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Doddy’s cockatoo and feeding the bird with cake. The house was instantly transformed, thought Van Oudijck, his wife sociable, sweet, beautiful, now and then telling them about her acquaintances in Batavia, the races at Buitenzorg, a ball at the Governor General’s palace, the Italian opera; the boyscheerful, healthy, full of fun, however dirty they were from their games—and she called them over and romped with them a bit and asked about high school, where they were in the second form; and even Doddy and Theo seemed different—Doddy, now picking roses charmingly from the flowerpots and breaking into song, and Theo talkative with Mama, and even with Van Oudijck himself. Lines of pleasure played around Van Oudijck’s moustache. He still had a young-looking face and scarcely seemed forty-eight. He had an acute, lively gaze, both responsive and penetrating. He was a little thick-set and had a predisposition to become more so, but he had retained a military dash, and on official tours he was tireless; he was an excellent horseman. Tall and well-built, content with his house and family, he had a pleasant air of solid masculinity, and there were jovial lines around his moustache. Relaxing, stretched out in his cane chair, drinking his cup of tea, he expressed the thoughts that usually rose up in him at such moments of contentment. Yes, it was a pretty good life in the Indies, in the Dutch Colonial Service. At least, it had always been good for him, but then he had been fairly lucky. But nowadays the promotion situation was desperate: he knew lots of assistant commissioners who were his contemporaries and who in all those years had had no chance to become commissioners. And that was certainly a desperate state of affairs, to be in a subordinate position in relation to a superior for so long, to have await orders from a commissioner at that age. He would never have been able to tolerate it, at the age of forty-eight! But beinga commissioner, giving the orders oneself, administering for oneself a district as large and important as Labuwangi, with such extensive coffee plantations, such numerous sugar factories, with so many leased concessions—that was a joy, that was living: life on the grandest, most expansive scale, with which no position or life in Holland could compare. His great responsibility was a delight for his naturally dominant nature. His work was varied: office work and tours; the priorities of his work were varied: one was not bored to death sitting in an office; after office work there was the freedom of the natural world, and there was always variety, always something different. He hoped in eighteen months’ time to become a district commissioner first class, if there was a vacancy in a first-class area: Batavia, Semarang, Surabaya, or one of the Principalities. And yet it would be a wrench to leave Labuwangi. He was attached to his district, for which for five years he had done so much that had come to fruition, to the extent that any fruition was possible in this period of general malaise: with the colonies poor, the population impoverished, coffee-growing worse than ever, sugar possibly facing a severe crisis in two years’ time… the Indies were languishing and even in industrial East Java there was the beginnings of apathy and weakness, but still he had been able to do a lot for Labuwangi. During his watch the population had increased in prosperity; the irrigation of the paddy fields was excellent, after he had been able to use tact to win over the engineer, who had at first been constantly at odds with the colonial authorities. Numeroussteam tramlines had been built. The secretary, his assistant commissioners, and his controllers were devoted to him, though working under him was hard. He took a pleasant tone with them, though, despite the work being hard. He could be friendly and jovial, even though he was the commissioner. He was glad that all of them—his controllers, his assistant