Читать книгу The Hidden Force - Louis Couperus - Страница 7

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Van Oudijck felt in a more pleasant mood than he had done for weeks: his house seemed to have recovered after those two months of dull boredom; he thought it jolly to see his two rascals of boys romping round the garden, even though they did all sorts of mischief; and above all he was very glad that his wife was back.

They were now sitting in the garden, in undress, drinking tea, at half-past five. It was very strange, but Léonie at once filled the great house with a certain home-like feeling of comfort, because she liked comfort herself. At other times Van Oudijck would hurriedly swallow a cup of tea which Kario brought him in his bedroom: to-day this afternoon tea made a pleasant break in the day; cane chairs and long deck-chairs were placed outside, in front of the house; the tea-tray stood on a cane table; there were roasted bananas; and Léonie, in a red silk Japanese kimono, with her fair hair hanging loose, lay back in a cane chair playing with Doddie’s cockatoo and feeding it with pastry. It was different at once, Van Oudijck thought: his wife, so sociable, charming, pretty, telling scraps of news about their friends in Batavia, the races at Buitenzorg, a ball at the Viceroy’s, the Italian opera; the boys merry, healthy and jolly, however dirty they might make themselves in playing. He called them to him and romped with them and asked them about the grammar-school—they were both in the second class—and even Doddie and Theo seemed different to him: Doddie was now plucking roses from the potted trees, looking delightfully pretty and humming a tune; and Theo was communicative with mamma and even with him. A pleased expression played around Van Oudijck’s moustache. His face was quite young still; he hardly looked forty-eight. He had a quick, bright glance, a way of looking up suddenly with an acute, penetrating air. He was rather heavy of build, with a tendency to become still heavier, but yet he had retained a soldierly briskness and he was indefatigable on his circuits: he was a first-rate horseman. Tall and powerfully built, content with his house and his family, he wore a pleasant air of robust virility, with a jovial laughing expression around his moustache. And, relaxing himself, stretched out at full length in his cane chair, he drank his cup of tea, and gave utterance to the thoughts which generally welled up in him at such moments of satisfaction. Yes, it was not a bad life in India,1 when all was said, in the B.B.2 At least it had always been good for him; but then he had been pretty lucky. Promotion nowadays was a desperate business: he knew any number of assistant-residents who were his contemporaries and who had no chance of becoming residents for years to come. And that certainly was a desperate position, to continue so long in a subordinate office, to be compelled at that age to hold one’s self at the orders of a resident. He could never have stood it, at forty-eight! But to be a resident, to give orders on his own initiative, to rule as large and important a district as Labuwangi, with such extensive coffee-plantations, with such numbers of sugar-factories, with so many leased concessions: that was a delight, that was living, that was a life grander and more spacious than any other, a life with which no life or position in Holland was to be compared. His great responsibility delighted his authoritative nature. His activities were varied: office work and circuit; the interest of his work varied: a man was not bored to death in his office-chair; after the office there was out-of-door life; and there was always a change, always something different. He hoped in eighteen months to become a resident of the first class, if a first-class residency fell vacant: Batavia, Samarang, Surabaya, or one of the Vorstenlanden.3 And yet it would go to his heart to leave Labuwangi. He was attached to his district, for which he had done so much during the past five years, which in those five years had attained its highest prosperity, in so far as prosperity was possible in these times of general depression, with the colonies poor, the population impoverished, the coffee-crops worse than ever, sugar perhaps threatened with a serious crisis in two years’ time. India was in a languishing condition; and even in the industrial eastern portion of the island inertia and lack of vitality were spreading like a blight; but still he had been able to do much for Labuwangi. During his administration the people had thrived and prospered; the irrigation of the corn-fields was excellent, after he had succeeded in tactfully winning over the engineer, who at first was always in conflict with the B.B. Miles and miles of steam tramway had been laid down. The secretary, his assistant-residents and controllers were his willing coadjutors, though he kept them hard at work. But he had a pleasant way with them, even though the work was hard. He knew how to be jolly and friendly with them, resident though he was. He was glad that all of them—controllers and assistant-residents—represented the wholesome, cheerful type of B.B. official, pleased with their life, liking their work, though nowadays given much more than formerly to studying the Government Almanack and the Colonial List with an eye to their promotion. And it was Van Oudijck’s hobby to compare his officials with the judicial functionaries, who did not represent the same alert type: there was always a slight jealousy and animosity between the two orders. … Yes, it was a pleasant life, a pleasant sphere of activity: everything was all right. There was nothing to beat the B.B. His only regret was that his relations with the regent4 were not easier and more agreeable. But it was not his fault. He had always very conscientiously given the regent his due, had left him in the enjoyment of his full rights, had seen to it that he was duly respected by the Javanese population and even by the European officials. Oh, how intensely he regretted the death of the old pangéran, the regent’s father; the old regent, a noble, cultivated Javanese! Van Oudijck had always been in sympathy with him, had at once won him by his tact. Had he not, five years ago, when he arrived at Labuwangi to take over the administration, invited the pangéran—the type of the genuine Javanese noble—to sit beside him in his own carriage, rather than allow him to follow in a second carriage, behind the resident’s carriage, as was usual? And had not this civility toward the old prince at once won all the Javanese heads and officials and flattered them in their respect and love for their regent, the descendant of one of the oldest Javanese families, the Adiningrats, who were Sultans of Madura in the Company’s time? … But Sunario, his son, now the young regent, he was unable to understand, unable to fathom. This he confessed only to himself, in silence, seeing him always enigmatic—that marionette, that puppet, as he called him—always stiff, keeping his distance towards him, the resident, as though he, the prince, looked down upon him, the Dutch burgher, and wholly absorbed in all sorts of superstitious observances and fanatical speculations. He never said as much openly, but something in the regent escaped him. He was unable to place that delicate figure, with the fixed, coal-black eyes, in the practical life of human beings, as he had always been able to place the old pangéran. The latter had always been to him, in accordance with his age, a fatherly friend; in accordance with etiquette, his “younger brother”; but always the fellow-ruler of his district. But Sunario seemed to him unreal, not a functionary, not a regent, merely a fanatical Javanese who always shrouded himself in mystery:

