Still, she wanted to be prepared for possible contingencies. All she asked of her life was to be free of pain and suffering, of poverty, and to make her passions the slaves of her pleasure, so that she could continue to have pleasure for as long as possible, and live this life as long as possible. She thought over what she would say if Van Oudijck ever questioned her, if the anonymous letters sowed a seed of doubt. She asked herself if she would not break with Theo after all. Addy was enough for her. And she became absorbed in her preparations, as in the uncertain combinations of a play that had yet to begin. Until she suddenly heard the voice of the radèn-ayu pangéran in the office raised against her husband’s calm voice. She listened, curious, sensing a drama and calmly happy that this drama ran off her like water off a duck’s back. She crept into Van Oudijck’s bedroom; the dividing doors were open for ventilation and only a screen divided the bedroom and office. She peered past the screen and saw the old Princess, more agitated than she had ever seen a Javanese woman. The radèn-ayu was pleading in Malay with Van Oudijck who, in Dutch, was assuring her that it was impossible. Léonie listened more closely, and heard the old Princess begging the Commissioner to have mercy on her second son, the Prince of Ngajiwa. She begged Van Oudijck to think of her late husband, the pangéran, whom he had loved as a father, who had loved him as a son — with an affection deeper than that between an “elder and a younger brother”; she begged him to think of their illustrious past, the glory of the Adiningrats, always the loyal friends of the Dutch East India Company, in war its allies, in peace its most loyal vassals: she begged him not to decree the end of their dynasty, on which a dreadful fate had descended since the pangéran’s death, driving it into an abyss of fatal destruction. She stood before the Commissioner like Niobe, like a tragic mother, her arms raised in the powerful emotion of her words, tears streaming from her dark eyes, and her wide mouth — stained with the brown betel juice — like a grinning mask. Yet as she grinned, fluent words of persuasion and imprecation welled up; she wrung her hands in supplication, and her fist beat her breast as if in penitence.
Van Oudijck answered her in a firm but soft voice, telling her indeed how deeply he had loved the old pangéran, how highly he esteemed the old family, how no one would want more than he did to maintain them in their eminence. But then he became more severe and asked her on whom the Adiningrats could blame the fate that now pursued them. Looking her straight in the eye, he told her that it was her fault! She shrank back, bursting with rage, but he repeated it again and again. Her sons were her sons, bigoted and arrogant and addicted to gambling. And gambling, that base passion, spelt disaster for their greatness. In the insatiability of their lust for gain, their dynasty was tottering towards destruction. How often did a month go by when the Prince of Ngajiwa failed to pay the salaries of his chiefs? She admitted it was true: at her insistence her son had taken — borrowed — money from the treasury to pay gambling debts. But she also swore that it would never happen again! And where, asked Van Oudijck, had a prince, the descendant of an ancient family, ever behaved in such a way as the Prince of Ngajiwa had at the race ball? The mother wailed: it was true, it was true; fate was clinging to their steps and had clouded her son’s mind with madness, but it would never, never happen again. She swore by the soul of the old pangéran that it would never happen again, and that her son would regain his dignity. But Van Oudijck became more heated and accused her of never having exerted a positive influence on her sons and her nephews, of being the evil genius of her family, since a demon of gambling and greed had her in its clutches. The old Princess began to screech with pain, she who looked down upon the Commissioner, the Dutch commoner, that he dared speak to her in that way and was right to do so. She reached out and begged him for mercy; she begged him not to recommend her younger son to the government for dismissal, which would follow the advice of such a highly esteemed official and do as the Commissioner said. She begged him to show pity and to have patience. She would talk to her son, and Sunario would talk to his brother: they would bring him to his senses after he had been ravaged by drink, gambling and women. Oh, if only the Commissioner would show pity, if only he would relent! But Van Oudijck was implacable. He had been patient for so long. Things had come to a head. Since her son, under the influence of the native healer, trusting in his talisman, had opposed him with his insolent silence, which the Prince believed made him invulnerable to enemies — he would demonstrate that he, the Commissioner, the plenipotentiary of the government, the Queen’s representative, was the strongest, despite the native healer and the talisman. There was nothing else for it: his patience was exhausted, his love for the pangéran admitted no further indulgence; his feeling of respect for their family could not be transferred to an unworthy son. It was decided: the Prince was to be dismissed.
The Princess had listened to him, unable to believe his words, seeing an abyss gaping in front of her. And with a screech like that of a wounded lioness, with a scream of pain, she pulled the jewelled pins out of her knot so that her long grey hair streamed down around her; in a single movement she tore open her jacket; no longer able to control her pain and despair that rose like a mist from the gaping abyss, she threw herself at the feet of the European, grabbed his foot violently with both hands and planted it on her bent neck in a single movement that threw Van Oudijck off balance, and she screamed out that she, the daughter of the sultans of Madura would be his slave for ever if he would just this once have mercy on her son, and not plunge her family into the abyss of disgrace, which she saw gaping around her. And she clung to the European’s foot with the strength of despair, and kept that foot, with the sole and heel of the shoe, like a yoke of slavery pressed into her streaming grey hair, her neck bent to the ground. Van Oudijck was trembling with emotion. He realized that this haughty woman would never, apparently spontaneously, humiliate herself in the deepest way she could think of, would never abandon herself to the most violent expression of grief that a woman could ever show — with her hair loose, and the ruler’s foot on her neck — if she were not shocked to the depths of her being, if her despair had not reached the point of self-destruction. He hesitated for a moment, but no more than a moment. He was a man of well-pondered principles, of pre-established logic: immutable in decision-taking, never susceptible to impulse. With immense respect he finally freed his foot from the vicelike grip of the Princess, reached out to her with both hands and lifted her up from the floor with great deference and with obvious sympathy. She flopped into a chair, broken and sobbing. For a moment she thought she had won, sensing his soft-heartedness. But when he shook his head calmly but firmly to indicate a negative decision she realized it was all over. She gasped for breath, half-fainting, still with her jacket open, her hair loose. At that moment Léonie entered. She had seen the drama being enacted before her very eyes and felt moved as if by a work of literature. She experienced something akin to pity. She approached the Princess, who threw herself into her arms, seeking the support of another woman in the helpless despair of the inevitable catastrophe. And Léonie, her beautiful eyes focused on Van Oudijck, muttered a single word of intercession and whispered: “Give in!” It represented a living blossoming of pity in her arid soul. “Give in!” she whispered again. And for the second time Van Oudijck hesitated. He had never before refused his wife anything, however costly her request. But this meant the sacrifice of his principles: never going back on a decision, the firm implementation of a desired course of events. That is how he had always controlled the future. He had never shown any weakness, and he said it was impossible.