Max Havelaar (Siebenhaar)/Chapter 8
Havelaar had asked the Controller to invite the chiefs who were present at Rangkas-Betoong to remain there until the next day, in order to take part in the Sebah[1] which he intended to hold. These meetings were usually held once a month; but either because he wished to save unnecessary journeys to and fro to some of the Chiefs who lived rather far from the head-centre—for the division of Lebak is very extensive—or because he wanted to address them solemnly at once, without waiting for the appointed day, certain it is that he had fixed the first Sebah-day for the next morning.
In front of his residence, on the left-hand side, but in the same grounds, and opposite the house where Mrs. Slotering lived, stood a building which partly contained the offices of the Assistant-Residency, including the local Treasury, and partly consisted of a wide open colonnade, offering a specially suitable place for such a meeting. And there it was that early the following morning the Chiefs were assembled. Havelaar appeared, bowed, and sat down. He received the written monthly reports on agriculture, stock, police, and justice, and laid them by for later examination.
After this everyone expected an address like that which the Resident had delivered the day before, and it is uncertain whether Havelaar himself had the intention of saying anything else; but one must have heard and seen him on such occasions to realize how, during an address of this kind, he was carried away by his subject, and, by his characteristic manner of speaking, gave a new colouring to the most familiar things; how then his figure would rise erect, his glance would shoot fire, his voice would change from soft caress to bladelike sharpness, from his lips would flow metaphors as though he scattered around him precious jewels which to him had cost nothing, and, when he ceased, how everyone would gaze at him open-mouthed, as though asking: “Great God, who is this speaking?”
It is true that he, who on such occasions spoke as an apostle, a seer, could not say afterwards how exactly he had spoken, and in reality his eloquence was more apt to astonish and move than to convince by terseness of reasoning. He might, as soon as Athens had resolved upon war against Philip, have fired the war-spirit of his compatriots to madness; but probably he would have been less successful in the task of moving them to such war by logical persuasion. His address to the chiefs of Lebak was of course in Malay, and this lent it an additional quality, as the simplicity of the Oriental languages gives to many expressions a force which in our idioms has been lost through literary artificiality, whilst on the other hand the melodious sweetness of the Malay language is difficult to reproduce in any other tongue. It must also be remembered that the greater number of his hearers consisted of simple but by no means ignorant people, and that besides they were Orientals, whose impressions differ greatly from ours.
Havelaar must have spoken somewhat like this:—
“Radhen Adhipatti, Regent of Bantan Kedool, and you, Radhens Dhemang, who are chiefs of the districts in this division, and you, Radhen Djaksa, whose office is that of justice, and you also, Radhen Klewon, who exercise authority at the head-centre, and you, Radhens Mantrees and all who are chiefs in the division of Bantan Kedool, I greet you!
“And I say to you that I feel joy in my heart at seeing you all here assembled, listening to the words of my mouth.
“I know that there are among you who excel in knowledge and in goodness of heart; I hope to augment my knowledge from yours, for my store thereof is not as large as I would wish it. And though I love goodness, yet often I become aware that in me there are faults that cast a shadow on my heart’s goodness, and hinder its growth . . . you all know how the large tree supplants the small one and kills it. Therefore I shall watch those among you who excel in virtue so that I may seek to become better than I am.
“I greet you all sincerely.
“When the Governor-General instructed me to go to you as the Assistant-Resident of this division, my heart was rejoiced. It may be known to you that I had never set foot in Bantan Kedool. I therefore asked to be given reports dealing with your division, and I have seen that there is much in Bantan Kedool that is good. Your people have rice-fields in the valleys, and there are also rice-fields on the mountains. And you wish to live in peace, and you do not desire to dwell in the lands that are inhabited by others. Yes, I know that there is much that is good in Bantan Kedool.
“But not only for this reason was my heart rejoiced. For in other districts also I should doubtless have found much that was good.
“But I discovered that your people are poor, and about this I was glad in my inmost soul.
