Max Havelaar (Siebenhaar)/Chapter 7
The Resident of Bantam introduced the Regent and the Controller to the new Assistant-Resident. Havelaar spoke to both officials some courteous words of greeting. He made the Controller feel at ease—there is always something unpleasant in meeting a new chief—by addressing him cordially, as if he wished at once to introduce a more or less familiar tone, which would smooth the path of official intercourse. His meeting with the Regent was such as was due to a person who carried the gilt payong,[1] but who at the same time was to be his younger brother. With courtly affability, he chid him for his too zealous dutifulness, which in such weather had made him come to the border of his division, for, strictly speaking, according to the rule of etiquette, the Regent need not have done this.
“Really, Adhipatti, I am cross with you for having gone to such trouble on my behalf! I had only expected to meet you at Rangkas-Betoong.”
“I wished to meet the Assistant-Resident as soon as possible, to become friends,” said the Adhipatti.
“Certainly, certainly, I feel greatly honoured! But I do not like to see one of your rank and years over-exerting himself. And that on horseback, too!”
“Yes, Mr. Havelaar! When the Service calls, I am still alert and strong.”
“Ah, but this would have been expecting too much of you! Wouldn’t it, Resident?”
“The Adhipatti. Is. Very. . . .”
“True, but there are limits.”
“Zealous,” drawled the Resident behind.
“True, but there are limits,” Havelaar had to repeat, as if by way of eating his previous words. “If you approve, Resident, we’ll make room in the carriage. The baboo can stay here, and we’ll send a palanquin for her from Rangkas-Betoong. My wife will take Max in her lap . . . won’t you, Tine? And so there will be enough room.”
“I. Have. No. . . .”
“Verbrugge, we’ll give you a passage also; I don’t see . . .”
“Objection!” said the Resident.
“I don’t see why you should slush through the mud on horseback . . . there is room enough for all of us. In this way we can at once make each other’s acquaintance. What say you, Tine, we’ll manage perfectly, shan’t we? Here, Max . . . look, Verbrugge, isn’t he a fine little man! That’s my young son . . . that’s Max!”
The Resident had seated himself in the pendoppo with the Adhipatti. Havelaar called Verbrugge, whom he wished to ask whose was the piebald with the red saddle-cloth. But when Verbrugge went to the entrance of the pendoppo, to see which horse he meant, Havelaar laid his hand on the Controller’s shoulder, and asked:
“Is the Regent always so dutiful?”
“He is a stalwart man for his years, Mr. Havelaar, and you will understand that he naturally wants to make a good impression on you.”
“Yes, I understand. I have heard much good of him . . . he is refined, isn’t he?”
“Oh yes. . . .”
“And he has a large family?”
Verbrugge looked at Havelaar as if he did not understand this transition. And this, indeed, was often difficult for those who did not know Havelaar. The alertness of his mind often made him drop some links of the chain of reasoning in a conversation, and though this transition was quite gradual in his thoughts, it surely could not be a cause for blaming those who were less quick, or who were not used to his quickness, if in such a case they stared at him with the unspoken question on their lips: “Are you mad . . . or what is the matter?”
Something like this showed itself in the expression of Verbrugge’s face, and Havelaar had to repeat the question, before the Controller answered:
“Yes, he has a very large family.”
“And are there Medjeets[2] being built in the division?” continued Havelaar, again in a tone which, in contradiction with the words themselves, seemed to indicate a connection between those mosques and the “large family” of the Regent.
Verbrugge answered that undoubtedly there was a good deal of labour being applied to mosques.
“Yes, yes, I knew it!” exclaimed Havelaar. “And just tell me, now, whether there are considerable arrears in the payments of land-rent.”
“Yes, they might be better.”
