He was fond of his boy, even though he considered him stupid, thoughtless, reckless, lacking in perseverance, never satisfied with his superiors, tactlessly opposing his manager, until he had once more made himself impossible in the coffee-plantation or sugar-factory at which he happened to be employed. He considered that Theo ought to make his own way, as his father had done before him, instead of relying entirely on the resident's protection. He did not hold with nepotism. He would never favour his son above any one else who had the same rights. He had often told nephews of his, keen on obtaining concessions in Labuwangi, that he would rather have no relations in his district and that they must expect nothing from him except absolute impartiality. That was how he had got on; that was how he expected them to get on ... and Theo too. Nevertheless, he silently watched Theo, with all a father's love, with an almost sentimental tenderness; he regretted, silently but profoundly, that Theo was not more persevering and did not look more closely to his future, to his career, to an honourable situation among his fellow-men, from the standpoint of either money or position. The lad just lived from day to day, without a thought of the morrow.... Perhaps he was a little cold to Theo, outwardly: well, he would have a confidential talk with him some day, would advise him; and now, in any case, he would ask Theo to go with him on circuit. And the thought of riding for five or six days in the pure air of the mountains, through the coffee-plantations, inspecting the irrigation-works, doing what most of all attracted him in his official duties, the thought of this relieved his soul, brightened his outlook, till he ceased to think about the letters. He was made for a plain, simple life: he found life natural, not complex and involved; his life had followed a perceptible ascent, open and gradual, looking out towards a glittering summit of ambition; and the things that teemed and swarmed in the shadow and the darkness, the things that bubbled up from the abyss: these he had never been able or anxious to see. He was blind to the life that underlies the visible life. He did not believe in it, any more than a mountaineer who has lived long on a quiescent volcano believes in the inner fire which persists in its mysterious depths and which escapes only in the form of hot steam and a sulphurous stench. He believed neither in the force above things nor in the force of things themselves. He did not believe in dumb fate nor in silent inevitability. He believed only in what he saw with his own eyes: in the harvest, in the roads, districts and villages and in the welfare of his province; he believed only in his career, which he saw before him like an ascending path. And, in the unclouded clarity of his simple, masculine nature, in the universally perceptible obviousness of his upright love of authority, his legitimate ambition