Max Havelaar (Siebenhaar)/Chapter 15
Havelaar’s predecessor, who certainly had wished to act rightly, but at the same time appeared to have been somewhat afraid of the high disfavour of the Government—the man had many children, and no means—had then, it seems, rather spoken to the Resident of what he himself called outrageous abuses, than named them frankly in an official Report. He knew that a Resident is not fond of receiving a written Report, which remains deposited in his archives, and may afterwards appear as evidence that his attention had been in good time drawn to this or that wrong, whilst an oral communication leaves him, without risk, the choice between dealing with the complaint or not. Such oral communications usually resulted in an interview with the Regent, who, of course, denied everything and insisted on proofs. Then the people were summoned who had had the temerity to complain, and crawling at the feet of the Adhipatti, they prayed for pardon. “No, the buffalo had not been taken from them for nothing; they quite believed that double the price would be paid for it.” “No, they had not been called away from their fields to labour without payment in the Sawahs of the Regent, for they knew very well that the Adhipatti would afterwards liberally reward them.” “They had made their complaint in a moment of baseless discontent . . . they had been mad, and begged that they might be duly punished for such outrageous disrespect!”
Then the Resident knew perfectly well what he was to think of this retraction of the complaint, but still that retraction gave him a splendid chance of maintaining the Regent in office and honour, and he himself was spared the disagreeable task of “embarrassing” the Government with an unfavourable Report. The reckless informants were punished with rattan birchings, the Regent had triumphed, and the Resident returned to the head-centre, with the pleasant consciousness of again having so successfully “managed” that affair.
But then what was the Assistant-Resident to do when next day again other complaints came to him? Or—and this frequently happened—when the same complainants returned and retracted their retraction? Was he again to write the matter in his notebook, again to speak about it to the Resident, again to see the same tragic farce enacted, and all this at the risk of passing in the end for a man who laid charges time and again—and that stupidly and maliciously—which always had to be dismissed as unfounded? What was to become of the highly necessary friendly relations between the principal Native Chief and the first European official, when it appeared as though the latter continually lent an ear to false complaints against that Chief? And above all, what happened to those poor complainants after they returned to their village, in the power of the district- or village-head whom they had charged as the instrument of the Regent’s tyranny?
Let us see what became of those complainants. Those that were able to escape, escaped. That was why so many Bantammers roamed about in the neighbouring provinces! That was why there were so many inhabitants of Lebak among the rebels in the Lampong districts! That was why Havelaar, in his address to the Chiefs, had asked: “What is this, that so many houses stand empty in the villages, and why do many prefer the shade of alien woods to the coolness of the forests of Bantan Kedool?”
But not everyone was able to escape. The man whose body in the morning was seen to be floating down the river, after his having the previous night, secretly, hesitatingly, tremulously, asked for an audience with the Assistant-Resident . . . he no longer needed escape. Perhaps it might be looked upon as a humane act to save him by sudden death from a little longer life. For he was spared the ill-treatment that awaited him on his return to his village, and the rattan-scourging which is the penalty of all those who for a moment might imagine that they were not beasts, not inanimate blocks of wood or stone; the penalty for him who, in a moment of madness, had believed that there was Justice in the land, and that the Assistant-Resident had the wish and the power to maintain that Justice. . . .
Was it not indeed better to prevent that man from returning the next day to the Assistant-Resident—in accordance with the latter’s message to him in the evening—and to stifle his complaint in the yellow waters of the Tjioodyoong, which would carry him gently out to sea, accustomed as they were to being the bearers of these fraternal offerings from the sharks of the interior to the sharks of the main?
And Havelaar knew all this! Does the reader feel what tortured his heart when reflecting that he was called to do justice, and that in this he was responsible to a higher power than that of a Government which, indeed, prescribed justice in its laws, but often preferred not to see it actually applied? Does the reader feel how he was tossed on the horns of doubt, not as to what it was his duty to do, but as to the manner in which he had to act?
