Letters of a Javanese princess/Chapter 18
XVIII[1]
I HAVE been through so much in my young life, but it is all as nothing in comparison with what I have suffered in these last dreadful days of Father's illness.
There were hours when I was without will, but trembled with inward pain and the lips that had defiantly proclaimed "Come what may," now stammered "God pity me." My birthday was a double feast—a celebration also of Father's restoration to health. I let Father see your present, and told him how pleased you were with his portrait. Father lay upon a lounging chair; I sat next to him on the floor, his hand resting upon my head; it was thus that I spoke to him of you.
Father smiled when I told him of your enthusiastic expression of sympathy for him, and with that smile on his face, and certainly with a thought for the distant and loved friend of his child, my sick one slept.
See how near you are to me, Stella—to us. Do you believe now that it was not lack of affection which kept me silent for so long, and can you forgive that silence now?
Let me earnestly thank you now for your friendship and your love, which have added so much to my life, and let me now press you fast to my heart in thought. If I could only see you in reality, face to face and heart to heart, so that I could open my soul to you—my soul which is so full of sadness. Stella, my Stella, I should be so glad if I could make you happy with but one rejoicing letter, cheer you with the tidings that we had succeeded, that we had reached our goal. Alas, instead this bears a complaint; I do not like to complain but the truth must be told.
An unexpected turn has come in our affairs; the question is now more difficult than ever; it is a matter of standing or falling, of blessed success or of complete undoing, and—OUR HANDS ARE BOUND.
There is a duty which is called gratitude; there is a high holy duty called filial love, and there is a detestable evil called egoism! Sometimes it is so difficult to see where the good ends, and the bad begins. One may go a certain distance, and then the boundary between the two extremes is hardly visible. Father's health is such that he is subject to severe heart attacks. Do you know what that means? We are defenceless—delivered over to the pleasure of blind fate.
We have stood so close to the fulfillment of our dearest wishes, and now we are again far away. It is a bitter awakening after we had thought that all stumbling blocks had been cleared from our way. The poor, tortured heart cries out, "What is my duty?" and no answer comes, while those who wait grope round in deepest darkness.
We can no longer seek for consolation in that splendid plan of the Government to open a school which would educate the daughters of Regents to become teachers; nothing will ever come of it. For many Regents whose consent had to be obtained, declared themselves against any innovation that would interfere with the custom of secluding young girls, and releasing them from their imprisonment by allowing them to go away from home to school.
It has been a hard blow for us, for we had built all our hopes upon it. Adieu illusions — adieu golden dreams of the future! You were too beautiful to be true. I used to sit idly and take pleasure in the thought of how your eyes would shine when you heard the splendid news. And now the whole proposal has evaporated like smoke — has gone to the moon.
I do not know exactly how the matter stands; our friends at Batavia are away on a journey, but it goes very, very badly. Now if the plan for the domestic school for native girls should be in the same case, put down through the unwillingness of the parents themselves, there will be nothing left.
My fingers bum to write about the splendid plans of the Director of Education, and about the proposed education of Regents' daughters to be teachers, but I remain idle. I must not express my opinions on important subjects, least of all through means of the press.
Many persons in our immediate surroundings know nothing of what is brooding and raging within us; they know nothing of our plans. One of our acquaintances who comes to the house often, read in the newspapers about the proposed school for Regents' daughters, and said to my sisters, that would be just the thing for me, and that she and her husband would urge me to think seriously about it! Her husband spoke to me of the same thing, and with a blank face, as though knowing nothing, I let him speak.
Both husband and wife are enthusiastic for the work of emancipating the native woman. He is a government official, and for that reason can do much for our cause. He will soon be promoted, and then they will both be able to do much more for our people.
We have devised a plan for her, and she and her husband have listened to it with interest. When he becomes Assistant Resident, she is to invite the little daughters of the native officials serving under him to come to her house on certain fixed days, and give them instruction in handiwork and cooking; perhaps also in reading and writing. That would be a useful and beneficent work; the lady is delighted with the idea.
I have naturally told her much about you. She will become with pleasure a member of the Onderlinge Vrouwenbescherming.[2] She has two little daughters in Holland; one wishes to become an advocate, and the other too will study a profession.
I told her that it was my earnest wish before I started out in life in whatever capacity, to spend first at least half a year at work in a hospital to learn something of the care of the sick because now if sickness should fall under my hands, I should not know which way to turn. She said at once that her brother-in-law who is a doctor, would help to initiate me into the secrets of sick nursing. The doctor is a newcomer, speaks no Javanese and very broken Malay. I can be of service to him in turn by acting as interpreter, for a large majority of his patients are either natives or Chinese.
I am thinking seriously of this plan of spending some time in a hospital, it would add a great deal to my education; I have sat and pondered over it long. What do you think of it? Oh it is misery on top of misery to see some one suffer frightful pain, and not to know how to alleviate that pain. Those who watch suffer even more than the patient himself. I have sat by many sick beds, even as a child, and speak from experience. The idea of studying nursing came to me at the bed-side of a dear one.
Later I shall speak out and say frankly what I have in my heart in regard to the education of girls. I shall plead for the importance of a knowledge of hygiene and of the structure of the human body to women.
I want to see hygiene and physiology placed on the curriculum of the school, which is to be erected. Poor bunglers, eh? who after so much hodge-podge must gulp down those subjects. What an ideal school that Institute for Native Young Ladies will be! Science, cooking, housekeeping, handiwork, hygiene and vocational training; all must be there! It is only a dream, but let us dream if it makes us happy. Why not? ··········
What I have written thus far for the public has been but nonsense, suggested by some special happening or other. I may never mention serious subjects, alas! Later, when we shall have wholly wrested our-selves loose from the iron grip of age-long traditions, it will be different.
It would be different now, were it not for the love which we have for our dearest parents. Father would not be pleased if the name of his daughter should be rolled under the tongues of men. When I am wholly free and independent, I shall speak out and say what I think. So till that time comes, patience, Stella, for I cannot send you nonsense. When I write something in which I myself am pleased, in which my deepest convictions are expressed, I shall send it to you. ··········