Max Havelaar (Siebenhaar)/Chapter 14
“You know,” Havelaar began, “how the Dutch possessions on the west coast of Sumatra border on the independent realms in the northern part, of which Atchin is the most important. It is said that a secret article in the treaty of 1824 places on us the obligation towards the English not to cross the River Singkel. General Vandamme, who with a faux air Napoléon was anxious to extend his government as far as possible, met, therefore, in that direction an insuperable obstacle. I am forced to believe in the existence of that secret article, as it would otherwise seem strange to me that the Rajahs of Troomon and Analaboo, whose provinces are of some importance on account of the pepper trade there, have not long since been brought under Dutch sovereignty. You know how easy it is to find a pretext for making war on such little states, and so annexing them. To steal a country will always be easier than to steal a mill. I believe of General Vandamme that he would even have stolen a mill if he had felt tempted to it, and should not therefore understand him sparing those domains in the north, if no more solid reasons had existed for it than right and justice.
“However this may be, he did not turn his conqueror’s glances northward, but eastward. The dominions Mandhéling and Ankola—this was the name of the assistant-residency formed out of the just ‘pacified’ Battahlands—were, it is true, not yet purged of Atchinese influence—for when fanaticism once takes root, it is not easily extirpated—but at any rate the Atchinese themselves were no longer there. This, though, was not enough for the Governor. He extended his authority to the east coast, and Dutch officials and Dutch garrisons were sent to Bila and Pertibie, which posts, however, as you know, Verbrugge, were again evacuated afterwards.
“When a Government Commissary arrived in Sumatra who considered this extension objectless and therefore condemned it, especially as it militated against the desperate economy that had been so urgently insisted on from the motherland, General Vandamme maintained that the extension need become no burden on the Estimates, for the new garrisons were drawn from troops for which the expenditure had in any case already been passed, so that he had brought a very considerable territory under Dutch rule without expense resulting from the action. And furthermore, as regards the partial denudation of other places, especially Mandhéling, he thought he could sufficiently depend on the fidelity and attachment of Yang di Pertooan, the principal Chief in the Battahlands, to prevent any danger in this.
“The Government Commissary gave in reluctantly, and this only on the repeated protestations of the General that he personally went bail for Yang di Pertooan’s fidelity.
“Now the Controller who administered the division of Natal before me was the son-in-law of the Assistant-Resident of the Battahlands, who was on unfriendly terms with Yang di Pertooan. Afterwards I heard a good deal of talk about complaints that had been made against this Assistant-Resident, but one had to be cautious in accepting these charges as true, as they largely originated with Yang di Pertooan, and that at a time when the latter had been accused of far more serious offences, which may have induced him to seek his defence in the faults of his accuser, a thing that of course often happens. However this may be, the officer in authority at Natal sided with his father-in-law against Yang di Pertooan, and this perhaps all the more ardently as the Controller was very friendly with a certain Sootan Salim, a Natal Chief who also was very bitter against the Batak head. For a long time already there had been a feud between the families of these two chiefs. Offers of marriage had been declined, there was jealousy about influence, pride on the side of Yang di Pertooan, who was of better birth, and several other causes concurred to keep Natal and Mandhéling set against each other.
“Suddenly the rumour spread that in Mandhéling a plot had been discovered, in which Yang di Pertooan was said to be mixed up, and which aimed at raising the sacred banner of rebellion and murdering all Europeans. The first discovery of it had been made in Natal, which was but natural, as one is always better informed about the trend of things in neighbouring provinces than in the place itself, because many who locally are withheld by fear of an implicated chief from revealing a circumstance known to them, will to some extent conquer that fear as soon as they are in a territory where that chief has no influence.
“And this too, Verbrugge, is the reason why I am not a stranger in the affairs of Lebak, and why I knew a fair proportion of the things that went on here before ever I thought of the possibility of my present appointment. About 1846 I was at Krawang, and I have wandered about a good deal in the Preanger Regencies, where already in 1840 I met refugees from Lebak. Also I know some landowners about Buitenzorg and in the districts around Batavia, and I am aware how these landed gentry have always been pleased about the unfavourable condition of this division, because it adds population to their own hereditary lands.
“In this way then the conspiracy was said to be discovered in which—if it ever existed, and this I do not know—Yang di Pertooan proved himself a traitor. According to the sworn testimony of witnesses called by the Controller of Natal, he was supposed, with his brother Sootan Adam, to have collected the Batak Chiefs around him in a sacred forest where they had sworn never to rest until the rule of the ‘Christian dogs’ in Mandhéling had been destroyed. It goes without saying that for this mission he had had an inspiration. You know that this feature is never absent from such occasions.
“Now whether this purpose ever really existed in Yang di Pertooan’s mind is a thing I have no certainty about. I have read the declarations of the witnesses, but you will see presently why these may not be given unconditional credence. It is certain that, as regards the man’s Islamite fanaticism, he may well have been capable of it. He and the whole Batak population had only recently been converted by the Padrees[1] to the true faith, and new converts are usually fanatical.