He had started with gentleness. He had spoken to the Adhipatti as “elder brother”; and anyone who might think that I, prejudiced in favour of the hero of my story, perhaps unduly exalt the manner of his speech, should hear how once, after such an interview, the Regent sent him his Patteh[1] to thank him for the kindliness of his words, and how, long after this, the Patteh, in a conversation with the Controller Verbrugge (after Havelaar had ceased to be Assistant-Resident of Lebak, therefore when nothing more was either to be hoped or feared from him), at the remembrance of his words exclaimed, still deeply impressed: “Never yet has any lord spoken as he!”
Yes, he wished to help, to set right, to save, not to destroy! He felt pity for the Regent. He, who knew how financial need may press, especially when it leads to humiliation and insult, looked for reasons of condonation. The Regent was old, he was the head of a family whose descendants lived sumptuously in the neighbouring provinces, where much coffee was harvested, and therefore high emoluments were enjoyed. Was it not galling to him, as regards mode of living, to have to take a much lower place than his younger relatives? Besides, swayed by fanaticism, the man fancied that, as his years increased, he might purchase the salvation of his soul by subsidized pilgrimages to Mecca and alms to prayer-droning idlers. The officers who had preceded Havelaar at Lebak had not always set good examples. And finally the largeness of the Lebak family of the Regent, which lived entirely at his expense, made it difficult for him to return to the right way.
In this manner Havelaar looked for reasons to defer all severity, and to try again and still again what might be accomplished with gentleness.
And he even went beyond gentleness. With a generosity that was reminiscent of the errors that had made him so poor, he continually advanced money to the Regent on his own responsibility, so that necessity might not urge the Chief too powerfully to offence, and as usual he forgot his own interest so far that he was prepared to reduce himself and those belonging to him to the strictly necessary, in order to succour the Regent with the little he might still be able to spare from his income.
If it might still seem necessary to prove the kindliness with which Havelaar fulfilled his difficult duty, such proof might be found in an oral message he gave to the Controller when the latter was on one occasion departing for Serang: “Tell the Resident that, hearing of the abuses that here take place, he must not think that I am indifferent to them. I only do not at once report them officially because I wish to save the Regent, whom I pity, from too great severity, as I wish first to try to bring him to a sense of his duty by kindliness.”
Havelaar was often out for days. When he was at home, he was usually to be found in the room which on our plan we have represented as the seventh space. There he was nearly always writing, or receiving the persons who asked for an audience. He had chosen that place because there he was in the vicinity of his Tine, who usually stayed in the next room. For they were so closely bound up in each other that Max, even when he was busy with some work that demanded all his attention and exertion, constantly felt the need of seeing or hearing her. It was often amusing how he would suddenly address a word to her which arose in his mind with regard to the subjects that occupied him, and how quickly she, without knowing what he was dealing with, was able to follow the sense of his thoughts, which in fact he usually did not even explain to her, as though it were self-evident that she would know what he meant. Often too, when he was dissatisfied with his own labour, or with disappointing news just received, he would jump up and say something unkind to her, although she was in no way responsible for his discontent! But she liked to hear it, because it was a proof the more how Max confused her with himself. Nor was there ever any question of regret for such seeming harshness, or, on the other hand, of forgiveness. This to them would have seemed like someone begging his own pardon for having in anger struck himself on his own head.
Indeed she knew him so well that she knew exactly when she should be there to give him a moment’s relaxation . . . exactly when he was in need of her advice, and no less exactly when she was to leave him alone.
In that room Havelaar was sitting one morning when the Controller came in with a letter, just received, in his hand.
“This is a difficult matter, Mr. Havelaar,” he said on entering. “Very difficult!”
Now when I say this letter simply contained an order from Havelaar to explain why there had been a change in the prices of wood-work and labour, the reader will think that the Controller Verbrugge very soon considered a thing difficult. I therefore hasten to add that a good many others would have found some difficulty in answering that simple question.
