THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE
 
 THE WORKS OF LOUIS COUPERUS 
 
 Translated by 
 Alexander Teixeira de Mattos 
 
 THE BOOKS OF THE SMALL SOULS 
 
 I. Small Souls 
 
 IL The Later Life 
 
 HI. The Twilight of the Souls 
 
 IV. Dr. Adriaan 
 
 Also 
 Old People and the Things That Pass 
 Ecstasy 
 The Tour 
 The Inevitable 
 Majesty 
 The Hidden Force
 
 THE 
 HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 A STORY OF MODERN JAVA 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS COUPERUS 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1921
 
 OOPYRIOHT, 1921 
 
 By dodd, mead and company, I»0. 
 
 Printed in U. S. A.
 
 rr 
 
 58^ t 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 
 
 This novel was written in the author's middle period, 
 about twenty years ago. He tells me that, since then, 
 life in the Dutch East Indies has undergone certain 
 modifications, but none of very great importance. The 
 habit among Dutch ladies of wearing native dress dur- 
 ing the day has nearly died out. The relations between 
 the ruling and the subject race are almost unchanged 
 since the date of the story ( 1900) . 
 
 I have retained the spelling of the Malay words as 
 it stands in the original, with the exception that I have 
 transliterated the Dutch phonetic oe into Its English 
 equivalent, u or oo. The other vowels are pronounced 
 in the continental fashion. 
 
 To each of these terms I have appended a foot-note 
 when it first occurs ; and a full glossary of all the native 
 words and phrases will be found at the end of the 
 volume, 
 
 Alexander Teixeira de Mattos 
 Chelsea, 23 June, 1921 
 
 633044
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The full moon wore the hue of tragedy that evening. 
 
 It had risen early, during the last gleams of daylight, 
 
 in the semblance of a huge, blood-red ball, and, flaming 
 
 like a sunset low down behind the tamarind-trees in the 
 
 Lange Laan,^ it was ascending, slowly divesting itself 
 
 of its tragic complexion, in a pallid sky. A deadly 
 
 stillness extended over all things like a veil of silence, 
 
 as though, after the long mid-day siesta, the evening 
 
 rest were beginning without an intervening period of 
 
 life. Over the town, whose white villas and porticoes 
 
 lay huddled amid the trees of the lanes and gardens, 
 
 hung a muffled silence, in the windless oppression of the 
 
 evening air, as though the listless night were weary of 
 
 the blazing day of eastern monsoon. The houses, from 
 
 which not a sound was heard, shrank away, in deathly 
 
 silence, amid the foliage of their gardens, with the 
 
 evenly spaced, gleaming rows of the great whitewashed 
 
 flower-pots. Here and there a lamp was already lit. 
 
 Suddenly a dog barked and another answered, rending 
 
 the muffled silence into long, ragged tatters: the dogs' 
 
 angry throats sounded hoarse, panting, harshly hostile ; 
 
 then they too suddenly ceased and fell silent. 
 
 At the end of the Lange Laan the Residency lay far 
 
 back in its garden. Low and vivid in the darkness of 
 
 the waringin-trees," it lifted the zig-zag outline of its 
 
 tiled roofs, one behind the other, receding into the 
 
 shadow of the garden behind it, with a primitive line 
 
 ' The Long Lane. 
 
 * A kind of fig-tree, resembling the banyan.
 
 2 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 that seemed to date it: a roof over each gallery and 
 verandah, a roof over each room, receding into one 
 long outline of irregular roofs. At the front, however, 
 the white pillars of the front-verandah arose, with the 
 white pillars of the portico, tall, bright and stately, with 
 wide intervals, with a large, welcoming spaciousness, 
 with an expansive and imposing entrance, as to a 
 palace. Through the open doors the central gallery was 
 seen in dim perspective, running through to the back, 
 lit by a single flickering light. 
 
 An oppasser^ was lighting the lanterns beside the 
 house. Semicircles of great white pots with roses and 
 chrysanthemums, with palms and caladiums, curv^ed 
 widely in front of the house to right and left. A broad 
 gravel-path formed the drive to the white-pillared 
 portico; next came a wide, parched lawn, surrounded 
 by flower-pots, and, in the middle, on a carved stone 
 pedestal, a monumental vase, holding a tall latania. 
 The only fresh green was that of the meandering pond, 
 on w^hich floated the giant leaves of a Victoria Regia, 
 huddled together like round green tea-trays, with here 
 and there a luminous lotus-like flower between them. 
 A path wound beside the pond ; and on a circular space 
 paved with pebbles stood a tall flag-stafif, with the flag 
 already hauled down, as at six o'clock every day. A 
 plain gate divided the grounds from the Lange Laan. 
 
 The vast grounds were silent. There were now 
 burning, slowly and laboriously lit by the lamp-boy, one 
 lamp in the chandelier in the front-verandah and one 
 indoors turned low, like two nightlights in a palace 
 which, with its pillars and its vanishing perspective of 
 roofs, was somehow reminiscent of a child's dream. 
 
 * Native office-messenger.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 3 
 
 On the steps of the office a few oppassers, in their dark 
 uniforms, sat talking in whispers. One of them stood 
 up after a while and walked, with a quiet, leisurely step, 
 to a bronze bell which hung high, by the oppassers' 
 lodge, at the extreme corner of the grounds. When he 
 had reached it after taking about a hundred paces, he 
 sounded seven slow, reverberating strokes. The clap- 
 per struck the bell with a brazen, booming note; and 
 each stroke was prolonged by an undulating echo, a 
 deep, thrilling vibration The dogs began to bark 
 again. The oppasser, boyishly slender in his blue cloth 
 jacket with yellow facings and trousers with yellow 
 stripes, slowly and quietly, with his supple step, re- 
 traced his hundred paces to the other oppassers. 
 
 The light was now lit in the office and also in the 
 adjoining bedroom, from which it filtered through the 
 Venetian blinds. The resident, a tall, heavy man, in a 
 black jacket and white duck trousers, walked across the 
 room and called to the man outside: 
 
 'Vppas!'" 
 
 The chief oppasser, in his cloth uniform jacket, with 
 the wide yellow hems to its skirts, approached with 
 bended knees and squatted before his master. 
 
 "Call Miss Doddie." 
 
 "Miss Doddie is out, kandjeng,"^ whispered the man, 
 while with his two hands, the fingers placed together, 
 he sketched the reverential gesture of the semha.^ 
 
 "Where has she gone ?" 
 
 "I did not ask, kandjeng," said the man, by way of 
 excuse for not knowing, again with his sketchy semha. 
 
 ^ Native equivalent of the Dutch word opasser. 
 
 ' Excellency. 
 
 * Salaam.
 
 4 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 The resident reflected for a moment. Then he said : 
 
 "My cap. My stick." 
 
 The chief oppasser, still bending his knees as though 
 reverently shrinking into himself, scuttled across the 
 room and, squatting, presented the undress uniform 
 cap and a walking-stick. 
 
 The resident went out. The chief oppasser hurried 
 after him, with a tali-api in his hand, a long, slow- 
 burning wick, of which he waved the glowing tip 
 from side to side so that the resident might be seen 
 by any one passing in the dark. The resident walked 
 slowly through the garden to the Lange Laan. Along 
 this lane, an avenue of tamarind-trees and flamboyants, 
 lay the villas of the more important townsfolk, faintly 
 lighted, deathly silent, apparently uninhabited, with the 
 rows of whitewashed flower-pots gleaming in the 
 vague dusk of the evening. 
 
 The resident first passed the secretary's house: then, 
 on the other side, a girls' school; then the notary's 
 house, an hotel, the post-oflice and the house of the 
 president of the Criminal Court. At the end of the 
 Lange Laan stood the Catholic church ; and, farther on, 
 across the river-bridge, lay the railway-station. Near 
 the station was a large European toko,^ which was 
 more brilliantly lighted than the other buildings. The 
 moon had climbed higher, turning a brighter silver in 
 its ascent, and now shone down upon the white bridge, 
 the white toko, the white church, all standing round a 
 square, treeless open space, in the middle of which was 
 a Small monument with a pointed spire, the town clock. 
 
 The resident met nobody; now and then, however, 
 
 an occasional Javanese, like a moving shadow, appeared 
 ^ Bazaar, store.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 5 
 
 out of the darlaiess ; and then the oppasser waved the 
 glowing point of his match with great ostentation be- 
 hind his master. As a rule, the Javanese understood 
 and made himself small, cowering along the edge of 
 the road and passing with a scuttling gait. Now and 
 again, an ignorant native, just arrived from his dessa^ 
 did not understand, but went by, looking in terror at 
 the oppasser, who just waved his match and, in passing, 
 sent a curse after the fellow behind his master's back 
 because he, the dessa-Xoni, had no manners. When a 
 cart approached or a sado,- he waved his little fiery star 
 again and again through the darkness and made signs 
 to the driver, who either stopped and alighted or 
 squatted in his little carriage and, so squatting, drove 
 on along the farther side of the road. 
 
 The resident went on gloomily, with the smart step 
 of a resolute walker. He had turned off to the right of 
 the little square and w^as now walking past the Protes- 
 tant church, straight toward a handsome villa adorned 
 with slender, fairly correct Ionian pillars of plaster and 
 brilliantly lighted with paraffin-lamps set in chandeliers. 
 This \vas the Concordia Club. A couple of native serv- 
 ants in white jackets sat on the steps. A European in a 
 white suit, the steward, passed along the verandah. 
 But there was no one sitting at the great gin-and- 
 bitters-table ; and the wide cane chairs opened their arms 
 expectantly but in vain. 
 
 The steward, on seeing the resident, bowed ; and the 
 
 resident raised his finger to his cap, went past the club 
 
 and turned to the left. He walked down a lane, past 
 
 dark little houses, each in its own little demesne, turned 
 
 ^ Native villagre. 
 
 ° Dog-cart. Sado is corrupted from dos-a-dos.
 
 6 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 off again and walked along the mouth of the kali,^ which 
 was like a canal. Proa after proa lay moored to the 
 banks ; the monotonous humming of Maduran seamen 
 crept drearily across the water, from which rose a 
 smell of fish. Past the harboui -master's office the resi- 
 dent went to the pier, which projected some way into 
 the sea and at the end of which a small light-house, like 
 a miniature Eiffel tower, uplifted its iron form, like a 
 candlestick with its lamp at the top. Here the resident 
 stopped and filled his lungs with the night air. The 
 wind had suddenly freshened, the grongrong' had risen, 
 blowing in from the offing, as it did daily at this 
 hour. But sometimes it suddenly dropped again, unex- 
 pectedly, as though its fanning wings had been stricken 
 powerless; and the roughened sea fell again, until its 
 curling, foaming breakers, white in the moonlight, were 
 smooth rollers, slightly phosphorescent in long, pale 
 streaks. 
 
 A mournful and monotonous rhythm of dreary sing- 
 ing approached over the sea ; a sail loomed darkly, like 
 a great night-bird; and a fishing-proa with a high, 
 curved stem, suggesting an ancient galley, glided into 
 the channel. A melancholy resignation to life, an ac- 
 quiescence in all the small, obscure things of earth be- 
 neath that infinite sky, upon that sea of phosphorescent 
 remoteness, was adrift in the night, conjuring up an 
 oppressive mystery. . . . 
 
 The tall, sturdy man who stood there, with straddling 
 legs, breathing in the loitering, fitful wind, tired with 
 his work, with sitting at his writing-table, with calcu- 
 lating the dniten-q\xt.si\on, that important matter, the 
 
 * River. 
 
 ' North-east wind.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 7 
 
 abolition of the didt^ for which the governor-general 
 had made him personally responsible: this tall, sturdy 
 man, practical, cool-headed, quick in decision from the 
 long habit of authority, was perhaps unconscious of the 
 dark mystery that drifted over the native town, over 
 the capital of his district, in the night ; but he was con- 
 scious of a longing for affection. He vaguely felt the 
 longing for a child's arms around his neck, for shrill 
 little voices about him, the longing for a young wife 
 awaiting him with a smile. He did not give definite 
 expression to this sentimentality in his thoughts, it was 
 not his custom to give way to reflections about his 
 personal leanings : he was too busy, his days w^re too 
 full of interests of all kinds for him to yield to what he 
 knew to be his intervals of weakness, the suppressed 
 ebullitions of his younger years. But, though he did not 
 reflect, the mood upon him was not to be thrown off, it 
 was like a pressure on his strong chest, like a morbid 
 tenderness, like a sentimental discomifort in the other- 
 wise highly practical mind of this superior official, who 
 was strongly attached to his sphere of work, to his 
 territory, who had its interests at heart and in whom 
 the almost independent power of his post harmonized 
 entirely with his authoritative nature, who was ac- 
 customed with his strong lungs to breathe an atmos- 
 phere of spacious activity and extensive, varied work 
 even as he now stood breathing the spacious wind from 
 the sea. 
 
 A longing, a desire, a certain nostalgia filled him 
 more than usual that evening. He felt lonely, not only 
 
 ^ The dmt, or doit, was a coin of the Dutch East India Com- 
 pany, a little lower in value than the cent, of which latter a 
 hundred go to the guilder or florin {\s. 8d.). The survival of the 
 duit complicated the official accounts considerably.
 
 8 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 because of the isolation which nearly always surrounds 
 the head of a native government, who is either ap- 
 proached conventionally, with smiling respect, for pur- 
 poses of conversation, or curtly, with official respect, 
 for purposes of business. He felt lonely, though he 
 was the father of a family. He thought of his big 
 house, he thought of his wife and children. And he 
 felt lonely and borne up merely by the interest which 
 he took in his work. That was the one thing in his life. 
 It filled all his w^aking hours. He fell asleep thinking 
 of it: and his first thought in the morning was of some 
 district interest. 
 
 At this moment, tired with casting up figures, breath- 
 ing the wind, he inhaled together with the coolness of 
 the sea its melancholy, the mysterious melancholy of 
 the Indian seas, the haunting melancholy of the seas 
 of Java, the melancholy that rushes in from afar on 
 whispering, mysterious wings. But it was not his na- 
 ture to yield to mystery. He denied mystery. It wa<^ 
 not there: there v/as only the sea and the cool wind. 
 There was only the fragrance of that sea, a blend of 
 fish and flowers and seaweed, a fragrance which the 
 cool wind was blowing away. There was only the 
 moment of respiration; and such mysterious melan- 
 choly as he nevertheless, irresistibly, felt stealing that 
 evening through his somewhat slack mood he believed 
 to be connected with his domestic circle: he would 
 have liked to feel that this circle was a little more com- 
 pact, fitting more closely around the father and husband 
 in him. If there was any melancholy at all, it was that. 
 It did not come from the sea, nor from the distant sky. 
 He refused to yield to any sudden sensation of the
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 9 
 
 marvelous. And he set his feet more firmly, flung out 
 his chest, lifted his fine, soldierly head and sniffer up 
 the sea's fragrance and the wind. . . . 
 
 The chief op passer, squatting with his glowing match 
 in his hand, peeped attentively at his master, as though 
 thinking: "How strange, those Hollanders! 
 . . What is he thinking now ? . . . . Why is 
 he behaving like this? .... Just at this time 
 and on this spot .... The sea-spirits are about 
 now .... There are caymans under the water 
 and every cayman is a spirit .... Look, they 
 have been sacrificing to them there: pisang^ and rice 
 and deng-deng- and a hard-boiled egg on a little bam- 
 boo raft, down by the foot of the light-house 
 What is the kandjeng tuan^ doing here ? 
 It is not good here, it is not good here, tjelaka, 
 tjclaka!* ..,.'* 
 
 And his watching eyes glided up and down the back 
 of his master, who simply stood and gazed into the dis- 
 tance: What was he gazing at? ... . What 
 did he see blowing up in the wind ? . . . . How 
 strange, those Hollanders, how strange! .... 
 
 The resident turned, suddenly, and walked back ; and 
 
 the oppasser, starting up, followed him, blowing on the 
 
 tip of his match. The resident walked back by the same 
 
 road ; there was now a member sitting in the club, who 
 
 greeted him ; and a couple of young men w^ere strolling 
 
 in the Lange Laan. The dogs were barking. 
 
 ^ Bananas. 
 
 ' Pieces of meat dried in the sun, 
 ' Excellency Sahib. 
 •Woe, woe r 
 
 *"\
 
 10 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 When the resident approached the entrance to the 
 residency, he saw at the front, at the other entrance, 
 two white figures, a man and a girl, who vanished into 
 the darkness under the waringins. He went straight 
 to his office: another oppasser came up and took his 
 cap and stick. Then he sat down at his writing-table. 
 He had time for an hour's work before dinner.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Several lights were burning. Really the lamps had 
 been lit everywhere ; but in the long, broad galleries it 
 was only just light. In the grounds and inside the 
 house there were certainly no fewer than twenty or 
 thirty paraffin-lamps burning in chandeliers and lan- 
 terns; but they gave no more than a vague, yellow 
 twilight glimmering through the house. A stream of 
 moonshine floated over the garden, making the flower- 
 pots gleam brightly and shimmering in the pond ; and 
 the waringins were like soft velvet against the luminous 
 sky. 
 
 The first gong had sounded for dinner. In the front- 
 verandah a young man was swinging up and down in a 
 rocking-chair, with his hands behind his head. He was 
 bored. A young girl came along the middle gallery, 
 humming to herself, as though in expectation. The 
 house was furnished in accordance with the conven- 
 tional type of up-country residencies, with common- 
 place splendour. The marble floor of the verandah was 
 white and glossy as a mirror ; tall palms stood in pots 
 between the pillars; groups of rocking-chairs stood 
 round marble tables. In the first inner gallery, which 
 ran parallel with the verandah, chairs were drawn up 
 against the wall as though in readiness for an eternal 
 reception. The second inner gallery, which ran from 
 front to back, showed at the end, where It opened into 
 a cross-gallery, a huge red satin curtain falling from a 
 gilt cornice. In the white spaces between the doors of
 
 12 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 the rooms hung either mirrors in gilt frames, resting 
 on marble console-tables, or lithographs — pictures as 
 they call them in India — of Van Dyck on horseback, 
 Paul Veronese received by a doge on the steps of a 
 Venetian palace, Shakspeare at the court of Elizabeth 
 and Tasso at the court of Este ; but in the biggest space, 
 in a crowned frame, hung a large etching, a portrait of 
 Queen Wilhelmina In her coronation-robes. In the 
 middle of the central gallery was a red satin ottoman, 
 topped by a palm. Furthermore many chairs and tables ; 
 every-where great chandeliers. Everjrthlng was very 
 neatly kept and distinguished by a commonplace pomp, 
 an uncomfortable readiness for the next reception, with 
 not a single home-like corner. In the half-light of the 
 paraffin-lamps — one lamp was lit In each chandelier — 
 the long, wide, spacious galleries stretched in tedious 
 vacancy. 
 
 The second gong sounded. In the back-verandah 
 the long table — too long, as though always expecting 
 guests — was laid for three persons. The spen^ and 
 half-a-dozen boys stood waiting by the servers* tables 
 and the two sideboards. The spen at once began to fill 
 the soup-plates; and two of the boys placed the three 
 plates of soup on the table, on the top of the folded nap- 
 kins which lay on the dinner-plates. Then they waited 
 again, while the soup steamed gently. Another boy 
 filled the three tumblers with large lumps of ice. 
 
 The girl came In, humming a tune. She might be 
 seventeen and resembled her divorced mother, the resi- 
 dent's first wife, a good-looking nonna,^ who was now 
 living In Batavia, where she was said to keep a quiet 
 
 ^ Butler. 
 
 * Daughter of a European father and a native mother.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 13 
 
 gaming-house. The young girl had a pale olive com- 
 plexion, sometimes just touched with a peach-like blush : 
 she had beautiful black hair, curling naturally at the 
 temples and fastened in a very heavy coil; her black 
 pupils with the sparkling irises floated in a moist blue- 
 white over which her thick lashes flickered up and 
 down, down and up. Her mouth was small and a little 
 full ; and her upper lip was just shadowed with a dark 
 line of down. She w^as not tall and was already too 
 fully formed, like a hasty rose that has bloomed too 
 soon. She wore a white pique skirt and a white linen 
 blouse with lace insertions ; and round her throat was a 
 bright yellow ribbon that accorded well with her olive 
 pallor, which sometimes flushed up, suddenly, as with a 
 rush of warm blood. 
 
 The young man came sauntering in from the front- 
 verandah. He was like his father, tall, broad and fair- 
 haired, with a thick, fair moustache. He was barely 
 twenty-three, but looked quite five years older. He 
 wore a suit of white Russian linen, but with a shirt- 
 collar and tie. 
 
 Van Oudijck also came at last: his determined step 
 approached as if he were always busy, as if he were 
 coming just to have some dinner in between his work. 
 
 "When does mamma arrive to-morrow?" asked 
 Theo. 
 
 "At half-past eleven," replied Van Oudijck; and 
 turning to his body-servant behind him, "Kario, re- 
 member that the njonja besar^ is to be fetched at the 
 station at half-past eleven to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes, kandjcng," murmured Kario. 
 
 The fish was served. 
 
 * Great lady, great mcm-sahib.
 
 14 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "Doddie," asked Van Oudijck, "who was with you 
 at the gate just now?" 
 
 "At . . . the gate?" she asked slowly, with a 
 very soft burr. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "At ... the gate? . . , Nobody. . 
 Theo perhaps." 
 
 "Were you at the gate with your sister ?" asked Van 
 Oudijck. 
 
 The boy knitted his thick, fair eyebrows: 
 
 "Possibly . . . don't know . . . Don't 
 remember. . . ." 
 
 They were all three silent. They hurried through din- 
 ner: sitting at table bored them. The five or six ser- 
 vants, in white haadjes^ with red linen facings, moved 
 softly on their flat toes, waiting quickly and noiselessly. 
 Steak and salad was served, a pudding, followed by 
 dessert. 
 
 "Everlasting rumpsteak !" Theo muttered. 
 
 "Yes, that kokkie!^" laughed Doddie, with her little 
 throaty laugh. "She always gives steak, when mamma 
 not here ; doesn't matter to her, when mamma not here. 
 She has no imagination. Too bad though !"' 
 
 They had been twenty minutes over their dinner 
 when Van Oudijck went back to his office. Doddie and 
 Theo sauntered towards the front of the house. 
 
 "Tedious," Doddie yawned. "Come, we play bil- 
 liards?" 
 
 In the first inner gallery, behind the satin hanging, 
 
 was a small billiard-table. 
 
 * Sleeved jackets of white or lilac striped cotton. 
 ^ Cook. 
 
 ® These clipped sentences may be taken to represent the DutcH 
 spoken by the half-castes in Java.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 15 
 
 "Come along," said Theo. 
 
 They played. 
 
 "Why am I supposed to have been with you at the 
 gate?" 
 
 "Oh . . . tut!" said Doddie. 
 
 "Well, why?" 
 
 "Papa needn't know." 
 
 "Who was with you? Addle?" 
 
 "Of course !" said Doddie, "Say, band playing to- 
 night?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 "Come, we go, yes ?" 
 
 "No, I don't care to." 
 
 "Oh, why not?" 
 
 "I don't want to." 
 
 "Come along now?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "With mamma . . . you would, yes?" said 
 Doddie, angrily. "I know very well. With mamma 
 you go always to the band." 
 
 "What do you know . . . you little minx !" 
 
 "What do i know?" she laughed. "What do I know? 
 I know what I know." 
 
 "Hoo!" he said, to tease her, fluking a cannon. 
 "YouandAddie,hoo!" 
 
 "Well . . . and vou and mamma !" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders: 
 
 "You're mad." 
 
 "No need to hide from me. Besides, every one says." 
 
 "Let them say." 
 
 "Too bad of you though !" 
 
 "Oh, go to the devil!"
 
 16 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 He flung his cue down in a temper and went towards 
 the front of the house. She followed him : 
 
 "I say, Theo . . . don't be angry now. Come 
 along to the band." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I'll never say it again," she entreated, coaxingly. 
 
 She was afraid that he would continue to be angry 
 and then she would have nothing and nobody, then she 
 would die of boredom. 
 
 "I promised Addie and I can't go by myself. . . " 
 
 "Well, if you won't make any more of those idiotic 
 
 remarks . . ." 
 
 "Yes, I promise. Theo dear, yes, come then. 
 »» 
 
 She was already in the garden. 
 
 Van Oudijck appeared on- the threshold of his office, 
 which always had the door open, but which was sepa- 
 rated from the inner gallery by a large screen. 
 
 "Doddie !" he called out. 
 
 "Yes, papa?" 
 
 "Will you see that there are flowers In mamma's room 
 to-morrow?" 
 
 His voice was almost embarrassed and his eyes 
 blinked. 
 
 "Very well, papa . . . I'll see to it." 
 
 "Where are you going to ?" 
 
 "With Theo . . . to the band." 
 
 Van Oudijck became red and angry: 
 
 "To the band ? But you might have asked my leave 
 first !" he exclaimed, in a sudden rage. 
 
 Doddie pouted.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 17 
 
 "I don't like you to go out, without my knowing 
 where you go. You were out this afternoon too, when 
 I wanted you to come for a walk with me." 
 
 "Well, sitdaJi^ then!" said Doddie, bursting into 
 tears. 
 
 "You can go if you want to,*' said Van Oudijck, 
 "but I insist on your asking me first." 
 
 "No, I don't care about it now," said Doddie, in 
 tears. "Sudah! No band." 
 
 They could hear the first strains in the distance, com- 
 ing from the Concordia garden. 
 
 Van Oudijck returned to his office. Doddie and 
 Theo flung themselves into two rocking-chairs in the 
 A'erandah and swung furiously to and fro, skating with 
 the chairs over the smooth marble. 
 
 "Come," said Theo, "let's go. Addie expects you." 
 
 "No," she pouted. "Don't care. I'll tell Addie to- 
 morrow papa so unkind. He spoils my pleasure. And 
 . . . I'll put no flowers in mamma's room." 
 
 Theo grinned. 
 
 "Say," whispered Doddie, "that papa . . . eh ? 
 So in love, always. He was blushing when he asked me 
 about the flowers." 
 
 Theo grinned once more and hummed in unison with 
 the band In the distance. 
 
 ^ "It doesn't matter.**
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Next morning Theo went in the landau to fetch his 
 stepmother from the station at half -past eleven. 
 
 Van Oudijck, who was in the habit of taking the 
 police-cases at that hour, had made no suggestion to 
 his son ; but, when from his office he saw Theo step into 
 the carriage and drive off, he thought it nice of the 
 boy. He had idolized Theo as a child, had spoilt him 
 as a lad, had often come into conflict with him as a 
 young man; but the old paternal fondness still often 
 flickered up in him, irresistibly. At this moment he 
 loved his son better than Doddie, who had main- 
 tained her sulky attitude that morning and had put no 
 flowers in his wife's room, so that he had ordered Kario 
 to see to them. He now felt sorry that he had not said 
 a kind word to Theo for some days and he resolved 
 really to do so again at once. The boy was scatter- 
 brained: in three years he had been employed on at 
 least five different coffee-plantations ; now he was once 
 more without a berth and was hanging around at home, 
 looking out for something else. 
 
 Theo had not long to wait at the station before the 
 train arrived. He at once saw Mrs. van Oudijck and 
 the two little boys, Rene and Ricus — two little sinjos,^ 
 contrasted with himself — whom she was bringing back 
 from Batavia for the long holidays, and her maid, 
 Oorip. 
 
 Theo helped his stepmother to alight; the station- 
 master offered a respectful greeting to the wife of his 
 
 * Sons of a European father and a native mother.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 19 
 
 resident. She nodded in return, with her queenly smile. 
 Still smiling, a trifle ambiguously, she allowed her step- 
 son to kiss her on the cheek. She was a tall woman, 
 with a fair complexion and fair hair; she had turned 
 thirty and possessed the languid dignity of women born 
 in Java, daughters of European parents on both sides. 
 She had something that attracted attention at once. It 
 was because of her white skin, her creamy complexion, 
 her very light fair hair, her strange grey eyes, which 
 were somtimes a little pinched and always wore an 
 ambiguous expression. It was because of her eternal 
 smile, sometimes very sweet and charming and often 
 insufferable and tiresome. One could never tell at the 
 first sight of her whether she concealed anything be- 
 hind that glance, whether there was any depth, any soul 
 behind it, or whether it was merely a matter of looking 
 and laughing, both with that slight ambiguity. Soon, 
 however, one perceived an observant indifference in 
 her smiles, as though there were very little that she 
 cared for, as though it would hardly matter to her 
 should the heavens fall, as though she would watch the 
 event with a smile. 
 
 Her gait was leisurely. She wore a pink pique skirt 
 and bolero, a white satin ribbon round her waist and a 
 white sailor-hat with a white satin bow ; and her sum- 
 mer travelling-costume was very smart, compared with 
 that of a couple of other ladies on the platform, loung- 
 ing in stiffly starched washing-frocks that looked like 
 night-dresses, Avith tulle hats topped with feathers! 
 And, in her very European aspect, perhaps that leisure- 
 ly walk, that languid dignity was the only Indian^ char- 
 
 * By India the Dutch mean the Dutch East Indies and mainly 
 Java.
 
 20 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 acteristic that distinguished her from a woman newly 
 arrived from Holland. 
 
 Theo had given her his arm and she let him lead her 
 to the carriage, the "chariot," followed by the two dark 
 little brothers. She had been away two months. She 
 had a nod and a smile for the station-master ; she had 
 a nod for the coachman and the groom; and she took 
 her seat slowly, a languid, white sultana, still smiling. 
 The three step-sons followed her into the carriage : the 
 maid rode behind in a dog-cart. Mrs. van Oudijck 
 looked out once or twice and thought Labuwangi un- 
 changed. But she said nothing. She drew herself in 
 again slowly and leant back. Her face displayed a 
 certain satisfaction, but especially that radiant, laugh- 
 ing indifference, as though nothing could harm her, 
 as though she were protected by a mysterious force. 
 There was something strong about this woman, some- 
 thing powerful in her sheer indifference: there was 
 something invulnerable about her. She looked as 
 though life would have no hold on her, neither on her 
 complexion nor on her soul. She looked as though she 
 were incapable of suffering; and it seemed as though 
 she smiled and were thus contented because no sick- 
 ness, no suffering, no poverty, no misery existed for 
 her. An irradiation of glittering egoism encompassed 
 her. And yet she was, for the most part, lovable. She 
 was charming and prepossessing because she was so 
 pretty. This woman, with her sparkling self-satisfac- 
 tion, was loved, whatever people might say about her. 
 When she spoke, when she laughed, she was disarming 
 and, even more, engaging. This was despite and, per- 
 haps, just because of her unfathomable indifference.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 21 
 
 She took an interest only in her own body and her own 
 soul: all the rest, all the rest was totally indifferent to 
 her. Unable to give anything of her soul, she had 
 never felt anything save for herself ; but she smiled so 
 peacefully and enchantingly that she was always 
 thought lovable, adorable. It was perhaps because of 
 the contour of her cheeks, the strange ambiguity in her 
 glance, her ineffaceable smile, the elegance of her 
 figure, the tone of her voice and her knack of always 
 hitting on the right word. If at first one thought her 
 insufferable, she did not notice it and simply made her- 
 self absolutely charming. If any one was jealous, she 
 did not notice it and just praised intuitively, in- 
 differently — for she did not care in the least — some- 
 thing in which that other had thought herself de- 
 ficient. She could admire with the sweetest expression 
 on her face a dress which she thought hideous; and, 
 because she was so completely indifferent, she betrayed 
 no insincerity afterwards and did not gainsay her admi- 
 ration. Her vital power was her unbounded indiffer- 
 ence. She had accustomed herself to do everything 
 that she felt inclined to do, but she smiled as she did it ; 
 and, however people might talk behind her back, she 
 remained so correct in her behaviour, so bewitching, 
 that they forgave her. She was not loved while she was 
 not seen ; but, so soon as people saw her, she had won 
 back all that she had lost. Her husband worshipped her ; 
 her step-children — she had no children of her ovm — 
 could not help being fond of her, involuntarily; her 
 sen'ants were all under the influence of her charm. 
 She never grumbled: she gave an order with a word 
 and the thing was done. If something were wrong, if
 
 22 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 something was broken, her smile died away for a mo- 
 ment . . . and that was all. And, if her own 
 moral or physical interests were in danger, she was 
 generally able to avoid the danger and settle things 
 to her advantage, without even allowing her smile to 
 fade. But she had gathered this personal interest so 
 closely about her that she could usually control its cir- 
 cumstances. No destiny seemed to weigh upon this 
 woman. Her indifference was radiant, was absolutely 
 indifferent, devoid of contempt, or envy, or emotion: 
 it was merely indifference. And the tact with which 
 instinctively, without ever, giving much thought to it, 
 she guided and ruled her life was so great that possibly 
 if she had lost everything that she now possessed — ^her 
 beauty, her position, for instance — she would still be 
 able to remain indifferent, in her incapacity for suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 The carriage drove into the residency-grounds just as 
 the police-cases were beginning. The Javanese magis- 
 trate, the chief djaksa, was already with Van Oudijck 
 in the office ; the djaksa and the poUce-op passers led the 
 procession of the accused: the natives tripped along, 
 holding one another by a comer of their haadjcs; but 
 the few women among them walked alone. They all 
 squatted in waiting under a waringin-tree, at a short 
 distance from the steps of the office. An oppasscr, 
 hearing the clock in the verandah, struck half-past 
 twelve on the great bell by the lodge. The loud stroke 
 reverberated like a brazen voice through the scorching 
 mid-day heat. But Van Oudijck had heard the sound 
 of the carriage- wheels and let the chief djaksa wait: 
 he went to welcome his wife. His face brightened: he
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 23 
 
 kissed her tenderl}^ effusively, asked how she was. He 
 was glad to see the boys back. And, remembering what 
 he had been thinking about Theo, he found a kind word 
 for his first-born. Doddie, still wearing her full little 
 sulking mouth, kissed mamma. Mrs. van Oudijck 
 allowed herself to be kissed,^ resignedly, smilingly; she 
 returned the kisses calmly, without coldness or warmth, 
 just doing what she had to do. Her husband, Theo and 
 Doddie admired her perceptibly and audibly, said that 
 she was looking well; Doddie asked where mamma 
 had got that pretty travelling-dress. In her room she 
 noticed the flowers and, as she knew that Van Oudijck 
 always saw to these, she gently stroked his arm. 
 
 The resident went back to his office, where the chief 
 djaksa was waiting ; the hearing began. Pushed along 
 by a "^oWct-oppasser, the accused came one by one and 
 squatted on the steps, outside the office-door, while the 
 djaksa squatted on a mat and the resident sat at his 
 writing-table. During the first case, Van Oudijck was 
 still listening to his wife's voice in the middle gallery, 
 when the prisoner defended himself with a cry of: 
 
 "Bot'n! Bot'nr" 
 
 The resident knitted his brows and listened attentive- 
 ly. . . . 
 
 The voices in the middle gallery ceased. Mrs. van 
 Oudijck had gone to take off her things and to put on 
 sarong and kahaar for lunch. She wore the dress 
 gracefully: a Solo sarong, a transparent kahaai, jew- 
 
 *"No! No!" 
 
 ^Tlic sarong is the native skirt ; the kahaai. or kabaj'a, is a long- 
 native jacket, generally white, with embroidery, when worn by 
 Dutch ladies. The two until lately formed the usual indoor dress 
 of Dutch women in Java until they changed for dinner; but of 
 recent years it has gone out of date.
 
 24 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 elled pins ; white leather slippers with a little white bow. 
 She was just ready when Doddie came to her door and 
 said: 
 
 "Mamma! Mamma! . , . Mrs. van Does is 
 here!" 
 
 The smile died away for a moment; the soft eyes 
 looked dark. 
 
 "I'll come at once, dear . . ." 
 
 But she sat down instead ; Oorip, the maid, sprinkled 
 some scent on her handkerchief. Mrs. van Oudijck 
 put up her feet and lay musing, after the fatigue of her 
 journey. She found Labuwangi desperately dull after 
 Batavia, where she had spent two months staying with 
 relations and friends, free and unencumbered by obli- 
 gations. Here, as the wife of the resident, she had 
 certain duties, though she delegated most of them to the 
 secretary's wife. She felt tired in herself, out of sorts, 
 dissatisfied. Despite her complete indifference, she was 
 human enough to have her silent moods, in which she 
 wished everything to the bottom of the sea. At one 
 time she suddenly longed to do something mad, at an- 
 other she vaguely longed for Paris. . . . She would 
 never let any one see all this. She was able to control 
 herself ; and she controlled herself now, before making 
 her reappearance. Her vague Bacchantic longings 
 melted away in her fatigue. She stretched herself out 
 at greater ease. She mused, with eyes almost closed. 
 Through her almost superhuman indifference a curious 
 fancy sometimes crept, hidden from the world. She 
 preferred to live in her bedroom her life of perfumed 
 imagination, especially after her month in Batavia. 
 After one of those months of perversity, she felt a need 
 to let her vagrant, rosy imaginings rise like a curling
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 25 
 
 mist before her half -closed eyes. There was in her 
 otherwise utterly barren soul as it were an unnatural 
 growth of little azure flowers, which she cherished with 
 the only feeling that she could ever experience. She 
 felt for no living creature, but she felt for those little 
 flowers. It was delicious to dream Hke this of what she 
 would have liked to be if she were not compelled to be 
 what she was. Her fancies rose in a whirling mist: 
 she saw a white palace, with cupids everywhere. . . . 
 
 "Mamma ... do come! Mrs. van Does is 
 here, Mrs. van Does, with two jam-pots. 
 
 It was Doddie, at the door. Leonie van Oudijck 
 stood up and went to the back-verandah, where the 
 Indian lady was sitting, the wife of the postmaster. 
 She kept cows and sold milk. But she also drove other 
 trades. She was a stout woman, rather dark-skinned, 
 with a prominent stomach ; she wore a very simple little 
 kahaai with a narrow band of lace round it ; and she sat 
 stroking her stomach with her two hands. In front of 
 her, on the table, stood two small jam-pots, with some- 
 thing glittering in them. What was it, Mrs. van 
 Oudijck wondered: sugar, crystals? Then she sud- 
 denly remembered. 
 
 Mrs. van Does said that she was glad to see her again. 
 Two months away from Labuwangi. Too bad, Mrs. 
 van Oudijck ! And she pointed to the jam-pots. Mrs. 
 van Oudijck smiled. What was inside them ? 
 
 With a great air of mystery, Mrs. van Does laid a 
 fat, double- jointed forefinger on one of the jam-pots 
 and said:
 
 26 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 ''Inten-inten!"'^ 
 
 "Oh, really?" said Mrs. van Oudijck. 
 
 Doddie, wide-eyed, and Theo, greatly amused, 
 stared at the jam-pots. 
 
 "Yes . . . you know . . . that lady's, of 
 whom I spoke to you. . . . She doesn't w^ant her 
 name mentioned. Kassian," her husband once a great 
 swell . . . and now . . . yes, so unfortu- 
 nate; she has nothing left! All gone. Only these two 
 little jam-pots. Had all her jewels unset and keeps the 
 stones in the jam-pots. All counted. She trusts them 
 to me to sell. Know her through my milk-business. 
 Will you look at, Mrs. van Oudijck, yes? Lovely 
 stones! The residm he buy for you, now you back 
 home, again. Doddie, give me a bit of black stuff: 
 velvet best. . . ." 
 
 Doddie sent the djaif to fetch a bit of black velvet 
 from a cupboard of odds and ends. A boy brought 
 glasses with tamarind-syrup and ice. Mrs, van Does, 
 holding a little pair of tongs in her double- jointed 
 fingers laid a couple of stones carefully on the velvet: 
 
 "Ah!" she cried. "Look at that water, mevrouw!* 
 Ser-per-len-did !" 
 
 Mrs. van Oudijck looked on. She gave her most 
 charming smile and then said, In her gentle voice: 
 
 "That stone is not real, dear mevrouw." 
 
 "Not real ?" screamed Mrs. van Does. "Not real ?" 
 
 Mrs. van Oudijck looked at the other stones: 
 
 "And those others, mevrouw," stooping attentively; 
 
 * Diamonds. 
 
 "^ "Poor thing." 
 
 * Seamstress. 
 
 * Madam.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 27 
 
 then, in her most charming tones, "those others . . . 
 are not real either." 
 
 Mrs. van Does looked at her with delight. Then 
 she said to Doddie and Theo, archly; 
 
 "That mamma of yours . . . pintcr!^ She sees 
 at once !" 
 
 And she laughed aloud. They all laughed. Mrs. 
 van Does replaced the crystals In the jam-pot: 
 
 "A joke, yes, mevrouw? I only wanted to see if 
 you understood. Of course you'll take my word for 
 it: I should never sell. . . . But there . . . 
 look! . . ." 
 
 And now solemnly, almost religiously, she opened 
 the other little jam-pot, which contained only a few 
 stones, and placed them lovingly on the black velvet. 
 
 "That one would be splendid . . . for a Icon- 
 tinc,"' said Mrs. van Oudijck, gazing at a very large 
 brilliant. 
 
 "There, what did I tell you?" said the Indian lady. 
 
 And they all gazed at the diamonds, at the real ones, 
 which came out of the "real" jam-pot, and held them 
 up carefully to the light. 
 
 Mrs. van Oudijck saw that they were all real: 
 
 "I really have no money, dear mevrouw !" she said. 
 
 "This big one . . . for a Icontine . . . 
 six hundred guilders.^ ... A bargain, I assure 
 you, mevrouw!" 
 
 "Oh, mevrouw, never!" 
 
 "How much then? You are doing a charity If you 
 buy. Kassian, her husband once a great swell. Indian 
 Council." 
 
 * "Shrewd !" 
 
 * A lady's watch-chain. 
 '£50.
 
 28 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "Two hundred." 
 
 "Kassian! What next? Two hundred guilders!" 
 
 "Two hundred and fifty, but no more. I really have 
 no money." 
 
 "The residen!" whispered Mrs. van Does, catching 
 sight of Van Oudijck, who, now that the cases were 
 finished, was coming towards the back-verandah. "The 
 residen ... he buy for you !" 
 
 Mrs. van Oudijck smiled and looked at the sparkling 
 drop of light on the black velvet. She liked jewels, 
 she was not altogether indifferent to brilliants. And 
 she looked at her husband: 
 
 "Mrs. van Does is showing us a lot of beautiful 
 things," she said, caressingly. 
 
 Van Oudijck felt an inward shock. He was never 
 pleased to see Mrs. van Does in his house. She always 
 had something to sell: at one time, batik^ counter- 
 panes; at another time, a pair of woven slippers; at 
 another, magnificent but very expensive table-slips, 
 with gold batik flowers on yellow glazed linen. Mrs. 
 van Does always brought something with her, was 
 always in touch with the wives of erstwhile "great 
 swells," whom she helped by selling their things on a 
 very high commission. A morning call from Mrs. van 
 Does cost him each time at least a few rijksdaalders^ 
 and very often fifty guilders, for his wife had a calm 
 habit of always buying things which she did not need 
 but which she was too indifferent to refuse to buy of 
 Mrs. van Does, He did not see the two jam-pots at 
 once, but he saw the drop of light on the black velvet 
 
 ^ Batik is a method of painting cotton and other textures, by 
 which they are coated with hot wax before the apph'cation of the 
 paint 
 
 *A rijksdaaldcr is a dollar, or 4s. 2d.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 29 
 
 aiid he understood that the visit would cost him more 
 than fifty guilders this time, unless he was very firm: 
 
 **Mevrouwtje!"i he exclaimed, in dismay. "It's the 
 end of the month: there's no question of buying bril- 
 liants to-day ! And jam-pots full too !" he added, with 
 a stare, when he now saw them glittering on the table, 
 among the glasses of tamarind-syrup. 
 
 "Oh, that residcn!" laughed Mrs. van Does, as 
 though a resident were bound to be always well off. 
 
 Van Oudijck hated that little laugh. His household 
 cost him every month a few odd hundred guilders 
 above his salary ; and he was living beyond his income, 
 was in debt. His wife never troubled herself with 
 money matters ; for these more especially she reserved 
 her most smiling indifference. 
 
 She made the diamond sparkle In the sun and shoot 
 forth a blue ray. 
 
 "It's a beauty . . . for two hundred and fifty,'* 
 said Mrs. van Oudijck. 
 
 "For three hundred then, dear mevrouw. 
 
 "Three hundred?" she asked, dreamily, playing with 
 the jewel. 
 
 Whether it cost three hundred or four or five hun- 
 dred was all one to her. It left her wholly indifferent. 
 But she liked the stone and meant to have it, at what- 
 ever price. And therefore she quietly put the stone 
 down and said: 
 
 "No, dear mevrouw, really . . . it*s too expen- 
 sive; and my husband has no money." 
 
 She said it so prettily that there was no guessing her 
 intention. She was adorably self-sacrificing as she 
 
 * Little madam, dear lady.
 
 30 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 spoke the words. Van Oudijck felt a second inward 
 shock. He could refuse his wife nothing: 
 
 "Mevrouw," he said, "you can leave the stone 
 . . . for three hundred guilders. But for God's 
 sake take your jam-pots away with you !" 
 
 Mrs. van Does looked up delightedly: 
 
 "There, what did I tell you ? I knew for certain the 
 residen would buy for you ! . . ." 
 
 Mrs. van Oudijck looked up In gentle reproach: 
 
 "But, Otto!" she said: "How can you?" 
 
 "Do you like the stone?" 
 
 "Yes, it's beautiful. . . . But such a lot of 
 money ! For one brilliant !" 
 
 And she drew her husband's hand towards her and 
 suffered him to kiss her on the forehead, because he had 
 been permitted to buy her a three-hundred-guilder 
 diamond. Doddie and Theo stood winking at each 
 other.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Leonie van Oudljck always enjoyed her siesta. She 
 only slept for a moment, but she loved after lunch to 
 be alone in her cool bedroom till five or half-past five. 
 She read a little, mostly the magazines from the circu- 
 lating library ; but as a rule she did nothing but dream. 
 Her dreams were vague imaginings, which rose before 
 her as in an azure mist during her afternoons of soli- 
 tude. Nobody knew of them and she kept them very 
 secret, like a secret vice, a sin. She committed herself 
 much more readily — to the world — where her liaisons 
 were concerned. These never lasted long ; they counted 
 for little in her life; she never wrote letters; and the 
 favours which she granted afforded the recipient no 
 privileges in the daily intercourse of society. Hers was 
 a silent, correct depravity, both physical and moral. 
 For her imaginings too, however poetic In an insipid 
 way, were depraved. Her pet author was Catulle 
 Mendes: she loved all those little flowers of azure 
 sentimentality, those rosy, affected little cupids, with 
 one little finger in the air and their legs gracefully 
 hovering around the most vicious themes and motives 
 of perverted passion. In her bedroom hung a few en- 
 gravings: a young woman lying on a lace-covered bed 
 and being kissed by two sportive angels ; another: a lion 
 with an arrow through its breast at the feet of a smiling 
 maiden; lastly, a large coloured advertisement of some 
 scent or other: a sort of floral nymph whose veils were 
 being drawn on every side by playful little cherubs, of
 
 32 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 the kind which we see on soap-boxes. This one in 
 particular she thought splendid; she could imagine 
 nothing with a greater aesthetic appeal. She knew that 
 the plate was monstrous, but she had never been able 
 to prevail upon herself to take the horrible thing down, 
 though it was looked at askance by everybody: her 
 friends, her step-children, all of whom walked in and 
 out of her room with the Indian casualness which 
 makes no secret of the toilet. She could stare at it for 
 minutes on end, as though bewitched; she thought it 
 most charming; and her own dreams resembled that 
 print. She also treasured a chocolate-box with a keep- 
 sake picture on it, as the type of beauty which she ad- 
 mired, even above her own: the pink flush on the 
 cheeks, the brown eyes under imconvincing golden hair, 
 the bosom showing through the lace. But she never 
 committed herself in respect of this absurdity, which 
 she vaguely suspected ; she never spoke of these prints 
 and boxes, just because she knew that they were hide- 
 ous. But she thought them lovely, she thought them 
 delightful, she thought them artistic and poetical. 
 
 Those were her happiest hours. 
 
 Here, at Labuwangi, she dared not do what she did 
 at Batavia; and here, at Labuwangi, people hardly be- 
 lieved what people at Batavia said. Nevertheless, Mrs. 
 van Does averred that this resident and that inspector — 
 the one travelling for his pleasure, the other on an 
 official circuit — staying for a few days at the residency 
 had found their way in the afternoon, during the siesta, 
 to Leonle's bedroom. But all the same at Labuwangi 
 any such actual occurrences were the rarest of inter- 
 ludes between Mrs. van Oudijck's rosy afternoon 
 visions.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 33 
 
 Still, this afternoon it seemed as though, after doz- 
 ing a little while and after all the dullness caused by 
 the journey and the heat had cleared away from her 
 milk-white complexion, as though, now that she was 
 looking at the romping angels of the scent-advertise- 
 ment, her thoughts were no longer dwelling on those 
 rosy, tender, doll-like forms and as though she were 
 listening to the sounds outside. . . . 
 
 She was wearing nothing but a sarong, which she 
 had pulled up under her arms and hitched in a twist 
 across her breast. Her beautiful fair hair hung loose. 
 Her pretty little white feet were bare: she had not 
 even put on her slippers. And she looked through the 
 slats of the shutters. 
 
 Between the flower-pots which, standing on the side- 
 steps of the house, masked her windows with great 
 masses of foliage, she could see an annexe consisting 
 of four rooms — the spare-rooms— one of which was 
 Theo's. 
 
 She stood peering for a moment and then opened 
 the shutter ajar. And she saw that the shutter of 
 Theo's room also opened a little way. . . . 
 
 Then she smiled ; she knotted her sarong more closely 
 and lay down upon the bed again. 
 
 She listened. 
 
 In a moment she heard the gravel grating slightly 
 under the pressure of a slipper. Her shutters, without 
 being closed, were drawn to. A liand now opened them 
 cautiously. . 
 
 She looked round smiling: 
 
 "What is it, Theo?" she asked. 
 
 He came nearer. He was dressed in pyjamas and
 
 34 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 he sat on the edge of the bed and played with her soft 
 white hands ; and suddenly he kissed her fiercely. 
 
 At that instant a stone whizzed through the bedroom. 
 
 They both started, looked up and stood for a moment 
 In the middle of the room: 
 
 "Who threw that?" she asked. 
 
 "One of the boys, perhaps," he said, "Rene or Ricus, 
 playing about outside." 
 
 "They aren't up yet." 
 
 "Or something may have fallen from above. . . ." 
 
 "But it was thrown. . . ." 
 
 "A stone so often gets loose. . . ." 
 
 "But this is gravel." 
 
 She picked up the little stone. He looked outside 
 cautiously: 
 
 "It's nothing Leonie. It must really have fallen out 
 of the gutter . . . and then jumped up again. 
 It's nothing." 
 
 "I'm frightened," she murmured. 
 
 He laughed almost aloud and asked: 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 They had nothing to fear. The room lay between 
 Leonie's boudoir and two large spare-rooms, which 
 were resented exclusively for residents, generals and 
 other highly-placed officials. On the other side of the 
 middle gallery were Van Oudijck's rooms — ^his office 
 and his bedroom — and Doddle's room and the room of 
 the boys, Ricus and Rene. Leonie was therefore iso- 
 lated In her wing, between the spare-rooms. It made 
 her cynically Insolent. At this hour, the grounds were 
 quite deserted. For that matter, she was not afraid of 
 the servants. Oorip was wholly to be trusted and often 
 received handsome presents: sarongs; a gold pend-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 35 
 
 ing;i^ a long diamond kabaai-i^m, which she wore as a 
 jewelled silver plaque on her breast. As Leonie never 
 grumbled, was generous in advancing wages and dis- 
 |)layed an apparently easy-going temperament — al- 
 though ever}-thing always happened as she wished — she 
 was not disliked; and, whatever the servants might 
 know about her, they had never yet betrayed her. It 
 made her all the more insolent. A curtain hung before 
 a passage between the bedroom and boudoir ; and it was 
 arranged, once and for all, between Theo and Leonie 
 that, at the least danger, he would slip away quietly 
 behind that hanging, go out through the garden-door 
 of the boudoir and pretend to be looking at the rose- 
 trees vdiich stood in the pots on the steps. This would 
 make it appear as though he had just come from his 
 own room and were merely inspecting the roses. The 
 inner doors of the boudoir and bedroom were usually 
 locked, because Leonie declared frankly that she did 
 not like to be interrupted unawares. 
 
 She liked Theo, because of his fresh youthfulness. 
 And here, at Labuwangi, he was her only vice, not 
 counting a passing inspector and the little pink angels. 
 The two were now like naughty children ; they laughed 
 silently, in each other's arms. It was past four by this 
 time ; and they heard the voices of Rene and Ricus in 
 the garden. They were taking possession of the 
 grounds for the holidays. They were thirteen and 
 fourteen years old ; and they enjoyed the garden. They 
 ran about barefoot, in blue striped pyjamas, and went 
 to look at the horses, at the pigeons ; they teased Dod- 
 dle's cockatoo, which tripped about on the roof of the 
 outhouses. They had a tame hadjmg.~ They hunted 
 
 ^ Clasp, buckle. 
 ' Squirrel.
 
 36 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 tokkes,^ which they shot with a sumpitan,^ to the great 
 vexation of tlie servants, because the tokkes bring luck. 
 They bought katjang-gorcng^ at the gate of a passing 
 Chinaman and then mocked him, imitating his accent: 
 "Katja-ang golcngan!* . . . Tjina mampoos!"^ 
 They chmbed into the flamboyant and swung in the 
 brandies hke monkeys. They flung stones at the cats ; 
 they incited the neighbours' dogs to bark themselves 
 hoarse and bite one another's ears to pieces. They 
 splashed about with the water in the pond, made them- 
 selves unpresentable with mud and dirt and dared to 
 pluck the Victoria Regias, which was strictly forbidden. 
 They tested the bearing-power of the flat, green 
 Victoria-leaves, which looked like tea-trays, and tried 
 to stand on them and tumbled in. Then they took 
 empty bottles, set them in a row and bowled at them 
 with pebble-stones. Then, with bamboos, they fished 
 up all sorts of unspeakable floating things from the 
 ditch beside the house and threw them at each other. 
 Their inventive fancy was inexhaustible ; and the hour 
 of the siesta was their special hour. They had caught 
 a tokke and a cat and were making them fight each 
 other; the tokke opened its jaws, which were like a 
 small crocodile's, and hypnotized the cat, which slunk 
 away, withdrawing from its enemy's beady, black eyes, 
 arching its back and bristling with terror. And after 
 that the boys ate themselves ill with unripe mangoes. 
 
 Leonie and Theo had watched the fight between the 
 cat and tokke through the slats of the shutter and now 
 
 * Geckos, large-headed lizards. 
 ' Blow-pipe. 
 
 ' Roasted monkey-nuts. 
 
