That day the Regent of Ngadjiwa, Sunario's younger brother, was to
pay a visit at Patjaram, because Mrs. van Oudijck was leaving on the
following day. They sat waiting for him in the front verandah, rocking
about the marble table, when his carriage came rattling down the long
avenue of tjemaras. They all stood up. And now it appeared more plainly
than ever how highly respected the old raden-aju, the dowager, was,
how closely related to the Susuhunan himself, for the regent alighted
and, without taking another step, squatted on the lowest stair of the
verandah and salaamed respectfully, while behind his back a retainer,
holding up the closed gold-and-white umbrella like a furled sun, made
himself still smaller and shrank together in self-annihilation. And
the old woman, the Solo princess, who once more saw the palace gleaming
before her, went to meet him and welcomed him with all the courtesy of
palace Javanese, the language spoken among princely equals, till the
regent rose and, following her, approached the family circle. And the
manner in which he then, for the first time, bowed to the wife of his
resident, however polite, was almost condescending, compared with his
obsequiousness of a moment ago.... He now sat down between Mrs. de Luce
and Mrs. van Oudijck; and a drawling conversation began. The Regent
of Ngadjiwa was a different type from his brother Sunario; taller,
coarser, without the other's look of a marionette in a puppet-show;
though younger, he looked the older of the two, with his eyes seared
with passion: the passion for women, and wine, the passion for opium,
the passion, above all, for gambling. And a silent thought seemed to
flash up in that listless, drawling conversation, with few words and
no ideas, ever and again interrupted by the courtly "Saja, saja,"
behind which they all concealed their secret longing.... They spoke
Malay because Mrs. van Oudijck did not dare to speak Javanese,
that refined, difficult language, full of shades of etiquette, on
which hardly a single Hollander ventures when speaking to Javanese
persons of rank. They spoke little; they rocked gently; a vague,
courteous smile showed that all were taking part in the conversation,
though only Mrs. de Luce and the Regent exchanged an occasional
word.... Until at last the De Luces--the old mother, her son Roger,
her brown daughters-in-law--were no longer able to restrain themselves,
even in Mrs. van Oudijck's presence, and laughed shyly while drinks and
cakes were being handed round; until, notwithstanding their courtesy,
they rapidly consulted one another, over Léonie's head, in a few words
of Javanese; until the old mother, no longer mistress of herself,
at last asked her whether she would mind if they had a little game
of cards. And they all looked at her, the wife of the resident, the
wife of the high official who, they knew, hated the gambling which
was ruining them, which was destroying the grandeur of the Javanese
families whom he wished to uphold in spite of themselves. But she
was too indifferent to think of preventing them with a single word
of tactful jest, for her husband's sake; she, the slave of her
own passion, allowed them to be the slave of theirs, in the luxury
of their enslavement. She merely smiled and readily permitted the
players to withdraw to the twilight of the spacious, oblong inner
gallery, the ladies counting their money into their handkerchiefs,
alternating with the men, until they were sitting close together,
and, with their eyes on the cards or spying into one another's eyes,
gambled and gambled endlessly, winning, losing, paying or receiving,
just opening and closing the handkerchiefs containing the money,
with never a word nor a sound but the faint rustle of the cards in
the twilight of the inner room. What game were they playing? Léonie
did not know, did not care, indifferent to their passion and glad
that Addie had remained beside her and that Theo was glaring at him
jealously. Did he know, did he suspect anything? Would Oorip always
hold her tongue? She enjoyed the emotion and she wanted them both;
she wanted both white and brown; and the fact that Doddie was sitting
on the other side of Addie and almost swooning as she rocked to and
fro afforded her an acute and wicked delight. What else was there in
life but to yield to one's luxurious cravings? She had no ambition
and was indifferent to her exalted station; she, the first woman
in the residency, who delegated all her duties to Eva Eldersma,
who was quite unmoved when hundreds of people, at the receptions at
Labuwangi, Ngadjiwa and elsewhere, greeted her with a ceremony not