“The consequence of this real or supposed discovery was that Yang di Pertooan was arrested by the Assistant-Resident of Mandhéling, and sent to Natal. Here the Controller provisionally locked him up in the fortress, and subsequently had him transported to Padang as a prisoner in the first available ship. It is obvious that all the documents were handed to the Governor which contained such incriminating evidence, and which were to be the justification for the severity of the measures taken. Our friend Yang di Pertooan then had left Mandhéling as a prisoner. At Natal he was a prisoner. He therefore expected—guilty or not guilty, which made no difference to the case, as he had been charged with high treason by competent authority—that at Padang also he would arrive as a prisoner. Surely then he must have been somewhat astonished to learn on disembarking that not only was he free, but that the General, whose carriage was waiting for him when he landed, would count it an honour to receive him and offer him hospitality in his house. No man accused of high treason has probably ever received a pleasanter surprise. Shortly after, the Assistant-Resident of Mandhéling was suspended from office on the charge of several offences on which I wish to pronounce no opinion. Yang di Pertooan, on the other hand, after having stayed with the General some time, and having been treated by him with the greatest distinction, returned by Natal to Mandhéling, not with the self-respect of one declared innocent, but with the pride of one so exalted in position that he required no declaration of innocence. For the matter had not even been investigated! Assuming that the charge preferred against him was held to be false, then this very suspicion should have made an examination requisite, in order to punish the false witnesses, and more particularly the persons who should be proved to have invited such false testimony. It appears that the General had his own reasons for not allowing this examination to take place. The charge laid against Yang di Pertooan was treated non avenu, and I feel sure that the documents relating to it were never brought under the eyes of the Government at Batavia.
“Shortly after Yang di Pertooan’s return I arrived at Natal to take over the administration of that division. My predecessor told me of course what so recently had happened in Mandhéling, and gave me the necessary information about the political relation between that territory and my division. He was not to be blamed for complaining about the treatment, in his opinion unjust, which had been meted out to his father-in-law, and about the incomprehensible protection Yang di Pertooan appeared to enjoy on the part of the General. Neither he nor I knew at that moment that to send Yang di Pertooan to Batavia would have been a slap in the face to the General, and that the latter—having personally answered for the loyalty of that Chief—had good reason to protect him at any price from a charge of high treason. This was all the more important to the General, as meanwhile the just named Government Commissary himself had become Governor-General, and would therefore most likely have recalled him from his Governorship, naturally angry at the unwarranted confidence reposed in Yang di Pertooan, and at the obstinacy resulting from it, with which the General had opposed the evacuation of the east coast.
“ ‘But,’ said my predecessor, ‘whatever may have induced the General to accept offhand all the charges against my father-in-law, and not even to consider the much more serious accusations against Yang di Pertooan as deserving investigation, the matter is not finished! And if at Padang, as I expect, they have destroyed the recorded testimonies, I have here something else that cannot be destroyed.’
“And he showed me a verdict of the Rappat-Council[2] at Natal, of which he was the President, sentencing a certain Si Pamaga to the penalty of the lash and branding-iron, and, I think, twenty years’ hard labour, for attempted murder of the Tooankoo[3] of Natal.
“ ‘Just read the report of the Court-session,’ said my predecessor, ‘and then judge whether my father-in-law will not be believed in Batavia, when he there charges Yang di Pertooan with high treason!’
“I read the documents. According to the declarations of witnesses and ‘the confession of the accused,’ Si Pamaga had been bribed to murder at Natal the Tooankoo, the latter’s foster-father, Sootan Salim, and the Controller in charge. He had, in order to carry out this purpose, gone to the house of the Tooankoo, and had there, with the servants who were sitting on the steps of the veranda, started a conversation about a sewah,[4] with the object of prolonging his stay until he should notice the Tooankoo, who, indeed, soon showed himself, surrounded by some of his relatives and servants. Pamaga had run towards the Tooankoo with his sewah, but had, owing to unknown circumstances, not been able to carry out his project. The Tooankoo, frightened, had jumped out of the window, and Pamaga had taken flight. He had hidden himself in the woods, and been caught a few days after by the Natal police.
“The accused being asked what had induced him to make this attempt and to plan the murder of Sootan Salim and the Controller of Natal, answered that he ‘was bribed to it by Sootan Adam, on behalf of the latter’s brother, Yang di Pertooan of Mandhéling.’
“ ‘Is this explicit or not?’ asked my predecessor. ‘The Resident signed the order of execution, and the sentence was carried out as regards the lash and the branding, and Si Pamaga is now on the way to Padang, to be sent thence to Java with a chain-gang. At the same time with him will arrive at Batavia the depositions of the Court, and there one will be able to judge what sort of man it is on whose information my father-in-law was suspended! That sentence the General cannot destroy, however much he might wish to.’
“I took over the administration of the division of Natal, and my predecessor left. After a while I received word that the General was to arrive in the North of Sumatra in a man-of-war, and would also visit Natal. He alighted at my house with a large retinue, and immediately asked to see the original depositions with regard to ‘the poor man who had been so shockingly ill-treated.’ ‘They themselves deserved the lash and the branding-iron!’ he added.
“I couldn’t make head or tail of the matter. For the causes of the quarrel about Yang di Pertooan were still unknown to me, and it could not, therefore, occur to me that either my predecessor would wittingly and purposely have sentenced an innocent man to so severe a penalty, or the General take a criminal under his protection against a just sentence. I received orders to arrest Sootan Salim and the Tooankoo. As the young Tooankoo was much loved by the population, and we had but a small garrison in the fortress, I asked the General’s permission to leave him at large, to which he agreed. But for Sootan Salim, the particular enemy of Yang di Pertooan, there was no mercy. The tension among the population was great. The people of Natal suspected that the General stooped to be the tool of Mandhéling hatred, and it was in those circumstances that I was enabled from time to time to act in a manner which he called ‘resolute,’ and no wonder, as he did not offer me the small force that could be spared from the fortress, nor the detachment of marines which he had brought with him from the ship, when I might have been considered to require protection in riding out to the places where there were assemblages of discontented natives. On that occasion I became aware that General Vandamme took very good care of his own safety, and it is for that reason that I cannot subscribe to the renown of his bravery until I shall either have seen more instances or a different example of it.
