Taminah walked on, her tray on the head, her eyes fixed on the ground.
From the open doors of the houses were heard, as she passed, friendly
calls inviting her within for business purposes, but she never heeded
them, neglecting her sales in the preoccupation of intense thinking.
Since the very early morning she had heard much, she had also seen much
that filled her heart with a joy mingled with great suffering and fear.
Before the dawn, before she left Bulangi's house to paddle up to Sambir
she had heard voices outside the house when all in it but herself were
asleep. And now, with her knowledge of the words spoken in the darkness,
she held in her hand a life and carried in her breast a great sorrow. Yet
from her springy step, erect figure, and face veiled over by the everyday
look of apathetic indifference, nobody could have guessed of the double
load she carried under the visible burden of the tray piled up high with
cakes manufactured by the thrifty hands of Bulangi's wives. In that
supple figure straight as an arrow, so graceful and free in its walk,
behind those soft eyes that spoke of nothing but of unconscious
resignation, there slept all feelings and all passions, all hopes and all
fears, the curse of life and the consolation of death. And she knew
nothing of it all. She lived like the tall palms amongst whom she was
passing now, seeking the light, desiring the sunshine, fearing the storm,
unconscious of either. The slave had no hope, and knew of no change. She
knew of no other sky, no other water, no other forest, no other world, no
other life. She had no wish, no hope, no love, no fear except of a blow,
and no vivid feeling but that of occasional hunger, which was seldom, for
Bulangi was rich and rice was plentiful in the solitary house in his
clearing. The absence of pain and hunger was her happiness, and when she
felt unhappy she was simply tired, more than usual, after the day's
labour. Then in the hot nights of the south-west monsoon she slept
dreamlessly under the bright stars on the platform built outside the