LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS
Then he began, "You have planned to go to Holland? Melchers told me so."
On my answering in the affirmative, he went on, "But it will be difficult for you later, when you come back. The greatest difficulty lies in coming back to the old life."
"Why do you think that?"
He spoke frankly and openly and said, "It would be too difficult for you, if later on, you should marry. After having lived in Holland you would never be able to make yourself contented as the wife of a native chief."
He instanced cases of well educated native girls their friends, who had married Hollanders. They and their husbands were devoted to one another but the Indian cannot be really happy amid European surroundings, and the Hollander can never accustom himself to the Indian life, so there is always an impassable gulf between husband and wife.
I let him finish quietly, before I brought my own ideas to the light of day; "Mijnheer Van Kol, if I should go to Holland, my intention is to be educated for a profession, that of teaching preferably, and when I come back I plan to open an institute for the daughters of native chiefs. It is to study that I wish to go there."
He looked at me in surprise; his blue eyes lighted up as though to himself he said, "That is a fine idea — a very fine idea." Then to me, "Do you not think it splendid to have an object in life?" There was so much enthusiasm in his voice and in the expression of his eyes, that I felt my heart grow warm, involuntarily my lips formed a word, a name "Stella."
Stella, if I could only have you here, but then the earth would be too small to hold my happiness. For that was happiness, that moment
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