Max Havelaar (Siebenhaar)/Chapter 4
Before I go any further, I must tell you that young Stern has arrived. He is a nice young fellow. He seems quick and capable, but I believe he is a dreamer. Mary is thirteen. His outfit is very neat. I have set him to work at the copying-book, so that he may get accustomed to the Dutch style. I am curious to see whether it will be long before there are orders from Ludwig Stern. Mary is going to work a pair of slippers for him . . . for young Stern, I mean. Busselinck & Waterman have got nothing for their trouble. A respectable broker does not scab, say I!
The day after the party at the Rosemeyers’, who are sugar people, I called Frits, and told him to bring me that parcel of Shawlman’s. You will please remember, reader, that in my family I strictly insist on religion and morality. Well, the evening before, just after I had peeled my first pear, I read on the face of one of the girls that there was something in that poem which was not quite as it should be. I had not listened to the thing, but I had noticed that Betsy crumbled her roll of bread, and that was enough for me. You will recognize, reader, that you are dealing with a man who knows what goes on in the world. I, therefore, got Frits to put that “fine piece” of the previous night before me, and I very soon found the line that had crumbled Betsy’s roll of bread. It mentions a child at the mother’s breast—that may pass—but: “scarce from the womb delivered,” you see that did not seem right to me—I mean, to mention such a thing—nor to my wife. Mary is thirteen. In our house we don’t speak of the cabbage or the stork, nor the gooseberry-bush; but to name the things so openly does not seem proper to me, as I am such a stickler for morality. I made Frits, who unfortunately already knew the thing “outwardly,” as Stern calls it, promise that he would never again recite it—at least not before he is a member of “Doctrina,” as no young girls are admitted there—and then I put it away in my desk; I mean the poem. But I felt that I ought to know whether there was anything else in the parcel that might give offence. So I searched and turned over the papers. I could not read it all, for there were languages in it which I did not understand; but suddenly my eye lighted on a packet of papers: “Report on coffee-growing in the Residency of Menado.”
My heart leapt up within me, as I am a coffee-broker—Laurier Canal, No. 37—and Menado is a good brand. So then this Shawlman, who wrote such immoral verses, had also been in coffee. This made me look at the parcel with different eyes altogether, and I found articles in it, all of which, it is true, I did not understand, but which showed a real knowledge of affairs. There were statements, quotations, calculations of figures that I could not make head or tail of, and all of it was worked out with such care and precision that, speaking frankly—for I love the truth—the idea occurred to me that Shawlman, should the third clerk at any time fail—which is quite on the cards, as he is getting old and feeble—might perfectly well take his place. It goes without saying that I should first have to obtain references as to his honesty, beliefs and respectability, for I will have no one in the office before I am assured on those points. This is a fixed principle with me, as you have seen in the case of my letter to Ludwig Stern.
I did not want to show Frits that I was in any way interested in the contents of the parcel, so I sent him away. It really made me giddy, when I took up one packet after another, and read the superscriptions. It is true, there were many poems among them, but I also found many useful things, and I was amazed at the diversity of the subjects. I must admit—for I love the truth—that I, who have always dealt in coffee, am unable to estimate the value of all these things; but even without such an estimate, the list of titles alone was quite remarkable. As I have told you the story of the Greek, you know already that in my youth I was somewhat latinized, and, however much in correspondence I may refrain from quoting—a habit which would be most unsuitable to a broker’s office—I could not help thinking, when I saw all this: “Multa, non multum” or: “de omnibus aliquid, de toto nihil.”
But this was really more the result of a kind of irritation, and of a certain impulse to address all this mass of learning in front of me with a Latin phrase, than that I truly meant it. For when I looked into some of the articles a little further, I had to admit that the writer appeared to be quite equal to his task, and even that his reasonings gave evidence of being very sound.
I found studies and essays on:
Sanscrit as the mother of the Teutonic languages.
Penal law on infanticide.
The Origin of the Nobility.
The difference between the conceptions of Infinite time and Eternity.
The theory of probability.
The book of Job. (I found another thing about Job, but that was in verse.)
Protein in the atmosphere.
Russian politics.
The vowels.
Solitary confinement.
The theses concerning the horror vacui.