“Such nonsense!” thought Van Oudijck.

He laughed at the reputation for sacrosanctity which the populace bestowed upon Sunario. He thought him unpractical, a degenerate Javanese, a crazy Javanese dandy.

But his lack of harmony with the regent—a lack of harmony in character only, which had never developed into actual fact: why, he could twist the mannikin round his finger!—was the only great difficulty which had arisen during all these years. And he would not have exchanged his life as a resident for any other life whatever. Why, he was already fretting about what he would do later, when he was pensioned off! What he would have preferred was to continue as long as possible in the service, as a member of the Indian Council, as vice-president of the Council. The object of his unspoken ambition, in the far-away future, was the throne of Buitenzorg. But nowadays they had that strange mania in Holland for appointing outsiders to the highest posts—men sent straight from Holland, newcomers who knew nothing about India—instead of remaining faithful to the principle of selecting old Indian servants, who had made their way up from subcontroller and who knew the whole official hierarchy by heart. … Yes, what would he do, pensioned off? Live at Nice? With no money? For saving was impracticable: his life was comfortable, but expensive; and instead of saving he was running up debts. Well, that didn’t matter now: the debts would be paid off in time, but later, later. … The future, the existence of a pensioned official, was anything but an agreeable prospect for him. To vegetate at the Hague, in a small house, with a gin-and-bitters at the club, among the old fogeys: br-r-r! The very idea of it made him shudder. He wouldn’t think about it; he preferred not to think about it at all: perhaps he would be dead by that time. But it was all delightful now: his work, his house, India. There was absolutely nothing to compare with it.

Léonie had listened to him smilingly: she was accustomed to his quiet enthusiasm, his rhapsodizing over his post; as she put it, his adoration of the B.B. She also valued the luxury of being a resident’s wife. The comparative isolation she did not mind; she usually was sufficient unto herself. And she answered smilingly, contented and charming with her creamy complexion, which showed still whiter under the light coat of rice-powder against the red silk of her kimono and looked so delightful amidst the surrounding waves of her fair hair.

That morning she had felt put out for a moment: Labuwangi, after Batavia, had depressed her with the tedium of an up-country capital. But since then she had acquired a large diamond; since then she had got Theo back. His room was close to hers. And it was sure to be a long time before he could obtain a berth.

These were her thoughts, while her husband sat blissfully reflecting after his pleasant confidences.

Her thoughts went no deeper than this: anything like remorse would have surprised her in the highest degree, had she been capable of feeling it. It began to grow dark slowly; the moon was already rising and shining brightly; and behind the velvety banyans, behind the feathery boughs of the coco-palms, which waved gently up and down like stately sheaves of dark ostrich-feathers, the last light of the sun cast a faintly stippled, dull-gold reflection, against which the softness of the banyans and the pomp of the coco-palms stood out as though etched in black. From the distance came the monotonous tinkle of the native orchestra, mournfully, limpid as water, like a xylophone, with a deep dissonance at intervals. …

1 The Dutch always speak of the Dutch East Indies—Java, Sumatra, Celebes, etc.—as India.

2 The Binnenlandsch Bestuur, or inland administration.

3 The native states of Surakarta and Djokjakarta are known as the Vorstenlanden, or Principalities.

4 The native regent, or rajah.