“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 am always stretching out my poor antennæ. That is my fate....”
“I shall help you to forget me,” said she, with affectionate 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 a messenger met him.
“Really life, when all is said, is one long self-deception, 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 own body and soul: O God, how little it all is! And how we roam about, knowing nothing! And each of us seeks his own little aim, his illusion. The only happy people are merely exceptions, like Léonie van Oudijck, who lives no more than a beautiful flower does, or a beautiful animal.”
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?”