went away, grumbling, to
cook some rice himself, for all the women about the house had
disappeared; he did not know where. Almayer did not seem to care, and,
after he finished eating, he sat on the table swinging his legs and
staring at the river as if lost in thought.

After some time he got up and went to the door of a room on the right of
the verandah. That was the office. The office of Lingard and Co. He
very seldom went in there. There was no business now, and he did not
want an office. The door was locked, and he stood biting his lower lip,
trying to think of the place where the key could be. Suddenly he
remembered: in the women's room hung upon a nail. He went over to the
doorway where the red curtain hung down in motionless folds, and
hesitated for a moment before pushing it aside with his shoulder as if
breaking down some solid obstacle. A great square of sunshine entering
through the window lay on the floor. On the left he saw Mrs. Almayer's
big wooden chest, the lid thrown back, empty; near it the brass nails of
Nina's European trunk shone in the large initials N. A. on the cover. A
few of Nina's dresses hung on wooden pegs, stiffened in a look of
offended dignity at their abandonment. He remembered making the pegs
himself and noticed that they were very good pegs. Where was the key? He
looked round and saw it near the door where he stood. It was red with
rust. He felt very much annoyed at that, and directly afterwards
wondered at his own feeling. What did it matter? There soon would be no
key--no door--nothing! He paused, key in hand, and asked himself whether
he knew well what he was about. He went out again on the verandah and
stood by the table thinking. The monkey jumped down, and, snatching a
banana skin, absorbed itself in picking it to shreds industriously.

"Forget!" muttered Almayer, and that word started before him a sequence
of events, a detailed programme of things to do. He knew perfectly well
what was to be done now. First this, then that, and then forgetfulness
would come easy. Very easy. He had a fixed idea that if he should not
forget before he died he would have to remember to all eternity. Certain
things had to be taken out of his life, stamped out of sight, destroyed,
forgotten. For a long time he stood in deep thought, lost in the
alarming possibilities of unconquerable memory, with the fear of death
and eternity before him. "Eternity!" he said aloud, and the