“Exactly! and especially in the district of Parang Koodyang,” said Havelaar, as though it were easier for him to answer his own questions. “What is the estimate for the current year?” he continued, and noticing that Verbrugge hesitated a little, as if reflecting upon his answer, Havelaar forestalled him, continuing as in one breath:
“Right, right, I know it already . . . eighty-six thousand and a few hundred . . . fifteen thousand more than last year . . . but only six thousand above ’55. Since ’53 we have only advanced eight thousand . . . also, the population is very thin . . . yes, of course, Malthus! In twelve years we have only risen eleven per cent, and this is still questionable, for the earlier censuses were very inaccurate . . . and they are still! From ’50 to ’51 there is even retrogression. And also the live-stock figures are not progressing . . . that’s a bad sign, Verbrugge! The deuce! look at that horse capering! I believe that it has the staggers . . . come and look, Max!”
Verbrugge realized that he would not have to teach the new Assistant-Resident much, and that there was no question of superiority through “local seniority,” which, however, it is only right to say, the good fellow had not desired.
“But it is natural,” continued Havelaar, taking Max in his arms. “At Tjekandi and Bolang they are very glad of it. And so are the rebels in the Lampongs. I reckon on your hearty co-operation, Mr. Verbrugge! The Regent is a man of advanced years, so we must . . . just tell me, is his son-in-law still District-Chief? Considering everything, I take him to be a man deserving of tolerant treatment . . . I mean the Regent. I am very glad that everything here is so backward and poverty-stricken, and . . . I hope to be here a long time.”
Saying this he shook hands with Verbrugge, who, returning to the table where the Resident, the Adhipatti, and Mrs. Havelaar were seated, realized already a little better than five minutes earlier that “Havelaar was not such a fool” as the Commandant believed. Verbrugge was in no way wanting in intelligence, and he, knowing the division Lebak about as thoroughly as so extensive a region, where nothing is printed, can be known by one person, began to see that after all there was a connection between the seemingly disconnected questions of Havelaar, and also that the new Assistant-Resident, although he had never before set foot in the division, knew something of the things that were going on there. It is true, he still did not understand that gladness about the poverty in Lebak, but he persuaded himself that he had misunderstood that expression. Afterwards, however, when Havelaar frequently repeated the same statement, he saw how much goodness and nobility there was in that joy.
Havelaar and Verbrugge sat down at the table, and talking about trivial matters during tea, they waited till Dongso came to tell the Resident that the fresh horses were put in. The travellers packed themselves into the carriage as comfortably as possible, and the company drove away. The jolting and shaking made conversation difficult. Little Max was kept good with pesang,[3] and his mother, who held him in her lap, would absolutely not admit that she was tired, when Havelaar offered to take the heavy child. During a moment of enforced rest in a mud-hole, Verbrugge asked the Resident whether he had already spoken to the new Assistant-Resident about Mrs. Slotering.
“Mister Havelaar. Has said . . .”
“Certainly, Verbrugge, why not? The lady can stay with us. I should not like . . .”
“That. It. Was. All right,” the Resident dragged out with a great effort.
“I should not like to deny the use of my house to a lady in her circumstances! A thing like that speaks for itself . . . doesn’t it, Tine?”
Tine also considered that it spoke for itself.
“You have two houses at Rangkas-Betoong,” said Verbrugge. “There is room and to spare for two families.”
“But even if it were not so . . .”
“I. Dared. Not. Promise . . .”
“Well, Resident!” exclaimed Mrs. Havelaar, “there is no doubt about it!”
“It. Her. For. It. Is . . .”
“Even if there were ten of them, so long as they were willing to make the best of things.”
“A. Great. Inconvenience. And. She. Is . . .”
“But travelling in her condition is an impossibility, Resident!”
A violent jerk of the carriage, as it became de-mudded, placed an exclamation mark after Tine’s assertion that travelling was an impossibility for Mrs. Slotering. Everyone had uttered the usual “I say!” that follows such a jerk. Max had found in the lap of his mother the pesang he had lost through the jolt, and they were already quite a distance nearer the mudhole that was to come next, before the Resident was able to conclude his sentence by adding:
. . . “A. Native. Woman.”
“Oh, that’s all the same,” Mrs. Havelaar tried to make him understand. The Resident nodded, as if intending to say that he was glad the matter was thus settled, and as the conversation presented such difficulties, they dropped it.
