Max Havelaar (Siebenhaar)/Chapter 16
Havelaar received a letter from the Regent of Tjanjor, telling him that he wished to pay a visit to his uncle the Adhipatti of Lebak. This was very unwelcome to him. He knew how the Chiefs in the Preanger Regencies were accustomed to display great luxury, and how the Tommongong of Tjanjor would not make such a journey without a retinue of hundreds of people who, with their horses, would all have to be housed and fed. He would therefore have gladly prevented this visit, but ponder as he would, he could not think of any means to stop it without hurting the feelings of the Regent of Rangkas-Betoong, who was very proud and would have felt deeply offended if his relative poverty had been adduced as a motive for not receiving the visit. And if that visit could not be avoided, it would infallibly lead to aggravation of the pressure that already weighed so heavily on the people.
It must be doubted whether Havelaar’s address had made a lasting impression on the Chiefs. With many this certainly was not the case, and he himself, indeed, had not expected it. But just as certain it was that in the villages a rumour had gone round that the toowan[1] who held authority at Rangkas-Betoong wished to do justice, and so, even if his words had missed the power to stop crime, they had undoubtedly given the victims of it the courage to complain, although this was only done timidly and secretly.
At eve they would crawl along the ravine, and when Tine was sitting in her room she was often startled by unexpected sounds, and through the open window she would see dark figures stealing past with timorous steps. Soon she no longer felt startled, for she knew what it meant when those figures wandered spectre-like about the house to seek the protection of her Max! Then she would beckon him, and he would rise to call the complainants before him. Most of them were from the district of Parang-Koodyang, where the Regent’s son-in-law was paramount Chief, and though that Chief doubtless did not neglect to take his portion of the extortions, yet it was known to all and sundry that he nearly always robbed in the name and on behalf of the Regent. It was touching to see how all those poor people trusted in Havelaar’s chivalry, and were convinced that he would not call them the next day to repeat publicly what the previous night or evening they had said in his room. For this, of course, would have meant ill-treatment for all of them, and death for many! Havelaar noted down what they had told him, and then ordered the complainants to go back to their villages. He promised that justice would be done, provided they did not rebel, or, as most of them intended, leave the district. Most often he was shortly afterwards at the place where the wrongs had been committed; indeed, frequently he had already been there and investigated the complaint, usually during the night, before even the complainant himself had been able to return to his home. In this way he visited, throughout this extensive division, villages at a twenty hours’ journey from Rangkas-Betoong, without either the Regent or even Controller Verbrugge knowing that he was absent from the head-centre. It was his intention in this manner to avert the danger of revenge that threatened the complainants, and at the same time to save the Regent the ignominy of a public inquiry, which, under the present Assistant-Resident, would certainly not, as before, have ended in a retraction of the complaint. So he still hoped that the Chiefs might turn from the dangerous road they had trodden so long, and in that case he would have contented himself with demanding indemnities for the victims of robbery . . . in so far as it was possible to make good the losses sustained.
But every time after again speaking to the Regent, he became more convinced that the promises of amendment were idle, and he was greatly distressed at the failure of his efforts.
We will now leave him for a while to this distress and to his difficult labour, in order to tell the reader the story of the Javanese Saïdyah in the dessah[2] of Badoor. I choose the name of this Javanese and of the village from Havelaar’s notes. In this story there will be question of extortion and robbery, and if, as regards the main tendency, anyone wishes to deny to a fiction the force of evidence, I give the assurance that I can supply the names of thirty-two persons in the district of Parang Koodyang alone, from whom in one month thirty-six buffaloes were forcibly taken on behalf of the Regent. Or, to be even more exact, that I can name thirty-two persons from that district who in one month had the courage to complain, and whose complaints Havelaar inquired into and found justified.
There are five such districts in the division of Lebak.
