He did not want
to meet her with empty hands and with no words of hope on his lips. He
could not take her back into that savage life to which he was condemned
himself. He was also a little afraid of her. What would she think of
him? He reckoned the years. A grown woman. A civilised woman, young
and hopeful; while he felt old and hopeless, and very much like those
savages round him. He asked himself what was going to be her future. He
could not answer that question yet, and he dared not face her. And yet
he longed after her. He hesitated for years.
His hesitation was put an end to by Nina's unexpected appearance in
Sambir. She arrived in the steamer under the captain's care. Almayer
beheld her with surprise not unmixed with wonder. During those ten years
the child had changed into a woman, black-haired, olive-skinned, tall,
and beautiful, with great sad eyes, where the startled expression common
to Malay womankind was modified by a thoughtful tinge inherited from her
European ancestry. Almayer thought with dismay of the meeting of his
wife and daughter, of what this grave girl in European clothes would
think of her betel-nut chewing mother, squatting in a dark hut,
disorderly, half naked, and sulky.
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