Almayer’s Folly quotes

And in that sentence not only the tales but, I apprehend, the strange people and the far-off countries also, are finally condemned in a verdict of contemptuous dislike.

A woman’s judgment: intuitive, clever, expressed with felicitous charm⁠—infallible. A judgment that has nothing to do with justice.

The critic and the judge seems to think that in those distant lands all joy is a yell and a war dance, all pathos is a howl and a ghastly grin of filed teeth, and that the solution of all problems is found in the …

in houses or in tents, in the streets under a fog, or in the forests behind the dark line of dismal mangroves that fringe the vast solitude of the sea. For, their land—like ours—lies under the inscrutable eyes of the Most High.

Their hearts⁠—like ours⁠—must endure the load of the gifts from Heaven: the curse of facts and the blessing of illusions, the bitterness of our wisdom and the deceptive consolation of our folly.

… it this evening, for it had been swollen by the rains, and rolled an angry and muddy flood under his inattentive eyes, carrying small driftwood and big dead logs, and whole uprooted trees with branches and foliage, amongst which the water swirled and roared angrily.

One of those drifting trees grounded on the shelving shore, just by the house, and Almayer, neglecting his dream, watched it with languid interest.

The tree swung slowly round, amid the hiss and foam of the water, and soon getting free of the obstruction began to move downstream again, rolling slowly over, raising upwards a long, denuded branch, like a hand lifted in mute appeal to heaven against the …

… the father grumbled all day at the stupidity of native gardeners, and the mother from the depths of her long easy-chair bewailed the lost glories of Amsterdam, where she had been brought up, and of her position as the daughter of a cigar dealer there.

Almayer had left his home with a light heart and a lighter pocket, speaking English well, and strong in arithmetic; ready to conquer the world, never doubting that he would.

After those twenty years, standing in the close and stifling heat of a Bornean evening, he recalled with pleasurable regret the image of Hudig’s lofty and cool warehouses with their long and straight avenues of gin cases and bales of Manchester goods;

It was the night before arriving in Sourabaya when one of those attempts at confidential communication succeeded. After clearing his throat he spoke. He spoke to some purpose. He wanted Almayer to marry his adopted daughter.

“And don’t you kick because you’re white!” he shouted, suddenly, not giving the surprised young man the time to say a word.

“None of that with me! Nobody will see the colour of your wife’s skin. The dollars are too thick for that, I tell you! And mind you, they will be thicker yet before I die. There will be millions, Kaspar! Millions I say!

The floor was uneven, with many withered plants and dried earth scattered about.

A general air of squalid neglect pervaded the place.

Great red stains on the floor and walls testified to frequent and indiscriminate betel-nut chewing. The light breeze from the river swayed gently the tattered blinds, sending from the woods opposite a faint and sickly perfume as of decaying flowers.

The contest was ended behind the curtain, and evidently the younger will had its way, for the rapid shuffle and click of Mrs. Almayer’s high-heeled sandals died away in the distance.

The tranquillised master of the house was going to resume the conversation when, struck by an unexpected change in the expression of his guest’s countenance, he turned his head and saw Nina standing in the doorway.

After Mrs.

Nina returned with a tumbler half filled with gin, and found her father staring absently before him. Almayer felt very tired now, as if he had come from a long journey.

He felt as if he had walked miles and miles that morning and now wanted to rest very much.

He took the tumbler with a shaking hand, and as he drank his teeth chattered against the glass which he drained and set down heavily on the table. He turned his eyes slowly towards Nina standing beside him, and said steadily—

He would forget. This thought soothed the last pangs of dying jealousy that had nothing now to feed upon, and Taminah found peace.

It was like the dreary tranquillity of a desert, where there is peace only because there is no life.

And now he had returned. She had recognised his voice calling aloud in the night for Bulangi. She had crept out after her master to listen closer to the intoxicating sound. Dain was there, in a boat, talking to Bulangi.

“Arrest!” laughed Almayer, discordantly. “Ha! ha! ha! Arrest!

Why, I have been trying to get out of this infernal place for twenty years, and I can’t.

You hear, man! I can’t, and never shall! Never!”

“This is Dain,” went on Almayer to the silent group that surrounded him. “And I have kept my word. First one hope, then another, and this is my last. Nothing is left now. You think there is one dead man here?

Mistake, I ’sure you. I am much more dead. Why don’t you hang me?

” he suggested suddenly, in a friendly tone, addressing the lieutenant. “I assure, assure you it would be a mat—matter of form altog—altogether.”

No two beings could be closer to each other, yet she guessed rather than understood the meaning of his last words that came out after a slight hesitation in a faint murmur, dying out imperceptibly into a profound and significant silence: “

The sea, O Nina, is like a woman’s heart.

”

“

But to the men that have no fear, O master of my life, the sea is ever true.

”

“You told me yesterday,” she went on again, “that I could not understand or see your love for me: it is so. How can I?

No two human beings understand each other. They can understand but their own voices.

You wanted me to dream your dreams, to see your own visions—the visions of life amongst the white faces of those who cast me out from their midst in angry contempt. But while you spoke I listened to the voice of my own self;

“I shall not stay here any longer,” broke in Babalatchi, angrily. “This is great foolishness.

No woman is worth a man’s life. I am an old man, and I know.

”

All passion, regret, grief, hope, or anger—all were gone, erased by the hand of fate, as if after this last stroke everything was over and there was no need for any record.

Those few who saw Almayer during the short period of his remaining days were always impressed by the sight of that face that seemed to know nothing of what went on within: like the blank wall of a prison enclosing sin, regrets, and pain, and wasted life, in the cold indifference of mortar and stones.

“What is there to forgive?” asked Nina, not addressing Almayer directly, but more as if arguing with herself. “Can I not live my own life as you have lived yours?

“I will tell you the rest,” interrupted Almayer: “when that man came I also saw the blue and the sunshine of the sky. A thunderbolt has fallen from that sky, and suddenly all is still and dark around me forever.

I will never forgive you, Nina; and tomorrow I shall forget you!

I shall never forgive you,” he repeated with mechanical obstinacy while she sat, her head bowed down as if afraid to look at her father.

Almayer shivered slightly.

She could not have said a more cruel thing.

“Here is the boat coming now,” said Dain, his arm outstretched towards a black speck on the water between the coast and the islet.

To Ali’s great dismay he fell on his hands and knees, and, creeping along the sand, erased carefully with his hand all traces of Nina’s footsteps.

He piled up small heaps of sand, leaving behind him a line of miniature graves right down to the water.

After burying the last slight imprint of Nina’s slipper he stood up, and, turning his face towards the headland where he had last seen the prau, he made an effort to shout out loud again his firm resolve to never forgive.

No matter. He desisted, and his eyes wandered slowly from object to object. All those things had cost a lot of money at the time. The desk, the paper, the torn books, and the broken shelves, all under a thick coat of dust.

The very dust and bones of a dead and gone business.

He looked at all these things, all that was left after so many years of work, of strife, of weariness, of discouragement, conquered so many times. And all for what?