The Mrs. Slotering referred to was the widow of Havelaar’s predecessor, who had died two months before. Verbrugge, who thereupon had been provisionally charged with the function of Assistant-Resident, would have been entitled to occupy during that time the spacious residence which at Rangkas-Betoong, as in every division, had been erected by the Government for the person there in authority. He had, however, not done so, partly perhaps from fear that he would have to move again too soon, and partly to leave the use of it to the lady and her children. All the same, there would have been room enough, for in addition to the fairly large Assistant-Residency there was next to it, in the same grounds, another house, which had formerly served the same purpose, and which, though somewhat in disrepair, was still perfectly fit to live in.
Mrs. Slotering had asked the Resident to speak for her to the successor of her husband, to obtain his permission for her to live in the old house until after her confinement, which she expected in a few months. It was this request which Havelaar and his wife had so readily conceded, as entirely in accordance with their natural disposition to the most liberal hospitality and eagerness to help.
We have heard the Resident say that Mrs. Slotering was a “native woman.” This remark requires some elucidation for the non-Indian reader, who might readily and wrongly conclude that the allusion was to a full-blooded Javanese.
European Society in Netherlands India is rather sharply divided into two sections: the true Europeans, and those who—although legally living in the enjoyment of absolutely the same full rights—were not born in Europe, and have more or less “native” blood in their veins. In justice to the conceptions of humanity in India, I hasten to add that, however sharp the line which in social life is drawn between the two classes of persons who for the natives bear equally the name of Hollander, this division is in no way marked by the barbaric character which is found in the American distinction of status. I cannot deny that even so there is still much in the mutual relation which is unjust and painful, and that the word lip-lap (half-caste) has often sounded in my ear as proof of the distance which as yet separates many a non-half-caste, or “white” person, from true civilization. It is true that the half-caste is only in exceptional cases admitted into European company, and that usually, if I may here adopt a very familiar expression, he is not accepted as full-blown, but not many people would represent and defend such exclusion or contempt as a just principle. Everyone is of course at liberty to choose his own entourage and company, and one cannot rightly blame the complete European for preferring intercourse with people of his own breeding to that with persons who—leaving alone their greater or lesser value from a moral or intellectual point of view—do not share his impressions and ideas, or—and this, in a presumed difference of culture, is perhaps very often the chief thing—whose prejudices have taken another direction than his own.
A lip-lap—to be more polite I suppose I should have to say a “so-called native child”; but I beg leave to adhere to the idiom which seems to be born of alliteration; I mean nothing offensive by its use: why should it be offensive?—a lip-lap may have many good qualities. The European also may have many good qualities. Both have many that are bad, and in this also they resemble each other. But the good and the bad qualities of both are too divergent to permit of their intercourse being as a rule mutually satisfactory. Besides—and for this the Government is largely responsible—the lip-lap is often badly educated. Now the point is not what the European would be like if his mental development had been hampered from youth, but that doubtless in general the slender scientific equipment of the lip-lap hinders his being placed on an equality with the European even when some lip-lap personally would perhaps deserve to be ranked above some European or another as regards culture or scientific or artistic attainments.
In this also there is nothing new. It was, for instance, part of the policy of William the Conqueror to raise the most insignificant Norman above the most civilized Saxon, and every Norman would appeal to the superiority of the Normans in general, in order to assert his personality even where he would have been entirely the inferior but for the influence of his race as the ruling party.
Such a state of affairs naturally creates a more or less forced position, which nothing could remove except the better-informed, more broad-minded conceptions and measures of a wise Government.
It is obvious that the European, who in this relationship is on the winning side, feels himself perfectly comfortable in such artificial predominance. But it is often ludicrous enough to hear some person who largely drew his culture and grammar from the Rotterdam Sandstreet, laugh at the lip-lap because he makes a glass of water or a government masculine, and sun or moon neuter.
