Max Havelaar (Nahuijs)/Chapter 15

by Multatuli

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Chapter XV.

[Composed by Stern.]

Havelaar’s predecessor had good intentions, but seemed to have been in some measure afraid of the displeasure of his superiors——had many children and no fortune——had thus preferred speaking to the Resident, about what he called excessive abuses, than describing them plainly in an official report. He knew that a Resident does not like to receive a written report, which remains in his archives, and which may be afterwards a proof that he had been made acquainted in time with this or that wrong, whilst a verbal communication leaves him, without danger, the choice of paying attention to a complaint or not. Such verbal communications generally brought about a conversation with the Regent, who, of course, denied all, and asked for proof. Then the men were summoned who had the boldness to complain, and creeping before the feet of the Regent, they begged pardon. “No, that buffalo had not been taken away from them without payment; they certainly believed that double its value would be paid for it. No, they had not been summoned from their fields to labour without payment in the Regent’s ‘sawahs;’ they knew very well that the Regent would pay them afterwards handsomely for their labour. They had complained in a moment of groundless malice—they had been mad, and begged that they should be punished for such excessive disrespect.”. . .

Then the Resident knew very well that he had to think about this revocation of the complaint, but it gave him nevertheless a nice opportunity to maintain the Regent in office and honour, and spared himself the disagreeable task of troubling the Government with an unfavourable report. The rash accusers were punished by caning, the Regent triumphed, and the Resident returned to the capital with the agreeable consciousness of having again managed so nicely.

But what was the Assistant Resident now to do, when the next day other complainers announced themselves? Or—and this often happened—when the same plaintiffs returned and revoked their revocation? Must he again insert this affair in his memoranda, to speak to the Resident about it a second time, to see the same comedy played again, to run the same risk as before, to pass at last for a person who, stupid and malicious, was continually producing complaints that were to be rejected every time as unfounded. And what would become of the relation so necessary between the first Native chief and the first European functionary, when the latter seemed to give ear continually to false complaints against his younger brother? And, above all, what became of those poor plaintiffs, after they had returned to their village, under the power of the district or village chief, whom they had accused as the instrument of the Regent’s arbitrariness,—what became of these poor men? He who could fly, fled.

Therefore were there many Bantam people in the neighbouring provinces. Therefore were there so many inhabitants of Lebak among the rebels in the Lampong district. Therefore had Havelaar asked in his speech to the chiefs:—“Why is it that so many houses are empty in the villages; and why do many prefer the shadow of the wood elsewhere to the coolness of the forests of Lebak?’

But not every one could fly. The man whose corpse floats down the river in the morning, after having asked the foregoing evening—secretly, hesitatingly, and anxiously—for an audience of the Assistant Resident, he needs flight no more. Perhaps it may be deemed philanthropy to spare him a further life, by consigning him to an immediate death. The torture was spared him that awaited him on his return to the village, and the stripes which are the punishment of every one who could for a moment think himself above the brute, and no inanimate piece of wood or stone,—the punishment for him who in a moment of folly had thought that there was justice in the country, and that the Assistant Resident had the will and the power to maintain that justice.

Was it not, indeed better to prevent that man from returning the next day to that Assistant Resident, as he had given notice in the evening; and to smother his complaint in the yellow water of the Tji-berang, that would carry him away softly to its mouth, accustomed as that river was to be bearer of the brotherly presents of salutation from the sharks in the interior to the sharks in the sea?

And Havelaar was acquainted with all this! Does the reader understand what went on in his mind, when he considered that his vocation was to do justice, that he was responsible for that to a higher power than the power of a Government, that to be sure stipulated for this justice in its laws, but did not always like to see the application of it? Do you understand how he was perplexed with doubt, not of what he had to do; but of how he ought to act? He had commenced with moderation, he had spoken to the Regent as to an elder brother, and he who thinks that I, captivated with the hero of my history, try to extol too much the manner of his speaking, may hear how once after such an interview the Regent sent his Patteh^[1] to him, to thank him for the benevolence of his words, and how again long afterwards this Patteh, speaking to the Controller Verbrugge, after Havelaar had ceased to be Assistant Resident of Lebak, when nobody had anything more to hope of or fear from him, how the Patteh at the remembrance of these words had been touched, and cried, “Never as yet any gentleman spoke like him.”

