And now, at the last ball, the soirée dansante, he danced like this with Doddie and, after her, with Léonie. It was late at night, or rather early in the morning: the day was dawning outside. A fatigue hung over the ball-room; and Van Oudijck at last intimated to the assistant-resident, Vermalen, with whom he and his family were staying, that he was ready to go home. At that moment he was in the front verandah of the club, talking to Vermalen, when the native councillor suddenly ran up to him from the shadow of the garden and, suffering from obvious excitement, squatted, salaamed and said: "Excellency! Excellency! Please advise me, tell me what to do! The regent is drunk, he is walking along the street and forgetting all his dignity." The guests were taking their departure. The carriages drove up; the owners stepped in; the carriages drove away. In the road outside the club the resident saw a Javanese: the upper part of the man's body was bare; he had lost his head-dress; and his long, black hair floated loosely, while he talked aloud, with violent gestures. Groups gathered in the dusky shadow, looking on from a distance. Van Oudijck recognized the Regent of Ngadjiwa. Already at the ball the regent had behaved without self-control, after losing heavily at cards and mixing all sorts of wines. "Hasn't the regent been home yet?" asked Van Oudijck. "Surely, excellency!" replied the councillor, plaintively. "I took the regent home as soon as I saw that he was no longer able to control himself. He flung himself on his bed; I thought he was sound asleep. But see, he woke and got up; he left the palace and came back here. See how he's behaving! He is drunk, he is drunk and he forgets who he is and who his fathers were!" Van Oudijck went outside with Vermalen. He walked up to the regent, who was making violent gestures and delivering an unintelligible speech in a loud voice. "Regent!" said the resident. "Don't you know where and who you are?" The regent did not recognize him. He ranted at Van Oudijck, he called down all the curses of heaven upon his head. "Regent!" said the assistant-resident. "Don't you know who's speaking to you and to whom you're speaking?" The regent swore at Vermalen. His bloodshot eyes flashed with drunken fury and madness. Assisted by the councillor, Van Oudijck and Vermalen tried to help him into a carriage; but he refused. Splendid and sublime in his fall, he gloried in the madness of his tragedy, he stood, as though some explosive force had made him beside himself, half-naked, with floating hair and great gestures of his crazy arms. He was no longer coarse and bestial but became tragic, heroic, fighting against his fate, on the edge of the abyss.... The excess of his drunkenness seemed with a strange force to raise him out of his gradual bestialization; and, fuddled as he was, he drew himself up, towering high, dramatically, above the Europeans.