We left the river three days afterwards and I
never returned to Sambir; but whatever happened to the protagonist of
my Willems nobody can deny that I have recorded for him a less squalid
fate.
J. C. 1919.
PART I
AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS
CHAPTER ONE
When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar
honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve to fall
back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue as soon as his
little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired
effect. It was going to be a short episode--a sentence in brackets, so
to speak--in the flowing tale of his life: a thing of no moment, to be
done unwillingly, yet neatly, and to be quickly forgotten. He imagined
that he could go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying the
shade, breathing in the perfume of flowers in the small garden before
his house. He fancied that nothing would be changed, that he would be
able as heretofore to tyrannize good-humouredly over his half-caste
wife, to notice with tender contempt his pale yellow child, to patronize
loftily his dark-skinned brother-in-law, who loved pink neckties and
wore patent-leather boots on his little feet, and was so humble before
the white husband of the lucky sister.
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