Now if anyone chooses to accept that the number of stolen buffaloes was less high in the places that had not the honour of being ruled by a son-in-law of the Adhipatti, I shall not insist on disputing the point, although the question is whether the insolence of other Chiefs may not have been based on grounds as solid as exalted kinship. For instance, the District-Chief of Tjelang-kahan, on the south coast, could, in the absence of a feared father-in-law, depend on the difficulty of lodging complaints which confronted poor people who had to travel from forty to sixty miles before at eve they could hide in the ravine next to Havelaar’s house. And if then also one remembers the many who started on the way and never reached that house . . . and the many who never even left their village, frightened by their own past experience or by the contemplation of the fate that befell other complainants, then I believe that one would be wrong in imagining that to multiply the number of stolen buffaloes in one district by five would yield too high a statistical measure of the total number of buffaloes stolen every month in the combined five districts in order to provide for the needs of the Court and dependants of the Regent of Lebak.
And it was not only buffaloes that were stolen, nor even was buffalo-theft the principal thing. There is, especially in India, where master-service still exists legally, a lesser amount of insolence required for unlawfully calling up the population to do unpaid labour than for stealing property. It is easier to make the people believe that the Government requires their labour without wishing to pay for it than that it would demand their buffaloes for nothing. And even if the timid Javanese dared inquire whether the so-called master-service which is exacted from him is in accordance with the instructions governing this institution, it would be impossible for him to get information that was of any use, as he could not obtain particulars with regard to the separate units of the population, and could not therefore calculate whether the prescribed numbers of persons had been ten or fifty times exceeded. If then the more dangerous and more readily detected buffalo-theft is carried out with such effrontery, what may one expect as regards the abuses that are more easily practised and less liable to detection?
I said that I should proceed to the story of the Javanese Saïdyah. First, however, I am obliged to make one of the digressions so difficult to avoid when describing conditions to which the reader is an entire stranger. And at the same time this will give me occasion to point to one of many obstacles that render it so very difficult for a non-Indian to form a correct opinion of Indian affairs.
I have repeatedly spoken of Javanese, and however natural this may appear to the European reader, yet to those at home in Java this name will have sounded wrong. The western residencies of Bantam, Batavia, Preanger, Krawang, and part of Cheribon, which are jointly called Soondahlands, are considered as not belonging to Java proper, and, leaving out of consideration that portion of the population of these regions which consists of strangers come from oversea, the original inhabitants themselves are indeed an entirely different race from the people in Middle-Java and the so-called eastern corner. Dress, national characteristics and language differ so entirely from those of the eastward that the Soondanese or Orang Goonoong[3] stands farther removed from the real Javanese than an Englishman from a Dutchman. Such differences often lead to lack of unanimity in judging of Indian affairs. For when Java alone is already so sharply divided into two dissimilar parts, without counting the many subdivisions of the main groups, one may get some idea of the wide distinction between tribes that live farther apart and are divided by the sea. He that only knows Netherlands India as Java can no more have a conception of the Malay, the Amboinese, the Battah, the Alfoor, the Timorese, the Dayak, the Booghie, or the Macassar than if he had never left Europe; and to anyone who has had opportunities of observing the differences between these races it is often amusing to hear the conversations, comical and disheartening at the same time to read the speeches, of persons who obtained their knowledge of Indian affairs at Batavia or Buitenzorg. Often have I been amazed at the courage with which, for instance, an ex-Governor-General in Parliament tried to give importance to his words by a pretended claim to local knowledge and experience. I attach a high value to science obtained by serious study in the library, and I have more than once been astonished at the extensive knowledge of Indian affairs exhibited by some people who never set foot on Indian soil. As soon as an ex-Governor-General gives evidence of having acquired such knowledge in that manner, we owe him the respect due to long, conscientious, and productive labour. We owe him greater respect even than to the student who has had to conquer fewer difficulties because, at a great distance without immediate contact, he has run less risk of falling into the errors that result from a defective contact such as must inevitably have come to an ex-Governor-General.
I said I was amazed at the courage displayed by some persons during the discussions of Indian affairs. For they know that their words are heard by others besides those who imagine that a couple of years spent at Buitenzorg are a sufficient qualification to know India. It must be known to them that those words are also read by persons who in India were witnesses to their incapacity, and who, like myself, are astounded at the temerity of a man who, quite recently engaged in the vain endeavour to cover up his inexperience under the high rank conferred on him by the King, now suddenly makes bold to speak as if he really had a knowledge of the affairs he discusses.