Yet he would save, restore—not destroy. He had sympathy with the Regent; he who knew how want of money oppresses, above all where it leads to humiliation and scorn, sought for reasons to avoid the unpleasant duty. The Regent was old, and the head of a family that lived magnificently in neighbouring provinces, where much coffee was reaped,^[2] and where many emoluments were enjoyed. Was it not grievous for him to be so far behind his younger relatives in style of living?

Moreover he was fanatical, and thought whilst his years advanced to be able to purchase the welfare of his soul by paying for pilgrimages to Mecca, and by giving alms to prayer-singing idlers.

The functionaries who had preceded Havelaar in Lebak had not always shown a good example, and finally, the extensiveness of the Lebak family of the Regent, that lived entirely at his expense, made it very difficult for him to return to the right path.

Therefore Havelaar sought for reasons to delay all severity, and to try once more, and still once more, what could be done by gentle means.

And he went further still than kindness. With a generosity which reminded him of the faults that had made him so poor, he continually advanced money to the Regent, and that on his own responsibility, in order that necessity should not urge too strongly to rapine, and, as was ordinarily the case, he forgot himself so far as to offer to retrench in his own family to what was strictly necessary, that he might assist the Regent with the little that he could still spare of his income.

Were it still necessary to prove the gentleness with which Havelaar fulfilled his difficult duty, that proof could be found in the verbal message which he intrusted to the Controller, when Verbrugge was going for a few days to Serang. “Tell the Resident that he, on hearing of the abuses that take place here, must not believe that I am indifferent on the subject, of which I do not immediately make an official report, because I would spare the Regent, for whom I feel pity, from too great severity, so I will try first to bring him to a sense of duty by gentleness.”

Havelaar was often out for many days together. When he was at home, he was for the most part to be found in the room which we represented in our plan as No. 7. There he was generally occupied in writing, and received the persons who asked an audience. He had chosen this spot, because there he was near his Tine, who was generally in the next room;—for so cordially were they bound together, that Max, even when he was occupied with work that needed attention and exertion, continually wanted to see and hear her. It was often comical how he suddenly spoke to her about what came up in his thoughts about the subjects that occupied him, and how quickly she, without understanding of what he treated, knew how to seize the sense of his meaning, which he did not generally explain, as if it was a matter of course, that she knew what he meant. Often when he was discontented with his own labour, or bad news just received, he would jump up and say something unkind to her, who was not to blame for his discontent. But she liked to hear this, because it was another proof how Max confounded her with himself. And, therefore, there was never a question of repentance of such apparent unkindness, or of pardon on the other side. This would have appeared to them as if somebody had asked his own pardon, because he in ill humour had beaten his own forehead.

She knew him so well, that she could tell exactly when she had to be there to procure him a moment’s relaxation—exactly when he needed her advice, and not less exactly she knew when she had to leave him alone.

In this room Havelaar was seated on a certain morning, when the Controller entered with a letter in his hand just received.

“This is a difficult matter,” he said, entering; “very difficult.”

When I state that this letter imposed on him the duty of stating to Havelaar why there was a change in the prices of joiners’ work and labourers’ wages, the reader will think that the Controller Verbrugge saw difficulties rather too readily. I make haste, therefore, to add, that many others would have thought the answer of this simple question very difficult.

A few years ago a prison had been built at Rankas-Betong. Now it is generally known that the functionaries in the interior of Java understand the art of erecting buildings that are worth thousands, without spending more than so many hundreds for them. This gains them the reputation for capacity, and zeal for the service of the country. The difference between the money expended and the value of what they get for it is supplied by unpaid labour. For a few years regulations have existed which forbid this. It is not the question here whether these regulations are observed, nor if the Government itself wishes them to be fulfilled with an exactness that would be burdensome on the budget of the building-department. It is with this as with other regulations that look so philanthropic on paper.

Now many buildings had to be erected at Rankas-Betong, and the engineers who were instructed to prepare plans of these had of course asked for information regarding the local rates of wages and the price of materials. Havelaar had charged the Controller to prepare an exact estimate of these matters, and had recommended him to give the true prices, without looking back to what had happened before, and Verbrugge had fulfilled this duty. But these prices did not agree with the statements made a few years back. The reason of this difference was asked, and that was what Verbrugge deemed so very difficult. Havelaar, who knew very well what was concealed behind this apparently simple business, replied that he would communicate his ideas about this difficulty in writing; and I find amongst the documents before me a copy of the letter, which seems to be the consequence of this promise.

If the reader should perhaps complain of this detention with a correspondence on the price of joiners’ work, with which he has apparently nothing to do, I must beg him to observe that the question here is properly about quite another matter, viz., the condition of the official Indian economy, and that the letter which I communicate does not only throw another ray of light on the artificial optimism of which I have spoken, but paints at the same time the difficulty with which a man like Havelaar had to struggle, who would go on straightforward.

“No. 114,

“Rankas-Betong, March 15, 1856.

“To the Controller of Lebak.

“When I sent you the letter of the Director of Public Works, dated the 16th ultimo, No. 271/354, I begged you to answer the questions which that letter contained, after having consulted the Regent and duly considered what I wrote in my missive of the 5th inst., No. 97.

“This missive contained some hints about what may be considered right and just with regard to the fixing of the prices of materials to be supplied by the people; to and at the charge of the Government.

“This you have done in your letter of the 8th inst, No. 6, and as I believe to the best of your knowledge, so that I, confiding in your local information and that of the Regent, have submitted these accounts, as prepared by you, to the Resident.

“This was followed by a missive from that chief functionary, dated the 11th inst., No, 326, whereby information was required about the cause of the difference between the prices given by me and those that had been sent in in 1854 and 1855 (the two preceding years) for the building of a prison.

“I, of course, put this letter into your hands, and verbally required you now to justify your statements, which ought to be less difficult for you, as it enabled you to appeal to the instructions given you in my letter of the 5th inst., and of which we spoke at length more than once. Up to this point all is very plain and simple. But yesterday, you entered my office with the Resident’s letter in your hands, and began to speak of the difficulty of clearing up the questions put therein. I perceived again some reluctance to give certain things their true names, which I have told you of before, and lately in the presence of the Resident, something which I call for shortness’ sake halfness, and against which I often warned you in a friendly way. Halfness leads to nothing. Half is no good. Half true is untrue. For full payment, for a full rank, after a distinct complete oath, full duty must be done. If courage is sometimes necessary to fulfil that duty, one must possess that courage. For myself, I should not have the courage to lack that courage. For apart from the discontentedness with one’s-self, which is a consequence of neglect of duty or lukewarmness, the seeking for easier byeways, the desire always and everywhere to escape collisions, to settle, produces indeed more care, more danger than is to be met with in a straight policy.

“During the course of a very important affair, which is now under the consideration of the Government, and in which you ought to be concerned in an official way, I left you tacitly, as it were, neutral, and alluded laughingly from time to time to the circumstance. When, for instance, I lately received your report about the causes of poverty and starvation among the population, and replied thereto:—‘All this may be the truth; it is not the whole truth, nor the cardinal truth; the principal or main cause lies deeper’—you freely assented to this, and I made no use of my right to exact that you should make known that cardinal truth. For this indulgence I had many reasons, and, amongst others, this, that I thought it unjust to exact suddenly from you what many others in your place would have readily afforded; to force you to say farewell in such a hurry to a course of reserve and timorousness that is not your fault, but that of the training which you have received. Finally, I wished to give you first an example how much simpler and easier it is to do one’s duty fully than only by halves. But now that I have had the honour of seeing you so long under my orders, and after having continually given you occasion to make yourself acquainted with principles, which, unless I err, will triumph at last, I should wish that you accepted them, that you would make your own the power which is not wanting, but merely in disuse, to tell me to the best of your knowledge what you have to say, and that you would bid adieu at once and for ever to that unmanly fear of telling the plain truth.

