At his
feet lay the overturned table, amongst a wreck of crockery and broken
bottles. The appearance as of traces left by a desperate struggle was
accentuated by the chairs, which seemed to have been scattered violently
all over the place, and now lay about the verandah with a lamentable
aspect of inebriety in their helpless attitudes. Only Nina's big rocking-
chair, standing black and motionless on its high runners, towered above
the chaos of demoralised furniture, unflinchingly dignified and patient,
waiting for its burden.
With a last scornful look towards the sleeper, Mrs. Almayer passed behind
the curtain into her own room. A couple of bats, encouraged by the
darkness and the peaceful state of affairs, resumed their silent and
oblique gambols above Almayer's head, and for a long time the profound
quiet of the house was unbroken, save for the deep breathing of the
sleeping man and the faint tinkle of silver in the hands of the woman
preparing for flight. In the increasing light of the moon that had risen
now above the night mist, the objects on the verandah came out strongly
outlined in black splashes of shadow with all the uncompromising ugliness
of their disorder, and a caricature of the sleeping Almayer appeared on
the dirty whitewash of the wall behind him in a grotesquely exaggerated
detail of attitude and feature enlarged to a heroic size.
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