“For I know that Allah loves the poor, and that He gives riches to those whom He wishes to test. But to the poor He sends the one who speaks His word, that they may arise from their misery.
“Does He not give rain where the ears are wilting, and a dewdrop in the cup of the thirsty flower?
“And is it not glorious to be sent in search of the weary, who fell behind after the day’s labour, and sank down by the wayside, as their knees were no longer strong enough to bear them in going up to the place where the wages are paid? Should I not rejoice in being able to hold out a helping hand to him who fell into the furrow, and to give a staff to him who has to climb the mountains? Should not my heart leap up within me to see itself chosen among many, that it may turn lamentations into prayer and weeping into thanksgiving?
“Yes, I am greatly rejoiced at being called to Bantan Kedool!
“I have said to the woman who shares my troubles and makes my happiness greater: ‘Rejoice, for I see that Allah gives blessing on the head of our child! He has sent me to a place where not all the labour has been accomplished, and He has judged me worthy of being there before the harvest time. For the joy is not in cutting the paddy: the joy is in cutting the paddy one has planted. And the soul of man does not grow through the wages, but through the labour that earns the wages.’ And I said to her: ‘Allah has given us a child that will say some day: “Do you know that I am His son?” And then there will be those in the land who will greet him with love, and who will lay their hands on his head, and will say: “Sit down to our meal, and stay in our house, and partake of all we have, for I knew your father.”’
“Chiefs of Lebak, there is much good labour to be accomplished in your district!
“Tell me, is not the husbandman poor? Does not often your paddy ripen to feed those who have not planted? Are there not many wrongs 1n your land? Is not the number of your children small?
“Is there not shame in your souls when the dweller in Bandoong, that lies yonder to the Eastward, visits your district and asks: ‘Where are all the villages, and where the husbandmen? And why do I not hear the gamlang, that speaks gladness with its mouth of brass, nor the pounding of the paddy by your daughters?’
“Does it not fill you with bitterness, when you travel hence unto the south coast and see the mountains that bear no water on their sides, or the plains where never a buffalo drew the plough?
“Yes, yes, I tell you that your soul and mine are sad thereat; and for that very reason we are grateful to Allah that He has given us the power to labour here.
“For in this land we have acres for many, though the dwellers here are few. And it is not the rain that is lacking, for the tops of the mountains suck the clouds from heaven to earth. And it is not everywhere that rocks refuse room to the root, for in many places the soil is soft and fertile, and cries out for the grain that she will return to us as an ear bent with fruitful weight. And there is no war in the land to trample down the paddy even while it is green, nor sickness that renders the patjol[2] useless. Nor are there sunbeams hotter than is necessary to ripen the grain that shall feed you and your children, nor banjirs[3] to make your lament: ‘Show me the place where I have sown!’
“Where Allah sends water-torrents that tear away the paddocks . . . where He makes the soil hard as the barren stones . . . where He makes His sun burn to scorch all growth . . . where He sends war to turn up the fields . . . where He smites with sickness that makes the hands limp, or with drought that kills the ears . . . there, Chiefs of Lebak, we bow the head in meekness, and say: ‘He wills it thus!’
“But not so in Bantan Kedool!
“I have been sent here to be your friend, your elder brother. Would you not warn your younger brother if you saw a tiger on his path?
“Chiefs of Lebak, we have oft made mistakes, and our country is poor because we made so many mistakes.
“For in Tjikandi, and Bolang, and in Krawang, and in the outlying districts of Batavia, there are many who were born in our district, and who have left it.
“Why are they seeking work far from the place where they have buried their parents? Why do they flee from the dessah[4] where they were circumcised? Why do they select the coolness under the tree that grows there, rather than the shade of your forests?
“And yonder in the north-west across the sea, there are many who should be our children, but who have left Lebak to wander about in remote regions with kris and klewang[5] and rifle. And they die miserably, for the power of the Government is there to defeat the rebels.
“I ask you, Chiefs of Bantan Kedool, why are there so many that went away to be buried where they were not born? Why does the tree ask what has become of the man whom he saw as a child playing at its foot?”