 * Katjang-goreng, as above. The Giinese sound tlie "r" as "1" 
 and add "an" to many Malay words in their dialect 
 
 * "Chinaman dead !" This is a term of abuse.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 37 
 
 saw the boys quietly eating the unripe mangoes on the 
 grass. But it was now the hour when the prisoners, 
 twelve in number, worked in the grounds, under the 
 supervision of a dignified old mandoor,^ with a little 
 cane in his hand. They fetched water in tubs and 
 watering-cans made out of Devoe's" paraffin-tins, some- 
 times in the actual paraffin-tins themselves, and watered 
 the plants, the grass and the gravel. Then they swept 
 the groimds with a loud rustle of lidi^-hvooms. 
 
 Rene and Ricus, behind the mandoor's back, for they 
 were afraid of him, threw half-eaten mangoes at the 
 prisoners and called them names and made faces and 
 grimaces at them. Doddie appeared after her nap, 
 carrjMng her cockatoo on her wrist. It cried, "Kaka! 
 Ka-ka!" and raised its yellow crest with swift move- 
 ments of the neck. 
 
 And Theo now stole behind the curtain into the bou- 
 doir and, at a moment when the boys were running and 
 bombarding each other with mangoes and when Doddie 
 was strolling towards the pond with the loitering gait 
 and the sv^-ing of the hips peculiar to the Creole, he came 
 from behind the plants, smelling at the roses and behar- 
 ing as though he had been walking in the garden before 
 going to take his bath. 
 
 ^ Overseer. 
 
 ' A Dutch oil-purveyor. 
 
 ' Coco-nut-fibre.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Van Oudijck felt in a more pleasant mood than he 
 had felt 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 
 Leonie 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 was pisang goreng;^ and Leonie, 
 in a red silk Japanese kimono, with her fair hair hang- 
 ing 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 Gymnasium- — they were 
 both in the second class — and even Doddie and Theo 
 seemed different to him: Doddie was now plucking 
 
 ^Roasted bananas. 
 ^ Grammar-school.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 39 
 
 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. He looked 
 young in the face, hardly showed his forty-eight years. 
 He had a quick, bright glance, a way of looking up 
 suddenly with an acutely penetrating air. He was 
 rather heavy of build, with a tendency to become 
 heavier still, but yet he had retained a soldierly brisk- 
 ness and he was indefatigable on his circuits: he was a 
 first-rate horseman. Tall and powerfully built, con- 
 tent with his house and his family, he wore a pleasant 
 air of robust virility and that jovial laughing expression 
 around his moustache. And, letting himself go, 
 stretching himself at full length in his cane chair, he 
 drank his cup of tea, 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,^ when 
 all was said, in the B.B.^ At least it had always been 
 good for him ; but then he had been pretty lucky. Pro- 
 motion nowadays was a desperate business: he knew 
 any number of assistant-residents who were his con- 
 temporaries and who had no chance of becoming resi- 
 dents 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 so large and Important a 
 district as Labuwangi, with such extensive coffee- 
 plantations, with such numerous sugar-factories, with 
 
 ' The Dutch always speak of the Dutch East Indies — Java, 
 
 Sumatra, Celebes, etc. — as India. 
 
 * The Bittncnlandsch Bestuur, or inland administration.
 
 40 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 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 responsi- 
 bility delighted his authoritative nature. His activities 
 were varied: office work and circuit; the interests of 
 his work were 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.^ 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 Oosthoek" inertia and lack 
 of vitality were spreading like a blight ; but still he had 
 been able to do much for Labuwangi. During his ad- 
 ministration 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 tramways had been laid down. The 
 secretary, his assistant-residents, his controllers were 
 his willing coadjutors, though he kept them hard at 
 
 * The native states of Surakarta and Djokjokarta are known as 
 tHe Vorstenlanden, or Principalities. 
 'The eastern portion of Java.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 41 
 
 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, his controllers, his assistant- 
 residents, represented the wholesome, cheerful time of 
 B.B. official, pleased with their life, liking their work, 
 though nowadays given much more than formerly to 
 study in the Govcrninent Almanack and the Colonial 
 List with a view to their promotion. And it was Van 
 Oudijck's hobby to compare his officials with the ju- 
 dicial functionaries, who did not represent the same 
 buoyant type: there was always a slight jealousy and 
 animosity between the two orders. . . . Yes, it was 
 a pleasant life, a pleasant sphere of activity: every- 
 thing was all right. There was nothing to beat the B.B. 
 His only regret was that his relations with the regent^ 
 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 Pangeran,- 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 Pangeran — the type of the genuine Javanese noble- 
 man — to sit beside him In his ov/n carriage, rather than 
 allow him to follow in a second carriage, behind the 
 resident's carriage, as was usual ? And had this civility 
 towards the old prince not at once won all the Javanese 
 
 ^ The native recent, or rajah. 
 
 * Prince, the highest title borne by the native nobility.
 
 42 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 heads and officials and flattered them in their respect 
 and love for their regent, the descendent 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 con- 
 fessed only to himself, in silence — seeing him always 
 enigmatic — that zvajang-puppct,- 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 specula- 
 tions. 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 Pangeran. The latter had 
 always been to him, In accordance with his age, a 
 fatherly friend; In accordance with etiquette, his 
 *Vounger 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 sacrosanctlty 
 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 
 
 *Like British India, Java was af first administered by a com- 
 pany, the Dutch East India Companj'. 
 
 " A ivajang is a Javanese puppet-show, in which the figures 
 represent strongly accentuated heroes and heroines out of the 
 native legends.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 43 
 
 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 
 i he would have preferred was to continue as long as 
 possible in the service, as a member of the Indian 
 Council, as vice-president.^ The object of his unspoken 
 ambition, in the far-away future, was the throne of 
 Buitenzorg." But nowadays they had that strong 
 mania in Holland for appointing outsiders to the 
 highest posts — men sent straight from Holland, new- 
 comers who knew nothing about India — instead of re- 
 maining faithful to the principle of selecting old Indian 
 servants, who had made their way up from subcon- 
 troller 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 im- 
 practicable: 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 ex- 
 istence 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 in the Witte" or 
 In the Besogne-kamer* — 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: 
 
 ' The viceroy or governor-general, is president of the Indian 
 Council. 
 
 "The hot-weather capital, thirty or forty miles from Batavia, 
 containing the viceroy's palace. 
 
 ' The largest social club at the Hague. 
 
 *The select conservative club at the Hague.
 
 44 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 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. 
 
 Leonie had listened to him smilingly: she was ac- 
 customed to his c|ulet 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 hedak^ 
 against the red silk of her kimono and which looked 
 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 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 bliss- 
 fully reflecting after his pleasant confidences. 
 
 Her thoughts went no deeper than this: anything 
 like remorse w^ould 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 waringlns, 
 behind the feathery boughs of the coco-palms, which 
 waved gently up and down, like tall, majestic bundles, 
 like stately sheaves of dark ostrich-feathers, the last 
 light of the sun threw a faintly stippled, dull-gold re- 
 flection, against which the softness of the waringlns 
 
 * Rice-powder.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 45 
 
 and the pomp of the coco-palms stood out as though 
 etched in black. From the distance came the monoto- 
 nous tinkle of the ganiclan,^ mournfully, limpid as 
 water, like a xylophone, with a deeper dissonance at 
 intervals. 
 
 * Native orchestra.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Van Oudijck in a pleasant mood because of his wife 
 and children, suggested a drive ; and the horses were put 
 to the landau. Van Oudijck had a glad and jovial look, 
 under the broad, gold-laced peak of his cap. Leonie, 
 seated beside him, was wearing a new mauve muslin 
 frock, from Batavia, and a hat with mauve poppies. A 
 lady's hat in the up-country districts is a luxury, a co- 
 lossal elegance; and Doddie, facing her, but dressed 
 inland-fashion, without a hat, was secretly vexed and 
 thought that mamma might just as well have told her 
 she was going to "take" a hat, to use Doddie's idiom. 
 She was now such a contrast to mamma ; she couldn't 
 bear them now, those softly swaying poppies. Of the 
 boys, Rene was with them, in a clean white suit. The 
 chief oppasser sat on the box beside the coachman, 
 holding against his side the great golden pajong,^ the 
 symbol of authority. It was past six, it was already 
 growing dark ; and over Labuwangi there hung at this 
 hour the velvety silence, the tragic mystery of the twilit 
 atmosphere that marked the days of the eastern mon- 
 soon. Sometimes a dog barked, or a wood-pigeon 
 cooed, breaking the unreality of the silence, as of a 
 deserted town. But now there was also the rattle of 
 the carriage driving right through the silence ; and the 
 horses stamped the silence into tiny shreds. No other 
 carriages were met ; an absence of all signs of human 
 life cast a spell upon the gardens and verandahs. A 
 couple of young men on foot, in white, took off their 
 hats. 
 
 * Umbrella. .
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 47 
 
 The carriage had left the wealthier part of the town 
 and entered the Chinese quarter, where the lights were 
 burning in the little shops. Business was almost fin- 
 ished: the Chinamen were resting, in all sorts of limp 
 attitudes, with their legs dangling or crossed, their arms 
 round their heads, their pigtails loose or twisted around 
 their skulls. When the carriage approached, they rose 
 and remained standing respectfully. The Javanese for 
 the most part — those who were well brought up and 
 knew their manners squatted down. Along the road 
 stood a row of little portable kitchens, lit by small paraf- 
 fin-lamps, the drink-vendors, the pastry-sellers. The 
 prevailing colour in the evening darkness, lit by innu- 
 merable little lamps, was dingy and motley. The Chi- 
 nese shops were crammed with goods, painted with red 
 and gold characters and pasted with red and gold labels 
 with inscriptions: in the background was the domestic 
 altar with the sacred print: the white god seated, with 
 the black god grimacing behind him. But the street wid- 
 ened, became suddenly more considerable : rich Chinese 
 houses loomed up softly, like white villas; the most 
 striking was the gleaming, palatial villa of an immense- 
 ly wealthy retired opium-factor, who had made his 
 money in the days before the opium-monopoly: a 
 gleaming palace of graceful stucco-work, with number- 
 less outbuildings. The porticos of the verandah were 
 in a monumental style of imposing elegance and in many 
 soft shades of gold ; in the depth of the open house the 
 immense domestic altar was visible, with the print of 
 the gods conspicuously illuminated ; the garden was laid 
 out with conventional, winding paths, but beautifully 
 filled with square pots and tall vases of dark blue-and- 
 green glazed porcelain, containing dwarf trees, handed
 
 4S THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 down as heirlooms from father to son ; and always kept 
 with a radiant cleanliness, a careful neatness of detail, 
 eloquent of the prosperous, spick-and-span luxury of a 
 Chinese opium-millionaire. But not all the Chinese 
 houses were so ostentatiously open: most of them lay 
 hidden with closed doors in high- walled gardens, tucked 
 away in the secrecy of their domestic life. 
 
 But suddenly the houses came to an end and Chinese 
 graves stretched along a broad road: rich graves, each 
 grassy mound with a stone entrance — the door of death 
 — raised in the form of the symbol of fecundity — the 
 door of life — and all surrounded with plenty of turf, 
 to the great vexation of Van Oudi jck, who reckoned out 
 how much ground was lost to cultivation by these burial- 
 places of the rich Chinese, And the Chinese seemed to 
 triumph in life and death in this mysterious town which 
 was otherwise so silent: the Chinese gave it its actual 
 character of busy traffic, of trade, of money-making, of 
 living and dying ; for, when the carriage drove into the 
 Arab quarter — a district of houses like any others, but 
 gloomy, lacking in style, with life and prosperity hid- 
 den away behind closed doors; with chairs in the 
 verandah, but the master of the house gloomily sitting 
 cross-legged on the floor, following the carriage with a 
 black look — this quarter seemed even more mysterious 
 than the fashionable part of Labuwangi and seemed to 
 radiate its unutterable mystery like an atmosphere of 
 Islam that spread over the whole town, as though it 
 were Islam that had poured forth the dusk, fatal 
 melancholy of resignation that filled the shuddering, 
 noiseless evening. , , , They did not feel this in 
 their rattling carriage, accustomed to that atmosphere 
 as they were from childhood and no longer sensitive to
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 49 
 
 the gloomy secret that was like the approach of a dark 
 force which had always breathed upon them, the rulers 
 with their Creole blood, so that they should never sus- 
 pect it. Perhaps, when Van Oudijck now and again 
 read about Pan-Islam in the newspapers, he was dimly 
 conscious in his deepest thoughts of this dark force, 
 this gloomy secret. But at moments like the present — 
 driving with his wife and children, amid the rattling of 
 his carriage and the trampling of his fine Walers; the 
 oppasscr with the furled pajong, which glittered like a 
 furled sun, on the box — he felt too intensely aware of 
 his individuality, his authoritative, overbearing nature, 
 to feel anything of the dark secret, to divine anything 
 of the black peril. And he was now in far too pleasant 
 a mood to feel or see anything melancholy. In his 
 optimism he did not see even the decline of his town, 
 which he loved ; he was not struck, as they drove past, 
 by the immense, porticoed villas, the witnesses to the 
 prosperity of former planters, now deserted, neglected, 
 standing in grounds that had run wild, one of them 
 taken over by a timber-felling company, which allowed 
 the foreman to live in it and stacked the logs in the 
 front-garden. The deserted houses gleamed sadly 
 with their pillared porticoes which, amid the desolate 
 grounds, loomed spectral in the moonlight, like temples 
 of evil. But they did not see it like that: enjoying the 
 rocking of the soft carriage-springs, Leonie smiled and 
 dozed ; and Doddle now that they were approaching the 
 Lange Laan again, looked out to see whether she could 
 catch sight of Addie.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The secretary, Onno Eldersma, was a busy man. The 
 post brought a daily average of some two hundred let- 
 ters and documents to the residency-office, which em- 
 ployed two senior clerks, six juniors and a number of 
 djunitnlis and magangs;^ and the resident grumbled 
 whenever the work fell into arrears. He himself was 
 an energetic worker ; and he expected his subordinates 
 to show the same spirit. But sometimes there was a 
 perfect torrent of documents, claims and applications. 
 Eldersma was the typical government official, wholly 
 wrapped up in his minutes and reports ; and Eldersma 
 was always busy. He worked morning, noon and night. 
 He allowed himself no siesta. He took a hurried lunch 
 at four o'clock and then rested for a little. Fortunately 
 he had a sound, robust Frisian constitution; but he 
 needed all his blood, all his muscles, all his nerves for 
 his work. It was not mere scribbling, fumbling with 
 papers: it was manual labour with the pen, muscular 
 work, nervous work ; and it never ceased. He consumed 
 himself, he spent himself, he was always writing. He 
 had not another idea left in his head; he was nothing 
 but the official, the civil servant. He had a charming 
 house, a most charming and exceptional wife, a delight- 
 ful child, but he never saw them, though he lived, 
 vaguely, amid his home surroundings. He just slaved 
 away, conscientiously, working off what he could. 
 Sometimes he would tell the resident that It was impos- 
 sible for him to do any more. But on this point Van 
 
 ^ Native writers and clerks.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 51 
 
 Oudijck was inexorable, pitiless. He himself had been 
 a district secretary ; he knew what it meant. It meant 
 work, it meant plodding on like a cart-horse. It meant 
 living, eating, sleeping with your pen in your hand. 
 Then Van Oudijck would show him this or that piece 
 of work which had to be finished. And Eldersma, who 
 had said that he could do no more than he was doing, 
 finished the work and therefore always did do some- 
 thing more than he believed that he could do. 
 
 Then his wife, Eva, would say: 
 
 **My husband has ceased to be a human being; my 
 husband has ceased to be a man ; my husband is an of- 
 ficial." 
 
 The young wife, very European, now in India for the 
 first time, had never known, before her two years at 
 Labuwangi, that it was possible to work as hard as her 
 husband did, in a country as hot as Labuwangi was dur- 
 ing the eastern monsoon. She had resisted it at first ; 
 she had at first tried to stand upon her rights ; but, when 
 she saw that he had really not a minute to spare, she 
 waived her rights. She had at once realized that her 
 husband would not share her life, nor could she share 
 his, not because he was not a good husband and very 
 fond of his wife, but simply because the post brought 
 two hundred letters and documents daily. She had at 
 once seen that there was nothing for her at Labuwangi 
 and she would have to console herself with her house 
 and, later, with her child. She arranged her house as a 
 temple of art and comfort and racked her brains over 
 the education of her little boy. She was an artistically 
 cultivated woman and came from an artistic environ- 
 ment. Her father was Van Hove, the great landscape- 
 painter; her mother was Stella Couberg, the famous
 
 52 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 concert-singer. Eva, brought up in an artistic and 
 musical liome, whose atmosphere she had breathed since 
 her babyhood in her picture-books and childish songs, 
 had married an East-Indian civil servant and had 
 accompanied him to Labuwangi. She loved her hus- 
 band, a good-looking Frisian and a man of sufficient 
 culture to take an interest in many subjects. And she 
 had gone, happy in her love and jfilled with illusions 
 about India and all the orientalism of the tropics. And 
 she had tried to preserve her illusions, despite the warn- 
 ings which she had received. At Singapore she was 
 struck by the colour of the naked Malays, like that of a 
 bronze statue, by the eastern motley of the Chinese and 
 Arab quarters and the poetry of the Japanese tea- 
 houses, which unfolded like a page of Loti as she drove 
 past. But, soon after, in Batavia, a grey disappointment 
 had fallen like a cold drizzling rain upon her expecta- 
 tion of seeing everything in India as a beautiful fairy- 
 tale, a story out of the Arabian Nights. The habits of 
 their narrow, everyday existence damped all her unso- 
 phisticated longing to admire ; and she saw everything 
 that was ridiculous even before she discovered anything 
 more that was beautiful. At her hotel, the men in 
 pyjamas lay at full length in the long chairs, with their 
 lazy legs on the extended leg-rests, their feet — although 
 carefully tended — ^bare and their toes moving quietly in 
 a conscientious exercise of big toe and little toe, even 
 while she was passing. The ladies were in sarong and 
 kahaai, the only practical morning-dress, which Is easily 
 changed, two or three times a day, but which suits so 
 few, the straight pillow-case outline at the back being 
 peculiarly angular and ugly, however elegant and ex- 
 penslvethe costume. . . . And then thecommonplace
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 53 
 
 aspect of the houses, with all their whitewash and their 
 rows of fragile and meretricious flower-pots; the 
 parched barrenness of the vegetation, the dirt of the 
 natives. And, in the life of the Europeans, a.ll the minor 
 absurdities: the sinjo accent, with the constant little 
 exclamations ; the narrow provincial conventionality of 
 the officials: only the Indian Council wearing top-hats. 
 And then the rigorous little maxims of etiquette: at a 
 reception, the highest functionary is the first to leave ; 
 the others follow in due order. And the little peculiari- 
 ties of tropical customs, such as the use of Devoe pack- 
 ing-cases and paraffin-tins for this, that and the other 
 purpose: the wood for shop-windows, for dust-bins 
 and home-made articles of furniture; the tins for gut- 
 ters and watering-cans and all kinds of domestic uten- 
 sils. . . . 
 
 The young and cultured little woman, with her Ara- 
 bian-Nights illusions, was tmable, amid these first im- 
 pressions, to distinguish between what was colonial — 
 the expedients of a European acclimatizing himself in a 
 country which is alien to his blood — and what was really 
 p<Detic, genuinely Indian, purely eastern, absolutely 
 Javanese ; and, because of these and other little absurdi- 
 ties, she had at once felt disappointed, as every one with 
 artistic inclination feels disappointed in colonial India, 
 which is not at all artistic or poetic and in which the 
 rose-trees in their white pots are scrupulously manured 
 with horse-droppings as high as they will stand, so that, 
 when a breeze springs up, the scent of the roses mingles 
 with a stench of freslily-sprinkled manure. And she 
 had grown unjust, as does every Hollander, every new- 
 comer to the beautiful country which he would like to 
 see with the eyes of his preconceived literary vision, but
 
 54 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 which impresses him at first by its absurd colonial side. 
 And she forgot that the country itself, which was origi- 
 nally so absolutely beautiful, was in no way to blame 
 for this absurdity. 
 
 She had had a couple of years of it and had been as- 
 tonished, occasionally alarmed, then again shocked, had 
 laughed sometimes and then again been annoyed and at 
 last, with the reasonableness of her nature and the 
 practical side of her artistic soul, had grown accustomed 
 to it all. She had grown accustomed to the toe-exer- 
 cises, to the manure around the roses ; she had grown 
 accustomed to her husband, who was no longer a 
 human being, no longer a man, but an official. She had 
 suffered a great deal, she had written despairing letters, 
 she had been sick with longing for the home of her 
 parents, she had been on the verge of making a sudden 
 departure, but she had not gone, so as not to leave 
 her husband in his loneliness, and she had accustomed 
 herself to things and made the best of them. She had 
 not only the soul of an artist — she played the piano ex- 
 ceptionally well — but also the heart of a plucky little 
 woman. She had gone on loving her husband and she 
 felt that, after all, she provided him with a pleasant 
 home. She gave serious attention to the education of 
 her child. And, once she had become accustomed to 
 things, she grew less unjust and suddenly saw much of 
 what was beautiful in India, admired the stately grace 
 of a coco-palm, the exquisite, paradisial flavour of the 
 Indian fruits, the glory of the blossoming trees; and, in 
 the inland districts, she had realized the noble majesty 
 of nature, the harmony of the imdulating hills, the 
 faery forests of gigantic ferns, the menacing ravines of 
 the craters, the shimmering terraces of the flooded
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 55 
 
 sazvahs/- with the tender green of the young paddy; and 
 the character of the Javanese had been a very revelation 
 to her: his elegance, his grace, his salutation and his 
 dance, his aristocratic distinction, so often evidently 
 handed down directly from a noble race, from an age- 
 old chivalry, now modernized into a diplomatic supple- 
 ness, worshipping authority by nature and inevitably 
 resigned under the yoke of the rulers whose gold-lace 
 arouses his innate respect. 
 
 In her father's house, Eva had always felt around her 
 the cult of the artistic and the beautiful, even to the 
 verge of decadence; those with her had always directed 
 her attention, in an environment of perfectly beautiful 
 things, in beautiful words, in music, to the plastic 
 beauty of life and perhaps too exclusively to that alone. 
 And she was now too well trained in that school of 
 beauty to persist in her disappointment and to see only 
 the whitewash and flimsiness of the houses, the petty 
 airs of the officials, the Devoe packing-cases and the 
 horse-droppings. Her literary mind now saw the 
 palatial character of the houses, the typical character of 
 that official pride, which could hardly be different from 
 what it was; and she saw all these details more ac- 
 curately, obtaining a broader insight into all that world 
 of India, until revelation followed upon revelation. 
 Only she continued to feel something strange, some- 
 thing that she could not analyse, a certain mystery and 
 dark secrecy, which she felt creeping softly over the 
 land at night. But she thought that it was no more 
 than a mood produced by the darkness and the very 
 dense foliage, that it was like the very quiet music of 
 stringed instntments of a kind quite strange to her, a 
 
 * Rice-fields.
 
 56 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 distant murmur of harps in a minor key, a vague voice 
 of warning, a whispering in the night — ^no more — 
 which evoked poetic imaginings. 
 
 At Labuwangi, a small inland capital, she often as- 
 tonished the acclimatized up-country elements because 
 she was somewhat excitable, because she was enthusi- 
 astic, spontaneous, glad to be alive — even in India — 
 glad of the beauty of life, because she had a healthy 
 nature, softly tempered and shaded into a charming pose 
 of caring for nothing but the beautiful: beautiful lines, 
 beautiful colours, artistic ideas. Those w^ho knew her 
 either disliked her or were very fond of her: few felt 
 indifferent to her. She had gained a reputation in India 
 for unusualness: her house was unusual, her clothes 
 unusual, the education of her child unusual ; her ideas 
 were unusual and the only ordinary thing about her 
 was her Frisian husband, who was almost too ordi- 
 nary in that environment, which might have been cut 
 out of an art magazine. She was fond of society and 
 gathered around her as much of the European element 
 as possible: it was, indeed, seldom artistic; but she im- 
 parted a pleasant tone to it, something that reminded 
 everybody of Holland. This little clique, this group ad- 
 mired her and instinctively adopted the tone wdiich she 
 set. Because of her greater culture, she ruled over it, 
 though she was not a despot by nature. But not every- 
 body approved of all this; and the others called her 
 eccentric. The clique, however, the group remained 
 faithful to her, for she awakened them, in the soft 
 languor of Indian life, to the existence of music, ideas, 
 and the joie dc vivre. So she had drawn into her circle 
 the doctor and his wife, the chief engineer and his wife,
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 57 
 
 the controleur-kottd^ and his wife and sometimes a 
 couple of outside controllers, or a few young fellows 
 from the sugar-factories. This brought round her a 
 merry little band of adherents. She ruled over them, 
 organized amateur theatricals for them, picnicked with 
 them and charmed them with her house and her frocks 
 and the epicurean and artistic flavour of her life. They 
 forgave her everything that they did not understand — 
 her aesthetic principles, her enthusiasm for Wagner — 
 because she gave them merriment and a little joie de 
 vivrc and a sociable feeling in the deadliness of their 
 colonial existence. For this they were ferv-ently grate- 
 ful to her. And thus it had come about that her house 
 became the actual centre of the social life of Labuwangi, 
 whereas the residency, on the other hand, withdrew 
 with dignified reserve into the shadow of its waringin- 
 trees. Leonie van Oudijck was not jealous on this ac- 
 count. She loved her repose and was only too glad to 
 leave everything to Eva Eldersma. And so Leonie 
 troubled about nothing — neither entertainments nor 
 musical societies and dramatic societies and charities — 
 and delegated to Eva all the social duties which as a rule 
 a resident's wife feels bound to take upon herself. 
 Leonie had her monthly receptions, at which she spoke 
 to everybody and smiled upon everybody, and gave her 
 annual ball on New Year's Day. With this the social 
 life of the residency began and ended. Apart from this 
 she lived there in her egoism, in the comfort with which 
 she had selfishly surrounded herself, in her rosy dreams 
 of cherubs and in such love as she was able to eather. 
 Sometimes, periodically, she felt a need for Batavia and 
 went to spend a month or two there. And so she, as the 
 
 ^ Local controller.
 
 58 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 resident's wife, led her own life ; and Eva did everything 
 and Eva set the tone. It sometimes gave rise to a little 
 jealousy, as for instance between her and the wife of 
 the inspector of finances, who considered that the first 
 place after Mrs. van Oudijck belonged to her and not 
 to the secretary's wife. This would occasion a good 
 deal of bickering over the Indian official etiquette ; and 
 stories and tittle-tattle would go the rounds, enhanced, 
 aggravated, until they reached the remotest sugar-fac- 
 tory in the district. But Eva took no notice of all this 
 gossip and preferred to devote herself to providing a 
 little sociableness at Labuwangi. And, to keep things 
 going properly, she and her little circle ruled the roost. 
 She had been elected president of the Thalia Dramatic 
 Society and she accepted, but on condition that the rules 
 should be abolished. She was willing to be queen, but 
 without a constitution. Everybody said that this would 
 never do : there had always been rules. But Eva replied 
 that, if there were to be rules, she must refuse to be 
 president. And they gave way: the constitution of the 
 Thalia was abolished; Eva held absolute sway, chose 
 the plays and distributed the parts. And it was the 
 golden age of the society: rehearsed by her, the mem- 
 bers acted so well that people came from Surabaya to 
 attend the performances at the Concordia. The pieces 
 played were of a quality such as had never been seen at 
 the Concordia before. 
 
 And the result of this again was that people either 
 loved her or did not like her at all. But she went her 
 way and provided a little European civilization, so that 
 they might not grow too "musty" at Labuwangi. And 
 people descended to all sorts of trickery to get invited to 
 her little dinners, which were famous and notorious.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 59 
 
 For she stipulated that her men should come in dress- 
 clothes and not in their Singapore jackets, without 
 shirts. She introduced swallow-tails and white ties ; and 
 she was inexorable. The women were low-necked, as 
 usual, for the sake of coolness, and thought it delight- 
 ful. But her poor men struggled against it, puffed and 
 blew at first and felt congested in their tall collars ; the 
 doctor declared that it was unhealthy ; and the veterans 
 protested that it was madness and opposed to all the 
 good old Indian habits. 
 
 But when they had puffed and blow^n a few times in 
 their dress-coats and tall collars, they all found Mrs. 
 Eldersma's dinners charming, precisely because they 
 were so European in style.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Eva was at home to her friends once a fortnight: 
 
 "You see, resident, it's not a reception," she always 
 said, in self-defence, to Van Oudijck. "I know that no 
 one's allowed to 'receive' in the interior, except the resi- 
 dent and his wife. It's really not a reception, resident. 
 I couldn't dare to call it that. I'm just at home to 
 everybody once a fortnight ; and I'm glad if our friends 
 care to come. . . . It's all right, isn't it, resident, 
 as long as it's not a 'reception' ?" 
 
 Van Oudijck would laugh merrily, with his jovial 
 laugh shaking his military moustache, and ask if little 
 Mrs. Eldersma was pulling his leg. She could do any- 
 thing, if she would only continue to provide a little 
 gaiety, a little acting, a little music, a little pleasant inter- 
 course. That was her duty, once and for all : to look 
 after the social element at Labuwangi. 
 
 There was nothing Indian about her at-home-days. 
 For instance, at the resident's, the receptions were regu- 
 lated according to the old-Indian, up-country practice : 
 all the ladies sat side by side, on chairs along the walls ; 
 Mrs. van Oudijck walked past them and talked to each 
 for a moment in turn, standing, while they remained sit- 
 ting ; the resident chatted to the men in another gallery. 
 The male and female elements kept apart ; gin-and-bit- 
 ters, port and iced water were handed round. 
 
 At Eva's people strolled about, walked through the 
 galleries, sat down anywhere they pleased; everybody 
 talked to everybody. There was not the same ceremony 
 as at the resident's, but there was all the chic of a
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 61 
 
 French drawing-room, with an artistic touch to it. And 
 it had become a custom for the ladies to dress more for 
 Eva's days than for the resident's receptions : at Eva's 
 they wore hats, a symbol of extreme elegance in India. 
 Fortunately, Leonie did not care ; it left her totally in- 
 different. 
 
 Leonie was now sitting in the middle gallery, on a 
 couch, and remained sitting with the Raden-Aju, the 
 wife of the regent. She thought that old custom pleas- 
 ant: everybody came up to her, whereas at her own re- 
 ceptions she had to do so much walking, past the row of 
 ladies along the wall. Now she took her ease, remained 
 sitting, smiling to those who came to pay her their re- 
 spects. But, apart from this, there \vas a restless move- 
 ment of guests. Eva was here, there and everywhere. 
 
 "Do you think it's pretty here?" ]\Irs. van der Does 
 asked Leonie, watli a glance at the middle gallery. 
 
 And her eyes wandered in surprise over the dull 
 arabesques, painted in distemper on the pale-grey walls, 
 like frescoes; over the djati^ w^ainscoting, canned by 
 skillful Chinese cabinet-makers after a drawing in the 
 Studio; over the bronze Japanese vases, on their djati 
 pedestals, in which branches of bamboo and bouquets 
 of gigantic flowers cast their shadows right up to the 
 ceiling. 
 
 "Odd ... but very pretty! Unusual!" mur- 
 mured Leonie to wdiom Eva's taste was always a conun- 
 drum. 
 
 Withdrawn into herself as a temple of egoism, she 
 did not mind what others did or felt, nor how they 
 arranged their houses. But she could not have lived 
 here. She liked her own lithographs — Veronese and 
 
 * Teak-wood.
 
 62 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 Shakspeare and Tasso: she thought them distinguished 
 — Hked them better than the handsome sepia photo- 
 graphs after ItaHan masters which Eva had standing 
 here and there on easels. Above all, she loved her 
 chocolate-box and the scent-advertisement with the 
 little angels. 
 
 "Do you like that dress?'* Mrs. van der Does asked 
 next. 
 
 "Yes, I do," said Leonie, smiling pleasantly. "Eva's 
 very clever: she painted those blue irises herself, on 
 Chinese silk. . . ." 
 
 She never said anything but kind, smiling things. 
 She never spoke evil; it left her indifferent. And she 
 now turned to the Raden-Aju and thanked her in 
 kindly, drawling sentences for some fruit which the 
 latter had sent her. The regent came to speak to her 
 and she asked after his two little sons. She talked in 
 Dutch; and the regent and the Raden-Aju both 
 answered in Malay. The Regent of Labuwangi, Raden 
 Adipati Surio Sunario, was still young, just turned 
 thirty: a refined Javanese face like a conceited zvajang- 
 puppet; a little moustache, with the points carefully 
 twisted; and, above all, a staring gaze that struck the 
 beholder: a gaze that stared as though in a continuous 
 trance; a gaze that seemed to pierce the visible reality 
 and to see right through it ; a gaze that issued from eyes 
 like coals, sometimes dull and weary, sometimes flash- 
 ing like sparks of ecstasy and fanaticism. Among the 
 population which was almost slavishly attached to its 
 regent and his family, he enjoyed a reputation for sanc- 
 tity and mystery, though no one ever knew the truth of 
 the matter. Here, in Eva's gallery, he merely produced 
 the impression of a puppet-like figure, of a distin-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 63 
 
 guished Indian prince, save that his trance-hke eyes 
 occasioned surprise. The sarong, drawn smoothly 
 around his hips, hung low in front in a bundle of flat, 
 regular pleats, which fluttered open ; he wore a white 
 starched shirt with diamond studs and a little blue tie ; 
 over this w-as a blue cloth uniform-jacket, with gold 
 uniform-buttons, with the royal W^ and the crown; 
 his bare feet were encased in black, patent-leather 
 pumps with points turned up at the toes ; the kerchief 
 carefully wound about his head in narrow folds im- 
 parted a feminine air to his refined features, but the 
 black eyes, now and then weary, constantly sparkled 
 up in trance, in ecstasy. The golden kris was stuck in 
 his blue-and-gold waistband, right behind, In the small 
 of his back; a large jewel glittered on his small and 
 slender hand ; and a cigarette-case of braided gold wire 
 peeped from the pocket of his jacket. He did not say 
 much — sometimes he looked as though he were asleep ; 
 then his strange eyes would flash up again — and his 
 replies to what Leonie said consisted almost exclusively 
 of a curt, clipped: "Saja. . . ."'" He uttered 
 the two syllables with a hard, sibilant accent of po- 
 liteness, laying equal stress upon each. He accom- 
 panied his little word of civility with a short, automatic 
 nod of the head. The Raden-Aju too, seated beside 
 Leonie, answered in the same way: "Saja. . . ." 
 But she always followed it up wnth a little, embarrassed 
 laugh. She was very young still, possibly just eighteen. 
 She was a Solo princess ; and Van Oudi jck could not 
 tolerate her, because she Introduced Solo manners and 
 Solo expressions into LabuwangI, In her conceited arro- 
 gance, as though nothing could be so distinguished and 
 
 ^TTie initial of Wilhelmina Queen of the Netlierlands. 
 
 ' "^es."
 
 64 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 so purely aristrocratic as what was done and said at the 
 court of Solo. She employed court phrases which the 
 Labuwangi population did not understand; she had 
 forced the regent to engage a Solo coachman, with the 
 Solo state livery, including the wig and the false beard 
 and moustache, at which the people stared wide-eyed. 
 Her yellow complexion was made to appear yet paler 
 by a light layer of bedak, applied moist ; her eyebrows 
 were slightly arched with a streak of black; jewelled 
 hairpins were stuck in her glossy konde^ and a kenanga- 
 flower in her girdle. Over a kain-padjang,^ which, 
 according to the custom of the Solo court was long and 
 trailing, in front, she wore a kabaai of red brocade, re- 
 lieved with gold braid and fastened with three large 
 gems. Two stones of fabulous value, moreover, in 
 heavy silver settings, dragged her ears down. She 
 wore light-coloured, open-work stockings and gold son- 
 kef slippers. Her little thin fingers were stiff with 
 rings, as though set in brilliants ; and she held a white 
 marabou fan in her hand. 
 
 "Saja . . . saja," she answered, civilly, with 
 her embarrassed little laugh. 
 
 Leonie was silent for a moment, tired of carrying 
 on the conversation by herself. When she had spoken 
 to the regent and the Raden-Aju about their sons, she 
 did not find much more to say. Van Oudijck, after 
 Eva had shown him round the galleries — for there was 
 always something new to admire — joined his wife; 
 the regent rose to his feet. 
 
 * Chignon. 
 
 *A long, embroidered garment. 
 
 ' Chinese gold embroidery.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 65 
 
 "And, regent," asked the resident, in Dutch, "how 
 is the Raden-Aju Pangeran?" 
 
 He was enquiring after Sunario's mother, the old 
 regent's widow. 
 
 "V^ery well . . . thank you," murmured the 
 regent, in Malay. "But mamma didn't come with us 
 . . . so old . . . easily tired." 
 
 "I want to speak to you, regent." 
 
 The regent followed Van Oudijck into the front- 
 verandah, which was empty. 
 
 "I am sorry to have to tell you that I have just had 
 another bad report of your brother, the Regent of 
 Ngadjiwa. ... I am informed that he has lately 
 been gambling again and has lost large sums of money. 
 Do you know anything about it?" 
 
 The regent shut himself up, as it were, in his puppet- 
 like stiffness and kept silence. Only his eyes stared, 
 as though gazing, through Van Oudijck, at distant 
 things. 
 
 "Do you know anything about it, regent?" 
 
 "Tida . . . ."^ 
 
 "I request you, as head of the family, to look into it 
 and to keep a watch upon your brother. He gambles, 
 he drinks; he does your name no credit, regent. If the 
 old Pangeran could have guessed that his second son 
 would go to the dogs like this, it would have pained 
 him greatly. He held his name high. He was one of 
 the wisest and noblest regents that the government ever 
 had in Java; and you know how greatly the govern- 
 ment valued the Pangeran. Even in the Company's 
 days, Holland owed much to your house, which was 
 always loyal to her. But the times seem to be altering. 
 
 »"No."
 
 66 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 . . . It is very regrettable regent, that an old Jav- 
 anese family with such lofty traditions as yours should 
 be unable to remain faithful to those traditions. 
 • * • 
 
 Raden Adipati Surlo Sunario turned pale with a 
 greenish pallor. His hypnotic eyes pierced the resi- 
 dent; but he saw that the latter also was boiling with 
 anger. And he dimmed the strange glitter of his gaze 
 into a drowsy weariness: 
 
 "I thought, resident, that you had always felt an 
 affection for my house," he murmured, almost plain- 
 tively. 
 
 "And you thought right, regent. I loved the Pan- 
 geran. I have always admired your house and have 
 always tried to uphold it. I want to uphold it still, 
 together with yourself, regent, hoping that you see not 
 only, as your reputation suggests, the things of the 
 next world, but also the realities about you. But it is 
 your brother, regent, whom I do not love and cannot 
 possibly esteem. I have been told — and I can trust the 
 words of those who told me — that the Regent of Ngad- 
 jiwa has not only been gambling . . . but also 
 that he has failed this month to pay the heads at Ngad- 
 jiwa their salaries. . . ," 
 
 They looked at each other fixedly ; and Van Oudijck's 
 firm and steady glance met the regent's hypnotic gaze, 
 
 "The persons who act as your informants may be 
 mistaken. . ." 
 
 "I am assuming that they would not bring me such 
 reports without the most incontestable certainty. 
 . . . Regent, this is a very delicate matter. I re- 
 peat, you are the head of your family. Enquire of your 
 younger brother to what extent he has misapplied the
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 67 
 
 money of the government and make it all good as soon 
 as possible. I am purposely leaving the matter to you. 
 I will not speak to your brother about it, in order to 
 spare a member of your family as long as I can. It is 
 for you to admonish your brother, to call his attention 
 to what in my eyes is a crime, but one which you 
 through your prestige as head of the family, are still 
 able to undo. Forbid him to gamble and order him to 
 master his passion. Otherwise I foresee very grievous 
 things and I shall have to propose your brother's dis- 
 missal. You 3'ourself know how I should dislike to 
 do that. For the Regent of Ngadjiwa is the second 
 son of the old Pangeran, whom I held in high esteem, 
 even as I should always wash to spare your mother, the 
 Raden-Aju Pangeran, any sorrow." 
 
 "I thank you," murmured Sunario. 
 
 "Reflect seriously upon what I am saying to you, 
 regent. If you cannot make your brother listen to 
 reason, if the salaries of the heads are not paid at the 
 earliest possible date, then . . . then / shall have 
 to act. And, if my warning is of no avail, then it means 
 your brother's fall. You yourself know, the dismissal 
 of a regent is such a very exceptional thing that it 
 would bring disgrace upon your family. Assist me in 
 saving the house of the Adiningrats from such a fate." 
 
 "I promise," murmured the regent. 
 
 "Give me your hand, regent." 
 
 Van Oudijck pressed the thin fingers of the Javanese: 
 
 "Can I trust you ?" he asked. 
 
 "In life, in death." 
 
 "Then let us go indoors. And tell me as soon as 
 possible what you have discovered."
 
 68 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 The regent bowed. A greenish pallor betrayed the 
 silent, secret rage which was working inside him like 
 the fire of a volcano. His eyes, behind Van Oudijck's 
 back, darted with a mysterious hatred at the Hollander, 
 the low-bom Hollander, the base commoner, the Infidel 
 Christian, who had no business to feel anything, with 
 that unclean soul of his, concerning him, his house, his 
 father, his mother, or their supremely sacred aristoc- 
 racy and nobility . . . even though they had al- 
 ways bowed beneath the yoke of those who were 
 stronger than they. , * .
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 "I have counted on your staying to dinner," said Eva. 
 
 "Of course," replied Van Helderen, the controller, 
 and his wife. 
 
 The reception — ^not a reception, as Eva always said 
 in self-defence — was nearly over: the Van Oudijcks 
 had been the first to go; the regent followed. The 
 Eldersmas were left with their little band of intimates: 
 Dr. Rantzow and Doom de Bruijn, the senior engineer, 
 with their waves, and the Van Helderens. They sat 
 down in the front- verandah with a certain sense of 
 relief and rocked comfortably to and fro. Whiskies- 
 and-soda, glasses of lemonade, with great lumps of ice 
 in them, were handed round. 
 
 "Always chock full, reception at Eva*s," so Mrs. van 
 Helderen. "Fuller than other day at resident's. 
 • • • 
 
 Ida van Helderen was a typical little white nonna. 
 She always tried to behave in a very European fashion, 
 to talk Dutch nicely ; she even pretended to speak bad 
 Malay and to care for neither rijsttafeP- nor rttjak.^ 
 She was short and plump all over ; she was very white, 
 a dead white, with big, black, astonished eyes. She 
 was full of little mysterious whims and hatreds and 
 affections ; all her actions were the result of mysterious 
 little impulses. Sometimes she hated Eva, sometimes 
 she doted on her. She was absolutely unreliable: her 
 
 ^ Literally rice-tablc : the luncheon consisting mainly of curried 
 dishes. 
 
 ' Unripe fruits, sliced and mixed with vinegar, soya and sugar.
 
 70 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 every action, every movement, every word might be a 
 surprise. She was always in love, tragically. She took 
 all her little affairs very tragically, on a very large and 
 serious scale, with not the least sense of proportion, and 
 then unbosomed herself to Eva, who laughed and com- 
 forted her. 
 
 Her husband, the controller, had never been in Hol- 
 land: he had been educated entirely at Batavia, in the 
 William HI. College and the Indian Department. And 
 he was very strange to see, this Creole, apparently quite 
 European, tall, fair and pale, with his fair moustache, 
 his blue eyes expressing animation and interest and his 
 manners which displayed a finer courtesy than could be 
 found in the smartest circles of Europe, but with not a 
 \"estige of India in thought, speech or dress. He w^ould 
 speak of Paris and Vienna as though he had spent 
 years in both capitals, whereas he had never been out 
 of Java; he was mad on music, though he found a 
 difficulty in appreciating Wagner, whom Eva was so 
 fond of playing ; and his great illusion was that he must 
 really go to Europe on leave next year, to see the Paris 
 Exhibition.^ There was a wonderful distinction and 
 innate style about young Van Helderen, as though he 
 were not the offspring of European parents who had 
 always lived in India, as though he were a foreigner 
 from an unknown country, of a nationality which you 
 could not place at once. His accent barely betrayed 
 a certain softness, resulting from the climate ; he spoke 
 Dutch so correctly that it would have sounded almost 
 stiff amid the slovenly slang of the mother-country; 
 and he spoke French, English and German with greater 
 facility than most Dutchmen. Perhaps he owed to a 
 
 *0f 1900.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 71 
 
 French mother that exotic politeness and courtesy, in- 
 nate, pleasant and natural. In his wife, who was also 
 of French extraction, springing from a Creole family 
 in Reunion, this exoticism had become a mysterious 
 medley which had never developed beyond a sort of 
 childishness and a jumble of petty emotions and petty 
 passions, while she tried to read tragedy into her life 
 with those great, sombre eyes, though she did no more 
 than just dip into it as into an ill-written magazine- 
 story. 
 
 She imagined herself to be now in love with the 
 senior engineer, the oldest of the little band, a man 
 already turning grey, with a black beard, and, in her 
 tragic fashion, she pictured scenes with Mrs. Doom de 
 Bruijn, a stout, placid, melancholy woman. Dr. Rant- 
 zow and his wife were Germans: he fat, fair-haired, 
 vulgar, pot-bellied; she, with a serene German face, 
 pleasant and matronly, talking Dutch vivaciously with 
 a German accent. 
 
 This was the little clique over which Eva Eldersma 
 reigned. In addition to Frans van Helderen, the con- 
 troller, it consisted of quite ordinary Indian and Euro- 
 pean elements, people without artistic sense, as Eva 
 said ; but she had no other choice, at Labuwangi, and 
 therefore she amused herself with Ida's little nonna 
 tragedies and made the most of the others. Onno, her 
 husband, tired as usual with his work, did not join 
 much In the conversation, sat and listened. 
 
 "How long was Mrs. van Oudljck at Batavia?" 
 asked Ida. 
 
 "Two months," said the doctor's wife. "A very 
 long visit, this time." 
 
 "I hear," said Mrs. Doom de Bruijn, placid, melan-
 
 72 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 choly and quietly venomous, "that this time one mem- 
 ber of council, one head of a department and three 
 young business-men kept Mrs. van Oudijck amused at 
 Batavia." 
 
 "And I can assure you people," said the doctor, 
 "that, if Mrs. van Oudijck did not go to Batavia regu- 
 larly, she would miss a beneficial cure, even though 
 she takes it on her own and not ... by my pre- 
 scription." 
 
 "Let us speak no evil !" Eva interrupted, almost en- 
 treatingly, "Mrs. van Oudijck is beautiful — with a 
 tranquil Junoesque beauty and the eyes of a Venus — 
 and I can forgive anything to beautiful people about 
 me. And you, doctor," threatening him with her fin- 
 ger, "mustn't betray professional secrets. The doctors 
 in India, you know, are often far too outspoken about 
 their patients' secrets. When I'm ill, it's never any- 
 thing but a headache. Will you make a careful note 
 of that, doctor?" 
 
 "The resident seems preoccupied," said Doom de 
 Bruijn. 
 
 "Could he know . . . about his wife?" asked 
 Ida, sombrely, her great eyes filled with black velvet 
 tragedy. 
 
 "The resident is often like that," said Frans van 
 Helderen. "He has his moods. Sometimes he's pleas- 
 ant, cheerful, jovial, as he was lately, on the circuit. 
 Then again he has his gloomy days, working and work- 
 ing and grumbling that nobody does any work except 
 himself." 
 
 "My poor, unappreciated Onno !" sighed Eva. 
 
 "I believe he's overworking himself," said Van 
 Helderen. "Labuwangi is a tremendously busy dis-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 7Z 
 
 trict. And the resident takes things too much to heart, 
 both in his own house and outside, both his relations 
 with his son and his relations with the regent." 
 
 "I should sack the regent," said the doctor. 
 
 "But, doctor," said Van Helderen, "you know 
 enough about our conditions in Java to know that 
 things can't be done just like that. The regent and his 
 family are closely identified with Labuwangi and too 
 highly considered by the population. . . ." 
 
 "Yes, I know the Dutch policy. The English in 
 British India deal with their Indian princes in a more 
 arbitrary and high-handed fashion. The Dutch treat 
 them much too gently." 
 
 "The question might arise which of the two policies 
 is the better in the long run," said Van Helderen, drily, 
 hating to hear a foreigner disparage anything in a 
 Dutch colony. "Fortunately, w^e know nothing here of 
 the continual poverty and famine that prevail in British 
 India." 
 
 "I saw the resident speaking very seriously to the 
 regent," said Doom de Bruijn. 
 
 "The resident is too susceptible," said Van Helderen. 
 "He allows himself to be very much dejected by the 
 gradual decline of that old Javanese family, which is 
 doomed to be ruined and which he would like to uphold. 
 The resident, cool and practical though he be, Ts a bit 
 of a romantic in this, though he might refuse to admit 
 it. But he remembers the Adiningrats' glorious past, 
 he remembers that last fine figure, the noble old Pan- 
 geran, and he compares him with his sons, the one a 
 fanatic, the other a gambler. . . ." 
 
 "I think our regent — not the Ngadjiwa one: he's a 
 coolie — delightful !" said Eva. "He's a living zvajang-
 
 74 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 puppet. Except his eyes: they frighten me. What 
 terrible eyes ! Sometimes they're asleep and sometimes 
 they're like a maniac's. But he is so refined, so dis- 
 tinguished! And the Raden-Aju too is an exquisite 
 little doll: 'Saja . . . saja!' She says nothing, 
 but she looks very decorative. I'm always glad when 
 they adorn my at-home-day and I miss them when 
 they're not there. And the old Raden-Aju Pangeran, 
 grey-haired, dignified, a queen . 
 
 "A gambler of the first water," said Eldersma. 
 
 "They gamble away all they possess," said Van 
 Helderen, "she and the Regent of Ngadjiwa. They're 
 no longer rich. The old Pangeran used to have splen- 
 did insignia of rank for state occasions, magnificent 
 lances, a jewelled sirilv-hox,^ spittoons — useful objects, 
 those! — of priceless value. The old Raden-Aju has 
 gambled them all away. I doubt if she has anything 
 left but her pension : two hundred and forty guilders,^ 
 I believe. And how our regent manages to keep all 
 his cousins, male and female, in the Kahiipaten,^ ac- 
 cording to the Javanese custom, is beyond me." 
 
 ''What's that custom?" asked the doctor. 
 
 "Every regent collects his whole family around him 
 like parasites, clothes them, feeds them, provides them 
 with pocket-money . . . and the natives think it 
 dignified and smart." 
 
 "Sad . . . that ruined greatness!" said Ida, 
 gloomily. 
 
 A boy came to announce dinner and they went to the 
 
 * A gold or silver casket containing the ingredients with which 
 to prepare betel-pepper for chewing. 
 " £20 a month. 
 ■ The regent's palace.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 75 
 
 back-verandah and sat down to table. 
 
 "And what have you in prospect for us, mev- 
 rou\vtje?" asked the senior engineer. "What are the 
 plans? Labuwangi has been very quiet lately." 
 
 "It's really terrible," said Eva. "If I hadn't all of 
 you, it would be terrible. If I weren't always planning 
 something and having ideas, it would be terrible, this 
 existence at Labuwangi. My husband doesn't feel it ; 
 he works, as all you men do: what else is there to do 
 in India but work, regardless of the heat? But for us 
 women! What a life, if we didn't find our happiness 
 purely in ourselves, in our home, in our friends . . . 
 when we have the good fortune to possess those friends ! 
 Nothing from the outside. Not a picture, not a statue 
 to look at ; no music to listen to. Don't be cross. Van 
 Helderen. You play the 'cello charmingly, but nobody 
 in India can keep up to date. The Italian Opera plays 
 Trovatore. The amateur companies — and they're 
 really first-rate at Batavia — play . . . Trovatore. 
 And you. Van Helderen . . don't object. I saw 
 
 you in an ecstasy when the Italian company from Suru- 
 baya was here lately, at the club, and played . . . 
 Trovatore. You were enchanted." 
 
 "There were some beautiful voices among them." 
 
 "But twenty years ago, so they tell me, people here 
 were also enchanted with . . . Trovatore. Oh, 
 it's terrible! Sometimes, suddenly, It oppresses me. 
 Sometimes, all of a sudden, I feel that I have not grown 
 used to India and that I never shall; and I begin to 
 long for Europe, for life !" 
 
 "But Eva," Eldersma began, in alarm, dreading lest 
 she should really go home one day, leaving him alone 
 in what would then be his utterly joyless working-life
 
 7e THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 at Labuwangi, "sometimes you do appreciate India: 
 )'our house, the pleasant, spacious hfe. . ." 
 
 "Materially. . ." 
 
 "And don't you appreciate your own work, I mean 
 the many things which you are able to do here?" 
 
 "What? Getting* up parties? Arranging theat- 
 ricals?" 
 
 "It's you who are the real rezidcnte"'^ said Ida gush- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Thank goodness, we're coming back to Mrs. van 
 Oudijck," said Mrs. Doom de Bruijn, teasingly. 
 
 "And to professional secrecy," said Dr. Rantzow. 
 
 "No," sighed Eva, "we want something new. 
 Dances, parties, picnics, trips into the mountains 
 . . . we've exhausted all that. I know nothing 
 more. The Indian depression's coming over me. I'm 
 in one of my dejected moods. Those brown faces of 
 my 'boys' around me suddenly strike me as uncanny. 
 India frightens me at times. Do none of you feel the 
 same ? A vague dread, a mystery in the air, something 
 menacing. . . I don't know what it is. The eve- 
 nings are sometimes so full of mystery and there is 
 something mystic in the character of the native, who 
 is remote from us, who differs from us so. . . ." 
 
 "Artistic feelings," said Van Helderen, chaffingly. 
 "No, I don't feel like that. India is my country." 
 
 "You type!" said Eva, chaffing him in return. 
 **What makes you what you are, so curiously Euro- 
 pean ? I can't call it Dutch." 
 
 "My mother was a Frenchwoman." 
 
 "But, after all, you're a njo:- born here, brought up 
 
 * Resident's wife. 
 'Abbreviation of sinjo.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 77 
 
 here. . . . And you have nothing of a n']o about 
 you. I think it's wonderful to have met you: I hke 
 you as a change. . . . Help me, can't you? Sug- 
 gest something new. Not a dance and not a trip in the 
 mountains. I want something new. Else I shall get 
 a craving for my father's paintings, for my mother's 
 singing, for our beautiful, artistic house at the Hague. 
 If I don't have something new, I shall die. I'm not 
 like your wife, Van Helderen, always in love." 
 
 "Eva!" Ida entreated. 
 
 "Tragically in love, with her beautiful, sombre eyes. 
 Always, first with her husband and then with somebody 
 else. I am never in love. Not even any longer with 
 my husband. He is . . . with me. But I have 
 not an amorous nature. There's a great deal of love- 
 making in India, isn't there, doctor? . . . Well, 
 we've ruled out dances, excursions in the mountains 
 and love-making. What then, in Heaven's name, what 
 then?" 
 
 "I know of something," said Mrs. Doom de Bruijn ; 
 and a sudden anxiety came over her placid melancholy. 
 
 She gave a side-glance at ]\Irs. Rantzow ; the German 
 woman grasped her meaning. 
 
 "What Is it?" asked the others, eagerly. 
 
 "Table-turning," whispered the two ladies. 
 
