly.
“Ah! He is a respectable man. His two brothers got themselves
speared--served them right. They went in for robbing Dyak graves. Gold
ornaments in them you know. Serve them right. But he kept respectable
and got on. Aye! Everybody got on--but I. And all through that scoundrel
who brought the Arabs here.”
“De mortuis nil ni . . . num,” muttered Almayer’s guest.
“I wish you would speak English instead of jabbering in your own
language, which no one can understand,” said Almayer, sulkily.
“Don’t be angry,” hiccoughed the other. “It’s Latin, and it’s wisdom. It
means: Don’t waste your breath in abusing shadows. No offence there. I
like you. You have a quarrel with Providence--so have I. I was meant to
be a professor, while--look.”
His head nodded. He sat grasping the glass. Almayer walked up and down,
then stopped suddenly.
“Yes, they all got on but I. Why? I am better than any of them. Lakamba
calls himself a Sultan, and when I go to see him on business sends that
one-eyed fiend of his--Babalatchi--to tell me that the ruler is
asleep; and shall sleep for a long time. And that Babalatchi! He is the
Shahbandar of the State--if you please. Oh Lord! Shahbandar! The pig! A
vagabond I wouldn’t let come up these steps when he first came here.
. . . Look at Abdulla now. He lives here because--he says--here he is
away from white men. But he has hundreds of thousands. Has a house in
Penang. Ships. What did he not have when he stole my trade from me!
He knocked everything here into a cocked hat, drove father to
gold-hunting--then to Europe, where he disappeared. Fancy a man like
Captain Lingard disappearing as though he had been a common coolie.
Friends of mine wrote to London asking about him. Nobody ever heard of
him there! Fancy! Never heard of Captain Lingard!”
The learned gatherer of orchids lifted his head.
“He was a sen--sentimen--tal old buc--buccaneer,” he stammered out, “I
like him. I’m sent--tal myself.”
He winked slowly at Almayer, who laughed.
“Yes! I told you about that gravestone. Yes! Another hundred and twenty
dollars thrown away. Wish I had them now. He would do it. And the
inscription. Ha! ha! ha! ‘Peter Willems, Delivered by the Mercy of God
from his Enemy.’ What enemy--unless Captain Lingard himself? And then it
has no sense. He was a great man--father was--but strange in many ways.
. . . You haven’t seen the grave? On the top of that hill, there, on the
other side of the river. I must show you. We will go there.”
“Not I!” said the other. “No interest--in the sun--too tiring. . . .
Unless you carry me there.”
As a matter of fact he was carried there a few months afterwards, and
his was the second white man’s grave in Sambir; but at present he was
alive if rather drunk. He asked abruptly--
“And the woman?”
“Oh! Lingard, of course, kept her and her ugly brat in Macassar. Sinful
waste of money--that! Devil only knows what became of them since father
went home. I had my daughter to look after. I shall give you a word to
Mrs. Vinck in Singapore when you go back. You shall see my Nina there.
Lucky man. She is beautiful, and I hear so accomplished, so . . .”
“I have heard already twenty . . . a hundred times about your daughter.
What ab--about--that--that other one, Ai--ssa?”
“She! Oh! we kept her here. She was mad for a long time in a quiet sort
of way. Father thought a lot of her. He gave her a house to live in,
in my campong. She wandered about, speaking to nobody unless she caught
sight of Abdulla, when she would have a fit of fury, and shriek and
curse like anything. Very often she would disappear--and then we all had
to turn out and hunt for her, because father would worry till she was
brought back. Found her in all kinds of places. Once in the abandoned
campong of Lakamba. Sometimes simply wandering in the bush. She had one
favourite spot we always made for at first. It was ten to one on finding
her there--a kind of a grassy glade on the banks of a small brook. Why
she preferred that place, I can’t imagine! And such a job to get her
away from there. Had to drag her away by main force. Then, as the time
passed, she became quieter and more settled, like. Still, all my people
feared her greatly. It was my Nina that tamed her. You see the child was
naturally fearless and used to have her own way, so she would go to
her and pull at her sarong, and order her about, as she did everybody.
Finally she, I verily believe, came to love the child. Nothing could
resist that little one--you know. She made a capital nurse. Once when
the little devil ran away from me and fell into the river off the end
of the jetty, she jumped in and pulled her out in no time. I very nearly
died of fright. Now of course she lives with my serving girls, but does
what she likes. As long as I have a handful of rice or a piece of cotton
in the store she sha’n’t want for anything. You have seen her. She
brought in the dinner with Ali.”
“What! That doubled-up crone?”
“Ah!” said Almayer. “They age quickly here. And long foggy nights spent
in the bush will soon break the strongest backs--as you will find out
yourself soon.”
“Dis . . . disgusting,” growled the traveller.
He dozed off. Almayer stood by the balustrade looking out at the bluish
sheen of the moonlit night. The forests, unchanged and sombre, seemed
to hang over the water, listening to the unceasing whisper of the great
river; and above their dark wall the hill on which Lingard had buried
the body of his late prisoner rose in a black, rounded mass, upon
the silver paleness of the sky. Almayer looked for a long time at
the clean-cut outline of the summit, as if trying to make out through
darkness and distance the shape of that expensive tombstone. When he
turned round at last he saw his guest sleeping, his arms on the table,
his head on his arms.
“Now, look here!” he shouted, slapping the table with the palm of his
hand.
The naturalist woke up, and sat all in a heap, staring owlishly.
“Here!” went on Almayer, speaking very loud and thumping the table, “I
want to know. You, who say you have read all the books, just tell me
. . . why such infernal things are ever allowed. Here I am! Done harm to
nobody, lived an honest life . . . and a scoundrel like that is born in
Rotterdam or some such place at the other end of the world somewhere,
travels out here, robs his employer, runs away from his wife, and ruins
me and my Nina--he ruined me, I tell you--and gets himself shot at last
by a poor miserable savage, that knows nothing at all about him really.
Where’s the sense of all this? Where’s your Providence? Where’s the good
for anybody in all this? The world’s a swindle! A swindle! Why should I
suffer? What have I done to be treated so?”
He howled out his string of questions, and suddenly became silent.
The man who ought to have been a professor made a tremendous effort to
articulate distinctly--
“My dear fellow, don’t--don’t you see that the ba-bare fac--the fact of
your existence is off--offensive. . . . I--I like you--like . . .”
He fell forward on the table, and ended his remarks by an unexpected and
prolonged snore.
Almayer shrugged his shoulders and walked back to the balustrade.
He drank his own trade gin very seldom, but when he did, a ridiculously
small quantity of the stuff could induce him to assume a rebellious
attitude towards the scheme of the universe. And now, throwing his body
over the rail, he shouted impudently into the night, turning his face
towards that far-off and invisible slab of imported granite upon which
Lingard had thought fit to record God’s mercy and Willems’ escape.
“Father was wrong--wrong!” he yelled. “I want you to smart for it. You
must smart for it! Where are you, Willems? Hey? . . . Hey? . . . Where
there is no mercy for you--I hope!”
“Hope,” repeated in a whispering echo the startled forests, the river
and the hills; and Almayer, who stood waiting, with a smile of tipsy
attention on his lips, heard no other answer.
End of Project Gutenberg’s An Outcast of the Islands, by Joseph Conrad