Havelaar ceased for a moment. One had to hear and see in order to realize the impression his language made. When he spoke of his child, his voice had a softness, an indescribable emotion, which invited the question: “Where is the little one? Already now let me kiss the child that makes his father speak like this!” But when shortly afterwards, with little apparent transition, he passed on to the questions as to why Lebak was poor, and why so many inhabitants of the district left for elsewhere, there was a quality in the tone of his voice which reminded one of that made by a gimlet when it is forcibly screwed into hard wood. Yet he did not speak loudly, nor lay any special stress on isolated words, and there was even a certain monotony in his voice; but, be it study or nature, this very monotony made the impression of his words more intense on the hearts that were so particularly receptive to such language.
His metaphors, always taken from the life about him, were to him truly the auxiliary means to make clear what he wished to express, and not, as is so often the case, irksome appendages that overload the periods of orators, without adding any clearness to the sense of the matter they pretend to elucidate. We are long accustomed to the absurdity of the expression: “strong as a lion,” but he that first in Europe used this metaphor showed that he had not drawn his simile from the poesy of the soul, which gives images by way of reasoning, and which cannot speak otherwise, but that he had merely copied his trite commonplace from some book or other—perhaps the Bible—in which a lion was mentioned. For none of his hearers had ever experienced the strength of the lion, and consequently it would have been far more requisite to make them realize that strength by comparison of the lion with something the power of which was known to them by experience, than vice versa.
Be it acknowledged that Havelaar was in truth a poet. Anyone must feel that, as he spoke of the rice-fields on the mountains, his glances wandered up to them through the open end of the hall, and that he really saw those fields. One realizes that, when he made the tree ask where the man was who as a child had played at its foot, that tree was actually there and, to the imagination of Havelaar’s audience, gazed around in truth inquiring about the departed dwellers of Lebak. Also, he invented nothing: he heard the tree speaking, and imagined he was only repeating what in his poetic conception he had so clearly understood.
If anyone should make the remark that the originality in Havelaar’s manner of speaking was not altogether indisputable, as his language was reminiscent of the style of the prophets in the Old Testament, I must remind him that I have already described how in moments of exaltation he really became more or less a seer. Fed on the impressions communicated to him by a life in forests and on mountains, surrounded by the poetry-breathing atmosphere of the East, and therefore drawing from sources similar to those of the Monitors of old with whom one felt at times compelled to compare him, we may guess that he would not have spoken otherwise even if he had never read the glorious poems of the Old Testament. Do we not find, already in the verses that date back to his youth, lines like the following, written on the Salak—one of the giants, though not the biggest, among the mountains of the Preanger Regencies—where again the start suggests the sweetness of his emotions, but suddenly passes into an echo of the thunder which he hears from below?—
By hill and mountain-range his prayer sounds true . . .
Here more than yonder are my soul-wings fleeter:
On mountain-heights I soar my God unto!
Here He created temple-choirs and altars,
Where human footsteps would seem blasphemy;
Here, in His tempest, He inspired our psalters . . .
Here rolls His thunder, voicing: ‘Majesty!’”
. . . and do we not feel that he could not have written the last lines as they are, if he had not actually seemed to hear and understand how God’s thunder called out those lines to him in roaring quavers reverberating from the mountain walls?
But in reality he did not care for verse. “It was an ugly corset,” he said, and if he were induced to read anything he had “committed,” as he put it, he delighted in spoiling his own work, either by reciting it in a tone calculated to make it ridiculous, or by suddenly stopping, especially in a most solemn passage, and throwing in a jest which was painful to his audience, but which, as coming from himself, was nothing else than a heart-wrung satire on the disproportion between that strait-jacket and his soul, which in it felt so miserably oppressed
There were but few of the Chiefs who took any of the refreshments that were served, when Havelaar with a sign ordered that tea and maneesan,[6] the inevitable fare for such an occasion, be brought in. It seemed as if he intentionally wished to provide a pause after the last sentence of his address. And there was good reason for it. “Why,” the Chiefs were meant to think, “he already knows that so many have left our division, with bitterness at heart? Already he knows how many families have emigrated to neighbouring districts, to avoid the poverty that prevails here? And he knows even that there are so many Bantammers among the bands that in the Lampongs have unfurled the banner of rebellion against Dutch authority? What is his purpose? What does he mean? Whom do his questions refer to?”