“I expect, therefore, a simple but complete report of what seems to you to be the cause of the difference in price between 1854 and 1856. I sincerely hope that you will not consider any phrase of this letter meant to hurt you. I trust that you understand me well enough, to know that I say neither more nor less than I mean, and, moreover, I give you the assurance that my observations refer less to you than to the school in which you were trained for an Indian functionary. Yet this ‘ circonstance atténuante’ would disappear if you, continuing longer with me, and serving the Government under my orders, should go on to follow the course against which I set myself.

“You may have observed that I have omitted the title Right Honourable,’^[3]—it annoyed me. Do the same to me, and let our honourableness, where it is necessary, come forward in another manner than by this annoying style, spoiling the use of titles.—The Assistant Resident of Lebak,

(Signed)“Max Havelaar.”

The reply to this letter was an accusation against some of Havelaar’s predecessors, and proved that he was not very wrong in quoting the bad examples of former times amongst the reasons that pleaded as an excuse for the Regent.

In communicating this letter I have departed from the order of time, to make it at once obvious how little help Havelaar could expect from the Controller, as soon as quite different and more important transactions were to he called by their right names, when the latter, who was without doubt a good man, had to be addressed in this way about telling the truth, when the question was only to give information about the prices of wood, stone, lime, and wages, and how Havelaar had not only to struggle with the power of those who reaped advantage from crime, but likewise with the timorousness of those who, though condemning that crime as much as he, did not mean courageously to combat it. Perhaps the reader, after having perused this letter, will think no more with such disdain of the servile submission of the Javanese, who in presence of his chief revokes like a coward an accusation however well founded it may be. For if you consider that there was so much cause for fear, even for the European functionary, who certainly may be deemed to be somewhat less exposed to vengeance, what then awaited the poor husbandman who, in a village far from the capital, fell entirely into the power of his accused oppressors? Is it surprising that these poor men, afraid of the consequences of their boldness, endeavoured to escape or to soften those consequences by humble submission? And it was not only the Controller Verbrugge who did his duty with a shyness characteristic of neglect of duty. The Djaksa likewise, the native chief, who fills in the council of the country the office of public prosecutor, preferred entering in the evening, unseen and without attendants, the house of Havelaar. He whose duty it was to prevent theft, he whose vocation if was to catch the sneaking thief, sneaked softly in at the back door, as if he were himself a thief, fearing to be seized, after having firstly convinced himself that there was no company which could have afterwards betrayed him as guilty of performing his duty. Was it to be wondered at that the soul of Havelaar was very sad, and that Tine had to go more than ever to his room to console him, when she saw him siting there with his head resting on his hand?

And yet his greatest difficulty was not in the shyness of those who were near him, nor in the accessory cowardice of those who had invoked his help. No! quite alone, if necessary, he would do justice, without or with the help of others; yes, against all, even were it against the will of those who were in want of that justice. For he knew the influence he had over the people, and how, if once the poor oppressed were summoned to repeat loudly, and before the tribunal, what they had whispered to him during the evening and the night in solitude,—he knew how he had the power to work upon their minds, and how the force of his words would be stronger than the fear of the revenge of district chief or Regent. The fear that his protégés would forsake their own cause did not restrain him.

