It was relatively peaceful in the house now that the milling season and the celebrations were over, and an indolent calm had ensued. But Mrs Van Oudijck, Theo and Doddy had come over for the celebrations and were staying on at Pajaram for a few days. Seated around the marble table, on which there were glasses of syrup, lemonade and whisky soda, was a large group of people: they did not say much, but rocked contentedly up and down, occasionally exchanging a few words. Mrs De Luce and Mrs Van Oudijck spoke Malay, but very little: a gentle, good-natured boredom descended on a large number of rocking people. It was strange to see the different types: the beautiful milky-white Léonie next to the yellow, wrinkled Princess dowager; Theo, light-skinned and blond as a Dutchman with his full, sensual lips that he had inherited from his Eurasian mother; Doddy, already like a mature rose with her irises sparkling in her black pupils; the son of the director, Achille de Luce — tall, well-built, brown — whose thoughts were focused solely on his machinery and his seed; the second son, Roger — short, thin, brown — the bookkeeper, whose thoughts were focused solely on that year’s profits, with his Armenian wife; the eldest daughter, already old — stupid and ugly, brown — with her full-blooded Dutch husband, who looked like a country bumpkin. The other sons and daughters, in all shades of brown, and hard to distinguish at first glance; and around them the children, the grandchildren, the maids, the little golden foster-children, the parrots and the deer and, as if sprinkled over all these grown-ups and children and animals, the same benevolent togetherness, but also over everyone the same pride in their Solo matriarch, who caused a pale halo of Javanese aristocracy to gleam behind all their heads, and as proud as any of them were her Armenian daughter-in-law and her clodhopping Dutch son-in-law.
The liveliest of all of these elements that had merged through long cohabitation in the patriarchal seat was the youngest son, Addy, in whom the blood of the Solo princess and the French adventurer had mingled harmoniously. While it had not made him brainy, it had given him the good looks of a young Eurasian, with a Moorish touch, something southern, something Spanish. And in this youngest child the two racial elements, so far removed from each other, had for the first time been joined harmoniously, had for the first time married with complete mutual understanding — as if in him, this last child of so many, the adventurer and the princess had met in harmony for the first time. Addy appeared to have no imagination or intellect to speak of, and was incapable of stringing together two ideas to make a coherent train of thought; all he felt was the vague benevolence that had descended on the whole family, and apart from that he was like a beautiful animal that had degenerated spiritually and mentally, degenerated into one big emptiness. His body had become like a resurrection of racial perfection, full of strength and beauty, while his marrow and his blood and his flesh and his muscles had developed into a harmony of physical attraction, so utterly, mindlessly, beautifully sensual that the harmony had an immediate appeal for women. The young man had only to appear, like a beautiful southern god, for every woman’s eyes to be on him, and absorb him deep into their imaginations so they could later summon him up in their mind’s eye; the young man had only to come to a ball after the races at Ngajiwa for all the young girls to fall in love with him. He plucked love wherever he found it, and he found it particularly abundant in the villages around Pajaram. Every woman was in love with him, from his mother to his little nieces. Doddy van Oudijck worshipped him. She had been in love hundreds of times since the age of seven, with anyone whom she spied with her bright eyes, but never before as she was with Addy. It radiated so strongly from her that it was like a flame everyone could see, and that made them smile. For her, the milling party had been one round of enchantment… when she danced with him; one round of torture… when he danced with anyone else. He had not proposed, but she was thinking of proposing to him, and dying if he refused. She knew that her father, the Commissioner, was opposed; he did not like the De Luce family, that Solo-French crowd, as he called them. But if Addy wanted to, her father would give in, because otherwise she, Doddy, would die. For this child of love, the young Eros was the whole world, the universe, life itself. He courted her, kissed her secretly on the lips, but no more than in the thoughtless way he did with others; he kissed other girls, too. If he was allowed to, he went further, quite naturally, like a devastating young god, an unthinking god. But he still had some respect for the commissioner’s daughter. He had neither courage nor impudence, and lacked much passion in his choices, seeing women as women and so sated with conquest that obstacles were not a stimulus. His garden was full of flowers, all of which strained towards him; he stretched out his hand almost without seeing, and just plucked.
While they rocked around the table, they saw him approaching through the garden and every woman’s eyes were trained on him as on a young seducer arriving in the sunshine, which was like a radiant garland around him. The dowager radèn-ayu smiled and looked at her youngest son with love, her favourite. Behind her, squatting on the ground, the golden foster-child peered wide-eyed; the sisters peered, the nieces peered, Doddy peered, and Léonie van Oudijck’s milk-white complexion was tinged with a pink shade that merged with the glow of her smile. Automatically she glanced at Theo and their eyes met. And these souls that were all burning love — their eyes, mouths, flesh — understood each other, and Theo’s jealousy blazed so fiercely in her direction that the pink shade faded and she turned pale and was afraid, with a sudden unreasoning, shuddering fear that pierced her usual indifference, while the Seducer, in his halo of sunshine, came closer and closer…