An Outcast of the Islands quotes

and he was greatly delighted. They wanted much, but he could give them all they wanted without ruining himself. In exchange he had their silent fear, their loquacious love, their noisy veneration.

It 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.

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.

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.

The sea, perhaps because of its saltness, roughens the outside but keeps sweet the kernel of its servants’ soul.

The old sea;

The sea of the past was an incomparably beautiful mistress, with inscrutable face, with cruel and promising eyes.

The sea of today is a used-up drudge, wrinkled and defaced by the churned-up wakes of brutal propellers, robbed of the enslaving charm of its vastness, stripped of its beauty, of its mystery and of its promise.

Tom Lingard was a master, a lover, a servant of the sea. The sea took him young, fashioned him body and soul; gave him his fierce aspect, his loud voice, his fearless eyes, his stupidly guileless heart.

… many years ago, whose servants were devoted slaves and went from youth to age or to a sudden grave without needing to open the book of life, because they could look at eternity reflected on the element that gave the life and dealt the death.

Like a beautiful and unscrupulous woman, the sea of the past was glorious in its smiles, irresistible in its anger, capricious, enticing, illogical, irresponsible; a thing to love, a thing to fear.

It cast a spell, it gave joy, it lulled gently into boundless faith; then with quick and causeless anger it killed.

As Willems was looking at Joanna her upper lip was drawn up on one side, giving to her melancholy face a vicious expression altogether new to his experience. He stepped back in his surprise.

“Oh! You great man!” she said distinctly, but in a voice that was hardly above a whisper.

Those words, and still more her tone, stunned him as if somebody had fired a gun close to his ear. He stared back at her stupidly.

“You see,” he went on, argumentatively, fumbling about the top of the lamp, “you got yourself so crooked amongst those ’longshore quill-drivers that you could not run clear in any way. That’s what comes of such talk as yours, and of such a life.

A man sees so much falsehood that he begins to lie to himself.

Pah!” he said, in disgust, “there’s only one place for an honest man. The sea, my boy, the sea! But you never would; didn’t think there was enough money in it; and now—look!”

When the Rajah ventured to state his doubts, Babalatchi asked him in tones of calm remonstrance whether he could reasonably suppose that two oldish men—who had only one eye amongst them—and a young woman were likely to gain possession of anything whatever by violence?

Charity was a virtue recommended by the Prophet.

There were charitable people, and their hand was open to the deserving. Patalolo wagged his aged head doubtingly, and Babalatchi withdrew with a shocked mien and put himself forthwith under Lakamba’s protection.

Almayer stood up and leaned over the rail. “Don’t you dare,” he said, in a voice subdued but distinct.

“Don’t you dare! The child sleeps here. And I don’t want to hear you⁠—or speak to you either.”

“You must listen to me! It’s something important.”

“

The downfall of an enemy is the consolation of the unfortunate,

” said Babalatchi, sententiously. “They are on every sea; only the wisdom of the Most High knows their number—but you shall know that some of them suffer.”

Babalatchi’s fatalism gave him only an insignificant relief in his suspense, because no fatalism can kill the thought of the future, the desire of success, the pain of waiting for the disclosure of the immutable decrees of Heaven.

Fatalism is born of the fear of failure, for we all believe that we carry success in our own hands, and we suspect that our hands are weak.

Babalatchi looked at Willems and congratulated himself upon his ability to manage that white man. There was a pilot for Abdulla—a victim to appease Lingard’s anger in case of any mishap. He would take good care to put him forward in everything.

His clear duty was to make himself happy. Did he ever take an oath of fidelity to Lingard? No. Well then—he would not let any interest of that old fool stand between Willems and Willems’ happiness. Happiness? Was he not, perchance, on a false track?

Happiness meant money. Much money.

At least he had always thought so till he had experienced those new sensations which …

He was ashamed of his state of mind. After all, what was he afraid of? Were those scruples? Why that hesitation to think, to speak of what he intended doing?

Scruples were for imbeciles. His clear duty was to make himself happy.

Did he ever take an oath of fidelity to Lingard? No. Well then—he would not let any interest of that old fool stand between Willems and Willems’ happiness. Happiness? Was he not, perchance, on a false track? Happiness meant money. Much money.

… the unknown things, into those motives, impulses, desires he had ignored, but that had lived in the breasts of despised men, close by his side, and were revealed to him for a second, to be hidden again behind the black mists of doubt and deception.

It was not death that frightened him: it was the horror of bewildered life where he could understand nothing and nobody round him; where he could guide, control, comprehend nothing and no one⁠—not even himself.

He felt a touch on his side. That contact, lighter than the caress of a mother’s hand on the cheek of a sleeping child, had for him the force of a crushing blow.

The man of purpose does not understand, and goes on, full of contempt. He never loses his way. He knows where he is going and what he wants.

Travelling on, he achieves great length without any breadth, and battered, besmirched, and weary, he touches the goal at last; he grasps the reward of his perseverance, of his virtue, of his healthy optimism: an untruthful tombstone over a dark and soon forgotten grave.

Lingard had never hesitated in his life. Why should he? He had been a most successful trader, and a man lucky in his fights, skilful in navigation, undeniably first in seamanship in those seas. He knew it.

