And now she was too well trained in this aestheticism to remain stuck in her disappointment and see nothing but the whitewash and tar of the houses, the petty quirks of officialdom, the paint crates and the horse manure. Her literary imagination now saw the palatial quality of the houses and the humorous side to official pomposity, which was almost inevitable. As she saw all those details more precisely, her view of the world of the Indies widened, until it became revelation upon revelation. Except that she continued to feel something strange, something she could not analyse, something mysterious, a dark secret whose soft approach she felt at night… But she thought it was just the atmosphere created by the darkness and the very dense foliage, like very faint music from very strange stringed instruments, the distant rustling sound of a harp in a minor key, a vague warning voice… A noise in the night, that was all, which gave rise to poetic fantasies.

In Labuwangi—a small, provincial centre—she often shocked her more provincial countrymen with her air of excitement, her enthusiasm, her spontaneity, her joie de vivre (even in the Indies) and joy in the beauty of life. Her instincts were healthy, though gently tempered and blurred by a charming affectation of wanting only what was beautiful: the line of beauty, the beautiful colour, artistic notions. Those who knew her felt either antipathy or extreme sympathy: few people were indifferent to her. In the Indies she had gained a reputation for being out of the ordinary: her house, her clothes, her child’s upbringing, her ideas were all out of the ordinary; the only ordinary thing about her was her Frisian husband, who was almost too ordinary for those surroundings, which seemed to have been cut out of an art magazine. Being a sociable person, she gathered around her as many members as possible of the European community, to which—though the community was seldom artistic—she brought an appealing tone that reminded them all of Holland. This tightly knit group admired her and naturally followed the tone she set. She was dominant because of her superior education, without being dominant by nature. Not everyone approved of this, and her critics called her eccentric, but the tightly knit group remained loyal to her, inspired by her amid the languor of Indies life to savour concerts, ideas, all that made life worth living.

For example, she had around her the doctor and his wife, the senior engineer and his wife, the district controller and his wife, and sometimes, from outside, a few controllers and a few young clerks from the sugar factories. It was quite a lively circle of people, with whom she called the tune, put on plays, organized picnics, and whom she enchanted with her house, her dresses and her Epicurean artistic flair. They forgave her everything they could not understand—her aesthetic credo, her love of Wagner’s music—because she offered them merriment, a little joie de vivre and conviviality amid the deadly colonial tedium. For that they were deeply grateful to her. And in this way her house had become the real centre of the social life of Labuwangi, while the district commissioner’s mansion opposite withdrew grandly into the shade of its banyan trees. Léonie van Oudijck was not jealous. She liked to be left in peace and was only too happy to give control to Eva Eldersma. And so Léonie had no part in anything: music or amateur dramatic societies, or charitable work. She delegated all the social duties that the wife of a district commissioner normally undertakes, to Eva. Léonie had her reception once a month, spoke to everyone, smiled at everyone and at New Year gave her annual ball. That was the extent of social life in the commissioner’s mansion. For the rest she lived for herself, in the comfort that she had selfishly created around her, in her pink fantasy of cherubs and whatever love she could find. At intervals she felt the need for Batavia and went there for a few months. And so, as the wife of the district commissioner, she went her own way, while Eva did everything, and set the tone. There were sometimes petty jealousies, for example between her and the wife of the inspector of finances, who felt it was she and not the secretary’s wife who should take second place after Mrs Van Oudijck. This led to squabbling over colonial civil service etiquette, and to stories and gossip that circulated, blown up out of all proportion, in the remotest sugar factories in the district. Eva paid no attention to the rumours, preferring to inject some life into Labuwangi, and to that worthy end, she and her club took charge. She had been elected district president of the Thalia amateur dramatic society, and had accepted, provided the rules were abolished. She was prepared to be queen, but without a constitution. The general consensus was that this was impossible: there had always been a rule book.