Some years before a prison had been built at Rangkas-Betoong. Now it is a generally known thing that the officials in the interior of Java understand the art of erecting buildings that are worth thousands of guilders, without expending more than just as many hundreds. This gives them the stamp of efficiency and zeal in the service of the country. The difference between the moneys spent and the value of what has been obtained for them is made up by unpaid supplies or unpaid labour. For some years there have been instructions prohibiting this. Whether they are carried out is not here the question. Nor either whether the Government wishes that they shall be carried out with a strictness that would burden the estimates of the Building Department. I suppose with this it is as with many other instructions that look so humane on paper.
Now there were yet many other buildings required to be erected at Rangkas-Betoong, and the engineers charged with preparing the plans had asked for quotations as to local prices of wages and material. Havelaar had charged the Controller with a careful inquiry into this, and recommended to him that he should give the prices in accordance with fact, without reference to what happened formerly. When Verbrugge had carried out his instructions, it appeared that the prices did not tally with the quotations of a few years earlier. And the fact that the reason of this difference was asked for was what Verbrugge thought such a difficult matter. Havelaar, who knew perfectly well what was behind this apparently so simple question, answered that he would give him his opinion about this difficulty in writing, and I find among the documents before me a copy of the letter which appears to have been the result of this promise.
If the reader should complain that I delay him with a correspondence about the prices of wood-work, with which it would seem he has nothing to do, I must beg that he will not leave unconsidered the fact that in reality the question is an entirely different one, viz., the condition of the official Indian administration, and that the letter which I here reproduce not only casts another ray of light upon the artificial optimism I have already spoken of, but sketches also the difficulties one has to face who, like Havelaar, wished to go his way straight forward and without looking back.
| “No. 114. | Rangkas-Betoong, 15th March, 1856. |
| “To the Controller of Lebak. | |
“When I returned to you the letter of the Director of Public Works, dated 16th February last, No. 271/354, I requested that you should answer the questions therein asked, after consultation with the Regent, with due observance of what I wrote in my missive of the sth inst., No. 97.
“The missive contained some general hints with regard to that which may be considered equitable and just in fixing the prices of materials which the population have to supply to, and by order of, the Government.
“In your missive of the 8th inst., No. 6, you—I believe according to your best knowledge—complied with my request, so that I, relying on your local experience and that of the Regent, presented these quotations, exactly as supplied by you, to the Resident.
“This was followed by a missive from that Head Officer, dated 11th inst., No. 326, asking for particulars as to the reason for the difference between the prices quoted by me and those ruling during the erection of a prison in 1853 and 1854.
“I, of course, placed that letter in your hands, and instructed you orally now to justify your statement, which should have been the more possible to you as you were able to refer to the instructions given to you in my minute of the 5th inst., which instructions we have also repeatedly discussed orally
“So far all is straightforward and regular.
“But yesterday you came to my office with the letter of the Resident in your hand, and began to speak of the difficulty of dealing with its contents. I again observed in you a sort of timidity about giving some things their true name, an attitude to which I have already several times drawn your attention, amongst others recently in the presence of the Resident, an attitude which for short I call halfness, and against which I have often given you friendly warning.
“Halfness leads to nothing. Half-good is not good. Half-true is un-true.
“For full salary, for full rank, after a clear and complete oath, one must do one’s complete duty.
“If it may sometimes require courage to carry it out, one should possess that courage.
“For my own part I should not have the courage to lack that courage. For, apart from dissatisfaction with oneself, which must be the consequence of neglect of duty or half-heartedness, the search for easier roundabout ways, the desire to avoid conflict always and everywhere, the tendency to ‘diplomacy,’ inevitably causes more anxiety, and indeed more danger, than one will meet on the straightforward path.
“During the course of a very important matter which is now under consideration by the Government, and in which you really should be officially concerned, I have tacitly left you, so to speak, neutral, and have only alluded to it with a smile now and then.
“When, for instance, recently your Report on the causes of distress and famine among the population had come before me, and I wrote on it: ‘All this may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth, nor the principal truth. The chief cause lies deeper,’ you admitted this frankly, and I did not avail myself of my right to demand that in the circumstances you should name that principal truth.
