Translation:Max Havelaar/16

by Multatuli

Main page

Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19 - Chapter 20 - Chapter 21 - Chapter 22 - Chapter 23 - Chapter 24 - Chapter 25 - Chapter 26 - Chapter 27 - Chapter 28 - Chapter 29 - Chapter 30 - Chapter 31 - Chapter 32 - Chapter 33 - Chapter 34 - Chapter 35 - Chapter 36 - Chapter 37 - Chapter 38 - Chapter 39

"Who's that, Abraham Blankaart?" asked Louise Rosemeijer, and Frits told her. I enjoyed this, for it gave me an opportunity to stand up and finish the meeting – for that evening. You know that I am a coffee broker – 37 Laurier Canal – and that I do everything for my profession. So it must be clear that I was not satisfied at all with Stern's writing. I had expected coffee, and he gave us – yes, heaven knows what!

By reading the last 10 chapters he entertained us during three circle evenings, and what's worst, the Rosemeijers like it. At least, that's what they say. When I make a negative remark, he appeals to Louise. Her agreement, he says, is more important than all the coffee in the world, and besides, when my heart glows, etc. (See the harangue on page ..., or better, don't see it.) There I am, and I don't know what to do! That packet of Shawlman's has become a Trojan horse. It spoils Frits as well. I found that he helped Stern, for that Abraham Blankaart is far too Dutch for a German. Both are so pedantic, that I really feel embarrased about this matter. The worst is that I agreed with Gaafzuiger that he would publish the book, which is supposed to deal with the coffee auctions – the entire country waits for it – and Stern writes a completely different story. Yesterday he said: "Don't worry, all roads lead to Rome. Just wait till the introduction is finished (so all this is still an introduction). I promise you (actually he said "I forspeak you") that all will eventually be about coffee, coffee, and still more coffee! Think of Horace," he continued, didn't he say "omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit"... coffee and some more? Don't you do the same when you put sugar and cream in your cup?"

And then I must be silent: not because he is right, but because I am obliged to Last & Co to make sure that the old Stern will not go to Busselinck & Waterman, who would give him a bad service because they are interlopers.

I complain to you, reader, and please do not, after reading Stern's writing – did you really read it? – pour your anger over an innocent head, for I beseech you – who will do business with a broker who calls him a man-eater? – that you are convinced of my innocence. I cannot stop Stern having anything to do with the book, since the situation is such that Louise Rosemeijer, when she comes from church – it appears that the boys wait for her – has asked him to be a bit earlier that evening, so that he can read a lot more about Max and Tine.

But you have bought or hired this book, trusting in the good title which promises something good, and I recognise that you require something for your money, so that's why I write a few chapters now. You are not in the Rosemeijer's circle, reader, so you are happier than I, who must hear all this. You are free to skip chapters which smell of German excitability, and to read only the parts that have been written by me, a distinguished man, a coffee broker.

It was with astonishment that I heard from Stern's writing – and he showed me from Shawlman's packet that it was true – that they cultivate no coffee in the department of Lebak. That is very wrong, and my effort would be rewarded if the government discovers that error by reading my book. Shawlman's papers would show that the soil in that area is unsuitable for coffee culture. But this is certainly no excuse, and I say that one is guilty of neglect towards the Netherlands in general and the coffee brokers in particular, and yes, to the Javanese themselves, if one did not either change the soil – the Javanese have nothing else to do – or, if this is assumed to be impossible, send the Javanese to other areas where the soil is suitable for coffee.

I never say something without considering and I daresay that I speak with authority, because I considered this text a great deal, especially since I heard the sermon of preacher Shatterbuck, during the prayer meeting to absolve the pagans.

That was Wednesday evening. You must know, reader, that I always carefully fulfil my duties as a father, and that I am deeply concerned with the moral education of my children. Well, Frits had something in his tone and manners that I dislike – it's all from that cursed packet - so I rebuked him strictly, saying:

"Frits, I am not satisfied about you. I always wanted the best for you, and yet you wander away from the straight path. You are pedantic and ill-behaved, you write poems and you kissed Bethsy Rosemeijer. The fear of the Lord is the basis of all wisdom, so you should not kiss the Rosemeijers, and not be so pedantic. Immoral behaviour leads to full doom, my boy. Read the Scriptures and behold that Shawlman. He left the path of the Lord: now he is poor, he lives in a small room. Those are the consequences of immorality and bad behaviour! He wrote bad stories in the Indépendance and he dropped the Aglaia. That’s how things go, when one is wise in his own eyes. He does not know what time it is and his little boy only wears half trousers. Remember that your body is a temple of God and that your father always worked hard for a living – this is the truth – so look up and try to become a decent broker when I go to Driebergen. And look at all those people who won't listen to good advice, who trample religion and morality, do not take them as an example. And don't be like Stern, whose father is so rich, who will always have plenty of money, although he does not want to become a broker and he sometimes makes errors. Remember that evil is always punished: as you can see from Shawlman who hasn't got a winter coat so that he looks like a comedian. Listen well in church, and do not turn around on the pew, as if you were bored, my boy, for what might God think of it? The church is his sanctuary, you know. And do not wait for young girls when the service is over, for that would take the edification away. Do not make Marie laugh when I read the Scripture after breakfast. It's not right in a decent house. I saw that you drew skeletons on Bastiaans' papers when he was away – because he is always gouty – and that keeps people from their work in our office, and God's word says that this folly leads to destruction. That Shawlman also did bad things when he was a boy: on Westermarkt he fought with a Greek, and now he is lazy, pedantic and sickly, see! So stop making jokes with Stern, boy, his father is rich, remember. Pretend not to see if he makes funny faces to the bookkeeper. And when he is away from the office, playing with poetry, remind him that he is in a very good house and that Marie embroidered slippers for him with genuine silk. Ask him – just as if it is your own idea, you know – whether he thinks his father will go to Busselinck & Waterman. Tell him that they are interlopers. See, that's what you owe your neighbour – that's how you get him back on the right road, I mean – and all that poetry is madness. So be good and obedient, Frits, do not pull the maid's skirt when she serves tea in the office, and remember that the Lord died for you on the cross, and don't make me feel ashamed, for Paul has said that a son should never make his father unhappy. I've been visiting the exchange market for twenty years, and I daresay that I am esteemed when I stand near my pillar. So listen to my admonition, Frits, and be good. Now get your hat and put your coat on, and go with me to the prayer meeting, that will be good to you!"

That's how I spoke, and I am sure that it impressed him, in particular when preacher Shatterbuck chose this subject for his sermon: The love of God, as is obvious from his anger towards unbelievers.

When I heard this sermon, I thought how vast the difference is between human and divine wisdom. I already said that Shawlman's packet contained a lot of rubbish, but also some things that drew attention because of a sound reasoning. But well, how unimportant does it seem when compared to a speech by preacher Shatterbuck! And not out of his own strength – for I know Shatterbuck, he is really not someone who tries to fly high – no, out of the strength which comes from the Lord. This distinction is already clear because he spoke about some things which had also been treated by Shawlman, for you have seen that there is a lot in it about Javanese and other pagans. Frits says that the Javanese are no pagans, but I call anyone a pagan when he has the wrong faith. And I stick with Jesus Christ, and him crucified, as I expect from any decent reader.

Because I obtained my opinion from Shatterbuck's sermon about the unacceptability that there is no coffee culture in Lebak – I'll soon write more about it - and also because I, being a honest man, do not want the reader to receive nothing for his money, I shall repeat some parts of the sermon, which were touching in particular.

He had already proven God's love from the quoted text, and had soon passed to the point which actually mattered, the conversion of the Javanese, the Malays and whatever that people is called. This is what he said:

This, my beloved, was the great vocation of Israel – he meant the extermination of the people of Canaan – and this is the vocation of the Netherlands. No, it will not be said that the light which shineth upon us, is hidden under a bushel, nor that we are miserly when we give the bread of eternal life away! Cast thine eye unto the islands of the Indian Ocean, inhabited by millions and millions of children of the rejected son – and deservedly rejected son – of the noble God-pleasing Noah! They crawl around in their disgusting snake holes of pagan ignorance, they bow their curly heads under the yoke of the selfish priests! There they adore God while calling unto a false prophet, who is an abomination unto the Lord! And, beloved, there are even, as if it is insufficient to obey a false prophet, there are even those who adore another god, I say, several gods, gods of wood and stone, which they made themselves after their image, black, horrible, with flat noses, like devils! Yes beloved, my tears almost prevent me from speaking further, even deeper is the wickedness of Ham's lineage! There are among them those who know no god, not at all. They think that it is sufficient to obey the laws of the civil society! They think that a harvest song, which expresses their joy at the success of their labour, is sufficient thanks to the supreme Being who ripened the harvest! There live lost people, my beloved – if such an abominable existence can be called living – there live lost people who think that it is sufficient to love wife and child and not to take from their neighbours what doth not belong to them, to be able to lay their heads down to sleep without worrying. Don't ye shudder when ye think of it? Doth thy heart not flinch when thou triest to think what the fate will be of those fools, when the trumpet shall sound, which calleth the dead, so that the righteous and the unrighteous will be separated? Hearest thou not – yes thou hearest, for thou sawest from the words of the scripture that thy God is a powerful God, and a God of righteous revenge – yes thou hearest the breaking of bones and the crackling of flames in the eternal Gehenna where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth! There, there they burn, and they will not be consumed, for the punishment is for ever and ever! There is the flame which licketh with its never-satisfied tongue the screaming victims of unbelief. There the worm dieth not which gnaweth through their hearts, without ever destroying them, lest there remain no heart to gnaw in the unbeliever's breast! Behold how the unbaptised child's black skin is flayed! Hardly born, he was flung away from his mother's breast, into the lake of fire burning with brimstone, to eternal doom...