 There was a general laugh. 
 
 "Oh dear!" sighed Eva, disappointed. "A trick, a 
 joke, an evening's amusement. No, I want something 
 that will fill my life for at least a month." 
 
 "Table-turning," repeated Mrs. Rantzow. 
 
 "Listen to me," said Mrs. Doom de Bruijn. "The 
 other day, for a joke, we tried making a gipsy-table 
 turn. We all promised not to cheat. The table
 
 1Z THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 , . . moved, spelt out words, tapping them out by 
 tlie alphabet." 
 
 *'But was there no cheating?" asked the doctor, 
 Eldersma and Van Helderen. 
 
 "You'll have to trust us," declared the two ladies, 
 in self-defence. 
 
 "All right," said Eva. "We've finished dinner. 
 Let's have some table-turning." 
 
 "We must all promise not to cheat," said Mrs. 
 Rantzow. "I can see that my husband will be 
 . . . antipathetic. But Ida ... a great 
 medium." 
 
 They rose. 
 
 "Must we have the lights out ?" asked Eva. 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Doom de Bruijn. 
 
 "An ordinary gipsy-table?" 
 
 *'A three-legged wooden table." 
 
 "The eight of us?" 
 
 "No, we must begin by choosing: for instance, your- 
 self, Eva, Ida, Van Helderen and Mrs. Rantzow. The 
 doctor's antipathetic ; so is Eldersma. De Bruijn and I 
 will relieve you." 
 
 "Off we go, then !" said Eva. "A new diversion for 
 Labuwangi society. And no cheating. . ." 
 
 "We must give one anotlier our word of honour, as 
 friends, not to cheat." 
 
 ''Done!" they all said. 
 
 The doctor sniggered. Eldersma shrugged his 
 shoulders. A boy brought a gipsy-table. They sat 
 round the little wooden table and placed their fingers 
 on it lightly, looking at one another expectantly and 
 suspiciously. Mrs. Rantzow was solemn, Eva amused, 
 Ida sombre. Van Helderen smilingly indifferent. Sud-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 79 
 
 denly a strained expression came over Ida's beautiful 
 nomia-ivLce. 
 
 The table quivered. . . . 
 
 They exchanged frightened glances; the doctor snig- 
 gered. 
 
 Then, slowly, the table tilted one of its three legs and 
 carefully put it down again. 
 
 "Did anybody move?" asked Eva. 
 
 They all shook their heads. Ida had turned pale : 
 
 *T feel a trembling in my fingers," she murmured. 
 
 The table once more tilted its leg, described an angry, 
 grating semicircle over the marble floor and put its leg 
 down with a violent stamp. 
 
 They looked at one another in surprise. Ida sat as 
 though bereft of life, staring, with fingers outspread, 
 ecstatically. 
 
 And the table tilted its leg for the third time. 
 
 It was certainly very curious. Eva doubted for a 
 moment whether Mrs. Rantzow was lifting the table, 
 but, when she questioned her with a glance, the German 
 doctor's wife shook her head and Eva saw that she was 
 playing fair. They once more promised absolute 
 honesty. And, when they were now certain of one 
 another, in full confidence, it was most curious how 
 the table continued to describe angry, grating semi- 
 circles, tilting one leg and tapping on the marble floor. 
 
 "Is there a spirit present, revealing Itself?" asked 
 Mrs. Rantzow, with a glance at the leg of the table. 
 
 The table tapped once: 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 But, when the spirit was asked to spell its name, to 
 tap out the letters of its name by the letters of the 
 alphabet, all that came was: 
 
 "Z X R S A."
 
 »f 
 
 80 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 The manifestation was incomprehensible. 
 
 Suddenly, however, the table began spelling hur- 
 riedly, as though it had something at its heels. The 
 taps were counted and spelt: 
 
 "Le . . . onie Ou . . . dijck. . . 
 
 "What about Mrs. van Oudijck?" 
 
 A coarse word followed. 
 
 The ladies started, excepting Ida, who sat as though 
 in a trance. 
 
 "The table has spoken. . . . What did it say? 
 . . . What is Mrs. van Oudijck?" cried the voices, 
 all speaking at once. 
 
 "It's incredible !" mumiured Eva, "Are we all play- 
 ing fair?" 
 
 They all protested their honesty. 
 
 "Let us really be honest, else there's no fun in it. 
 . . . I wish I could be certain." 
 
 They all wished that: Mrs. Rantzow, Ida, Van 
 Helderen, Eva. The others looked on eagerly, believ- 
 ing ; but the doctor did not believe and sat sniggering. 
 
 Again the table grated angrily and tapped: and the 
 leg repeated : 
 
 "A . . ." 
 
 And the leg repeated the coarse word. 
 
 "Why?" asked Mrs. Rantzow. 
 
 The table began to tap. 
 
 "Take down, Onno!" said Eva to her husband. 
 
 Eldersma fetched a pencil and paper and took down. 
 
 Three names followed: one of a member of council, 
 one of a departmental head, one of a young business- 
 man. 
 
 "When people aren't backbiting in India, the tables 
 begin to backbite !" said Eva.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 81 
 
 "The spirits," murmured Ida. 
 
 "These are generally mocking spirits," said Mrs. 
 Rantzow, didactically. 
 
 But the table went on tapping. 
 
 "Take down, Onno !" said Eva. 
 
 Eldersma took down. 
 
 "A-d-d-i-e !" the leg tapped out. 
 
 "No!" the voices all cried together, in vehement 
 denial. "This time the table's mistaken ! ... At 
 least, young De Luce has never yet been mentioned in 
 connection with Mrs. van Oudijck." 
 
 "T-h-e-o!" said the table, correcting itself. 
 
 "Her step-son! . . . It's terrible! . . . 
 That's different! . . . Everybody knows It!" 
 cried the voices in assent. 
 
 "But we know that!" said Mrs. Rantzow, with a 
 glance at the leg of the table. "Come, tell us something 
 we don't know. Come table! Come, spirit! Please! 
 
 She addressed the table-leg in coaxing, wheedling 
 accents. Everybody laughed. The table grated. 
 
 "Be serious!" Mrs. Doom de Bruijn said, in warn- 
 ing. 
 
 The table bumped down In Ida's lap. 
 
 "Adii!"^ cried the pretty nonna, waking out of her 
 trance. "Right against my stomach !" 
 
 They laughed and laughed. The table turned round 
 fiercely and they rose from their chairs, with their 
 hands on the table, and accompanied its angry, waltzing 
 movements. 
 
 "Next . . . year," the table rapped out. 
 
 Eldersma took down, 
 
 "Frightful . . . war. . , 
 
 '"Oh my!" 
 
 tt
 
 82 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "Between whom? . . ."^ 
 "Europe . . . and . . . China." 
 "It sounds hke a fairy-tale !" grinned the doctor. 
 "La . . . bu . . . wangj," tapped the 
 table, 
 
 "What about it?" they asked. 
 'Is . . . a . . . beastly . . . hole. 
 
 "Is 
 
 'Say something serious, table, do!" Mrs. Rantzow 
 implored, pleasantly, in her best German-matron man- 
 
 ner, 
 
 Dan . . . ger," the table tapped out. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Threat . . . ens," the table continued, "La 
 . . . bu . . . wangi." 
 
 "Danger threatens Labuwangi ?" 
 
 "Yes !" said the table, with one tap, angrily. 
 
 "What danger?" 
 
 "Rebellion." 
 
 "Rebellion? Who's going to rebel?" 
 
 "In . , . two months . . . Sunari»." 
 
 They became thoughtful. 
 
 But the table, suddenly, unexpectedly, fell over into 
 Ida's lap again. 
 
 "Adu! Adii!" cried the little woman. 
 
 The table refused to go on. 
 
 "Tired," it tapped out. 
 
 They continued to hold their hands on it. 
 
 "Leave off," said the table. 
 
 The doctor, sniggering, laid his short, broad hand 
 on it, as though to compel It. 
 
 "Go to blazes !" cried the table, grating and turning. 
 ''Boimder!"
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 83 
 
 And worse words followed, aimed at the doctor, as 
 though by a street-boy: obscene words, senseless and 
 incoherent. 
 
 "Who's suggesting those words?" asked Eva, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 Obviously no one was suggesting them, neither the 
 three ladies nor Van Helderen, who was always very 
 punctilious and who was manifestly indignant at the 
 mocking spirit's coarseness. 
 
 "It really is a spirit," said Ida, looking very pale. 
 
 "I'm going to leave off," said Eva, nervously, lifting 
 up her fingers. "I don't understand this nonsense. It's 
 quite amusing, but the table's not accustomed to polite 
 society." 
 
 "We've got a new resource for Labuwangi!" said 
 Eldersma. "No more picnics, no dances . . . but 
 table-turning !" 
 
 "We must practise !" said Mrs. Doom de Bruijn. 
 
 Eva shitigged her shoulders: 
 
 "It's inexplicable," she said. "I'm bound to believe 
 that none of us was cheating. It's not the sort of thing 
 Van Helderen would do, to suggest such words as 
 those." 
 
 "Madam!" said Van Helderen, defending himself. 
 
 **We must do it again," said Ida. "Look, there's a 
 hadji^ leaving the grounds." 
 
 She pointed to the garden. 
 
 "Ahadji?"askedEva. 
 
 She looked towards the garden. There was nothing. 
 
 "Oh no, it's not!" said Ida. "I thought it was a 
 hadji. It's nothing, only the moonlight." 
 
 ^A pilgrim who has made or is making the pilgrimage to 
 Mecca.
 
 84 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 It was late. They said good-night, laughing gaily, 
 wondering, but finding no explanation. 
 
 *T do hope this hasn't made you ladies nervous?" 
 said the doctor. 
 
 No, considering all things, they were not nervous. 
 They were more amused, even though they did not 
 understand. 
 
 It was two o'clock when they went home. The 
 moonlight was streaming down on the town, which lay 
 deathly silent, slumbering in the velvet shadows of the 
 gardens.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Next day, when Eldersma had gone to the office and 
 Eva was moving about the house, in sarong and kahaai, 
 on her domestic duties, she saw Frans van Helderen 
 coming through the garden. 
 
 "May I?" he called out. 
 
 "Certainly," she called back. "Come in. But I'm 
 on my way to the gudang/'^ 
 
 And she held up her key-basket. 
 
 "I'm due at the resident's in half an hour, but I'm 
 too early ... so I just looked in." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 "But I'm busy, you know!" she cried. "Come along 
 to the gudang with me." 
 
 He followed her: he was wearing a black alpaca 
 jacket, because he had to go to the resident presently. 
 
 "How's Ida?" asked Eva. "Did she sleep well after 
 her seance of last night ?" 
 
 "Only fairly well," said Franz van Helderen. "I 
 don't think she ought to do any more. She kept waking 
 with a start, falling on my neck and begging me to 
 forgive her, I don't know what for." 
 
 "It didn't upset me at all," said Eva, "although I 
 don't imderstand it in the least." 
 
 She opened the gudang, called the kokkie and gave 
 the woman her orders. The kokkie was latta;^ and Eva 
 loved teasing the old thing. 
 
 * Store-room, go-down. 
 
 'A nervous disorder which is manifested by sudden oeriods of 
 intense sug-g-estibility, resulting in mimicr>'. Recovery is com- 
 monly instantaneous.
 
 86 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "La . . . la-illa-lala !" she cried. 
 
 And the kokkie gave a start and echoed the cry and 
 recovered herself the next moment, begging for for- 
 giveness. 
 
 "Buang,^ kokkie, buang!" cried Eva. 
 
 And the kokkie, acting on the suggestion, flung down 
 a tray of rambiitcns- and mangistans^ and, at once re- 
 covering, stooped and picked up the scattered fruits 
 from the floor, imploring to be forgiven and shaking 
 her head and clicking her tongue. 
 
 "Come, we'd better go \" said Eva to Frans. "Else 
 she'll be breaking my eggs presently. Ajo, kokkie, 
 kluar!'"' 
 
 "Ajo, kluar!" echoed the latta cook, "Alea, iijonja, 
 minta ampon, njonja, alia stida, njonja!"^ 
 
 "Come and sit down for a little," said Eva. 
 
 He went with her: 
 
 "You're so cheerful," he said. 
 
 "Aren't you?" 
 
 "No, I've been feeling sad, lately." 
 
 "I too. I told you so yesterday. It's something in 
 the LabuwangI air. There's no telling what this table- 
 turning has in store for us." 
 
 They sat down in the back-verandah. He sighed. 
 
 "What's the matter?" she asked. 
 
 "I can't help it," he said. "I care for you so. I 
 love you." 
 
 She was silent for an instant. 
 
 "Again?" she then said, reproachfully. 
 
 ^ "Throw down !" 
 
 * Malay fruits resembling litchis. 
 
 'Another fruit, also called mangosteens. 
 
 *"Out of this, cook, outside!" 
 
 ^ "Oh, ma'am, beg pardon, ma'am, oh, enough,enough, ma'am !"
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 87 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 "I told you, mine is not a passionate nature. I am 
 cold. I love my husband and my child. Let's be 
 friends, Van Helderen." 
 
 "I'm fighting against it ; but it's no use." 
 
 "I'm fond of Ida; I wouldn't make her unhappy for 
 the world." 
 
 "I don't believe I was ever fond of her." 
 
 "Van Helderen! . . ." 
 
 "If I was, it was only for her pretty face. But, white 
 though Ida may be, she's a nonna . . . with her 
 whimsies and her childish little tragedies. I didn't see 
 it so much at first, but I see it now, of course. I've 
 met women from Europe before I met you. But you 
 were a revelation to me, a revelation of all the chann 
 and artistic grace that a woman can possess. . . . 
 And the exotic side In you appeals to my own exotic 
 side." 
 
 "I value your friendship highly. Let things remain 
 as they are." 
 
 "Sometimes it's just as though I were mad, some- 
 times T dream . . . that we're travelling In Eu- 
 rope together, that we're in Italy or Paris. Some- 
 times I see us sitting together over a fire, in a room of 
 our own, you talking of art, I of the modern, social 
 developments of our time. But, after that, I see us 
 more intimately. . . ." 
 
 "Van Helderen! . . ." 
 
 "It's no longer any use your warning me. I love 
 you, Eva, Eva. . . ." 
 
 "I don't believe there's another country where there's 
 so much love going about as in India ! I suppose It's 
 the heat. . . ."
 
 88 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "Don't crush me with your sarcasm. No other 
 woman ever made such an appeal to my whole soul 
 and body as you do, Eva. . . ." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Don't be angry, Van Helderen, but I can't stand 
 those commonplaces. Let us be sensible. I have a 
 charming husband, you have a dear little wife. We're 
 all good, pleasant friends together." 
 
 "You're so cold!" 
 
 "I don't want to spoil the happiness of our friend- 
 ship." 
 
 "Friendship!" 
 
 "Friendship is what I said. There is nothing I value 
 so highly, except my domestic happiness, I couldn't 
 live without friends. I am happy in my husband and 
 my child ; next to these I need friends, above all things." 
 
 "So that they can admire you, so that you can rule 
 over them !" said he, angrily. 
 
 She looked him in the face : 
 
 "Perhaps," she said, coolly. "Perhaps I have a need 
 of admiration and of ruling over others. We all have 
 our weaknesses." 
 
 "I have mine," he said, bitterly. 
 
 "Come," she said, in a kinder tone, "let us remam 
 friends." 
 
 "I am terribly unhappy," he said, in a dull voice. "I 
 feel as if I had missed everything in life. I have never 
 been out of Java and I feel there's something lacking 
 in me because I have never seen ice and snow. Snow: 
 I think of it as a sort of mysterious, unknown purity, 
 which I long for, but which I never seem to meet. 
 When shall I see Europe ? When shall I cease to rave 
 about // Trovatore and manage to get to Bayreuth?
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 89 
 
 When shall I come within range of you, Eva? I'm 
 feeling for everything with my antennae, like a wing- 
 less insect. . . . What fi- my hfe! . . . With 
 Ida, with three children, whom I foresee growing 
 into the likeness of their mother ! I shall remain con- 
 troller for years and then — possibly — be promoted to 
 assistant-resident . . . and so remain. And then 
 at last I shall receive my dismissal — or ask for it — 
 and go to Sukatumi to live, to vegetate on a small pen- 
 sion, I feel everything in me longing for idleness. 
 • • • 
 
 "You like your work, for all that; you're a first-rate 
 official. Eldersma always says that in India a man 
 who doesn't work and who doesn't love his work is 
 lost." 
 
 "Your nature is not made for love and mine is not 
 made for work: not for that and nothing else. I can 
 work for an aim that I see before me, a beautiful aim; 
 but I can't work . . , just for work's sake and 
 to fill the emptiness in my life." 
 
 "Your aim is India. . . ." 
 
 "A fine phrase," he said. "It may be so for a man 
 like the resident, who has succeeded in his career and 
 who never has to sit studying the Colonial List and cal- 
 culating on the illness of the this man or the death of 
 that ... so that he may get promoted. It's all 
 right for a man like Van Oudijck, who, in his genuine, 
 idealistic honest)'', thinks that his aim is India, not be- 
 cause of Holland, but because of India herself, because 
 of the native whom he, the official, protects against the 
 tyranny of the landlords and planters. I am more 
 cynical by nature. , . ."
 
 90 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 *'But don't be so lukewarm about India. It's not 
 merely a fine phrase: I feel like that myself. India is 
 our whole greatness, the greatness of us Hollanders. 
 Listen to foreigners speaking of India: they are all 
 enchanted with her glory, with our methods of coloni- 
 zation. . . . Don't have anything to do with the 
 wretched Dutch spirit of our people at home, who know 
 nothing about India, who always have a sneering word 
 for India, who are so petty and stiff and bourgeois and 
 narrow-minded. . . ." 
 
 "I didn't know that you were so enthusiastic about 
 India. Only yesterday you were feeling anguished here 
 and I was standing up for my country. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, it gives me a sort of shudder, the mystery in the 
 evenings, where seems to threaten I don't know what. 
 I'm afraid of the future, some danger ahead of us ! , 
 I feel that I, personally, am still very remote 
 from India, though I don't want to be; that I miss the 
 art amid w^hich I was educated ; that I miss here, in our 
 human life, the plastic beauty which both my parents 
 always pointed out to me. . . . But I am not un- 
 just. And I think that India, as our colony, is great ; 
 I think that we, in our colony, are great. . . . " 
 
 "Formerly, perhaps. Nowadays, everything is going 
 v\^rong ; nowadays, we are no longer great. You have 
 an artistic nature ; you are always looking for artistic 
 perfection in India, though you seldom find it. And 
 then your mind is confronted with that greatness, that 
 glory. That's the poetry of it. The prose of it is a 
 gigantic but exhausted colony, still governed from Hol- 
 land with one idea; the pursuit of gain. The reality is 
 not an India under a great ruler, but an India under a 
 petty, mean-souled blood-sucker; the country sucked
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 91 
 
 dr}' ; and tlie real population — not the Hollander, who 
 spends his Indian money at the Hague, but tlie popula- 
 tion, the native population, attached to the native soil — 
 oppressed by tlie disdain of its overlord, who once im- 
 proved it with his own blood, and now threatening to 
 revolt against this oppression and disdain. 
 You, as an artist, feel the danger approaching, vaguely, 
 like a cloud in the sky, in the Indian night; I see the 
 danger as something very real, something rising — be- 
 fore Holland — if not from America and Japan, then 
 out of the soil of India herself, . . ." 
 
 She smiled: 
 
 "I like you when you talk like tliat," she said. "I 
 should end by falling in with your views." 
 
 "If I could achieve that by talking!" he laughed, bit- 
 terly, getting up. "My half hour is over: the resident 
 is expecting me and he doesn't like waiting a minute. 
 Goodbye . . . and forgive me." 
 
 "Tell me," she said, "am I a flirt?" 
 
 "No," he replied, "You are what you are. And I 
 can't help it: I love you. . . . I'm always stretch- 
 ing out my poor antennae. That is my fate, . . . " 
 
 "I shall help you to forget me," said she, with af- 
 fectionate conviction. 
 
 He gave a little laugh, bowed and went away. She 
 saw him cross the road to the grounds of the resident's 
 house, where an oppasscr met him. 
 
 "Really life, when all is said, is one long self-de- 
 ception, a wandering amid illusions," she thought, sadly, 
 drearily. "A great aim, an universal aim. . . or 
 even a modest aim for one's self, for one's o\vn body 
 and soul : O God, how little it all Is ! And how we roam 
 about, knowing nothing ! And each of us seeks his own
 
 92 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 little aim, his illusion. The only happy people are sim- 
 ply exceptions like Leonie van Oudijck, who lives no 
 more than a beautiful flower does, or a beautiful ani- 
 mal." 
 
 Her child came toddling up to her, a pretty, fair- 
 haired, plump little boy. 
 
 "Sonny," she thought, "how will it be with you? 
 What will be your portion ? Oh, perhaps nothing new ! 
 Perhaps a repetition of what has so often been before. 
 Life is a story which is always being repeated. . . . 
 Oh, when we feel like this, how oppressive India can be ! 
 • • • 
 
 She kissed her boy ; her tears trickled over his fair 
 curls. 
 
 "Van Oudijck has his residency; I my little circle of 
 . . . admirers and subjects ; Frans his love . . . 
 for me: we all have our playthings, just like my little 
 Onno playing with his little horse. How small we are, 
 how small! ... All our lives, we make believe, 
 pretending, imagining all sorts of things, thinking that 
 we are giving a path or a direction to our poor, aimless 
 little lives. Oh, why am I like this sonny? Sonny, 
 sonny, how will it be with you ?"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Patjaram sugar-factory was fourteen miles from 
 Labuwangi and twelve from Ngadjiwa and belonged to 
 the half-Indo/ half-Solo family of De Luce, a family 
 who had once been millionaires," but were no longer so 
 very well off, owing to the recent sugar-crisis, though 
 they still supported a numerous household. This fami- 
 ly, which always kept together — the old mother and 
 grandmother, a Solo princess ; the eldest son, the mana- 
 ger ; three married daughters and their husbands, clerks 
 in the factory, all living in its shadow; three younger 
 sons employed in the factory ; the many grandchildren, 
 playing round and about the factory ; the great-grand- 
 children springing up round and about the factory — this 
 family maintained the old Indian traditions which, at 
 one time universal, are now becoming rarer thanks to 
 the more frequent intercourse with Europeans, The 
 mother-grandmother was the daughter of a Solo prince, 
 and had married a young and enterprising bohemlan 
 adventurer, Ferdinand de Luce, a member of a French 
 titled family in Mauritius, who, after wandering about 
 for many years in search of his place in the sun, had 
 sailed to India as a ship's steward and, after all sorts of 
 vicissitudes, had found himself stranded in Solo, where 
 he had achieved fame through a dish prepared with to- 
 matoes and another consisting of stuffed lomboks.^ 
 Thanks to these recipes, Ferdinand de Luce won the 
 
 * Eurasian, including sinj'o and nonna. 
 
 * In guilders (twelve guilders are roughly equal to a sovereign). 
 
 * Chillies.
 
 94 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 favour of the Solo princess whose hand he afterward 
 obtained and even that of the old Susuhunan/ After 
 his marriage, he became a landowner and, according to 
 the Solo adat/ a vassal of the Susuhunan, whom he 
 supplied daily with rice and fruits for the household of 
 the dalem* Then he had launched out into sugar, 
 divining the millions which a lucky fate held in store 
 for him. He had died before the crisis, laden with 
 wealth and honours. 
 
 The old grandmother, in whom there was not a trace 
 left of the young princess whom Ferdinand de Luce had 
 wedded to promote his fortunes, was never approached 
 by the servants and the Javanese staff save with a cring- 
 ing reverence; and everybody gave her the title of 
 Raden-Aju Pangeran. She did not speak a word of 
 Dutch. Wrinkled like a shrivelled fruit, with her 
 clouded eyes and her withered, betel-stained mouth, 
 she was peacefully living her last years, always dressed 
 in a dark silk kabaai, the neck and the light sleeves of 
 which were fastened with precious stones. Before her 
 sun-bitten gaze there hovered the vision of her former 
 dalcm grandeur, which she had abandoned for love of 
 that French nobleman-cook who had pandered to her 
 father's taste with his dainty recipes ; in her ears buzzed 
 the constant murmur of the centrifugal separators, like 
 the screws of steamers, throughout the milling-season, 
 lasting for months on end ; around her were her chil- 
 dren, grandchildren and great-grandchildren: the sons 
 and daughters addressed as Raden and Raden-Adjeng 
 by the servants; all of them still surrounded by the pale 
 
 * Emperor or sultan. 
 ' Custom, usage. 
 « Palace.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 95 
 
 halo of tlieir Solo descent. The eldest daughter was 
 married to a full-blooded, fair-haired Dutchman; the 
 son who followed her to an Armenian girl; the two 
 others were married to Indos, both brown, and their 
 bro^vn children — who were also married and also had 
 children — mingled with the fair-haired family of the 
 eldest daughter ; and the pride of the whole family was 
 the youngest son and brother, Adrian, or Addie, who 
 made love to Doddie van Oudijck and who was con- 
 stantly at Labuwangi, the busy milling season notwith- 
 standing. 
 
 In this family, traditions were still maintained, now 
 quite obsolete, such as people remembered in the Indian 
 families of long ago. Here you still saw, in the 
 grounds, in the back verandah, the numberless babiis,^ 
 one rubbing bcdak into a fine powder, another preparing 
 dupa,' another pounding sambal,^ all with dreamy eyes, 
 all with slender, nimbly-moving fingers. Here the habit 
 still prevailed of an endless array of dishes at the rijst- 
 tafcl, with a long row of servants, one after the other, 
 solemnly handing round one more vegetable, one more 
 lodch,* one more dish of chicken, while, squatting be- 
 hind the ladies, the babiis pounded sambal in an earth- 
 enware mortar, according to the several tastes and re- 
 quirements of the sated palates. Here it was still the 
 custom, when the family attended the races at Ngad- 
 jiwa, for each of the ladies to appear followed by a 
 babu, moving slowly, lithely, solemnly ; one babii carry- 
 ing a bedak-pot, another a bonbonnicre filled with pep- 
 
 * Maid-servants. 
 ' Incense. 
 
 * Diverse condiments served with the rijsttafel. 
 
 * Sauces for vegetables.
 
 96 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 permints, or a pair of race-glasses, or a fan, or a scent- 
 bottle; the whole resembling a ceremonial procession 
 bearing the insignia of state. Here, too, you still 
 found the old-fashioned hospitality; the row of 
 spare-rooms open to any one who cared to knock: 
 here all could stay as long as they pleased: no one 
 was asked the object of his journey or the date of 
 departure. A great simplicity of mind, an all-embrac- 
 ing, spontaneous, innate cordiality provided together 
 with an unbounded weariness and tedium, a life of no 
 ideas and but few words, the ready, gentle smile making 
 good the lack of both; material life full and sated: a 
 life of cool drinks and kzvee-kwees'^ and rujak handed 
 round all day, three hahiis being specially appointed to 
 make rujak and kzuee-kzuces. Any number of animals 
 were scattered over the estate: there was a cage full of 
 monkeys ; a few lories ; dogs, cats, some tame squirrels 
 and a kantjil,' an exquisite little deer which ran about 
 loose. The house, built on to the factory, groaning dur- 
 ing the milling-season with the murmur of the 
 machinery — the noise like the screw of a steamer — 
 was spacious and furnished with the old, old-fashioned 
 furniture : the low wooden bedsteads with four carved 
 bedposts hung with curtains ; the heavy-legged tables ; 
 the rocking chairs with peculiarly round backs: all 
 things which are now no longer obtainable ; everything 
 without the slightest touch of modernity, except — and 
 only during the milling-season — the electric light in the 
 front-verandah ! The occupants were always in indoor 
 dress: the men In white or blue-and-white striped pyja- 
 mas; the ladies in sarong and kabaai, toying with a 
 
 ^ Native cakes, pastry. 
 
 ' A dwarf deer, the size of an average dog.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 97 
 
 monkey or lory or kantjil, in simplicity of mind, with 
 ever the same pleasant jest, drawling and drowsy, and 
 the same gentle little laugh. The passions, which were 
 certainly there, slumbered, in that gentle smile. Then, 
 when the milling-season was over, when all the bustle 
 was over, when the files of sugar-carts, drawn by the 
 superb sappis,^ with glossy brown hides, had brought 
 an ever-increasing store of canes over the ampas~-cov- 
 ered road, which was cut to pieces by the broad cart- 
 ruts, when the bibif had been bought for next year 
 and the machines were stopped : then came the sudden 
 relaxation after the incessant labour, the long, long 
 holiday, the many months' rest, the craving for fes- 
 tivity and enjoym.ent ; the big dinner given by the lady 
 of the house, followed by a ball and tahleaux-vivants ; 
 the whole house full of visitors, who stayed on and on, 
 known and unknown ; the old, wrinkled grandmamma, 
 the lady of the house, the Raden-Aju, Mrs. de Luce, 
 whatever you liked to call her, amiable with her dull 
 eyes and her siriJp-vcxoviih, amiable to one and all, with 
 always an anak-mas, a "golden child," a poor little 
 adopted princess, at her heels, carrying a gold betel- 
 box behind the great princess from Solo : a slender lit- 
 tle woman of eight years old, her front hair cut into a 
 fringe, her forehead whitened with moist bedak, her 
 already rounded little breasts confined in the little pink 
 silk kabaai, with the miniature gold sarong round the 
 slender hips; a doll, a toy for the Raden-Aju, for Mrs. 
 de Luce for the Dowager de Luce. And for the com- 
 pounds there were the popular rejoicings, a time- 
 
 ' Oxen. 
 ' Cane-fibre 
 • Seed.
 
 98 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 honoured lavishness, in which all Patjaram shared, ac- 
 cording to the secular tradition which was always ob- 
 served, despite any crisis or unrest. 
 
 The milling-season and the rejoicings were now over. 
 There was comparative peace indoors ; and a languor- 
 ous Indian calm had set in. But Mrs. van Oudijck, 
 Theo and Doddie had come over for the festivities and 
 were staying on a few days longer at Patjaram. A 
 great circle of people sat round the marble table 
 covered with glasses of syrup, lemonade and whisky- 
 and-soda; they did not speak much, but rocked lux- 
 uriously, exchanging an occasional word. Mrs. de 
 Luce and Mrs. van Oudijck spoke Malay, but did not 
 say much. A gentle, good-humoured boredom drifted 
 down on all those rocking people. It was strange to 
 see the different types: the pretty, milk-white Leonie 
 beside the yellow, wrinkled Raden-Aju Dowager; 
 Theo, pale and fair as a Dutchman, with his full, 
 sensual lips, which he inherited from his nonna 
 mother ; Doddie, already looking like a ripe rose, with 
 the sparkling irises and black pupils in her black eyes ; 
 the manager's son, Achille de Luce, brown, tall and 
 stout, whose thoughts ran only on his machinery and 
 his bibit; the second son, Roger, brown, short and 
 thin, the book-keeper whose thoughts ran only on the 
 year's profits, with his little Armenian wife; the eldest 
 daughter, old already, brown, stupidly ugly, with her 
 full-blooded Dutch husband, who looked like a peasant ; 
 the other sons and daughters, in every shade of brown 
 and not easily distinguished one from the other; 
 around them the children, the grandchildren, the little, 
 golden-skinned adopted children, the bahns, the lories 
 and the kantjil; and over all these people and children
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 99 
 
 and animals, as though shaken down upon them, lay 
 a good-hearted soHdarity; and over all these people 
 there also lay a common pride in their Solo ancestors, 
 crowning all their heads with a pale halo of Javanese 
 aristocracy; and the Armenian daughter-in-law and 
 the bucolic Dutch son-in-law were not least proud of 
 this descent. 
 
 The liveliest of all these elements, which were melt- 
 ing into one another, as it were, through long com- 
 munal life under the patriarchal roofs, was the young- 
 est son, Adrien de Luce, Addie, In whom the blood 
 of the Solo princess and that of the French adventurer 
 had blended harmoniously. The admixture, it is true, 
 had given him no brains, but it had given him the 
 physical beauty of a young sinjo, with something of 
 the Moor about it, something southern and seductive, 
 something Spanish, as though in this last child the two 
 alien racial elements had for the first time mingled 
 harmoniously, for the first time been wedded in abso- 
 lute mutual knowledge ; as though in him, this last child 
 after so many children, adventurer and princess had 
 for the first time met in harmony, Addie seemed 
 to possess not a jot of intellect or imagination ; he was 
 unable to unite two ideas into one composite thought ; 
 he merely felt, with the vague good-nature which had 
 descended upon the whole family. For the rest, he 
 was like a beautiful animal, degenerate in soul and 
 brain, but degenerate to nothing, to one great nothing, 
 to one great emptiness, while his body had become like 
 a renewal of race, full of strength and beauty, while 
 his marrow and his blood and his flesh and his muscles 
 had become one harmony of physical seductiveness, so 
 purely, stupidly, beautifully sensual that its harmony
 
 100 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 had for a woman an immediate appeal. The boy had 
 but to appear, hke a beautiful, southern god, for all the 
 women to look at him and take him into the depths of 
 their imagination, to recall him to their minds again 
 and again ; the boy had but to go to a race-ball at Ngad- 
 jiwa, for all the girls to fall in love with him. He 
 plucked love where he found It, in plenty, in the Pat- 
 jaram compounds. And everything feminine was in 
 love with him, from his mother to his little nieces. 
 Doddie van Oudijck was infatuated with him. From 
 a child of seven she had been in love, a hundred times 
 and more, with every one who passed before the glance 
 of her flashing pupils, but never yet as with Addie. 
 Her love shone so strongly from her whole being that 
 it was like a flame, that everybody saw it and smiled. 
 The milling-feast had been to her one long delight 
 . . . when she danced with him ; one long martyr- 
 dom . . . when he danced with others. He had 
 not asked her to marry him, but she thought of asking 
 him and was prepared to die if he refused. She knew 
 that the resident, her father, would object: he did not 
 like those De Luces, that Solo-French crew, as he called 
 them; but, if Addie was willing, her father would con- 
 sent, rather than see her die. To this child of love that 
 lovable boy was the world, the universe, life itself. He 
 made love to her, he kissed her on the lips, but this was 
 no more than he did to others, unthinkingly: he kissed 
 other girls as well. And, if he could, he went further, 
 like a devastating young god, an unthinking god. But 
 he still stood more or less in awe of the resident's 
 daughter. He possessed neither pluck nor effrontery, 
 his passions were not markedly selective, he looked on 
 a woman as a woman and was so much sated with con-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 101 
 
 quest that obstacles did not stimulate him. His garden 
 was full of flowers which all lifted themselves up to 
 him; he stretched out his hand, almost without looking ; 
 he merely plucked. 
 
 As they sat rocking about the table, they saw him 
 come through the garden ; and the eyes of all these 
 women turned to him as to a young tempter, arriving 
 in the sunshine, which touched him as with a halo. 
 The Raden-Aju Dowager smiled and gazed at him, 
 enamoured of her son, her favorite ; squatting on the 
 ground behind her, the little golden adopted child 
 stared with wdde-open eyes ; the sisters looked out, the 
 little nieces looked out and Doddie turned pale and 
 Leonie van Oudijck's milky whiteness became tinged 
 with a rosy shade which mingled with the glamour of 
 her smile. She glanced at Theo mechanically; their 
 eyes met. And these souls of sheer love, love of the 
 eyes, of the lips, love of the glowing flesh, understood 
 each other; and Theo's jealousy of Leonie burnt so 
 fiercely that the rosy shade died away and she became 
 pale and fearful, with a sudden, unreasoning fear 
 which shuddered through her usual indifference, while 
 the tempter, in his halo of sunshine, came nearer and 
 nearer. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Mrs. van Oudijck had promised to stay at Patjaram 
 a few days longer; and she disHked the prospect really, 
 not feeling quite at home in these old-fashioned Indian 
 surroundings. But when Addie appeared she thought 
 better of it. In the deepest secrecy of her heart this 
 woman worshipped her sensuality as in the temple of 
 her egoism; here the milk-white Creole offered up all 
 the most intimate dreams of her rosy imagination and 
 unquenchable longing ; and in this cult she had achieved 
 as it were an art, a knowledge, a science, that of de- 
 ciding, for herself, at a glance, what it was that at- 
 tracted her in the man who approached her, in the man 
 who passed by her. In one it was his bearing, his 
 voice; in another it was the set of his neck on his 
 shoulders ; in a third It was the way his hand rested on 
 his knee ; but, whatever it was, she saw It directly, at a 
 glance ; she knew it Immediately, in an instant ; she had 
 judged the passer-by In an indivisible second ; and she 
 at once knew whom she rejected — and they were the 
 majority — and whom she approved — and they were 
 many — alike. And those whom she rejected in that 
 indivisible moment of her supreme judgement, with 
 that single glance, In that single Instant, need cherish no 
 hope: she, the priestess, did not admit them to the 
 temple. To the others, the temple was open, but only 
 behind the curtain of her correctitude. However 
 shameless, she was always correct, her love was always 
 secret ; to the world, she was nothing but the charming, 
 smiling wife of the resident, a little Indolent In her
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 103 
 
 ways, but winning everybody with her smile. When 
 people did not see her, they spoke ill of her ; when they 
 saw her, she conquered them at once. Among all of 
 those with whom she shared the secret of her love there 
 reigned a certain freemasonry-, a mystery of worship ; 
 scarcely, when two of them met, would they whisper a 
 word or two, at a similar recollection. And Leonie 
 could sit smiling, milk-white, tranquil in the great circle 
 around a marble table, with at least two or three men 
 who knew the secret. It did not disturb her tranquillity 
 nor mar her smile. She smiled to the pitch of boredom. 
 Scarcely would her glance glide from one to the other, 
 while she judged them once again, with her infallible 
 knack of judgement. Scarcely would the memories of 
 past hours rise hazily within her, scarcely would she 
 think of the assignation for the following day. The 
 secret lay wholly in the mystery of the meeting and 
 indeed was never uttered before the profane world. If 
 a foot in the circle sought to touch her foot, she drew 
 hers away. She never flirted, she was even sometimes 
 a little tedious, stiff, correct, smiling. In the free- 
 masonry between herself and the initiated, she unveiled 
 the mystery ; but before the world, in the circles about 
 the marble tables, she vouchsafed not a glance, not a 
 pressure of the hand or knee. 
 
 She had been bored during these days at Patjaram, 
 for which she had accepted the invitation to the milling- 
 feast because she had refused it in past years; but now 
 that she saw Addie approaching she was bored no 
 longer. Of course she had known him for years ; and 
 she had seen him grow from a child into a boy, into a 
 man ; and she had even kissed him as a boy. She had 
 long ago judged him, the tempter. But now, as he
 
 104 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 came forward with his halo of sunshine, she judged 
 him once more ; his comely, slender sensuality and the 
 glow of his tempter's eyes in the shadowy brown of 
 his young Moorish face ; the curving lines of his lips 
 formed for kissing, with the young down of his mous- 
 tache ; the tigerish strength and litheness of which Don 
 Juan might have owned: it all dazzled her, made her 
 blink her eyes. While he greeted his mother's visitors 
 and sat down, a volley of wordy merriment ran round 
 that circle of languid conversation and drowsy thoughts 
 — as though he were casting a handful of his sunshine, 
 of the gold-dust of his temptation over them all, over 
 all those women, mother and sisters and nieces and 
 Doddie and Leonie — Leonie looked at him, as they all 
 looked at him, and her. eyes slipped down to his hands; 
 She could have kissed those hands of his, she suddenly 
 became smitten with the shape of the fingers, with the 
 brown, tigerish strength of the hands themselves: she 
 suddenly became smitten with all the wild young animal 
 vigour which breathed like a fragrance of manhood 
 from the whole of his boyish frame. She felt her 
 blood throbbing, almost uncontrollably, despite her 
 great art of remaining cool and correct in the circles 
 around the marble tables. She was no longer bored. 
 She had an object to fill the days that were coming. 
 Only . . . her blood throbbed so violently that 
 Theo had noticed her blush and the quivering of her 
 eyelids. Enamoured of her as he was, his eyes had 
 penetrated her soul. And, when they rose to go to 
 lunch In the back-verandah, where the hahiis had al- 
 ready squatted to crush everybody's different iilek^ 
 
 * Sambal made of Spanish pepper.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 105 
 
 with pestles and mortars, he whispered two words be- 
 tween his teeth: 
 
 "Take care!" 
 
 She started; she felt that he was threatening her. 
 This had never happened before: all who had shared 
 in the mystery had always respected her. She started 
 so violently, she was so indignant at this wrenching 
 away of the temple-curtain — in a verandah full of 
 people — that her tranquil indifference seethed with 
 anger and she was roused to rebellion in her ever-serene 
 self-mastery. But she looked at him and she saw him 
 broad and tall and fair, a young edition of her husband, 
 his Indian blood showing only in his sensual mouth ; 
 and she did not want to lose him ; she wanted to keep 
 his type beside the type of the Moorish tempter. She 
 wanted them both; she w^anted to taste the different 
 charm of their respective types, that white-skinned 
 Dutch type, so very slightly Indian, and Addie's wild, 
 animal type. Her soul quivered, her blood thrilled, 
 while the long array of dishes was solemnly handed 
 round. She was in such a revolt as she had never 
 experienced before. The awakening from her placid 
 indifference was like a rebirth, like an unknown emo- 
 tion. She was surprised to remember that she was 
 thirty and to feel this for the first time. A feverish 
 depravity blossomed up within her, as though bursting 
 into Intoxicating red flowers. She looked at Doddle, 
 sitting beside Addle: the poor child, glowing with love, 
 was hardly able to eat. . . . Oh, the tempter, who 
 had only to appear! . . . And Leonle, in that 
 fever of depravity, rejoiced at being the rival of a step- 
 daughter so many years younger than herself. She 
 w^ould look after her, she would even warn Van
 
 106 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 Oudijck. Would it ever come to a match ? What did 
 she care : what harm could marriage do to her, Leonie ? 
 Oh, the tempter ! Never had she dreamt of him thus, 
 the supreme lover, in her rosy hours of siesta! This 
 was no charm of little cherubs ; this was the stark radi- 
 ance of tigerish enchantment : the golden glitter of his 
 eyes, the sinewy litheness of his stealthy claw. . . . 
 And she smiled to Theo, with just one glance of self- 
 surrender, a very exceptional thing at the kmcheon- 
 table. As a rule, she never surrendered herself, in 
 public. Now she surrendered herself, for a moment, 
 pleased by his jealousy. She was madly fond of him 
 too. She thought it delightful, that he should look 
 pale and angry with jealousy. And round about her 
 the afternoon was one blaze of sunlight and the sambal 
 stung her dry palate. Faint beads of perspiration 
 stood on her forehead and trickled down her bosom 
 under the lace of her kabaai. And she would have 
 liked to clasp them both, Theo and Addie, in one 
 embrace . . . pressing them both to her amorous 
 body. . ,
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The night was like a veil of softest velvet dropping 
 slowly from the heavens. The moon, in its first quar- 
 ter, displayed a ver}'^ narrow, horizontal sickle, like a 
 Turkish crescent, between whose points the unlit por- 
 tion of the disk was faintly washed in against the sky. 
 A long avenue of tjemara-trees stretched in front of 
 the house, their trunks straight, their leafage like drawn 
 plush or ravelled velvet, showing like blots of cotton- 
 wool against the clouds, which, drifting low, announced 
 the approaching rainy monsoon fully a month before- 
 hand. Wood-pigeons cooed at inter\^als and a tokkd 
 was calling, first with two rattling, preliminar}^ notes, 
 as though tuning up, then with his call of "Tokke! 
 Tokke!" four or five times repeated ; first loudly, then 
 submissively and more faintly. 
 
 A gardoe^ in his hut in front of the house on the 
 high-road, where the sleeping passer now showed its 
 empty stalls, struck eleven wooden blows on his tong- 
 tong,^ and, when a last, belated cart drove past, he 
 cried, in a hoarse voice: 
 
 "Werr-dar* 
 
 The night was like softest velvet dropping slowly 
 from the heavens, like a whirling mystery, like an op- 
 pressive menace of the future. But, in that mystery, 
 under the frayed black dots, the ravelled plush of the 
 
 * Night-watchman, 
 ' Market. 
 
 * Hollow block of wood. 
 
 * "Who goes there?"
 
 108 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 tjemaras, there was an inexorable incitement to live, in 
 the windless night, like a whisper that this hour should 
 not be wasted. True, the tokke was gibing like a mock- 
 ing imp, with a certain dry humour; and the gardoe, 
 with his "Werda!" startled the hearer ; but the wood- 
 pigeons cooed softly and the whole night was like a 
 world of softest velvet, like a great alcove curtained by 
 the plush of the tjemaras, while the distant, sultry rain- 
 clouds, hanging all that month on the horizon, ringed 
 the skies with an oppressive spell. Mystery and en- 
 chantment hovered through the velvety night, drifting 
 down in the twilit alcove ; and at their touch all thought 
 was dissolved, the very soul dissolved, leaving only a 
 warm, sensuous vision. . . . 
 
 The tokke fell silent, the gardoe dropped asleep; the 
 velvety night reigned like an enchantress crowned with 
 the sickle of the moon. They came walking slowly, 
 two youthful figures, their arms about each other's 
 waists, lips seeking lips under the tyranny of the en- 
 chantment. They were as shadows under the drawn 
 velvet of the tjemaras ; and softly. In their white gar- 
 ments, they dawned on the beholder like the eternal 
 pair of lovers who are forever and everywhere repeat- 
 ing themselves. And here above all the lovers were 
 inevitable in the enchanted night, one with the night, 
 conjured up by the all-powerful enchantress ; here they 
 were inevitable, unfolding like a twin flower of pre- 
 destined love. In the velvet mystery of the compelling 
 heavens. 
 
 And the tempter seemed to be the son of that night, 
 the son of that Inexorable queen of the night, bearing 
 with him the tender girl. In her ears the night seemed 
 to sing with his voice ; and her small soul melted within
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 109 
 
 her tender weakness, under the magic powers. She 
 walked on against his side, feeUng the warmth of his 
 body penetrate her yearning maidenhood; and she 
 lifted her brimming gaze to him, with the languid light 
 of her sparkling pupils glittering like a diamond in her 
 irises. He, drunk with the power of the night, the 
 enchantress, who was as his mother, thought first of 
 leading her still farther, no longer thinking of reality, 
 no longer feeling any awe of her or of any one what- 
 ever; thought of leading her still farther, past the 
 slumbering gardoe, across the high road, into the com- 
 pound, which lay hidden yonder between the stately 
 plumes of the coco-palms that would form a canopy to 
 their love; of leading her to a hiding-place, a house 
 which he knew, a bamboo hut the door of which would 
 be opened to him . . . w^ien suddenly she stopped 
 . . . and started . . . and gripped his arm 
 and pressed herself still more tightly against him and 
 implored him to go no farther. She was frightened. 
 
 "Why not ?" he asked, gently, in his soft voice, which 
 was as deep and velvety as the night. "Why not to- 
 night, to-night at last? . . . There is no danger." 
 
 But she shuddered and shook and entreated : 
 
 "Addie, Addie, no ... no ... I daren't 
 go any farther. . . . I'm frightened that the gar- 
 doe will see us . . . and then . . . there's a 
 hadji walking over there ... in a white turban. 
 . • . 
 
 He looked out at the road: on the other side, the 
 compound lay waiting, under the canopy of the coco- 
 palms, with the bamboo hut whose door would be 
 opened to him. 
 
 "A hadji? . . . Where, Doddie? I don't see 
 any one. . ."
 
 110 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "He crossed the road ; he looked back at us ; he saw 
 us: I saw his eyes gleaming; and he went into the 
 compound, behind those trees." 
 
 "Darling, I saw nothing, there's no one there." 
 
 "Yes, there is ! Yes, there is ! Addie, I daren't go : 
 oh, do let us go back !" 
 
 His handsome Moorish face became overcast; he 
 already saw the door of the little hut opened by the old 
 woman whom he knew, who worshipped him as every 
 woman worshipped him, from his mother to his little 
 nieces. 
 
 And he again tried to persuade her, but she refused, 
 stood still, clinging to the ground with her little feet. 
 Then they turned back and the clouds were sultrier, low 
 on the horizon, and the velvety darkness fell more 
 thickly, like warm snow, and the ravelled tjemaras were 
 fuller and blacker than before. The house loomed up 
 before them, sunk In sleep, with not a light showing. 
 And he entreated her, he implored her not to leave him 
 that night, saying that he would die, that night, without 
 her. . . . Already she was yielding, promising, 
 with her arms around his neck . . . when again 
 she started and again cried: 
 
 "Addie! Addie! . . . There he is again! 
 . . . That white figure ! . . ." 
 
 "You appear to see hadjis everywhere!" he said, 
 banteringly. 
 
 "Look for yourself then . . . over there!" 
 
 He looked and now really saw a white figure ap- 
 proaching them in the front-verandah. But it was a 
 woman. 
 
 "Mamma!" cried Doddie, in dismay.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 111 
 
 It was indeed Leonie, slowly coming towards them: 
 **Doddie," she said, gently, "I have been hmiting for 
 you everywhere. I was so frightened, I didn't know 
 where you were. Why do you go out walking so late ? 
 Addie," she continued, gently, in kind, motherly tones, 
 as though addressing two children, "how can you 
 behave like tliis and be out with Doddie so late? You 
 really mustn't do it again: I mean it! I know that 
 there's nothing in it; but suppose any one saw you! 
 You must promise me never to do it again! You'll 
 promise, won't you ?" 
 
 She begged this prettily, in tones of engaging re- 
 proach, as though to show that she quite understood 
 him, quite realized that they were yearning for each 
 other in that velvet night of enchantment, forgiving 
 them at once in the words which she uttered. She 
 looked like an angel, with her round, white face in the 
 loose, waving, fair hair, in the white silk kimono w^hich 
 hung round her in supple folds. And she drew Doddie 
 to her and kissed the girl and wiped away Doddie's 
 tears. And then, gently, she pushed Doddie away, to 
 her room in the annexe, where she slept safely between 
 so many other rooms full of the daughters and grand- 
 children of old Mrs. de Luce. And, while Doddie, 
 softly crying, went to the loneliness of that room, 
 Leonie continued to speak words of gentle reproach to 
 Addie, warning him, prettily now, as a sister might do, 
 while he, brown and liandsome, with his Moorish look, 
 stood before in bantering confusion. They were in the 
 dusk of the dark front-verandah ; and the night outside 
 exhaled its inexorable breath of luxuriance, love and 
 velvety mystery. And she reproached him and W'arned 
 him and said that Doddie was a child and that he musn't
 
 112 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 take advantage of her. He shrugged his shoulders, 
 defended himself, with his bantering manner. His 
 words fell upon her like gold-dust, while his eyes glit- 
 tered like a tiger's. As she argued persuasively that he 
 must really spare Doddie in the future, she seized his 
 hand, that hand of which she was enamoured, his 
 fingers, his palm; which she could have kissed that 
 morning in her confusion; and she pressed it and al- 
 most cried and implored him to have mercy on Doddie. 
 . . He suddenly realized it, he looked at her sud- 
 denly with the lightening of his wild-animal glance and 
 he thought her beautiful, thought her a woman, white 
 as milk, and he knew her for a priestess full of secret 
 knowledge. And he too spoke of Doddie, coming 
 closer to Leonie, touching her, pressing her hands be- 
 tween his two hands, giving her to understand that he 
 understood. And, still pretending to weep and entreat 
 and implore, she led him on and opened the door of her 
 room. He saw a faint light and her maid Oorip, who 
 disappeared through the outer door and lay down to 
 sleep there, like a faithful dog, on a little mat. Then 
 she gave him a laugh of welcome ; and he, the tempter, 
 was amazed at the glowing laugh and this white, fair- 
 haired temptress, who flung off her silken kimono and 
 stood before him, like a nude statue, spreading out her 
 arms. 
 
 Oorip, outside, listened for a moment. And she was 
 about to lie down to sleep, smiling, dreaming of the 
 lovely sarongs which the karndjeng would give her to- 
 morrow, when she started as she saw walking over the 
 grounds and disappearing in the night a hadji in a 
 white turban. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 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 re- 
 tainer, holding up the closed gold-and-white pajong 
 like a furled sun, made himself still smaller and shrank 
 together in self-annihilation. And the old woman, the 
 Solo princess, who saw the dalem shining before her 
 eyes again, went to him and welcomed the regent in 
 all the courtesy of palace Javanese, the language spoken 
 among princely equals, till the regent rose, and, follow- 
 ing her, approached the family circle. And the manner 
 in which he then for the iirst time bowed to the wife 
 of his resident, however polite, was almost condescend- 
 ing, compared with his obsequiousness of a moment 
 ago. . . . He now sat down between Mrs. de 
 Luce and Mrs. van Oudijck and a drawling conversa- 
 tion began. The Regent of Ngadjiwa was a different 
 type from his brother Sunario, taller, coarser, without 
 the other's look of a Tt'a^a/z^-puppet ; though younger, 
 he looked the older of the two, with his eyes seamed
 
 114 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 with passion: the passion' for women, for 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. von Oudijck did 
 not dare to talk Javanese, that refined, difficult lan- 
 guage, full of shades of etiquette, on which hardly a 
 single Hollander ventures Avhen 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, not even in Mrs. van 
 Oudijck's presence, and laughed shyly while drinks and 
 cake were being handed round ; until, notwithstanding 
 their courtesy, they rapidly consulted one another, over 
 Leonie'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 thev all looked at her, the wife of the 
 resident, the wife of the high official who, they knew, 
 hated the gambling which was their ruin, 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 
 slaves of theirs, in the luxury of their enslavement. She 
 just smiled and readily permitted the players to with-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 115 
 
 draw to the wide, square inner gallery, the ladies, eager- 
 ly counting the money in their handkerchiefs, alternat- 
 ing with the men, until they sat down 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 hand- 
 kerchiefs containing the money, with not a word, not 
 a sound but the faint rustle of the cards in the twilight 
 of the inner room. Were they playing slikiir or stoot- 
 ercnf^ Leonie did not know, did not care, indifferent 
 to that passion and glad that Addie had remained be- 
 side 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 luxuri- 
 ous cravings? She had no ambition, 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 silently, in her rosy, perverse day- 
 dreams, with a novel by Catulle Mendes in her hands, 
 laughed at that exaggeration of the people 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 
 
 *The first is a native, the second a Dutch card-game.
 