A lip-lap may be cultured, well-educated, or scholarly—and there are such!—but no sooner has the European who malingered in order to stay away from the ship on which he washed the plates, and who bases his claims to good manners on “’Scuse me” and “How are yer?” risen to the position of head of the commercial venture which made such “huge” profits out of indigo in 1800 odd . . . nay, long before he became owner of the toko (booth) in which he sells hams and fowling-pieces—no sooner has this European noticed that the most cultured lip-lap even has a difficulty in distinguishing between h and g, than he sneers at the stupidity of the man who does not know the difference between hot gas and has got.
But to unlearn that sneer he would have to know that in Arabic and Malay those consonants are expressed by one letter-symbol, that Hieronymus passes through Geronimo into Jerome, that we make guano out of huano, that our hand fits into a French gant, that a Dutch kous is an English hose, and that for Guild Heaume we say in Dutch Hooillem or Willem. So much erudition cannot of course be expected from a man who made his fortune “in” indigo, and who extracted his culture from the success of gambling . . . or worse!
And naturally such Europeans cannot be expected to be hail-fellow-well-met with a lip-lap!
I, however, understand how Willem originates in Guillaume, and I must admit that especially in the Moluccas I have often met “lip-laps” who amazed me by the extent of their knowledge, and who suggested to me that we Europeans, in spite of all the resources at our disposal, often—and not merely by comparison—are far behind the poor pariahs who from the cradle struggle with artificially unjust setbacks and with the silly prejudice against their colour.
But Mrs. Slotering was once and for all safeguarded against mistakes in Dutch, as she never spoke anything but Malay. We shall have a look at her later, when we take tea with Havelaar, Tine, and little Max in the colonnade of the assistant-residency at Rangkas-Betoong, where our travellers, after endless jolting and jerking, arrived at last safely.
The Resident, who had only come to install the new Assistant-Resident in his office, expressed his wish to return the same day to Serang:
Because. He . . .
Havelaar also expressed his readiness to lose no time. . . .
Was. “So. Very. Busy.”
. . . and the arrangement was made that within half an hour they would meet for the purpose in the spacious colonnade of the Regent’s residence. Verbrugge, who had anticipated this, had several days before instructed the District-Chiefs, the Patteh, the Klewon, the Dyaksa,[4] the Tax Collector, some mantrees, and further all the Indian officials who were to attend this function, to assemble at the head-centre.
The Adhipatti took leave, and rode home. Mrs. Havelaar looked over her new residence, and was very pleased with it, especially because the garden was a large one, which seemed to her a fine thing for little Max, who should be much in the open. The Resident and Havelaar had repaired to their rooms to change, for, at the solemn function which was to take place, the officially prescribed uniform appeared to be requisite. Round about the house there were hundreds of people, who had either accompanied the Resident’s carriage on horseback, or belonged to the retinue of the summoned chiefs. The police- and office-orderlies walked busily to and fro. In short, everything showed that the monotony of existence on this forgotten spot in the west end of Java was for a moment interrupted by a little life.
Soon the handsome carriage of the Adhipatti drove into the courtyard. The Resident and Havelaar, glittering with gold and silver, but now and then stumbling over their swords, took their seats, and moved on to the residence of the Regent, where they were received with music of gongs and gamlangs. Verbrugge, who had changed his bespattered costume, was already there. The lesser chiefs sat in a wide circle, on mats on the floor, in accordance with the Eastern custom, and at the end of the long colonnade there was a table, at which the Resident, the Adhipatti, the Assistant-Resident, the Controller, and six chiefs seated themselves. Tea and pastry were served, and the simple function started.
The Resident rose, and read out the order of the Governor-General by which Max Havelaar was appointed Assistant-Resident of the division Bantan-Kedool or South-Bantam, as Lebak is called by the natives. Then he took the Government Gazette containing the oath prescribed for the assumption of offices in general, which states: “that, in order to be nominated or promoted to the office of , one has promised or given nothing to anyone, nor will promise or give anything; that one will be loyal and faithful to His Majesty the King of the Netherlands; obedient to His Majesty’s representative in the Indian Dominions; that one will strictly follow and cause to be followed the laws and orders given or to be given, and that in everything one will behave as becomes a good . . . (in this case: Assistant-Resident).”
