Complete Works

Scorn for scorn, contempt for contempt, hate for hate.  I am not of your race.  Between your people and me there is also a barrier that nothing can remove.  You ask why I want to go, and I ask you why I should stay.”
    He staggered as if struck in the face, but with a quick, unhesitating grasp she caught him by the arm and steadied him.
    “Why you should stay!” he repeated slowly, in a dazed manner, and stopped short, astounded at the completeness of his misfortune.
    “You told me yesterday,” she went on again, “that I could not understand or see your love for me: it is so.  How can I?  No two human beings understand each other.  They can understand but their own voices.  You wanted me to dream your dreams, to see your own visions — the visions of life amongst the white faces of those who cast me out from their midst in angry contempt.  But while you spoke I listened to the voice of my own self; then this man came, and all was still; there was only the murmur of his love.  You call him a savage!  What do you call my mother, your wife?”
    “Nina!” cried Almayer, “take your eyes off my face.”
    She looked down directly, but continued speaking only a little above a whisper.
    “In time,” she went on, “both our voices, that man’s and mine, spoke together in a sweetness that was intelligible to our ears only.  You were speaking of gold then, but our ears were filled with the song of our love, and we did not hear you.  Then I found that we could see through each other’s eyes: that he saw things that nobody but myself and he could see.  We entered a land where no one could follow us, and least of all you.  Then I began to live.”
    She paused.  Almayer sighed deeply.  With her eyes still fixed on the ground she began speaking again.
    “And I mean to live.  I mean to follow him.  I have been rejected with scorn by the white people, and now I am a Malay!  He took me in his arms, he laid his life at my feet.  He is brave; he will be powerful, and I hold his bravery and his strength in my hand, and I shall make him great.  His name shall be remembered long after both our bodies are laid in the dust.  I love you no less than I did before, but I shall never leave him, for without him I cannot live.”
    “If he understood what you have said,” answered Almayer, scornfully, “he must be highly flattered.  You want him as a tool for some incomprehensible ambition of yours.  Enough, Nina.  If you do not go down at once to the creek, where Ali is waiting with my canoe, I shall tell him to return to the settlement and bring the Dutch officers here.  You cannot escape from this clearing, for I have cast adrift your canoe.  If the Dutch catch this hero of yours they will hang him as sure as I stand here.  Now go.”
    He made a step towards his daughter and laid hold of her by the shoulder, his other hand pointing down the path to the landing-place.
    “Beware!” exclaimed Dain; “this woman belongs to me!”
    Nina wrenched herself free and looked straight at Almayer’s angry face.
    “No, I will not go,” she said with desperate energy.  “If he dies I shall die too!”
    “You die!” said Almayer, contemptuously.  “Oh, no!  You shall live a life of lies and deception till some other vagabond comes along to sing; how did you say that?  The song of love to you!  Make up your mind quickly.”
    He waited for a while, and then added meaningly —
    “Shall I call out to Ali?”
    “Call out,” she answered in Malay, “you that cannot be true to your own countrymen.  Only a few days ago you were selling the powder for their destruction; now you want to give up to them the man that yesterday you called your friend.  Oh, Dain,” she said, turning towards the motionless but attentive figure in the darkness, “instead of bringing you life I bring you death, for he will betray unless I leave you for ever!”
    Dain came into the circle of light, and, throwing his arm around Nina’s neck, whispered in her ear — ”I can kill him where he stands, before a sound can pass his lips.  For you it is to say yes or no.  Babalatchi cannot be far now.”
    He straightened himself up, taking his arm off her shoulder, and confronted Almayer, who looked at them both with an expression of concentrated fury.
    “No!” she cried, clinging to Dain in wild alarm.  “No!  Kill me!  Then perhaps he will let you go.  You do not know the mind of a white man.  He would rather see me