 116 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 be her own priestess. What did she care if they played 
 cards in there, if the Regent of Ngadjiwa ruined him- 
 self completely! On the contrary, she thought it inter- 
 esting to watch that downfall 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 liquid hedak, the won- 
 derful cream, the magic salve of which Oorip knew 
 the secret and which kept her flesh firm and unwrinkled 
 and white as a mangistan. 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 the stupid 
 staring at cards, gambling, calculating chances which 
 defied calculation, superstitiously calculating, reckoning 
 by the science of the petangans^ 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 furitive 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 Pangeran, felt grieved at his children's visible de- 
 cline ? 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 
 
 * Sacred prognostications- of fortune.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 117 
 
 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 yearn- 
 ing last? Hadn't she better warn Van Oudijck, like a 
 kind, sohcitous mother? . . . Her thoughts wan- 
 dered languidly ; it was a sultry morning, in those last, 
 scorching days of the eastern monsoon, which covers 
 the lim.bs with trickling moisture. Then her body 
 quivered. And, leaving Doddie with Addie, she car- 
 ried 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 
 habus were squatting in the back verandah, rubbing 
 each one's sanihal. But the people around the card- 
 table seemed to hear nothing. Only the whispering 
 voices became louder and shriller; and both Leonie 
 and Theo, both Addie and Doddie sat up and listened. 
 A dispute seemed suddenly to burst forth 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 Airs, 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 joined in the soothing, with 
 high voices, with stifled voices, in whispers, with little
 
 118 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 exclamations, with little cries of apolog>' and indigna- 
 tion. The servants, innumerable, were listening in 
 every corner of the house. Then the dispute abated, 
 but long, explanatory arguments still continued be- 
 tween the regent and Roger ; the women tried to hush 
 them down — "Ssh ! . . . Ssh !" — embarrassed be- 
 cause of the resident's wife, looking out to see where 
 she might be. And at last all was quiet and they sat 
 down silently, 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, summon- 
 ing 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.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Yes, Theo knew. He had spoken to Oorip after 
 lunch ; and although the maid had at first tried to deny 
 everything, afraid of losing the sarongs, she had been 
 unable to continue lying and had contented herself with 
 feeble little protests of no . . .no. , . . And, 
 still early that same afternoon, raging with jealousy he 
 sought out Addie. But Theo was calmed by the indif- 
 ferent composure of the good-looking youth, with his 
 Moorish face, already so fully sated with his conquests 
 that he himself never felt any jealousy. Theo was 
 calmed by the complete absence of thought in this 
 tempter, with his instant forgetfulness after an hour 
 of love, a forgetfulness so harmonious that he looked 
 up with eyes of ingenuous surprise when Theo, red and 
 boiling with fury, burst into his room and, standing 
 before his bed — where he was lying quite naked, as 
 was his habit during his siesta, with the magnificence 
 of a bronze statute, sublime as an ancient sculpture — 
 declared that he would strike him across the face. And 
 Addie's surprise was so artless, his indifference so 
 harmonious, he seemed to have so utterly forgotten 
 his hour of love of the night before, he laughed so 
 serenely at the idea of fighting about a woman that 
 Theo quieted down and came and sat on the edge of 
 his bed. And then Addie, who was a couple of years 
 younger but possessed incomparable experience, told 
 him that he really mustn't do this again, get so angry 
 about a woman, a mistress who gave herself to another. 
 And Addie patted him on the shoulder with almost
 
 120 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 fatherly compassion; and now, since they understood 
 each other, they went on confidentially chatting and 
 pumped each other. 
 
 They exchanged further confidences, about women, 
 about girls. Theo asked if Addie was going to marry 
 Doddie. But Addie said that he wasn't thinking of 
 marrying and that the resident wouldn't be willing 
 either, because he didn't care for Addie's family and 
 thought them too Indian. Then in a single word he let 
 slip his pride in his Solo descent and his pride in the 
 halo which shone dimly behind the heads of all the 
 De Luces. And Addie asked if Theo knew that he had 
 a young brother running wild in the compound. Theo 
 knew nothing about it. But Addie assured him that it 
 was so: a young son of papa's, mark you, from the 
 time when the old man was still controller at Ngad- 
 jiwa; a fellow of their own age, quite sinjo-fitd: the 
 mother was dead. Perhaps the old man himself didn't 
 know that he still had a child in the compound, but it 
 was true, everybody knew it: the regent knew, the 
 patih^ knew, the zvedono" knew and the meanest coolie 
 l<new. There was no actual proof: but a thing like 
 that, which was known the whole world over, was as 
 true as that the world itself existed. . . What did 
 the fellow do? Nothing, except curse and swear, de- 
 claring that he was a son of the Kandjeng Tuan Resi- 
 den who allowed him to rot in the compound. . . . 
 What did he live on ? On nothing, on what he got by 
 shameless begging, on what people gave him and then 
 . . . by all sorts of practices: by going round the 
 districts, through all the dessas, and asking if there 
 
 * Native councillor to the regent 
 
 * Head of a district
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 121 
 
 were any complaints and then drawing up little peti- 
 tions; by encouraging people to go to Mecca and let 
 him book their passages with very cheap little steamship 
 companies of which he was the unofficial agent: he 
 would go to the farthest dcssa and display coloured 
 posters representing a steamer full of Mecca pilgrims 
 and the Kaaba} and the Sacred Tomb of Mohammed. 
 He would mess around like this, sometimes mixed up 
 in rows, once in a kctjii,- sometimes dressed msi sarong, 
 sometimes in an old striped calico suit; and he slept 
 anywhere. And, when Theo showed surprise and said 
 that he had never heard of this half-brother of his and 
 expressed curiosity, Addie suggested that they should 
 go and look him up, if he was to be found in the com- 
 pound. And Addie gaily and quickly took his bath 
 and put on a clean white suit ; and they went across the 
 road and along the rice-fields into the compound. 
 
 It was already dusk under the heavy trees: the 
 bananas lifted the cool green paddles of their leaves; 
 and, under the state canopy of the coco-palms the little 
 bamboo houses hid, poetically oriental, idyllic with their 
 atap^ roofs, their doors often already closed, or, if 
 open, framing the little black inward vista, with the 
 vague outline of a halch-balch* on which squatted a 
 dark figure. The hairless, mangy dogs barked ; the 
 children, naked, with bells dangling from their stom- 
 
 * The building at Mecca containing the famous black stone said 
 to have come from Paradise whiter than milk and to have been 
 changed to black by the sins of the children of Adam who have 
 touched it. All Moslems turn in the direction of the Kaaba 
 when praying. 
 
 * Robbery. 
 
 " Palm-leaf. 
 
 * Bench or couch.
 
 122 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 achs, ran indoors and stared out of the houses; the 
 women kept quiet, recognizing the tempter and vaguely- 
 laughing, blinking their eyes as he passed in his glory. 
 And Addie pointed to the little house where his old 
 babu lived, Tidjem, the woman who helped him, who 
 always opened her door to him when he wanted the 
 use of her hut, who worshipped him as his mother and 
 his sisters and his little nieces worshipped him. He 
 showed Theo the house and thought of his walk last 
 night with Doddie under the tjemaras. Tidjem the 
 babu saw him and ran up to him delightedly. She 
 squatted down beside him, she pressed his leg against 
 her withered breast, she rubbed her forehead against 
 his knee, she kissed his white shoe, she gazed at him in 
 rapture, her beautiful prince, her Raden, whom she 
 had rocked as a little chubby boy in her already in- 
 fatuated arms. He tapped her on the shoulder and 
 gave her a rijksdaalder and asked her if she knew 
 where Si-Oudijck^ was, because his brother wished to 
 see him. 
 
 Tidjem stood up and beckoned to him to follow: it 
 was some way to walk. And they stepped out of the 
 compound into an open road with rails on it, by which 
 the krandjangs" of sugar were removed to the proas 
 which lay moored at a landing-stage yonder, in the 
 Brantas. The sun was going down in a fan-shaped 
 glory of orange sheaves; and the distant rows of trees 
 that outlined the bibit-fields were washed in with dark, 
 soft, velvety touches against their arrogant glow. 
 These fields were not yet planted, but their dark, earth- 
 coloured expanse lay as broken by the plough. From 
 
 ^Si is a slightly depreciatory prefix. 
 ' Bamboo baskets.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 123 
 
 the factory came a few men and women, making their 
 way home. Beside the river, by the landing-stage, a 
 small passer of portable kitchens had been set up under 
 a sacred, five-fold waringin-tree, with its five trunks 
 merging into one another and its wide-spreading roots. 
 Tidjem called the ferry-man and he put them across, 
 across the orange Brantas, in the last yellow rays of 
 the sun outspread fanwise like a peacock's tail. When 
 they were on the other side, the night fell over every- 
 thing, like the hasty fall of a gauze curtain ; and the 
 clouds, which all through November had threatened 
 the low horizons, hung oppressively on the sultry air. 
 And they entered another compound, lit here and there 
 by a paraffin-light, set down on the ground, in a long 
 lamp-glass, without a globe. At last they came to a 
 little house, built partly of bamboo, partly of old 
 packing-cases and roofed partly with tiles, partly with 
 atap. Tidjem pointed to it and, once more squatting 
 on the ground and embracing and kissing Addie's knee, 
 asked permission to depart. Addie knocked at the 
 door: a grumbling and rumbling within was the only 
 answer; but, when Addie called out, the door was 
 kicked open and the two young men stepped into the 
 one room of which the hut consisted: half bamboo, 
 half deal boards from packing-cases; a haleh-haleh with 
 a couple of dirty pillows in a corner, with a limp chintz 
 curtain dangling in front of it; a crazy table with a 
 chair or two ; on the table, a paraffin-lamp, without a 
 globe; and a litter of oddments stacked on a packing- 
 case in a comer. Everything was permeated with an 
 acrid odour of opium. 
 
 And Si-Oudijck was sitting at the table with an 
 Arab, while a Javanese woman squatted on the balch-
 
 124 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 haleh, preparing herself a sirih-\e3.i. A few sheets of 
 paper lay on the table between the Arab and the s-injo. 
 The last-named, evidently annoyed by the unexpected 
 visit, hurriedly crumpled the papers together. But he 
 recovered his composure and, assuming a jovial air, 
 cried: 
 
 ''Hullo, Adipati ! Susuhunan ! Sultan of Patjaram ! 
 Sugar-lord ! How are you, my god of beauty, the ruin 
 of all good women ?" 
 
 His jovial torrent of greetings continued without 
 ceasing while he scrambled the papers together and 
 made a sign to the Arab, who disappeared through the 
 other door, at the back. 
 
 "And who's that with you, Raden Mas Adrianus, 
 my bonnie Lucius ?" 
 
 "It's your young brother," said Addie. 
 
 Si-Oudijck looked up suddenly: 
 
 "Oh, Is it really?" said he, speaking broken Dutch, 
 Javanese and Malay in the same breath. "I can see it 
 is: my legitimate one. And what does the fellow 
 want?" 
 
 "He's come to see what you're like." 
 
 The two brothers looked at each other: Theo In- 
 quisitively glad to have made this discovery as a 
 weapon against the old man, If the weapon ever became 
 necessary; the other, Sl-Oudijck, secretly restraining, 
 behind his brown, crafty, leering face, all his jealousy, 
 all his bitterness and hatred. 
 
 "Is this where you live ?" asked Theo, for the sake of 
 saying something. 
 
 "No, I'm just staying with her for the time being," 
 replied Si-Oudijck, with a jerk of his head towards 
 the woman.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 125 
 
 "Has your mother been dead long?" 
 
 "Yes. Yours is still alive, isn't she? She lives in 
 Batavia. I know her. Do you ever see her?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "H'm. . . . Prefer your step-mother?" 
 
 "Pretty M^ell," said Theo, drily. And, changing the 
 subject, "I don't believe the old man knows that you 
 exist." 
 
 "Yes, he does." 
 
 "I doubt it. Have you ever spoken to him?" 
 
 "Yes, formerly. Years ago." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "No use. He says I'm not his son." 
 
 "It must be difficult to prove." 
 
 "Legally, yes. But it's a fact and everybody knows 
 it. It's known all over Ngadjiwa." 
 
 "Have you no sort of evidence?" 
 
 "Only the oath which my mother took when she was 
 dying, before witnesses." 
 
 "Come, tell me things," said Theo. "Walk a bit of 
 the way with us: it's stuffy in here." 
 
 They left the hut and sauntered back through the 
 compounds, while Si-Oudijck told his story. They 
 strolled along the Brantas, which wound vaguely In 
 the evening dusk under a sky powdered with stars. 
 
 It did Theo good to hear about all this, about that 
 housekeeper of his father's, in the days of his con- 
 trollership, rejected for an infidelity of w^hich she was 
 guiltless; the child born later and never recognized, 
 never maintained ; the boy wandering from compound 
 to compound romantically proud of his inhuman father, 
 w^hom he watched from a distance, following him with 
 his furtive glance when the father became assistant-
 
 126 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 resident and resident, married, divorced his wife and 
 married again; by slow degrees learning to read and 
 write from a magang'^ of his acquaintance. It did the 
 legitimate son good to hear about all this, because in 
 his innermost self, fair-haired and fair-skinned though 
 he might be, he was more the son of his mother, the 
 nonna, than of his father; because in his innermost 
 self he hated his father, not for this or that reason, but 
 from a secret antipathy in his blood, because, despite 
 the appearance and behaviour of a fair-haired and fair- 
 skinned European, he felt a secret kinship for this 
 illegitimate brother, felt a vague sympathy for him. 
 Were they not both sons of the self -same motherland, 
 for which their father felt nothing except as a result 
 of his acquired development, the artificially, humanely 
 cultivated love of the ruler for the territory which he 
 governs. From his childhood Theo had felt like that, 
 far removed from his father ; and later that antipathy 
 had grown into a slumbering hatred. It gave him 
 pleasure to hear demolished that impeccability of his 
 father, a magnanimous man, a functionary of the high- 
 est integrity, who loved his domestic circle, who loved 
 his residency, who loved the Javanese, who was anxious 
 to uphold the regent's family, not only because his 
 official instructions prescribed that the Javanese no- 
 bility should be respected, but because his own heart 
 told him as much, when he thought of the noble old 
 Pangeran. . . . Theo knew that his father was 
 all this, blameless, high-minded, upright, magnani- 
 mous ; and it did him good, here, in the mysterious eve- 
 ning beside the Brantas, to hear that blamelessness, 
 that high-minded, iipright magnanimity torn to rib- 
 
 ^ Native writer.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 127 
 
 bons; it did him good to meet an outcast who in one 
 moment spattered that high-throned paternal figure 
 with mud, dragging him from his pedestal, making him 
 appear no higher than another, sinful, wicked, heart- 
 less, ungenerous. It filled him with a wicked joy, even 
 as he was filled with a wicked joy at possessing his 
 father's wife, whom his father adored. What to do 
 with this dark secret he did not yet know, but he 
 clutched at it as a weapon ; he w^as whetting it there, 
 that very evening, while he listened to the end to what 
 this furtive-eyed half-caste, ranting and working him- 
 self up, had to say. And Theo hid his secret, hid his 
 weapon deep down within himself. 
 
 Grievances rose in his mind; and he too now, the 
 legitimate son, abused his father, declared that the resi- 
 dent did no more to help him, his own lawful son, to 
 get on than he would do for any of his clerks; told 
 him how he had once recommended him to the manager 
 of an impossible undertaking, a rice-plantation, where 
 he had been unable to stay longer than a single month ; 
 how afterwards he had left him to his fate, thwarting 
 him w^hen he went hunting after concessions, even in 
 other residencies, even in Borneo, until he was now 
 obliged to remain hanging about and sponging at home, 
 unable to find a job, thanks to his father, and merely 
 tolerated in that house where he disliked everything. 
 
 "Except your stepmother !" Si-Oudijck interpolated, 
 drily. 
 
 But Theo went on, growing confidential in his turn 
 and telling his brother that it would be no great advan- 
 tage for him even if he were acknowledged and legiti- 
 matized. And in this way they both became excited, 
 glad to have met each other, to have grown intimate
 
 128 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 in this brief hour. And beside them walked Addie, 
 surprised at that quick mutual attraction, but otherwise 
 devoid of thought. They had crossed a bridge and by 
 a circuitous route had come out behind the Patjaram 
 factory-buildings. Here Si-Oudijck said good-night, 
 shaking hands with Theo, who slipped a couple of 
 rijksdaalders into his palm. They were accepted greed- 
 ily, with a flicker of the furtive glance but not a word 
 of thanks. And Addie and Theo went past the factory, 
 now silent, to the house. The family were strolling, 
 outside, in the garden and in the tjemara-avenue. And, 
 as the two young men approached, the golden, eight- 
 year-old child came running towards them, the old 
 grandmother's little foster-princess, with her fringe of 
 hair and her whitened forehead, in her rich little, doll- 
 like dress. She came running up to them and sud- 
 denly stopped in front of Addie and looked up at him. 
 Addie asked her what she wanted, but the child did 
 not answer and only looked up at him and then, putting 
 out her little hand, stroked his hand with it. It was 
 all so clearly the result of an irresistible magnetism in 
 the shy child, this nmning up, stopping, looking up 
 and stroking, that Addie laughed aloud and stooped 
 and kissed her lightly. The child skipped back con- 
 tentedly. And Theo, still excited by his evening, first 
 by his conversation with Oorip and then by his explana- 
 tion with Addle, his meeting with his half-brother, his 
 own confidences about his father, was so greatly Irri- 
 tated by this trivial behaviour of Addie and the child, 
 that he exclaimed, almost angrily: 
 
 "Oh, you . . . you'll never be anything but a 
 woman's man !"...,
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Things had gone well with Van Oudijck upon the 
 whole. Bom of a simple Dutch family, with no money, 
 he had found his youth a hard but never cruel school 
 of precocious earnestness, of early strenuous work, of 
 immediate looking forward to the future, to a career, 
 to the honourable position which he hoped to fill with 
 the least possible delay among his fellow-men. His 
 years of oriental study at Delft had been just gay 
 enough to enable him later to believe that he had once 
 been young; and, because he had taken part in a mas- 
 querade, he even thought that he had spent quite a 
 dissolute life, with much squandering of money and 
 riotous living. His character was built up of much 
 quiet Dutch respectability and an earnest outlook upon 
 life, generally rather gloomy and wearying, though in- 
 telligent and practical : he was accustomed to visualize 
 his honourable position among his fellow-men ; and his 
 ambition had developed rhythmically and steadily into 
 a temperate thirst for position, but only on the lines 
 along which his eyes were always wont to gaze: the 
 hierarchical lines of the Indian Civil Service. Things 
 had always gone well with him. Displaying great ca- 
 pacity, he had been greatly valued ; he had become an 
 assistant-resident earlier than most and a resident while 
 still young; and, his ambition was now really satisfied 
 because his authoritative office was in complete har- 
 mony with his nature, whose love of rule had prog- 
 ressed with its ambition. He was now really satisfied ; 
 and, though his eyes looked still much farther ahead
 
 130 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 and saw glimmering before them a seat on the Indian 
 Council and even the throne at Buitenzorg, he had days 
 when, serious and contented, he declared that to become 
 a resident of the first class — putting aside the higher 
 pension — ^had little in its favour except at Samarang 
 and Surabaya, but that the Vorstenlanden were abso- 
 lutely a burden and Batavia occupied such a peculiar 
 and almost derogatory position, in the thick of so many 
 higher officials, members of Council and directors. 
 And, though his eyes thus looked farther ahead, his 
 practical and temperate nature would have been quite 
 satisfied if any one could have prophesied to him that 
 he would die as Resident of Labuwangi. He loved his 
 district and loved India ; he never yearned for Holland, 
 nor for the pageant of European civilization, even 
 though he himself had remained very Dutch and above 
 all hated anything that was half-caste. This was the 
 inconsistency in his character, for he had married his 
 first wife, a norma, purely out of affection; and, as for 
 his children, in whom the Indian blood was eloquent — 
 outwardly in Doddie, inwardly in Theo, while Rene 
 and Ricus were two thorough little sinjos — ^he loved 
 them with an intense feeling of paternity, with all the 
 tenderness and sentiment that slumbered In the depths 
 of his nature: a need to give much and receive much 
 in the circle of his domestic life. Gradually this need 
 had extended to the circle of his district: he took a 
 paternal pride in his assistant-residents and controllers, 
 among whom he was popular and beloved. It had hap- 
 pened only once In the six years during which he had 
 been Resident of Labuwangi that he had been unable 
 to get on with a controller: then the man was a half- 
 caste and he had had him transferred, had him sacked.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 13! 
 
 as he put it. And he was proud that, despite his strict 
 disciphne, despite his stem insistence on work, he was 
 beloved by his officials. He was all the more grieved 
 by the constant secret enmity of the regent, his 
 "younger brother," to use the Javanese title, in whom 
 indeed he \vould gladly have found a younger brother 
 to govern his native population under himself, the elder 
 brother. It grieved him that matters had fallen out 
 tlius; and he would then think of other regents, not 
 only of this one's father, the noble Pangeran, but of 
 others whom he knew: the Regent of D , a culti- 
 vated man, speaking and writing Dutch correctly, con- 
 tributing lucid Dutch articles to newspapers and maga- 
 zines; the Regent of S , a trifle frivolous and vain, 
 
 but very rich and very benevolent, figuring as a dandy 
 in European society and polite to the ladies. Why 
 should things have fallen out just so In Labuwangi, 
 with this silent, spiteful, secretive fanatical wagang- 
 puppet, with his reputation as a saint and sorcerer, 
 stupidly idolized by the people, in whose welfare he 
 took no interest and who adored him only for the 
 glamour of his ancient name, a man in whom he always 
 felt an antagonism, never uttered in words, but yet so 
 plainly palpable under his icy correctness of de- 
 meanour? And then at Ngadjiwa too there was the 
 brother, the card-player, the gambler: why should just 
 he be so unlucky In his regents ? 
 
 Van Oudijik was in a gloomy mood. He was ac- 
 customed to receiving, at regular intervals, anonymous 
 letters, venomous libels spewed forth from quiet cor- 
 ners, bespattering at one time an assistant-resident, at 
 another a controller, besmirching now the native head- 
 men and now his own family; sometimes taking the
 
 132 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 fonn of a friendly warning, sometimes displaying a 
 malicious delight in wounding, very, very anxious to 
 open his eyes to the shortcomings of his officials and 
 to his wife's misconduct. He was so completely used 
 to this that he did not count the letters, reading them 
 hastily or hardly at all and carelessly destroying them. 
 Accustomed as he was to judging for himself, the spite- 
 ful warnings made no impression on him, though they 
 reared their heads like hissing snakes among all the 
 letters which the post brought him daily; and as re- 
 gards his wife he was so blind, he had always been so 
 much in the habit of picturing Leonie in the tranquillity 
 of her smiling indifference and in the home-like socia- 
 bility which she most certainly attracted round her — in 
 the hollow void of the residency, whose chairs and 
 ottomans seemed always arranged for a reception — 
 that he could never have credited the most trivial of 
 all the slanders. 
 
 He never mentioned them to her. He loved his wife ; 
 he was In love with her; and, as he always saw her 
 almost silent in society, as she never flirted or co- 
 quetted, he never glanced into the depth of corruption 
 that was her soul. At home, indeed, he was absolutely 
 blind. At home he displayed that utter blindness which 
 is often seen in men who are very capable and efficient 
 in their business or profession ; who are accustomed to 
 scan with sharp eyes the wide perspective of their of- 
 ficial duties, but who are near-sighted at home ; who are 
 wont to analyse things in the lump, but not the phycho- 
 logical details ; whose knowledge of mankind is based 
 on principles and who divide mankind into types, as in 
 the cast of an old-fashioned play; who can at once 
 plumb the capacity of their subordinates, but are utter-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 133 
 
 ly unable to realize the intricate complex, like a tangled 
 arabesque, like rankly-growing tendrils, of the psychic 
 involution of those who form their own household, al- 
 ways gazing over their heads, failing to grasp the inner 
 meaning of their speech and taking no interest in the 
 kaleidoscopic emotions of hatred and jealousy and life 
 and love that shine with prismatic hues right before 
 their eyes. He loved his wife and he loved his children 
 because the feeling and the fact of paternity were neces- 
 sities of his being; but he knew neither his wife nor his 
 children. He knew nothing about Leonie ; and he had 
 never realized tliat Theo and Doddie had secretly re- 
 mained faithful to their mother, so far away, in Bata- 
 A'ia, ruined by her unspeakable mode of life, and that 
 they felt no love for him. He thought that they did 
 give him their love ; and as for him . . . when he 
 thought of them, a slumbering affection awoke in him. 
 He received the anonymous letters daily. They had 
 never made an impression on him ; yet he no longer de- 
 stroyed them, but read them attentively and put them 
 aside in a secret drawer. He could not have said why. 
 They contained accusations against his wife, they con- 
 tained imputations against his daughter. They sought 
 to intimidate him by threatening that he might be 
 stabbed in the dark. They warned him that his spies 
 were utterly untrustworthy. They told him that his 
 divorced wife was suffering from poverty and hated 
 him, they told him he had a son whom he had left tm- 
 provided for. They stealthily grubbed up all the secret 
 or obscure passages in his life and his career. The 
 thing depressed his spirits in spite of himself. It was 
 all very vague ; and he had nothing with which to re- 
 proach himself. In his own eyes and the world's he
 
 134 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 was a good official, a good husband and a good father, 
 he was a good man. That he should be blamed for 
 having judged too unjustly and unfairly here, for hav- 
 ing acted cruelly there, for having divorced his first 
 wife, for having a son running wild in the compound ; 
 that p€ople should throw mud at Leonie and Doddie: 
 it all depressed him nowadays. For it was unaccount- 
 able that people should do just this. To this man, with 
 his practical good sense, the vagueness was just the 
 most vexatious part of it. He would not fear an open 
 fight, but this mock battle in the dark upset his nerves 
 and his health. He could not conceive why it was 
 happening. There was nothing to tell him. He could 
 not conjure up the face of an enemy. And the letters 
 came day after day ; and every day enmity lurked in the 
 shadows about him. It was too mystical and too much 
 opposed to his nature not to embitter and depress and 
 sadden him. Then paragraphs appeared in the lesser 
 papers, utterances of a mean and hostile press, vague 
 accusations or palpable falsehoods. Hatred was seeth- 
 ing all about him. He could not fathom the reason of 
 it, he became ill from brooding over it. And he dis- 
 cussed it with nobody and hid his suffering deep down 
 within himself. 
 
 He did not understand it. He could not Imagine vv^hy 
 it was, why it should be so. There was no logic in it 
 all. Logically he should be loved, not hated, however 
 strict and authoritative he might be considered. In- 
 deed, did he not often temper his authoritative strict- 
 ness with the jovial laugh under his thick moustache, 
 with a friendly, genial warning and exhortation ? Was 
 he not on circuit a pleasant resident, who regarded the 
 circuit with his officials as a relaxation, as a delightful
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 135 
 
 trip on horseback through the coffee-plantations, touch- 
 ing at the coff Qe-guda?igs; as a jolly excursion, which 
 relaxed one's muscles after all those weeks of office- 
 work: the big staff of district heads following on their 
 little horses, riding their skittish animals like nimble 
 monkeys, with flags in their hands; with the gamelan 
 tinkling out its blithe crystal notes of welcome wher- 
 ever he went; with the carefully prepared dinner in the 
 pasangrahan^ of the ei'ening and the rubber till late at 
 night? Had not his officials, in informal moments, 
 told him that he was a regular sport of a resident, an 
 indefatigable rider, jovial at meals and so young that 
 he would actually take the scarf from the tanda1z-g\v\- 
 and tandak with her for a moment, very cleverly per- 
 forming the lissom ritual movements of the hands and 
 feet and hips, instead of buying himself off with a 
 rijksdaaldcr and leaving her to dance with the zuedonof 
 Never did he feel so happy as on circuit. And now 
 that he was gloomy and depressed, dissatisfied, not 
 knowing what hidden forces were opposing him in the 
 dusk — straight, honest man that he was, a man of 
 simple principles, a serious worker — he thought that he 
 would go on circuit soon and, by that diversion, rid 
 himself of the gloom that was oppressmg him. He 
 would ask Theo to go with him, for the sake of a few 
 days' change. 
 
 He was fond of his boy, even though he considered 
 him stupid, thoughtless, reckless, lacking In persever- 
 ance, never satisfied with his superiors, tactlessly op- 
 posing his manager, until he had once more made him- 
 self Impossible In the coffee-plantation or sugar- factory 
 
 * Native inn for the use of officials. 
 ' Native dancing-girl, nautch-girl.
 
 136 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 at which he happened to be employed. He considered 
 that Theo ought to make his own way, as his father had 
 done before him, instead of relying entirely on the resi- 
 dent's protection. He did not hold wdth nepotism. He 
 would never favour his son above any one else who had 
 the same rights. He had often told nephews of his, keen 
 on obtaining concessions in Labuwangi, that he would 
 rather have no relations in his district and that they 
 must expect nothing from him except absolute imparti- 
 ality. That was how he had got on ; that was how he 
 expected them to get on . . . and Theo too. 
 Nevertheless, he silently M^atched Theo, with all a 
 father's love, with an almost sentimental tenderness: 
 he regretted, silently but profoundly, that Theo was 
 not more persevering and did not look more closely to 
 his future, to his career, to an honourable situation 
 among his fellow-men, from the standpoint of either 
 money or position. The lad just lived from day to day, 
 without a thought of the morrow. . . . Perhaps 
 he was a little cold to Theo, outwardly: well, he would 
 have a confidential talk with him some day, would ad- 
 vise him ; and now, in any case, he would ask Theo to 
 go with him on circuit. 
 
 And the thought of riding for five or six days in the 
 pure air of the mountains, through the cofifee-planta- 
 tions, inspecting the irrigation-works, doing what most 
 of all attracted him in his ofiicial duties: the thought of 
 this relieved his soul, brightened his outlook, till he 
 ceased to think about the letters. He was made for a 
 plain, simple life: he found life natural, not complex 
 and involved ; his life had followed a perceptible ascent, 
 open and gradual, looking out towards a glittering 
 summit of ambition; and the things that teemed and
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 137 
 
 swarmed in the shadows and the darkness, the things 
 that bubbled up from abyss: these he had never been 
 able or anxious to see. He was blind to the life that 
 works under life. He did not believe in it, any more 
 than a mountaineer who has lived long on a quiescent 
 volcano believes in the inner fire which persists in its 
 mysterious depths and escapes only in the form of hot 
 steam and a sulphurous stench. He believed neither in 
 the force above things nor in the force of things them- 
 selves. He did not believe in dumb fate nor in silent 
 inevitability. He believed only in what he saw with his 
 own eyes ; in the harvest, the roads, districts and dcssas 
 and in the w^elf are of his province ; he believed only in 
 his career, which he saw before him like an ascending 
 path. And in the unclouded clarity of his simple, 
 masculine nature, in the universally perceptible obvious- 
 ness of his upright love of authority, his legimate ambi- 
 tion and his practical sense of duty there was only one 
 weak point: his affection, his deep, almost effeminate, 
 sentimental affection for the members of his domestic 
 circle . . . into whose soul he could not see, being 
 blind and seeing only in the light of his fixed principle, 
 seeing his wife and children as they ought to be. 
 
 Experience had taught him nothing. For he had 
 loved his first wife also as he now loved Leonle. 
 He loved his wife because she was his first wife, 
 because she belonged to him, because she was the 
 principal person in his circle. He loved the circle as 
 such and not as so many individuals who formed its 
 links. Experience had taught him nothing. His 
 thoughts were not in accordance with the changing 
 hues of his life: they accorded with his ideas and 
 principles. They had made a man and a force of him
 
 138 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 and also a good official. They had also allowed him 
 as a rule to be a good man, according to his lights. 
 But, because he possessed so much affection, uncon- 
 scious, unanalysed and merely felt deeply, and because 
 he did not believe in the hidden force, in the life within 
 life, in the force that teemed and swarmed like 
 volcanic fires under the mountains of majesty, like 
 troubles under a throne, because he did not believe in 
 the mysticism of tangible things, life sometimes found 
 him weak and unprepared when — serene as the gods 
 and more powerful than men — it deviated from what 
 he regarded as logical.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 The mysticism of concrete things in that island of 
 mystery which is Java! . . . Outwardly the 
 docile colony with the subject race, which was no match 
 for the rude trader who, in the golden age of his re- 
 public, with the young strength of a youthful people, 
 greedy and eager for gain, plump and phlegmatic, 
 planted his foot and his flag on the crumbling empires, 
 on the thrones which tottered as though the earth had 
 been in seismic labour. But, down in its soul, it was 
 never subjected, though smiling in proud contemptuous 
 resignation and bowing submissively beneath its fate ; 
 deep in its soul, despite a cringing reverence, it lived in 
 freedom its own mysterious life, hidden from western, 
 eyes, however these might seek to fathom the secret — 
 as though with a philosophic intention of maintaining 
 before all a proud and smiling tranquillity, pliantly 
 yielding and to all appearances courteously approach- 
 ing — but deep within itself divinely certain of its own 
 views and so far removed from all its rulers' ideals of 
 civilization that no fraternization between master and 
 servant will ever take place, because the difference 
 which ferments in soul and blood remains insuperable. 
 And the European, proud in his might, in his strength, 
 in his civilization and his humanity, rules arrogantly, 
 blindly, selfishly, egoistically, amidst all the intricate 
 cog-wheels of his authority, which he slips into gear 
 with the certainty of clockwork, controlling Its every 
 movement, till to the foreigner, the outside observer, 
 this overlordship of tangible things, this colonizing of
 
 140 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 territory alien in race and mentality, appears a master- 
 piece, a world created. 
 
 But under all this show the hidden force lurks, 
 slumbering now and unwilling to fight. Under all this 
 appearance of tangible things the essence of that silent 
 mysticism threatens, like a smouldering fire under- 
 ground, like hatred and mystery in the heart. Under 
 all this peace of grandeur the danger threatens and 
 the future mutters like the subterranean thunder in the 
 volcanoes, inaudible to human ears. And it is as 
 though the subject race knows it and leaves matters to 
 the latent force of things and awaits the divine moment 
 that is to come, if there be any truth in the calcula- 
 tions of the mystics. As for him, he reads the overlord 
 with a single penetrating glance; he sees in him the 
 illusion of civilization and humanity and he knows that 
 they are non-existent. While he gives him the title of 
 lord and the hormaf- due to the master, he is pro- 
 foundly conscious of his democratic, commercial 
 nature and despises him for it in silence and judges 
 him with a smile which his brother understands ; and 
 he too smiles. Never does he offend against the form 
 of slavish servility and, with his semba, he acts as 
 though he were the inferior, but he is silently aware 
 that he is the superior. He Is conscious of the hidden, 
 unuttered force; he feels the mystery borne upon the 
 surging winds of his mountains, In the silence of the 
 secret, sultry nights ; and he foresees events that are as 
 yet remote. What Is will not always be ; the present is 
 disappearing. Dumbly he hopes that God will lift up 
 those who are oppressed, some time, some time In the 
 distant advent of the dawning future. But he feels 
 
 * Homage.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 141 
 
 and hopes and knows it in the innermost depths of his 
 soul, which he never unlocks to his ruler, which he 
 would not even be able to unlock, which always remains 
 an indecipherable book, in the unknown, untranslatable 
 tongue in which the words indeed are the same but the 
 shades of meaning expressed by them are different and 
 in which the manifold hues of the two ideals show 
 different spectra: spectra in which the colours differ 
 as though given forth by two separate suns, rays from 
 two separate worlds. And never is there the harmony 
 that imderstands: never does that love blossom forth 
 which is conscious of unity; and between the two there 
 is always the gap, the chasm, the abyss, the distance, the 
 width whence looms the mystery wheref rom, as from a 
 cloud, the hidden force will one day flash forth. . . . 
 
 So it was that Van Oudijck did not feel the mysti- 
 cism of tangible things. 
 
 And the serene life, as of the gods, might well find 
 him weak and unprepared. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Ngadjiwa was a gayer place than Labuwangi: there 
 was a garrison; managers and employers often came 
 down from the coffee-plantations in the interior for a 
 few days' amusement ; there were races twice a year, 
 accompanied by festivities which filled a whole month: 
 the reception of the resident, a horse-rafBe, a battle of 
 flowers and an opera, two or three balls, distinguished 
 by the revellers as the fancy-dress ball, the ceremonial 
 ball and the soiree (lansante; it was a time of early ris- 
 ing and late retiring, of losing hundreds of guilders in a 
 few days at ecarte and in the totalizator. 
 The longing for pleasure and the cheery joy of life 
 were freely indulged in those days ; coffee-planters and 
 young men from the sugar-factories looked forward to 
 them for months ahead ; people saved for them during 
 half the year. The two hotels were filled with guests 
 from all directions, every household entertained its 
 visitors; people betted furiously, while champagne 
 flowed in torrents, all, including the ladies, knowing the 
 race-horses as thoroughly as though they were their 
 own property, feeling quite at home at the dances, 
 everybody knowing every-body, as at family-parties, 
 while the waltzes and Washington Posts and grazianas 
 were danced with the langorous grace of the Indo 
 dancers, to a swooning measure, the trains gently float- 
 ing, a smile of quiet rapture on the parted lips, with 
 that dreamy voluptuousness which the Indian settlers 
 express so charmingly In their dances, especially those 
 who have Javanese blood in their veins. Dancing with
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 143 
 
 them Is not a rough diversion, all bumping against one 
 another with rude leaps and loud laughter, not the wild 
 whirl of the Lancers as at Dutch boy-and-girl balls, but 
 represents, especially to the Indos, nothing but courtesy 
 and grace: a serene blossoming of the poetry of 
 m.otion ; a gracefully designed curve of precise steps to 
 a pure measure over the club-room floors; an almost 
 eighteenth-century harmony of youthful nobility, wav- 
 ing and trailing and swaying in the dance, despite the 
 primitive boom-booming of the Indian musicians. 
 This was how Addie de Luce danced, with the eyes of 
 every woman and girl fixed upon him, following him, 
 imploring him with their glances to take them with 
 him also in that waving and undulating motion, which 
 was like a dream upon the water. , . . This came 
 to him with his mother's blood, this was .a survival of 
 the grace of the srimpis^ among whom his mother had 
 spent her childhood; and the mingling of modem 
 European and ancient Javanese gave him an irresistible 
 charm. 
 
 And now, at the last ball, the soiree dansantc, he was 
 dancing like this with Doddie and, after her, with 
 Leonie. It was late at night, or rather early in the 
 morning: the day was dawning outside. Fatigue 
 hung over the ball-room; and Van Oudijck at last 
 intimated to the assistant-resident, Vermalen, with 
 whom he and his family were staying, that he was 
 ready to go home. At that moment he was in the 
 front-verandah of the club, talking to Vermalen, when 
 the patih suddenly ran up to him from the shadow of 
 the garden and, suffering from olwious excitement, 
 squatted, salaamed and said: 
 
 * Dancers at a native court, often themselves princesses.
 
 144 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "Kandjcng! Kandjcng! Please advise me, tell me 
 what to do ! The regent is drunk, he is walking along 
 the street and forgetting all his dignity." 
 
 The guests were taking their departure. The 
 carriages drove up; the owners stepped in; the car- 
 riages drove away. In the road outside the club the 
 resident saw a Javanese: the upper part of the man's 
 body was bare ; he had lost his head-dress ; and his long, 
 black hair floated loosely, while he talked aloud, with 
 violent gestures. Groups gathered in the dusky 
 shadow, looking on from a distance. 
 
 Van Oudijck recognized the Regent of Ngadjiwa. 
 Already at the ball the regent had behaved without 
 self-control, after losing heavily at cards and mixing 
 all sorts of wines. 
 
 "Hasn't the regent been home yet?" asked Van 
 Oudijck. 
 
 "Surely, kandjeng!" replied the patih, plaintively. 
 "I took the regent home as soon as I saw that he was 
 no longer able to control himself. He flung himself on 
 his bed ; I thought he was sound asleep. But see, he 
 woke and got up; he left the Kabupaten and came back 
 here. See how he's behaving! He is drunk, he is 
 drunk and he forgets who he is and who his fathers 
 were !" 
 
 Van Oudijck went outside with Vermalen. He 
 walked up to the regent, who was making violent ges- 
 tures and delivering an unintelligible speech in a loud 
 voice. 
 
 "Regent!" said the resident. "Don't you know 
 where and who you are?" 
 
 The regent did not recognize him. He ranted at 
 Van Oudijck, he called dowoi all the curses of heaven 
 upon his head.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 145 
 
 "Regent!" said the assistant-resident. "Don't you 
 know who's speaking to you and to whom you're speak- 
 ing?" 
 
 The regent swore at Vermalen. His bloodshot eyes 
 flashed with drunken fury and madness. Assisted by 
 the patih, Van Oudijck and Vermalen tried to help him 
 into a carriage; but he refused. Splendid and sublime 
 in his fall, he gloried in the madness of his tragedy, he 
 stood, as though some explosive force had made him 
 beside himself, half-naked, with floating hair and great 
 gestures of his crazy arms. He was no longer coarse 
 and bestial but became tragic, heroic, fighting against 
 his fate, on the edge of the abyss. . . . The excess 
 of his drunkenness seemed with a strange force to raise 
 him out of his gradual bestialization ; and, fuddled as 
 he was, he drew himself up, towering high, dramati- 
 cally, above the Europeans. 
 
 Van Oudijck gazed at him in stupefaction. The 
 regent was now coming to blows with the patih, who 
 addressed him in beseeching tones. On the road, the 
 population collected, silent, dismayed; the last guests 
 were leaving the club, where the lights were growing 
 dim. Among them were Leonie van Oudijck, Doddie 
 and Addie de Luce. All three still bore in their eyes 
 the weary voluptuousness of the last waltz. 
 
 "Addie," said the resident, "you're an intimate 
 friend of the regent's. Just see if he knows you," 
 
 The young man spoke to the tipsy madman, in soft 
 Javanese accents. At first the regent kept on with his 
 words of objurgation, with his gigantic, raving 
 gestures; then, however, the softness of the language 
 seemed to hold a well-known memory for him. He 
 gave Addie a long look. His gestures subsided, his
 
 146 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 drunken glory evaporated. It was as though his blood 
 suddenly understood that young man's blood, as 
 though their souls recognized each other. The regent 
 nodded dolefully and began a long lament, with his 
 arms raised on high. Addie tried to help him into a 
 carriage, but the regent resisted and refused. Then 
 Addie took his arm in his own with gentle force and 
 walked on with him slowly. The regent, still lament- 
 ing, with tragic gestures of despair, suffered himself to 
 be led. The patih followed with one or two underlings, 
 who had run after the regent out of the Kabupaten, 
 helplessly. The procession vanished in the darkness. 
 Leonie, wearily smiling, stepped into the assistant- 
 resident's carriage. She remembered the gambling- 
 quarrel at Patjaram ; she took pleasure in observing the 
 gradual deterioration which was occurring so visibly, 
 this visible degradation by a passion controlled by 
 neither tact nor moderation. And, where she was con- 
 cerned, she felt stronger than ever, because she enjoyed 
 her passions and controlled them and made them the 
 slaves of her enjoyment. . . . She despised the re- 
 gent and it gave her a romantic satisfaction, an artistic 
 pleasure, to watch the successive phases of that deterio- 
 ration. In the carriage she glanced at her husband, who 
 sat in gloomy silence. And his gloom delighted her, be- 
 cause she thought him sentimental, with his champion- 
 ing of the Javanese nobility, the result of a sentimental 
 instruction, which Van Oudijck took even more senti- 
 mentally. And she delighted in his sorrow. And from 
 her husband she glanced at Doddie. detecting In the 
 dance-weary eyes of her step-daughter a jealousy due 
 to that last, that very last waltz of Leonie's with Addie. 
 And she rejoiced In that jealousy. She felt happy.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 147 
 
 because sorrow had no hold upon her, any more than 
 passion. She played with the things of life and they 
 glided off her and left her as unperturbed and calmly 
 smiling and unwrinkled and creamy white as before. 
 
 Van Oudijck did not go to bed. With his head 
 aflame, with a fury of mortification in his heart, he at 
 once took a bath, dressed himself in pyjamas, and had 
 coffee served on the verandah outside his room. It was 
 six o'clock ; the air was steeped in a delightful coolness 
 of morning freshness. But he suffered from so fierce 
 an anger that his temples throbbed as though with con- 
 gestion, his heart thumped in his chest, his every nerve 
 quivered. The scene of that night and morning was 
 still flickering before his eyes, ticking on like a 
 cinematograph, with whirling changes of posture. 
 What angered him above all was the impossibility of it 
 all, the illogicality, the unthinkableness of it. That a 
 Javanese of high birth, forgetful of all the noble tradi- 
 tions in his blood, should have been able to behave as 
 the Regent of Ngadjiwa had behaved that night would 
 never have seemed to him possible. He would never 
 have believed it, if he had not seen it with his own eyes. 
 To this man of predetermined logic the fact was simply 
 monstrous, like a nightmare. Extremely susceptible to 
 surprise, which he did not consider, logical, he was 
 angry with reality. He wondered whether he had not 
 been dreaming, whether he himself had not been drunk. 
 That the scandal should have occurred made him 
 furious. But as it was so, well, he would recommend 
 the regent for dismissal. There was no alternative. 
 
 He dressed, spoke to Vermalen and went to the 
 Kabupaten with him. They both forced their way in to 
 the regent, notwithstanding the hesitation of the re-
 
 148 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 tainers, notwithstanding the breach of etiquette. They 
 did not see the wife, the Raden-Aju. But they found 
 the regent in his bedroom. He was lying on his bed, 
 with his eyes open, recovering gloomily, not yet suffici- 
 ently restored to life fully to realize the strangeness of 
 this visit, of the presence of the resident and assistant- 
 resident by his bedside. He recognized them neverthe- 
 less, but did not speak. While the two of them tried to 
 bring home to him the gross impropriety of his be- 
 haviour, he stared shamelessly in their faces and per- 
 sisted in his silence. It was all so strange that the two 
 officials looked at each other and exchanged glances to 
 ask whether the regent was not mad, whether he was 
 really responsible. He had not spoken a single word, 
 he continued to be silent. Though Van Oudijck threat- 
 ened him with dismissal, he remained dumb, staring 
 with shameless eyes into the resident's eyes. He did 
 not open his lips, he maintained the attitude of a deaf- 
 mute. At the most, an ironical smile formed about his 
 lips. The officials, really thinking that the regent was 
 mad, shrugged their shoulders and left the room. 
 
 In the gallery they met the Raden-Aju, a short, 
 downtrodden little woman, like a whipped dog, a 
 beaten slave. She approached, weeping; she begged, 
 she implored for forgiveness. Van Oudijck told her 
 that the regent refused to speak, for all his threats, that 
 he was silent with an inexplicable but obviously de- 
 liberate silence. Then the Raden-Aju whispered that 
 the regent had consulted a diikim,'^ vjho had given him 
 a djimat- and assured him that, if he only persisted in 
 maintaining complete silence, his enemies would obtain 
 
 ^ Native phj'sician. 
 ^ Talisman.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 149 
 
 no hold upon him. Terrified, she implored for help, for 
 forgiveness, gathering her children round her as she 
 spoke. After sending for the patiJi and enjoining him 
 to keep a strict watch on the regent, the two officials 
 went away. 
 
 Often though Van Oudijck had encountered the 
 superstition of the Javanese, it always enraged him, as 
 opposed to what he called the laws of nature and life. 
 Yes, nothing but his superstition could induce a Java- 
 nese to depart from the correct path of his innate 
 courtliness. Whatever they might now wish to put 
 before him, the regent would remain silent, would 
 persist in the absolute silence prescribed by the dukun. 
 In this way he considered himself protected against 
 those whom he regarded as his enemies. And this pre- 
 conceived notion of hostility in one whom he would so 
 gladly have regarded as his younger brother and 
 fellow-ruler was what disturbed Van Oudijck most of 
 all. 
 
 He returned to Labuwangi with Leonie and Doddie. 
 Once at home, he felt for a moment the pleasantness of 
 being back in his own house, an enjoyment of domes- 
 ticity that always soothed him greatly: the material 
 pleasure of seeing his own bed again, his own writing- 
 table and chair, of drinking his own coffee, made as he 
 was accustomed to have it. These minor amenities put 
 him in a good humour for a little while, but he at once 
 felt all his bitterness awaken when he perceived, under 
 a pile of letters on his desk, the disguised handwritings 
 of a couple of furtive correspondents. Automatically 
 he opened these first and felt sick when he read 
 Leonie's name coupled with that of Theo. Nothing 
 was sacred to those scoundrels: They concocted the
 
 150 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 most monstrous calumnies, the most unnatural libels, 
 the most loathsome imputations, down to that of what 
 was almost incest. All the filth flung at his wife and 
 son only set them higher in his love, girt them with a 
 greater purity, placed them on an inviolable summit 
 and made him cherish them with a deeper and more 
 fervent affection. But his bitterness, once stirred up, 
 brought back all his mortification. Its actual cause was 
 that he had to propose the Regent of Ngadjiwa's dis- 
 missal and did not enjoy the prospect. But this one 
 necessity embittered his whole being, upset his nerves 
 and made him ill. If he could not follow the path 
 which he had determined upon, if life strayed from the 
 possibilities which he. Van Oudijck, had a priori fixed, 
 this reluctance, this rebellion upset his nerves and made 
 him ill. 
 
 He had once and for all resolved, after the death of 
 the old Pangeran, to raise up the declining race of the 
 Adiningrats, alike because of his affectionate memory 
 of that excellent Javanese prince, because of his 
 instructions as resident and because of a sense of lofty 
 humanity and hidden poetry in himself. And he had 
 never been able to do so, he had at once been thwarted 
 — tmconsciously, by force of circumstances — by the old 
 Raden-Aju Pangeran, who gambled away everything, 
 who was ruining herself and her kin. As a friend he 
 had exhorted her. She had ever been accessible to his 
 advice, but her passion had proved too strong for her. 
 Van Oudijck had from the first, even before the 
 father's death, judged her son, Sunario, the Regent of 
 Labuwangi, unfitted for the actual position of regent. 
 The fellow was petty and insignificant, insufferably 
 proud of his descent, never in touch with the actualities
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 151 
 
 of life, devoid of any talent for ruling or any considera- 
 tion for his inferiors, a great fanatic, always occupied 
 with diikuns, with sacred calculations, pefangans, 
 always reticent and living in a dream of obscure mysti- 
 cism and blind to what would spell welfare and justice 
 for his Javanese subjects. And the population adored 
 him nevertheless, both because of his noble birth and 
 because he was reputed to possess sanctity and a far- 
 reaching power, a divine magic. Silently, secretly, the 
 women of the Kabupaten sold bottles of the water that 
 had flowed over his body in the bath, as a healing 
 remedy for various diseases. There you had the elder 
 brother; and the younger had quite forgotten him. v;lf 
 on the previous night, frenzied by cards and drink. In 
 these two sons the once so brilliant race was tottering 
 to its fall. Their children were young ; a few cousins 
 were patihs in Labuwangi and the adjoining resi- 
 dencies, but their veins contained not a drop of the 
 noble blood. No, Van Oudijck had always failed, glad 
 though he would have been to succeed. The very men 
 whose interests he defended were opposing his efforts. 
 Their day was over. But why this must be so he could 
 not imderstand; and it all upset him and embittered 
 him. 
 
 And he had pictured to himself a very different path, 
 a beautiful ascending path, even as he saw his own life 
 before him, whereas with them the path of life wound 
 tortuously downwards. And he did not understand 
 what it was that was stronger than he, when he put 
 forth his will. Had it not always happened in his life 
 and his career that the things for which he had fervent- 
 ly wished came to pass with the logic which he himself 
 had day after day attributed to the things that were
 
 152 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 about to take place ? His ambition had now established 
 the logic of the ascending path, for his ambition had 
 established as its aim the revival of this Javanese 
 family. . . . 
 
 Would he fail ? To fail in striving for an aim which 
 he had set himself as an official: he would never 
 forgive himself ! Hitherto he had always succeeded in 
 achieving what he had willed. But what he now 
 wanted to achieve was, unknown to himself, not merely 
 an official aim, a part of his work. What he now 
 wanted to achieve was an aim the idea of which 
 sprang from his humanity, from the noblest part of 
 himself. What he now wanted to achieve was an ideal, 
 the ideal of the European in the east and of the Euro- 
 pean who sees the east as he wishes to see It and as he 
 could but see it. 
 
 And that there were forces that gathered Into one 
 force, which threatened him, mocked at his proposals, 
 laughed at his ideals, and was all the stronger through 
 lying more deeply hidden : this he would never admit. 
 It was not in him to acknowledge them ; and even the 
 clearest revelation of them would be a riddle to his soul 
 and would remain a myth. < 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Van Oiidijck had been to the government building 
 that day. Leonie met him the moment he returned. 
 
 "The Raden-Aju Pangeran is here," she said. "She 
 has been here quite an hour, Otto. She wishes to speak 
 to you badly. She has been waiting for you." 
 
 "Leonie," he said, "I want you to look through these 
 letters. I often get libels of this sort and I've never 
 mentioned them to you. But perhaps it's better that 
 you should not be left in ignorance. Perhaps it's better 
 for you to know. But please don't take them to heart. 
 I needn't assure you that I don't for one moment 
 believe the least word of all this filth. So don't get 
 upset about it and give me back the letters presently 
 j'-ourself. Don't leave them lying about . . . 
 And send the Raden-Aju Pangeran to my ofiflce. 
 • » • 
 
 Leonie, carrying the letters in her hand, went to the 
 back-verandah and returned with the princess, a dis- 
 tinguished-looking, grey-haired woman, with a proud, 
 royal bearing in her still slender figure. Her eyes were 
 a sombre black; her mouth, which was widened in 
 outline by the betel-nut juice and which grinned with 
 filed, black, lacquered teeth, was like a grimacing mask 
 and spoilt the proud nobility of her expression. She 
 wore a black satin kobaja fastened with jewelled but- 
 tons. It was above all her grey hair and her som1)re 
 eyes that gave her a peculiar mixture of venerable 
 dignity and smouldering passion. Tragedy hung over 
 her old age. She herself felt that fate w^as pressing
 
 154 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 tragically upon her and hers; and she placed her only 
 hope in the far-reaching, divinely-appointed power of 
 her first-born, Sunario, the Regent of Labuwangi. 
 
 While the old princess preceded Van Oudijck into 
 the office Leonie examined the letters, in the middle 
 gallery. They were lampoons couched in foul 
 language, about her and Addie and Theo. Always 
 wrapped in the selfish dream of her own life, she never 
 troubled greatly about what people thought or said, 
 especially as she knew that she could always and im- 
 mediately win every one again with her personality, 
 with her smile. She possessed a tranquil charm which 
 was irresistible. She herself never spoke ill of others, 
 out of indifference: she made amiable excuses for 
 everything and everybody ; and she was loved . . . 
 when people saw her. But she considered these dirty 
 letters, spat out from some dark corner, tiresome and 
 unpleasant, even though Van Oudijck did not believe 
 them. Suppose that, one day, he began to believe 
 things ? She must be prepared for it. She must above 
 all retain for that possible day her most charming 
 tranquility, all her invulnerability and Inviolability. 
 Who could have sent the letters? Who hated her so 
 much, who could be interested in writing like this to 
 her husband ? How strange that the thing was known ! 
 . . . Addie? Theo? How did they know? Was 
 it Oorip? No, not Oorip. . . . But who then? 
 And was everything actually known ? She had always 
 thought that what happened in the secret chambers 
 would never be known on the housetops. She had even 
 believed — it was simple of her — that the men never 
 discussed her with one another, that they discussed 
 other w^omen, but not herself. Her mind harboured
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 155 
 
 such simple illusions, despite all her experience, a 
 simplicity which harmonized with the half-perverse, 
 half-childish poetry of her rose-hued imagination. 
 Could she then not always keep hidden the secrets of 
 her mystery, the secrets of reality? It annoyed her for 
 a moment, that reality, which was being revealed de- 
 spite her superficial correctness. . . . Thoughts and 
 dreams always remained secret. It was the real actions 
 that were so troublesome. For an instant she thought 
 of being more careful in future, of refraining. But 
 she saw before her, in imagination, Theo and Addie, 
 her fair love and her dark love ; and she felt that she 
 was too weak for that. She knew that in this she 
 could not conquer her passions, though she controlled 
 them. Would they end by proving her destruction, 
 notwithstanding all her tactfulness? But she laughed 
 at the thought: she had a firm faith in her invulnera- 
 bility. Life always glided off her shoulders. 
 
