hile he stood listening and thinking to himself: I hear her.
Crying. Eh? I believe she has lost the little wits she had and is crying
night and day since I began to prepare her for the news of her husband's
death--as Lingard told me. I wonder what she thinks. It's just like
father to make me invent all these stories for nothing at all. Out of
kindness. Kindness! Damn! . . . She isn't deaf, surely.

He knocked again, then said in a friendly tone, grinning benevolently at
the closed door--

"It's me, Mrs. Willems. I want to speak to you. I have . . . have . . .
important news. . . ."

"What is it?"

"News," repeated Almayer, distinctly. "News about your husband. Your
husband! . . . Damn him!" he added, under his breath.

He heard a stumbling rush inside. Things were overturned. Joanna's
agitated voice cried--

"News! What? What? I am coming out."

"No," shouted Almayer. "Put on some clothes, Mrs. Willems, and let me
in. It's . . . very confidential. You have a candle, haven't you?"

She was knocking herself about blindly amongst the furniture in that
room. The candlestick was upset. Matches were struck ineffectually. The
matchbox fell. He heard her drop on her knees and grope over the floor
while she kept on moaning in maddened distraction.

"Oh, my God! News! Yes . . . yes. . . . Ah! where . . . where . . .
candle. Oh, my God! . . . I can't find . . . Don't go away, for the love
of Heaven . . ."

"I don't want to go away," said Almayer, impatiently, through the
keyhole; "but look sharp. It's coni . . . it's pressing."

He stamped his foot lightly, waiting with his hand on the door-handle.
He thought anxiously: The woman's a perfect idiot. Why should I go away?
She will be off her head. She will never catch my meaning. She's too
stupid.

She was moving now inside the room hurriedly and in silence. He waited.
There was a moment of perfect stillness in there, and then she spoke
in an exhausted voice, in words that were shaped out of an expiring
sigh--out of a sigh light and profound, like words breathed out by a
woman before going off into a dead faint--

"Come in."

He pushed the door. Ali, coming through the passage with an armful
of pillows and blankets pressed to his breast high up under his chin,
caught sight of his master before the door closed behind him. He was so
astonished that he dropped his bundle and stood staring at the door for
a long time. He heard the voice of his master talking. Talking t