And there were those who looked at Radhen Weera Koosooma, the District Chief of Parang Koodyang. But the majority had their eyes fixed on the ground.
“Just come here, Max!” called Havelaar, noticing his child playing outside, and the Regent took the little one on his knees. But the boy was too wild to stay there long. He bounded away, and ran round the wide circle and amused the Chiefs with his prattle, and played with the hilts of their krisses. When he came near the Djaksa, who caught the child’s attention because he was more handsomely dressed than the others, that Chief seemed to point out something with regard to little Max’s head to the Klewoon, who sat next to him, and who appeared to agree with a whispered remark on the subject.
“Go away now, Max,” said Havelaar, “papa wants to say something to these gentlemen.”
The boy ran away, after having thrown kisses with his hand by way of leave-taking.
After this Havelaar continued thus:
“Chiefs of Lebak! We are all in the service of the King of the Netherlands. But he, who is just, and desires us to do our duty, is far from here. Thirty times a thousand times a thousand souls, nay, more, are bound to obey his orders, but he cannot be near all those who depend on his will.
“The great Lord in Buitenzorg is just, and wishes everyone to do his duty. But he also, mighty though he is, and having authority over all who have power in the towns and all who are the elders in the villages, and disposing of the forces of the army and of the ships that speed across the seas, he also cannot see where injustice has been done, for it remains far from him.
“And the Resident at Serang, who is lord of the region of Bantam, where five times a hundred thousand people dwell, wishes that justice be done in his territory, and that righteousness shall rule in the lands that obey him. But when there is injustice, it is far from his dwelling. And whoever does evil hides from his face for fear of punishment.
“And the lord Adhipatti, who is the Regent of South-Bantam, desires that all shall live who practise goodness, and that there shall be no shame in the district which is his regency.
“And I, who yesterday called upon the Almighty God as my witness that I should be just and merciful, that I should do justice without fear and without hate, that I should be ‘a good Assistant-Resident’ . . . I also wish to do what is my duty.
“Chiefs of Lebak! Who then shall do justice in Bantan Kedool?
“But should there happen to be among us those who neglect their duty for gain, who sell justice for money, or take the buffalo from the poor man, and the fruit that belongs to those who are hungry . . . who shall punish them?
“If one of you knew it, he would prevent it. And the Regent would not suffer such things to happen in his Regency. And I also shall prevent it wherever I can. But if neither you, nor the Adhipatti, nor I knew it . . .
“Chiefs of Lebak! Who then shall do justice in Bantan-Kedool?
“Listen to me, and I will tell you how then justice shall be done.
“There comes a time when our women and children will weep while they are preparing our pall, and the passer-by will say: ‘There is a death in this house!’ Then whoever arrives in the villages will bring tidings of the death of the one that is no more, and whoso harbours him will ask: ‘Who was the man that died?’ and it will be said:
“ ‘He was good and just. He spoke justice and drove not the complainer from his door. He listened patiently to those that came to him and returned what had been taken from them. And if a man could not drive the plough through the earth because the buffalo had been stolen from the stable, he helped him to find the buffalo. And where the daughter had been taken from the house of the mother, he found the thief and brought back the daughter. And where the labourer had laboured, he withheld not his wage from him, and he took not the fruit from him who had planted the tree. He clothed not himself with the garment that should have covered another, nor fed himself with the food that belonged to the poor.’
“Then they will say in the villages: ‘Allah is great, Allah has taken him unto Himself. His will be done . . . a good man has died.’
“And again the passer-by will stop before a house and ask: ‘Why is this, that the gamlang is silent, and the song of the maidens?’ And again they will say to him: ‘A man has died.’
