Big as was the extent of ground owned by Almayer, Willems yet felt that there was not enough room for him inside those neat fences.

The man who, during long years, became accustomed to think of himself as indispensable to others, felt a bitter and savage rage at the cruel consciousness of his superfluity, of his uselessness; at the cold hostility visible in every look of the only white man in this barbarous corner of the world.

He gnashed his teeth when he thought of the wasted days, of the life thrown away in the unwilling company of that peevish and suspicious fool.

He heard the reproach of his idleness in the murmurs of the river, in the unceasing whisper of the great forests.

Round him everything stirred, moved, swept by in a rush; the earth under his feet and the heavens above his head.
The very savages around him strove, struggled, fought, worked--if only to prolong a miserable existence; but they lived, they lived! And it was only himself that seemed to be left outside the scheme of creation in a hopeless immobility filled with tormenting anger and with ever-stinging regret.
He took to wandering about the settlement.