IN a Jakarta restaurant with a classical Javanese atmosphere, the man leaned back on a wooden chair. The sky above was cloudy. He muttered, “A world full of the sublime will not come back again.” At the time, four years ago, he was already 71 years old. The cane which he always used as an aid for walking was close by. His legs—which in the past had taken him along the streets of Yogyakarta and Solo in his research on ancient batik—were un