far short of royal honours, who, in her rosy, perverse day-dreams,
with a novel by Catulle Mendès in her hands, silently laughed at
the exaggerated ideas that ruled up-country, where the wife of a
resident is treated as a queen. She had no other ambition than to
be loved by the men whom she selected, no other emotional life than
the worship of her body, like an Aphrodite who chose to be her own
priestess. What did she care if they played cards in there, if the
Regent of Ngadjiwa was ruining himself! On the contrary, she thought
it interesting to read that ruin on his seamed face; and she would
take care to be even more carefully groomed, to let Oorip massage her
face and limbs, to make Oorip prepare even more of the white moist
rice-powder, the wonderful cream, the magic salve of which Oorip knew
the secret and which kept her flesh firm and unwrinkled and white as
a mangosteen. She thought it exciting to see the Regent of Ngadjiwa
burning away like a candle, foolishly, brutalized by women, wine, opium
and cards; perhaps most of all by cards; by that bewildered glaring
at them; by high play, and the calculation of chances which defied
calculation, superstitiously reckoning by sacred omens the day and the
hour when he should play in order to win, the number of the players,
the amount of his stake.... Now and then she took a furtive glance at
the faces of the players in the inner gallery, darkened by twilight
and the lust of gain, and reflected on what Van Oudijck would say,
how angry he would be if she told him about it.... What did it matter
to him if the regent's family ruined themselves? What did his policy
matter to her, what did the whole Dutch policy matter, which aims
at securing the position of the Javanese nobility, through whom it
governs the population? What did it matter to her that Van Oudijck,
thinking of the noble old pangéran, was grieved by his children's
visible decline? None of it mattered to her; what mattered was only
herself and Addie and Theo. She must really tell her step-son, her
fair-haired lover, that afternoon, not to be so jealous. It was
becoming obvious; she was sure that Doddie noticed it.... Didn't
she save the poor child yesterday? But how long would that yearning
last? Hadn't she better warn Van Oudijck, like a kind, solicitous
mother?... Her thoughts wandered languidly; it was a sultry morning,
in those last, scorching days of the eastern monsoon, which cover the
limbs with trickling moisture. A shiver ran through her body; and,
leaving Doddie with Addie, she carried Theo off and reproached him
for looking so savage with impotent jealousy. She pretended to be a
little angry and asked him what he wanted.
They had gone to the side of the house, to the long side-verandah;
there were monkeys here in a cage, with skins strewn all around from
the bananas which the animals had eaten, fed to them by the children.
The luncheon-gong had already sounded twice; the babus were squatting
in the back-verandah, pounding everybody's spices. But the people
around the card-table seemed to hear nothing. Only the whispering
voices became louder and shriller, so that Léonie and Theo, as well
as Addie and Doddie, pricked up their ears. A dispute seemed suddenly
to break out between Roger and the regent, notwithstanding Mrs. de
Luce's attempts to hush it. They spoke Javanese, but they let all
courtesy go to the winds. Like two coolies, they abused each other
for cheats, constantly interrupted by the soothing efforts of old
Mrs. de Luce, supported by her daughters and daughters-in-law. But
the chairs were roughly thrust back; a glass was broken. Roger seemed
to dash his cards down in anger. All the women in the inner room
took part in the soothing process, their voices raised, or muffled,
or whispering, with little outcries, little shrieks of apology and
indignation. The servants, innumerable, were listening in every
corner of the house. Then the dispute abated, but long, explanatory
arguments still continued between the regent and Roger; the women
tried to hush them down--"Ssh!... Ssh!"--embarrassed because of the
resident's wife, looking out to see where she might be. And at last
all was quiet and they sat down in silence, hoping that not too much
of the dispute had reached her ears. Until at length, very late--it
was almost three o'clock--old Mrs. de Luce, with the gambling-passion
still blazing in her dim eyes, summoning all her distinction and her
princely prestige, went to the verandah and, as though nothing had
happened, asked Mrs. van Oudijck if she would not come in to lunch.