This of course was followed by the sacramental: “So help me God Almighty.”
Havelaar repeated the words as they were read out. Properly speaking it should have been considered as part of this oath that one promised: to protect the native population against exploitation and oppression. For, in swearing that one would maintain the existing laws and orders, one had only to cast a glance at the numerous injunctions to that effect, in order to see that a special oath for this purpose was in reality quite superfluous. But the legislator seems to have considered that of a good thing one cannot have too much, for a separate oath is required of the Assistant-Residents, which once more specially emphasizes this obligation towards the inferior people. Havelaar therefore had once more to take “God Almighty” as his witness to the promise: that he “would protect the native population against oppression, ill-treatment, and extortion.”
To a keen observer it would have been worth while noticing the difference between the attitude and tone of the Resident and of Havelaar on this occasion. Both had attended similar functions more than once. The difference to which I allude, therefore, was not caused by one or the other being more or less struck by the novelty or the unusual character of the scene, but was wholly due to the divergence of the characters and conceptions of these two persons. It is true, the Resident spoke slightly faster than usual, as he had only to read the Order and the oaths, which saved him the trouble of having to look for his final words; but, nevertheless, everything on his part was done with a stateliness and solemnity which must have impressed the superficial onlooker with a high opinion of the importance he attached to the affair. Havelaar, on the other hand, when with uplifted finger he repeated the oaths, showed something in his face, his voice, and his bearing that seemed to say: “this is self-evident; I should do this even without God Almighty.” And anyone with some knowledge of human nature would have felt more confidence in his unconstrained manner and seeming indifference than in the official solemnity of the Resident.
For is it not absurd to think that one who is called to administer justice, one in whose hands is placed the happiness or misery of thousands, that such an one should consider himself bound by a few spoken sounds, if, even without those sounds, he did not feel himself impelled to the right by his own heart?
We believe this of Havelaar, that, wherever it might have been his fate to meet the poor or oppressed, he would have protected them, even though he should have promised the contrary by “Almighty God.”
Then followed an address to the Chiefs by the Resident, who introduced the Assistant-Resident to them as the head of the division, asked them to obey him, to carry out scrupulously their obligations, and more such commonplaces. After this the chiefs were one by one presented by name to Havelaar. He shook hands with each of them, and the “installation” was over.
Dinner was taken at the house of the Adhipatti, Commandant Duclari being also invited. Immediately after the meal the Resident, who wished to be at Serang again that evening:
Because. He. Was. So. Exceptionally. Busy. . . . re-entered his travelling coach, and Rangkas-Betoong returned to the quietude which may be expected at a Java outpost in the interior, where but few Europeans live, and which moreover is not situated on the main road.
The acquaintance between Duclari and Havelaar was soon placed on an easy footing. The Adhipatti gave signs of being taken with his new “elder brother,” and shortly afterwards Verbrugge mentioned that the Resident also, whom he had accompanied part of the way back to Serang, had spoken very favourably of the Havelaars, who had spent some days at his house when they passed through on their journey to Lebak. He had added that Havelaar, being highly thought of by the Government, would most probably be ere long promoted to a better position, or at least transferred to a more “advantageous” division.
Max and “his Tine” had only recently returned from a voyage to Europe, and felt tired of a “life in boxes,” as I once heard it called rather aptly. So they considered themselves lucky, after long wanderings, to live at last again in a spot where they would feel at home. Before their trip to Europe Havelaar had been Assistant-Resident of Amboina, where he had encountered a good many difficulties, as, owing to a series of mistaken measures that had been taken for some time past, the population of that island were in a condition of ferment and rebelliousness. With considerable energy he had succeeded in suppressing this spirit of opposition; but, chagrined by the scant assistance accorded him in this matter by the authorities, and irked by the miserable form of Government which for centuries has depopulated and ruined the glorious land of the Moluccas . . .