His experience appeared to him immense and conclusive, teaching him the lesson of the simplicity of life.

In life⁠—as in seamanship⁠—there were only two ways of doing a thing: the right way and the wrong way.

Common sense and experience taught a man the way that was right. The other was for lubbers and fools, and led, in seamanship, to loss of spars and sails or shipwreck;

“

Even a big tree may be killed by a small axe,

” said Lingard, drily. “And, remember, my one-eyed friend, that axes are made by white hands. You will soon find that out, since you have hoisted the flag of the Dutch.”

“Ay—wa!” said Babalatchi, slowly. “It is written that the earth belongs to those who have fair skins and hard but foolish hearts.

The farther away is the master, the easier it is for the slave, Tuan!

You were too near. Your voice rang in our ears always. Now it is not going to be so. The great Rajah in Batavia is strong, but he may be deceived. He must speak very loud to be heard here.

You are stronger than the wild beasts, but not so wise. A black tiger knows when he is not hungry—you do not. He knows the difference between himself and those that can speak; you do not understand the difference between yourselves and us—who are men.

You are wise and great⁠—and you shall always be fools.

”

“Not to me,” answered Lingard. “I did not even remember him till you spoke his name just now. You do not understand us.

We fight, we vanquish⁠—and we forget.

”

I am only an Orang Laut, and I have fled before your people many times. Servant of this one—protected of another; I have given my counsel here and there for a handful of rice. What am I, to be angry with a white man?

What is anger without the power to strike?

But you whites have taken all: the land, the sea, and the power to strike! And there is nothing left for us in the islands but your white men’s justice; your great justice that knows not anger.”

“Tida! I do nothing,” said Babalatchi, shaking his head with bitter apathy. “I am in Abdulla’s hand and care not, even as you do. No! no!” he added, turning away, “I have learned much wisdom this morning. There are no men anywhere.

You whites are cruel to your friends and merciful to your enemies⁠—which is the work of fools.

”

“

Tell the brook not to run to the river; tell the river not to run to the sea. Speak loud. Speak angrily. Maybe they will obey you.

But it is in my mind that the brook will not care. The brook that springs out of the hillside and runs to the great river. He would not care for your words: he that cares not for the very mountain that gave him life;

Had to sleep at last. I’ve been waiting for you three days and nights. I had to sleep some time. Hadn’t I? I told her to remain awake and watch for you, and call me at once. She did watch. You can’t believe her.

You can’t believe any woman. Who can tell what’s inside their heads? No one.

You can know nothing. The only thing you can know is that it isn’t anything like what comes through their lips. They live by the side of you. They seem to hate you, or they seem to love you; they caress or torment you;

In the whole world there was only one man that had ever cared for me. Only one white man. You!

Hate is better than being alone! Death is better!

I expected … anything. Something to expect. Something to take me out of this. Out of her sight!”

“You are alone,” he went on. “Nothing can help you. Nobody will.

You are neither white nor brown. You have no colour as you have no heart.

Your accomplices have abandoned you to me because I am still somebody to be reckoned with. You are alone but for that woman there. You say you did this for her. Well, you have her.”

great, solid trees, looking sombre, severe, and malevolently stolid, like a giant crowd of pitiless enemies pressing round silently to witness his slow agony.

He was alone, small, crushed.

He thought of escape—of something to be done. What? A raft! He imagined himself working at it, feverishly, desperately; cutting down trees, fastening the logs together and then drifting down with the current, down to the sea into the straits.

She did not know, and could not conceive, anything of his—so exalted—ideals. She thought the man a warrior and a chief, ready for battle, violence, and treachery to his own people—for her. What more natural? Was he not a great, strong man?

Those two, surrounded each by the impenetrable wall of their aspirations, were hopelessly alone, out of sight, out of earshot of each other; each the centre of dissimilar and distant horizons; standing each on a different earth, under a different sky.

She remembered his words, his eyes, his trembling lips, his outstretched hands; she remembered the great, the immeasurable sweetness of her surrender, that beginning of her power which was to last until death. He remembered the quaysides and the warehouses;

His imagination, exhausted by the repeated delineations of his own fate, had not enough strength left to grip the idea of revenge. He was not indignant and rebellious. He was cowed. He was cowed by the immense cataclysm of his disaster.

Like most men, he had carried solemnly within his breast the whole universe, and the approaching end of all things in the destruction of his own personality filled him with paralyzing awe.

Everything was toppling over. He blinked his eyes quickly, and it seemed to him that the very sunshine of the morning disclosed in its brightness a suggestion of some hidden and sinister meaning. In his unreasoning fear he tried to hide within himself.

Who would speak to him? What business had he to hear voices? … yet he heard them faintly, from the river. Faintly, as if shouted far off over there, came the words “We come back soon.” … Delirium and mockery! Who would come back?

Nobody ever comes back! Fever comes back.

He had it on him this morning. That was it. … He heard unexpectedly the old woman muttering something near by. She had come round to his side of the tree. He opened his eyes and saw her bent back before him.

… She came in a boat, boat, boat! … They struggled and swung round, tramping in a semicircle. He blurted out, “Leave off. Listen,” while he tore at her hands.

This meeting of lawful love and sincere joy resembled fight.

Louis Willems slept peacefully under his blanket.