The Desirableness of the abolition of penalties for libel.
The causes of the Dutch rebellion against Spain, arising not from the desire for religious or political liberty.
The perpetuum mobile, the squaring of the circle, and the root of rootless numbers.
The gravity of light.
The retrogression of civilization since the rise of Christianity. (What?!!)
Icelandic Mythology.
Rousseau’s “Émile.”
Civil law in commerce.
Sirius as the centre of a solar system.
Import Duties as ineffectual, improperly inquisitive, unjust and immoral. (I had never heard of this.)
Verse as the oldest language. (I don’t believe that.)
White ants.
The unnaturalness of Schools.
Prostitution in marriage. (This is a shameful piece of writing.)
Hydraulics in connection with rice-plantations.
The apparent preponderance of Western civilization.
Land-ownership, registration and stamp-duty.
Children’s books, fables and fairy-tales. (I’ll just read that, for he insists on truth.)
The middle-man in trade. (This doesn’t appeal to me at all. I believe he wants to do without brokers. However, I have put it by for the present, as there are one or two references in it which I can use for my book.)
Succession-duties, one of the best taxes.
The invention of chastity. (I don’t understand this.)
Multiplication. (This title sounds quite simple, but there are a good many things in this article that I had never thought of.)
The nature of a certain kind of French wit, a consequence of the poverty of the French language. (Quite true, I should say. Wit and poverty . . . he ought to know.)
The connection between the novels of August Lafontaine and consumption. (I’ll read this, for there are some books of this Lafontaine in the loft. But he says the influence doesn’t show until the second generation. My grandfather didn’t read.)
The power of England outside Europe.
The arbitrament of God in the middle ages, and now.
Arithmetic with the Romans.
Absence of poetry in musical composers.
Pietism, hypnotism and table-turning.
Infectious diseases.
Moorish architecture.
The force of prejudice, as evident from illnesses attributed to draught. (Have I not said that the list is most remarkable?)
German unity.
Longitude at sea. (I suppose at sea things are just as long as on the land.)
The duties of Government with regard to public forms of recreation.
Similarity between the Scottish and Frisian languages.
Prosody.
The beauty of the women of Nîmes and Arles, and an inquiry into the system of colonization of the Phœnicians.
Agrarian contracts in Java.
The power of suction in a new kind of pump.
The legitimate rights of dynasties.
National literature in the Javanese rhapsodists.
A new method of reefing.
Percussion, as applied to hand-grenades. (This article is dated 1847, i.e. before Orsini.)
The idea of honour.
The Apocrypha.
The laws of Solon, Lycurgus, Zoroaster, and Confucius.
Parental authority.
Shakespeare as an historian.
Slavery in Europe. (I don’t understand what he means by this. There is a good deal more like it!)
Screw-water-mills.
The sovereign right of pardon.
The chemical components of Ceylon cinnamon.
Discipline on merchantmen.
The opium concession in Java.
Regulations as to the sale of poisons.
The cutting of the Suez Canal, and its consequences.
Payment of land-rent in kind.
Coffee-planting in Menado. (This I have already referred to.)
The partition of the Roman Empire.
The Gemüthlichkeit of the Germans.
The Scandinavian Edda.
The duty of France, to establish for herself a counterpoise to England in the Indian Archipelago. (This was written in French, I don’t know why.)
Vinegar manufacture.
The homage paid to Schiller and Goethe in the German middle-class.
Man’s claims to happiness.
The right of rebellion against oppression. (This was in the Javanese language. I only got to know the title afterwards.)
Ministerial responsibility.
Some points in criminal law.
The right of a people to demand that the taxes they pay shall be applied for their use. (This again was in Javanese.)
The double A and the Greek Eta.
The existence of an impersonal God in the hearts of men. (An infamous lie!)
Style.
A constitution for the Empire of Insulind. (I have never heard of that Empire.)
The absence of ephelcoustics in our rules of grammar.
Pedantry. (I believe this article is written with a good deal of intimate knowledge.)
Europe’s debt to the Portuguese.
Forest-sounds.
Combustibility of water. (I think he must mean aqua fortis.)
The milk-sea. (I have never heard of it. It seems to be something in the vicinity of Banda.)