If the reader is interested in the subject, let him see what was written thereon as early as 1825 by Baron Van der Capellen, and published by this humanitarian in the Indian Gazette of that year. The condition has by no means improved since that time!
However, Havelaar did at Amboina what was possible and permitted, but the depressing irritation at the lack of support on the part of those whose first duty would have been to assist his efforts had made him ill, and this had induced him to go to Europe on leave. Strictly speaking, on his re-instalment he had had a claim on a better choice than the poor and by no means thriving division of Lebak, as his sphere of work at Amboina had been of greater importance, and as there, without a Resident over him, he had depended entirely on himself. Moreover, before he went to Amboina, his elevation to the rank of Resident had already been mooted, and it created some astonishment that he was now charged with the control of a division which paid such small produce emolument, as most people measure the importance of an office by the income attached to it. He himself, however, did not complain of this in the least, for his ambition was not of a nature to make him beg for higher rank or better remuneration.
Yet the latter would have stood him in good stead! For his travels in Europe had absorbed his small savings of former years. He had even left some debts there, and he was, in a word, poor. But he had never looked on his office as primarily a money-business, and on his appointment to Lebak he contentedly made up his mind that he would recover his arrears by economy, knowing that his wife, simple in tastes and wants, would gladly assist him in this respect.
But economy was not very easy to Havelaar. For himself he was able to limit his needs to the strictly necessary. Indeed, without the slightest effort he might so restrict himself; but when others required assistance, it was a veritable passion with him to help and to give. He knew this was a weakness; he argued out, with all the common sense he possessed, how unjust it was to assist anyone else when he himself had a stronger claim to his own support . . . he felt this injustice still more keenly when also “his Tine” and Max, both of whom he so loved, suffered from the consequences of his liberality . . . he reproached himself for his good nature as a weakness, as vanity, as a craving for masquerading as a prince in disguise . . . he promised himself that he would mend his way, and yet . . . every time someone or other succeeded in presenting himself as a victim of adversity, he forgot all his good intentions in his eagerness to help. And this in spite of the bitter experience of the consequences of this virtue grown into a vice. A week before the birth of little Max he was without the needful wherewith to buy the iron cot that was to hold his darling, and only a short time before this he had sacrificed the few jewels of his wife for the purpose of coming to the rescue of someone who no doubt was in better circumstances than himself.
But all this was already again far behind them when they arrived at Lebak! With cheerful peace of mind they had taken possession of the house: “where at last surely they hoped to stay for some time.” With a curious delight they had ordered in Batavia the furniture that was to make everything so comfortable and snug. They showed each other the places where they would breakfast, where little Max would play, where they would have their bookcase, where in the evening he would read to her what he had written during the day, for he was for ever unfolding his ideas on paper . . . and: “some day it would be printed,” thought Tine, “and these people would see who her Max was!” But never yet had he sent to the press any of the things that passed through his brain, for he was possessed by a kind of shyness which bore some resemblance to chastity. He himself, at any rate, was unable better to describe this diffidence than by asking those who urged him to publicity: “would you send your daughter out into the street without so much as a wrap?”
This, of course, was again reported as one of the many sallies that made people say: “Really that Havelaar is a peculiar man!” And I will not deny the truth of this. But if one had taken the trouble to translate his unusual mode of expression, one would have probably found in the strange question concerning the toilet of a girl the theme for a treatise on the chastity of a mind which is shy of the stare of loutish passers-by, and which would cloak itself in a mantle of virginal timidity.
Yes, they would be happy at Rangkas-Betoong, Havelaar and “his Tine”! The only care that still weighed on their minds was that of the debts they had left behind in Europe, added to the expenses still unpaid of the voyage back to India, and to the cost of furnishing their house. But they were not in real need. Would they not live on one-half, nay one-third of his income? Perhaps also, even probably, he would soon be made a Resident, and then everything would in no time be quite easily arranged.