 Still, she wanted to prepare herself for what might 
 happen. She had no higher ideal in life than to be 
 free from pain, free from grief, free from poverty and 
 to make her passions the slaves of her enjoyment, so 
 that she might possess this enjoyment as long as pos- 
 sible, lead this life as long as possible. She reflected 
 what she should say and do if Van Oudijck suddenly 
 questioned her, suspicious because of these anonymous 
 letters. She reflected whether she had better break 
 with Theo. Addie was enough for her. And she lost 
 herself in her calculations, as in the vague combina- 
 tions of a play about to be enacted. Then, suddenly, 
 she heard the Raden-Aju Pangeran's voice sounding 
 loudly in the oflice, in between her husband's calmer 
 accents. She listened, inquisitively, foreseeing a
 
 156 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 tragedy, and was quietly relieved that this tragedy also 
 was gliding away from her. She crept into Van 
 Oudijck's bedroom; the communicating-doors were 
 always left open for coolness and only a screen sepa- 
 rated the bedroom from the office. She peeped past 
 the screen. And she saw the old princess more greatly 
 excited than she had ever seen any Javanese woman. 
 The Raden-Aju was beseeching Van Oudijck in 
 Malay; he was assuring her in Dutch that what she 
 asked was impossible. Leonie listened more closely. 
 And she now heard the old princess imploring the 
 resident to show mercy to her second son, the Regent 
 of Ngadjiwa. She entreated Van Oudijck to remem- 
 ber her husband, the Pangeran, whom he had loved 
 as a father, who had loved him as a son, With a mutual 
 affection more intense than that of an "elder and 
 younger brother;" she conjured him to think of their 
 famous past, of the glory of the Adiningrats, ever 
 loyal friends of the Company, its allies In war, its most 
 faithful vassals in peace; she conjured him not to 
 decree the downfall of their race, on which a doom 
 had descended since the Pangeran's death, driving it 
 into an abyss of fatal destruction. She stood before 
 the resident like a Niobe, like a tragic mother, flinging 
 up her arms in the vehemence of her protestations, 
 while tears poured from her sombre eyes and only the 
 wide mouth, painted with brown betel-juice, was like 
 the grimace of a mask. But from this grimace the 
 fluent phrases of protestation and conjuration were 
 pouring forth; and she wrung her hands in entreaty 
 and beat her breast in contrition. 
 
 Van Oudijck answered in a firm but gentle voice, 
 telling her that certainly he had loved the old Pan-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 157 
 
 geran most sincerely, that he respected the old race 
 highly, that no one would be better pleased than he 
 to upliold their lofty position. But then he grew more 
 severe and asked her whom the Adiningrats had to 
 blame for tlie fate that was now pursuing her. And, 
 with his eyes looking into hers, he said that it was she ! 
 She fell back, flaring up with rage; but he repeated it 
 again and yet again. Her sons were her children: 
 bigoted and proud and incurable gamblers. And it 
 was gambling, that low passion, which was wrecking 
 their greatness. Their race was staggering to its down- 
 fall through their insatiable greed of gain. How often 
 did it not happen that a month went by at Ngadjiwa 
 before the regent paid the native heads their salaries ? 
 She protested that it was true: It was at her instiga- 
 tion that her son had taken the money of the treasury, 
 to pay gambling debts. But she also swore that it 
 would never happen again. And where, asked Van 
 Oudijck, had a regent, descended from an ancient race, 
 ever behaved as the Regent of Ngadjiwa had at the 
 race-ball? The mother lamented: it was true, it was 
 true: fate dogged their footsteps and had clouded her 
 son's mind ; but it would never, never happen again. 
 She swore by the soul of the old Pangeran that It 
 would never happen again, that her son would win 
 back his dignity. But Van Oudijck grew more 
 vehement and reproached her with never having exer- 
 cised a good influence over her sons and nephews, with 
 being the evil genius of her family, because a demon 
 of gambling and greed had her fast in Its claws. She 
 began to shriek with anguish, she, the old princess, 
 who looked down upon the resident, the Hollander 
 without birth or breeding, shrieking w^ith anguish be-
 
 158 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 cause he dared to speak like this and was entitled to do 
 so. She flung out her arms, she begged for mercy; 
 she begged him not to urge her son's dismissal by the 
 government, which would act as the resident suggested, 
 which would follow the advice of such a highly es- 
 teemed official ; she begged him to have pity and show 
 patience a little longer. She would speak to her son ; 
 Sunario would speak to his brother ; they would bring 
 him back to his senses, which had been bewildered by 
 drink and play and women. Oh, if the resident would 
 only have pity, if he would only relent! But Van 
 Oudijck remained inexorable. He had shown patience 
 for so long. It was now exhausted. Since her son, at 
 the instigation of the dukim, relying on his djimat, had 
 resisted him with his insolent silence, which, as he 
 firmly believed, made him invulnerable to his enemies, 
 he would prove that he, the spokesman of the govern- 
 ment, the representative of the queen, was the stronger, 
 dukim and djimat notwithstanding. There was no 
 alternative: his patience was at an end ; his love for 
 the Pangeran did not allow of further indulgence ; his 
 feeling of respect for their race was not such that he 
 could transfer it to an unworthy son. It was settled: 
 the regent would be dismissed. 
 
 The princess had listened to him, unable to credit 
 his words, seeing the abyss yawn before her. And, 
 with a yell like that of a wounded lioness, with a 
 scream of pain, she pulled the jewelled hairpins from 
 her head, till her long grey hair fell streaming about 
 her face ; with a rending tug she tore open her satin 
 Izahaja; beside herself with anguish, she threw herself 
 before the feet of the European, took firm hold of his 
 foot with her two hands, planted it, with a movement
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 159 
 
 which made Van Oudijck stagger, on her bowed neck 
 and cried aloud and screamed that she, the daughter 
 of the sultans of Madura, would for ever be his slave, 
 that she swore to be nothing but his slave, if only he 
 would have mercy on her son this time and not plunge 
 her house into the abyss of shame which she saw 
 yawning around her. And she clutched the European's 
 foot, as though with the strength of despair, and held 
 that foot, like a yoke of servitude, with the sole and 
 heel of the shoe pressed upon her flowing grey hair, 
 upon her neck bowed to the floor. V^an Oudijck 
 trembled with emotion. He realized that this high- 
 spirited woman would never humble herself like that, 
 with evident spontaneity, to the lowest depths of 
 humiliation that she could conceive, would not resort 
 to the most vehement utterance of actual grief that a 
 woman could ever display, with her hair unbound and 
 the ruler's foot planted on her neck, if she had not 
 been shaken to the very depths of her soul, if she did 
 not feel desperate to the pitch of self-destruction. And 
 he hesitated for a moment. But only for a moment. 
 He was a man of considered principles, of fixed, a 
 priori logic, immovable when he had come to a deci- 
 sion, wholly inaccessible to impulse. With the utmost 
 respect, he at last released his foot from the princess' 
 clinging grasp. Holding out both hands to her, with 
 visible compassion, visible emotion, he raised her from 
 the floor. He made her sit down ; and she fell into a 
 chair, broken, sobbing aloud. For a moment, per- 
 ceiving his gentleness, she thought that she had won. 
 But when he calmly but decidedly shook his head in 
 denial, she understood that it was over. She panted 
 for breath, half -swooning, her kahaja still open, her 
 hair still unbound.
 
 160 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 At that moment Leonie entered the room. She had 
 seen the drama enacted before her eyes and feh a 
 thrill of artistic emotion. She experienced something 
 like compassion in her barren soul. She approached 
 the princess who fiung herself into her arms, woman 
 seeking woman in the unreasoning despair of that 
 inevitable doom. And Leonie, turning her beautiful 
 eyes on Van Oudijck, murmured a single word of 
 intercession and whispered: 
 
 "Give in! Give in!" 
 
 And for the second time Van Oudijck wavered. 
 Never had he refused his wife anything, however 
 costly, for which she asked. But this meant the sacri- 
 fice of his principle never to reconsider a decision, 
 always to persist in what he had resolved should hap- 
 pen. Then had he always controlled the future. Thus 
 things always happened as he willed. Then had he 
 never shown any weakness. And he answered that it 
 was impossible. 
 
 In his obstinacy, he did not divine the sacred mo- 
 ments in which a man must not insist upon his own 
 will, but must piously surrender to the pressure of the 
 hidden forces. These moments he did not respect, 
 acknowledge or recognize ; no, never. He was a man 
 with a clear, logically deduced, simple, masculine sense 
 of duty, a man of a plain, simple life. He would never 
 know that, lurking under the simple life, are all those 
 forces which together make the omnipotent hidden 
 force. He would have laughed at the idea that there 
 are nations which have a greater control over that force 
 than the western nations have. He would shrug his 
 shoulders — and continue his own road — at the mere 
 supposition that among the nations there are a few
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 161 
 
 individuals in whose hands that force loses its omnipo- 
 tence and becomes an instrument. No experience 
 would teach him. He would perhaps for an instant 
 be nonplussed. But immediately afterwards he would 
 grasp the chain of his logic in his virile hand and link 
 up the iron actualities together. . . . 
 
 He saw Leonie lead the old princess from his office, 
 bowed and sobbing. 
 
 A deep emotion, an utterly agitating compassion, 
 brought the tears to his eyes. And before those tearful 
 eyes rose the vision of that Javanese whom he loved 
 like a father. 
 
 But he did not give in.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Reports arrived from Ternate and Halmaheira that 
 a terrible submarine earthquake had visited the sur- 
 rounding group of islands, that whole villages had been 
 washed away, that thousands of inhabitants had been 
 rendered homeless. The telegrams caused greater con- 
 sternation in Holland than in India, where people 
 seemed more used to the convulsions of the sea, to the 
 volcanic upheavals of the earth. They had been dis- 
 cussing the Dreyfus case for months, they were begin- 
 ning to discuss the Transvaal, but Ternate was hardly 
 mentioned. Nevertheless a central committee was 
 formed at Batavia ; and Van Oudijck called a meeting. 
 It was resolved to hold a charity-bazaar, at the earliest 
 possible date, in the club and the garden attached to 
 it. Mrs. van Oudijck, as usual, delegated everything 
 to Eva Eldersma and did not trouble herself at all. 
 
 For a fortnight Labuwangi was filled with excite- 
 ment. In this silent little town, full of eastern slumber, 
 a whirlwind of tiny passions, jealousies and enmities 
 began to rise. Eva had her club of faithful adherents, 
 the Van Helderens. the Doom de Bruijns, the Rant- 
 zows, with which all sorts of tiny sets strove to com- 
 pete. One was not on speaking terms with the other ; 
 this one would not take part because that one did; 
 another insisted on taking part only because Mrs. 
 Eldersma must not think that she was everybody ; and 
 this one and that one and the other considered that 
 Eva was much too pretentious and need not fancy 
 that she v/as the most important woman in the place
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 163 
 
 because Mrs. van Oudijck left everything to her. Eva 
 however had spoken to the resident and declared that 
 she was wilHng to organize everything provided she 
 received unhmited authority. She had not the sHghtest 
 objection to his appointing some one else to set the 
 ball rolling; but, if he appointed her, unlimited 
 authority was an express condition, for to take twenty 
 different tastes and opinions into account would mean 
 that one would never get anywhere. Van Oudijck 
 laughingly consented, but impressed upon her that 
 she must not make people angry and that she must 
 respect every one's feelings and be as conciliatory as 
 possible, so that the charity-bazaar might leave pleasant 
 memories behind it. Eva promised: she was not 
 naturally quarrelsome. 
 
 To get a thing done, to set a thing going, to put a 
 thing through, to employ her artistic energies was her 
 great delight: it was life to her, was the only consola- 
 tion in her dreary life in India. For, though she had 
 grown to love and admire many things In Java, the 
 social life of the country, save for her little clique, 
 lacked all charm for her. But now to prepare an enter- 
 tainment on a large scale, the fame of which would 
 reach as far as Surabaya, flattered alike her vanity and 
 her love of work. 
 
 She sailed through every difficulty; and, because 
 people saw that she knew best and was more practical 
 than they, they gave way to her. But, while she was 
 busv evolving: her fancv-booths and tahleaux-vivants 
 and while the bustle of the preparations occupied the 
 leading families of LabuwangI, something seemed also 
 to occupy the soul of the native population, but some- 
 thing less cheerful than charitable entertainment. The
 
 164 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 chief of police, who brought Van Oudijck his short re- 
 port every morning, usually in a few words — that he 
 had gone his rounds and that everything was quiet and 
 orderly — ^had had longer conversations with the resi- 
 dent of late, seemed to have more important things to 
 communicate; the oppasscrs whispered more mysteri- 
 ously outside the office ; the resident sent for Eldersma 
 and Van Helderen; the secretary wrote to Ngadjiwa, 
 to Vermalen the assistant-resident, to the major-com- 
 mandant of the garrison; and the controlcw-kotta 
 w^ent round the town with increased frequency and at 
 unaccustomed hours. Amid all their fussing the ladies 
 perceived little of these mysterious doings; and only 
 Leonie, who took no part in the preparations, noticed 
 in her husband an unusual silent concern. She was a 
 quick and keen observer; and, because Van Oudijck, 
 who was accustomed often to mention business in the 
 domestic circle, had been mute for the last few days, 
 she asked suddenly where the Regent of Ngadjiwa 
 was, now that he had been dismissed by the govern- 
 ment at Van Oudijck's instance, and who was going to 
 replace him. He made a vague reply; and she took 
 alarm and became anxious. One morning, passing 
 through her husband's bedroom, she was struck by the 
 whispered conversation between Van Oudijck and the 
 chief of police and she stopped to listen, with her ear 
 against the screen. The conversation was muffled be- 
 cause the garden-doors were open ; the oppassers were 
 sitting on the garden-steps; a couple of gentlemen who 
 wished to speak to the resident were walking up and 
 down the side-verandah, after writing their names on 
 the slate which the chief oppasscr brought in to the 
 resident. But they had to wait, because the resident 
 was engaged with the chief of police.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 165 
 
 Leonie listened, behind the screen. And she turned 
 pale at the sound of a word or two which she over- 
 heard. She returned silently to her room, feeling 
 anxious. At lunch she asked if It would be really 
 necessary for her to attend the fancy-fair, for she had 
 had such a toothache lately and she wanted to go to 
 Surabaya, to the dentist. It would probably mean a 
 few days: she had not been to the dentist for ever so 
 long. But Van Oudijck, sterner than usual, in his 
 sombre mood of secret concern and silence, told her 
 that it was impossible, that on an evening like that of 
 the fancy-fair she was bound to be present as the resi- 
 dent's wife. She pouted and sulked and held her hand- 
 kerchief to her mouth, so that Van Oudijck became 
 distressed. That afternoon she did not sleep, did not 
 read, did not dream, as a result of this unusual agita- 
 tion. She was frightened, she wanted to get away. 
 And at tea, in the garden, she began to cry, said that 
 the toothache was making her head ache, that it was 
 making her cjuite ill, that it was more than she could 
 bear. Van Oudijck, distressed and careworn, was 
 touched ; he could never endure to see her tears. And 
 he gave in, as he alv/ays did to her, where her personal 
 affairs were in question. Next day she went off to 
 Surabaya, staying at the resident's and really having 
 her teeth attended to. 
 
 It was always a good thing to do, once a year or so. 
 This time she spent about five hundred guilders^ on the 
 dentist. After this, incidentally, the other ladies also 
 seemed to giiess something of what was happening at 
 Labuwangi behind a haze of mystery. For Ida van 
 Helderen, the tragic white norma, her eyes starting out 
 
 * Over £40.
 
 166 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 of her head with fright, told Eva Eldersma that her 
 husband and Eldersma and the resident too were fear- 
 ing a rebellion of the population, incited by the regent 
 and his family, who would never forgive the dismissal 
 of the Regent of Ngadjiwa. The men, however, were 
 noncommittal and reassured their wives. But a dark 
 swirling tide continued to stir under the apparent calm- 
 ness of their little up-country life. And gradually the 
 gossip leaked out and alarmed the European inhabi- 
 tants. Vague paragraphs in the newspapers, com- 
 menting on the dismissal of the regent, contributed 
 to their alarm. 
 
 Meanwhile the bustle of preparation for the fancy- 
 fair went on, but people no longer put their hearts into 
 the work. They led a fussy, restless life and were 
 l:>ecoming ill and nervous. At night they bolted and 
 barred their houses, placed arms by their bed-sides, 
 woke suddenly in terror, listening to the noises of the 
 night, which sounded faintly in space outside. And 
 they condemned the hastiness shown by Van Oudijck, 
 who, after the scene at the race-ball, had been unable 
 to restrain his patience any longer and had not hesi- 
 tated to recommend the dismissal of the regent, whose 
 house was firmly rooted in the soil of Labuwangi, was 
 one with Labuwangi. 
 
 The resident had ordered, as a festival for the popu- 
 lation, a passer-malani^ on the aloon-aloon^, to last 
 for a few days, coinciding with the bazaar. There 
 would be a people's fair, numbers of little stalls and 
 booths and the Komedie-Stamhoiil,^ with plays drawn 
 
 * Evening market. 
 
 ^ Square in front of the regent's palace. 
 
 ^ Malay theatre.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 167 
 
 from tlie Arabian Nights. He had done this in order 
 to give the Javanese inhabitants a treat which they 
 would vakie greatly, while the Europeans were enjoy- 
 ing themselves on their side. It was now a few days 
 before the fancy-fair, on the previous day to which, as 
 it chanced, the kumpitlan^ was to be held in the 
 Kabupaten. 
 
 The anxiety, the fuss and a general nervousness 
 filled the otherwise quiet little town with an emotion 
 which made people almost ill. Mothers sent their chil- 
 dren away and themselves were undecided what to do. 
 But the fancy-fair made people stay. How could they 
 avoid going to the fancy- fair? There was so seldom 
 any amusement. But . . . if there really were a 
 rising I And they did not know what to do, whether to 
 take the cloudy menace, which they half-divined, seri- 
 ously or make a light-hearted jest of it. 
 
 The day before the kumpidan Van Oudijck asked 
 for an interview with the Raden-Aju Pangeran, who 
 lived with her son. His carriage drove past the huts 
 and booths in the aloon-aloon and through the 
 triumphal arches of the passer-inalam, formed of 
 bamboo-stems bending towards each other, with a nar- 
 row strip of bunting rippling in the wind, so much so 
 that, in Javanese, the decorations are known as "rlp- 
 plings." This evening was to be the first evening of 
 the fair. Every one was busy with the final prepara- 
 tions ; and, in the bustle of hammering and arranging, 
 the natives sometimes neglected to cower at the passing 
 of the resident's carriage and paid no attention to the 
 golden pajong which the oppasser on the box held in 
 his hands like a furled sun. But, when the carriage 
 
 ^ Monthly council.
 
 168 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 turned by the flagstaff and up the drive leading to the 
 Kabupaten and they saw that the resident was going to 
 the regent's, groups huddled together and spoke in 
 eager whispers. They crowded at the entrance to the 
 drive and stared. But the natives saw nothing save 
 the empty pcndoppo^ looming beyond the shadow of 
 the v/aringins, with the rows of chairs in readiness. 
 The chief of police, suddenly passing on his bicycle, 
 caused the groups to break up as though by instinct. 
 
 The old princess was awaiting the resident in the 
 front-verandah. Her dignified features wore a serene 
 expression and betrayed no trace of all that was raging 
 within her. She motioned the resident to a chair ; and 
 the conversation opened with a few ordinary phrases. 
 Then four servants approached in a crouching posture: 
 one with a bottle-stand ; the second with a tray full of 
 glasses; the third with a silver ice-pail full of broken 
 ice; the fourth, salaamed, without carr}^ing anything. 
 The princess asked the resident what he would drink ; 
 and he replied that he would like a whisky-and-soda. 
 The fourth servant came crouching through the other 
 three to prepare the drink, poured in the measure of 
 whisky, opened the bottle of ajer-planda- with a report 
 as of a gun and dropped into the tumbler a lump of ice 
 the size of a small glacier. Not another word was said. 
 The resident waited for the drink to grow cold; and 
 the four servants crouched away. Then at last Van 
 Oudijck spoke and asked if he might speak to her in 
 entire confidence. If he could say what he had in his 
 mind. She begged him, civilly, to do so. And in his 
 firm but hushed voice he told her, in Malay, in very 
 
 ^ Roofed quadrangular space for meetings and entertainments. 
 
 ^ Soda-water.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 169 
 
 courteous sentences, full of friendliness and flowery 
 politeness, how great and exalted his love had been 
 for the Pangeran and still was for that prince's glori- 
 ous house, although he, Van Oudijck, to his intense 
 regret, had been obliged to act counter to that love, 
 because his duty commanded him so to act. And he 
 asked her — presuming that it was possible for her, 
 as a mother — to bear him no grudge for this exercise 
 of his duty: he asked her, on the contrary, to show a 
 motherly feeling for him, the European official, who 
 had loved the Pangeran as a father, and to cooperate 
 with him, the ofllicial, — she, the mother of the regent — 
 by employing her great influence for the happiness and 
 w^elfare of the population. Sunario had a tendency, 
 in his piety and his remote gaze at things invisible, to 
 forget the actual realities that lay before his eyes. 
 Well, he, the resident, was asking her, the powerful, 
 Influential mother, to cooperate with him in ways 
 which Sunario overlooked, to cooperate with him in 
 love and unity. And, in his elegant Malay, he opened 
 his heart to her entirely, describing the turmoil which 
 for days and days had been seething among the in- 
 habitants, like an evil poison which could not do other 
 than make them wicked and drunk and would probably 
 lead to things, to acts, which were bound to have 
 lamentable results. He made her feel his unspoken 
 view that the government would be the stronger, that 
 a terrible punishment would overtake all who should 
 prove guilty, high and low alike. But his language 
 remained exceedingly cautious and his speech respect- 
 ful, as of a son addressing a mother. She, though she 
 understood him, valued the tactful grace of his man- 
 ner; and the flowery depth and earnestness of his
 
 170 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 language made him rise in her esteem and almost sur- 
 prised her ... in a low Hollander, without birth 
 or breeding. 
 
 But he continued. He did not tell her what he 
 knew, that she was the instigatress of this obscure 
 unrest; but he excused that unrest, said that he un- 
 derstood it, that the population shared her grief in 
 respect of her unworthy son, himself a scion of the 
 noble race, and that it was only natural that the people 
 should sympathize deeply with their old sovereign, 
 even though the sympathy was ignorant and illogical. 
 For the son zvas unworthy, the Regent of Ngadjiwa 
 had proved himself unworthy and what had happened 
 could not have happened otherwise. 
 
 His voice, for a moment, became severe; and she 
 bowed her grey head, remained silent, seemed to agree. 
 But his words now became gentler again; and once 
 more he asked for her cooperation, asked her to use 
 her influence for the best. He trusted her entirely. 
 He knew that she held high the traditions of her 
 family, loyalty to the Company, unimpeachable loyalty 
 to the government. Well, he asked her to direct her 
 power and influence, to use the love and reverence 
 which the people bore her in such a way that she, in 
 concert with him, would allay what was seething in 
 the darkness ; that she would move the thoughtless to 
 reflection; that she would assuage and pacify what 
 was secretly threatening, thoughtlessly and frivolously, 
 against the firm and dignified authority of the govern- 
 ment. And, while he flattered and threatened her in 
 one breath, he felt that she— although she hardly spoke 
 a single word and merely punctuated his words with 
 her repeated saja—he felt that she was falling under
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 171 
 
 his stronger influence, the influence of the man of 
 tact and authority, and tliat he was giving her food 
 for reflection. He f eU that, as she reflected, her hatred 
 was subsiding, her vindictiveness losing its force and 
 that he was breaking the energy and the pride of the 
 ancient blood of the ]\Iaduran sultans. Under all the 
 flowers of his speech, he allowed her to catch a glimpse 
 of utter ruin, of terrible penalties, of the undeniably 
 greater power of the government. And he bent her 
 to the old pliant attitude of yielding before the might 
 of the ruler. He reminded her, in her impulse to rebel 
 and throw off the hated yoke, that it was better to be 
 calm and reasonable and to adapt herself placidly to 
 things as they were. She nodded her head softly in 
 assent; and he felt that he had conquered her. And 
 this aroused a certain pride within him. 
 
 And now she also spoke and gave the required 
 promise, saying in her broken, inwardly weeping voice, 
 that she loved him as a son, that she would do what 
 he wished and would assuredly use her influence, out- 
 side the Kabupaten, in the town, to still these menac- 
 ing troubles. She denied her own complicity and said 
 that the imrest arose from the unreflecting love of the 
 people, who suffered with her, because of her son. 
 She now echoed his own words, save that she did not 
 speak of imworthiness. For she was a mother. And 
 she repeated once again that he could trust her, that 
 she would act according to his wish. Then he in- 
 formed her that he would come to the himpulan next 
 dav, with his subordinates and with the native head- 
 men; and he said that he trusted her so completely 
 that all of them, the Europeans, would be unarmed. 
 He looked her in the eyes. He threatened her more
 
 172 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 by saying this than if he had spoken of arms. For he 
 was threatening her — without a threatening word, 
 merely by tlie intonation of his Malay speech— ^with 
 the punishment, with the vengeance of the govern- 
 ment, if a hair was injured of the least of its officials. 
 
 He had risen from his seat. She also rose, wrung 
 her hands, entreated him not to speak like that, en- 
 treated him to have the fullest confidence in her and in 
 her son. She sent for Sunario. The Regent of 
 Labuwangi entered ; and Van Oudijck again repeated 
 that he hoped for peace and reason. And he felt, by 
 the tone of the old princess in speaking to her son, that 
 she wished for peace and reason. He felt that she, the 
 mother, was omnipotent in the Kabupaten. 
 
 The regent bowed his head, agreed, promised, even 
 said that he had already taken pacifying measures, 
 that he had always regretted this excitement of the 
 populace, that it grieved him greatly, now that the resi- 
 dent had noticed it, in spite of his, Sunario's, attempts 
 at pacification. The resident did not go further into 
 this insincerity. He knew that the discontent was 
 fanned from the Kabupaten, but he knew also that he 
 had won. Once more, however, he im.pressed upon 
 the regent his responsibility, if anything happened In 
 the pendoppo, next day, during the kimipulan. The 
 regent entreated him not to think of such a thing. And 
 now, to part on friendly terms, he begged Van 
 Oudijck to sit down again. Van Oudijck resumed his 
 seat. In so doing, he knocked as though by accident 
 against the tumbler, all frosted with the chill of the 
 ice, which he had not yet put to his lips. It fell clat- 
 tering to the ground. He apologized for his clumsi- 
 ness. The Raden-Aju Pangeran had remarked his
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 173 
 
 movement and her old face turned pale. She said 
 nothing, but beckoned to an attendant. And the four 
 servants appeared again, crouching along the floor, 
 and mixed a second whisky-and-soda. Van Oudijck 
 at once lifted the glass to his lips. 
 
 There was a painful silence. To what degree the 
 resident's movement in upsetting the glass was justified 
 would always remain a problem. He would never 
 know. But he wished to show the princess that, when 
 coming here, he was prepared for anything, before 
 their conversation, and that, after this conversation, he 
 meant to trust her utterly and completely, not only in 
 respect of the drink which she offered him, but next 
 day, at the kmnpulan, where he and his officials would 
 appear unarmed, and in resi>ect of her influence for 
 good, which would bring peace and tranquillity to the 
 people. And, as though to show him that she under- 
 stood him and that his confidence would be wholly 
 justified, she stood up and whispered a few words to 
 an attendant whom she had beckoned to her. The 
 Javanese disappeared and soon returned, crouching all 
 the way through the front-verandah and carrying a 
 long object in a yellow case. The princess took it 
 from him and handed it to Sunario, who took a walk- 
 ing-stick from the yellow silk case and oft'ered it to 
 the resident as a token of their fraternal friendship. 
 Van Oudijck accepted it, understanding the symbol. 
 For the yellow silk case was of the colour and the 
 material of authority, yellow or gold and silk; the 
 stick was of a wood that serves as a protection against 
 snake-bites and ill-luck; and the heavy knob was 
 wrought of the metal of authority, gold, in the form of 
 the ancient sultan's crown. This stick, offered at such
 
 174 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 a moment, signified that the Adiningrats submitted 
 anew and that Van Oudijck could trust them. 
 
 And when he took his leave, he felt very proud and 
 esteemed himself highly. For by exercising tact, 
 diplomacy and knowledge of the Javanese he had won ; 
 he would have allayed the rebellion merely by words. 
 That would be a fact. 
 
 That was so, that would be so: a fact. On that 
 first evening of the passer-malam, lighted gaily with a 
 hundred paraffin-lamps, scented alluringly with the 
 trailing odours of cooking food, full of the motley 
 whirl of the holiday-making populace, that first even- 
 ing was wholly given up to rejoicing; and the people 
 discussed with one another the long and friendly visit 
 which the resident had paid to the regent and his 
 mother; for they had seen the carriage with the pajong 
 M'-aiting a long time in the drive and the regent's at- 
 tendants had told of the present of the walking-stick. 
 
 That was so ; the fact existed and had happened as 
 Van Oudijck had planned it in advance and compelled 
 it to happen. And that he should be proud of this 
 was human. But what he had not compelled or 
 planned in advance was the hidden forces, which he 
 never divined, whose existence he would deny, always, 
 in his simple, natural life. What he did not see and 
 hear and feel was the very hidden force, which had 
 indeed subsided, but was yet smouldering, like a vol- 
 canic fire, under the apparently peaceful meadows of 
 flowers and amity and peace; the hatred which would 
 possess a power of impenetrable mystery, against 
 which he, the European, was unarmed.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Van Oudijck was fond of certain effects. He did 
 not say much about his visit to the Kabupaten that 
 day, nor in the evening, when Eldersma and Van 
 Helderen came to speak to him about the kumpidan 
 which would be held the next morning. They felt 
 more or less uneasy and asked if they should go armed. 
 But Van Oudijck very firmly and decidedly forbade 
 them to take arms with them and said that no one 
 was allow^ed to do so. The officials gave way, but 
 nobody felt comfortable. The kumpidan, however, 
 took place in complete peace and harmony ; only, there 
 were m.ore people moving about among the booths of 
 the passer-malarn, there were more police at the orna- 
 mental arches, with the rippling strips of bunting. 
 But nothing happened. The wives indoors were 
 anxious and felt relieved when their husbands were 
 safely back home again. And Van Oudijck had ob- 
 tained his effect. He now paid a few visits, feeling 
 sure of his grip on things, relying on the Raden-Aju 
 Pangeran. He reassured the ladies and told them to 
 think of nothing now except the fancy-fair. But they 
 were none too confident. Some families, in the even- 
 ing, bolted all their doors and remained in the middle 
 gallery with their visitors and children and habus, 
 armed, listening, on their guard. 
 
 Theo, to whom his father had spoken in an out- 
 burst of confidence, played a practical joke with Addie. 
 The two lads, one evening, went round the houses of 
 those whom he knew to be most fidgety and made their
 
 176 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 way into the front-verandah and shouted to have the 
 doors opened ; and they could hear the cocking of fire- 
 arms in the middle galleries. They had a merry even- 
 ing of it. 
 
 Then at last the fancy-fair took place. Eva had 
 organized a series of three tableaux from the Arthur- 
 ian legend on the stage of the club: Vivian and 
 Guinevere and Lancelot; in the middle of the garden 
 was a Madura proa, fitted up like a Viking's ship, in 
 which iced punch was served; a neighbouring sugar- 
 factory, always full of fun, famed for its jovial tone, 
 had provided a complete Dutch poffcrtjes^-stall, as a 
 nostalgic memory of Holland, with the ladies dressed 
 as Frisian peasant-girls and the young fellows from 
 the factory as cooks; and the excitement over the 
 Transvaal was represented by a Majuba Hill with 
 ladies and gentlemen in fantastic Boer costumes. 
 There was not a word about the tremendous sea- 
 quake at Ternate, although one half of the receipts was 
 destined for the devastated districts. Under the glow- 
 ing festoons of Chinese lanterns slung across the 
 gardens, a great sense of fun prevailed, coupled with a 
 readiness to spend pots of money, especially on behalf 
 of the Transvaal. But amid the merriment there yet 
 quivered a fear. Groups assembled, peering glances 
 were cast at the road outside, where Indos, Javanese, 
 Chinese and Arabs stood round the steaming portable 
 kitchens. And the visitors, while tossing off a glass of 
 champagne or toying with a plate of poffertjes, turned 
 their ears in the direction of the aloon-aloon, where 
 the passcr-malam was in full swing. When Van 
 Oudijck appeared with Doddie, received with Wien 
 
 * Fritters figuring at every Dutch "kermis.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 177 
 
 Neerlandsch Blocd/ generously distributing rijks- 
 daalders and bankjes,' he was constantly asked whis- 
 pered questions. And when it was seen that Mrs. 
 van Oudijck was not coming, people began to ask one 
 another where she was. She had been suffering so 
 with her teeth, said one ; she had gone to Surabaya to 
 see the dentist. They did not think it nice of her; 
 they did not like her when they did not see her. She 
 was much discussed that evening: the most horrible 
 scandals were told about her. Doddie took up her 
 stand in the Madura proa as a saleswoman ; and Van 
 Oudijck, with Eldersma, Van Helderen and a couple 
 of controllers from other districts, went round and 
 treated the members of his council. When people asked 
 their mysterious questions, with anxious glances at the 
 road, with ears pricked towards the aloon-aloon, he 
 reassured them with a majestic smile: nothing was 
 going to happen, he pledged his word on it. They con- 
 sidered him extremely trusting, mightily sure of him- 
 self ; but the jovial smile around his thick moustache 
 was comforting. He urged all who belonged to his 
 good town of Labuwangi to think of nothing but en- 
 joyment and benevolence. And, when suddenly the 
 Regent, Raden Adipati Sunario, and his wife, the 
 young Raden-Aju, appeared at the entrance and paid 
 for bouquets, programmes and fans with a hundred- 
 guilder hankje, the tension was relaxed throughout 
 the garden. Everybody soon knew about the hundred- 
 guilder hanhjc. And they all breathed again, realizing 
 that there was now no occasion for anxiety, that there 
 would be no insurrection that night. They made much 
 
 ^ The Dutch national anthem. 
 
 ^ Bank-notes.
 
 178 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 of the regent and his smiling young wife, who glittered 
 with her beautiful jewels. 
 
 Out of sheer relief and relaxation of their tense 
 anxiety, out of sheer craziness, they spent more and 
 more money trying to vie with the few wealthy 
 Chinese — those dating from before the opium- 
 monopoly, — the owners of the white marble and stucco 
 palaces — as these with their wives, in embroidered 
 grey and green Chinese costumes, their shiny hair 
 stuck full of flowers and precious stones, smelling 
 strongly of sandalwood, scattered rijksdaalders broad- 
 cast. Money flowed like water, dripped as though in 
 silver drops into the collecting-boxes of the delighted 
 saleswomen. And the fancy-fair was a success. And, 
 when Van Oudijck at last, little by little, here and 
 there, said a word to Doom de Bruijn, to Rantzow, 
 to the officials from other residencies about his visit, 
 about his interview with the Raden-Aju Pangeran — 
 assuming an air of humility and simplicity, but never- 
 theless, despite himself, beaming with happy pride, 
 with delight in his triumph, — then he attained his 
 greatest effect. 
 
 The story ran round the garden, of the tact, the 
 cleverness of the resident, who had laid the spectre of 
 insurrection merely with a word. He received a sort 
 of ovation. And he filled every glass with champagne, 
 he bought up every fan, he bought all the tickets in 
 the tombola that remained unsold. It was his apotheo- 
 sis, his greatest moment of success and popularity. 
 And he joked with the ladles and flirted with them. 
 
 The entertainment was prolonged until daylight, 
 until six o'clock in the morning. The merry cooks 
 were drunk and danced around their poffertjes-stove.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 179 
 
 And, when Van Oudijck went home at last, he felt an 
 inner mood of self-satisfaction, of strength, he was 
 dehghted, enraptured with himself. He felt a king in 
 his little world and a diplomatist into the bargain and 
 beloved by all whose quiet and peace he had assured. 
 That evening made him rise in his own estimation and 
 he valued himself more highly than he had ever done 
 before. Never had he felt as happy as he felt now. 
 
 He had sent the carriage away and he walked home 
 with Doddie. A few early salesmen were going to the 
 passer. Doddie, dog-tired and half-asleep, dragged her- 
 self along on her father's arm . . . until some one 
 passed close beside her and, feeling rather than seeing, 
 she suddenly shuddered. She looked up. The figure 
 had passed. She looked round and recognized the 
 back of the hadji, hurrying away. . . . 
 
 She turned cold and felt as though she would faint. 
 But then, wearily, walking in her sleep, she reflected 
 that she was half dreaming, dreaming of Addie, of 
 Patjaram, of the moonlit night under the tjemaras, 
 where the white hadji had startled her at the end of 
 the avenue. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Eva Eldersma was in a more listless and dejected 
 mood than she had yet experienced in Java. After 
 her efforts, after the fuss and the success of the fancy- 
 fair, after the shuddering fear of a rising, the little 
 town conscientiously went to sleep again, as though 
 well content to be able to slumber as usual. It was 
 December and the heavy rains had begun, as usual, on 
 the fifth of the month: the rainy monsoon invariably 
 opened on St. Nicholas' Day, The clouds which, for 
 the past month, continually swelling, had piled them- 
 selves upon the lower horizons, now rose curtain-wise, 
 like water-laden sails higher against the skies, rent 
 open as by a sudden fury of far-flashing lightning, 
 pouring and lashing down as though this wealth of 
 water could no longer be upheld, now that the swollen 
 sails were torn apart, as though all their wanton 
 abundance came streaming down from a single rent. 
 Of an evening, Eva's front-verandah was invaded by a 
 crazy swarm of insects, which, drunk with light, 
 rushed upon their destruction in the lamps, as in an 
 apotheosis of fiery death, filling the lamp-chimneys and 
 strewing the marble tables with their fluttering, dying 
 bodies. Eva inhaled a cooler air; but a miasma of 
 damp, arising from earth and leaves, soaked the walls, 
 seemed to ooze from the furniture, dimming the mir- 
 rors, staining the silk hangings and covering boots and 
 shoes with mildew, as though nature's frenzied down- 
 pour were bent on the ruin of all that was fine and 
 delicate, sparkling and graceful in human achieve-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 181 
 
 ment. But the trees and foliage and grass shot up 
 and expanded and rioted hixuriantly upwards, in a 
 thousand shades of fresh green; and, in the reviving 
 glory of verdant nature, the crouching human com- 
 munity of open-fronted villas, wet and humid with 
 fungi, all the whiteness of the lime-washed pillars and 
 flower-pots turned to a mouldy green. 
 
 Eva vvatched the slow and gradual spoiling of her 
 house, her furniture, her clothes. Day by day, in- 
 exorably, something was spoilt, something rotted 
 away, something was covered with mildew or rust. 
 And none of the aesthetic philosophy with which she 
 had at first taught herself to love India, to appreciate 
 the good in India, to seek in India for the external 
 plastic beauty and the inward beauty of soul, was 
 able to withstand the streaming water, the cracking of 
 her furniture, the staining of her frocks and gloves, 
 the damp, mildew and rust that ruined the exquisite 
 environment which she had designed and created all 
 around her, as a comfort, to console her for living in 
 India. All her logic, all her feeling of making the 
 best of things, of finding something attractive and 
 beautiful after all in the land of all-prevailing nature 
 and of people eager for money and positions: all this 
 failed her and came to naught, now that she was every 
 moment irritated and angered as a housewife, as an 
 elegant woman, an artistic woman. No, it was im- 
 possible in India to surround one's self Avith taste and 
 exquisiteness. She had been here for only two years 
 and she was still able to make a certain fight for her 
 western culture ; but nevertheless she was now already 
 better able than in the first days after her arrival to 
 understand the laisser-aller of the men, after their
 
 182 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 hard work, and of the women, in their housekeeping. 
 True, the servants with their soundless movements, 
 working with gentle hands, willing, never impertinent, 
 were to her thinking far superior to the noisy, pound- 
 ing maids in Holland ; but nevertheless she felt in all 
 her household an eastern antagonism to her western 
 ideas. It was always a struggle not to surrender to 
 that laisser-aller, to the running to waste of the over- 
 large grounds, invariably hung at the back with the 
 dirty washing of the servants and strewn with nibbled 
 mangoes; to the gradual spoiling and fading of the 
 paint of the house, which was also too large, too open, 
 too much exposed to wind and weather to be cared 
 for with Dutch cleanliness ; to the habit of sitting and 
 rocking, undressed, in sarong and kabaai, with one's 
 bare feet in slippers, because it was really too hot, too 
 sultry to dress one's self in a frock or tea-gown, which 
 only became soaked in perspiration. It was for her 
 sake that her husband always dressed for dinner, in a 
 black jacket and stand-up collar; but, when she saw 
 his tired face, with that more and more fixed, over- 
 tired office expression above that stand-up collar, she 
 herself begged him not to trouble to dress next time 
 after his second bath and allowed him to dine in a white 
 jacket, or even in pyjamas. She thought it terrible, 
 thought it unspeakably dreadful; it shocked all her 
 ideas of correctness ; but really he was too tired and it 
 was too sultry and oppressive for her to expect any- 
 thing more from him. And she, after only two years 
 in India, understood more and more easily that 
 laisser-allcr — in dress, in body and In soul — now that 
 every day she lost something more of her fresh, Dutch 
 blood and her western energy, now that she admitted,
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 183 
 
 certainly, that in India men worked perhaps as in no 
 other country, but that they worked with one sole 
 object before their eyes; position, money, retirement, 
 pension . . . and home, back home to Europe. True, 
 there were others, born in India, who had been out of 
 India only once, for barely a year, who would not hear 
 of Holland, who adored their land of sunshine. She 
 knew that the De Luces were like this ; and there were 
 others as well, she knew. But in her own circle of 
 civil servants and planters every one had the same 
 object in life: position, money . . , and then 
 off, off to Europe. Every one calculated the years of 
 work still before him. Every one saw before him in the 
 future the illusion of that European retirement. An 
 occasional friend, like Van Oudijck, an occasional 
 civil servant, who perhaps loved his work for his 
 work's sake and because it suited his nature, feared 
 the coming pensioned retirement, which would mean a 
 stupid, vegetating existence. But Van Oudijck was an 
 exception. The majority worked in the service and 
 on the plantations for the sake of the rest to come. 
 Her husband also, for instance, was toiling like a 
 slave to become assistant-resident and, after some 
 years, to draw his pension ; he slaved and toiled for 
 his illusion of rest. At present she felt her own energy 
 leaving her with every drop of blood that she felt 
 flowing more sluggishly through her weary veins. 
 And, in these early days of the wet monsoon, while the 
 eaves of the house incessantly discharged the thick, 
 plashing shafts which irritated her with their clatter, 
 while she watched the gradual ruin of all the material 
 surroundings which she had selected with so much 
 taste as her artistic consolation in India, she reached a
 
 184 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 worse discordant mood of listlessness and dejection 
 than she had ever gone through before. Her child 
 was still too small to mean much to her, to be a 
 kindred spirit. Her husband did nothing but work. 
 He was a kind and thoughtful husband to her, a dear 
 fellow in every way, a man of great simplicity, whom 
 she had accepted, perhaps only because of that sim- 
 plicity, because of the quiet serenity of his smiling, 
 fair-skinned, Frisian face and the burliness of his 
 broad shoulders, after one or two excited, juvenile 
 romances of enthusiasm and misunderstanding and 
 soulful discussions, romances dating from her girl- 
 hood. She, who was herself neither simple nor 
 serene, had sought the simplicity of her life in a simple 
 romance. But his qualities failed to satisfy her. Now 
 especially, when she had been longer in India and was 
 suffering defeat In her contest with the country that 
 did not harmonize with her nature, his serene conjugal 
 love failed to satisfy her. 
 
 She was beginning to feel unhappy. She was too 
 versatile a woman to find all her happiness in her little 
 boy. He certainly filled a part of her life, with the 
 minor cares of the present and the thought of his 
 future. She had even worked out a whole educational 
 system for him. But he did not fill her life entirely. 
 And a longing for Holland encompassed her, a long- 
 ing for her parents, a longing for the beautiful, artis- 
 tic home where you were always meeting painters, 
 writers, musicians, the artistic salon — an exception In 
 Holland — which gathered together for a brief moment 
 the artistic elements which In Holland usually re- 
 mained Isolated.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 185 
 
 The vision passed before her eyes hke a vague and 
 distant dream, while she listened to the approaching 
 thunders that filled the air, sultry to bursting-point, 
 A\hile she gazed at the downpour that followed. Here 
 she had nothing. Here she felt out of place. Here she 
 had her little clique of adherents, who collected around 
 her because she was cheerful ; but she found no sort 
 of deeper sympathy, no serious conversation . . . 
 except in Van Helderen. And with him she meant to 
 be careful, so as to give him no illusions. 
 
 There was only Van Helderen. And she thought of 
 all the other people around her at Labuwangi. She 
 thought of people, people everywhere. And very pessi- 
 mistic in these days, she found in all of them the same 
 egoism, the same self-complacency, the same unattrac- 
 tiveness, the same self-absorption: she could hardly 
 express it to herself, distracted as she was by the terrific 
 force of the pelting rain. But she found in every- 
 body conscious and unconscious traits of unloveliness 
 . . . even in her faithful adherents . . . and 
 in her husband . . . and in the men, young wives, 
 girls, young men around her. There was nothing in 
 any of them but his own ego. Not one of them had 
 sufficient harmony of mind for himself and another. 
 She disapproved of this in one, hated that in another; 
 a third and a fourth she condemned entirely. This 
 critical attitude made her despondent and melancholy, 
 for it was against her nature: she preferred to like 
 others. She liked to live, in spontaneous harmony, 
 with a number of associates: originally she had a pro- 
 found love of people, a love of humanity. Great 
 questions moved her. But nothing that she felt met 
 with any echo. She found herself empty and alone, in
 
 186 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 a country, a town, an environment In which all and 
 everything, large and small, offended her soul, her 
 body, her character, her nature. Her husband worked. 
 Her child was already becoming thoroughly Indian. 
 Her piano was out of tune. 
 
 She stood up and tried the piano, with long scales 
 that ended in the Fencrzauhcr of Valkyrie. But the 
 roar of the rain was louder than her playing. When 
 she got up again, feeling desperately dejected, she saw 
 Van Helderen standing before her: 
 
 *'You startled me," she said. 
 
 "May I stay to lunch?" he asked. "I am all by 
 myself at home. Ida has gone to Tosari for her 
 malaria and has taken the children with her. She went 
 yesterday. It's an expensive business. How I'm to 
 keep going this month I do not know." 
 
 "Send the children to us after they've had a few 
 days in the hills." 
 
 "Won't they bother you ?" 
 
 "Of course not. I'll write to Ida." 
 
 "It's really awfully good of you. It would certainly 
 make things easier for me." 
 
 She laughed softly. 
 
 "Aren't you well?" he asked. 
 
 "I feel deadly," she said. 
 
 "How do you mean ?" 
 
 "I feel as if I were dying by Inches." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "It's terrible here. We've been longing for the 
 rains ; and, now that they've come, they are driving me 
 mad. And . . . I don't know what: I can't stand 
 it here any longer." 
 
 "Where?"
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 187 
 
 "In India. I have taught myself to see the good, the 
 beautiful in this country. It's all no use. I can't go 
 on with it." 
 
 "Go to Holland," he said, gently. 
 
 "My people would be glad to see me, no doubt. It 
 would be good for my boy, because he's forgetting his 
 Dutch daily, though I had begun to teach it to him so 
 conscientiously, and he speaks Malay ... or sinjo. 
 But I can't leave my husband here all alone. He 
 would have nothing here without me. At least, I 
 think so: that is one more sort of illusion. Perhaps 
 it's not so at all." 
 
 "But, if vou fall ill . . . ?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" 
 
 Her whole being was filled with an unusual fatigue. 
 
 "Perhaps you're exaggerating!" he began cheer- 
 fully. "Come, perhaps you're exaggerating! What's 
 upsetting you, what's making you so unhappy ? Let's 
 draw up an inventory together." 
 
 "An inventory of my misfortunes ? Very well. My 
 garden is a marsh. Three chairs in my front-verandah 
 are splitting to pieces. The white ants have devoured 
 my beautiful Japanese mats. A new silk frock has 
 come out all over stains, for no reason that I can make 
 out. Another is all unravelled, simply with the heat, 
 I believe. To say nothing of various minor miseries 
 of the same order. To console myself I took refuge 
 in the Fnierzaiiher. My piano was out of tune ; 1 be- 
 lieve there are cockroaches walking among the 
 strings." 
 
 He gave a little laugh. 
 
 "We're idiots here," she continued, "we Europeans 
 in this country'! Why do we bring all the para-
 
 188 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 phernalia of our costly civilization with us, considering 
 that it's bound not to last? Why don't we live in a 
 cool bamboo hut, sleep on a mat, dress in a kain 
 pandjang and a chintz kahaai, with a scarf over our 
 shoulders and a flower in our hair ? All your civiliza- 
 tion by which you propose to grow rich . . . it's 
 a western idea, which fails in the long run. Our whole 
 administration . . . it's so tiring In the heat. 
 Why — if we must be here — don't we live simply and 
 plant paddy and live on nothing?" 
 
 "You're talking like a woman," he said, with an- 
 other little laugh. 
 
 "Possibly," she said. "Perhaps I don't mean quite 
 all I say. But that I feel here, opposing me, opposing 
 all my western notions, a force which is antagonistic 
 to me . . . that is certain. I am sometimes fright- 
 ened. I always feel . . . that I am on the point of 
 being conquered, I don't know what by: by something 
 out of the ground, by a force of nature, by a secret in 
 the soul of these black people, whom I don't know. 
 . I feel particularly afraid at night." 
 
 **You're overwrought," he said, tenderly. 
 
 "Possibly," she replied, wearily, seeing that he did 
 not understand and too tired to go on explaining. 
 "Let's talk about something else. That table-turning's 
 very curious." 
 
 "Very," he said. 
 
 "The' other day, the three of us: Ida, you and 
 I " 
 
 X • • • 
 
 "It was certainly very curious." 
 "Do you remember the first time ? Addle de Luce : 
 it seems to be true about him and Mrs. van Oudijck.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 189 
 
 . . . And the insurrection . . . the table fore- 
 told it." 
 
 "May we not have suggested it unconsciously?" 
 
 "I don't know. But to think that we should all be 
 playing fair and that that table should go tapping and 
 talking to us by means of an alphabet !" 
 
 "I shouldn't do it often, Eva, if I were you." 
 
 "No, I think it inexplicable. And yet it's already 
 beginning to bore me. One grows so accustomed to 
 the incomprehensible." 
 
 "Everything's incomprehensible." 
 
 "Yes . , . and everything's a bore." 
 
 "Eva!" he said, with a soft, reproachful laugh. 
 
 "I give up the fight. I shall just sit in my rocking- 
 chair , . . and look at the rain." 
 
 "There was a time when you used to see the beau- 
 tiful side of my country." 
 
 "Your country ? Which you would be glad to leave 
 to-morrow to go to the Paris Exhibition !" 
 
 "I've never seen anything." 
 
 "How humble you are to-day !" 
 
 "I am sad, because of you." 
 
 "Oh, please don't be that !" 
 
 "Play something more." 
 
 "Well, then, have your gin-and-bitters. Help your- 
 self. I shall play on my out-of-tune piano; it will 
 sound as melodious as my soul, which is also all of a 
 tangle. 
 
 She went back to the middle galleiy and played 
 something from Parsifal. He remained sitting out- 
 side and listened. The rain was pouring furiously. 
 The garden stood clean and empt}^ A violent thunder- 
 clap seemed to split the world asunder. Nature was
 
 190 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 supreme; and in her gigantic manifestation the two 
 people in that damp house were diminished, his love 
 was nothing, her melancholy was nothing and the 
 mystic music of the Grail was as a child's ditty to the 
 echoing mystery of that thunder-clap, whereat fate 
 itself seemed to sail with heavenly cymbals over these 
 creatures doomed in the Deluge.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Van Helderen's two children, a boy and girl of six 
 and seven, were staying at Eva's; and Van Helderen 
 came in regularly once a day for a meal. He no 
 longer spoke of his intense feeling, as though unwilling 
 to disturb the pleasant intimacy of their daily inter- 
 course. And she accepted his daily visits, was power- 
 less to keep him at a distance. He was the only man in 
 her immediate circle with whom she could speak and 
 think aloud ; and he was a comfort to her in these days 
 of dejection. She did not understand how she had 
 come to this, but she gradually lapsed into an absolute 
 apathy, a sort of annihilating condition of thinking 
 nothing necessary. She had never been in this state 
 before. Her nature was lively and cheerful, seeking 
 and admiring the beautiful in poetry and music and 
 painting, things which, from her early childhood, from 
 her childish books, she had seen about her and felt and 
 discussed. In India she had gradually come to lack 
 everything of which she felt a need. In her despair 
 she succumbed to a sort of nihilism that made her 
 ask: 
 
 "What is the reason of anything? . . . Why 
 the world and the people in it and the mountains? 
 . . . Why all this tiny whirl of life?" 
 
 And then, when she read of the social movements, 
 of the great social problems in Europe, of the in- 
 creasingly urgent Indo question in Java, she thought 
 to herself:
 
 192 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "Why should there be a world, if man eternally 
 remains the same, small and suffering ajid oppressed 
 by all the misery of his humanity?" 
 
 She did not see the purpose of it all. Half of man- 
 kind was suffering poverty and struggling upwards 
 out of that darkness ... to what ? The other 
 half was stagnating stupidly and dully amid its riches. 
 Between the two was a scale of gradations, from 
 black poverty to dismal wealth. Over them stood the 
 rainbow of the eternal illusions, love, art, the great 
 notes of interrogation of justice and peace and an ideal 
 future. . . . She felt that it was much ado 
 about nothing, she failed to see the purpose and she 
 thought to herself: 
 
 "Why is it all so . . . and why the world 
 and poor humanity?'* 
 
 She had never felt like this before, but there was no 
 struggling against it. Gradually, from day to day, 
 India was making her so, making her sick at her very 
 soul. Frans van Helderen was her only consolation. 
 The young controller, who had never been to Europe, 
 who had received all his education at Batavia, who 
 had passed his examinations at Batavia, with his dis- 
 tinguished manners, his supple courtesy, his strange, 
 enigmatic nationality, had grown dear to her in 
 friendship because of his almost exotic development. 
 She told him how she delighted in this friendship: and 
 he no longer replied by offering his love. There was 
 too much charm about their present relation. There 
 was something ideal in it, which they both needed. In 
 their everyday surroundings that friendship shone be- 
 fore them like an exquisite halo of which they were 
 both proud. He often called to see her, especially now
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 193 
 
 that his wife was at Tosari ; and they would walk In 
 the evening twilight to the beacon which stood by the 
 sea like a small Eiffel tower. These walks were much 
 talked about, but they did not mind that. They sat 
 down on the foundation of the beacon, looked out to 
 sea and listened to the distance. Ghostly proas, with 
 sails like night-birds' w4ngs, glided into the canal, to 
 the droning sing-song of the fishermen. A melancholy 
 of resignation, of a small world and small people 
 hovered beneath the skies filled with twinkling stars, 
 Avhere gleamed the mystic diamonds of the Southern 
 Cross or the Turkish crescent of the horned moon. 
 And, above that melancholy of the droning fishermen, 
 of crazy proas, of small people at the foot of the little 
 light-house, drifted a fathomless immensity of the 
 skies and the eternal stars. And, from out the im- 
 mensity, drifted the unutterable, as it were the super- 
 humanly divine, wherein all that was small and human 
 sank and melted away. 
 