And indeed almost daily we hear complaints about incompetent interference. Almost every day this or that view of colonial policy is combated by denial of the competence of him who represents that view, and perhaps it would be worth while to institute a thorough inquiry as to the qualities that render a person competent to . . . judge competence. Most often an important question is tested, not by the subject it deals with, but by the value attached to the opinions of the man who speaks to it, and as this is most often the person who is accepted as a Specialist, and for choice “one who in India held such an important position,” it follows that the result of a vote usually has the colour of the errors that seem inevitably to belong to that “important position.” If this is already the case where the influence of such a specialist is but exercised by a member of Parliament, how much greater then must be the predisposition to warped judgment when such influence is coupled with the confidence of the King, who allowed himself to be coerced into placing such a specialist at the head of his Colonial Department.
It is a remarkable phenomenon, perhaps springing from a kind of inertia which fears to judge for itself, that people give their confidence with the greatest light-heartedness to persons who know how to create the impression of being possessed of superior knowledge, whenever such knowledge can only be drawn from sources not accessible to everyone. The cause may be that human self-esteem is less offended at having to acknowledge such superiority than in a case where one might have used the same resources, and where rivalry might therefore come into play. The representative of the people experiences no difficulty in relinquishing his opinion when it is combated by someone who may be considered to pass a better informed judgment than his, so long as such supposed better informed judgment cannot be ascribed to personal superiority—the acknowledgment of which would be harder—but to nothing more than the special circumstances of which such an opponent has had the advantage.
And apart from those “who filled such high positions” in India, it is indeed strange how often people attribute value to the opinions of persons who possess nothing to justify such attribution except the “memory of so many years spent in those lands.” This is the more peculiar, since the same people who attach value to that class of argument would probably be the last to accept anything they were told, say, about Dutch political economy on the strength of a forty or fifty years’ residence in Holland. There are persons who spent nearly as many years in Netherlands India without ever having come in contact either with the population or with the native Chiefs, and it is pitiful to reflect that the Council of India is often entirely or largely composed of such persons, indeed that means have been found to persuade the King to sign the appointments as Governor-General of men belonging to this kind of specialists.
When I said that the supposed ability of a newly appointed Governor-General should be considered as including the opinion that he was taken to be a genius, it was in no way my intention to recommend the appointment of geniuses. For in addition to the objection that one would be repeatedly compelled to leave so important a position unfilled, there is another plea against such a proposal. A genius could not work under the Colonial Department, and would therefore be unemployable for the purpose . . . as geniuses are apt to be in so many cases.
It might perhaps not be undesirable that the principal defects enumerated by me in the form of a diagnosis should draw the attention of those who are called to choose successive new Governors-General. Giving first prominence to the requirement that all persons who are to receive consideration for the position should be right-minded and possessed of a comprehensive faculty enabling them to some extent to learn what they will have to know, I next consider it indispensable that we should, with some degree of confidence, be able to expect from them the avoidance of presumptuous pedantry at the outset, and particularly of the apathetic sleepiness that so often accompanies the concluding years of their administration. I have already referred to the fact that Havelaar, in his difficult duty, hoped to be able to rely on the support of the Governor-General, and I added that this hope was naive. That Governor-General was already expecting his successor: his peaceful retirement to Holland was at hand!
We shall see what consequences this tendency to sleepiness brought to the division of Lebak, to Havelaar, and to the Javanese Saïdyah, whose monotonous story, one of many! I shall presently relate.