Seers and prophets.
Electricity as a motive power, without soft iron.
Ebb and flood of civilization.
Epidemic corruption in political households.
Privileged Trading Companies. (This contains one or two things that I require for my book.)
Etymology as an auxiliary to ethnological studies.
The bird’s-nest cliffs on Java's south coast.
The place where day commences. (I don’t understand this.)
Personal conceptions as a measure of responsibility in the moral world. (Absurd! He says everyone must be his own judge. Where would that lead us?)
Courtesy to women.
Verse-structure of the Hebrews.
The Century of Inventions of the Marquis of Worcester.
The fasting population of the island Rotti near Timor. (Living must be cheap there.)
Cannibalism of the Battahs, and head-hunting among the Alfurs.
Mistrust in public morality. (He wants, I believe, to abolish locksmiths. I am against this.)
“Justice” and “law.”
Béranger as a philosopher. (This again I don’t understand.)
The dislike of the Javanese which is found among the Malays.
The worthlessness of the teaching in so-called universities.
The loveless spirit of our ancestors, as apparent from their conceptions of God. (Again an impious piece of writing!)
The inter-relation of our senses. (It is true that when I saw him I smelt rose-oil.)
The coniform root of the coffee-tree. (This I have laid aside for my book.)
Feeling, sensitiveness, sentimentality, etc.
The confounding of mythology with religion.
Prevention of sago-spleen in the Moluccas.
The future of Dutch trade. (This, indeed, is the article that has induced me to write my book. He says there will not always be such large coffee-sales, and I live for my business.)
Genesis. (An infamous article!)
The secret societies of the Chinese.
Drawing as the natural form of writing. (He says a new-born child can draw!)
Truth in poetry. (Certainly!)
The unpopularity of rice-peeling mills in Java.
The connection between poetry and the mathematical sciences.
The Wayangs of the Chinese.
The price of Java coffee. (This I have laid aside.)
A European coinage.
Irrigation of communal lands.
The influence of the mixing of races on the mind.
Balance of trade. (In this he speaks of the fluctuations of exchange. I have laid it aside for my book.)
The persistence of Asiatic customs. (He maintains that Jesus wore a turban.)
The ideas of Malthus about the number of the population in relation to the means of sustenance.
The original population of America.
The harbour works of Batavia, Samarang, and Soerabaya.
Architecture as an expression of ideas.
The relation of European officials to the Regents of Java. (Of this one or two things are going into my book.)
Cellar-dwellings in Amsterdam.
The power of error.
The inactivity of a Supreme Being, in view of the existence of perfect natural laws.
The salt monopoly in Java.
Worms in the sago-palm. (He says people eat those . . . bah!)
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Solomon, and the pantoons of the Javanese.
Jus primi occupantis.
The poverty of the art of painting.
The immorality of angling. (Whoever has heard of this before!)
The crimes of the Europeans outside Europe.
The weapons of the weaker animals.
Jus talionis. (Another infamous article! There was a poem in it which I know I should have considered most shameful, if I had read it right through.)
And this was by no means all! Not to speak of poems—they were there in several languages—I found a number of packets without superscription, romances in Malay, war songs in Javanese, and what not! I also found letters, many of them in languages which I did not understand. Some were to him, or rather they were only copies, but he seemed to have some object with these, for everything was signed by certain persons as: certified to be a true copy of the original. Furthermore I found extracts from diaries, notes and loose remarks . . . some, indeed, very loose.
I had, as I remarked before, laid some of the articles aside, as it seemed to me they might be of use in my profession, and I live for my profession. But I must admit that I was at a loss what to do with the rest. I could not return the parcel to him, as I did not know where he lived. You see, it had been opened. I could not deny that I had looked into it, and this I should certainly not have denied in any case, as I am so devoted to the truth. Also, I did not succeed in doing it up well enough not to show that it had been opened. Besides, I must not conceal the fact that some of the articles, dealing with coffee, interested me, and that I should like to use them. I daily read some pages here and there, and I became more and more—Frits says “ever more,” but I don’t—more and more, I say, convinced that a man must be a coffee-broker to know so exactly what takes place in the world. I am convinced that the Rosemeyers, who are sugar people, have never set eyes on anything like it.