 "Why attach any value to life when I may die to- 
 morrow?" thought Eva. "Why all this confusion and 
 turmoil of mankind, when to-morrow perhaps every- 
 thing may have ceased to exist?" 
 
 And she put the question to him. He replied that 
 each of us was not living for himself and the present 
 age, but for all mankind and for the future. But she 
 gave a bitter laugh, shrugged her shoulders, thought 
 him commonplace. And she thought herself common- 
 place, to think such things that had so often been 
 thought before. But still notwithstanding her self- 
 criticism, she continued under the obsession of the 
 uselessness of life when everything might be dead to- 
 morrow. And an humiliating littleness, as of atoms.
 
 194 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 overcame them, both of them, as they sat there, gazing 
 into the spaciousness of the skies and the eternal stars. 
 
 Yet they loved those moments, which were every- 
 thing in their lives; for, when they did not feel their 
 pettiness too keenly, they spoke of books, music, paint- 
 ing and the big, important things of life. And they 
 felt that, in spite of the circulating library and the 
 Italian opera at Surabaya, they were no longer in touch 
 with the world. They felt the great, important things 
 to be very far from them. And both of them now be- 
 came seized with a nostalgia for Europe, a longing to 
 feel so very small no longer. They would both have 
 liked to get away, to go to Europe. But neither of 
 them was able. Their petty, daily life held them cap- 
 tive. Then, as though spontaneously, in mutual har- 
 mony, they spoke of what was soul and being and all 
 the mystery thereof. 
 
 All the mystery. They felt it in the sea, in the sky ; 
 but they also quietly sought it in the rapping leg of a 
 table. They did not understand how a soul or spirit 
 could reveal itself through a table on which they 
 earnestly laid their hands and which through their 
 magnetic fluid was transformed from dead to living 
 matter. But, when they laid their hands upon it, the 
 table lived and they were forced to believe. The letters 
 which they counted out were often confused, according 
 to some strange alphabet; and the table, as though 
 directed by a mocking spirit, constantly showed a 
 tendency to tease and confuse, to stop suddenly or to 
 be coarse and indecent. Sometimes they read books 
 on spiritualism and did not know whether to believe or 
 not.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 195 
 
 These were quiet days of quiet monotony in the 
 little town swept by the rustling rain. Their life in 
 common seemed unreal, like a dream that rose through 
 the rain like a mist. And it w^as like a sudden awaken- 
 ing for Eva when, one afternoon, walking outside in 
 the damp avenue, waiting for Van Helderen, she saw 
 Van Oudijck coming in her direction. 
 
 "I was just on my way to you !" he cried, excitedly. 
 "I was just coming to ask a favour. Will you help me 
 once more?" 
 
 "In what, resident ?" 
 
 "But first tell me: aren't you well? You've not 
 been looking very fit lately." 
 
 "It's nothing serious," she said, with a dreary laugh. 
 "It'll pass. What can I help you in, resident?" 
 
 "There's something to be done, mevrouwtje, and we 
 can't manage without you. My wife herself was say- 
 ing this morning, 'Better ask Mrs. Eldersma.' " 
 
 "But tell me what it is." 
 
 ''You know Mrs. Staats, the station-master's widow. 
 The poor woman has been left without a thing, except 
 her five children and some debts." 
 
 "He committed suicide, didn't he?" 
 
 "Yes, it's very sad. And we really must help her. 
 It'll want a lot of money. Sending round a subscrip- 
 tion-list won't bring in much. People are very gener- 
 ous, but they've already made such sacrifices lately. 
 They went mad at the fancy-fair. They can't do much 
 for the moment, so near the end of the month. But, 
 early next month, in the first week of January, mev- 
 rouwtje, some theatricals by your Thalia society: You 
 know, nothing elaborate, a couple of drawing-room 
 sketches and no expenses. Seats at a guilder and a half,
 
 196 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 two guilders and a half, perhaps, and, if you set it go- 
 ing, the hall will be full ; people will come over from 
 Surabaya. You must help me, you will, won't you ?" 
 
 "But, resident," said Eva, wearily, "we've just had 
 those tahlecmx-vivants. Don't be angry with me, but 
 I don't care to be always acting." 
 
 "Yes, yes, you must this time," Van Oudijck in- 
 sisted, a little imperiously, greatly excited about his 
 plan. 
 
 She became peevish. She liked her independence; 
 and in these days of dejection particulary she was too 
 disconsolate, in these days of dreaming she felt too 
 much confused to accede at once with a good grace to 
 his authoritative request: 
 
 "Really, resident, I can think of nothing this time," 
 she answered, curtly. "Why doesn't Mrs. van Oudijck 
 do it herself?" 
 
 She was startled when she had made this peevish 
 remark. Walking beside her, the resident lost his 
 composure ; and his face clouded over. The animated, 
 cheerful expression and the jovial smile around his 
 thick moustache suddenly disappeared. She saw that 
 she had been cruel ; and she felt remorse for it. And 
 for the first time, suddenly, she saw that, in love with 
 his wife though he was, he did not approve of her 
 withdrawing herself from everything. She saw that it 
 gave him pain. It was as though this side of his 
 character were becoming clear to her: she was seeing it 
 plainly for the first tim.e. 
 
 He did not know what to reply: seeking for his 
 words, he remained silent. 
 
 Then she said, coaxingly:
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 197 
 
 "Don't be angry, resident. It wasn't nice of me. I 
 know that all that sort of bustle only bores Mrs. van 
 Oudijck. I am glad to relieve her of it. I will do 
 anything you wish." 
 
 Her eyes filled with nervous tears. 
 
 He was smiling now and gave her a penetrating 
 sidelong glance : 
 
 "You're a bit overstrung. But I knew that you had 
 a good heart . . . and would not leave me in the 
 lurch . . . and would consent to help that good 
 old Mother Staats. But don't throw away any money, 
 mevrouwtje: no expense, no new scenery. Just your 
 wit, your talent, your beautiful elocution: French or 
 Dutch, as you please. We're proud of all that at 
 Labuwangi, you know; and all the beautiful acting — 
 which you give us free of expense — is quite enough to 
 make the performance a success. But how overstrung 
 you are, mevrouwtje! Why are you crying? Aren't 
 vou Avell? Tell me: is there anything I can do for 
 you?" 
 
 "Don't work my husband so hard, resident. I never 
 see anything of him." 
 
 He made a gesture to show that he could not help 
 himself: 
 
 "It's true," he admitted. "There's an awful lot to 
 do. Is that the trouble ?" 
 
 "And make me see the good side of India." 
 
 "Is that It?" 
 
 "And a lot besides." 
 
 "Are you becoming homesick? Don't you care for 
 India any longer, don't you care for Labuwangi, where 
 we all make so much of you? . . . You misjudge 
 India. Try to see the good side of it."
 
 198 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "I have tried." 
 
 'Ts it no use?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You are too sensible not to perceive the good in this 
 country." 
 
 "You are too fond of It to be Impartial. And I don't 
 know how to be impartial. But tell me the good 
 things." 
 
 "Which shall I begin with ? The satisfaction of being 
 able, as an official, to do good to the country and the 
 people. The fine, delightful sense of working for this 
 country and this people; the ample hard work that 
 fills a man's life out here . . . I'm not speaking 
 of all the office-work of your husband, who is a 
 secretary. But I'm speaking of later on, when he 
 becomes an assistant-resident !" 
 
 "It will be so long before that happens !" 
 
 "Well, then, the spacious material life?" 
 
 "The white ants gnaw everything." 
 
 "That's a poor joke, mevrouw." 
 
 "Very possibly, resident. Everything Is out of tune 
 with me, inside and out: my wit, my piano and my 
 poor soul." 
 
 "Nature, then?" 
 
 "I don't feel It all. Nature Is conquering me and 
 devouring me." 
 
 "Your own activities ?" 
 
 "My activities? One of the good things in India?" 
 
 "Yes. To Inspire us material, practical people with 
 your wit, now and again." 
 
 "Resident! You're paying me compliments! Is 
 this all on account of the theatricals ?"
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 199 
 
 "And to do good to Mother Staats with that wit of 
 yours ? 
 
 "Couldn't I do good in Europe ?" 
 
 "Certainly, certainly," he said, bluffly. "Go to 
 
 Europe, mevrouw, by all means. Go and live at the 
 
 Hague ; join the Charity Organization Society . . . 
 
 with a collection-box at your door and a rijksdaaldcr 
 
 how often?" 
 
 She laughed : 
 
 "Now you're becoming unjust. They do a lot of 
 good in Holland too." 
 
 "But do they ever do in Holland for one distressed 
 person . . . what we, what you are now going 
 to do? And don't tell me that there's less poverty 
 here." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, then, there is a great deal of good for you 
 here. Your special activities. Your material and 
 moral work for others. Don't let Van Helderen get 
 too much smitten with you, mevrouw. He's a charming 
 fellow, but he puts too much literature into his monthly 
 reports. ... I see him coming and I must be off. 
 So I can rely on you ?" 
 
 "Absolutely." 
 
 "When shall we have the first meeting, with the 
 committee and the ladies?" 
 
 "To-morrow evening, resident, at your house ?" 
 
 "Right you are. I shall send round the subscription- 
 lists. We must make a lot of money, mevrouw." 
 
 "We'll do our best for Mother Staats," she said, 
 gently. 
 
 He shook her hand and went away. She felt limp, 
 she did not know why:
 
 200 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "The resident has been warning me against you, 
 because you're too literary !" she said, to Van Helderen, 
 teasingly. 
 
 She sat down in the front-verandah. The skies 
 burst asunder; a white curtain of rain descended in 
 perpendicular shafts of water. A plague of locusts 
 came hopping along the verandah. A cloud of tiny 
 flies hummed in the corners like an Aeolian harp. Eva 
 and Van Helderen placed their hands on the little table 
 and it tilted its leg with a jerk, while the beetles buzzed 
 around them.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 The subscription-list went round. The plays were 
 rehearsed and performed in three weeks' time ; and the 
 committee handed the resident a sum of nearly fifteen 
 hundred guilders^ for Mother Staats. Her debts were 
 paid ; a little house was rented for her ; and she was set 
 up in a small milliner's shop which Eva stocked from 
 Paris, All the ladies in Labuwangi gave Mother 
 Staats an order; and in less than a month not only was 
 the woman saved from utter ruin, but her mode of life 
 was established, her children were going to school 
 again and she was enjoying a pleasant livelihood. All 
 this had happened so swiftly and unostentatiously: the 
 subscriptions were so munificent ; the ladies so readily 
 ordered a dress or a hat which they did not need that 
 Eva was astounded. And she had to confess to herself 
 that the egoism, the self-absorption, the unlovable 
 qualities which she often observed in their social life — 
 in their intercourse, conversation, intriguing and gossip 
 — had been suddenly thrust into the background by a 
 common gift for doing the right thing, quite simply, 
 because it had to be done, because there was no question 
 about it, because the woman had to be assisted. 
 Roused from her depression by the bustle of the re- 
 hearsals, stimulated to brisk action, she appreciated the 
 better finer side of her environment and wrote of it so 
 enthusiastically to Holland that her parents, to whom 
 India was a closed book, smiled. But, although this 
 episode had awakened a soft and gentle and appreci-
 
 202 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 ative feeling in her, it was only an episode; and she 
 remained the same when the emotion of it was over. 
 And notwithstanding that she felt the disapproval of 
 Labuwangi around her, she continued to find the main 
 interest of her life in Van Helderen's friendship. 
 
 For there was so little else. Her little circle of 
 adherents, which she had gathered round her with so 
 many illusions, which she invited to dinner, to which 
 her doors were alwa5's open: what did it actually 
 amount to ? She now accepted the Doom de Bruijns 
 and the Rantzows as indifferent acquaintances, but no 
 longer as friends. She suspected Mrs. Doom de 
 Bruijn of insincerity; Dr. Rantzow was too common, 
 too vulgar; his wife was an insignificant German 
 Hans frail. True, they joined in the table-turning; but 
 they reliehed the absurd ineptitudes, the indecent 
 conversation of the mocking spirit. She and Van 
 Helderen took the whole thing seriously, though she 
 thought the table rather comical. And so no one but 
 Van Helderen remained to interest her. 
 
 But Van Oudijck had won her admiration. She had 
 suddenly obtained a glimpse of his character; and, 
 though it entirely lacked the artistic charm which had 
 hitherto exclusively attracted her in men, she saw the 
 fine quality also in this man, who was not at all artistic, 
 who had not the least conception of art, but who had so 
 much that was beautiful in his simple, manly idea of 
 duty and in the calmness with which he endured the 
 disappointm.ent of his domestic life. For Eva saw 
 that, though he adored his wife, he did not approve of 
 Leonie's indifference to all the interests of which his 
 own life was built up. If he saw nothing more, if he 
 was blind to all the rest that went on in his domestic
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 203 
 
 circle, this disappointment was his secret pain, to which 
 he was not Wind, deep down in himself. 
 
 And she admired him; and her admiration was as 
 it were a revelation that art does not always stand 
 highest in the affairs of this life. She suddenly under- 
 stood that the exaggerated importance attaching to art 
 in our time was a disease from which she had suffered 
 and was still suffering. For what was she, what did 
 she do? Nothing. Her parents, both of them, were 
 great artists, true artists; and their house was like a 
 temple and their bias was comprehensible and pardon- 
 able. But what of her? She played the piano pretty 
 well ; and that was all. She had a few ideas, a little 
 taste ; and that was all. But in her time she had gushed 
 with other girls; and she now remembered all that 
 foolish gushing, that trick of exchanging letters 
 crammed with cheap philosophy and written in a 
 modern style distantly aping that of Kloos and Gorter.* 
 And thus, for all her depression, her meditation 
 carried her a stage further and she underwent a certain 
 development. For it seemed incredible that she, the 
 child of her parents, should not always place art above 
 everything else. 
 
 And she had in her that play and counterplay of 
 seeking and thinking in order to find her way, now that 
 she was quite lost in a country alien to her nature, 
 among people upon whom she looked down, without 
 letting them perceive it. She strove to find the good 
 in the country, in order to make It her owti and cherish 
 it; she was glad to find among the people those few 
 who roused her sympathy and her admiration; but the 
 good remained incidental to her, the few people 
 
 * Two modern Dutch poets.
 
 204 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 remained exceptional ; and, despite all her seeking and 
 thinking, she did not find her way and retained the 
 moodiness of a woman who was too European, too 
 artistic, notwithstanding her self-knowledge and conse- 
 quent denial of her artistic capacity to live quietly and 
 contentedly in an up-country Javanese town, beside a 
 husband wrapped up in his office-work, in a climate 
 that upset her health, amid natural surroundings that 
 overwhelmed her and among people whom she disliked. 
 
 And, in the most lucid moments of this play and 
 counterplay, it was the obvious fear, the fear which 
 she felt most definitely of all, the fear which she felt 
 slowly approaching, she knew not whence, she knew 
 not whither, but hovering over her head, as with the 
 thousand veils of a fate gliding through the sultry, 
 rain-laden skies. . . . 
 
 In these inharmonious moods she had refrained 
 from gathering her little clique around her, for she 
 herself did not care to take the trouble and her friends 
 did not understand her well enough to look her up. 
 They missed the cheerfulness in her which had at- 
 tracted them at first. Envy and hostility were now 
 given more rein ; and people began to speak freely of 
 her; she was affected, pedantic, vain, proud; she had 
 the pretension always to want to be the first in the 
 town; she behaved just as though she were the resi- 
 dent's wife and ordered every one about. She was not 
 really pretty, she had an impossible way of dressing, 
 her house was preposterously arranged. And then her 
 relations with Van Helderen, their evening walks to 
 the light-house ! Ida heard about it at Tosari, amid 
 the band of gossips at the small, poky hotel, where the 
 visitors are bored when they are not going on ex-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 205 
 
 cursions and therefore sit about in their poky little 
 verandahs, almost in one another's pockets, peeping 
 into one another's rooms, listening at the thin parti- 
 tions ; Ida heard about it at Tosari and it was enough 
 to rouse the little Indian woman's whitQ-iionna in- 
 stincts and induce her suddenl}', without stating any 
 cause, to remove her children from Eva's charge. Van 
 Helderen, when he went up for the week-end asked his 
 wife for an explanation, asked her v/hy she insulted 
 Eva by taking the children away, without a reason, and 
 having them up in the hills, thus greatly increasing the 
 hotel-bills. Ida made a scene, talking loudly, with 
 hysterics which rang through the little hotel, made all 
 the visitors prick up their ears, and, like a gale of wind, 
 whipped the cackling chatter into a storm. And, with- 
 out further explanation, Ida broke with Eva. 
 
 Eva withdrew into herself. Even in Surabaya, 
 where she went to do some shopping, she heard the 
 scandalous chatter; and she became so sick of her 
 world and her people that she silently shrank back into 
 herself. She wrote to Van Helderen not to call any 
 more. She entreated him to become reconciled with 
 his wife. She gave up seeing him. And she was now 
 all alone. She felt that she was not in the mood to find 
 comfort in any one around her. There was no sympa- 
 thy and no understanding in India for such moods as 
 hers. And so she shut herself up. Her husband was 
 working hard, as usual. But she devoted herself more 
 zealously to her little boy, she immersed herself in her 
 love for her child. She withdrew herself into her love 
 for her house. Well, this was the life of never going 
 out, of never seeing any one, of never hearing any 
 other music than her own. This was seeking comfort
 
 206 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 in her house, her child and her books. This was the 
 personality that she had become after her early illusions 
 and strivings. She now constantly felt the longing for 
 Europe, for Holland, for her parents, for people of 
 artistic culture. And now it developed into hatred for 
 the country- which she had at first seen in the over- 
 whelming grandeur of its beauty, with its majestic 
 mountains and the softly-creeping mystery that lurked 
 in nature and humanity. Now she hated nature and 
 humanity ; and their mystery terrified her. 
 
 She now filled her life with thoughts of her child. 
 Her boy, little Otto, was three years old. She would 
 guide him, make a man of him. From the day of his 
 birth she had had vague illusions of later seeing her 
 son a great artist, by preference a great writer, famous 
 throughout the world. But she had learnt much since 
 then. She felt that art does not always stand supreme. 
 She felt that there are higher things, which sometimes, 
 in her dejection, she denied, but which were there 
 nevertheless, radiant and great. These things had to 
 do with the shaping of the future ; these things had to 
 do, above all, with peace, justice and brotherhood. Oh, 
 the great brotherhood of the poor and the rich ! Now, 
 in her loneliness, she contemplated this as the highest 
 ideal at which one can work, as sculptors work on a 
 monument. Justice and peace would follow. But 
 human brotherhood must be aimed at first; and she 
 wished her son to work at it. Where? In Europe? 
 In India? She did not know; she did not see it before 
 her. She saw it in Europe rather than in India, the 
 inexplicable, the enigmatical, the fearful remained in 
 the foreground of her thoughts. How strange it was, 
 how strange! . . .
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 207 
 
 She was a woman made for ideals. Perhaps this by 
 itself was the simple explanation of what she felt and 
 feared ... in India. , . . 
 
 "Your impressions of India are altogether mis- 
 taken," her husband would say. "You see India quite 
 wrongly. Quiet? You think it's quiet here? Why 
 should I have to work so hard, in India, if things were 
 quiet at Labuwangi ? . . . We have hundreds of 
 interests at heart, of Europeans and Javanese alike. 
 Agriculture is studied as eagerly in this country as 
 anywhere. The population is increasing steadily. 
 . . . Declining ? A colony in which there is always 
 so much going on? That's one of Van Helderen's 
 imbecile ideas. Speculative ideas, mere vapourings, 
 which you just echo after him. ... I can't 
 understand the way in which you regard India nowa- 
 days. . . . There was a time when you had eyes 
 for all that was beautiful and interesting here. That 
 time seems to be past. You ought to go home for a bit, 
 really. . . ." 
 
 But she knew that he would be very lonely without 
 her; and for this reason she refused to go. Later, 
 when her boy was older, she would have to go to 
 Holland. But by then Eldersma would certainly have 
 become an assistant-resident. At present he still had 
 seventeen controllers and secretaries above him. It 
 had been going on like this for years, that looking 
 towards promotion in the distant future. It was like 
 yearning after a mirage. Of ever becoming a resident 
 he did not so much as think. Assistant-resident for a 
 couple of years or so; and then to Holland, on a 
 pension. . . .
 
 208 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 She thought it a heart-breaking existence, slaving 
 one's self to death like that . . . for Labu- 
 wangi! . . . 
 
 She was down with malaria: and her maid, Saina, 
 was giving her massage, kneading her aching limbs 
 with supple fingers. 
 
 "It's a nuisance, Saina, when I'm ill, for you to be 
 living in the compound. You'd better move into the 
 house this evening with your four children." 
 
 Saina thought it troublesome, a great susa} 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 And the woman explained. Her cottage had been 
 left to her by her husband. She was attached to it, 
 though it was in an utterly dilapidated condition. 
 Now that the rainy monsoon was on, the rain often 
 came in through the roof ; and then she was unable to 
 cook and the children had to go without their food. 
 To have it repaired was difficult. She had a ring git' 
 a week from the njonja} Sixty cents of that went on 
 rice. Then there were a few cents daily for fish, coco- 
 nut oil, sirih; a few cents for fuel. . . . No, 
 repairs were out of the question. She would be much 
 better off with the kandjeng njonja, much better off on 
 the estate. But it would be a siisa to find a tenant for 
 the cottage, because it was so dilapidated; and the 
 njonja knew that no house was allowed to remain 
 imoccupied in the compound: there was a heavy fine 
 attached to that. ... So she would rather go on 
 living in her damp cottage. She could easily stay and 
 sit up with the njonja at night ; her eldest girl would 
 look after the little ones. 
 
 * Fuss, trouble. 
 
 ^ Rijksdaaldcr, dollar, 4s. 2d. 
 
 ^ Mistress, mem-sahib.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 209 
 
 And, resigned to her small existence of little miseries, 
 Saina passed her supple fingers, with a firm, gentle 
 pressure, over her mistress' ailing limbs. 
 
 And Eva thought it heart-rending, this living on a 
 rijksdaalder a week, with four children, in a house 
 which let in the rain, so that it was impossible to cook 
 there. 
 
 "Let me look after your second little daughter, 
 Saina," said Eva, a day or two after. 
 
 Saina hesitated, smiled: she would rather not, but 
 dared not say so. 
 
 "Yes," Eva insisted, "let her come to me: you will 
 see her all day long; she will sleep in kokkie's room; I 
 shall provide her clothes ; and she will have nothing to 
 do but to see that my room is kept tidy. You can teach 
 her that." 
 
 "So young still, 'nja; only just ten." 
 
 "No, no," Eva insisted. "Let me do this to help you. 
 What's her name ?" 
 
 "Mina, 'nja" 
 
 "Mina? That won't do," said Eva. "That's the 
 dj ait's name. We'll find another for her." 
 
 Saina brought the child, looking very shy, with a 
 streak of hedak on her forehead ; and Eva dressed her 
 prettily. She was a very attractive little child, with a 
 soft brown skin covered with a downy bloom, and 
 looked charming in her new clothes. She sedulously 
 piled the sarongs in the clothes-press, with fragrant 
 white flowers between the layers: the flowers were 
 changed for fresh one's daily. For a joke, because she 
 arranged the flowers so prettily, Eva called her Melati.^ 
 
 ^A white, East-Indian, jasmine-scented flower.
 
 210 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 Two days later, Saina crouched down before her 
 njonja. 
 
 "What is it, Saina?" 
 
 Might the little girl come back to the damp cottage in 
 the compound? Saina asked. 
 
 "Why?" asked Eva, in amazement. "Isn't your 
 little girl happy here?" 
 
 Yes, she was, said Saina, bashfully, but she pre- 
 ferred the cottage. The njonja was very kind, but 
 little Mina would rather be in the cottage. 
 
 Eva was angry and let the child go home, with the 
 new clothes which Saina took away with her as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 "Why wasn't the child allowed to stay?" Eva asked 
 of the latta cook, 
 
 Kokkie at first dared not say. 
 
 "Come, why wasn't she, kokkie?" asked Eva, insist- 
 ing. 
 
 "Because the karidjcng called the little girl Melati. 
 . . . Names of flowers and fruits . . . are 
 given only ... to dancing-girls," explained the 
 kokkie, as though expounding a mystery. 
 
 "But why didn't Saina tell me ?" asked Eva, greatly 
 incensed. "I had not the least idea of that !" 
 
 "Too shy," said the kokkie, by way of excusing 
 Saina. *'Minta ampon, 'nja/'^ 
 
 These were trivial incidents In the daily domestic 
 life, little episodes of her housekeeping; but they made 
 her feel sore, because she felt behind them as it were a 
 wall that always existed between her and the people 
 and things of India. She did not know the country, 
 she would never know the people. 
 
 ^ "Beg pardon, ma'am."
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 211 
 
 And the minor disappointment of the episodes filled 
 her with the same soreness as the greater disappoint- 
 ment of her illusions, because her life, amid the daily- 
 trivialities of her housekeeping, was itself becoming 
 more and more trivial.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 The early hours of the day were often cool, washed 
 clean by the abundant rains ; and in the young sunshine 
 of those morning hours the earth emitted a tender 
 haze, a blue softening of every hard line and colour, 
 so that the Lange Laan, with its villa residences and 
 fenced gardens seemed to be surrounded with the 
 vagueness and beauty of a dream-avenue: the dream- 
 columns rose insubstantially, like a vision of pillared 
 tranquillity ; the lines of the roofs acquired distinction 
 in their indefiniteness ; the hues of the trees and the 
 outlines of their leafy tops were etherealized into 
 tender pastels of misty rose and even mistier blue, with 
 a single brighter gleam of morning yellow and a distant 
 parple streak of dawn. And over all this morning 
 world fell a cool dew, like a fountain that rose from 
 that drenched ground and fell back in pearly drops in 
 the childlike gentleness of the first sunbeams. It was 
 as though every morning the earth and her people were 
 newly created, as though mankind were newly born to 
 a youth of innocence and paradisal unconsciousness. 
 But the illusion of the dawn lasted but a minute, barely 
 a few moments: the sun, rising higher in the sky, 
 shone forth from the virginal mist; boastfully it un- 
 furled its proud halo of piercing rays, pouring down 
 its burning gold, full of godlike pride because it was 
 reigning over its brief moment of the day, for the 
 clouds were already mustering, greyly advancing, like 
 battle-hordes of dark phantoms, pressing eerily 
 onwards: deep bluish-black and heavy lead-grey
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 213 
 
 phantoms, overmastering the sun and crushing the 
 earth under white torrents of rain. And the evening 
 twihght, short and hurried, letting fall veil upon veil 
 of crape, was like an overwhelming melancholy of 
 earth, nature and life, in which they forgot that para- 
 disal moment of the morning; the white rain rustled 
 down like an inundating tide of melancholy ; the road 
 and gardens were dripping, drinking up the falling 
 torrents until they shone like marshy pools and flooded 
 meadows in the dusky evening; a chill, spectral mist 
 rose on high with a slow movement as of ghostly 
 draperies, which hovered over the pools ; and the chilly 
 houses, scantily lit with their smoking lamps, round 
 which clouds of insects swarmed, falling on every 
 hand and dying with singed wings, became filled with 
 a yet chillier sadness, an overshadowing fear of the 
 menacing world out of doors, of the all-powerful 
 cloud-hordes, of the boundless immensity that came 
 whispering on the gusty winds from the far-off un- 
 known, high as the heavens, wide as the firmament, 
 against which the open houses appeared unprotected, 
 while the inmates were small and petty, for all their 
 civilization and science and soulful feelings, small as 
 wriggling insects, insignificant, abandoned to the play 
 of the giant mysteries blowing up from the distance. 
 
 Leonie van Oudijck, in the half-lit back-verandah of 
 the residency, was talking to Theo in a soft voice: and 
 Oorip squatted beside her. 
 
 "It's nonsense, Oorip !" she cried, peevishly. 
 
 "Really not, kandjcng" said the maid. "It's not 
 nonsense. I hear them every evening.'* 
 
 "Where?" asked Theo.
 
 214 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "In the warlngin-tree behind the house, high up, in 
 the top branches." 
 
 "It's Luaks/'^ said Theo. 
 
 "It's not liiaks, tiimi,"^^ the maid insisted. "Massa!^ 
 As if Oorip didn't know how wild cats mew! Kriow, 
 kriow: that's how they go. What we hear every night 
 is the pontianaks.^ It's the Httle children crying in the 
 trees. The souls of the little children, crying in the 
 trees." 
 
 "It's the wind, Oorip." 
 
 "Massa, kandjeng, as if Oorip couldn't hear the 
 wind ! Boo-ooh : that's how the wind goes ; and then 
 the branches move. But this is the little children, 
 moaning in the top boughs; and the branches don't 
 move them. This is tjelaka,*" kandjeng." 
 
 "And why should it be tjelakaf" 
 
 "Oorip knows but dares not tell. Tentuf the kand- 
 jeng will be angry." 
 
 "Come, Oorip, tell me." 
 
 "It's because of the kandjeng tiian, the kandjeng 
 residen." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "The other day with the passer malan in the aloon- 
 aloon and the passer-malam for the orang-hlanda,^ in 
 the kebon-kotta."'^ 
 
 ^Wild cats. 
 
 ^^ Madam. 
 
 ' "Come, come !" 
 
 ' Ghosts. 
 
 ■"A bad omen. 
 
 "To a certainty, beyond a doubt. 
 
 * White people. 
 
 'Village garden, horticultural garden.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 215 
 
 "Well, what about it?" 
 
 "The day wasn't well-chosen, according to the 
 petangans. It was an unlucky day. . . . And with 
 the new well ..." 
 
 "What about the new well ?" 
 
 "There was no sedcka} So no one uses the new 
 well. Every one fetches water from the old well. . 
 . . The water's not good either. For from the new 
 well the woman rises with the bleeding hole in her 
 breast. . . . And Miss Doddie . . ." 
 
 "What of her?" 
 
 "Miss Doddie has seen the white hadji going by! 
 The white hadji is not a good hadji. He's a ghost. 
 
 . . Miss Doddie saw him twice: at Patjaram and 
 here. . . . Listen, kandjcng!" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Don't you hear? The children's little souls are 
 moaning in the top boughs. There's no wind blowing 
 at this moment. Listen, listen: That's not /^a/j.?.' The 
 liiaks go kriow, kriow, when they're courting ! These 
 are the little souls!" 
 
 They all three listened. Leonie mechanically pressed 
 closer to Theo. She looked deathly pale. The roomy 
 back-verandah, with the table always laid, stretched 
 away in the dim light of a single hanging lamp. The 
 half-swamped back-garden gleamed wet out of the 
 darkness of the waringins, full of pattering drops but 
 motionless in the impenetrable masses of their velvety 
 foliage. And an inexplicable, almost imperceptible 
 crooning, like a gentle mystery of little tormented 
 souls, whimpered high above their heads, as though in 
 the sky or in the topmost branches of the trees. Now 
 
 * Sacrifice, offering.
 
 216 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 it was a short cry, then a moan as of a little sick child, 
 then a soft sobbing as of little girl-children in misery. 
 
 "What sort of animal can it be?" asked Theo. "Is 
 it birds or insects?" 
 
 The moaning and sobbing was very distinct. Leonie 
 looked white as a sheet and was trembling all over. 
 
 "Don't be so frightened," said Theo. "Of course 
 it's animals." 
 
 But he himself was white as chalk with fear; and, 
 when they looked each other in the eyes, she understood 
 that he too was afraid. She clutched his arm, nestled 
 up against him. The maid squatted low, humbly, as 
 though accepting all fate as an impenetrable mystery. 
 She did not wish to run away. But the eyes of the 
 white man and woman held only one idea, the idea of 
 escaping. Suddenly, both of them, the step-mother 
 and the step-son, who were bringing shame upon the 
 house, were afraid, as with a single fear, afraid as of a 
 threatening punishment. They did not speak, they said 
 nothing to each other; they leant against each other, 
 understanding each other's trembling, two white 
 children of this mysterious Indian soil, who from their 
 childhood had breathed the mystic air of Java and had 
 unconsciously heard the vague, stealthily approaching 
 mystery as an accustomed music, a music which they 
 had not noticed, as though mystery were an accustomed 
 thing. As they stood thus, trembling and looking at 
 each other, the wind rose, bearing away with it the 
 secret of the tiny souls, bearing away with it the little 
 souls themselves: the interlacing branches swayed 
 angrily and the rain began to fall once more. A shud- 
 dering chill came fanning up, filling the house ; a sud- 
 den draught blew out the lamp. And they remained in
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 217 
 
 the dark, a little longer, she, despite the openness of 
 the verandah, almost in the arms of her step-son and 
 lover ; the maid crouching at their feet. But then she 
 flung off his arm, flung off the black oppression of 
 darkness and fear, filled with the rustling of the rain ; 
 the wind was cold and shivery and she staggered in- 
 doors, on the verge of fainting. Theo and Oorip 
 followed her. The middle gallery was lighted. Van 
 Oudijck's office was open. He was working. Leonie 
 stood irresolute, with Theo, not knowing what to do. 
 The maid disappeared, muttering. It was then that 
 she heard a whizzing sound and a small round stone 
 flew through the gallery, fell somewhere near at hand. 
 She gave a cry ; and, behind the screen which divided 
 the gallery from the office where Van Oudijck sat at 
 his writing-table, she flung herself once more into 
 Theo's arms, abandoning all her caution. They stood 
 shivering in each other's arms. Van Oudijck had 
 heard her: he stood up, came from behind the screen. 
 His eyes blinked, as though tired with working, 
 Leonie and Theo had recovered themselves, 
 
 "What is it, Leonie?" 
 
 "Nothing," she said, not daring to tell him of the 
 little souls or of the stone, afraid of the threatening 
 punishment. 
 
 She and Theo stood there like criminals, both of 
 them white and trembling. Van Oudijck, his mind 
 still on his work, did not notice anything. 
 
 "Nothing," she repeated. "The mat is frayed and 
 and I nearly stumbled. But there was some- 
 thing I wanted to tell you. Otto." 
 
 Her voice shook, but he did not hear it, blind to 
 what she did, deaf to what she said, still absorbed in 
 his papers.
 
 218 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Oorip has suggested that the servants would hke 
 to have a sedeka, because a new well has been built in 
 the grounds . . ." 
 
 "That well which is two months old?" 
 
 "They don't make use of the water." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "They are superstitious, you know; they refuse to 
 use the water before the scdcka has been given." 
 
 "Then it ought to have been done at once. Wliy 
 didn't they tell Kario at once to ask me? I can't think 
 of all that nonsense myself. But I would have given 
 them the sedeka then. Now it's like mustard after 
 meat. The well is two months old." 
 
 "It would be a good thing all the same, Papa," said 
 Theo. "You know what the Javanese are like: they 
 won't use the well as long as they've not had a 
 sedeka." 
 
 "No," said Van Oudijck, imwillingly, shaking his 
 head. "To give a sedeka now would have no sense in 
 it. I would have done so gladly; but now, after two 
 months, it would be absurd. They ought to have asked 
 for it at once." 
 
 "Do, Otto," Leonie entreated. "I should give them 
 the sedeka. You'll please me if you do." 
 
 "Mamma half promised Oorip," Theo insisted 
 gently. 
 
 They stood trembling before him, white in the face, 
 like petitioners. But he, weary and thinking of his 
 papers, was seized with a stubborn unwillingness, 
 though he was seldom able to refuse his wife anything. 
 
 "No, Leonie," he said, decidedly. "And you must 
 never promise things of which you're not certain."
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 219 
 
 He turned away, went round the screen and sat 
 down to his work. 
 
 They looked at each other, the mother and the step- 
 son. Slowly, aimlessly, they moved away, to the 
 front-verandah, where a moist, dripping darkness 
 drifted between the stately pillars. They saw a white 
 form coming through the swamped garden. They 
 started, for they were now afraid of everything, 
 thinking at the sight of every figure of the chastise- 
 ment that would overtake them like a strange thing, so 
 long as they remained in the paternal house which 
 they had covered with shame. But, when they looked 
 more closely, they saw it was Doddie. She had come 
 home; she said, trembling, that she had been at Eva 
 Eldersma's. Actually she had been walking with 
 Addie de Luce; and they had sheltered from the rain 
 in the compound. She was very pale, she was trem- 
 bling; but Leonie and Theo did not notice it in the 
 dark verandah, even as she herself did not see that 
 her step-mother and Theo were pale. She was 
 trembling like that because in the garden — Addie had 
 brought her to the gate — stones had been thrown at 
 her. It must have been some impudent Javanese, who 
 hated her father and his house and his household ; but, 
 in the dark verandah, where she saw her step-mother 
 and her brother sitting side by side in silence, as 
 though in despair, she suddenly felt, she did not know 
 why, that it was not an impudent Javanese. 
 
 She sat down by them, silently. They looked out 
 at the damp, dark garden, over which the spacious 
 night was hovering as orr the wings of a gigantic bat. 
 And in the mute melancholy which drifted like a grey 
 twilight between the stately white pillars, all three of
 
 220 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 them — Doddle singly, but the step-mother and step-son 
 together — felt frightened to death and crushed by the 
 strange thing that was about to befall them. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 And, despite their anxiety, the two sought each 
 other all the oftener, feehng themselves now bound by 
 indissoluble bonds. In the afternoon he would steal 
 to her room ; and, despite their anxiety, they lost them- 
 selves in wild embraces and then remained close to- 
 gether. 
 
 "It must be nonsense, Leonie," he whispered. 
 
 "Yes, but then what is it?" she murmured in re- 
 turn. "After all, I heard the moaning and heard the 
 stone whizz through the air." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "If it is something . . . suppose it is some- 
 thing that we can't explain." 
 
 "But I don't believe in it!" 
 
 "Nor I. . . . Only ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "If it's something . , . if it's something that 
 we can't explain, then . . ." 
 
 "Then what?" 
 
 "Then . . . it's not because of lis!" he whis- 
 pered, almost inaudibly. "Why, Oorip said so her- 
 self! It's because of papa!" 
 
 "Oh, but it's too silly!" 
 
 "I don't believe in that nonsense either." 
 
 "The moaning ... of those animals." 
 
 "And that stone . . . must have been thrown 
 by some wretched fellow . . . one of the serv- 
 ants, a beggar who is putting himself forward 
 . . . or who has been bribed. . , ."
 
 222 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "Bribed? . . . By whom?" 
 "By ... by the regent, . . ," 
 "Why, Theo!" 
 
 "Oorip said the moaning came from the Kabupa- 
 ten . . ." 
 
 'What do you mean ?" 
 
 *And that they wanted to torment papa from there 
 
 "To torment him ?" 
 
 "Because the Regent of Ngadjiwa has been dis- 
 eu " 
 
 missed. 
 
 'Does Oorip say that?" 
 
 "No, I do. Oorip said that the regent had occult 
 powers. That's nonsense, of course. The fellow's a 
 scoundrel. He has bribed people ... to worry 
 papa." 
 
 "But papa notices none of it. . . ." 
 
 "No. . . , We mustn't tell him either. . . . 
 That's the best thing to do. . . . We must ignore 
 it." 
 
 "And the white hadji, Theo, whom Doddie saw 
 twice. . . . And, when they do table-turning 
 at Van Helderen's, Ida sees him too. . . . " 
 
 "Oh, another tool of the regent's, of course !" 
 
 "Ves, I expect that's true. . . . But it's 
 wretched all the same, Theo. . . . My own 
 Theo, I'm so frightened !" 
 
 "Of that nonsense ? Come, come !" 
 
 "If it's anything, Theo ... it has nothing 
 to do with its, you say ?" 
 
 He laughed: 
 
 "What next? What could it have to do with us? 
 I tell you, it's a practical joke of the regent's. 
 
 9»
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 223 
 
 "We oughtn't to be together any more." 
 "No, no, I love you,, I'm mad with love for you !" 
 He kissed her fiercely. They were both afraid. But 
 he rallied Leonie: 
 
 "Come, Leonie, don't be so superstitious." 
 "When I was a child, my babu told me . . ." 
 She whispered a story in his ear. He turned pale: 
 "Leonie, what rot!" 
 
 "Strange things happen here, in India. 
 If they bury something belonging to you, a pocket- 
 handkerchief or a lock of hair, they are able — simply 
 by witchcraft — to make you fall ill and pine away and 
 die , . . and not a doctor can tell what the ill- 
 ness is. . . ." 
 "That's rubbish!" 
 "It's really true!" 
 
 "I didn't know you were so superstitious !" 
 "I used never to think of it. I've begun to think of 
 it just lately. . . . Theo, can there be any- 
 thing?" 
 
 "There's nothing . . . but kissing." 
 "No, Theo, don't, be quiet, I'm frightened. . . . 
 It's quite late. It gets dark so quickly. Papa has 
 finished his sleep, Theo. Go away now, Theo 
 . . . through the boudoir. I want to take my 
 bath quickly. I'm frightened nowadays when it gets 
 dark. There's no twilight, with the rains. The even- 
 ings come all of a sudden. . . . The other day, 
 I had not told them to bring a light into the bathroom 
 and already it was so dark ... at 
 only half past five . . . and two bats were fly- 
 ing all over the place: I was so afraid that they would 
 catch in my hair. . . . Hush! Is that papa?"
 
 224 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "No, it's Doddie: she's playing with her cockatoo." 
 
 "Go now, Theo." 
 
 He went through the boudoir, and wandered into the 
 garden. She got up, flung a kimono over the sarong 
 which she had knotted loosely under her arms and 
 called Oorip: 
 
 "Bawa harang mandi!"^ 
 
 "Kandjeng!" 
 
 "Where are you, Oorip?" 
 
 "Here, kandjeng." 
 
 "Where were you?" 
 
 "Here, outside the garden-door, kandjeng. . . . 
 I was waiting," said the girl, meaningly, implying that 
 she was waiting until Theo had gone. 
 
 "Is the kandjeng tuan up?" 
 
 "Suda . . . had his bath, kandjeng/* 
 
 "Then fetch the things for my bath. 
 Light the little lamp in the bathroom. . . . Yes- 
 terday evening the glass was broken and the lamp was 
 not filled. . . ." 
 
 "The kandjeng never used to have the lamp lit In 
 the bathroom." 
 
 "Oorip . . . has anything happened . . . 
 this afternoon ?" 
 
 "No, everything has been quiet. . . . But oh, 
 when the night comes! . . . All the servants 
 are frightened, kandjeng. . .' . The kokkie says 
 she won't stay. . . .** 
 
 "Oh, what a susa! . . . Oorip, promise her 
 five guilders . . . as a present ... if 
 she stays. . . ." 
 
 "The spen Is frightened too, kandjeng." 
 
 * "Bring the bath-things."
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 225 
 
 "Oh, what a susa! . . . I've never had such 
 a susa, Oorip. . . ." 
 
 "No, kandjcng." 
 
 "I have always been able to arrange matters so 
 well. . . . But these are things . . . !" 
 
 "Apa hole bimt,^ kandjeng^ . . . Things are 
 stronger than men. . . . " 
 
 "Mightn't it really be luaks . . . and a man 
 throwing stones?" 
 
 "Massa, kandjcng!" 
 
 "Well, bring my bath-things. . . . Don't for- 
 get to light the little lamp. . . ." 
 
 The maid left the room. The dusk began to fall 
 softly through the air, soft as velvet after the rain. 
 The great residency stood still as death amid the dark- 
 ness of its giant warningins. And the lamps were 
 not yet lit. In the front verandah, Van Oudijck, by 
 himself, lay in his pyjamas on a wicker chair, drinking 
 tea. In the garden the dense shadows were gathering 
 like strips of immaterial velvet falling heavily from 
 the trees. 
 
 "Tnkan-lampu!"~ 
 
 "Kandjeng?" 
 
 "Come, light the lamps ! Why do you begin so late ? 
 Light the lamp in my bedroom first. , . ." 
 
 She went to the bathroom. She went past the long 
 row of gitdangs and servants' rooms which shut off 
 the back-garden. She looked up at the waringins in 
 whose top branches she had heard the little souls moan- 
 ing. The branches did not move, there was not a 
 breath of wind, the air was sultry and oppressive with 
 
 '"What can one do?" 
 * Lamp-boy.
 
 226 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 a threatening storm, with rain too heavy to fall. In 
 the bathroom, Oorip was hghting the Httle lamp. 
 
 "Have you brought everything, Oorip?" 
 
 "Saja, kandjeng." 
 
 ^ "Haven't you forgotten the big bottle with the white 
 ajerzvangif"'^ 
 
 "Isn't this it, kandjengr 
 
 "Yes, that's right. . . . But do give me a fine 
 towel for my face in future. Tm always telling you 
 to give me a fine towel. I hate these coarse ones. 
 
 • « • 
 
 "I'll run and fetch one." 
 
 "No, no! Stay here, stay and sit by the door." 
 
 *'Saja, kandjeng." 
 
 "And you must have the keys seen to by a tukan- 
 hesie.- We can't lock the bathroom-door. . 
 It's too silly, when there are visitors." 
 
 "I'll remember to-morrow." 
 
 "Mind you don't forget." 
 
 She shut the door. The maid squatted down outside 
 the closed door, patient and resigned under the big 
 and little things of life, knowing nothing but loyalty 
 to her. mistress, who gave her pretty sarongs and paid 
 her wages in advance as often as she wanted them. 
 
 In the bathroom the little nickel lamp gleamed 
 faintly over the pale-green marble of the wet floor; 
 over the water brimming in the square sunk bath. 
 
 "I'll have my evening bath a little earlier in 
 future," thought Leonie. 
 
 She removed her kimono and sarong; and, standing 
 naked, she glanced in the mirror at her soft, milk- 
 * Toilet-water. 
 
 ' Smith.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 227 
 
 white contours, the rounded outlines of an amorous 
 woman. Her fair hair shone like gold ; and a pearly 
 lustre spread from her shoulders down over her bosom 
 and vanished in the shadow of her small, round breasts. 
 She lifted her hair, admiring herself, examining her- 
 self for a chance wrinkle, feeling whether her flesh 
 was hard and firm. One of her hips arched outwards, 
 as she rested her weight on one leg ; and a long white 
 high-light curved caressingly past her thigh and knee, 
 disappearing at the instep. But she gave a start as 
 she stood thus absorbed in admiration: she had meant 
 to hurry. She quickly tied her hair into a knot, 
 covered herself with a lather of soap and, taking the 
 gajong,^ poured the water over her body. It flowed 
 heavily over her In long smooth streams; and her 
 gleaming shoulders, breasts and hips shone like marble 
 in the light of the little lamp. . . , Yes, she 
 would bathe earlier in future. It was already dark 
 outside. 
 
 She dried herself hurriedly, with a rough towel. 
 She just rubbed herself, briskly, with the white oint- 
 ment which Oorip always prepared, her magic elixir 
 of youth, suppleness and firm whiteness. 
 At that moment, she saw on her thigh a small red spot. 
 She paid no attention to it, thinking that there must 
 have been something in the water, a tiny leaf, a dead 
 insect. She rubbed it off. But, while rubbing herself, 
 she saw two or three larger spots, deep scarlet, on 
 her chest. She turned suddenly cold, not knowing 
 what it was, not understanding. She rubbed herself 
 down again ; and she took the towel, on which the spots 
 had left something slimy, like clotted blood. A shiver 
 
 * Scoop, bowl.
 
 228 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 ran over her from head to foot. And suddenly she 
 saw. The spots came out of the corners of the bath- 
 room — ^how and where she did not see — first small, 
 then large, as though spat out by a dribbling, betel- 
 chewing mouth. Cold as ice, she gave a scream. The 
 spots, now closer together, became full, like blobs of 
 purple saliva spat against her. Her body was soiled 
 and filthy with a grimy, dribbling redness. One spot 
 struck her in the eye. 
 
 The slimy blobs of spittle marked the greenish white 
 of the floor and floated in the water that had not yet 
 run off. They also fouled the water in the bath and 
 dissolved in filth. She was all red, stained and un- 
 clean, as though defiled by a foul scarlet shame which 
 invisible betel-chewing mouths hawked and spat upon 
 her from the comers of the room, aiming at her hair, 
 her eyes, her breasts, her flanks. She uttered yell 
 upon yell, driven crazy by the strangeness of what 
 was happening. She rushed to the door, tried to open 
 it, but there was something amiss with the handle. 
 For the key was not turned in the lock, the bolt was not 
 shot. She felt her back spat upon again and again ; and 
 the red dripped off her. She screamed for Oorip and 
 heard the girl outside the door, pulling and pushing. 
 
 At last the door yielded. And, desperate, mad, dis- 
 traught, insane, naked, befouled, she threw herself into 
 her maid's arms. The servants came running up. She 
 saw Van Oudijck, Theo and Doddle hastening from 
 the back-verandah. In her utter madness, with her 
 eyes staring widely, she felt ashamed not of her nudity 
 but of her defilement. The maid had snatched the 
 kimono, also befouled, from the handle of the door 
 and threw It round her mistress.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 229 
 
 "Keep away!'* Leonie yelled, desperately. "Don't 
 come any nearer!" she screamed madly. "Oorip, 
 Oorip, take me to the swimming-bath ! A lamp, a lamp 
 . . . in the swimming-bath!" 
 
 "What is it, Leonie?" 
 
 She refused to say: 
 
 "I've . . . trodden . . . on a . . . 
 toad!" she screamed. "I'm afraid ... of 
 itch! . . . Don't come any nearer! I've got 
 nothing on ! . . . Keep away ! Keep away ! 
 A lamp, a lamp ... a lamp, I tell 
 you ... in the swimming-bath ! . . . 
 No, Otto ! Keep away ! Keep away ! I'm undressed ! 
 Keep away! Bazva . . . la-a-ampii!"^ 
 
 The servants scurried past one another. One of 
 them brought a lamp to the swimming-bath. 
 
 "Oorip! Oorip!" 
 
 She clutched her maid: 
 
 "They've spat at me . . . with sirih! . . . 
 They've spat ... at me . . . with 
 siriJiI . . . They've spat ... at me 
 with sirih!" 
 
 "Hush, kandjcng! . . . Come along . . . 
 to the swimming-bath !" 
 
 "Wash me, Oorip! . . . Oorip, my hair, my 
 eyes ! O God, I can taste it in my mouth ! . . . " 
 
 She sobbed despairingly; the maid dragged her 
 along. 
 
 "Oorip! First look . . . preksa- . 
 if they're spitting ... in the swimming-bath 
 too!" 
 
 ^ "Bring a lamp !" 
 
 ' "Look and see."
 
 230 ^ THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 The maid went In, shivering: 
 
 "There's nothing there, kandjeng." 
 
 "Quick then, Oorip, bathe me, wash me." 
 
 She flung off the kimono; her beautiful body be- 
 came visible in the light of the lamp, as though soiled 
 with dirty blood. 
 
 "Oorip, wash me. . . . No, don't go for 
 soap ; water will do ! . . . Don't leave me alone ! 
 Oorip, wash me here, can't you ? . . . Bum the 
 kimono! Oorip!" 
 
 She ducked in the swimming-bath and swam round 
 desperately: the maid, half -undressed, went in after 
 her and washed her. 
 
 "Quick, Oorip! Quick: only the worst places! 
 I'm frightened! Presently 
 
 presently they'll be spitting here! ... In the 
 bedroom next, Oorip ! . . . Call out that there's 
 to be no one in the garden ! I won't put the kimono 
 on again! Quickly, Oorip, call out! I want to get 
 away !" 
 
 The maid called across the garden, in Javanese. 
 
 Leonie, all dripping, stepped out of the water and, 
 naked and wet, flew past the servants' rooms, with the 
 maid behind her. Inside the house, Van Oudijck, 
 frantic with anxiety, came running towards her. 
 
 "Go away. Otto ! Leave me alone ! I've . 
 I've got nothing on !" she screamed. 
 
 And she rushed into her room and, when Oorip had 
 followed her, locked all the doors. 
 
 In the garden the servants crept together, under the 
 sloping roof of the verandah, close to the house. The 
 thunder w^as muttering softly and a silent rain was be- 
 ginning to fall. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Leonie kept her bed for a couple of days with nerv- 
 ous fever. People at Labuwangi said that the resi- 
 dency was haunted. At the weekly assemblies in the 
 Municipal Garden, when the band played and the chil- 
 dren and the young people danced on the open-air 
 stone floor, there were whispered conversations around 
 the refreshment-tables touching the strange happenings 
 in the residency. Dr. Rantzow was asked many ques- 
 tions, but could only tell what the resident had told 
 him, what Mrs. van Oudijck herself had told him, of 
 her being frightened in the bathroom by an enormous 
 toad, on which she had trodden and stumbled. There 
 was more known through the servants, however; 
 though, when one spoke of the stone-throwing and the 
 sinh-spitt'mg, another laughed and called it all babu- 
 talk. And so uncertainty prevailed. Nevertheless, the 
 papers throughout the country, from Surabaya to 
 Batavia, contained short paragraphs of a curious 
 nature, which were not very lucid but which suggested 
 a good deal. 
 
 Van Oudijck himself discussed the matter, with no- 
 body, neither with his wife and his children, nor with 
 the officials or with the servants. But on one occasion 
 he came out of the bathroom looking deathly pale, with 
 eyes staring wildly. He went indoors quietly, how- 
 ever, and pulled himself together: and no one noticed 
 anything. Then he spoke to the chief of police. There 
 was an old graveyard next to the residency-grounds. 
 This was now watched day and night ; also the outer
 
 232 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 wall of the bathroom. The bathroom itself was no 
 longer used; they took their baths instead in the visi- 
 tors' bathroom. 
 