Yes, monotonous it will be! Monotonous as the account of the drudgery of the ant that has to drag its contribution to the winter store to the top of a lump of earth, a mountain to the little insect, which lies on the way to the storehouse. Time upon time it falls back with its load, and every time tries again whether at last it can solidly plant its feet on the small stone up there . . . on the rock that crowns the mountain. But between it and that summit there is a precipice that has to be negotiated . . . a depth which not a thousand ants would fill. For this purpose the tiny creature, with scarcely the strength to drag along its load on level ground, a load many times heavier than its own body, has to raise that load above its head, and keep itself upright on a movable spot. It must keep its balance when rising upright with its load between its forefeet. It must swing the load upward slantwise, in order to allow it to come down on the point that juts out from the wall of the rock. It totters, staggers, starts, succumbs . . . tries to uphold itself by the half-uprooted tree whose crown points to the depth—a grass-blade!—it misses the footing it seeks: the tree swings back—the grass-blade gives way under its tread—alas! the drudge falls down the precipice with its load. Then it is still for a moment, quite a second . . . which is long in the life of an ant. Is it stunned by the pain of its fall? Or does it yield to some sorrow that so much exertion was vain? But it has not lost courage. Again it takes up the load, and again drags it upward, presently to fall once more, and still once more, down the precipice.
So monotonous is my story. But I shall not this time speak of ants, whose joy or sorrow, owing to the clumsiness of our senses, escapes our observation. I shall speak of human beings, of creatures who live and move like ourselves. It is true, those who shun emotion and wish to avoid the fatigue of pity, will say that those people are yellow, or brown—many call them black—and for such as those the difference of colour is a sufficient reason to turn their eyes away from such misery, or, if they do not cast a glance at it, to look down on it without emotion.
My story therefore is exclusively addressed to those who are capable of the difficult belief that hearts beat beneath that dark outer skin, and that he who is blessed with the possession of a white complexion and with the civilization, generosity, knowledge of business and of God, and virtue that inevitably go together with it . . . that he might apply his “white” qualities in another manner than has so far been experienced by those less blessed in complexion and soul-eminence.
My hope, however, of sympathy with the Javanese does not go so far as to make me expect that the description of the theft, in full daylight, of the last buffalo from the kendang,[4] theft without scruple, under protection of Dutch authority . . . the description of the owner and his weeping children following the animal as it is driven off . . . of that owner sitting down on the steps of the robber’s house, speechless and stunned and lost in sorrow . . . the description of him driven thence with insult and scorn, with the threat of rattan-strokes and the log-prison . . . ah, I do not demand, nor expect, my fellow-Dutchmen!—that such description will move you in like measure as it would if I sketched for you a Dutch peasant whose cow was taken from him. I ask for no tear to flow with the tears on such dark faces, no noble indignation when I shall speak of the despair of the robbed ones. Also I do not expect that you shall rise and go to the King with my book in your hand, and say: “See. O King, this is what happens in your Empire, in your beautiful Empire of Insulind!”
No, no, no, all this I do not expect! Too much suffering near you absorbs all your sympathy, for so much feeling to be left you for what is so far away! Are not all your nerves kept in extreme tension by the distressful task of choosing a new Member of Parliament? Is not your torn soul tossed between the world-renowned merits of Nonentity A and Nincompoop B? And do you not require your precious tears for more serious matters than . . . but what more need I say? Was not the Exchange depressed yesterday, and is not at this very moment a somewhat excessive supply threatening the coffee-market with a slump?
“For goodness’ sake don’t write such senseless things to your papa. Stern!” I said, and perhaps I said it a bit hotly, for I can’t bear untruth: that has always been a fixed principle with me. That evening I wrote at once to old Stern to make haste with his orders, and particularly to be on his guard against false rumours, for coffee-quotes are high.