“I had many reasons for such forbearance, and amongst others this one, that I felt it would be unjust all of a sudden to exact from You something which many others in your place would no more do than you, to force You all of a sudden to bid farewell to the routine of concealment and fear of men which is not so much your fault as that of the training you have unfortunately received. Finally, I wished first to set you an example of how much simpler and easier it is to do one’s whole duty than only half of it.
“Now, however, after I have had the honour of supervising your work so many days longer, and of repeatedly giving you the opportunity of becoming acquainted with principles which, unless I am greatly mistaken, must triumph in the end, I should like you to adopt these. I should like you to make yours entirely that strength which is not absolutely wanting in you, but which has been weakened by disuse, and which seems indispensable in order to say always frankly and according to your best knowledge what has to be said, and to let go, therefore, altogether the unmanly hesitation to come forward openly and courageously with the truth about any matter whatsoever.
“I now, therefore, expect a simple but complete statement of what seems to you to be the cause of the difference in prices between now and 1853 or 1854.
“I earnestly trust that you will not look upon any sentence or phrase of this letter as written with any intention of wounding your feelings. I hope that you have become sufficiently acquainted with me to know that I say neither more nor less than I mean, and in addition I also give you the assurance that in reality my remarks apply less to You personally than to the school in which you have been trained for the position of an Indian Civil Servant.
“This extenuating circumstance would, however, lose all force if, still being with me and serving the Government under my guidance, you continued to follow the bad old routine which I am opposing.
“You will have noticed that I have dispensed with the title ‘Your-very-noble-severity’: I was sick of it. Do so too, and let our ‘very-nobility’ and, when necessary, our ‘severity,’ show elsewhere, and particularly in another form, than in these annoying and sense-destroying titles.
“The Assistant-Resident of Lebak
“Max Havelaar.”
The answer to this letter inculpated some of Havelaar’s predecessors, and proved that he was not so very much mistaken when he included, among the reasons that might plead extenuation for the Regent, the “bad examples of an earlier time.”
In publishing this letter, I have anticipated, in order to emphasize in advance the fact that Havelaar had to expect but little help from the Controller as soon as it would become necessary to give their proper names to altogether different and more important matters, considering that this officer, who unquestionably was a right-minded man, had to be thus addressed to make him speak the truth where it was but a question of price-quotations of timber, stone, mortar, and wages. It will thus be realized that he had not only to fight the power of the persons who benefited by criminality, but also the cowardice of those who—though condemning this criminality as much as he did—did not consider themselves called upon or able to make the necessary courageous stand against it.
Perhaps also, after reading that letter, one will drop some of the contempt for the slavish submissiveness of the Javanese who, in the presence of his Chief, cravenly retracts the once-preferred charge, however well-founded. For if one reflects that there was so much cause of fear, even on the part of the European official, who after all might be considered to be less exposed to vengeance, what then awaited the poor native who, in a village far from the head-centre, was left entirely in the power of the oppressors whom he had accused? Is it to be wondered at that those poor people, terrified at the results of their temerity, sought to escape or mitigate those results by abject submission?
And it was not only the Controller Verbrugge who did his duty with a nervousness that would have befitted dereliction of duty. The Djaksa also, the Native Chief who in the provincial Council fills the position of public prosecutor, entered Havelaar’s house for preference at night, unnoticed and unattended. He that was appointed to prevent theft, whose duty it was to catch the sneak-thief, he sneaked, as though he himself were the thief that feared to be caught, with hushed sound of footstep through the back entrance into the house, first having assured himself that there were no visitors who might afterwards betray him as guilty of doing his duty.
Was it to be wondered at that Havelaar’s soul was saddened, and that it was more than ever necessary for Tine to go into his room and cheer him up, when she saw how he sat there resting his head dejectedly on his hand?
And yet for him the greatest obstacle was not to be found in the timidity of his assistants, nor in the accessory cowardice of those that had first appealed to him. No, even, if needs be, he would do justice all alone, with or without the help of others, indeed, against all, even if it were against the very people who were in need of justice! For he knew the influence he had on the People, he knew how, when once the poor oppressed ones were called upon to repeat aloud and before the Court of Justice what at eve or at night they had whispered to him in privacy, he knew how he had the power to stimulate them, how the inspiration of his words would be stronger than the fear of revenge on the part of District-Chief or Regent. It was not then the fear that those whom he meant to protect would desert their own cause, which restrained him. But it cost him so much to lay a charge against that old Adhipatti: that was the reason of his internal struggle! For on the other hand again he was not at liberty to yield to this reluctance, since the entire population, apart even from their absolute claim to justice, had an equally strong claim to pity.
No fear of any trouble to himself had a part in his hesitation. For though he knew how reluctant in general the Government is to receive charges against a Regent, and how much easier it is for some of the powers to reduce a European official to beggary than to punish a native Chief, he had a special reason for believing that at this exact moment, in dealing with such a matter, principles different from the usual ones would prevail. It is true that, even without this opinion, he would have done his duty just the same, in fact all the more as the danger to him and his appeared greater than ever. We have seen that it was exactly the difficult task that attracted him, and that he had almost a craving for self-sacrifice. But he imagined that the lure of such sacrifice did not exist here, and feared that, if in the end he would have to engage in a serious battle against injustice, he would have to forego the chivalrous pleasure of having begun the struggle as the weaker party.
Yes, this is what he feared. He imagined that at the head of the Government there was a Governor-General who would be his ally, and it was an additional peculiarity of his character that this conviction restrained him from severe measures, longer indeed than anything else would have done, because it was repugnant to him to attack Injustice at a moment when he took the cause of Justice to be stronger than usual. Did I not already, in my attempt at describing his nature, say that he was naïve in spite of all his keenness?
Let me try to make it clear how Havelaar had come to form that conviction.
Very few European readers can form an adequate conception of the moral altitude to which a Governor-General must rise in order not to be below the height of his office, and it must, therefore, not be taken as severity of judgment when I say that I hold the opinion that very few persons—perhaps not one—have ever been equal to so exalted a task. I will not now enumerate all the qualities of head and heart that are necessary to it, but would ask that one cast a glance at the dizzying height at which the man is suddenly placed who, but yesterday an ordinary citizen, to-day wields power over millions of subjects. He who until quite recently was lost among his entourage, without rising above it in rank or authority, finds himself all at once, most often unforeseen, raised above a multitude infinitely larger than the small circle which, in spite of its insignificant dimensions, nevertheless hid him entirely from the view; and I believe that I did not exaggerate when I called the height dizzying, which indeed reminds one of the position of one who is seized with vertigo on unexpectedly seeing a precipice in front of him, or of the blindness that strikes us when we are rapidly transferred from complete darkness into dazzling light. The nerves of sight and brain are not proof against such transitions, however extraordinarily strong they might otherwise be.
If then the appointment as Governor-General often carries in its very nature the causes of corruption, even for those who excel in intellect and in heart, what then may be expected from persons who, before their appointment, have already many shortcomings? And assuming for a moment that the King is always correctly advised when he signs his exalted name under the deed in which he expresses himself convinced of the “faithfulness, zeal and ability” of the appointed Lieutenant; assuming that the new Viceroy is zealous, faithful and able, it still remains the question whether that zeal, and especially that ability, are found in him to a degree sufficiently raised above mediocrity to satisfy the requirements of his high calling.
For the question cannot be whether the man who at The Hague leaves the King’s cabinet as a newly made Governor-General possesses at that moment the ability that will be necessary for his new office . . . such a thing is impossible! The expression of confidence in his ability can only mean that in an entirely new career, at a given moment, as it were by inspiration, he will know what he cannot have learned at The Hague. In other words, that he is a genius, a genius who must all at once have the knowledge and the power of execution, neither of which he possessed before. Such genius is rare, even among persons who enjoy the favour of Kings.
