the equator—Natal lies a few minutes north of it: whenever I went overland to Ayer-Bangie, I had to make my horse step across the Line . . . it made one liable to stumble over it, on my soul!—there on the equator six o’clock was the signal for evening meditations. Now it seems to me that at night one is always a little better, or rather less mischievous, than in the morning, and this is natural. In the morning one pulls oneself together—one is . . . sheriff’s officer or Controller, or . . . no, this is not enough! A sheriff’s officer pulls himself together to do his duty with a vengeance that day . . . good God! what a duty! What must that heart look like, pulled together! A Controller—I don’t say this for you, Verbrugge!—a Controller rubs his eyes, dislikes the job of meeting the new Assistant-Resident, who wants to assume an absurd superiority, on the strength of an extra year’s service, and of whom he has heard so many eccentric things . . . in Sumatra. Or that day he has to measure paddocks, and wavers between his honesty—you don’t know this, Duclari, as you are a soldier, but there really are honest Controllers!—then he stands hesitating between that honesty and the fear that Radhen Dhemang this one or the other may ask him to return the piebald that is so good at counting. Or else that day he will have to say firmly yes or no to missive number anything. Briefly, on awakening in the morning the whole world lies on your heart, and that’s heavy for a heart, however strong. But at night there is a pause. There are ten full hours between now and the moment one will have to face one’s coat again. Ten hours: thirty-six thousand seconds to be a human being in the true sense! This looks rosy to anyone. This is the moment in which I hope to die, in order to arrive yonder with an unofficial countenance. This is the moment when your wife again finds in your face the something that took her when she allowed you to keep that pocket handkerchief with a crowned E in the corner . . .”
“And when she had not yet acquired the right to have a cold,” said Tine.