The reader will realize what I have again had to bear in listening to the last chapters. I found in the children’s playroom a game of solitaire, which in future I shall take with me to the party. Wasn’t I right when I said that this Shawlman had made them all silly with his bundle? Can one, in all this scribbling of Stern’s—and Frits takes a hand also, that is quite certain!—recognize young people who are brought up in a genteel house? What are those stupid sallies against a disease that shows itself in longing for a country villa? Is that a hit at me? Am I not allowed to go to Driebergen, when Frits is a broker? And who ever talks of stomach-complaints in the presence of women and girls? It is a fixed principle with me always to remain calm—for I consider this useful in business—but I must admit that I often found it very difficult lately when hearing all the nonsense Stern reads out. What does he want? What will be the end of it? When will there at last be something solid? What do I care whether this fellow Havelaar keeps his garden tidy, and whether the people come into his house at the back or the front? At Busselinck & Waterman’s people go in through a narrow passage, next to an oil-warehouse, where it is always frightfully dirty. And then all that bother about those buffaloes! Why do they want buffaloes, those Blacks? I have never had a buffalo, and yet I live contented. There are people who are always complaining. And as to that throwing off at forced labour, it is easily seen that he has not heard the Reverend Twaddler’s sermon, otherwise he would know how useful that labour is for the spread of God’s Kingdom. But, of course, he is a Lutheran.
This is certain, if I could have guessed how he would write the book which is to be of such importance to all coffee-brokers—and others—I’d sooner have done it myself. But he gets support from the Rosemeyers, who are in sugar, and that’s what makes him so bold. I said straight out—for I am candid in things of this kind—that we could do perfectly well without the story of that Saïdyah, but then Louise Rosemeyer all at once set herself against me. It appears that Stern had told her that there would be something about love in it, and those girls are mad on that. However, that would not have put me off, only the Rosemeyers had told me they would like to get to know Stern's father. The idea is, of course, to get through the father at the uncle, who is in sugar. Now if I stand up too strongly for good sense against young Stern, I may create an impression that I want to draw them away from him, and that is in no way the case, for they are in sugar.
I don't in the least understand Stern’s object with his scribbling. There are always discontented people, and surely it is not nice of him, when he enjoys so many benefits in Holland—only this week my wife made him some camomile-tea—to abuse the Government! Does he wish in that way to stimulate the general discontent? Does he want to become Governor-General? He is conceited enough for that . . . I mean to want to. I asked him this the day before yesterday, and told him candidly that his Dutch was still so very deficient! “Oh, that is no difficulty,” he answered. “It appears to be the exception that a Governor-General is sent out there who understands the language of the country.” What on earth can I do with such a wiseacre? He has not the slightest respect for my experience. When I told him this week that I had been a broker these seventeen years, and had been on ’Change for twenty years, he quoted Busselinck & Waterman, who have been brokers for eighteen years, and, he said, “they therefore have one year more experience.” And there he had me, for I have to admit, as I am wedded to the truth, that Busselinck & Waterman know little about the business, and that they are tricksters.
Marie is also getting wrong-headed. Just fancy, this week—it was her turn to read aloud at breakfast, and we had got to the story of Lot—she suddenly stopped and refused to read on. My wife, who is just as keen on religion as I, tried with gentleness to persuade her to be obedient, as of course it is not proper for a modest girl to be so self-willed. All in vain! Then I, as her father, had to scold her with great severity, as her obstinacy disturbed the edification of breakfast, a thing which always reacts badly on the whole day. But nothing was any use, and she went so far as to say that she would rather be struck dead than read on. I punished her with three days’ detention in her room with nothing but coffee and bread, and I trust it will do her good. In order that the punishment might at the same time tend to her moral improvement, I ordered her to copy out the chapter she would not read, ten times, and that I proceeded to such severity was more particularly because I have noticed that latterly—I don’t know whether this comes from Stern—she has taken ideas into her head that appear to me dangerous to morality, on which my wife and I are so specially keen. Amongst other things I have heard her sing a French song—by Béranger, I believe—in which a poor old beggar-woman who in her youth sang on the stage is pitied; and yesterday she came to breakfast without stays on—Marie, I mean—which surely is not respectable.
I also must admit that Frits has not brought home much good from the prayer-meeting. I was fairly satisfied with his quiet behaviour in sitting still in Church. He never stirred, never turned his eyes away from the pulpit; but I learnt afterwards that Betsy Rosemeyer was sitting in the chancel. I said nothing about it, for one must not be too severe with young people, and the Rosemeyers are a respectable firm. They gave their eldest daughter, when she married Bridgeman who is in drugs, a nice little bit, and I believe therefore that this kind of thing keeps Frits away from the Westermarket, which pleases me greatly, as I am so keen on morality.
