"And you ... you are going to Europe? Poor Eldersma, I hope he'll be better soon! It's all my fault, isn't it? I worked him too hard. But it's like that in India, mevrouw. We all work too hard here ... until we stop working altogether. And you are going ... in a week? How glad you will be to see your father and mother and to hear some good music? I am still always grateful to you. You did much for us, you stood for poetry in Labuwangi. Poor India! How they rail at her! After all, the country can't help it that we freebooters have invaded their territory, barbarian conquerors that we are, only working to grow rich and get away! And then, when they don't grow rich, they start railing: at the heat, which God gave it from the beginning; at the lack of nourishment for mind and soul: mind and soul of the freebooter! The poor country railed at like this may well say in itself, 'You could have stayed away!' And you ... you didn't like India either." "I tried to grasp the poetry of it. And now and then I succeeded. For the rest, it's my fault, resident, and not the fault of this beautiful country. Like your freebooter, I should have stayed away. All my depression, all the melancholy from which I suffered in this beautiful land of mystery, is my own fault. I don't rail at India, resident." He took her hand and, almost with emotion, almost with a gleam of moisture in his eyes, said, softly: "I thank you for saying so. Those words are like you, the words of a sensible, cultivated woman, who doesn't rave and rant, as a silly Dutchman would at not finding in this country exactly what corresponded with his petty ideals. Your temperament suffered much here, I know. It was bound to. But it was not the fault of the country." "It was my own fault, resident," she repeated, with her soft, smiling voice. He thought her adorable. That she did not burst into imprecations, that she did not fly into ecstasies because she was leaving Java in a few days' time gave him a sense of comfort. And, when she rose to go, saying that it was getting late, he felt very sad: "And so I shall never see you again?" "I don't think that we shall be coming back." "It's good-bye for ever, then!" "Perhaps we shall see you in Europe." He made a gesture of denial: "I am more grateful to you than I can say for coming to look the old man up. I shall drive with you to Garut." He called out something indoors, where the women were keeping out of sight and the little sisters giggling. He stepped into the carriage by her side. They drove down the avenue of ferns; and suddenly they saw the Sacred Lake of Lellès, overshadowed by the circling swirl of the bats ever flapping round and round: "Resident," she whispered, "I feel it here...." He smiled: "They are only bats," he said. "But at Labuwangi ... it was perhaps only a rat." He just wrinkled his brows; then he smiled again, with the jovial smile about his thick moustache, and looked up with inquisitive eyes: