Yesterday, a novel by Maria Dermout (pdf)

IN THIS bewitching story-memoir, Maria
Dermout recollects the moods, the colors,
the emotions, the dramas of a childhood,
more than half a century ago, in
Java.
The East Indies of long ago, and the
equally magic and faraway world of childhood,
are seen through time as through a
gauze curtain: the house in the walled
garden, the birds like animated jewels,
the deer stepping carefully through wet
grass, the Dutch Colonial gentlemen driving
to great gala balls at twilight — tall
white candles burning in their carriage
lanterns—to waltz on marble-floored verandas
with ladies in decollete; the porcelain
tea pavilion in the orchard; Papa in
long batik trousers and a starched white
jacket at breakfast; the artist-sorcerer natives—
and the little girl born in Java of
Dutch ancestors, nurtured on magic, accustomed
to being surrounded by beauty,
with her shadowy knowledge of a distantEurope, her innocent comprehension of
her young aunt's love affair, her recognition
of a respected elder's evil nature, and
her final farewell to the enchanted world
of her childhood as she leaves the islands
for school in Holland. All this is re-created
with luminous grace and simplicity.
Maria Dermout's The Ten Thousand
Things—hei first full-length novel, written
in her late sixties—was a critical triumph
around the world. The New York
Times called it "a magic and enchanted
book." The words apply equally to this
earlier work—written at 63—that is a twofold
evocation of yesterday : the universal
yesterday of childhood and another yesterday
which, thanks to Maria Dermout's inspired
writing, becomes as vivid a part of
the reader's memories as if he had lived it
:
the exquisite world, now gone forever, of
the East Indies just before the coming of
modem times.