As I am speaking of geniuses, one realizes that I wish to pass over what might be said of so many a Governor. Also, I should be loath to introduce pages into my book which would expose the serious portion of the work therein to the suspicion of scandal-mongering. I shall therefore here pass by particulars that would concern definite persons; but as a general diagnosis of the complaints of Governors-General I think I must state: First stage. Giddiness. Incense-intoxication. Conceit. Unlimited self-confidence. Contempt for others, especially old chums. Second stage. Exhaustion. Fear. Dejection. Craving for sleep and rest. Excessive confidence in the Council of India. Dependence on the General Secretariate. Nostalgia for a country villa in Holland.
Between these two stages, and as a transition—perhaps even as the cause of such transition—there are attacks of dysentery.
I trust many in India will thank me for this diagnosis. Its application is useful, for one may take it for granted that the patient, who, through over-strain, would in the first period be choked by a gnat, will afterwards—i.e. after the complaint of the stomach!—be able, without inconvenience, to digest camels. Or, to speak more plainly, that an official who “accepts presents, not with the object of enriching himself”—for instance, a bunch of bananas worth a couple of farthings—will, in the first period of the complaint, be dismissed with disgrace and ignominy, but that a man who has the patience to await the last period will, with perfect tranquillity and without any fear of punishment, be able to appropriate the garden where the bananas grew, with also the adjoining gardens . . . and the houses in the neighbourhood . . . and all that may be found in those houses . . . and a few more things, ad libitum.
Everyone may profit by this pathologico-philosophical remark, keeping my advice to himself, of course, to prevent excessive competition. . . .
Cursèd! why must indignation and sorrow so often masquerade in the motley of satire? Cursèd! why must a tear, to be understood, be accompanied by a grin? Or is it the fault of my inexperience that I can find no words to probe the depth of the wound that eats into the administrative body of our State like a cancer, without looking for my style in Figaro or Polichinel?
Style . . . yes! Before me lie documents in which there is style! Style which showed that there was, close at hand, a man in the true sense, a man to whom it would have been worth while to put out a helping hand! And what has that style availed poor Havelaar? He did not translate his tears into a grin, he jeered not, he did not seek to strike home by garish variety of colours, or by the jests of the crier in front of the booth at the fair . . . what has it availed him?
If I could write as he, I should write otherwise than he.
Style? Did you not hear how he spoke to the Chiefs? What has it availed him?
If I could speak as he, I should speak otherwise than he.
Away with kindly language, away with gentleness, frankness, simplicity, feeling! Away with all that savours of Horatius’s justum ac tenacem! Sound trumpets here, and the loud clatter of cymbals, and the sharp hiss of rockets, and the scraping of untuned strings, and now and then a word of truth, so that it may steal in like a forbidden article, under cover of so many drumming and piping sounds!
Style? He had style! He had too much soul to drown his thoughts in the “I have the honours” and the “noble-severities” and the “respectfully submitted for considerations,” which are the voluptuous joy of the little world in which he moved. When he wrote, something went through you who read it which made you realize that clouds accompanied the thunderstorm, and that it was not merely the rumble of a sheet-iron stage-thunder you heard. When he struck fire from his thought-conceptions, you felt the heat of that fire, unless you were a born office-man, or a Governor-General, or the writer of the most loathly Report on “peaceful peace.” And what has it availed him?
So if I wish to be heard—and above all understood!—I must write otherwise than he. But then, how?
Reader, I am in search of the answer to that how, and that is why my book has such a motley appearance. It is a pattern-card: make your choice! Afterwards I will give you yellow or blue or red according to your taste.
Havelaar had already noticed the Governor-disease in so many patients—and often in anima vili, for there are analogous Resident-Controller- and Supernumerary-diseases, standing to the former in the same relation as measles to smallpox; and, finally, he himself had suffered from this class of disease!—already so frequently had he noticed all this that the accompanying symptoms were pretty well known to him. He had found the then Governor-General less dizzy in the first stages of the indisposition than most of the others, and thought he might conclude from this that the further course of the illness would probably also take another direction.
It was for this reason that he feared to be the stronger when in the end he would have to stand up as defender of the rights of the inhabitants of Lebak.
- ↑ Secretary, or factotum.