Complete Works

canoe, and incontinently fell asleep.  Almayer sat sideways on the gunwale, and with his arms crossed on his breast, looked to the southward upon the sea.
    After carefully laying Nina down in the shade of the bushes growing in the middle of the islet, Dain threw himself beside her and watched in silent concern the tears that ran down from under her closed eyelids, and lost themselves in that fine sand upon which they both were lying face to face.  These tears and this sorrow were for him a profound and disquieting mystery.  Now, when the danger was past, why should she grieve?  He doubted her love no more than he would have doubted the fact of his own existence, but as he lay looking ardently in her face, watching her tears, her parted lips, her very breath, he was uneasily conscious of something in her he could not understand.  Doubtless she had the wisdom of perfect beings.  He sighed.  He felt something invisible that stood between them, something that would let him approach her so far, but no farther.  No desire, no longing, no effort of will or length of life could destroy this vague feeling of their difference.  With awe but also with great pride he concluded that it was her own incomparable perfection.  She was his, and yet she was like a woman from another world.  His!  His!  He exulted in the glorious thought; nevertheless her tears pained him.
    With a wisp of her own hair which he took in his hand with timid reverence he tried in an access of clumsy tenderness to dry the tears that trembled on her eyelashes.  He had his reward in a fleeting smile that brightened her face for the short fraction of a second, but soon the tears fell faster than ever, and he could bear it no more.  He rose and walked towards Almayer, who still sat absorbed in his contemplation of the sea.  It was a very, very long time since he had seen the sea — that sea that leads everywhere, brings everything, and takes away so much.  He had almost forgotten why he was there, and dreamily he could see all his past life on the smooth and boundless surface that glittered before his eyes.
    Dain’s hand laid on Almayer’s shoulder recalled him with a start from some country very far away indeed.  He turned round, but his eyes seemed to look rather at the place where Dain stood than at the man himself.  Dain felt uneasy under the unconscious gaze.
    “What?” said Almayer.
    “She is crying,” murmured Dain, softly.
    “She is crying!  Why?” asked Almayer, indifferently.
    “I came to ask you.  My Ranee smiles when looking at the man she loves.  It is the white woman that is crying now.  You would know.”
    Almayer shrugged his shoulders and turned away again towards the sea.
    “Go, Tuan Putih,” urged Dain.  “Go to her; her tears are more terrible to me than the anger of gods.”
    “Are they?  You will see them more than once.  She told me she could not live without you,” answered Almayer, speaking without the faintest spark of expression in his face, “so it behoves you to go to her quick, for fear you may find her dead.”
    He burst into a loud and unpleasant laugh which made Dain stare at him with some apprehension, but got off the gunwale of the boat and moved slowly towards Nina, glancing up at the sun as he walked.
    “And you go when the sun is overhead?” he said.
    “Yes, Tuan.  Then we go,” answered Dain.
    “I have not long to wait,” muttered Almayer.  “It is most important for me to see you go.  Both of you.  Most important,” he repeated, stopping short and looking at Dain fixedly.
    He went on again towards Nina, and Dain remained behind.  Almayer approached his daughter and stood for a time looking down on her.  She did not open her eyes, but hearing footsteps near her, murmured in a low sob, “Dain.”
    Almayer hesitated for a minute and then sank on the sand by her side.  She, not hearing a responsive word, not feeling a touch, opened her eyes — saw her father, and sat up suddenly with a movement of terror.
    “Oh, father!” she murmured faintly, and in that word there was expressed regret and fear and dawning hope.
    “I shall never forgive you, Nina,” said Almayer, in a dispassionate voice.  “You have torn my heart from me while I dreamt of your happiness.  You have deceived me.  Your eyes that for me were like truth itself lied to me in every glance — for how long?  You know that best.  When you were caressing my cheek you were counting the minutes to the