but Nina, brought up under the Protestant wing of
the proper Mrs. Vinck, had not even a little piece of brass to remind her
of past teaching. And listening to the recital of those savage glories,
those barbarous fights and savage feasting, to the story of deeds
valorous, albeit somewhat bloodthirsty, where men of her mother's race
shone far above the Orang Blanda, she felt herself irresistibly
fascinated, and saw with vague surprise the narrow mantle of civilised
morality, in which good-meaning people had wrapped her young soul, fall
away and leave her shivering and helpless as if on the edge of some deep
and unknown abyss. Strangest of all, this abyss did not frighten her
when she was under the influence of the witch-like being she called her
mother. She seemed to have forgotten in civilised surroundings her life
before the time when Lingard had, so to speak, kidnapped her from Brow.
Since then she had had Christian teaching, social education, and a good
glimpse of civilised life. Unfortunately her teachers did not understand
her nature, and the education ended in a scene of humiliation, in an
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