“He formed in desperate haste a Council which I might call ad hoc. The members of it were: two of his adjutants, some other officers, the Officer of Justice, whom he had brought with him from Padang, and I. This Council was to inquire into the manner in which my predecessor had conducted the action against Si Pamaga. I had to call a number of witnesses whose declarations were necessary for the purpose. The General, who of course presided, carried on the whole examination, and the depositions were written down by the Officer of Justice. As, however, this official understood little Malay, and none of the Malay dialects spoken in the north of Sumatra, it was often necessary to interpret the answers of the witnesses to him, which was mostly done by the General himself. The sessions of this Council produced documents which seem to prove clearly: that Si Pamaga had never had the intention of murdering anyone whomsoever; that he had never seen or known Sootan Adam or Yang di Pertooan; that he had not rushed at the Tooankoo of Natal; that the latter had not fled through the window . . . and so on! Further: that the sentence against the unfortunate Si Pamaga had been passed under pressure of the President (my predecessor) and the Councillor Sootan Salim, who had jointly invented the presumed crime of Si Pamaga in order to give the suspended Assistant of Mandhéling a weapon of defence, and also to vent their hatred of Yang di Pertooan.
“Now the manner in which on this occasion the General asked questions reminded one of the game of whist played by a certain Emperor of Morocco, who said to his partner: ‘Play hearts or I’ll cut your throat!’ And also the translations, as he dictated them to the Officer of Justice, left much to be desired.
“Whether Sootan Salim and my predecessor exercised pressure on the Natal Council of Justice, in order to declare Si Pamaga guilty, is unknown to me. But not unknown to me is the fact that General Vandamme exercised pressure in the case of the declarations made to prove the man’s innocence. Without at that time understanding the intention of it, I frankly objected to this . . . inaccuracy, which went so far that I felt it my duty to refuse to add my signature to some of the depositions, and there you have at last the affair in which I had ‘crossed’ the General. You will now also understand the reference in the words which concluded my answer to the strictures on my financial administration, the words in which I requested to be spared any considerations of indulgence.”
“It certainly was very strong, for a man of your years!” said Duclari.
“I thought it natural. But one thing is certain, the General was evidently not accustomed to anything like this. And also that I suffered a good deal from the consequences of the affair. Oh, no, Verbrugge, I see what you are going to say; but I certainly never regretted it. And I must even add that I should not have confined myself to simply protesting against the manner in which the General questioned the witnesses, nor to refusing my signature to some of the depositions, if at that time I could have guessed what I only knew afterwards, viz., that it was all the upshot of a deliberate predetermination to make out a case against my predecessor. I imagined that the General, convinced of Si Pamaga’s innocence, allowed himself to be carried away by an estimable desire to save an innocent victim from the results of a judicial error, in so far as this was still possible after the lash and the branding. This view certainly allowed me to protest against falsity, but the latter offence did not make me so indignant as I should have been if I had known that it was not a question of saving an innocent man, but that the falsity was practised for the purpose of destroying, at the expense of my predecessor’s honour and welfare, the proofs that stood in the way of the General’s policy.”
“And what happened further to your predecessor? ” asked Verbrugge.
“Fortunately for him he had already left for Java before the General arrived again at Padang. He appears to have been able to justify himself before the Government at Batavia; at least he remained in the service. The Resident of Ayer-Bangie, who had signed the order of execution, was . . .”
“Suspended?”
“Of course! You see that I was not so very far wrong when I said in my epigram that the Governor ruled by suspending us.”
“And what became of all those suspended officers?”
“Oh, there were many more! All of them, one after another, were reinstated. Some of them have since occupied very important positions.”
“And Sootan Salim?”
“The General took him to Padang a prisoner, and thence he was exiled to Java. He is to this day at Tjanjor in the Preanger Regencies. When I was there in 1846, I paid him a visit. Do you remember, Tine, what I came to Tjanjor for?”
“No, Max, I have quite forgotten.”
“Well, of course, one can’t remember everything! I was there to be married, gentlemen!”
“But,” asked Duclari, “as you are telling us so much, may I ask whether it is true that at Padang you fought so many duels?”
“Yes, a good many, and there was cause for it. I have already told you that at such an outpost the Governor’s favour is for many people the measure by which to adjust their good-will. Most of them therefore were very ill-disposed to me, and this frequently went as far as rudeness. I, on the other hand, was of course irritable. An unacknowledged bow, a taunt about the ‘silliness of a man who wants to fight the General,’ an allusion to my poverty, to my going hungry, to the ‘poor food attached to moral independence’ . . . all this, you will readily understand, embittered me. Many, especially among the officers, knew that the General rather liked to hear that duels were fought, and especially with a man so deeply in disgrace as I was. Maybe therefore they purposely provoked my sensitiveness. I also sometimes fought a duel for another whom I considered wronged. Anyhow, duelling at that time and out there was the order of the day, and it happened more than once that I had two appointments for one morning. Oh, there is a great deal that’s attractive in duelling, especially with swords. You will, however, understand that now I would not do that sort of thing, even though the occasion for it were just as serious as in those days . . . just come here, Max—no, do not catch that insect—come here! Listen to me, you must never catch butterflies. That poor little thing has first crawled about quite a long time on a tree as a caterpillar; that wasn’t at all a jolly life! Now it has just got wings, and wants to fly about a little in the air, and enjoy itself, and look for food in the flowers, and it harms no one . . . look, isn’t it much nicer to see it flutter about like this?”
