“Doddy is insufferable,” she said. “We must put an end to it.”
“How do we do that?”
“She must leave home. She’s so irritable, I can’t do a thing with her.”
“You tease her, too.”
She shrugged her shoulders, out of humour after a tiff with her stepdaughter.
“I used not to tease her, she used to love me, we used to get on very well. Now she explodes at the least thing. It’s your fault. Those eternal evening walks that lead nowhere are playing on her nerves.”
“It’s better they don’t lead anywhere,” he murmured, with his seducer’s smile. “But still I can’t break it off, because that would hurt her, and I can never hurt a woman.”
She laughed disparagingly.
“Yes, you’re so kind-hearted. You’d spread your favours far and wide out of the goodness of your heart. But whatever happens, she’s leaving home.”
“Where will she go?”
“Don’t ask such stupid questions!” she cried angrily, jerked out of her usual indifference. “Away, away, she’s going away: I couldn’t care less where. You know that once I say something, it happens. And this, this will happen.”
He took her in his arms.
“You’re so angry. You’re not beautiful at all like that…”
Upset, she didn’t want to let herself be kissed at first, but he didn’t like such upsets and was well aware of the power of his irresistible, handsome, Moorish masculinity, and overpowered her with brute force, smiling all the while and hugging her so tightly that she couldn’t move.
“You mustn’t be angry any more…”
“Oh yes I must… I hate Doddy.”
“The poor child has done you no harm.”
“That’s as may be…”
“You, on the other hand, tease her.”
“Because I hate her…”
“But why? Surely you’re not jealous?…”
She laughed loudly.
“No! That’s not in my nature.”
“Why then?”
“What’s it to you? I don’t know myself. I hate her. I enjoy teasing her.”
“Are you as bad as you’re beautiful?”
“What’s bad? How should I know! I’d like to tease you too, if only I knew how.”
“And I’d like to give you a good hiding.”
Again she laughed aloud.
“Perhaps that might do me good now,” she admitted. “I’m seldom upset, but Doddy!..”
She tensed her fingers and, suddenly calmer, she snuggled up to him and put her arms round his body.
“I used to be very indifferent,” she confessed. “Recently I’ve become much more nervous, since I had such a fright in that bathroom, after they spat betel juice all over me. Do you think it was ghosts, spirits at work? I don’t think so. It was the Prince taunting us. Those wretched Javanese know all sorts of things… But since that time I’ve been thrown off course. Do you understand that expression?… It used to be wonderfuclass="underline" everything ran off me like water off a duck’s back. Since I was so ill, I seem to have changed, become more nervous. Theo, when he was angry with me once, said that since then I’ve been hysterical… which I used not to be. I don’t know: perhaps he’s right. But I’ve certainly changed… I care less about people; I think I’m becoming very brazen… The gossip is also more spiteful than it used to be… Van Oudijck annoys me, snooping around like that… He’s starting to notice things… And Doddy, Doddy!.. I’m not jealous, but I can’t stand those evening strolls she has with you… You mustn’t do it any more, go for walks with her… I won’t stand for it any more, I won’t… Everything bores me here in Labuwangi… What a miserable, monotonous existence… Surabaya bores me too… So does Batavia… Everything here is so dulclass="underline" people never think up anything new. I’d like to go to Paris… I think I’m made of the right stuff to enjoy myself there.”
“Do I bore you, too?”
“You?”
She stroked his face with her hands, his chest, down to his legs.
“Shall I tell you something? You’re a handsome lad, but you’re too good-natured, which irritates me, too. You kiss anyone who wants to be kissed by you. At Pajaram you slobber over your old mother, your sisters, everyone. I think that’s terrible of you!”
He laughed.
“You’re getting jealous!” he exclaimed.
“Jealous? Am I really getting jealous? It’s terrible if I am. I don’t know… I don’t want to. I still believe that there’s something that will always protect me.”
“A devil…”
“Perhaps. Un bon diable.”
“Are you starting to speak French?”
“Yes. With my departure to Paris in view… Something that protects me. I firmly believe that life has no hold on me, that I am invulnerable, to anything.”
“You’re getting superstitious.”
“Oh, I already was. Perhaps I’ve become worse. Tell me, have I changed recently?”
“You’re more nervous…”
“Not so indifferent any more?”
“You’re more cheerful, more amusing.”
“Was I boring before?”
“You were quiet. You were always beautiful, wonderful, divine… but rather quiet.”
“Perhaps I cared more about people then.”
“Don’t you care any more?”
“No, not any more. They gossip anyway… But tell me, haven’t I changed in more ways?
“Oh yes… more jealous, more superstitious, more nervous… What more do you want?…”
“Physically… haven’t I changed physically?…”
“No.”
“Haven’t I aged… Aren’t I getting wrinkles?”
“You? Never.”
“Do you know… I think I’ve got a whole future ahead of me… Something completely different…”
“In Paris?”
“Perhaps… Tell me, aren’t I too old?”
“For what?”
“For Paris… How old do you think I am?
“Twenty-five.”
“You’re fibbing: you know perfectly well that I’m thirty-two… Do I look thirty-two?”
“No, no…”
“Tell me, don’t you think the Indies is a rotten country… You’ve never been to Europe, have you?”
“No…”
“I only between the ages of ten and fifteen… Actually you’re a brown colonial and I’m white colonial…”
“I love my country.”
“Yes, because you think you’re some kind of Solo prince. That’s your absurd delusion in Pajaram… I, I hate the Indies… I spit on Labuwangi. I want to get out. I have to go to Paris. Will you come with me?”
“I’d never want to…”
“Not even if you consider that there are hundreds of women in Europe that you’ve never had?…”
He looked at her: something in her words, in her voice made him look up, a deranged, hysterical note, that had never struck him in the past, when she had always been the silently passionate lover, eyes half-closed, who immediately afterwards wanted to forget and become propriety itself. Something in her repelled him: he liked the supple, soft yielding of her embrace, with something indolent and smiling — as she used to be — not these half-crazed eyes and purple mouth, ready to bite. It was as if she could feel it, because she suddenly pushed him away, and said brusquely: “You bore me… I know you inside out. Go away…”
But he didn’t want to; he didn’t like a rendezvous that led nowhere, and he embraced her and asked…
“No,” she said abruptly. “You bore me. Everyone bores me here. Everything bores me…”
On his knees, he grasped her waist and pulled her towards him. She, laughing slightly, gave way a little, running her hand nervously through his hair. A carriage pulled up outside.
“Listen,” she said.
“It’s Mrs Van Does…”