But this does not prevent my being vexed at seeing Frits hardening his heart, like Pharaoh, who really was less guilty than he, as he had no father who was always showing him the right way, for the Scriptures say nothing about Pharaoh Senior. The Reverend Twaddler complains about his conceit—I mean Frits’s conceit—at the confirmation class, and the boy seems to have dug up, out of that bundle of Shawlman’s again!—an amount of wiseacredom that drives conscientious old Twaddler mad. It is quite touching how the worthy man, who often takes luncheon with us, tries to work on Frits’s feelings, and how the young rascal has always fresh questions ready, showing the refractoriness of his heart . . . it all comes from that accursed bundle of Shawlman’s! With tears of feeling rolling down his cheeks, the zealous servant of the Evangels seeks to persuade him to renounce man-made wisdom, and to be introduced to the mysteries of God's wisdom. With gentle and tender language he beseeches him not to reject the bread of eternal life, and so to fall into the clutches of Satan, who dwells with his angels in the fire which has been prepared for him unto all eternity. “Oh!” he said yesterday—I mean Twaddler—“oh, my young friend, do open your eyes and your ears, and hear and see what the Lord gives you to see and to hear from my lips. Mark the testimony of the Saints who died for the true faith! Observe Saint Stephen, as he sinks under the cobblestones that crush him! See how his eye still seeks heaven, and how his tongue still sings psalms. . .”
“I’d rather have thrown some back at them!” Frits said. Reader, what am I to do with that boy?
A moment after Twaddler started again, for he is a zealous servant, and does not desist from his labours. “Oh!” he said, “my young friend, do open . . .” the introduction was the same as before. “But,” he continued, “can you remain insensible to the reflection of what must become of you if once you are counted among the goats on the left side . . .”
Here the rapscallion burst out into loud laughter—I mean Frits—and Marie also began to laugh. I even thought I traced something like a laugh on my wife’s face. But now I thought it time to support Twaddler, and I punished Frits with a fine from his money-box to be paid to the Mission Society.
Alas, reader, all this moves me deeply. And how can I, suffering these pangs, amuse myself listening to stories about buffaloes and Javanese? What is a buffalo compared with the salvation of Frits? What concern of mine are the affairs of those far-off people, when I fear that Frits by his unbelief will ruin my own affairs, and that he will never be a solid broker? For Twaddler himself has said that God ordains everything in such manner that orthodoxy leads to wealth. “Just see,” he said, “is there not much wealth in Holland? That is the result of faith. Is there not in France continually murder and manslaughter? That is because there they are Catholics. Are not the Javanese poor? They are heathens. The longer the Dutch are connected with the Javanese, the more wealth will there be here, and the more poverty yonder. It’s God’s will that it should be so!”
I am amazed at Twaddler’s insight into business. For it is the truth that I, who am strict in religion, see my business more prosperous every year, whilst Busselinck & Waterman, who trouble neither about God nor his commandments, will only remain tricksters all their lives. The Rosemeyers also, who are in sugar and have a Catholic maid-servant, had again recently to accept five shillings in the pound from a Jew who had gone bankrupt. The more I think of it, the more I am able to discover the inscrutable ways of God. Recently again it was found that thirty million guilders clear profit was made from the sale of products supplied by the heathen, and that did not even include what I made out of it and the many others who make a living by this business. Doesn’t it seem as if the Lord said: “Here are thirty millions for your belief”? Isn’t this clearly the hand of God, who makes the wicked man labour to save the just? Isn’t this a hint to continue in the right way? A hint to have much produced over there, and to persist here in the true faith? Isn’t it therefore said: “Pray and work,” so that we should pray, and have the work done by all the black rabble that knows nothing of “Our Father”?