And so the conversation passed from duels to butterflies, then to the mercy of the just man towards his beasts, to the teasing and torturing of animals, to the loi Grammont, to the National Assembly that passed this law, to the Republic, and goodness knows what else!
At last Havelaar rose. He excused himself to his guests, as he had business to attend to. When the next day the Controller called at his office, that officer was not aware that the new Assistant-Resident, after the conversation in the front veranda on the previous day, had ridden out to Parang-Koodyang—the district of the “outrageous abuses”—and had only returned thence early that morning.
I would ask the reader to believe that Havelaar was too well-mannered to talk so much at his own table as I have made it appear in the last chapters, as though he had monopolized the conversation with a complete neglect of his duties as a host, which surely prescribed that he should leave or afford his guests the opportunity of “coming forward.” I have taken a couple of haphazard instances, from the mass of material before me, and might have continued the table-talks a great deal longer, with less difficulty than it gave me to cut them short. I trust, however, that what has been described will be sufficient to justify to some extent the outline I gave earlier of Havelaar’s nature and qualities, and that the reader will follow, not without some sympathetic interest, the adventures that awaited him and his at Rangkas-Betoong.
The small family lived quietly. Havelaar was often out in the daytime, and spent half the nights in his office. The relation between him and the Commandant of the small garrison was of the pleasantest, and also in the family intercourse with the Controller there was not a trace of the differentiation made on the score of rank, which otherwise in India so often renders the relations stiff and tedious. To the Regent, Havelaar’s love of giving assistance where it was possible was often a most welcome relief, and there was no doubt he was well pleased with his “elder brother.” Finally, the sweetness of Mrs. Havelaar was no small contribution to a most agreeable intercourse with the few Europeans in the place and with the Native Chiefs. The official correspondence with the Resident at Serang bore evidence of mutual friendliness, and the orders of the Resident were carried out with a conscientiousness equal to the courtesy with which they were given.
Tine’s household was soon placed on a proper footing. After a long wait the furniture arrived from Batavia, ketimons were pickled, and when Max told any stories at the table it was no longer now for want of eggs for an omelette, although the living of the small family continued to show evidences that the intended economy was scrupulously practised.
Mrs. Slotering rarely left her house, and only took tea with the Havelaars in the veranda a few times. She spoke little, and always continued to keep a watchful eye on everyone who approached her own or Havelaar’s house. They had, however, become accustomed to what they had begun to call her monomania, and soon took no more notice of it.
Everything seemed to breathe a spirit of peace, for to Max and Tine it was comparatively a trifle to accommodate themselves to the privations unavoidable at an inland post remote from the main road. As no bread was baked at the place, they ate no bread. They might have ordered it from Serang, but the cost of carriage would have been too high. Max knew as well as anyone that there were various means of having bread brought to Rangkas-Betoong without paying for it, but unpaid labour, that cancer of India, was an abomination to him. There were many things like this which, at Lebak, were obtainable by the undue exercise of authority, but not for sale at a reasonable price, and under such conditions Havelaar and his Tine submitted willingly to the absence of them. Had they not experienced worse privations? Had not the poor woman spent months on board an Arab vessel, without other couch than the ship’s deck, without other shelter from the sun’s heat and the showers of the west monsoon than a small table between the legs of which she had to stick tight? Had she not in that vessel been compelled to be satisfied with a small ration of dry rice and dirty water? And had she not in those and many other circumstances always been contented, so long as she might only be together with her Max?
Yet there was one circumstance at Lebak which caused her vexation: little Max could not play in the garden because there were so many snakes in it. When she became aware of this and complained of it to Havelaar, he offered the servants a reward for every snake they would catch, but already in a few days he paid so much in premiums that he had to cancel his promise for the future, for even in ordinary circumstances, and without the present urgent necessity of economy, these payments would soon have outrun his means. So it was decided that in future little Max was not to leave the house, and that for fresh air he was to content himself with playing in the front veranda. In spite of this precaution Tine was still anxious all the time, and particularly in the evening, as it is well known how often snakes will crawl into the houses and conceal themselves for warmth in the bedrooms.
It is true, one finds snakes and similar vermin everywhere in India, but at the larger head-centres, where the populations live close together, they are of course more rarely found than in the wilder regions, such as Rangkas-Betoong. If, however, Havelaar could have decided to have his grounds cleared of weeds to the edge of the ravine, the snakes, though no doubt still appearing from time to time in the garden, would never have been found in such numbers as now. The nature of snakes makes them prefer darkness and shelter to the light of open spaces; therefore, had Havelaar’s grounds been kept in proper order, these reptiles would only have left the scrub of the ravine unintentionally when losing their way. But Havelaar’s grounds were not kept in proper order, and I must give the reasons for this, as they afford a further insight into the abuses that prevail almost universally in Netherlands India.