Now I was afraid that Shawlman might suddenly again appear in front of me, and that he might again have something to say to me. I began to regret that on the evening in question I had turned into Kapel-lane, and I realized that one should never leave the respectable road. He would, of course, have asked me for money, and spoken of his parcel. I might perhaps have given him something, and then, if next day he had sent me that whole pack of writing, it would have been my lawful property. I could then have separated the tares from the wheat, I should have retained the numbers that I wanted for my book, and burnt the remainder, or thrown it into the w.p.b., which now I could not do. For if he returned, I should have to give it up, and he, seeing that I was interested in one or two articles from his pen, would doubtless ask too much for them. Nothing gives the seller a greater advantage than the discovery that the buyer is in need of his wares. And a merchant who understands his profession will avoid this as much as possible.
Another idea has just occurred to me—although I have already mentioned it—which goes to prove how receptive the membership of the Exchange may leave one to human impressions. It is this. Bastians—this is the third clerk, who is getting so old and feeble—has of late scarcely been in the office twenty-five days out of thirty, and when he does turn up, he often does his work badly. As a man of probity I feel it my duty to the firm—Last & Co., as the Meyers are out of it—to see that everyone does his work, and I am not at liberty to throw away the firm’s money from a mistaken conception of pity or hypersensitiveness. Such is my principle. I’d rather give this same Bastians three guilders out of my own pocket, than go on paying him the seven hundred guilders a year which he no longer earns. I have calculated that this man has received in income, during the past thirty-four years—both from Last & Co. and from Last & Meyer, but the Meyers are out of it—the sum of nearly fifteen thousand guilders, and this, for a modest middle-class man, is not a bad little sum. There are not many in his class who possess as much as that. So he has nothing to complain of. This calculation was suggested to me by that article of Shawlman on multiplication.
This Shawlman writes a good hand, I thought. Besides, he looked shabby, and didn’t know the time . . . how would it be, I thought, if I gave him Bastians’s place? I should of course tell him that he must call me “Sir,” but no doubt he would understand this of his own accord, for naturally a clerk cannot address his employer by his name, and so he would probably be settled for life. He might start on four or five hundred guilders—our Bastians also worked a long time before he was advanced to seven hundred guilders—and I should at the same time be doing a good action. Why, there is no reason why he shouldn’t start on three hundred guilders, for as he has never been in business, he might look upon the first few years as an apprenticeship, and this would be quite reasonable, for he could not expect to place himself on a level with people who have worked much. I feel quite sure he would be satisfied with two hundred guilders. But I felt uneasy about his conduct . . . he wore a shawl, you know! And besides, I didn’t know where he lived.
A couple of days after this, young Stern and Frits returned from a book-sale in “The Arms of Berne.” I had forbidden Frits to buy anything, but Stern, who has plenty of pocket-money, came home with some rubbish. That’s his affair. But Frits told me that he had seen Shawlman, who appeared to be employed at the sale. He took the books down from the shelves, and pushed them forward on the long table towards the auctioneer. Frits said he looked very pale, and a gentleman who was in charge of the sale had scolded him for having dropped a couple of issues of the “Aglaia,” which seemed to me a clumsy thing to do, for it is a charming collection of ladies’ fancy work. Mary and the Rosemeyers—who are sugar people—take it in and share the expense. She tats from it . . . from the “Aglaia,” I mean. But over this “rowing” Frits heard that he earned fifteen pence a day. “Do you think I’m going to throw away fifteen pence a day on you?” the gentleman had said. I calculated that fifteen pence a day—I think Sundays and holidays cannot count, otherwise he would have mentioned a monthly or yearly salary—that fifteen pence a day makes two hundred and twenty-five guilders a year. I am quick in my decisions—when one has been in business so long, one always knows at once what to do—and next morning early I was at Ripesucker’s. That’s the name of the bookseller who had held the sale. I asked for the man who had dropped the “Aglaia.”
“He’s got the sack,” said Ripesucker. “He was lazy, pedantic and sickly.”
