is a fine thing to be a providence, and to be told so on every
day of one's life. It gives one a feeling of enormously remote

superiority, and Willems revelled in it. He did not analyze the
state of his mind, but probably his greatest delight lay in the

unexpressed but intimateconviction that, should he close his
hand, all those admiring human beings would starve. His

munificence had demoralized them. An easy task. Since he
descended amongst them and married Joanna they had lost the

little aptitude and strength for work they might have had to put
forth under the stress of extreme necessity. They lived now by

the grace of his will. This was power. Willems loved it.
In another, and perhaps a lower plane, his days did not want for

their less complex but more obvious pleasures. He liked the
simple games of skill--billiards; also games not so simple, and

calling for quite another kind of skill--poker. He had been the
aptest pupil of a steady-eyed, sententious American, who had

drifted mysteriously into Macassar from the wastes of the
Pacific, and, after knocking about for a time in the eddies of

town life, had drifted out enigmatically into the sunny solitudes
of the Indian Ocean. The memory of the Californian stranger was

perpetuated in the game of poker--which became popular in the
capital of Celebes from that time--and in a powerful cocktail,

the recipe for which is transmitted--in the Kwang-tung
dialect--from head boy to head boy of the Chinese servants in the

Sunda Hotel even to this day. Willems was a connoisseur in the
drink and an adept at the game. Of those accomplishments he was

moderately proud. Of the confidence reposed in him by Hudig--the
master--he was boastfully and obtrusively proud. This arose from

his great benevolence, and from an exalted sense of his duty to
himself and the world at large. He experienced that irresistible

impulse to impart information which is inseparable from gross
ignorance. There is always some one thing which the ignorant man

knows, and that thing is the only thing worth knowing; it fills
the ignorant man's universe. Willems knew all about himself. On

the day when, with many misgivings, he ran away from a Dutch
East-Indiaman in Samarang roads, he had commenced that study of

himself, of his own ways, of his own abilities, of those
fate-compelling qualities of his which led him toward that

lucrative position which he now filled. Being of a modest and
diffident nature, his successes amazed, almost frightened him,

and ended--as he got over the succeeding shocks of surprise--by
making him ferociously conceited. He believed in his genius and

in his knowledge of the world. Others should know of it also;
for their own good and for his greater glory. All those friendly

men who slapped him on the back and greeted him noisily should
have the benefit of his example. For that he must talk. He

talked to them conscientiously. In the afternoon he expounded his
theory of success over the little tables, dipping now and then

his moustache in the crushed ice of the cocktails; in the evening
he would often hold forth, cue in hand, to a young listener

across the billiard table. The billiard balls stood still as if
listening also, under the vivid brilliance of the shaded oil

lamps hung low over the cloth; while away in the shadows of the
big room the Chinaman marker would lean wearily against the wall,

the blank mask of his face looking pale under the mahogany
marking-board; his eyelids dropped in the drowsyfatigue of late

hours and in the buzzing monotony of the unintelligible stream of
words poured out by the white man. In a sudden pause of the talk

the game would recommence with a sharp click and go on for a time
in the flowing soft whirr and the subdued thuds as the balls

rolled zig-zagging towards the inevitably successful cannon.
Through the big windows and the open doors the salt dampness of

the sea, the vague smell of mould and flowers from the garden of
the hotel drifted in and mingled with the odour of lamp oil,

growing heavier as the night advanced. The players' heads dived
into the light as they bent down for the stroke, springing back

again smartly into the greenish gloom of broad lamp-shades; the
clock ticked methodically; the unmoved Chinaman continuously

repeated the score in a lifeless voice, like a big talking
doll--and Willems would win the game. With a remark that it was

getting late, and that he was a married man, he would say a
patronizing good-night and step out into the long, empty street.

At that hour its white dust was like a dazzling streak of
moonlight where the eye sought repose in the dimmer gleam of rare

oil lamps. Willems walked homewards" target="_blank" title="ad.&a.回家(的)">homewards, following the line of walls
overtopped by the luxuriantvegetation of the front gardens. The

houses right and left were hidden behind the black masses of
flowering shrubs. Willems had the street to himself. He would

walk in the middle, his shadow gliding obsequiously before him.
He looked down on it complacently. The shadow of a successful

man! He would be slightly dizzy with the cocktails and with the
intoxication of his own glory. As he often told people, he came

east fourteen years ago--a cabin boy. A small boy. His shadow
must have been very small at that time; he thought with a smile

that he was not aware then he had anything--even a shadow--which
he dared call his own. And now he was looking at the shadow of

the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. going home. How glorious!
How good was life for those that were on the winning side! He

had won the game of life; also the game of billiards. He walked
faster, jingling his winnings, and thinking of the white stone

days that had marked the path of his existence. He thought of the
trip to Lombok for ponies--that first important transaction

confided to him by Hudig; then he reviewed the more important
affairs: the quiet deal in opium; the illegaltraffic in

gunpowder; the great affair of smuggled firearms, the difficult
business of the Rajah of Goak. He carried that last through by

sheer pluck; he had bearded the savage old ruler in his council
room; he had bribed him with a gilt glass coach, which, rumour

said, was used as a hen-coop now; he had over-persuaded him; he
had bested him in every way. That was the way to get on. He

disapproved of the elementary dishonesty that dips the hand in
the cash-box, but one could evade the laws and push the

principles of trade to their furthest consequences. Some call
that cheating. Those are the fools, the weak, the contemptible.

The wise, the strong, the respected, have no scruples. Where
there are scruples there can be no power. On that text he

preached often to the young men. It was his doctrine, and he,
himself, was a shining example of its truth.

Night after night he went home thus, after a day of toil and
pleasure, drunk with the sound of his own voice celebrating his

own prosperity. On his thirtieth birthday he went home thus. He
had spent in good company a nice, noisy evening, and, as he

walked along the empty street, the feeling of his own greatness
grew upon him, lifted him above the white dust of the road, and

filled him with exultation and regrets. He had not done himself
justice over there in the hotel, he had not talked enough about

himself, he had not impressed his hearers enough. Never mind.
Some other time. Now he would go home and make his wife get up

and listen to him. Why should she not get up?--and mix a
cocktail for him--and listen patiently. Just so. She shall. If

he wanted he could make all the Da Souza family get up. He had
only to say a word and they would all come and sit silently in

their night vestments on the hard, cold ground of his compound
and listen, as long as he wished to go on explaining to them from

the top of the stairs, how great and good he was. They would.
However, his wife would do--for to-night.

His wife! He winced inwardly. A dismal woman with startled eyes
and dolorously drooping mouth, that would listen to him in pained

wonder and mute stillness. She was used to those night-discourses
now. She had rebelled once--at the beginning. Only once. Now,

while he sprawled in the long chair and drank and talked, she
would stand at the further end of the table, her hands resting on

the edge, her frightened eyes watching his lips, without a sound,
without a stir, hardly breathing, till he dismissed her with a