So Eva, with her little man, went driving in the De Hartemans' "chariot." It was the cool hour of the day, before darkness set in. She met two or three carriages: Mrs. This and Mrs. That, who were known to drive in the afternoon. In the Koningsplein she saw a lady and gentleman walking: the So-and-Sos; they always walked, as all Batavia knew. She met no one else. No one. At that beneficent hour, the villa-town remained desolate as a city of the dead, as a vast mausoleum amid green trees. And yet it was a boon, after the overwhelming heat, to see the Koningsplein stretching like a gigantic meadow, where the parched grass was turning green with the first rains, while the houses showed so far away, so very far away, in their hedged-in gardens, that it was like being in the country, amid wood and fields and pastures, with the wide sky overhead, from which the lungs now breathed in air, as though for the first time that day, breathed in oxygen and life: that wide sky, displaying every day as it were a varying wealth of colours, an excess of sunset fires, a glorious death of the scorching day, as though the sun itself were bursting into torrents of gold between the lilac-hued and threatening rain-clouds. And it was so spacious and so delightful, it was such an immense boon that it actually made up for the day. But there was no one to see it except the two or three people who were known in Batavia to go driving or walking. A violet twilight rose; then the night fell with one deep shadow; and the town, which had been deathlike all day, with its frown of brooding gloom, dropped wearily asleep, like a city of care.... It used to be different, said old Mrs. De Harteman, the mother-in-law of Eva's friend. They were gone nowadays, the pleasant houses with their Indian hospitality, their open tables, their sincere and cordial welcomes, as if the colonist's character had in some sense altered, had in some way been overcast by the vicissitudes of chance, by his disappointment at not speedily achieving his aim, his material aim of wealth. And, he being thus embittered, it seemed that his nerves became irritable, just as his soul became overcast and gloomy and his body lethargic and unable to withstand the destructive climate.... And Eva did not find Batavia the ideal city of Eurasian civilization which she had pictured it at Labuwangi. In this great money-grubbing centre, every trace of spontaneity had vanished and life became degraded to an everlasting seclusion in the office or at home. People never saw each other save at receptions; any other conversation took place over the telephone.