“Although I should be very sorry, Tine, to leave Lebak, for there is much to do here. You must be very economical, sweetheart, then we may be able to pay everything, even without promotion . . . and then I should like to remain here a long time, a very long time!”
This admonition to economy, however, he need not have addressed to her. Truly not she was in any way the cause that it had become necessary to be so careful, but she had so entirely identified herself with her Max that she felt the admonition in no way as a reproach, and neither was it. For Havelaar knew but too well that it was only he who had failed through his excessive liberality, and that her fault—if then a fault could be admitted in her case—had only been her love of Max, which ever approved what he did.
Yes, she had approved of his taking two poor women, who lived in Newstreet and had never been out of Amsterdam, and who had never “been taken out,” round the Haarlem fair, under the amusing pretext that the King had charged him with: “the entertainment of old ladies who led a particularly good life.” She had approved of his treating the orphans of all the Amsterdam institutions to cake and almond-milk, and loading them with toys. She fully understood that he paid the hotel bill for the family of poor singers who wanted to return to their own country, but who did not wish to leave their belongings behind, including the harp and the violin and the bassoon which they needed so badly for their poorly paid trade. She could not consider it wrong that he brought to her the girl who had spoken to him in the street one evening . . . that he gave her food and lodging, and did not address to her the all too cheap admonition, “Go thou and sin no more!” ere he had made it possible for her not to “sin.” She admired it in her Max, that he had the piano returned to the drawing-room of the father whom he had heard say how it had hurt him that his girls were deprived of music “since that bankruptcy.” She understood perfectly that her Max bought the liberty of a slave family at Menado, when they seemed bitterly wretched at having to mount the table of the auctioneer. She thought it natural that Max gave other horses to the Alfoors in the Minahassa, when theirs had been ridden to death by the officers of the Bayonnaise. She did not object at Menado and Amboina when he called before him and looked after the castaways of the American whalers, and felt himself too much grand seigneur to present an hotel bill to the American Government. She thought it quite right that the officers of every man-of-war that arrived mostly stayed with Max, and that his house was their favourite pied-à-terre.
Was he not her Max? Would it not have been too petty, too childish, too absurd to bind him, who thought on so princely a scale, to the rules of economy and carefulness which are valid for others? And besides, even though for the moment there might seem to be a disproportion between their income and their expenditure, was not Max, her Max, destined for a brilliant career? Would he not soon be in circumstances which would enable him, without exceeding his income, to give a free rein to his magnanimous inclinations? Would not her Max be some day Governor-General of her beloved India, or even . . . a King? Was it not, indeed, strange that he had not yet been made a King?
If in these things there was in her a kind of naïveté, the cause of it was her infatuation for Havelaar; and, if ever, the saying that much must be forgiven to those who have loved much was applicable in her case!
But she had nothing to be forgiven. Without quite sharing the exaggerated notions she fostered with regard to her Max, one may still assume that he had before him a promising future; and if this well-founded prospect had been realized, the unpleasant consequences of his liberality might indeed soon have been removed. But also another reason, of an entirely different nature, excused her and his seeming carelessness.
She had lost her parents when very young, and been brought up with relations. When she was married they told her that she possessed a little money, which they paid her. But Havelaar discovered, from some letters of an earlier date, and from stray notes which she kept in a small case that had belonged to her mother, that her people, both on the side of her father and her mother, had been very rich; yet he could find nothing to explain where, when, or through what cause that wealth had been lost. She herself, who had never taken an interest in money matters, could answer him little or nothing when he pressed for particulars with regard to the former possessions of her relatives. Her grandfather, the Baron Van Wynbergen, had followed Prince William V in exile to England, and had been a cavalry captain in the army of the Duke of York. He appeared to have led a gay life with the exiled members of the stadhouder’s family, and this had been assigned in many quarters as the cause of losing his fortune. Afterwards, at Waterloo, he fell in a charge with the hussars of Boreel. It was touching to read the letters of her father—who was then a youth of eighteen, and who, as a lieutenant in the same corps, received in the same charge a sabre cut on the head, from the consequence of which he was to die demented eight years later—letters to his mother, in which he complained that he had vainly searched the battlefield for the body of his father.