 As soon as Mrs, van Oudijck had recovered, she 
 went to stay with friends at Surabaya. She did not 
 return. She had gradually, and unostentatiously, with- 
 out a word to Van Oudijck, made Oorip pack up her 
 clothes and all sorts of knicknacks to which she was 
 attached. Trunk upon trunk was sent after her. 
 When Van Oudijck happened to go to her bedroom one 
 day, he found it empty of all but the furniture. Num- 
 berless things had disappeared from her boudoir also. 
 He had not observed the dispatch of the trunks, but he 
 now understood that she would not return. He can- 
 celled his next reception. It was December; and Rene 
 and Ricus were to come from Batavia for the Christ- 
 mas holidays, for a week or ten days ; but he cancelled 
 the boys' visit. Then Doddie was invited to stay at 
 Patjaram, with the De Luce family. Although, with 
 the instinct of a full-blooded Hollander, he did not 
 like the De Luces, he consented. They were fond of 
 Doddie there: she would have a better time than at 
 Labuwangi. He had given up his idea, the hope that 
 Doddie would not become Indianized. Suddenly, 
 Theo also went away: through Leonie's influence with 
 commercial magnates at Surabaya, he at once obtained 
 a well-paid berth in an export-and-import business. 
 
 Van Oudijck was left all alone in his big house. As 
 the kokkie and the spcn had run away, Eldersma and 
 Eva constantly asked him to meals, both to lunch and 
 dinner. He never mentioned his house at their table 
 and it was never discussed. What he discussed confi- 
 dentially with Eldersma, as secretary, and with Van
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 233 
 
 Helderen, as controller, these two never mentioned, 
 treating it all as an official secret. The chief of police, 
 who had been accustomed daily to make his brief re- 
 port — that nothing particular had happened, or that 
 there had been a fire, or that a man had been wounded 
 — now made long, secret reports, with the doors of the 
 office locked, to prevent the oppassers outside from 
 listening. Gradually all the servants ran away, de- 
 parting stealthily in the night, with their families and 
 their household belongings, leaving their huts in the 
 compound empty and dirty. They did not even stay 
 in the residency. Van Oudijck let them go. He kept 
 only Kario and the oppassers; and the prisoners tended 
 the garden daily. Thus the house remained ap- 
 parently unaltered, outside. But, inside, where noth- 
 ing was looked after, the dust lay thick on the furni- 
 ture, white ants devoured the mats, mildew and patches 
 of moisture came through the walls. The resident 
 never went through the house, occupying only his bed- 
 room and his office. His face began to wear a look of 
 gloom, like a bitter, silent doubt. He worked more 
 conscientiously than ever and stimulated his subordi- 
 nates more actively, as though he were thinking of 
 nothing but the interests of Labuwangi. In his iso- 
 lated position, he had no friend and sought none. He 
 bore everything alone, on his own shoulders, on his 
 own back, which grew bent with approaching age: 
 the heavy burden of his house, which was being 
 destroyed, and of his family life, which was breaking 
 up amid the strange happenings that escaped his police, 
 his watchmen, his personal vigilance and his secret 
 spies. He discovered nothing. Nobody told him any- 
 thing. No one threw any light on anything.
 
 234 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 And the strange happenings continued. A mirror 
 was smashed by a great stone. Calmly he had the 
 pieces cleared away. It was not his nature to believe 
 in the supernatural character of possibilities; and he 
 did not believe in it. He was secretly enraged at being 
 unable to discover the culprits and an explanation of 
 the events. But he refused to believe. He did not be- 
 lieve when he found his bed soiled and Kario, squatting 
 at his feet, swore that he did not know how it had 
 happened. He did not believe when the tumbler which 
 he lifted broke into slivers. He did not believe when 
 he heard a constant irritating hammering overhead. 
 But his bed was soiled, his glass did break, the ham- 
 mering was a fact. He investigated all these facts, 
 as punctiliously as though he were investigating a crim- 
 inal case, and nothing came to light. He remained 
 unperturbed in his relations with his European and 
 native officials and with the regent. No one remarked 
 anything in his behaviour; and in the evenings he 
 worked on, defiantly, at his writing-table, while the 
 hammering continued and the night fell softly in the 
 garden, as by enchantment. 
 
 On the steps outside, the oppassers crept together, 
 h'stening and whispering, glancing round timorously at 
 their master who sat writing, with a frown of con- 
 centration on his brows: 
 
 ''Doesn't he hear it?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, he's not deaf." 
 
 "He must hear it." 
 
 "He thinks he can find It out through djagas."^ 
 
 "There are soldiers coming from Ngadjiwa." 
 
 "From Ngadjiwa!'* 
 
 * Police-detectives.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 235 
 
 "Yes, he does not trust the djagas. He has written 
 to the titan major." 
 
 "To send soldiers ?" 
 
 "Yes, tliere are soldiers coming." 
 
 "Look at him frowning." 
 
 "And he just goes on working !" 
 
 "I'm frightened. I should never dare to stay if I 
 hadn't got to." 
 
 "I'm not afraid to stay, as long as he's there." 
 
 "Yes, . . . he's brave." 
 
 "He's plucky." 
 
 "He's a brave man." 
 
 "But he doesn't understand it." 
 
 "No, he doesn't know what it is." 
 
 "He thinks it's rats." 
 
 "Yes, he has had a search made for rats upstairs, 
 under the roof." 
 
 "Those Hollanders don't know things." 
 
 "No, they don't understand." 
 
 "He smokes a lot." 
 
 "Yes, quite twelve cigars a day." 
 
 "He doesn't drink much." 
 
 "No . . . only his whisky-and-soda of an 
 evening." 
 
 "He'll ask for it presently." 
 
 "No one has stayed with him." 
 
 "No. The others understood. They've all left." 
 
 "He goes to bed very late." 
 
 "Yes, he's working hard." 
 
 "He never sleeps at night, only in the afternoon." 
 
 "Look at him frowning." 
 
 "He never stops working." 
 
 "Oppas!"
 
 236 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "He's calling." 
 
 "Kandjeng?" 
 
 "Bazva whisky-and-soda." 
 
 One of the oppassers rose, to fetch the drink. He 
 had everything ready to hand, in the visitors' wing, to 
 avoid having to go through the house. The others 
 pressed closer together and went on whispering. The 
 moon pierced the clouds and lit up the garden and the 
 pond as with a humid vapour of silent enchantment. 
 The oppasser had mixed the drink ; he returned, squat- 
 ted and offered it to the resident. 
 
 "Put it down," said Van Oudijck. 
 
 The oppasser stood the tumbler on the writing-table 
 and crept away. The other oppassers whispered to- 
 gether. 
 
 "Oppas!" cried Van Oudijck. 
 
 "Kandjengf* 
 
 "What have you put in this glass?" 
 
 The man trembled and shrank away at Van 
 Oudijck's feet: 
 
 ''Kandjeng, it's not poison; I swear it by my life, by 
 my death ; I can't help it, kandjeng. Kick me, kill me ; 
 I can't help it, kandjeng." 
 
 The glass was a dull yellow. 
 
 "Fetch another tumbler and fill it before me." 
 
 The oppasser went away, trembling. 
 
 The others sat close together, feeling the contact of 
 one another's bodies through the sweat-soaked cloth 
 of their liveries, and stared before them in dismay. 
 The moon rose from its clouds, laughing and mocking 
 like a wicked fairy; its moist and silent enchantment 
 shone silver over the wide garden. In the distance, 
 from the garden at the back, a plaintive cry rang out, 
 as though a child were being throttled.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 "And how are you, mevrouwtje? How's the de- 
 pression? Is India suiting you any better to-day?" 
 
 His words sounded cheerful to Eva, as she saw him 
 coming through the garden, on the stroke of eight, 
 for dinner. His tone expressed nothing more than 
 the gay greeting of a man who has been working hard 
 at his desk and is deHghted to see a pretty woman at 
 whose table he is about to sit. She was filled with sur- 
 prise and admiration. There was not a suggestion of 
 a man who is plagued all day long, in a deserted house, 
 by strange and incomprehensible happenings. There 
 was hardly a shadow of dejection on his wide fore- 
 head, hardly a care seemed to rest upon his broad, 
 slightly bowed back ; and the jovial, smiling line about 
 his thick moustache was there as usual. Eldersma 
 came up; and Eva divined in his greeting, in his pres- 
 sure of the hand, a silent freemasonry of things known, 
 of confidences shared in common. And Van Oudijck 
 drank his gin-and-bitters in a perfectly normal man- 
 ner, spoke of a letter from his wife, who was probably 
 going on to Batavia, said that Rene and Ricus were 
 staying in the Preanger^ with friends who had a plan- 
 tation there. He did not speak of the reason why they 
 were not with him, why he had been entirely abandoned 
 by his family and servants. In the intimacy of their 
 circle, which he now visited twice a day for his meals, 
 he had never spoken of this. And, though Eva did not 
 ask any questions, it was making her extremely nerv- 
 
 *The chief coffee-growing district of Java.
 
 238 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 ous. So dose to the house, the haunted house, whose 
 pillars she could see by day in the distance, gleaming 
 through the foliage of the trees, she became more 
 nervous every day. All day long, the servants whis- 
 pered around her and peered timidly at the haunted 
 rcsidinan.^ At night, unable to sleep, she strained her 
 ears to hear whether she could detect anything strange, 
 the moaning of the little children. The Indian night 
 was so full of voices that it could but make her shud- 
 der on her bed. Through the imiperlous roaring of 
 the frogs for rain and rain and more rain still, the 
 constant croaking on the one roaring note, she heard 
 thousands of ghostly sounds that kept her from sleep- 
 ing. Through it all the tokkes and geckos emitted their 
 clockwork strokes, like strange mysterious timepieces. 
 
 She thought of it all day long. Eldersma did not 
 speak of it either. But, when she saw Van Oudijck 
 come to lunch or dinner, she had to compress her lips 
 lest she should question him. And the conversation 
 touched upon all sorts of topics, but never upon the 
 strange happenings. After lunch. Van Oudijck went 
 across to the residency again; after dinner, at ten 
 o'clock, she saw him once more vanish into the haunt- 
 ing shadow of the garden. With a calm step, every 
 evening he went back, through the enchanted night, to 
 his wretched, deserted house, where the oppasscr and 
 Kario sat squatting close together outside his office; 
 and he worked until late in the night. He never com- 
 plained. He pursued his enquiries closely, all through 
 the kotta, but nothing came to light. Everything con- 
 tinued to happen in impenetrable mystery. 
 
 ^Residency, resident's house.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 239 
 
 &> 
 
 "And how does India suit you this evening 
 mevrouwtje?" 
 
 It was always more or less the same pleasantry ; but 
 each time she admired his tone. Courage, robust self- 
 confidence, a certainty in his own knowledge, a belief 
 in what he knew for certain: all these rang in his voice 
 with metallic clearness. Miserable though he must feel 
 — he, the man of profoundly domestic inclinations and 
 of cool, practical sense — in a house deserted by those 
 who belonged to him and full of inexplicable happen- 
 ings, there was not a trace of doubt or dejection in his 
 unfailing masculine simplicity. He went his way and 
 did his work, more conscientiously than ever; he con- 
 tinued his investigations. And at Eva's table he always 
 kept up an animated conversation, on politics in India 
 and the new craze for having India ruled from Holland 
 by laymen who did not know even the A. B. C. of the 
 business. And he talked with an easy, pleasant 
 vivacity, free from all effort, till Eva came to admire 
 him daily more and more. But with her, a sensitive 
 woman, this became a nervous obsession. And once, 
 in the evening, as she was walking a little way with 
 him, she asked him if it wasn't terrible, if he couldn't 
 leave the house, if he couldn't go on circuit, for a good 
 long time. She saw his face clouding at her questions. 
 But still he answered kindly, saying that it was not so 
 bad, even though it was all inexplicable, and that he 
 would back himself to get to the bottom of the con- 
 juring. And he added that he really ought to be going 
 on circuit, but that he would not go, lest he should 
 seem to be running away. Then he hurriedly pressed 
 her hand and told her not to upset herself and not to 
 think about it any more or talk about it. The last
 
 240 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 words sounded like a friendly admonition. She pressed 
 his hand once more, with tears in her eyes. And she 
 watched him walk away, with his calm, firm step, and 
 disappear in the darkness of his garden, where the en- 
 chantment must be creeping in through the croaking 
 of the frogs. But standing there like that made her 
 shudder; and she hurried indoors. And she felt that 
 her house, that roomy house of hers, was small and 
 unduly open and defenceless against the vast Indian 
 night, which could enter from every side. 
 
 But she was not the only person obsessed by the 
 mysterious happenings. Their inexplicable nature lay 
 like an oppression over the whole town, so completely 
 did it clash with the things of everyday life. The 
 mystery was discussed in every house, but only in a 
 whisper, lest the children should be frightened and the 
 servants perceive that people were impressed by the 
 Javanese conjuring, as the resident himself had called 
 it. And the imeasiness and depression were making 
 everybody ill with nervous apprehension and listening 
 when the darkness was teeming with voices in the 
 night, which drifted down on the town In a dense, vel- 
 vety greyness ; and the town seemed to be hiding Itself 
 more deeply than ever In the foliage of Its gardens, 
 seemed, In these moist evening twilights, to be shrink- 
 ing away altogether In dull, silent resignation, bowing 
 before the mystery. 
 
 Then Van Oudljck thought It time to take strong 
 measures. He wrote to the major commanding the 
 garrison at Ngadjiwa to come over with a captain, a 
 couple of lieutenants and a company of soldiers. That 
 evening, the officers, with the resident and Van 
 Helderen, dined at the Eldersmas*. They hurried
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 241 
 
 through their meal; and Eva, standing at the garden- 
 gate, saw them all — the resident, the secretary, the 
 controller and the four officers — go into the dark 
 garden of the haunted house. The residency-grounds 
 were shut off, the house surrounded and the church- 
 yard watched. The men went to the bathroom by 
 themselves. 
 
 They remained there all through the night. And 
 all through the night the grounds and house remained 
 shut off and surrounded. Thev came out at about five 
 o'clock and went straight to the swimming-bath and 
 bathed, all of them together. W'hat had happened to 
 them they did not say, but they had had a terrible 
 night. That morning the bathroom was pulled down. 
 
 They had all promised Van Oudijck not to speak 
 about that night; and Eldersma would not tell any- 
 thing to Eva, nor Van Helderen to Ida. The officers 
 too, on their return to Ngadjiwa. were silent. They 
 merely said that their night in the bathroom was too 
 improbable for any one to believe the stor5\ At last 
 one of the young lieutenants allowed a hint of his ad- 
 ventures to escape him. And a tale of .r/nVi-spitting 
 and stone-throwing, of a floor that heaved, while they 
 struck at it with sticks and swords, and of something 
 more, something unutterably horrible that had hap- 
 pened in the water of the bath, went the rounds. Every 
 one now added something to it. When the story 
 reached Van Oudijck's ears, he hardly recognized it 
 as an account of the terrible night, which had been 
 terrible enough without any additions. 
 
 Meanwhile Eldersma had written a report of their 
 united vigil ; and they all signed the improbable story. 
 Van Oudijck himself took the report to Batavia and
 
 242 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 delivered it to the governor-general with his own 
 hands. Thenceforth it slumbered in the secret 
 archives of the government. 
 
 The governor-general advised Van Oudijck to go 
 to Holland on leave for a short period, assuring him 
 that this leave would have no influence on his promo- 
 tion to a residency of the first class, which was nearly- 
 due. He refused this favour, however, and returned 
 to Labuwangi. The only concession which he made 
 was to move into Eldersma's house until the residency 
 should be thoroughly cleaned. But the flag continued 
 to wave from the flagstaff in the residency-grounds. 
 
 On his return from Batavia, Van Oudijck often met 
 Sunario, the regent, on matters of business. And, in 
 his intercourse with the regent, the resident remained 
 stern and formal. Then he had a brief interview, first 
 with the regent and afterwards with his mother, the 
 Raden-Aju Pangeran. The two conversations did not 
 last longer than twenty minutes. But it appeared that 
 those few words were of great and portentous moment. 
 
 For the strange happenings ceased. When every- 
 thing had been cleaned and repaired, under Eva's 
 supervision, Van Oudijck compelled Leonie to come 
 back, because he wished to give a great ball on New 
 Year's Day. In the morning, the resident received all 
 his European and native officials. In the evening, the 
 guests streamed into the brightly lit galleries from 
 every part of the town, still inclined to shudder and 
 very inquisitive and instinctively looking around and 
 above them. And, while the champagne went round, 
 Van Oudijck himself took a glass and offered it to the 
 regent, with a deliberate breach of etiquette; and, in 
 a tone of solemn admonition mingled with good-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 243 
 
 humoured jest, he uttered these words, which were 
 seized upon and repeated on every hand and which 
 continued to be repeated for months throughout 
 Labuwangi : 
 
 "Drink with an easy mind, regent. I give you my 
 word of honour that no more glasses will be broken in 
 my house, except by accident or carelessness." 
 
 He was able to say this because he knew that — this 
 time — ^he had been too strong for the hidden force, 
 merely through his simple courage as an official, a Hol- 
 lander and a man. 
 
 But in the regent's gaze, as he drank, there was still 
 a very slight gleam of irony, intimating that, though 
 the hidden force had not conquered — this time — it 
 would yet remain an enigma, forever inexplicable to 
 the short-sighted eyes of the Europeans.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 Labuvvangi came to life again. It was as though 
 people unanimously agreed not to discuss the strange 
 affair any further with outsiders, because it was so 
 excusable that any one should refuse to believe in the 
 thing ; and they, at Labuwangi, believed. And the up- 
 country town, after the mystic oppression under which 
 it had lain cowering during those unforgettable weeks, 
 came to life again, as though shaking off all its obses- 
 sion. Party followed upon party, ball upon ball, 
 theatricals upon concert : all threw open their doors to 
 entertain their friends and make merry, in order to feel 
 normal and natural after the incredible nightmare. 
 People so accustomed to the natural and tangible life, 
 to the spacious and lavish material existence of India — 
 to good cooking, cool drinks, wide beds, roomy houses, 
 to everything that represents physical luxury to the 
 European in the east — such people breathed again and 
 shook off the nightmare, shook off the belief In strange 
 happenings. If and when they discussed the thing 
 nowadays, they commonly called it that incompre- 
 hensible conjuring — echoing the resident — the regent's 
 conjuring-tricks. For that he had something to do 
 with it was certain. That the resident had held a 
 terrible threat over him and his mother, if the strange 
 happenings did not cease, was certain. That, after 
 this, order had been restored In everyday life was cer- 
 tain. So It was conjuring. All were now ashamed of 
 their credulity and their fears and of having shuddered 
 at what had looked like mysticism and was only clever
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 245 
 
 conjuring. And all breathed again and made up their 
 minds to be cheerful ; and entertainment followed upon 
 entertainment. 
 
 Leonie, amid all this dissipation, forgot her irrita- 
 tion at having been recalled by V'an Oudijck, And 
 she too zcas determined to forget the scarlet pollution 
 of her body. But something of its terror lingered in 
 her. She now bathed early of an afternoon, as early 
 as half -past four, in the newly-built bathroom. Her 
 second bath always gave her a certain shudder. And, 
 now that Theo had a berth in Surabaya, she got rid of 
 himj also, from terror. She could not get rid of the 
 idea that the enchantment had threatened to punish 
 both of them, the mother and son, who were bringmg 
 shame on the home. In the romantic side of her 
 perverse imagination, in her rosy fancy full of cherubs 
 and cupids, this idea, inspired by her fears, struck too 
 precious a note of tragedy for her not to cherish it, 
 for all that Theo might say. She would go no further. 
 And it made hira furious, because he was mad with 
 love for her, because he could not forget the disgrace- 
 ful delight which he had enjoyed in her arms. But she 
 steadily refused him and told him of her dread and 
 said she was certain that the witchcraft would begin 
 again if they two loved each other, he and his father's 
 wife. Her words drove him scarlet with fury, on the 
 one Sunday which he spent at Labuwangi: he was 
 furious with her non-compliance, with the motherly 
 attitude which she now adopted and with the fact, 
 of which he was well aware, that she saw Addie often, 
 that she often went to stay at Patjaram. Addie danced 
 with her at parties and hung over her chair at con- 
 certs, in the improvised residential box. True, he was
 
 246 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 not faithful to her, for it was not his nature to love 
 one woman — he loved women wholesale — but still he 
 was as faithful to her as he was able to be. He in- 
 spired her with a more lasting passion than she had 
 ever felt before; and this passion roused her from her 
 usual passive indifference. Often, in company, suf- 
 fering and inflicting boredom, enthroned in the bril- 
 liance of her white beauty, like a smiling idol, with 
 the languor of her years in India gradually filling her 
 blood until her movements had acquired that lazy in- 
 difference for anything that did not spell love and 
 caresses, until her voice had assumed a drawling accent 
 in any word that was not a word of passion : often she 
 would become transfigured, by the flame which Addie 
 shed over her, into a younger woman, livelier in com- 
 pany, gayer, flattered by the persistent homage of this 
 youth, on whom every girl was mad. 
 
 And she delighted in monopolizing him as much as 
 she could, to the vexation of all the girls and of Doddle 
 in particular. In the midst of her passion she also 
 took an evil pleasure in tantalizing, merely for tan- 
 talizing's sake: it gave her an exquisite enjoyment; it 
 made her husband jealous — perhaps for the first time, 
 for she had always been very careful — and made Theo 
 and Doddie jealous; she aroused the jealousy of every 
 young married woman and every girl ; and, since she 
 stood above all of them, as the resident's wife, she had 
 an ascendancy over all of them. When, of an eve- 
 ning, she had gone too far, she delighted In winning 
 back, with a smile, with a gracious word, the place in 
 their affection which she had lost through her flirta- 
 tions. And, strange though It might seem, she suc- 
 ceeded. The moment thev saw her, the moment she
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 247 
 
 spoke, smiled and exerted herself to be amiable, she 
 won back all she had lost and was forgiven every- 
 thing. Even Mrs. Eldersma allowed herself to be 
 conquered by the strange charm of this woman who 
 was neither witty nor intelligent, who merely became 
 just a little more cheerful, who roused herself a little 
 from her boring lethargy, who triumphed only through 
 the lines of her body, the contour of her face, the 
 glance of her strange eyes, restful and yet full of hid- 
 den passion, and who was conscious of all her charm 
 because she had meditated upon it since her childhood. 
 Together with her indifference, this charm constituted 
 her strength. Fate seemed to have no hold upon her. 
 For it had indeed touched her with a strange magic, 
 until she thought that a chastisement was about to 
 descend upon her, but it had gone its way again, drifted 
 away. But she accepted the warning. She had done 
 with Theo and henceforth affected a motherly attitude 
 towards him. It made him furious, especially at these 
 parties, now that she had grown younger, livelier and 
 more seductive. 
 
 His passion for her began to bum to hatred. He 
 hated her now, with all the Instinct of a fair-haired 
 native, for that was what he really was, despite his 
 white skin. For he was his mother's son rather than 
 his father's. Oh, he hated her now, for he had felt 
 his fear of the punishment only for an Instant and 
 he . , . he had forgotten everything by now! 
 And his one Idea was to Injure her . . . how he 
 did not yet know, but to Injure her so that she might 
 feel pain and suffer. The process of thinking it over 
 Imparted a Satanic gloom to his small, murky soul. 
 Although he did not think about It, he felt uncon-
 
 248 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 sciously that she was as though invulnerable ; he even 
 felt that she boasted inwardly of her invulnerability 
 and that it made her daily more brazen and indifferent. 
 She was constantly staying at Patjaram, on any excuse 
 that offered. The anonymous letters which Van 
 Oudijck still often showed her no longer disturbed 
 her; she was growing accustomed to them. She re- 
 turned them to him without a word; once she even 
 forgot them, left them lying about in the back- 
 verandah. Once Theo read them. In a sudden flash 
 of light, due to he knew not what, suddenly he seemed 
 to recognize certain characters, certain strokes. He 
 remembered, in the compound, near Patjaram, the hut, 
 half bamboo, half packing-case-boards, where he and 
 Addie de Luce had been to see Si-Oudijck and the 
 papers hastily raked together by an Arab. He had a 
 vague recollection of seeing those same characters, 
 those strokes, on a scrap of paper on the floor. It 
 passed vaguely and quick as lightning through his 
 head. But it was no more than a lightning-flash. His 
 small, murky soul had room for nothing but dull hatred 
 and troubled calculation. But he had not sense enough 
 to follow out that calculation. He hated his father by 
 instinct and innate antipathy ; his mother, because she 
 was a nonna; his step-mother, because she had finished 
 with him; he hated Addie and Doddie into the bar- 
 gain ; he hated the world, because it made him work. 
 He hated every berth he had ever had: he now hated 
 his ofiice at Surabaya. But he was too lazy and too 
 muddle-headed to do any harm. Rack his brains as 
 he might, he could not discover how to harm his 
 father, Addie and Leonie. Everything about him was 
 vague, turbid, dissatisfied, indistinct. The object of
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 249 
 
 his desire was money and a fine woman. Beyond this, 
 he had nothing in him but the dull-witted gloom and 
 discontent of the fat, fair-haired sin jo that he was. 
 And he continued to brood impotently over his murky 
 thoughts. 
 
 Until now, Doddie had always been very fond of 
 Leonie, instinctively. But she was no longer able to 
 conceal the fact from herself: what she had first 
 thought an accident — Mamma and Addie always seek- 
 ing each other with the same smile of allurement, one 
 drawing the other the length of the great room, as 
 though irresistibly — was not an accident at all! And 
 she too hated mamma now, mamma with her beautiful 
 calmness, her soveran indifference. Her own violent, 
 passionate nature was coming into collision with that 
 other nature, with its milk-white, Creole languor, which 
 now for the first time, late in the day, because of the 
 sheer kindliness of fate, was letting itself go as it 
 pleased, without reserve. She hated mamma ; and her 
 hatred resulted in scenes, scenes of nervous, loud- 
 voiced temper in Doddie contrasting with the irritating 
 calmness of mamma's indifference, scenes caused bv 
 all sorts of little differences of opinion: a visit, a ride 
 on horse-back, a dress, a sambal which the one liked 
 and the other did not. Then Doddie wanted to have 
 her cry out on papa's breast, but Van Oudijck would 
 not admit that she was in the right and said that she 
 must show more respect for mamma. But once, when 
 Doddie had come to him for consolation and he re- 
 proached her for going for walks with Addie, she 
 screamed out that mamma herself was in love with 
 Addie. Van Oudijck angrily ordered her out of the 
 room. But it all agreed too closelv — the anonvmous
 
 250 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 letters, his wife's new-born flirtations, Doddie's ac- 
 cusations and what he himself had noticed at the last 
 few parties — not to give him food for reflection and 
 even to worry him. And, once he began to worry and 
 reflect upon it all, memories came suddenly darting 
 into his mind like sudden flashes of lightning: memor- 
 ies of an unexpected visit; of a locked door; of a 
 moving curtain; of a whispered word and a timidly 
 averted glance. He pieced it all together and he quite 
 suddenly recollected those same subtle memories in 
 combination with others, of an earlier date. It all at 
 once aroused his jealousy, a husband's jealousy of the 
 wife whom he loves as his most personal possession. 
 This jealousy burst upon him like a gust of wind, 
 blowing its way through his concentration upon his 
 work, confusing his thoughts as he sat writing, making 
 him suddenly nm out of his office, during the police- 
 cases, and search Leonie's room and lift up a curtain 
 and even look under the bed. 
 
 And now he no longer consented to have Leonie 
 staying at Patjaram, advancing as his pretext that 
 the De Luces should not be encouraged in the hope of 
 getting Doddie as a wife for Addie. For he dared not 
 speak to Leonie of his jealousy. . . . That Addie 
 should ever get Doddie for his wife ! . . . True, 
 there was native blood in his daughter too; but he 
 wanted a full-blooded European as his son-in-law. He 
 hated anything half-caste. He hated the De Luces 
 and all the up-country, Indian, half-Solo traditions of 
 that Patjaram of theirs. He hated their gambling, 
 their hobnobbing with all sorts of Indian headmen, 
 people whom he accepted officially, allowing them 
 their rights, but, apart from this, regarded as un-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 251 
 
 avoidable instruments of the government policy. He 
 hated all their posing as an old Indian family and he 
 hated Addie: an idle youth, who was supposed to be 
 employed in the factory but who did nothing at all, 
 except run after every woman, girl and maid-servant 
 in the place. He, the older, industrious man, was un- 
 able to understand that kind of existence. 
 
 So Leonie had to do without Patjaram; but in the 
 mornings she went quietly to I\Irs. van Does and met 
 Addie in this lady's little house while Mrs. van Does 
 herself went out peddling, in a tjikar,^ with two jam- 
 pots of inten-intcn and a bundle of hatik bedspreads. 
 Then, in the evenings, Addie would stroll out with 
 Doddie and listen to her passionate reproaches. He 
 laughed at her tempersome displays, took her in his 
 arms till she hung panting on his breast, kissed the re- 
 proaches from her mouth till she melted away 
 amorously on his lips. They went no further, feeling 
 too much afraid, especially Doddie. They strolled 
 behind the comjxjunds, on the galanganr of the 
 sazvahs, while swarms of fire-fiies w^iirled about them 
 in the dark like tiny lanterns ; they strolled arm-in-arm, 
 they walked hand-in-hand, in enervating, caressing 
 love, which never dared to push matters any farther. 
 When she came home again, she was furious, raging 
 at mamma, in whom she envied the calm, smiling 
 satiety as she lay musing, in her white tea-gown, with 
 a touch of powder on her face, in a cane chair. 
 
 And the house, newly painted and whitewashed after 
 the strange happenings, which were now past, the 
 house was filled with a hatred that rose on every hand, 
 
 * Little cart. 
 
 'Narrow irrigation-dikes.
 
 252 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 as it were the very demoniacal bloom of that strange 
 secret ; a hatred centring upon that silent woman, who 
 was too languid to hate and only delighted in silent 
 tantalizing; a jealous hatred of the father for the son, 
 when he saw him too often sitting beside his step- 
 mother, begging, in spite of his own hatred, for some- 
 thing, the father did not know what; a hatred of the 
 daughter for the mother; a hatred in which all this 
 family-life was being wrecked. How it had all 
 gradually come about Van Oudijck did not know. He 
 sadly regretted the time when he was blind, when he 
 had seen his wife and children only in the light in 
 which he wished to see them. That time was past. 
 Like the strange happenings of not so long ago, a 
 hatred was now rising out of life, like a miasma out 
 of the ground. And Van Oudijck, who had never 
 ])een superstitious, who had worked on coolly and 
 calmly in his lonely house, with the incomprehensible 
 witchcraft all about him ; who had read reports while 
 the hammering went on above his head and his whisky- 
 and-soda changed colour in his glass ; Van Oudijck for 
 the first time in his life — now that he saw the gloomy 
 glances of Theo and Doddie; now that he suddenly 
 discovered his wife, growing more brazen daily, sit- 
 ting hand-in-hand with young De Luce, her knees 
 almost touching his — became superstitious, believing 
 in a hidden force which lurked he knew not where, in 
 India, in the soil of India, in a deep-seated mystery, 
 somewhere or other, a force that wished him ill be- 
 cause he was a European, a ruler, a foreigner on the 
 mystic, sacred soil. And, when he saw this supersti- 
 tion within himself, something so new to him, the 
 practical man, something so strange and Incredible to
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 253 
 
 him, a man of single-minded, masculine simplicity, he 
 was afraid of himself, as of a rising insanity, which 
 he began to perceive deep down within himself. 
 
 And, strong though he had proved himself to be at 
 the time of the strange happenings, which he had been 
 able to exorcize with a single word of threatening 
 force, this superstition, which came as an aftermath 
 of those events, found a weakness in him, a vulnerable 
 spot as it were. He was so much surprised at him- 
 self that he did not understand and was afraid lest he 
 might be going mad ; and still he worried. His health 
 was undermined by an incipient liver-complaint; and 
 he kept on examining his jaundiced complexion. Sud- 
 denly he had an idea that he was being poisoned. The 
 kitchen was searched, the cook subjected to a cross- 
 examination ; but nothing came to light. He realized 
 that he had been frightened by nothing. But the doc- 
 tor declared that he had an enlarged liver and pre- 
 scribed the usual diet. A thing which otherwise he 
 would have thought quite natural — an illness which 
 occurred so frequently — now of a sudden struck him 
 as strange, a mysterious event; and he worried over 
 it. And it got on his nerves. He began to suffer from 
 sudden weariness when working, from throbbing 
 headaches. His jealousy upset him ; he was overcome 
 by a shuddering restlessness. He suddenly reflected 
 that, if there were now any hammering above his head, 
 if betel- juice were now spat at him, he would not be 
 able to stay in the house. And he conceived a belief 
 in a hatred that rose slowly around him out of the 
 hostile soil, like a miasma. He believed in a force 
 deep-hidden in the things of India, in the nature of 
 Java, in the climate of Labuwangi, in the conjuring —
 
 254 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 as he continued to call it — which sometimes makes the 
 Javanese cleverer than the European and gives him the 
 power, a mysterious power, not to release himself from 
 the yoke, but to cause illness, lingering illness, to 
 plague and harass, to play the ghost most incredibly 
 and hideously: a hidden force, a hidden power, hostile 
 to our temperament, our blood, our bodies, our souls, 
 our civilization, to all that seems to us the right thing 
 to do and be and think. It had flashed before him as 
 in a sudden light, it was not the result of thought, it 
 had flashed out before him as in a dreadful revelation, 
 which was utterly in conflict with all the logic of his 
 methodical mode of thought. In a vision of terror he 
 suddenly saw it before him, as the light of his ap- 
 proaching old age, as men who are growing old do 
 sometimes suddenly perceive the truth. And yet he 
 was young still and hale. And he felt that, if he did 
 not divert his maddening thoughts, they might make 
 him ill, weak and miserable, for ever and ever. 
 
 • • • 
 
 To him, above all, a simple, practical man, this 
 change of mental attitude was almost unbearable. 
 What a morbid mind might have contemplated in quiet 
 meditation flashed upon him as a sudden terror. Never 
 would he have thought that there might be somewhere, 
 deeply hidden in life, things which were stronger than 
 the power of the human will and intellect. Nowadays, 
 after the nightmare which he had so courageously 
 defeated, it seemed to him that the nightmare had 
 nevertheless sapped his strength and inoculated him 
 with every sort of weakness. It was incredible, but 
 now, as he sat working in the evening, he would listen 
 to the evening voices in the garden, or to the rapid
 
 t> 
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE • 255 
 
 rustle overhead. And then he would suddenly get up, 
 go to Leonie's room and look under the bed. When he 
 at last discovered that many of the anonymous letters 
 by which he was persecuted came from the pen of a 
 half-caste who described himself as his son and was 
 even known by his own surname in the compound, he 
 felt too undoubtful to investigate the matter, because of 
 what might come to light that he had himself forgotten, 
 dating from his controllership, from the old days, at 
 Ngadjiwa. He was doubtful now as to things of 
 which he had once been certain and positive. Nowa- 
 days he was no longer able to order his recollections of 
 that period so positively that he would swear that he 
 had not a son, begotten almost unconsciously in those 
 days. He did not clearly remember the housekeeper 
 who had looked after him before his first marriage. 
 And he preferred to let the whole business of the 
 anonymous letters smoulder in the dusky shadows, 
 rather than stir it up and enquire into it. He even 
 caused money to be sent to the native who called him- 
 self his son, so that the fellow might not abuse the name 
 which he arrogated to himself and demand presents all 
 over the compound: chickens and rice and clothes, 
 things which Si-Oudijck exacted from ignorant dessa- 
 folk, whom he threatened with the vague anger of his 
 father, the kandjcng yonder at Labuwangi. In order 
 that there might be no more threats of this anger. Van 
 Oudijck sent him money. It was weak of him: he 
 M-ould never have done it in the old days. But now he 
 had an inclination to hush things up, to gloss over 
 things, to be less stern and severe and rather to mitigate 
 anything unduly strict by half-measures. Eldersma 
 was sometimes amazed when he saw the resident, who
 
 256 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 used to be so firm, hesitating, when he saw him yielding 
 in matters of business, in differences with crown 
 tenants, as he had never done before. And slack 
 methods of work would have found their way in the of- 
 fice, automatically, if Eldersma had not taken the work 
 out of Van Oudijck's hands and given himself even 
 more to do than he already had. It was generally 
 stated that the resident was ill. And, in point of fact, 
 his skin was yellow ; his liver was painful ; the least 
 thing set his nerves quivering. It unsettled the house. 
 In conjunction with Doddie's tempers and outbursts and 
 Theo's jealousy and hatred, for Theo was at home 
 again, had already thrown up Surabaya. Leonie alone 
 continued her triumphant career, ever beautiful, white, 
 calm smiling, contented, happy in the lasting passion of 
 Addie, whom she knew how to hold, amorous expert, 
 love's sorceress that she was. Fate had warned her 
 and she kept Theo at a distance ; but, for the rest, she 
 was happy and contented. 
 
 Then suddenly Batavia fell vacant. The names of 
 two or three residents were mentioned, but Van 
 Oudijck had possesed the best chance. And he worried 
 about it, was afraid of it: he did not care for Batavia, 
 as a residency. He would not have been able to work 
 in Batavia as he worked here, at Labuwangi, zealously 
 and devotedly fostering so many different interests con- 
 nected with agriculture and the people. He would 
 rather have been appointed to Surabaya, where there 
 was plenty going on : or to one of the Vorstenlanden, 
 where his tact in dealing with the native princes would 
 have been turned to good purpose. But Batavia! It 
 was the least Interesting of all districts for a resident, 
 from the point of viev*' of an official, and, what with
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 257 
 
 the arrogant atmospliere of the place, the least flatter- 
 ing to one in the position of resident, in close contact 
 with the governor-general, surrounded by the highest 
 officials, so that the resident, who was almost supreme 
 anywhere else, was at Batavia no more than yet another 
 high official among so many members of Council and 
 directors. And it was much too near Buitenzorg, with 
 its arbitrary secretariat, whose bureaucratic and red- 
 tape methods were always clashing with the practical 
 administrative methods of the residents themselves. 
 
 The prospect of being appointed unsettled him en- 
 tirely, harrassed him more than ever, with the thought 
 of leaving Labuwangi in a month's time, of selling up 
 his furniture. It would break his heart to leave Labu- 
 wangi. In spite of all that he had gone through there, 
 he loved the town and especially his district. During 
 all those years, he had left traces of activity through- 
 out his district, traces of his devoted labour, of his 
 ambition, of his affection. And now, within a month, 
 he would probably have to transfer all this to a suc- 
 cessor, to tear himself away from everything that he 
 had so lovingly cherished and fostered. It filled him 
 with a sombre melancholy. He cared not a straw for 
 the fact that the promotion also brought him nearer to 
 his pension. That unoccupied future, with the bore- 
 dom of approaching old age, was a very nightmare to 
 him. And his successor would perhaps make all man- 
 ner of changes, would disagree at every single jx)int. 
 
 In the end, the chance of his promotion became such 
 a morbid obsession with him that the improbable thing 
 happened and he wrote to the director of the B.B. and . 
 to the governor-general, begging to be left at Labu- 
 wangi. The secret of these letters was pretty well
 
 258 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 kept: he himself concealed them entirely, both from 
 his family and from his officials, so that, when a 
 younger, second-class resident was appointed Resident 
 of Batavia, people said that Van Oudijck had been 
 passed over, but not that this had happened at his own 
 request. And, in seeking the cause, they raked up all 
 the old gossip about the dismissal of the Regent of 
 Ngadjiwa and the strange happenings thereafter, but 
 without finding in either any particular reason why the 
 government should have passed over Van Oudijck. 
 
 He himself recovered a strange sort of peace, a peace 
 due to weariness, to laisser-aller, to becoming rooted in 
 his familiar Labuwangi, to not having to be trans- 
 ferred, old up-country veteran that he was, to Batavia, 
 where things were so very different. When the 
 governor-general, at his last audience, had spoken to 
 him about going to Europe on leave, he had felt afraid 
 of Europe, afraid of no longer feeling at home there ; 
 and now he felt afraid even of Batavia. And yet he 
 "knew all there was to know about the would-be western 
 humbug of Batavia; yet he knew that the capital of 
 Java only pretended to be exceedingly European and 
 in reality was only half-European. In himself — and 
 imknown to his wife, who regretted that dispelled il- 
 lusion of Batavia — he chuckled silently at the thought 
 that he had succeeded in remaining at Labuwangi. 
 But, while he chuckled, he nevertheless felt changed, 
 aged, belittled, felt that he was no longer glancing at 
 that upward path — the prospect of constantly winning a 
 higher place among his fellow-men — which had always 
 been his path of life. What had become of his ambi- 
 tion? What had happened to decrease his love of 
 authority? He put it all down to the influence of the
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 259 
 
 climate. It would certainly be a good thing to refresh 
 his blood and his mind in Europe, to spend a couple of 
 winters there. But the idea immediately evaporated, 
 wiped out by his lack of resolution. No, he did not 
 want to go to Europe ; it was India that he loved. And 
 he indulged in long meditations, lying in a long-chair, 
 enjoying his coffee, his light clothing, the gentle relax- 
 ation of his muscles, the aimless drowsiness of his 
 thoughts. The only obvious thing In his drowsy 
 mood was his ever-Increasing suspicion ; and now and 
 again he would suddenly wake from his languor and 
 listen to the vague sounds, the soft suppressed laughter 
 which he seemed to hear in Leonie's room, even as at 
 night when, suspicious of ghosts, he listened to the 
 mufifled sounds In the garden and to the rat scurrying 
 overhead.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 Addie was sitting with Mrs. van Does, in the little 
 back-verandah, when they heard a carriage rattle up in 
 front of the house. They smiled at each other and rose 
 from their seats: 
 
 "I shall leave you to yourselves," said Mrs. van Does. 
 
 And she disappeared, to drive round the town in a 
 dos-a-dos^ and do business among her friends. 
 
 Leonie entered: 
 
 "Wliere is Mrs. van Does ?" she asked, for she always 
 behaved as though it were the first time. 
 
 It was her great charm. He knew this and answered : 
 
 "She has just gone out. She will be sorry to have 
 missed you." 
 
 He spoke like this because he knew that she liked it: 
 the ceremonial opening each time, to preserv^e above 
 all things the freshness of their liaison. 
 
 They now sat down in the little closed middle gal- 
 lery, side by side on a settee. 
 
 The settee was covered with a cretonne displaying 
 many-coloured flowers ; on the white walls were a few 
 cheap fans and kakemonos; and on either side of a 
 little looking-glass stood a console-table with an imi- 
 tation bronze statue, two nondescript knights, each 
 with one leg advanced and a spear in his hand. 
 Through the glass door the musty little back-verandah 
 showed, with its damp, yellow-green pillars, its flower- 
 pots, also yellow-green, with a few withered rose-tree? : 
 and behind this was the damp, neglected little garden, 
 
 * Dog-cart
 
 ^ THE HIDDEN FORCE 261 
 
 with a couple of lean coco-palms, hanging their leaves 
 like broken feathers. 
 
 He now took her In his arms and drew her to him, 
 but she pushed him away gently : 
 
 "Doddie Is becoming unbearable," she said. "Some- 
 thing must be done." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "She must leave the house. She is so irritable that 
 there's no living with her." 
 
 "You tease her, vou know." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders, put out by a recent 
 scene with her step-daughter: 
 
 "I never used to tease her. She was fond of me and 
 we got on all right together. Now she flies out at the 
 least thing. It's your fault. Those everlasting eve- 
 ning walks, which lead to nothing, upset her nerves." 
 
 "Perhaps it's just as well that they lead to nothing," 
 he murmured, with his little laugh, the laugh of the 
 tempter. "But I can't break with her, you know: It 
 Avould make her unhappy. And I can't bear to make a 
 woman unhappy." 
 
 She laughed scornfully: 
 
 "Yes, you're so good-natured. From sheer good- 
 nature you would scatter your favours broadcast. 
 Anvway, she'll have to go." 
 
 "Go? Whereto?" 
 
 "Don't ask such silly questions!" she exclaimed, 
 angrily, roused out of her usual indifference. "She'll 
 have to go, somewhere or other, I don't care where. 
 You know, when I say a thing, it's done. And this is 
 going to be done." 
 
 He was now clasping her in his arms : 
 
 "You're so angry. You're not a bit pretty like that."
 
 262 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 In her temper, she at first refused to let him kiss her ; 
 but, as he did not Hke these tempers and was well aware 
 of the irresistible power of his comely Moorish 
 virility, he mastered her with rough, smiling violence 
 and held her so tight to him that she was unable to stir: 
 
 "You mustn't be angry any longer." 
 
 "Yes, I will. IhateDoddie." 
 
 "The poor girl has done you no harm." 
 
 "Possibly." 
 
 "On the contrary, it's you who tease her," 
 
 "Yes, because I hate her." 
 
 "Why ? Surely you're not jealous !" 
 
 She laughed aloud : 
 
 "No ! That's not one of my feelings." 
 
 "Then why?" 
 
 "What does it matter to you? I myself don't know. 
 I hate her. I love tormenting her." 
 
 "Are you as wicked as you are beautiful?" 
 
 "What does wicked mean ? I don't know or care ! 
 I should like to torment you too, if I only knew how." 
 
 "And I should like to give you a good smacking." 
 
 She again gave a shrill laugh : 
 
 "Perhaps it would do me good," she admitted. "I 
 seldom lose my temper, but Doddle , . . !" 
 
 She contracted her fingers and, suddenly calming 
 down, nestled against him and locked her arms about 
 his body: 
 
 "I used to be very indifferent," she confessed. 
 "Latterly I have been much more easily upset, after I 
 had that fright in the bathroom . . . after they 
 spat at me so, with sirih. Do you believe it was ghosts ? 
 T don't. It was some practical joke of the regent's. 
 Those beastly Javanese know all sorts of things.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 263 
 
 . But since then, I have, so to speak, lost my bear- 
 ings. Do you understand that expression ? ... It 
 used to be deHghtf ul : I would let everything run off me 
 like water off a duck's back. But, after being so ill, I 
 seem to have changed, to be more nervous. Theo one 
 day, when he was angry with me, said that I've been 
 hysterical since then . . . and I never used to be. 
 I don't know: perhaps he's right. But I'm certainly 
 changed. ... I don't care so much what people 
 think or say; I think I'm growing cjuite shameless. 
 They're gossiping too more spitefully than 
 they used to. . . . Van Oudijck irritates me, pry- 
 ing about as he does. He's beginning to notice some- 
 thing. . . . And Doddie ! Doddie ! . . . I'm 
 not jealous, but I can't stand her evening walks with 
 you. , . . You must give It up, do you hear, walk- 
 ing with her. I won't have It, I won't have It. . . . 
 And then everything bores me In this place, at Labu- 
 wangl. What a wretched, monotonous life! . . . 
 Surabaya's a bore too. . . . So's Batavla. . . . 
 It's all so dull and stodgy: people never think of 
 anything new. ... I should like to go to Paris. 
 I believe I have It In me to enjoy Paris thoroughly. 
 
 • * • 
 
 "Do I bore you too ?' 
 
 "You?" 
 
 She stroked his face with her two hands and passed 
 them over his chest and down his thighs. 
 
 "I'll tell you what I think of you. You're a pretty 
 boy, but you're too good-natured. That irritates me 
 too. You kiss everybody who wants you to kiss them. 
 At Patjaram, you are always pawing everybody, In-
 
 264 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 eluding your old mother and your sisters, I think it's 
 horrid of you !" 
 
 He laughed: 
 
 "Your growing jealous !" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Jealous? Am I really getting jealous? How 
 horrid if I am! I don't know: I don't think I am, all 
 the same. I don't want to be. After all, I believe 
 there's something that will always protect me." 
 
 "A devil. . . ." 
 
 "Possibly. Un bon diahle." 
 
 "Are you taking to speaking French ?" 
 
 "Yes. With a view to Paris. . . . There's 
 something that protects me. I firmly believe that life 
 can do me no Injury, that nothing can touch me." 
 
 "You're becoming superstitious." 
 
 "Oh, I was always that ! Perhaps I've become more 
 so. . . . Tell me, have I changed, lately ?" 
 
 "You're touchier." 
 
 "Not so indifferent as I was?" 
 
 "You're gayer, more amusing." 
 
 "Used I to be a bore?" 
 
 "You wxre a little quiet. You were always beauti- 
 ful, exquisite, divine . . . but rather quiet." 
 
 "Perhaps It was because I minded people more 
 then." 
 
 "Don't you now?" 
 
 "No, not now. They gossip just the same. . . . 
 But tell me, haven't I changed more than that ?" 
 
 "Yes, you have: you're more jealous, more super- 
 stitious, more touchy. . . . What more do you 
 want?" 
 
 "Physically: haven't I changed physically?" 
 
 "No/*
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 265 
 
 "Haven't I grown older? . . . Am I not get- 
 ting wrinkled ?" 
 
 "You? Never!" 
 
 "Listen. I believe I have still quite a future before 
 me, something very different. . . ." 
 
 "In Paris?" 
 
 "Perhaps. . . . Tell me, am I not too old ?" 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "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 ?" 
 
 "Rather not!" 
 
 "Tell me, don't you think India a horrible country? 
 Have you never been to Europe ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I was there from ten to fifteen . . . properly 
 speaking, you're a brown sinjo and I a white nonna. 
 
 "I love my country." 
 
 "Yes, because you think yourself a bit of a Solo 
 prince. . . . That's your Patjaram absurdity. . 
 
 . As for me, I hate India, I loathe Labuwangi. I 
 want to get away. I want to go to Paris. . . . 
 Will you come too ?" 
 
 "No. I should never want to go. . . ." 
 
 "Not even when you reflect that there are hundreds 
 of women in Europe whom you have never loved ?" 
 
 He looked at her: something in her words, in her 
 voice, made him glance up ; a crazy hysteria, which had 
 never struck him in the old days, when she had always 
 been the silently passionate mistress, with half-closed 
 eyes, who always wanted to forget everything at once
 
 266 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 and become conventional once more. Something in 
 her repelled him. He loved the soft, pliant surrender 
 of her caresses, the smiling indolence which she used 
 to display, but not these half -mad eyes and this purple 
 mouth, which seemed ready to bite. She seemed to 
 feel it, for she suddenly pushed him from her and said, 
 brusquely : 
 
 "You bore me. ... I know all there is to know 
 in you. ... Go away. . . ." 
 
 But this he would not do. He did not care for futile 
 rendez-vous and he now embraced her and solicited 
 her. . . . 
 
 "No," she said, curtly. "You bore me. Every one 
 bores me here. Everything bores me." 
 
 He, on his knees, put his hands about her waist and 
 drew her to him. She smiling a little, became slightly 
 more yielding, rumpling his hair nervously with her 
 hand. A carriage pulled up in front of the house. 
 
 "Hark!" she said. 
 
 "It's Mrs. van Does." 
 
 "How soon she's back !" 
 
 "I expect she's sold nothing." 
 
 "Then it'll cost you a tientje."'^ 
 
 "I dare say." 
 
 "Do you pay her much ? For allowing us to meet ?" 
 
 "Oh, what does it matter?" 
 
 "Listen," she said again, more attentively. 
 
 "That's not Mrs. van Does." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "It's a man's footstep. ... It wasn't a dos-a- 
 dos either: it was much too noisy." 
 
 ^Ten-guilder note.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 267 
 
 "I expect it's nothing," said she. "Some one who 
 has mistaken the house. Nobody ever comes here." 
 
 "The man's going round," he said, Hstening. 
 
 They both Hstened for a moment. And then, sud- 
 denly, after two or three strides through the cramped 
 httle garden and along the Httle back-verandah, his 
 figure. Van Oudijck's appeared outside the closed glass 
 door, visible through the curtain. And he had pulled it 
 open before Leonie and Addie could change their 
 position, so that Van Oudijck saw them both, her sit- 
 ting on the couch and him kneeling before her, while 
 her hand still lay, as though forgotten, on his hair. 
 
 "Leonie !" roared her husband. 
 
 Her blood under the shock of the surprise broke into 
 stormy waves and seethed through her veins; and in 
 one second she saw the whole future: his anger, the 
 trial, the divorce, the money w^hich her husband would 
 allow her, all in one whirling vision. But, as though 
 by the compulsion of her nervous will, the tide of blood 
 within her at once subsided and grew calm; and she 
 remained quietly sitting there, her terror showing for 
 but one moment longer in her eyes, until she could turn 
 them hard as steel upon Van Oudijck. And, by press- 
 ing her finger softly on Addie's head, she suggested to 
 him also to remain in the same attitude, to remain 
 kneeling at her feet, and she said, as though self-hypno- 
 tized, listening in astonishment to her own slightly 
 husky voice; 
 
 "Otto . . . Adrien de Luce is asking me to put 
 in a word with you for him. . . . He is asking 
 for Doddie's hand. 
 
 They all three remained motionless, all three tmder 
 the influence of these words, of this thought which had
 
 268 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 come . . . whence Leonie herself did not know. 
 For sitting rigid and erect as a sibyl and still with that 
 gentle pressure on Addie's head, she repeated: 
 
 "He is asking . . . for Doddie's hand. . . ." 
 
 She was still the only one to speak. And she con- 
 tinued: 
 
 "He knows that you have certain objections. He 
 knows that you do not care for his family 
 because they have Javanese blood in their arteries." 
 
 She was still speaking as though some one else were 
 speaking inside her ; and she had to smile at that word 
 arteries, she did not know why: perhaj>s because it was 
 the first time in her life that she had used the word 
 arteries, for veins, in conversation. 
 
 "But," she went on, "there are no financial draw- 
 backs, if Doddie likes to live at Patjaram. . . . 
 And the children have been fond of each other . . . 
 so long." 
 
 She alone was speaking still: 
 
 "Doddie has so long been overstrung, almost ill. 
 . . . It would be a crime. Otto, not to consent." 
 
 Gradually her voice became more musical and the 
 smile formed about her lips ; but the light in her eyes 
 was still hard as steel, as though she were threatening 
 Van Oudijck with her anger if he refused to believe 
 her. 
 
 "Come," she said, very gently, very kindly, patting 
 Addie's head softly with her trembling fingers. "Get 
 up . . . Addie . . . and go to . . . 
 papa." 
 
 He rose, mechanically. 
 
 "Leonie, what were you doing here?" asked Van 
 Oudijck, hoarsely.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 269 
 
 "Here? I was with ]\Irs. van Does." 
 
 "And he?" pointing to Addie. 
 
 "He ? . . . He happened to be caUing. . . . 
 Mrs. van Does had to go out. . . . Then he 
 asked leave to speak to me. . . . And then he 
 asked me . . . for Doddie's hand. . . ." 
 
 They were again all three silent. 
 
 "And you, Otto?" she now asked, more harshly. 
 "What brought you here?" 
 
 He looked at her sharply. 
 
 "Is there anything )^ou want to buy of Mrs. van 
 Does?" she asked. 
 
 "Theo told me you were here. . . ." 
 
 "Theo was right. . . ." 
 
 "Leonie. . . ." 
 
 She rose and, with her eyes hard as steel, she 
 intimated to him that he must believe her, that she 
 insisted on his believing her: 
 
 "In any case, Otto," she said ; and her manner was 
 once more gently kind, "do not leave Addie any longer 
 in his uncertainty. And you, Addie, don't be afraid 
 . . . and ask papa for Doddie's hand. ... I 
 have nothing to say where Doddie is concerned . . . 
 as I have often told you." 
 
 They now all three stood facing one another, in the 
 narrow middle gallery; breathing with difficulty, 
 oppressed by their accumulated emotions. Then Addie 
 said: 
 
 "Resident, I ask you ... for your daughter's 
 hand." 
 
 A dos-a-dos pulled up at the front of the house. 
 