It cost him so much to accuse this old Regent—that was the reason of his internal struggle; but, on the other hand, he ought not to yield to this reluctance, because the whole population, besides their good right, had as much claim to pity. Fear for himself had no part in his doubts. For though he knew the unwillingness with which the Government generally entertains the accusation of a Regent, and how much easier it is to take away the bread of the European functionary than to punish a Native chief, he had a special reason to believe that exactly at this moment other than the ordinary principles would predominate in the decision of such an affair.

It is true that he would have done his duty as faithfully even without this opinion; with more pleasure if he had deemed the danger for himself and his household greater than ever. We have already said how difficulty enticed him, how he thirsted for sacrifice; but he thought that the charm of a self-sacrifice did not exist here, and he feared that when at last he should have to commence a more serious struggle against injustice, he should come short of the chivalrous pleasure of having commenced this struggle as the weakest party.

Yes, that was what he feared. He thought that at the head of the Government was a Governor-General who would be his ally, and it was another peculiarity of his character, that this opinion restrained him from severe measures, and would do so longer than anything else, because it prevented his attacking injustice at a moment that he thought justice stronger than ever.

I have already said, in my attempt to describe his character, that with all his sharpness he was ingenuous (naïf).

I will endeavour to explain how Havelaar arrived at this opinion.

Few European readers can form an exact idea of the height on which a Governor-General must stand as an individual, not to be beneath the dignity of his office; and it is therefore not too severe a judgment, if I maintain that very few, perhaps none, have been able to respond to so heavy a claim. Not to speak of the qualities of head and heart that are required, only cast an eye on the giddy height on which so suddenly the man is placed, who——yesterday only a citizen——to-day has power over millions of subjects. He who a short time ago was still hidden among his acquaintances without being more than they in rank or power, feels himself suddenly, for the most part unexpectedly, elevated above a multitude infinitely greater than the small circle in which he had been before but imperfectly known, and I believe that I was not wrong in calling this height giddy; which, indeed, puts us in mind of the giddiness of one who sees suddenly a precipice before him, or which makes you think of the blindness that strikes us, if we come suddenly from a deep darkness into bright light. Against such transitions, the nerves of vision and the brain are no match, even where they are of extraordinary strength.

When also the nomination to the rank of Governor-General bears in itself causes of corruption, which will affect even one remarkable for excellent understanding and thorough conscientiousness, what may be expected of persons who already before their nomination had many faults?

And if we suppose that the King is always well informed before he signs his august name at the foot of the document, in which he says he is convinced of “the good faith, the zeal, and the capacity” of the newly appointed Governor, even if we suppose that the new Viceroy is zealous, faithful, and able, then the question still remains, whether this zeal, and above all, this capacity, exist with him in a measure high enough elevated above mediocrity to satisfy the claims of his vocation.

For the question cannot be whether the man, who for the first time leaves the King’s cabinet at the Hague as Governor-General, possesses at that moment the capacity necessary for his new office,—that is impossible. By the declaration of confidence in his capacity can only be meant the belief, that he, in a quite different situation, on a given moment, shall know, as it were by intuition, what he could not have learnt at the Hague,—in other words, that he is a genius, a genius which suddenly must know and understand what before it neither knew nor understood. Such geniuses are rare, even among persons who are in favour with kings.

As I speak of geniuses, the reader will understand that I wish to omit what could be said of many a Governor. It would likewise disgust me to insert in my book pages that should expose the serious design of this work to the suspicion of hunting after scandal. I omit, therefore, the peculiarities that can only reach certain persons, but as a general history of the malady of the situation of the Governors-General, I believe- that I can give:—First period—Dizziness, Incense-drunkenness, Self-conceit, Immoderate self-confidence, Disdain of others, above all of persons who have been long in India. Second period—Fatigue, Fear, Dejection, Inclination to Sleep and Rest, Immoderate confidence in the Council of India, Home-sickness and desire for a Dutch country-seat.

Between these two periods, and as a sort of transition, perhaps as cause of this transition, there is Dysentery.

