outburst of contempt from white people for her mixed blood. She had
tasted the whole bitterness of it and remembered distinctly that the
virtuous Mrs. Vinck's indignation was not so much directed against the
young man from the bank as against the innocent cause of that young man's
infatuation. And there was also no doubt in her mind that the principal
cause of Mrs. Vinck's indignation was the thought that such a thing
should happen in a white nest, where her snow-white doves, the two Misses
Vinck, had just returned from Europe, to find shelter under the maternal
wing, and there await the coming of irreproachable men of their destiny.
Not even the thought of the money so painfully scraped together by
Almayer, and so punctually sent for Nina's expenses, could dissuade Mrs.
Vinck from her virtuous resolve. Nina was sent away, and in truth the
girl herself wanted to go, although a little frightened by the impending
change. And now she had lived on the river for three years with a savage
mother and a father walking about amongst pitfalls, with his head in the
clouds, weak, irresolute, and unhappy. She had lived a life devoid of
all the decencies of civilisation, in miserable domestic conditions; she
had breathed in the atmosphere of sordid plottings for gain, of the no
less disgusting intrigues and crimes for lust or money; and those things,
together with the domestic quarrels, were the only events of her three
years' existence. She did not die from despair and disgust the first
month, as she expected and almost hoped for. On the contrary, at the end
of half a year it had seemed to her that she had known no other life. Her
young mind having been unskilfully permitted to glance at better things,
and then thrown back again into the hopeless quagmire of barbarism, full
of strong and uncontrolled passions, had lost the power to discriminate.
It seemed to Nina that there was no change and no difference. Whether
they traded in brick godowns or on the muddy river bank; whether they
reached after much or little; whether they made love under the shadows of
the great trees or in the shadow of the cathedral on the Singapore