The houses of the Commandants in the interior stand in grounds belonging to the community, in so far as one may speak of communal property in a country where the Government appropriates everything. Suffice it to say that these grounds do not belong to the official occupant himself. The latter would, if this were the case, be careful not to buy or hire grounds of which the maintenance exceeded his means. Now whenever the land belonging to the house reserved for him is too large to be kept in proper order, it is, in the midst of the luxurious vegetation of the tropics, liable in a short space of time to become a wilderness. And yet one rarely or never sees such land in a neglected condition. The traveller even is often amazed at the beautiful park around a Residency. No official in the interior has enough income to have the requisite labour performed for proper payment, and as nevertheless a dignified appearance is indispensable for the residence of the officer in authority, so that the population, so much impressed by external show, may not find in neglect a reason for contempt, the question arises: how then is the end achieved? In most places these officers have the use of a chain-gang, i.e., of criminals sentenced elsewhere; this form of labour, however, was, for more or less valid reasons of a political character, not available at Bantam. But even in places where there are such convicts, their number, especially in view of the need of labour for other purposes, is rarely proportionate to the work that would be required for the proper maintenance of large grounds. Other means, therefore, have to be devised, and the summoning of labourers for the performance of master-service lies at hand. The Regent or the Dhemang who receives a summons of this kind hastens to respond to it, for he knows only too well that afterwards it would be difficult for the officer who so abuses his authority to punish a native Chief for a similar fault. And so the one’s offence becomes the other’s licence.
Yet it seems to me that in some cases faults of this kind on the part of an officer must not be judged too severely, and especially not according to European conceptions. For the population itself would—perhaps from habit—think it very strange if always and in every case he kept strictly to the regulations which prescribe the number of those liable to statute labour intended for his grounds, as circumstances may crop up which were not foreseen in framing these regulations. But once the limit is exceeded of what is strictly legal, it becomes difficult to fix a point where such excess becomes criminal tyranny, and the greatest circumspection is the more necessary as one knows that the Chiefs are only waiting for a bad example to follow it to an outrageous extent. The story of a certain King who would not allow neglect of payment for even one grain of salt which he had taken with his frugal meal when at the head of his army he passed through the country, because, he said, this would be the beginning of an injustice which at last would ruin his whole empire, that story or fable must be of Asiatic origin, whether the said King was called Timoorlenf or Nooreddin or Jengis Khan. And just as the sight of sea-dykes suggests the possibility of floods, one may assume that there is a tendency to such abuses in a country where such lessons are conveyed in story or fable.
Now the small number of people whom Havelaar had legally at his disposal could only keep a very little portion of his grounds in the immediate proximity of the house free from weeds and undergrowth. The remainder was, in a few weeks’ time, a complete wilderness. Havelaar wrote to the Resident about some means of making better provision, either by an allowance or by recommending to the Government that, as in other places, chain-gangs should be detached for labour in the Residency of Bantam. He received an unfavourable reply, with the remark that, as he well knew, he had the right to arrange that the persons sentenced by him in the Police Court to “labour on the public roads” be put to work in his grounds. Of course Havelaar knew this, or at any rate he was well enough acquainted with the fact that such disposal of condemned offenders was everywhere looked upon as the most natural thing in the world; but he had never, neither at Rangkas-Betoong, nor at Amboina, nor at Menado, nor at Natal, wished to make use of this presumed right. It was repellent to his feelings to have his garden kept in order as a penance for small offences, and often he had asked himself how the Government could allow regulations to continue in existence which might tempt the officer to punish petty, excusable misdemeanours, in proportion not to their magnitude, but to the condition or the extent of his grounds. The very thought that the condemned man, even when justly punished, might imagine that there lurked self-interest in the sentence passed, made him, when he had to punish, always give the preference to imprisonment, however objectionable otherwise.
And so it was that little Max was not allowed to play in the garden, and that Tine did not enjoy the flowers so much as she had anticipated on the day of her arrival at Rangkas-Betoong.
It is self-evident that this and similar little vexations had no influence on the frame of mind of a household that possessed so much material for building itself a happy home-life, and it was certainly not attributable to such trifles that Havelaar sometimes came home with a clouded mien, on returning from an official journey, or after hearing someone or other who had requested an audience. We heard from his address to the Chiefs that he meant to do his duty, that he meant to resist injustice, and I also trust that from the conversations I have recorded the reader has learnt to know him as a man well able to get at the bottom of a thing, and bring to light that which was hidden from the sight of some others. It might therefore be supposed that not much of what happened in Lebak would escape his notice. Then, too, we have seen that many years earlier he had had his eyes on that division, so that on the very first day, when Verbrugge met him in the pendoppo where my story begins, he showed that he was no stranger in his new sphere of work. By investigation on the actual spot he had found confirmed many things which formerly he suspected, and above all from the archives it had become evident to him that the province of which the administration had been entrusted to his care was really in a most deplorable condition.
From letters and notes of his predecessor he found that this officer had made the same observations. The correspondence with the Chiefs contained reproach upon reproach, threat upon threat, and made it quite credible that in the end the former Assistant-Resident should have said, as was reported, that he would address himself direct to the Government if this state of affairs were not put a stop to.
When Verbrugge had informed Havelaar of this, the latter had answered that his predecessor would have acted very wrongly if he had done so, as in any case the Assistant-Resident of Lebak had no right to pass by the Resident of Bantam, and he had added that also it would not have been in any way justified, as surely it could not be thought that so highly placed an officer would take the side of exploitation and extortion.
And such taking sides was indeed not to be assumed in the sense suggested by Havelaar: that is to say, not as if the Resident were to derive some advantage or gain from those offences. But yet there was undoubtedly a reason which made him most reluctant in doing justice with regard to the complaints of Havelaar’s predecessor. We have seen how this predecessor had repeatedly spoken to the Resident about the existing abuses—aboucher, as Verbrugge said—and how little this had availed. It is therefore not without interest to inquire why so highly placed an official, who as head of the entire residency was bound as much as, nay more than, the Assistant-Resident to see that justice was done, nearly always judged that there were reasons to arrest the course of justice.
