admired that practical notion of at once cutting your coat according to your cloth in spite of the tragedy of tears and gestures and exclamations of "Ye-es, kassian!"[1] And he said, speaking to Constance:
"Do you think that real Dutch people could ever behave like that? No, to begin with, they wouldn't trumpet it forth; then they would go quietly abroad; but good old Aunt Lot trumpets it forth and started being practical yesterday and isn't ashamed to move into a smaller house; and, as I live, she's already asking me to nassi!"
Yes, that was the good, old-fashioned East-Indian way; the simple soul, the simple views of life; the real thing, without show; the cordial hospitality surviving, even though there was no money left; and all this attracted Gerrit, for all Auntie's East-Indian accent, for all her look of a Hindu idol, with the capacious, rolling bosom and the brilliants as big as turnips. . . . And the three girls, no longer young—why had those good children never married, in "Gholland"?—so quiet and practical, laughing already at the thought of the one servant: they'd make their own beds; but Alima, of course, was remaining—dressed just like a lady, stays and all, splendid!—sharing prosperity and misfortune with her njonja,[2] just simply, without stopping for a moment to think whether she hadn't better look out for a better place.
