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 themselves 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 mirrors, staining the silk hangings and covering boots and shoes with mildew, as though nature's frenzied downpour were bent on the ruin of all that was fine and delicate, sparkling and graceful in human achievement. But the trees and foliage and grass shot up and expanded and rioted luxuriantly upwards, in a thousand shades of fresh green; and, in the reviving glory of verdant nature, the crouching human community 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.