Already at Serang, when Havelaar stayed there at the house of the Resident, he had spoken to the latter about the abuses at Lebak, and received the reply that this was more or less the case everywhere. This, of course, Havelaar could not deny. For who would pretend that he had ever seen a country where nothing wrong happened? But he held that this was no reason to allow abuses to continue where one found them, especially not when one was emphatically called upon to resist them; also that, after all he knew of Lebak, there was here no question of more or less, but of an excessive degree; to which the Resident replied amongst other things that in the Division Tjiringheen, also belonging to Bantam, it was still worse.
Now if one accepts, as one may accept, that a Resident derives no direct advantage from extortion and from arbitrary disposal of the population, the question arises: what then induces so many, contrary to honour and duty, to allow such abuses to exist, without acquainting the Government with the fact? And he that reflects on this question must find it particularly strange that one so calmly recognizes the existence of these abuses, as though it were a matter outside reach or competency. I will endeavour to unfold the causes of this.
In general the very task of carrying evil tidings is an unpleasant one, and it really seems as though something of the unfavourable impression they make sticks to him to whose share falls the vexatious duty of communicating such tidings. Now if this fact alone has been proved a sufficient reason for some people to deny, against their better knowledge, the existence of anything unfavourable, how much more must this be the case when one runs the risk, not only of incurring the disfavour which unfortunately appears to be the reward of the carrier of bad news, but of being actually looked upon as the cause of the unfavourable condition which one’s duty compels one to reveal!
The Government of Netherlands India writes for preference to its masters in the motherland that everything goes well. The Residents like to report this to the Government. The Assistant-Residents, who in their turn receive hardly anything but favourable statements from their Controllers, prefer, for their part also, to send no disagreeable tidings to the Residents. From this an artificial optimism is born in the official and written dealings with affairs, contrary not only to the truth, but also to the opinion held by those optimists themselves, as that opinion appears whenever they treat those affairs orally, and—stranger still!—often even in contradiction of their own written reports. I could quote many instances of Reports which spoke in the most superlative terms of the favourable conditions in a Residency, but which in the same breath, especially when the figures were allowed to speak, gave themselves the lie. These instances would, if the matter were not so serious in view of the ultimate consequences, give cause for laughter and ridicule, and one can only be amazed at the naïveté with which often in such a case the crassest untruths were maintained and accepted, though the writer himself, a few sentences further on, offered the weapons with which to defeat these lies. I shall confine myself to one single example, which, however, I could multiply manifold. Among the documents before me I find the annual Report of a residency. The Resident speaks in glowing terms of the flourishing trade, and asserts that in the whole province the greatest prosperity and industrial activity are to be observed. A little lower down, however, speaking of the slender means at his disposal for circumventing smugglers, he immediately wishes to remove the disagreeable impression that would be made on the Government by the conclusion drawn that in this residency a good deal of customs duty must then be evaded. “No,” he says, “there is no need to fear this; little or nothing is smuggled into my residency, for . . . there is so little doing in these parts, that no one would risk his capital in commerce” ! ! !
I have read a similar Report beginning with the words: “During the past year the peace of the district has remained peaceful.” Such sentences certainly bear witness to a very peaceful conviction that an indulgent Government wishes to enjoy the peace ensured by all those who spare it unpleasant tidings, or who, as they put it: “do not embarrass it with vexatious Reports”!
Where the population does not increase, the fact is attributed to the inexactitude of the enumerations of previous years. Where the revenue from taxation does not rise, one counts it a merit: the intention is by low assessments to encourage agriculture, which is just now beginning to develop, and will soon—for preference when the writer of the Report shall have left the district—yield incredible results. Where disturbances have taken place that cannot be concealed, they were the work of a few ill-disposed persons who in future need no longer be feared, as now there is general contentment. Where distress or famine has thinned the population, it was the result of crop-failure, drought, heavy rains, or something of the kind, but never of bad government.
Before me lies the note of Havelaar’s predecessor wherein he ascribed “the departure of people from the district of Parang-Koodyang to outrageous abuses.” This note was un-official, and contained matter on which that officer had to speak to the Resident of Bantam. But in vain did Havelaar search the archives for evidence that his predecessor had plainly and frankly called the same matter by its true name in a public service-minute.
Briefly put, the official Reports from the officials to the Government, and therefore also those based on them to the Government in the motherland, are for the greater and principal part untrue.
I know that this is a grave charge, but I stand by it, and am in a position to support it with proofs. Anyone who may feel vexed at my expressing my opinion without disguise should remember how many millions of money and how many human lives England would have been spared if someone in that country had succeeded in opening the eyes of the nation to the true state of affairs in British India, and how much gratitude everyone would have owed to the man who had shown the courage to be the Job’s messenger, before it was too late to redress the wrong in a less sanguinary manner than meanwhile became inevitable.
I said I could prove my charge. Where necessary, I shall show that often there was famine in districts that were praised as examples of prosperity, and that frequently a population which was reported to be peaceful and contented was on the point of bursting out into raging rebellion. It is not my intention to supply these proofs in this book, although I trust that no one will lay it down without believing that they exist.
For the moment I will confine myself to one more example of the absurd optimism of which I have spoken, an example which anyone, be he au fait with the affairs of India or not, will readily understand.
Every Resident supplies monthly a statement of the amount of rice imported into his province, or exported therefrom. Now when one takes note of the quantity of rice transported according to these joint statements from residencies in Java to residencies in Java, one will find that this quantity amounts to many thousands of pikols more than the rice which, according to the same joint statements, is imported into residencies in Java from residencies in Java.
I shall for the present be silent about the opinion one must inevitably conceive of the insight of a Government that accepts such statements and publishes them, and only wish to draw the reader’s attention to the object of this falsity.