Oh! how right is Twaddler when he calls God’s yoke light! How light is the burden made for all those who believe! I am only in the forties, and could retire if I wished to, and go to Driebergen; and just see what others come to who forsake the Lord! Yesterday I saw Shawlman with his wife and little boy: they looked like ghosts. He is as pale as death, his eyes stick out, and his cheeks are hollow. His figure stoops, although he is even younger than I. She also was very shabbily dressed, and she seemed to have been crying again. Well, of course, I had at once noticed that she had a discontented nature, for I have only to see a person once to take his measure. That is the result of experience. She wore a short thin mantle of black silk, although it was pretty cold. Not a sign of a crinoline. Her light skirt hung slack around her knees, and at the edge there was a fringe. He didn’t even have his shawl now, and looked as if we were in mid-summer. And yet he still seems to possess a kind of pride, for he gave something to a poor woman who was sitting on the lock—Frits says bridge; but when the thing is stone without a wooden span, I call it a lock[5]—and anyone who has so little himself, and then still gives to another, commits a sin. Besides, I never give in the street, this is one of my principles; for I always say, when I see those poor people: Who knows but that it may be their own fault, and I should do wrong to encourage them in their perversity? On Sundays I give twice: once for the poor and once for the Church. That’s as it ought to be! I don’t know whether Shawlman saw me, but I went on quickly, and looked upward, and thought of the justice of God, who of course would not let him go about like this without a winter coat if he had behaved better and was not lazy, pedantic, and sickly.
Now as to my book, I really owe the reader an apology for the unpardonable manner in which Stern abuses our contract. I must admit that I look forward with a heavy heart to the next party and the love-story of that Saïdyah. The reader knows already what healthy ideas I have about love . . . you may remember my opinion about that excursion to the Ganges. That young girls find that kind of thing interesting, I can quite well understand; but to me it is inexplicable that men of a certain age can listen to such tomfoolery without disgust. I feel certain that during the next meeting I shall find the triolet of my solitaire-game.
I shall try to hear nothing about that Saïdyah, and I hope the man will soon get married, at least if he is the hero of the love-story. It is rather kind of Stern to have warned me in advance that it will be a monotonous story. As soon as he starts with something else I shall listen again. But all this condemnation of the Government bores me almost as much as love-stories. One can see in everything that Stern is young and has little experience. If one wishes to examine things properly, one has to see them at close quarters. When I was married, I was at The Hague myself, and visited the Maurits-house[6] with my wife. I was in touch there with every rank of Society, for I saw the State Treasurer driving by, and we bought flannel together in the Veene-street—I and my wife, I mean—and I did not anywhere see the least sign of dissatisfaction with the Government. The lady in the shop looked thriving and contented, and so when in 1848 some people tried to make us believe that at The Hague things were not all as they should be, I spoke my opinion about this dissatisfaction quite frankly at our party. I was given credit for knowing, for everyone was aware that I spoke from experience. And on the journey back the conductor on the stage-coach played on his horn the old song “Live gladly,” and surely the man would not have done this if there had been so much to complain of. In this way I took notice of everything, and therefore knew at once what to think of all this grousing in 1848.
Opposite us lives a woman whose nephew has a toko in the East: that’s what they call a shop over there. Now if everything was going as badly as Stern makes out, surely she would know something about it, and yet it appears that the woman is quite satisfied with business, for I never hear her complain. On the contrary, she says her nephew lives in a country villa there, and he is a member of the vestry, and he has sent her a peacock-feather cigar-case, which he made himself out of bamboo. All this, I should think, shows plainly how unfounded are all those complaints about bad Government. One may also see from it that anyone who will look after things may earn a good deal in that country, and that therefore this Shawlman even there was lazy, pedantic, and sickly, else he would not have returned so poor, and be now walking about here without a winter coat. And the nephew of that woman opposite is not the only one who has made a fortune in the East. In “Poland”[7] I see a good many men who have been there, and who are very well dressed indeed. But one thing is self-evident: one must look after things over there just as much as here. In Java also no roast pigeons will fly into a man’s mouth: one must work! He that does not wish to do this is poor and remains poor, that is obvious, and a good thing too.