could not remember missing a single Sunday evening, except when he ran over to Java, on a six months’ return-ticket, to see how the sugar-factory was going on.
The Ruyvenaers were first, as usual, arriving very early and at once filling the rooms. Uncle, with a shiver, abused the Dutch climate: he was tall and stout, wearisome with his noisy attempts at humour, full of a superficial good-nature and an affectation of kind-heartedness. He was always blundering out things that fell like a sledge-hammer. He at once filled the whole room with his blustering joviality, his ponderous efforts to make himself agreeable. His sister, Mrs. van Lowe, so gentle, so distinguished, was always afraid that he would break something. Auntie was a rich nonna,[1] who had brought the sugar-factory as her dowry: she too was heavy and fat, like a Hindu idol, and covered with big diamonds; still, there was something kind and friendly about her: looking at her, you had a vision of a spicy rice-table[2] and toothsome kwee-kwee;[3] a promise of material comfort, of a lavish supply of good things to eat and drink. And, with it all, she was not unsympathetic, with her soft, dark eyes. They brought with them their three daughters and two sons: the two elder girls of Dorine’s age, gay and boisterous, regular natives; a son of twenty-eight, who was also in the sugar-business,
