The Hidden Force: A Story of Modern Java

The Hidden Force: A Story of Modern Java

The Hidden Force gives a picture of life in the Dutch East Indies in the last year of the nineteenth and the first year of the twentieth century. Conditions have altered slightly since thenDutch ladies no longer wear sarong and kabaai so generally, and there are other minor changesbut the relations between the Europeans and the natives remain very much as they were. I have translated nearly all the Malay and Javanese words scattered through the text, agreeing with my publisher that the sense of colour throughout the book is strong enough without insisting on these native terms, and I have done my best to reduce foot-notes to a minimum. The full moon wore the hue of tragedy that evening. It had risen early, during the last glimmer of daylight, in the semblance of a huge, blood-red ball, and, flaming like a sunset low down behind the tamarind-trees in the Lange Laan, it was ascending, slowly divesting itself of its tragic complexion, in a pallid sky. A deathly stillness lay over all things like a veil, as though, after the long mid-day siesta, the evening rest were beginning without an intervening period of life. Over the town, whose white villas and porticoes lay huddled amid the trees of the lanes and gardens, hung the windless oppression of the evening air, as though the listless night were weary of the blazing day of eastern monsoon. The houses, from which not a sound was heard, shrank away, in deathly silence, amid the foliage of their gardens, with their evenly-spaced, gleaming rows of great whitewashed flower-pots. Here and there a lamp was already lit. Suddenly a dog barked and another answered, rending the muffled silence into long, ragged tatters: the dogs angry throats sounded hoarse, panting, harshly hostile; then they, too, suddenly fell silent. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 34725
Author: Couperus, Louis
Release Date: Dec 22, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander, 1865-1921