The percentage reward to European and native officials for products that are to be sold in Europe had so pushed rice-culture into the background that in some regions famine occurred which could not be juggled away from the sight of the nation. I have already said that then instructions were issued to the effect that things must not again be allowed to go quite so far. Among the many consequences of these instructions were also the statements I have referred to of imports and exports of rice, so that the Government might constantly keep an eye on the fluctuating ebb and flow of that article of food. Export from a residency represents prosperity, Import, relative want.
Now when one examines and compares those statements, they seem to show that rice is everywhere so abundant that all the residencies together export more rice than all the residencies together import. I repeat that in this there is no question of Imports and Exports oversea, the statement of which is a separate one. The conclusion then is the interesting thesis that in Java there is more rice than there is. That surely is prosperity!
I have said already that the wish never to send other than good reports to the Government would reach the ridiculous, if the results of it all were not so tragic. For what improvement may be hoped with regard to so much wrong, if there is a predetermined purpose to twist and distort everything in those reports to the Government? What, for instance, may be expected from a population which, by nature gentle and submissive, has for years upon years complained of oppression, when one Resident after another is seen to retire on furlough or pension, or called away to another office, without the slightest thing being done to redress the grievances under which that population is bowed down? Will not the bent spring in the end recoil? Will not the long suppressed discontent—suppressed in order that one may continue to deny its existence—at last pass to rage, to despair, to madness? Is there not in sight, at the end of this road, a Jacquerie?
And where will then the officials be who for so many years have succeeded one another without ever striking the idea that there is something higher than the favour of Government? Something higher than the “approbation of the Governor-General”? Where then will they be, the writers of cowardly Reports who blind the eyes of Government with their untruths? Will they, who previously lacked the courage to put on paper a resolute word, now suddenly gird on the sword, and save the Dutch possessions for the Netherlands? Will they return to the Netherlands the treasure that will be required to quell insurrection, to prevent complete revolution? Will they bring back to life the thousands that will have fallen through their guilt?
And those officials, those Controllers and Residents, are not the most guilty. It is the Government itself, which, as though struck with incomprehensible blindness, encourages, invites, and rewards the tendering of favourable Reports. And this is particularly the case where there is a question of oppression of the population by native Chiefs.
Many attribute the protection of the Chiefs to the ignoble calculation that the latter, having to display pomp and splendour in order to exercise over the population that influence which the Government needs to uphold its authority, would require for this a much higher remuneration than they receive now, if they were not left the liberty to supplement the deficiency by unlawful disposal of the possessions and the labour of the people. However this may be, certain it is that the Government applies the instructions which are said to protect the Javanese against extortion and robbery only when such application is unavoidable. Most frequently a reason is found in considerations of high policy transcending ordinary judgment, and often evolved from the imagination, to spare this Regent or that Chief; and indeed it is in India an opinion which has almost become a proverb, that the Government would rather dismiss ten Residents than one Regent. And those pretended political reasons, if having any foundation at all, are usually based on false information, as every Resident is personally interested in giving an exalted impression of the influence of his Regents over the population, so that he may some day shield himself with it if remarks should be made about too great an indulgence towards those Chiefs.
I will for the present pass over the abominable hypocrisy of the humane-sounding instructions—and of the oaths!—which protect the Javanese . . . on paper . . . against tyranny, and invite the reader to remember how Havelaar, in repeating those oaths, acted in a manner that suggested contempt. For the moment I will only point to the difficult position of a man who, in an entirely different sense than by virtue of a spoken formula, considers himself bound by his duty.
For Havelaar this difficulty was greater even than it would have been in the case of some others, because his nature was gentle, in entire contradiction to his penetration, which the reader will by now have discovered to have been uncommonly keen. He, therefore, had not only to wrestle with the fear of men or with anxiety about his career and promotion, nor merely with the duties devolving on him as a husband and father, he had to conquer an enemy in his own heart. He could not without suffering see sorrow; it would take too long to give examples of the manner in which he would protect an opponent against himself even where he had been injured and insulted. He told Duclari and Verbrugge how in his youth he had found something alluring in sword-duelling, which was the truth . . . but he did not add how, after wounding his antagonist, he would be moved to tears, and would, like a sister of mercy, tend his former enemy until he had recovered. I might relate how at Natal, when a chained convict had fired on him, he called the man before him, spoke kindly to him, had him fed and given more liberty than the others, because he fancied he had discovered that the exasperation of this prisoner was the result of too severe a sentence elsewhere passed. It was usual for the gentleness of his heart to be either denied or thought ridiculous. Denied by those who confounded his heart with his mind. Thought ridiculous by those who could not understand how a sensible person could take trouble to save a fly that had become entangled in a spider’s web. Denied again then by everyone—except Tine—who after this heard him abusing those “stupid insects” and “stupid nature” that created such insects.
But there was still another way of dragging him down from the pedestal on which those around him—whether they liked him or not—felt morally compelled to place him. “Yes, he is witty; but . . . his wit is volatile”; or “He is intellectual, but . . . he does not use his intellect to any sensible purpose,” or “ Yes, he is kind-hearted, but . . . he parades his kind-heartedness!”
I have no wish to take sides about his wit or his intellect. But his heart? Poor struggling flies which he saved when there was no one near, will you not defend his heart against the charge of “parading”? But you have flown away, and have not troubled about Havelaar, you who could not know that some day he would be in need of your testimony!