As regards her descent on her mother’s side, she remembered that her grandfather had lived in great affluence, and it was evident from some of the papers that he had owned the postal service in Switzerland, in the same manner as, even now, in large portions of Germany and Italy, this branch of revenue is the appanage of the princes of Turn and Taxis. This suggested a large fortune, but again, without any known cause, nothing or only very little appeared to have come down to the second generation.
Havelaar did not learn the little that was still to be learnt about the matter until after his marriage, and in his researches it aroused his astonishment that the small case which I just referred to—and which, with its contents, she kept from a sense of piety, without suspecting that perhaps there were documents in i1t of importance from a financial point of view—was suddenly lost in the most unaccountable manner. Though in no way mercenary, he could not help forming, from this and many other circumstances, the opinion that behind it was concealed a roman intime, and one can scarcely blame him, with his expensive inclinations, for the fact that it would have given him great pleasure if that novel had ended happily. Now whatever may have been the truth about this novel, and whether or no there had been spoliation, there is no doubt that in Havelaar’s mind something had arisen that one might call a rêve aux millions.
But again it was characteristic that he, who would most accurately and keenly have traced and defended the rights of others, however deeply buried under dusty documents and cobwebs of intrigue, now, when his own interests were concerned, neglected in the most slovenly manner the moment when probably the matter might have been tackled with the best chance of success. He seemed to feel something like shame in a case where his own advantage was at stake, and I firmly believe that if “his Tine” had been married to someone else, someone who had appealed to him to lend a hand in breaking the thick cobwebs in which her ancestral fortune had remained stuck, he would have succeeded in restoring to “the interesting orphan” the fortune that belonged to her. But now this interesting orphan was his wife, her fortune was his, and he felt something commercial, something derogatory in asking in her name: “Do you not still owe me something?”
And yet he could not shake off this dream of millions, even though it were only as a handy excuse in answer to the oft-recurring self-reproach that he spent too much money.
Not until shortly before starting on the return journey to Java, when he had already suffered considerably from the pressure of money shortage, when he had had to bow his proud head under the furca caudina of many a creditor, had he succeeded in conquering his sluggishness or his reluctance to take up the matter of the millions he fancied he might still expect. And he was answered with an old current account . . . an argument, as is well known, which is unanswerable.
But oh, they were to be so careful at Lebak! And why not? In such an uncivilized country no girls wander about the streets late at night, who have a little “honour” to sell for a little food. One meets no stray people there who live by problematic professions. It does not happen there that a family is suddenly ruined by a change of fortune . . . and such, after all, were usually the rocks whereon Havelaar’s good intentions foundered. The number of Europeans in that division was so insignificant that it might be called negligible, and at Lebak the Javanese were too poor to become—by whatever vicissitude—interesting by still greater poverty. All this was not exactly considered by Tine—if so, it would have been necessary for her to go into the causes of their reduced circumstances more precisely than her love of Max made desirable—but there was in their new surroundings something like the calm after a storm, a kind of absence of every inducement which—of course with a more or less falsely romantic appearance—had ere this so often made Havelaar say:
“Well, Tine, this surely is a case I cannot very well pass by!”
To which words she had ever answered:
“No, certainly not, Max, you cannot pass this by!”
We shall see, however, how this simple, apparently unexciting place of Lebak cost Havelaar more than all former excesses of his heart taken together. But this they could not know! They looked to the future with confidence, and felt so happy in their love and the possession of their child. . . .
“What a lot of roses in the garden,” exclaimed Tine, “and even rampeh and tchempaka, and so much melatti,[5] and look at those beautiful lilies . . .”
And being the children they were, they were delighted with their new house. And when in the evening Duclari and Verbrugge, after a visit to Havelaar, returned to their joint home, they talked a lot about the childlike cheerfulness of the newly arrived family.
Havelaar went to his office, and remained there the whole night, until the next morning.