 "That's Mrs. van Does," said Leonie, hurriedly. 
 "Otto, say something before she comes. . . ."
 
 270 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 "I consent," said Van Oudijck, gloomily. 
 
 He made off at the back before Mrs. van Does 
 entered and did not see the hand which Addie held out 
 to him. Mrs. van Does came in trembling, followed 
 by a hahu carrying her bundle, her merchandise. She 
 saw Leonie and Addie standing stiff and hypnotized: 
 
 "That Avas the residen's chariot!" stammered the 
 Indian lady, pale in the face. "Was it the residenF" 
 
 "Yes," said Leonie, calmly. 
 
 "Astaga!'^ And what happened ?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Leonie, laughing. 
 
 "Nothing?" 
 
 "Or rather, something did happen." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Addie and Doddie are . . /* 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Engaged!" 
 
 And she shrieked the words with a shrill outburst of 
 uncontrollable mirth at the comedy of life, and took 
 Mrs. van Does, who stood with eyes starting out of her 
 head, and spun her round and kicked the bundle out of 
 the halm's hands, so that a parcel of batik bedspreads 
 and table-slips fell^to the ground and a little jam-pot 
 full of glittering crystals rolled away and broke. 
 
 "Astaga! . . . My brilliants !" 
 
 One more kick of frolicsome wantonness; and the 
 table-slips flew to left and right and the diamonds lay 
 glittering, scattered among the legs of the tables and 
 chairs. Addie, his eyes still filled with terror, crawled 
 about on his hands and feet, raking them together. 
 
 Mrs. van Does repeated: 
 
 "Engaged!" 
 
 '"Heavens ! Oh dear !"
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 Doddie was rapt into the seventh heaven of dehght 
 when Van Oudijck told her that Addie had asked her 
 hand in marriage: and, when she heard that mamma 
 had been her advocate, she embraced Leonie boister- 
 ously, with the emotional spontaneity of her tempera- 
 ment, once more surrendering to the attraction which 
 Leonie had exercised upon her for years. Doddie now 
 at once forgot everything that had annoyed her in the 
 excessive intimacy between mamma and Addie, when 
 he used to hang over her chair and whisper to her. She 
 had never believed what she had heard now and again, 
 because Addie had always assured her that it was not 
 true. And she was ever so happy that she was going to 
 live with Addie, he and she together, at Patjaram. For 
 Patjaram was her ideal of what a home should be. 
 The big house, full of sons and daughters and children 
 and animals, on all of whom the same kindness and 
 cordiality and boredom was lavished, while behind 
 those sons and daughters shone the halo of their Solo 
 descent : the big house built on to the sugar factory was 
 to her the ideal residence ; and she felt akin with all its 
 little traditions: the samhal, crushed and ground by a 
 hahii squatting behind her chair, while she sat at lunch, 
 represented to her the supreme indulgence of the 
 palate ; the races at Ngadjiwa, attended by the leisurely 
 Icngang-lcngaiig^ procession of all those women, with 
 the babus behind them, carrying the handkerchief, the 
 
 ^The swaying of the arms in walking: the typical gait of the 
 native women.
 
 272 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 scent-bottle, the opera-glasses, were her ne phis idtra 
 of elegance; she loved the old Dowager Raden-Aju; 
 and she had given herself to Addie, entirely, without 
 reserve, from the first moment of seeing him, when she 
 was a little girl of thirteen and he a boy of eighteen. 
 It was because of him that she had always resisted with 
 all her energy when papa wanted to send her to Europe, 
 to boarding-school in Brussels ; because of him she had 
 never cared for any place except Labuwangi, Ngadjiwa 
 or Patjaram; because of him she was prepared to live 
 and die at Patjaram. 
 
 It was because of him that she had felt all her little 
 jealousies, when her girl-friends told her that he was 
 in love with this one or carrying on with that one ; 
 because of him she would always know those jealousies 
 great and small, her whole life long. He would be her 
 life, Patjaram her world, sugar her interest, because it 
 was Addie's interest. Because of him she would long 
 for many children, very many children, who would be 
 really brown not white, like papa and mamma and 
 Theo, but brown, because her own mother was brown ; 
 and she herself was a delicate brown, while Addie was 
 a beautiful bronze colour, a Moorish brown, and, after 
 the example set at Patjaram, her children, her numer- 
 ous children, would be brought up in the shadow of the 
 factory, in an atmosphere of sugar, with a view to their 
 planting the fields, when they grew up, and milling the 
 sugar-cane and restoring the fortunes of the family to 
 their former brilliancy. And she was as happy as a 
 girl in love could imagine herself to be, seeing her ideal, 
 Addie and Patjaram, so closely attainable, and not 
 for a second realizing how her happiness had come 
 about, through the word which Leonie, almost uncon-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 273 
 
 sciously, had uttered, as though by autosuggestion, at 
 the supreme moment. Oh, now she need no longer 
 seek the dark corners, the dark sazcahs with Addie; 
 now she was constantly kissing him in broad daylight, 
 leaning radiantly against him, feeling his warm, virile 
 body which was hers and would soon be hers entirely ; 
 now her eyes yearned up to him, for all to see, for she 
 no longer had the maidenly power of hiding her feel- 
 ings from others ; now he was hers, hers, hers ! 
 
 And he, wnth the good-natured surrender of a young 
 sultan, suffered her to caress his shoulders and knees, 
 suffered her to kiss him and stroke his hair, suffered 
 her arm around his neck, accepting it all as a tribute 
 due to him, accustomed as he was to that women's 
 tribute of love, he who had fondled and caressed from 
 the time when he was a little, chubby boy, from the time 
 when he was carried by Tidjem, his bahu, who was in 
 love with him, from the time when he used to romp In 
 a tjelanamoniet^ with little sisters and cousins, all of 
 whom were in love with him. All this tribute he 
 accepted good-naturely, though secretly surprised and 
 shocked by what Leonie had done. . . . And 
 yet, he argued, it would perhaps have happened some 
 day anyhow of itself, because Doddie was so fond of 
 him. He would rather have remained unmarried: 
 though unmarried, he nevertheless had all the home life 
 at Patjaram that he wanted and retained his liberty to 
 bestow abundant love upon women, in his good-natured 
 way. And he was already ingenuously reflecting that it 
 would not do, that it would never do to remain faithful 
 to Doddie long, because he was really too good-natured 
 and the women were all so craz)'. Doddie must get 
 
 ^ Child's suit of pyjamas, laced in at the wrists and ankles.
 
 274 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 used to It later on, must learn to accept it; and, he 
 reflected, after all, in Solo, in the Kraton,^ it was the 
 same thing, with his uncles and cousins. . . . 
 
 Had Van Oudijck believed what Leonie said? He 
 himself did not know whether he did or not. Doddie 
 had accused Leonie of being in love with Addle ; Theo, 
 that morning when Van Oudijck asked him where 
 Leonie was, had answered, curtly: 
 
 "At Mrs. van Does' . . . with Addie." 
 
 He had glared at his son, but asked no further 
 questions; he had merely driven straight to Mrs. van 
 Does' house. And he had actually found his wife with 
 young De Luce, found him on his knees before her; 
 but she had said so quietly: 
 
 "Adrian de Luce is asking me for your daughter's 
 hand." 
 
 No, he himself did not know whether he believed her 
 or not. His wife had answered so quietly; and now, 
 during the first few days of the engagement, she was 
 so calm, smiling just as usual. . . . He now for 
 the first time saw that strange side of her, that invulner- 
 ability, as though nothing could harm her. Did he 
 suspect, behind this wall of invulnerability the ironical 
 feminine secrecy of her silently smouldering inner life? 
 It was as though, with his recent nervous suspicion, 
 with his restless mood, In the rankness of superstition 
 that led him to pry and listen to the haunting silence, 
 he had learnt to see around him things to which he 
 had been blind In his burly strength as a ruler and 
 high and mighty chief official. And his longing to 
 make certain of the mysteries at which he guessed 
 became so violent in his morbid irritability that he 
 
 * Fortified palace.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 275 
 
 grew more pleasant and kinder to his son, though 
 this time it rose not from the spontaneous paternal 
 affection which, when, all was said, he had always felt 
 for Theo, but from curiosity, to hear all that he had to 
 say, to make Theo speak out. And Theo, who hated 
 Leonie, who hated his father, who hated Addie, who 
 hated Doddie, in his general hatred of all those about 
 him, who hated life with the stubborn ideas of a fair- 
 haired sin jo, longing for money and beautiful women, 
 angry because the world, life, riches, happiness — as he 
 pictured it to himself in his petty fashion — did not 
 come rushing to him, falling into his arms, falling on 
 his neck: Theo was willing enough to squeeze out his 
 words drop by drop, like gall and wormwood, silently 
 revelling in the sight of his father's suffering. And he 
 allowed Van Oudijck to divine, very gradually, that it 
 was true, after all, about mamma and Addie. 
 
 In the intimacy that sprang up between the father 
 and son out of suspicion and hatred, Theo spoke of his 
 brother in the compound, said that he knew papa sent 
 him money and therefore acknowledged that the thing 
 was true. And Van Oudijck, no longer certain, no 
 longer knowing the truth, admitted that it might be so, 
 admitted that it was so. Then, remembering the 
 anonymous letters — which had only lately ceased, since 
 he had been sending money to that half-caste who 
 ventured to assume his name — he also remembered the 
 libels which he had often read in them and which, at 
 the time, he had always cast from him as so much filth ; 
 he remembered the two names, those of his wife and of 
 Theo himself, which had so constantly been coupled in 
 them. His distrust and suspicion blazed up like flames, 
 like a now inextinguishable fire, which scorched every
 
 276 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 other thought or feeling . . . until at last he was 
 no longer able to restrain himself and spoke roundly to 
 Theo on the subject. He did not trust Theo's indig- 
 nation and denial. And he now trusted nothing and 
 nobody, he distrusted his wife and his children and his 
 officials; he distrusted his cook. . . • 
 
 11
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 Then, like a clap of thunder, the rumour ran through 
 Labuwangi that Van Oudijck and his wife were going 
 to be divorced. Leonie went to Europe, very suddenly, 
 really without any one's knowing why and without 
 taking leave of anybody. And it caused a great scandal 
 in the little town: people talked of nothing else and 
 talked of it even as far away as Surabaya, as far away 
 as Batavia. Van Oudijck alone was silent ; and, with 
 his back a little more bowed, went his way, working on, 
 leading his ordinary life. He had abandoned his 
 principles and assisted Theo to obtain a job, in order 
 to be rid of him. He preferred to have Doddie staying 
 at Patjaram, where the De Luce women would help 
 her with her trousseau. He preferred Doddie to get 
 married quickly and to get married at Patjaram. In 
 his great, empty house, he now longed for nothing but 
 solitude, a spacious, cheerless solitude. He would no 
 longer have the table laid for him: they brought him 
 a plateful of rice and a cup of coffee in his office. And 
 he felt ill, his zeal lessened ; a dull indifference gnawed 
 at his vitals. Pie delegated all the work, all the district 
 to Eldersma; and, when Eldersma, after not sleeping 
 for weeks, half-crazy with nervous strain, told the resi- 
 dent that the doctor wanted to send him to Europe with 
 a certificate of urgency. Van Oudijck lost all his 
 courage. He said that he too felt ill and done for. 
 And he applied to the governor-general for leave and 
 went to Batavia. He said nothing about it, but he felt 
 certain that he would never return to Labuwangi.
 
 278 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 And he went away, quietly, with not a glance at what 
 he was leaving behind him, at his great field of activity, 
 which he had so lovingly organized. The administra- 
 tion remained in the hands of the assistant-resident at 
 Ngadjiwa. It was generally believed that Van 
 Oudijck wished to see the governor-general about cer- 
 tain questions of importance, but suddenly the news 
 arrived that he was proposing to retire. It was not 
 credited at first, but the report was confirmed. Van 
 Oudijck did not return. 
 
 He had gone, without casting a glance behind him, 
 in a strange indifference, an indifference which had 
 gradually corroded the very marrow of this once so 
 robust and practical man, who had always remained 
 young in his capacity for work. He felt this indiffer- 
 ence for Labuwangi, which, when there was a question 
 of his promotion to resident of the first class, he had 
 thought himself incapable of leaving except with the 
 greatest regret; he felt this indifference for his 
 domestic circle, which no longer existed. His soul was 
 filled with a gradual blight; it was withering, dying. 
 It seemed to him that all his powers were melting away 
 in the tepid stagnation of this indifference. At Batavia 
 he vegetated for a while In his hotel ; and It was gener- 
 ally assumed that he would go to Europe. 
 
 Eldersma had already gone, sick almost unto death ; 
 and Eva had been unable to accompany him, with the 
 little boy, because she was down with a bad attack of 
 malarial fever. When she was more or less conva- 
 lescent, she sold up her house, with a view to going to 
 Batavia and staying there for three weeks with friends 
 before her boat sailed. She left Labuwangi with 
 mixed feelings. She had suffered much there, but had
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 279 
 
 also reflected much ; and she had cherished a deep feel- 
 ing for Van Helderen, a pure, radiant feeUng such as 
 could, she was sure, shine forth only once in a lifetime. 
 She took leave of him as of an ordinary friend, in the 
 presence of others, and gave him no more than a 
 pressure of the hand. But she felt so profoundly sad 
 because of that pressure of the hand, that commonplace 
 farewell, that the sobs rose in her throat. That eve- 
 ning, left to herself, she did not weep, but sat in her 
 room at the hotel, staring silently for hours before 
 her. Her husband was gone, was ill: she did not 
 know how he would be when she saw him, whether 
 indeed she would ever see him again. Europe, it v. as 
 true, after her years in India, stretched its shores 
 smilingly before her, held forth the vision of its cities, 
 its culture, its art ; but she was afraid of Europe. An 
 unspoken fear lest she should have lost ground intel- 
 lectually made her almost dread the circle in her 
 parents' house, to which she w^ould have returned in a 
 month's time. She trembled at the thought thn+ p;ople 
 would consider her colonial in her manners and ideas, 
 in her speech and dress, in the education of her child ; 
 and this made her feel shy in anticipation, despite, 
 all her pose as a smart, artistic woman. Certainly she 
 no longer played the piano as well as she did ; she would 
 not dare to play at the Hague. And she thought that it 
 might be a good thing to stay in Paris for a fortnight 
 and brush off her cobwebs a bit, before showing her- 
 self in the Hague. . . . 
 
 But Eldersma was too ill. . . . And how 
 would she find him, her husband, so mudi changed, 
 her once robust Frisian husband, now tired out, worn 
 out, yellow as parchment, careless of his appearance,
 
 280 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 muttering gloomily when he spoke ? . . . But a 
 gentle vision of a refreshing German landscape, of 
 Swiss snows, of music at Bayreuth, of art in Italy 
 dawned before her staring gaze; and she saw herself 
 reunited to her sick husband. No longer united in life, 
 but united under the yoke of life, the yoke which they 
 had shouldered together, once and for all. 
 Then there was the education of her child ! Oh, to save 
 her child, to get him away from India! And yet he, 
 Van Helderen, had never been out of India. But then 
 he was himself, he was an exception. 
 
 She had l)idden him good-bye. . . . She must 
 muke up her mind to forget him. . . . Europe 
 was waiting for her . . . and her husband 
 and her child. 
 
 Two days later, she was at Batavia. She hardly 
 knew the city ; she had been there once or twice, years 
 ago, when she first came out. At Labuwangi, in that 
 little, outlying district, Batavia had gradually become 
 gloilfif^i jn her imagination into an essentially Eura- 
 sian capital, a centre of Eurasian civilization, a dim 
 vision of stately avenues and squares, surrounded by 
 great, wealthy, porticoed villas, thronged with smart 
 carriages and horses. She had always heard so much 
 about Batavia. 
 
 She was now staying with friends. The husband 
 was at the head of a big commercial firm ; their house 
 was one of the handsomest villas on the Koningsplein. 
 And she had at once been very strangely impressed by 
 the funereal character, by the deadly melancholy of 
 this great town of villas, where thousands of varied 
 lives are waging a silent, feverish battle for a future of 
 moneyed repose. It was as though all those houses,
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 281 
 
 gloomy despite their white pillars and their grand 
 fronts, were frowning like faces careworn with 
 troubles that sought to hide themselves behind a pre- 
 tentious display of broad leaves and clustering palms. 
 The houses, however much exposed, amidst their pil- 
 lars, however seemingly open, remained closed; the 
 occupants were never seen. Only in the mornings, as 
 she went on her errands along the shops in Rijswijk 
 and Molenvliet, which, with a few French names 
 among them, tried to give the impression of a southern 
 shopping-centre, of European luxury, Eva would see 
 the exodus to the Old Town of the white men, white- 
 faced, dressed In white; and even their eyes seemed 
 pale with brooding anxieties, fixed upon a future which 
 they all calculated in so many decades or lustres: so 
 much made, in this year or that ; and then aw^ay, away 
 home from India to Europe. It was as though it were 
 not malaria that was undermining them, but another 
 fever; and she felt clearly that it was undermining 
 their unacclimatized constitutions, their souls, as 
 though they were trying to skip that day and reach the 
 to-morrow, or the day after, days which brought them 
 a little nearer to their goal, because they secretly feared 
 to die before that goal was attained. The exodus 
 filled the trams with its white burden of mortality. 
 Many, already well off, but not yet rich enough for 
 their purpose, drove in their mylords^ and buggies to 
 the Harmonic- and there took the tram, to spare their 
 horses. 
 
 And in the Old Town, in the old. artistocratic houses 
 of the first Dutch merchants, still built in the Dutch 
 
 ' Victorias. 
 •A club.
 
 282 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 style, with oak staircases leading to upper floors which 
 now, during the east monsoon, were stagnant with a 
 dense, oppressive heat, like a tangible element, which 
 stifled the breath, the white men bent over their work, 
 constantly beholding between their thirsty glance and 
 the white desert of their papers the dawning mirage of 
 the future, the refreshing oasis of tlieir materialistic 
 illusion : within such and such a time, money and then 
 off ... off ... to Europe. 
 And, in the city of villas, around the Koningsplein, 
 along the green avenues, the women hid themselves, 
 the women remained unseen, the whole livelong day. 
 The hot day passed, the time of beneficent coolness 
 came, the time from half -past five to seven. The men 
 returned home dog-tired and rested; and the women, 
 tired with their housekeeping, with their children and 
 with nothing at all, with a life of doing nothing, a life 
 without any interest, tired with the deadliness of their 
 existence, rested beside the men. That hour of benefi- 
 cent coolness meant rest, rest after the bath, in undress, 
 around the tea-table, a short, momentary rest, for the 
 fearsome hour of seven was at hand, when It was al- 
 ready dark, when one had to go to a reception. A re- 
 ception implied dressing in stuffy European clothes, 
 implied a brief but dreadful display of European 
 drawing-room manners and social graces, but it also 
 implied meeting this person and that and striving to 
 achieve yet one advance towards the mirage of the 
 future: money and ultimate rest in Europe. And, 
 after the town of villas had lain in the sun all day, 
 gloomy and wan, like a dead city — with the men away 
 in the Old Town and the women hidden in their 
 houses — a few carriages now passed one another in
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 283 
 
 the dark, round the Koningsplein and along the green 
 avenues, a few European-looking people, going to a 
 reception. While, around the Koningsplein and in the 
 green avenues, all the other villas persisted in this 
 funereal desolation and remained filled with gloomy 
 darkness, the house where the party was being given 
 shone with lamps among the palm-trees. And for the 
 rest the deadliness lingered on every hand, the sombre 
 brooding lay over the houses wherein the tired people 
 were hiding, the men exhausted with work, the women 
 exhausted with doing nothing. ... 
 
 "Wouldn't you like a drive, Eva?" asked her host- 
 ess, Mrs. De Harteman, a little Dutchwoman, white 
 as wax and always tired out by her children. "But I'd 
 rather not come with you, if you don't mind: I'd 
 rather wait for Harteman. Else he'd find nobody at 
 home. So you go, with your little boy." 
 
 So Eva, with her little man, went driving in the 
 De Hartemans' "chariot." It was the cool hour of the 
 day, before darkness set in. She met two or three 
 carriages : Mrs. This and Mrs. That, who were known 
 to drive in the afternoon. In the Koningsplein she 
 saw a lady and gentleman walking: the So-and-Sos; 
 they always walked, as all Batavia knew. She met 
 no one else. No one. At that beneficent hour, the 
 town of villas remained desolate as a city of the dead, 
 as a vast mausoleum amid green trees. And 3^et it was 
 a boon, after the overwhelming heat, to see the Kon- 
 ingsplein stretching like a gigantic meadow, where the 
 parched grass was turning green with the first rains, 
 while the houses showed so far away, so very far 
 away, in their hedged-in gardens, that it was like being 
 In the country, amid woods and fields and pastures,
 
 284 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 with the wide sky overhead, from which the lungs now 
 breathed in air, as though for the first time that day, 
 breathed in oxygen and Ufe: that wide sky, displaying 
 every day as it were a varying weahh of colours, an 
 excess of sunset fires, a glorious death of the scorching 
 day, as though the sun itself were bursting into tor- 
 rents of gold between the lilac-hued and threatening 
 rain-clouds. And it was so spacious and so delightful, 
 it was such an immense boon that it actually made up 
 for the day. 
 
 But there was no one to see it except the two or 
 three people who were known in Batavia to go driving 
 or walking. A violet twilight rose; then the night 
 fell with one deep shadow; and the town, which 
 had been deathlike all day, with its frown of brood- 
 ing gloom, dropped wearily asleep, like a city of 
 care. • • • 
 
 It used to be different, said old Mrs. De Harteman, 
 the mother-in-law of Eva's friend. They were gone 
 nowadays, the pleasant houses with their Indian hos- 
 pitality, their open tables, their sincere and cordial 
 welcomes, as if the colonist's character had in some 
 sense altered, had in some way been overcast by the 
 vicissitudes of chance, by his disappointment at not 
 speedily achieving his aim, his material aim of wealth. 
 .And, he being thus embittered, it seemed that his 
 nerves became irritable, just as his soul became over- 
 cast and gloomy and his body lethargic and unable to 
 withstand the destructive climate. 
 
 And Eva did not find Batavia the ideal city of 
 Eurasian civilization which she had pictured it in the 
 Oosthoek. In this great money-grubbing centre, every 
 trace of spontaneity had vanished and life became de-
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 285 
 
 graded to an everlasting seclusion in the office or at 
 home. People never saw each other save at recep- 
 tions; any other conversation took place over the 
 telephone. 
 
 The abuse of the telephone for domestic purposes 
 killed all agreeable intimacy among friends. People 
 no longer saw one another; they no longer had any 
 need to dress and send for the carriage, the "chariot" ; 
 for they chatted over the telephone, in sarong and 
 kahaai, in pyjamas, almost without stirring a limb. 
 The telephone was close at hand and the bell was con- 
 stantly ringing in the back-verandah. People rang 
 one another up for nothing, for the mere fun of ring- 
 ing up. Young Mrs. De Harteman had an intimate 
 friend, a young woman whom she never saw and to 
 whom she telephoned daily, for half an hour at a time. 
 She sat down to it, so it did not tire her. And she 
 laughed and joked with her friend, without having to 
 dress and without moving. She did the same with 
 other friends; she paid her visits by telephone. She 
 did her shopping by telephone. Eva had not been 
 accustomed at Labuwangi to this everlasting tinkling 
 and ringing up, which killed all conversation and, in 
 the back-verandah, revealed one-half of a dialogue — 
 the replies being inaudible to any one sitting away from 
 the instrument — in the form of an incessant, one-sided 
 jabbering. It got on her nerves and drove her to her 
 room. And, amid the boredom of this life, full of 
 care and inward brooding for the husband and pene- 
 trated by the chatter of the wife's telephonic conversa- 
 tions, Eva would be surprised suddenly to hear of a 
 special excitement: a fancy- fair and the rehearsals of 
 an amateur operatic performance.
 
 286 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 She herself attended one of these rehearsals during 
 her visit and was astonished by the really first-rate 
 execution, as though those musical amateurs had put 
 the strength of despair into it, to dispel the tedium of 
 the Batavian evenings. For the Italian opera had left , 
 and she had to laugh at the heading "Amusements" in 
 the Javabode^, which amusements as a rule were 
 limited to a choice of three or four meetings of share- 
 holders. This too used to be different, said old Mrs. 
 De Harteman, who remembered the excellent French 
 opera of twenty-five years ago, which, it was true, cost 
 thousands, but for which the thousands were always 
 available. No, people no longer had the money to 
 amuse themselves at night. They sometimes gave a 
 very expensive dinner, or else went to a meeting of 
 shareholders. Eva, in truth, considered Labuwangi a 
 much livelier place. True, she herself had largely con- 
 tributed to the liveliness, at the instigation of Van 
 Oudijck, who was glad to make the capital of his dis- 
 trict a pleasant, cheerful little town. And she came 
 to the conclusion that, after all, she preferred a small, 
 up-country place, with a few cultured, agreeable 
 European inhabitants — provided that they harmonized 
 with one another and did not quarrel overmuch in the 
 intimacy of their common life — to this pretentious, 
 pompous, dreary Batavia. The only life was among 
 the military element. Only the officers' houses were 
 lit up in the evening. Apart from this the town lay 
 as though moribund, the whole long, hot day, with its 
 frown of care, with its invisible population of people 
 looking towards the future: a future of money, a 
 future perhaps even more of rest, in Europe. 
 ^ Java Messenger.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 287 
 
 And. she longed to get away. Bata^aa suffocated 
 her, notwithstanding her daily drive round the spa- 
 cious Koningsplein. She had only one wish left, a 
 melancholy wish: to say good-bye to Van Oudijck. 
 Her peculiar temperament, that of a smart, artistic 
 woman, had, very strangely, appreciated and felt the 
 fascination of his character, that of a simple, prac- 
 tical man. She had perhaps, only for a single moment, 
 felt something for him, deep down within herself, a 
 friendship which formed a sort of contrast with her 
 friendship for Van Helderen, an appreciation of his 
 fine humian qualities rather than a feeling of Platonic 
 community of souls. She had felt a sympathetic pity 
 for him in those strange, mysterious days, for the man 
 living alone in his enormous house, with the strange 
 happenings creeping in upon him. She had felt in- 
 tensely sorry for him when his wife, kicking aside her 
 exalted position, had gone away in an insolent mood, 
 arousing a storm of scandal, nobody knew exactly 
 why; his wife, at one time always so correct in her 
 demeanor, notwithstanding all her depravity, but 
 gradually devoured by the canker of the strange hap- 
 penings until she was no longer able to restrain her- 
 self, baring the innermost secrets of her profligate 
 soul with cynical indifference. The red betel-slaver, 
 spat as it were by ghosts on her naked body, had 
 affected her like a sickness, had eaten into the marrow 
 of her bones, like a disintegration of her soul, of 
 which she might perhaps die, slowly wasting away. 
 What people now said of her, of her mode of life in 
 Paris, represented something so unutterably depraved 
 that it v;as not to be mentioned above a whisper.
 
 288 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 Eva heard about it at Batavia, amid the gossip at 
 the evening-parties. And, when she asked after Van 
 Oudijck, where he was staying, whether he would 
 soon be going to Europe, after his unexpected resigna- 
 tion, a thing that had surprised the whole official 
 world, they were unable to tell her, they asked one 
 another if he was no longer at the Hotel Wisse, where 
 he had been seen only a few weeks ago, lying on his 
 chair in his little verandah, with his legs on the rests, 
 staring fixedly before him without moving a limb. He 
 had hardly gone out at all, taking his meals in his 
 room and not at the tahlc-d'hote, as though he — the 
 man who had always been accustomed to dealing with 
 hundreds of people — had become shy of meeting his 
 fellow-creatures. And at last Eva heard that Van 
 Oudijck was living at Bandong. As she had to pay 
 some farewell visits, she went to the Preanger. But 
 he was not to be found at Bandong: all that the hotel- 
 proprietor was able to tell her was that Van Oudijck 
 had stayed a few days at his place, but had since gone, 
 he did not know whither. 
 
 Then at last, by accident, she heard from a man 
 whom she met at dinner that Van Oudijck was living 
 near Garut. She went to Garut, feeling pleased to be 
 on his track. The people in the hotel were able to 
 direct her to where he lived. She could not decide 
 whether she should first write to him and announce 
 her visit. Something seemed to warn her that, if she 
 did, he would make some excuse and that she would 
 not see him. And she, now that she was on the point 
 of leaving Java for good, wanted to see him, from 
 motives of mingled affection and curiosity. She 
 wished to see for herself how he looked, to get out of
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 289 
 
 him why he had so suddenly sent in his resignation 
 and thrown up his enviable position in life, a position 
 instantly seized upon by the next man pushing after 
 him, in the great push for promotion. 
 
 So the next morning, very early, without sending 
 him word, she drove away in a carriage belonging to 
 the hotel. The landlord had explained to the coach- 
 man where he was to go. And she drove a very 
 long way, along Lake Lelles, the sombre sacred lake 
 with the two islands containing the age-old tombs of 
 saints, while above it hovered, like a dark cloud of 
 desolation, an ever circling flock of enormous kalongs, 
 gigantic black bats, flapping their demon wings and 
 screeching their cry of despair, wheeling round and 
 round incessantly: a black, funereal swirl against the 
 infinite blue depths of the ether, as though they, the 
 demons who had once dreaded light, had triumphed 
 and no longer feared the day, because they obscured 
 it with the shadow of their sombre flight. And it was 
 all so oppressive : the sacred lake, the sacred tombs and 
 above them a horde as; of black devils in the deep 
 blue ether, because it was as though a part of the 
 mystery of India were being suddenly revealed, no 
 longer hiding itself, a vague, impalpable presence, but 
 actually visible in the sunlight, rousing dismay with Its 
 menacing victory. . . . Eva shuddered; and, 
 as she glanced up timidly, she felt as though the black 
 multitude of screening wings might beat down 
 upon her. . . . But the shadow of 
 death between her and the sim only whirled dizzily 
 round, high above her head, and only uttered its 
 despondent cry of triumph. . . . She drove on; 
 and the plain of Lelles lay green and smiling before
 
 290 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 her. And that second of revelation had already ticked 
 past: there was nothing now but the green and blue 
 luxuriance of the Javanese landscape; the mystery was 
 already hidden away among the delicate, waving bam- 
 boos or merged in the azure ocean of the sky. 
 
 The coachman was driving slowly up a steep hill. 
 The liquid saia'ahs rose in terraces upwards like stairs 
 of looking-glass, pale-green with carefully-planted 
 blades of paddy; then, suddenly, there came as who 
 should say an avenue of ferns : gigantic ferns, waving 
 their fans on high, with great fabulous butterflies flut- 
 tering around them. And between the diaphanous 
 foliage of the bamboos there appeared a small house, 
 built half of stone, half of wattled bamboo, sur- 
 rounded by a little garden containing a few white pots 
 of roses. A very young woman in sarong and kahaai, 
 with cheeks gleaming like pale gold and coal-black 
 eyes inquisitively peeping, looked out in surprise at the 
 carriage, which was approaching very slowly, and fled 
 Indoors. Eva alighted and coughed. And she sud- 
 denly caught a glimpse of Van Oudijck's face, peering 
 round a screen in the middle gallery. He disappeared 
 at once. 
 
 "Resident!" she cried, in a coaxing tone. 
 
 But no one appeared and she grew confused. She 
 dared not sit down and yet she did not want to go 
 away. But round the corner of the house, outside, 
 there peeped a little face, two little brown faces, the 
 faces of very young nonna girls, and vanished again, 
 giggling. Inside the house, Eva heard a greatly ex- 
 cited, very nervous whispering: 
 
 "Sidin ! Sidin !" she heard somebody call, in a 
 whisper.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 291 
 
 She smiled, took courage and stayed and walked 
 about in the little front-verandah. And at last there 
 came an old woman, not perhaps so very old in years, 
 but old in wrinkled skin and eyes that )iad grown dim, 
 wearing a coloured chintz sabaai and dragging her slip- 
 pers: and, beginning with a few words of Dutch and 
 then taking refuge in Malay, smiling politely, she re- 
 quested Eva to be seated and said that the resident 
 would be there at once. She herself sat down, smiled, 
 did not know what to talk about, did not know what 
 to answer when Eva asked her about the lake, about 
 the road. All that she could do was to fetch syrup and 
 iced-water and wafers ; and she did not talk, but only 
 smiled and looked after her visitor. When the young 
 jionna-izcQS peeped round the corner, the old woman 
 angrily stamped her slippered foot and scolded them 
 with a sudden word ; and then they disappeared, gig- 
 gling and running away with an audible patter of little 
 bare feet. Then the old woman smiled again with her 
 eternally smiling, wrinkled face and looked at the 
 lady timidly, as though apologizing. And it was a 
 very long time before Van Oudijck came at last. 
 
 He welcomed Eva effusively, excused himself for 
 keeping her waiting. It was obvious that he had 
 shaved himself in a hurry and put on a clean white 
 suit. And he was evidently glad to see her. The old 
 woman departed, with her eternal smile of apology. 
 In that first cheerful moment, Van Oudijck seemed to 
 Eva exactly the same as usual; but, when he had 
 calmed down and taken a chair and asked her whether 
 she had heard from Eldersma and when she herself 
 was going to Europe, she saw that he had grown older, 
 an old man. It did not show in his figure, which, in
 
 292 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 his well-starched white suit, still preserved its broad, 
 soldierly air, a sturdy build, with only the back a little 
 more bowed, as though under a burden. But it showed 
 in his face, in the dull, uninterested glance, in the 
 deep furrows of the careworn forehead, in the colour 
 of his skin, which was dry and yellow, while the thick 
 moustache, about which the jovial smile still flickered 
 at intervals, was quite grey. His hands shook nerv- 
 ously. And he listened without interrupting while she 
 told him what people had said at Labuwangi, betray- 
 ing a lingering curiosity about the people yonder, about 
 the district of which he had once been so fond. She 
 discussed it all vaguely, glossing over things, putting 
 the best face on them and, above all, saying nothing of 
 the gossip : that he had taken French leave, that he had 
 run away, nobody quite knew why. 
 
 "And you, resident," she asked, "are you going to 
 Europe too?" 
 
 He stared in front of him and gave a painful laugh 
 before replying. And at last he said, almost shyly: 
 
 "No, mevrouwtje. I don't think I'll go home. You 
 see, I've been somebody out here in India ; I'd be no- 
 body over there. I'm nobody now, I know; but still 
 I feel that India has become my country. It has got 
 the upper hand of me ; and I belong to it now. I no 
 longer belong to Holland, and I have nothing and no- 
 body in Holland that belongs to me. I'm finished, it's 
 true; but still I'd rather drag out my existence here 
 than there. In Holland I should certainly not be 
 able to stand the climate ... or the people. 
 Here the climate suits me ; and I have withdrawn from 
 society. I have helped Theo for the last time; and 
 Doddie is married. And the two boys are going to 
 Europe, to school. . . ."
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 293 
 
 He suddenly bent toward her and, in a changed 
 voice, he almost whispered, as though about to make 
 a confession: 
 
 "You see, if everything had gone normally, then 
 then I should not have acted as I did. I 
 have always been a practical man and I was proud of 
 it and proud of living the normal life, my own life, 
 which I lived in accordance with principles that I 
 thought were right, until I reached a high place among 
 my fellow-men. I have always been like that and 
 things went well like that. Everything went swim- 
 mingly with me. When others were worrying about 
 their promotion, I went over the heads of five men at 
 a jump. It was all plain sailing for me, at least in 
 my official career. I have not been lucky in my domes- 
 tic life, but I should never have been weak enough to 
 break down with grief on the road because of that. A 
 man has so much outside his domestic life. And yet I 
 was always very fond of my family-circle. I don't 
 think it was my fault that everything went as it did. 
 I loved my wafe, I loved my children, I loved my home, 
 my home surroundings, in which I was the husband, 
 and father. But that feeling in me was never fully 
 satisfied. My first wife was a nonna whom I married 
 because I was in love with her. Because she could not 
 get the upper hand of me with. her whim-whams, things 
 became impossible after a few years. I was perhaps 
 even more in love with my second wife than with 
 ray first: I am simply constituted in those matters. 
 But I was never allowed to have a pleasant home 
 circle, a pleasant, kindly wife, children climbing on 
 your knees and growing up into men and women who 
 owe their lives to you, their existence, in short, every-
 
 294 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 thing that they have and possess. That is what T 
 should have Hked to have. But, as I say, though I 
 did not get it, that would never have pulled me under: 
 
 • • • 
 
 He was silent for a moment and then continued in 
 an even more mysterious whisper: 
 
 "But tlmt, you see, the thing that happened . . . 
 I never understood ; that it's that which brought me to 
 where I am. That ... all that ... 
 which clashed and interfered with my practical, logical 
 ideas of life . . . all that" — he struck the table 
 with his fist — "damned nonsense, which 
 which happened all the same . . . that did the 
 trick. I did not shirk the fight, but my strength was no 
 use to me. It was something against which nothing 
 availed. ... I know : it was the regent. When 
 I threatened him it stopped. . . . But, my God, 
 mevrouwtje, tell me, zvhat was it? Do you know? 
 No, you don't, do you? Nobody knew and nobody 
 knows. Those terrible nights, those inexplicable 
 noises over head, that night in the bathroom with the 
 major and the other officers ! It wasn't any hallucina- 
 tion : we saw it, we heard it, we felt it, it spat at us, it 
 covered us from head to foot ; the whole bathroom was 
 full of it ! It is easy for other people, who didn't ex- 
 perience it, to deny it. But I . . . and all of 
 us ... we saw it, heard it and felt It ! And we 
 none of us knew who it was. . . . And since 
 then I have never ceased to feel it. It was all around 
 me, in the air, under my feet. . . . You see," 
 he whispered, very softly, "that — and that alone — did 
 it. That made it impossible for me to stay there. That 
 caused me to be struck stupid, to become a sort of
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 295 
 
 idiot in the midst of my normal life, in the midst of my 
 practical good sense and logic, which suddenly ap- 
 peared to me in the light of an ill-constructed theory 
 of life, of the most abstract speculation, because, right 
 through it, things were happening that belonged to an- 
 other world, things that escaped me and everybody 
 else. That, that alone, did it! I was no longer my- 
 self. I no longer knew what I was thinking, what I 
 was doing, what I had done. Everything in me was 
 tottering. That ruffian in the compound is no child of 
 mine: I'll stake my life on it. And I ... I be- 
 lieved it. I sent him money. Tell me, do you under- 
 stand me? I don't suppose you do. It's not to be 
 understood, that strange, unnatural business, if you 
 haven't experienced it, in your flesh and In your blood, 
 till it finds its way into your marrow. 
 
 "1 do believe that I experienced it too, once in a 
 way," she whispered. "When I was walking with 
 Van Hekleren by the sea . . . and the sky so 
 far and the night so deep ... or the rains 
 came rustling towards us from so very far away and 
 then fell ... or when the nights, silent as 
 death and yet brimful of sounds, quivered about one, 
 always with a music which one could not catch and 
 could scarcely hear. ... Or simply when I 
 looked into the eyes of a Javanese, when I spoke to my 
 babu and it seemed as though nothing of what I said 
 reached her mind and as though what she answered 
 concealed her real, secret answer. . . ." 
 
 "That, again, is another thing," he said. 'T can't 
 understand that: as far as I was concerned, I knew 
 my native through and through. But possibly every 
 European feels it in a different way, according to his
 
 296 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 nature and his temperament. To one it is perhaps tlie 
 dislike which he begins by feeling for the country that 
 attacks him in the weak point of his materialism and 
 continues to oppose him . . . whereas tlie 
 country itself is so full of poetry and I would almost 
 say mysticism. To another it is the climate, or the 
 character of the native, or what you will, that is 
 antagonistic and incomprehensible. To me 
 it was the facts which I could not understand. And 
 until then I had always been able to understand a fact 
 . at least, I thought so. Now it appeared to 
 me as though I no longer understood anything. 
 In this way I became an incompetent official 
 and then I realized that it was all over. And then 
 I quietly resigned my job. And now I'm here and 
 here I mean to stay. And do you know the strange 
 part of it ? Perhaps I have at last . . . found 
 my family-circle here. ..." 
 
 The little brown faces were peeping round the cor- 
 ner. And he called to them, beckoned to them kindly, 
 with a broad fatherly gesture. But they pattered 
 away again, audibly, on their bare feet. He laughed : 
 
 "They're very timid, the little monkeys," he said. 
 "It's Lena's little sisters; and the woman you saw 
 just now is her mother." 
 
 He was silent for a second, quite simply, as though 
 she was bound to understand who Lena was : the very 
 young woman, with the golden bloom on her cheeks 
 and the coal-black eyes, of whom she had caught a 
 fleeting glimpse. 
 
 "And then there are some little brothers, who go to 
 school in Garut. Well, you see, that's my domestic 
 circle. When I came to know Lena, I adopted the
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 297 
 
 whole family. I admit it costs me a lot of money, for 
 I have my first wife at Batavia, my second in Paris 
 and Rene and Ricus in Holland. It all costs me money. 
 And now my new 'home circle' here. But now at 
 least I have my circle. . . . It's a very In- 
 dian kettle of fish, you'll say: that Indian quasi-mar- 
 riage of the daughter of a coffee-overseer, with the 
 old woman and the little brothers and sisters included 
 in the bargain. But I'm doing a little good. The 
 family haven't a cent and I'm helping them. And Lena 
 is a dear child and is the comfort of my old age. I 
 can't live without a w^ife; and so it happened of itself. 
 . . . And it works very well: I lead a cab- 
 bage-life and drink first-rate coffee; and they look 
 after the old man. ..." 
 
 He was silent and then continued : 
 
 "And you . . . you are going to Europe? 
 Poor Eldersma! I hope he'll be better soon. It's all 
 my fault, isn't it? I w'orked him too hard. But it's 
 like that In India, mevrouw. We all work too hard 
 here . . . until we stop w^orking altogether. 
 And you are going . . . in a w^eek ? How glad 
 you will be to see your father and mother and to hear 
 good music ! I am still always grateful to you. You 
 did much for us, you stood for poetry in Labuwangi. 
 Poor India! How they rail at her! After all, the 
 country can't help it that we freebooters have invaded 
 their territory, barbarian conquerors, who only want 
 t<:) grow rich and get away! And then, when they 
 don't grow rich, they start railing: at the heat, which 
 God gave It from the beginning; at the lack of nourish- 
 ment for mind and soul: mind and soul of the free- 
 booter ! The poor country that is railed at so must say
 
 298 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 in itself, 'You could have stayed away!' And you 
 . you didn't like India either." 
 
 "I tried to grasp the poetry of it. And now and then 
 I succeeded. For the rest, it's my fault, resident, and 
 not the fault of this beautiful country. Like your 
 freebooter, I should have stayed away. All my depres- 
 sion, all the melancholy from which I suffered in this 
 beautiful land of mystery, is my fault. I don't rail at 
 India, resident.'* 
 
 He took her hand and, almost with emotion, almost 
 with a gleam of moisture in his eyes, said softly: 
 
 "I thank you for saying so. Those words are like 
 you, the words of a sensible, cultivated woman, who 
 doesn't rave and rant, as a silly Dutchman would at 
 not finding in this country exactly what corresponded 
 with his petty ideal. Your temperament suffered much 
 here, I know. It was bound to. But it was not the 
 fault of the country." 
 
 "It was my own fault, resident," she repeated, with 
 her soft, smiling voice. 
 
 He thought her adorable. That she did not burst 
 into imprecations, that she did not fly into ecstasies 
 because she was leaving Java in a few days gave him 
 a sense of comfort. And when she rose to go, saying 
 that it was getting late, he felt very sad: 
 
 "And so I shall never see you again?" 
 
 "I don't think that we shall be coming back." 
 
 "It's good-bye forever then !" 
 
 "Perhaps we shall see you in Europe." 
 
 He made a gesture of denial : 
 
 "I am more grateful to you than I can say for com- 
 ing to look the old man up. I shall drive with you to 
 Garut."
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 299 
 
 He called out something indoors, where the 
 women were keeping out of sight and the little sisters 
 giggling. He stepped into the carriage by her side. 
 They drove down the avenue of ferns; and suddenly 
 they saw the Sacred Lake of Lelles, overshadowed by 
 the circling swirl of the kalongs ever flapping round 
 and round. 
 
 "Resident," she whispered, *T feel it here. . . ." 
 
 He smiled: 
 
 "They are only kalongs," he said. 
 
 "But at Labuwangi ... it was perhaps only 
 a rat." 
 
 He just wrinkled his brows; then he smiled again, 
 with the jovial smile, about his thick moustache, and 
 looked up with inquisitive eyes: 
 
 "What?" he said, softly. '"Really? Do you feel it 
 here?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "W^ell, I don't. It's something different with every- 
 bodv." 
 
 The gigantic bats shrilled their triumph in shrieks of 
 desolation. The little carriage drove on and passed a 
 little railway-halt. And, in the otherwise lonely region, 
 it was strange to see a whole populace, a swarm of 
 motley Sundanese, streaming towards the little station, 
 eagerly gazing at a slow train which was approaching, 
 belchinsr black clouds of smoke amidst the bamboos. 
 All their eyes were staring crazily, as though antici- 
 pating the bliss of the first glance, as though their first 
 impression would be a treasure for their souls. 
 
 "That's a train full of new hadjis," said Van 
 Oudijck. "They're all pilgrims newly returned from 
 .Alecca."
 
 300 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 The train stopped; and from the long third-class 
 carriages, solemnly, slowly, very devoutly and con- 
 scious of their dignity, the had j is alighted, in their rich 
 white-and-yellow turbans, their eyes gleaming with 
 pride, their lips pursed with conceit, in brand-new, 
 shiny coats and gold-and-purple samaars^ which fell in 
 stately folds to just above their feet. And, humming 
 with rapturous excitement, sometimes with a rising cry 
 of ecstasy, the waiting multitude pressed closer and 
 stormed the narrow doorways of the long railway- 
 coaches. . . . The hadjis solemnly alighted. 
 And their brothers and friends vied with one another 
 In grasping their hands and the hems of their gold-and- 
 purple samaars and kissed that sacred hand or that 
 sacred garment, because it brought them something of 
 Mecca the Holy. They fought, they hustled one an- 
 other around the hadjis, to be the first to give the kiss. 
 And the hadjis, conceited and self-conscious, seemed 
 unaware of the struggle, maintained a peaceful dignity 
 and a solemn stateliness amid the struggle, amid the 
 billowing, buzzing multitude, and surrendered their 
 hands, surrendered the hem of their garments to the 
 fanatical kiss of all who approached. 
 
 And, In this land of profound, secret, slumbering 
 mystery, in this people of Java, which, as always, hid 
 Itself In the secrecy of its Impenetrable soul, suppressed 
 Indeed, but visible. It was strange to see rising to the 
 surface an ecstasy, to see an intoxicated fanaticism, to 
 see a part of that Impenetrable soul revealed In its 
 deification of those who had beheld the Prophet's 
 tomb, to hear the soft humming of a religious rapture, 
 to hear, suddenly, unexpectedly, a shout of glory, not 
 
 ^Long garments hanging from the waist
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 301 
 
 to be suppressed, quavering on high, a cry which in- 
 stantly sank again, drowned in the hum,^ as though 
 fearful itself, because the sacred era had not vet ar- 
 rived. ... 
 
 And Van Oudijck and Eva, on the road behind the 
 station, slowly driving past the busy muhitude which 
 still buzzed about the hadjis, respectfully carrying their 
 higgage, obsequiously offering their little carts: Van 
 Oudijck and Eva suddenly looked at each other and 
 though neither of them cared to express it in words' 
 they told each other, with a glance of understanding! 
 hat hey felt U, that they felt that, both of them, both 
 together this time, in the midst of this fanatical multi- 
 tude. . . . 
 
 They both felt it, the unutterable thing, the thing 
 that lurks in the ground, that hisses under the volca- 
 noes, that slowly draws ndar with the far-travelled 
 winds, that rushes onward with the rain, that rattles 
 by in the heavy, rolling thunder, that is wafted from 
 the far horizon of the boundless sea; the thing that 
 flashes from the black, mysterious gaze of the secre- 
 tive native, that creeps in his heart and cringes in his 
 Immhk harmat; the thing that gnaws like a poison 
 and a hostile force at the body, soul and life of the 
 European, that silently attacks the conqueror and saps 
 ns energies, causing him to pine and perish, sapping 
 bis energies very slowly, so that he wastes away for 
 years; and in the end he dies of it, perhaps by a sud- 
 den, tragic death: they both felt it, both felt the un- 
 utterable thing. . 
 
 And, in feeling it, together with the sadness of their 
 leave-taking, which was so near at hand, they failed 
 to see, amid the waving, billowing, buzzing multitude
 
 302 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 which reverently hustled the yellow-and-pitrple dignity 
 of the hadjis returned from Mecca, they failed to see 
 that one, tall, white hadji rising above the crowd and 
 peering with a grin at the man who, though he had 
 lived his life in Java, had been weaker than 
 That. . . . 
 
 THE END
 
 GLOSSARY 
 of Malay terms 
 
 Adat. Custom, usage. 
 
 Adu! Oh my! 
 
 A}cr-planda. Soda-water. 
 
 Ajcr-zcanyi. Toilet-water. 
 
 Ajo khvar! Out of this, outside! 
 
 Alia viinta! Oh, beg pardon! 
 
 Alia, suda! Oh, enough ! 
 
 Aloon-aloon. Square. 
 
 AiHpas. Cane-fibre. 
 
 Ape bole buatF What can one do? 
 
 Astaga! Heavens ! Oh dear ! 
 
 Atap. Palm-leaf. 
 
 B 
 Baadje. Short, sleeved jacket (diminutive of kabaaiy. 
 Babii. Maid-servant. 
 Badjing. Squirrel. 
 Balch-balch. Bench, couch. 
 Barang mandi. Bath-things. 
 Batik. Waxed and painted cotton. 
 Bazixi. Bring. 
 Bedak. Rice-powder. 
 Bib it. Seed. 
 Bot'n. No. 
 Bitang. Throw down. 
 
 C 
 Controlleur-kotta. Local or district controller. 
 
 D 
 Dalcm. Palace. 
 
 Deny-deng. Pieces of meat dried in the sun. 
 Dessa. \'illage. 
 Djait. Seamstress. 
 Djaksa. Native magistrate. 
 Djati. Teak-wood. 
 Djimal. Talisman. 
 Djurutnli. Native writer. 
 Dukiin. Native physician. 
 Dupa. Incense.
 
 304 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 Gajong. Scoop, bowl. 
 Gamclan. Native orchestra. 
 Calangan. Irrigation-dike. 
 Gardoc. Native watchman. 
 Grongrong. North-east wind. 
 Giidang. Store-room, go-down. 
 
 H 
 Hormat. Homage, cringing salutation. 
 
 I 
 
 Inten-inten. Diamonds. 
 
 K 
 Kahaai, kabaja. Long native jacket. 
 Kabupaten. Native regent's palace. 
 Ka'm-padjang. Long embroidered jacket. 
 Kali. River. 
 Kalong. Bat. 
 Kandjeng. Excellency. 
 Kandjcng tiwn. Excellency sahib. 
 Kassian! Poor thing! 
 Katjang-gorcng. Roasted monkey-nuts. 
 Kebon-kotia. Village garden, horticultural garden. 
 Ketju. Robbery. 
 Kakkie. Cook. 
 
 Komcdic-Stamboul. Malay Theatre. 
 Konde. Chignon. 
 Kotta. District. 
 Krandjang. Bamboo basket. 
 Kraton. Fortified palace. 
 Kumpidan. Monthly council. 
 Kwce-kwces. Cakes, pastry. 
 
 L 
 Lampu. Lamp. 
 Latta. A nervous disorder manifested by intense suggestibility, 
 
 resulting in mimicry. 
 Lidi. Coco-nut-fibre. 
 Lodch. Sauce for vegetables. 
 Lombok. Chili. 
 Liiak. Wild cat. 
 
 M 
 Magang. Native clerk. 
 Mandoor. Overseer. 
 Mangistan. Mangosteen, a fruit. 
 Massa! Come, come! 
 Minta apon. Beg pardon.
 
 THE HIDDEN FORCE 305 
 
 N 
 
 Njonja. Mem-sahib. 
 
 Njonja besar. Great lady, great mem-sahib. 
 
 Nonna. Daughter of a European father and a native mother. 
 
 O 
 
 Oppas. Native contraction of the Dutcli word opasscr, nativd 
 
 messenger. 
 Orang-blaiida. White people. 
 
 P 
 Pajong. Umbrella. 
 Pangeran. Prince. 
 PasaiiJwgran. Guest-house, or dak-bungalow, for the use of 
 
 officials. 
 Passer. Market. 
 Passcr-malani. Evening market. 
 Patih. Native councillor. 
 Pejiding. Clasp, buckle. 
 Pendoppo. Roofed quadrangular space. 
 Petangan. Sacred prognostication of the future. 
 Pinter. Shrewd. 
 Pisang. Bananas. 
 Pisang goreng. Roasted bananas. 
 Pontianak. Ghost. 
 Preksa. Look and see. 
 
 R 
 Rambufen. A fruit resembling the litchi. 
 Reside)!. Resident. 
 Residinan. Residency. 
 
 Ringgii. The Dutch rijksdaalder: dollar, 4.?. 2d. 
 Rujak. Unripe fruits, sliced and mixed with vinegar, soya and 
 
 sugar. 
 
 S 
 Sado. Dog-cart, dos-a-dos. 
 Sajs. Yes. 
 
 Samaar. Long garment reaching from the waist to the feet. 
 Sambat. Condiments served with curries. 
 Sarong. Native skirt. 
 Sawah. Rice-field. 
 Sedcka. Sacrifice, offering. 
 Semba. Obeisance, salaam. 
 
 Sinjo. Son of a European father and a native mother. 
 Sirih. Betel-pepper, betel-juice. 
 Sliktir. A native card-game. 
 Sonket. Chinese gold embroidery. 
 Spen. Butler. 
 
 Srimpi. Dancer at a native court, often a princess. 
 Sudah. No matter, enough. 
 Sumpitan. Blow-pipe. 
 Susa. Fuss, trouble. 
 Susuhunan. Emperor, sultan.
 
 306 THE HIDDEN FORCE 
 
 T 
 
 Tali-api. Wick, slow-match. 
 
 Tandak-girl. Native dancing-girl, nautch-girU 
 
 Tcntu. To a certainty, surely. 
 
 Tida. No. 
 
 Tiber. Mat. 
 
 Tjclaka. Woe, bad omen. 
 
 Tjclanamonjet. Child's pyjamas, 
 
 Tjikar. Little cart. 
 
 Tjina wampoos. Chinaman dead. 
 
 Tokkc. Gecko, large-headed lizard. 
 
 Toko. Bazaar, store. 
 
 Tong-tong. Hollow block of wood. 
 
 Tiikan-bcsie. Smith. 
 
 Tnkan-hmpu. Lamp-boy. 
 
 Tuan. Sahib, mem-sahib. 
 
 U 
 Ulek. A condiment made of Spanish pepper. 
 
 W 
 
 IVagajig. Javanese puppet-show. 
 Waringin. Banyan. 
 Wedono, District head.
 
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