Was it “parading” on Havelaar’s part, when at Natal he jumped into the river-estuary after a dog named Sappho, because he feared that the animal, still a pup, could not yet swim well enough to escape the sharks which are so numerous there? It seems to me more difficult to believe in such “parading” of kind-heartedness than in the kind-heartedness itself.
I summon you, the many who have known Havelaar, if you are not frozen by winter cold and death, like the rescued flies, or withered in the heat yonder on the Line! I summon you to bear witness to his heart, all you that have known him! Now especially do I summon you with confidence, as you have no need now to look where the block must be hooked in to drag him down from whatever little height!
Meanwhile, however patchy it may seem, I will here make room for some lines from his hand, which may perhaps render such testimony superfluous. Max was once far, very far from wife and child. He had been compelled to leave her behind in India, and was in Germany. With the mental quickness which I attribute to him, and which I am ready to defend if anyone should wish to assail it, he had mastered the language of the country where he had been some months. Here are the lines,[5] which at the same time paint the devotion that bound him to those belonging to him:—
The night wind murmurs, and the air grows cool,
Perhaps too cool for you; your forehead glows!
All day you have been busy with wild games;
You must be tired: come now, your Tekar[6] waits.”
—“O, mother, leave me a few moments yet!
It is so cosy resting here . . . and there,
Inside upon my mat, I sleep at once,
And know not even what I’m dreaming! Here
I straightway whisper to you what I dream,
And ask you what may be the meaning . . . hark,
What was that sound?
—“A klappa[7] that fell down.”
—“And does that hurt the klappa?”
—“I think not,
For neither fruit nor stone, they say, have feeling.”
—“But has not even a flower feeling?”
—“No,
They say it has no feeling.”
—“Why then, mother,
When yesterday I broke the Pukul ampat,[8]
You said: that makes the lovely flower feel pain?”
—“My child, the Pukul ampat was so fair,
You roughly tore apart the tender leaves,
I felt quite sorry for the gentle flower.
E’en though the flower itself may feel it not,
I felt it for the flower that was so fair.”
—“But, mother, are you also fair?”
—“No, child,
I think not.”
—“But then you have feeling, surely.”
—“Yes, men have feeling . . . but not all alike.”
—“Can anything give you pain? Does it hurt you
When in your lap my head rests heavily?”
—“No, that gives me no pain!”
—“And, mother, I . . .
Have I too feeling?”
—“Certainly! Remember
How once you tripped, and falling on a stone,
You hurt your little hand, and cried aloud.
And once again you wept when Saudeen[9] told you
That yonder in the hills a little lamb
Fell in a deep ravine, and died alone.
Then flowed your tears a long time . . . that was feeling.”
—“But, mother, is then feeling pain?”
—“Yes, often!
And yet not always, sometimes not! You know,
When little sister catches at your hair
And crows, her little face squeezed against yours,
Then you laugh merrily, that’s also feeling.”
—“And little sister then . . . she cries so often:
Is that for pain? Has then she also feeling?”
—“Perhaps, my child, but that we do not know,
For she is yet too small to tell us it.”
—“But, mother . . . listen! what was that?”
—“A deer
Belated in the woods, and hurrying now
To find its home again, and there to rest
With other deer it loves and longs for.”
—“Mother,
Has such a deer like me a little sister?
And mother also?”
—“I don’t know, my child.”
—“That would be sad, if it were not so, mother!
But, over there . . . what gleams there in the shrubs?
See how it hops and flits . . . is that a spark?”
—“It is a firefly.”
—“May I try to catch it?”
—“You may, but the small creature is so soft,
You surely then will hurt it, and as soon
As all too roughly with your hand you touch it,
The poor thing sickens, dies, and gleams no more!”
—“That were a pity! No, I shall not catch it!
See, now it disappears . . . no, it comes this way . . .
But I won’t catch it! Now it flies away,
And is quite joyful that I have not caught it.
There, high it goes! . . . High up there . . . what is that,
Are those too, yonder, little fireflies?”
—“Those
Are stars.”
—“Oh, count them! one, and ten, a thousand!
How many may there be?”
— “I cannot tell,
For no one yet has counted all the stars.”
—“Say, mother, does e’en He not count the stars?”
—“No, love, not even He.”
—“Is it far off
Up there where all the stars dwell?”
—“Very far!”
—“But have these stars, so high above us, feeling?
And would they, if I touched them with my hand,
At once too sicken, die, and lose their gleam,
Just as the little fly?—See, still it flutters!—
Say, would it also hurt the stars?”
—“Ah, no,
It would not hurt the stars! But your small hand
Could never reach so high, they dwell too far.”
—“And cannot His hand catch the distant stars?”
—“Not even His: not any being’s!”
—“Pity!
I’d love to give you one! When I grow up,
Then I shall love you, love you till I can!”
Of distant stars that with his hands he caught. . . .
Long still the mother slept not! But she dreamt,
She too, thinking of one far off. . . .
Yes, at the risk of writing a patchy book, I have here given a place to these lines. I wish to neglect no opportunity of making known the man who plays the leading rôle in my story, so that in the reader’s heart he may awaken some interest, when hereafter dark clouds gather above his head.
- ↑ A section of the Atchinese.
- ↑ A native council in Sumatra.
- ↑ Malay Chief.
- ↑ Dagger.
- ↑ In the Dutch version of Max Havelaar they appeared in German, the language in which Multatuli wrote them. For the benefit of English readers who do not know that language I have given them in English translation. Trsl.
- ↑ Small mat.
- ↑ Coco-nut.
- ↑ A flower that opens at 4 p.m. and closes at dawn.
- ↑ Name of a Malay.