I bought a small box of wafers, and at once decided to give our Bastians another chance. I could not make up my mind so to turn an old man out into the street. Severe, but, where it is permissible, kindly, this has always been my principle. Still I never neglect to learn anything that may be useful in the business, and so I asked Ripesucker where Shawlman lived. He gave me the address, and I wrote it down.
I was constantly pondering over my book, but as I love the truth, I must frankly confess that I did not know how to go about it. One thing is certain: the materials I had found in Shawlman’s parcel were of importance to coffee-brokers. The only question was, how was I to set about sifting the materials and putting them together properly. Every broker knows the importance of properly sorting out the various parcels of coffee.
But . . . writing—apart from correspondence with principals—is outside my scope, and yet I felt that I ought to write, as perhaps the future of the profession may depend upon it. The information I found in Shawlman’s parcels is not of a nature that would permit Last & Co. to keep its utility entirely to themselves. If it were, everyone understands that I should not take the trouble to have a book printed which Busselinck & Waterman would read also; for he who helps a rival on his way, is a fool. This is one of my firmest principles. No, I realized that there was a danger threatening which would spoil the whole coffee market, a danger that only the united efforts of all the brokers could ward off; and it is even possible that these efforts would not be equal to the task, and that also the sugar-raffinadeurs—Frits says refiners, but I write raffinadeurs; this the Rosemeyers do also, and they are sugar people; I know, one speaks of a refined scoundrel, and not a raffinadeur scoundrel, but that is because everyone who has to deal with scoundrels gets rid of the business as quickly as possible—that also the raffinadeurs then, and the indigo-traders, will have to be in it.
When in my writing I so ponder the matter, it seems to me that even the ship-owners are to some extent affected by it, and the merchant-navy . . . certainly, there is no doubt about it! And the sailmakers too, and the State Treasurer, and the guardians of the poor, and the other Ministers of State, and the pastry-cooks, and the fancy-shopkeepers, and the women, and the shipwrights, and the wholesale dealers, and the retailers, and the caretakers of houses, and the gardeners.
And—it is strange how thoughts will rise in one’s mind while writing—my book also concerns the millers, and the clergy, and those who sell Holloway’s pills, and the distillers, and the potters, and the people who make their living out of the Public Debt, and the pumpmakers, and the cordwainers, and the weavers, and the butchers, and the brokers’ clerks, and the shareholders in the Netherlands Trading Company, and, in fact, properly speaking all others.
And the King also . . . yes, the King above all!
My book must go out into the world. There is nothing else for it! No matter whether Busselinck & Waterman should also read it . . . envy is not my business. At the same time, however, I say that they are schemers and scabs! Only to-day I said so to young Stern, when I proposed him in Artis. I don’t mind in the least if he writes and tells his father.
So then only a few days ago I was quite worried about my book, and now Frits has helped me out. I didn’t tell him so, for I don’t approve of letting people know that one is under any obligation to them—this is one of my principles—but it is true all the same. He said Stern was such a smart youth, and that he made such progress in our language, and that he had translated German verses of Shawlman’s into Dutch. You see, the world was upside down in my house; the Dutchman had written in German and now the German translated it into Dutch. If each had kept to his own language, it would have saved trouble. But, I thought, suppose I got this Stern to write my book! If I should have anything to add, I can now and then write a chapter myself. Frits also can assist. He has a list of words written with ie, and Mary can make a neat copy of everything. This will at the same time give the reader a guarantee against any immorality. For it must be obvious to you that no respectable broker would put anything into the hands of his daughter that was not wholly in keeping with all the rules of morality and respectability.
