upset his nerves and made him ill. He had once and for all resolved, after the death of the old pangéran, to raise up the declining race of the Adiningrats, alike because of his affectionate memory of that excellent Javanese prince, because of his instructions as resident and because of a sense of lofty humanity and hidden poetry in himself. And he had never been able to do so, he had at once been thwarted--unconsciously, by force of circumstances--by the old raden-aju pangéran, who gambled away everything, who was ruining herself and her kin. As a friend he had exhorted her. She had always been accessible to his advice, but her passion had proved too strong for her. Van Oudijck had from the first, even before the father's death, judged her son, Sunario, the Regent of Labuwangi, unfitted for the actual position of regent. The fellow was petty and insignificant, insufferably proud of his descent, never in touch with the actualities of life, devoid of any talent for ruling or any consideration for his inferiors, a great fanatic, always occupied with native doctors, with sacred calculations, with talismans, always reticent and living in a dream of obscure mysticism and blind to what would spell welfare and justice for his Javanese subjects. And the population adored him nevertheless, both because of his noble birth and because he was reputed to possess sanctity and a far-reaching power, a divine magic. Silently, secretly, the women of the Kabupaten sold bottles of the water that had flowed over his body in the bath, as a healing remedy for various diseases. There you had the elder brother; and the younger had quite forgotten himself last night, frenzied by cards and drink. In these two sons the once so brilliant race was tottering to its fall. Their children were young; a few cousins were native councillors in Labuwangi and the adjoining residencies, but their veins contained not a drop of the noble blood. No, Van Oudijck had always failed, glad though he would have been to succeed. The very men whose interests he defended were opposing his efforts. Their day was over. But why this must be so he could not understand; and it all upset him and embittered him. And he had pictured to himself a very different path, a beautiful ascending path, even as he saw his own life before him, whereas with them the path of life wound tortuously downwards. And he did not understand what it was that was stronger than he when he put forth his will. Had it not always happened in his life and his career that the things for which he had fervently wished came to pass with the logic which he himself, day after day, had attributed to the things that were about to take place? His ambition had now established the logic of the ascending path, for his ambition had established as its aim the revival of this Javanese family....