I trust that many persons in India will thank me for this diagnosis.

The application is very useful, for it may be accepted as very certain, that the patient, who through over-exertion in the first period, would choke at a gnat, would later, after the dysentery, swallow without difficulty a camel;—or, to speak mare plainly, that a functionary who “accepts presents, not with the intention of enriching himself,”—for instance a bundle of pisang worth a few pence,—would, in the first period of the malady, be driven away with scorn and disgrace; but if that official has patience enough to wait for the second period, he may seize very calmly, and without any fear of punishment, the garden where the pisang grew, with the adjoining gardens, and the houses round, and what there may be in those houses, and other things. . . . ad libitum.

Every one may take advantage of this pathological philosophical observation, and keep secret my advice to prevent too much competition. . . .

A curse on it, that indignation and grief are so often clothed in the rags of satire! A curse on it, that a tear, to be understood, must be accompanied with a sneer!

Or is it the fault of my inexperience, that I seek in vain for words to name the depth of the wound that cankers in our Indian Government, without borrowing the style of Figaro or Punch? Style, . . . Yes! There are documents before me, in which there is style; style that showed that there was a man in the neighbourhood; a man, to whom it would have been worth the trouble to give a helping hand! And of what use was this style to poor Havelaar? He did not translate his tears into grins, he did not scoff, he did not endeavour to touch by a medley of colours or insipid farces; . . . . of what use was it to him?

If I could write like him, I should write otherwise than he.

Style? . . . Did you hear how he spoke to the chiefs? And of what use was it to him?

If I could speak like him, I should speak otherwise than he.

Away with conscientious language, away with considerateness, straightforwardness, plainness, simplicity, feeling; away with all that puts you in remembrance of Horace’s “Justum et tenacem;” trumpets here, and the sharp rattle of kettledrums, whizzing of rockets, screeching of tuneless strings, here and there a true word sneaking in as contraband, under cover of so much drumming and so much trumpeting! Style? . . . He had style! He had too much soul to drown his thoughts in, “I have the honour to be,” and the “Right Honourable,” and the “respectfully giving in considerations,” that was the luxury of the small world in which he moved. When he wrote, something impressed you in the reading of it, which made you understand that there were clouds accompanying this thunderstorm, and that you did not hear the rattling of tin thunderstorm as in a theatre. When he struck fire from ideas, the heat of his fire was felt by all but born clerks, or Governor-Generals, or the writer of that most disgusting report about “tranquil tranquillity.”

And what was the use of it to him? . . . If I want to be heard, and, above all, understood—must I then write otherwise than he? But how, then?

Do you see, reader! I look for an answer to this “how,” and therefore my book is such a medley: it is a pattern-card, make your choice; afterwards I will give you yellow or blue or red, as you please.

Havelaar had already so often observed the Governor’s malady in so many sufferers, and often in anima vili, for there are analogical Residents’, Controllers’, Clerks’ maladies, that are in proportion to the first as the measles to the small-pox, and finally, he himself had suffered from this malady; he had already so often observed this, that he knew the symptoms very well. He had remarked that the present Governor-General^[4] had been less dizzy at the commencement of the malady than most others, and he concluded from this that the rest of the malady would likewise take another course. Therefore he feared to be the strongest, if at last he should have to come forward as the champion of the rights of the inhabitants of Lebak.^[5]

 

1. A person in service of the Regent.
2. The Dutch Government has its coffee-gardens. If a Regent encourages labour in these gardens, or better still, compels men and women to work for nothing in the government gardens,—these government gardens will produce much coffee, and the Regent receives a certain percentage, so much for every pical.
3. Right Honourable is by no means a good translation of the Dutch “WelEdelGestrenge.” It is impossible to translate this into English, just ag “Right Worshipful” could hardly be translated into Dutch without becoming ridiculous.
4. Duymaer van Twist.
5. He would begin the campaign as the weakest, and yet at last be the strongest.