I, therefore, spoke to both youths about my project, and they thought it a good one. Only it seemed that Stern, who has a touch of literary knowledge—as so many Germans—wanted to have a voice in the manner of the execution of the work. This, to be candid, did not please me altogether, but as the Springsale is at hand, and I haven’t yet any orders from Ludwig Stern, I didn’t want to go against him too much. He said that when his breast glowed with enthusiasm for truth and beauty, no power in the world could restrain him from striking the notes which harmonized—Frits writes harmonised, but I don’t. I pronounce it z, and I write it z—with such feeling, and that he would rather be silent than see his words held in the debasing fetters of commonplace. I certainly thought this very silly on Stern’s part, but my profession comes first, and the Old Man is a good firm. So we settled:
- That he should supply every week a couple of chapters for my book;
- That I should change nothing in his writing;
- That Frits should correct the grammar;
- That I should from time to time write a chapter myself, to give the book an appearance of solidity;
- That the title should be: The coffee-sales of the Netherlands Trading Company:
- That Mary should make a neat copy for press, but that we should have patience with her whenever the laundry things came home;
- That the finished chapters should every week be read aloud at the party;
- That all immorality should be avoided;
- That my name should not appear on the title-page, as I am a broker;
- That Stern should be authorized to publish a German, French, and English translation of my book, because—so he maintained—such works are better understood in foreign countries than with us;
- (Stern emphatically insisted on this.) That I should send Shawlman a ream of paper, a gross of pens and a bottle of ink.
I acquiesced in everything, as my book was very urgent. The following day Stern had finished his first chapter, and there you see, reader, the answer to the question how a coffee-broker—Last & Co., Laurier Canal, No. 37—comes to be writing a book that resembles a novel.
No sooner, however, had Stern set to work, than he was confronted by obstacles. Besides the difficulty among so many materials of selecting and arranging the necessary, there continually occurred in the manuscripts words and expressions that he did not understand, and that to me also were strange. It was most often Javanese or Malay. Also there were here and there abbreviations which were difficult to interpret. I realized that we could not do without Shawlman, and as I don’t think it a good thing for a young man to form undesirable connections, I did not wish to send either Stern or Frits to him. I took with me sugar-plums that were left from the latest party—for I always think of everything—and I looked him up. His abode was not exactly sumptuous, but equality for all men, which would of course include their dwellings, is surely a chimera. He had said so himself in his essay on the claims to happiness. Moreover I don’t like people who are always discontented.
It was in the Long-Leyden-Side-Street, in a back room. The lower storey was occupied by a second-hand dealer who sold a variety of things, such as cups, dishes, furniture, old books, glassware, portraits of Van Speyk[1] and other articles. I was in dread of breaking anything, for in such a case people always demand more money for things than they are worth. A little girl was sitting on the stoop, dressing her doll. I asked whether Mr. Shawlman lived there. She ran away, and the mother came.
“Yes, he lives here, Sir. Just step inside up the stairs to the second passage, and then another stair and then you’ve got it, you can’t miss it. Minnie, just go and tell ’em there’s a gentleman. Who shall she say it is, Sir?”
I said I was Mr. Drystubble, coffee-broker, from the Laurier Canal, but that I would announce myself. I climbed as high as she had said, and in the third passage heard a child’s voice singing, “Presently father comes, dearest papa.” I knocked, and the door was opened by a woman or lady—I really didn’t exactly know what to make of her. She was very pale. Her features bore marks of fatigue, and reminded me of my wife when she has just finished the laundry things. She was dressed in a long white shirt, or robe without a waist, that hung down to her knees, and that was fastened in front with a small black pin. Instead of a proper skirt or dress, she wore underneath a piece of dark linen with a flower-pattern, that seemed to be wrapped several times round her body, and fitted rather tightly round her hips and knees. There was not a trace of any pleats, width or girth, as surely ought to be the case with a woman’s dress. I was glad I had not sent Frits, for her get-up appeared to me very improper, and its strange character was further accentuated by the freedom of her movements, as though she felt quite at her ease. The creature did not seem to be in the least aware that she did not look like other women. It also appeared to me that she did not feel in any way awkward about my visit. She hid nothing under the table, moved no chairs about, and did nothing that, after all, is customary when a stranger of genteel appearance arrives.
Just like a Chinese, she had her hair combed back straight, and tied in a kind of loop or knot behind. Afterwards I learnt that her attire was a sort of Indian apparel, which over there they call sárong and Kabáï; but I thought it very ugly.
“Are you ‘Juffrouw’ Shawlman?” I asked.
“To whom have I the honour of speaking?” she said, in a tone that seemed to imply that I also should have introduced some honour into my question.
Well, I am not fond of paying compliments. It’s a different thing with a principal, and I have been in business too long than that I should not know my people. But to use fine phrases on a third floor seemed unnecessary to me. So I stated briefly that I was Mr. Drystubble, coffee-broker, Laurier Canal, No. 37, and that I wished to speak to her husband. Of course, why should I mince matters!