A lady fainted...

But beloved, preacher Shatterbuck continued, God is a God of love! It is not his desire that the sinner is lost, but that he be holy with the mercy in Christ, through faith! And therefore the Netherlands have been chosen to save of those wretched people who can be saved! In his inscrutable wisdom he hath chosen a country, a small country, but big and strong through the knowledge of God, and he gave that country authority over the inhabitants of those regions, so that they might be saved through the holy, never-beyond-praise Gospel of the punishment of Hell! The ships of the Netherlands sail the great waters and bring civilisation, religion, Christendom to the lost Javanese! No, our lucky Netherlands doeth not covet that delight for itself alone: we want to impart it to those wretched creatures on those faraway shores, who are still bound in shackles of unbelief, superstition and immorality! The duty we have in this aspect will be the seventh part of my sermon!

What preceded was the sixth. Among the duties we have to fulfill towards those poor pagans, were mentioned:

1. Giving generous amounts of money to the missionaries.
2. Supporting Bible companies, so that they can distribute bibles on Java.
3. Promoting the "exercises" in Harderwijk, for the colonial shipyard.
4. Writing sermons and religious hymns, which can be read and sung by the soldiers and sailors to the Javanese.
5. Founding a union of people with great influence, who'll have the task to beg our respected King:
   1. To appoint only governors, officers and clerks who can be expected to be strong in the true faith.
   2. To allow the Javanese to visit the barracks, and the war and merchant ships on the roadsteads, and thus be educated by socialising with the Dutch soldiers and sailors into the empire of God.
   3. To refuse payment for bibles and religious tracts.
   4. To include in the conditions for opium lease on Java that in each opium kit there must be a store of bibles, depending on the number of visitors that can be expected, and that the lessee agree not to sell opium without giving the buyer a religious tract.
   5. To order that the Javanese be led to God.
6. Giving generous amounts to the missionary fellowships.

I know that the last of these equals the first, but he repeated it, and in the fire of his sermon this redundancy was quite explainable.

But, reader, did you see number 5.5? Well, this reminded me of the coffee auctions, and of the assumed infertility of the soil in Lebak, so you will not be surprised if I say that I have been continually thinking of this. Preacher Shatterbuck has read the messages of the missionaries, so it is obvious that he knows what he is talking about. Well if he, with those reports, and with the eye on God, says that a lot of labour will have a good result in our attempts to win the Javanese souls for God, I can also conclude that it is almost true if I say that Lebak is very suitable for coffee. And what's more, that perhaps the Supreme Being made this soil unsuitable for coffee, so that labour will be needed to lay a better soil there, which makes that people amenable to God's glory.

I really hope that my book will be read by the King and that there will soon be greater auctions which show how tightly the knowledge of God is related to the well-understood interest of the entire citizenry! Behold how the simple and humble Shatterbuck, without wisdom to man – he has never been to the exchange market – but informed by the gospel which is a lamp on his path, how he gives me, coffee broker, suddenly a hint which is important for the entire Netherlands, and which will make it possible for me, when Frits is well educated – he was rather silent in church - to go to Driebergen five years earlier. Yes, labour is labour, that is my password. Labour for the Javanese, that is my principle. And my principles are holy to me.

Is not the gospel the highest there is? Is there anything more than glory? Is it not our duty to make people holy? And when this requires labour – I visited the exchange market for twenty years – can we then refuse the Javanese his labour, which his soul needs so badly so that he will not burn afterwards? It would be selfishness, outrageous selfishness, if we did not do anything we can to save those wretched people from the terrible fate which preacher Shatterbuck had shown us so clearly. A woman fainted when he spoke about that black child. Perhaps she had a boy with a tanned skin. Women are like that!

And would I not urge for labour, I who am in business the entire day? Isn't this book – which Stern makes so sour – a proof that I have very good intentions for the well-being of our country, and that I would give everything for it? And if I should work so hard, I who am baptised – in Amstel Church – should we not expect that the Javanese, who must still deserve his salvation, works as well?

If that union, number 5.5, is founded, I would join. And I'd also persuade the Rosemeijers to join, for it is also in the interest of sugar refiners, although I do not believe that they have a very pure understanding – I mean the Rosemeijers – for they have a Catholic servant girl.

Whatever it may be, I'll do my duty. That's what I promised myself when I went home with Frits, after the prayer meeting. In my house we shall serve the Lord, I shall take care of that. And I'll do that zealously, because I see more and more with how much wisdom everything has been arranged, how full of love are his ways which we follow on the hand of God, and how He will save us for the eternal and the temporary life, for the soil in Lebak can very well be fertilised so that it can be used for coffee culture.