She motioned me to a cane chair, and took a little girl on her knee, who sat on the floor playing. The little boy whom I had heard singing looked me fixedly in the face, and took me in from head to foot. He also did not seem the least bit shy! He was a lad about six years old, also dressed most peculiarly. His wide pants scarcely reached half-way down his thighs, and his little legs were bare from thence to his ankles. Very indecent, I thought. “Have you[2] come to see papa?” he asked all at once, and I immediately realized that the education of that child left much to be desired, otherwise he would have spoken in the second person plural. But as I felt a bit awkward myself, and therefore wanted to talk, I answered:
“Yes, little man, I have come to see your papa. Do you think he’ll soon be here?”
“I don’t know. He is out, looking for money to buy me a color-box” (Frits writes: colour-box, but I don’t. There is no need to make words longer by useless letters.)
“Quiet, my boy,” said the woman. “Play with your prints, or with your Chinese play-box.”
“Don’t you remember that that gentleman yesterday took everything away?”
He even addressed his mother in the second person singular, and it seemed that there had been a “gentleman” who had taken “everything away” . . . a cheerful visit! The woman did not seem too happy either, for she furtively wiped her eye, while taking the little girl to her young brother. “There,” she said, “play a little with Nonni.” A peculiar name. And he did.
“Well, Juffrouw,” I asked, “do you expect your husband soon?”
“I can’t say for certain,” she answered.
Suddenly the little boy, who had been playing at sailing ships with his little sister, left her and asked me:
“Sir, why do you say to my mother ‘Juffrouw’?”
“Well, little man,” I said, “what else should I say!”
“Why . . . the same as other people! The ‘Juffrouw’ is downstairs. She sells plates and peg tops.”
Now I am a coffee-broker—Last & Co., Laurier Canal, No. 37—there are thirteen of us in the office, and if I count Stern, who receives no salary, there are fourteen. Very well then, my wife is “Juffrouw,” and yet I was to say Madam to this woman. Surely, this was absurd. Everyone must keep to his class, and what is more, only yesterday the bailiffs had taken away some of the belongings. So I considered my “Juffrouw” quite all right, and stuck to it.
I asked why Shawlman had not called at my house for his parcel? She seemed to know about it, and said they had been away, to Brussels. There he had done work for the Indépendance, but he had not been able to stay there because his articles had caused the paper to be several times refused admittance across the French frontier. They had returned to Amsterdam a few days ago, because Shawlman was to get employment here. . . .
“I suppose with Ripesucker?” I asked.
Yes, that was it! But the thing had fallen through, she said. Of this, of course, I knew more than she did herself. He had dropped the Aglaia, and was lazy, pedantic and sickly . . . exactly, that’s why he had got the sack.
And, she continued, he would be sure to come and see me soon, perhaps he was at my house now, for an answer to the request he had made me.
I said he had better call, but he must not ring the bell, for that only gave the servant unnecessary trouble. If he waited a little, I said, the door was bound to be opened some time, when someone or other had to go out. And so I left, and took my sugar-plums back with me, for, speaking frankly, I did not like things there. I did not feel comfortable. Surely a broker isn’t a carrier, I should say, and I maintain that I look respectable. I was wearing my fur coat, and yet she kept sitting down quite simply, and talked to her children as calmly as if she had been alone. Also she seemed to have been crying, and I cannot bear discontented people. Then, it was cold and uncomfortable there—probably because most of the belongings had been fetched away—and I like cosiness in a room. During my walk home I made up my mind to give Bastians another chance, for I don’t like driving anyone out into the street.
Now comes Stern’s first week. It is self-evident that much in it does not please me. But I have to abide by article two, and the Rosemeyers have approved of it. I believe they butter up Stern because he has an uncle in Hamburg who is in sugar.
Shawlman had indeed called. He had seen Stern, and explained to him some words and things which he did not understand. I mean which Stern did not understand. I must now ask the reader to wade through the next chapters, then later on I again promise something more solid, from myself, Batavus Drystubble, coffee-broker, Last & Co., Laurier Canal, No. 37.