“And he that travels through the villages will sit with his host at eve, and round about him the sons and daughters of the house, and the children of those that live in the villages, and he will say:
“ ‘A man has died who promised to be just, and he sold justice to those who gave him money. He made his land fertile with the sweat of the labourer whom he had called away from his own field of labour. He withheld the wage from the worker, and fed himself with the food of the poor. He grew rich by the poverty of others. He had much gold and silver and precious stones in abundance, but the husbandman who dwells in the neighbourhood knew not how to still the hunger of his child. He smiled like a happy man, but one heard gnashing between the teeth of the complainer who sought justice. There was contentment on his face, but no milk in the breasts of the mothers who suckled.’
“Then the dwellers in the villages will say: ‘Allah is great . . . we curse no one!’
“Chiefs of Lebak, one day we shall all die!
“What will be said in the villages where we held authority? And what by the passers-by who look on at the burial?
“And what shall we answer, when after our death a voice shall speak to our soul, and ask: ‘Why is there weeping in the fields, and why are the young men hiding? Who took from the barns the harvest, and from the stalls the buffalo that was to plough the field? What have you done to the brother whom I gave unto you that you should be to him as a guardian? Why is the poor man sad and why does he curse the fruitfulness of his wife?’ ”
Again Havelaar ceased, and after a moment’s silence he resumed in the simplest possible manner, and as though nothing whatever had occurred that was intended to make an impression:
“I should like to live with you in the best understanding, and I therefore ask you to look upon me as a friend. If anyone should have erred, he may depend on a lenient judgment from me, for as I am but too often in error myself, I shall not be severe . . . that is to say not in ordinary service offences of commission or omission. Only when neglect of duty becomes a habit I shall seek to arrest it. I will not speak of misdemeanours of a grosser nature . . . of extortion and oppression. Nothing of that kind will happen, will it, Adhipatti?”
“Oh, no, Sir, such things will not happen in Lebak.”
“Well then, gentlemen, Chiefs of Bantan Kedool, let us be rejoiced that our division is so backward and poor. We have a beautiful duty to fulfil. If Allah will spare our lives, we shall see to it that well-being is created. The soil is fertile enough, and the people are willing. If everyone is left in the enjoyment of the fruit of his exertion, there is no doubt that in a short space of time the population will increase, both in numbers and in possessions and culture, for these things most frequently go hand in hand. I again ask you to look upon me as a friend who will help you where he can, especially where injustice has to be prevented. And with this I recommend myself to your co-operation.
“I shall in due course return to you the Reports on Crop, Stock, Police, and Justice.
“Chiefs of Bantan Kedool! I have spoken. You may return, everyone to his home. I greet you all cordially!”
He bowed, offered his arm to the Regent, and conducted him through the grounds to the residence, where Tine stood waiting for him in the front veranda.
“Come on, Verbrugge, don’t go home yet! Come along . . . a glass of Madeira? And . . . oh yes, this I must know, Radhen Djaksa. Tell me!”
This Havelaar called out when all the Chiefs, after many curtseys, prepared to return to their homes. Verbrugge also was on the point of leaving the grounds, but now came back with the Djaksa.
“Tine, I'll have some Madeira, and so will Verbrugge. Djaksa, tell me, what was it you told the Klewoon about my little boy?”
“Mintah ampong,[7] Sir, I looked at his head because you had spoken.”
“Well, what the deuce had his head got to do with that? I have already forgotten what I said.”
“Sir, I said to the Klewoon . . .”
Tine moved nearer: they were talking about little Max.
“Sir, I said to the Klewoon that the Seenyo[8] was a king’s child.”
This pleased Tine: she thought so too!
The Adhipatti examined the head of the boy, and, to be sure, he also saw on its crown the double hair-twist which, according to Javanese superstition, is intended to wear a crown.
As etiquette did not permit of offering the Djaksa a seat in the presence of the Regent, the former took leave, and for a little while everyone conversed without touching upon anything that referred to the “service.” But all at once—and therefore contrary to the national customs, which are so excessively courteous—the Regent asked whether certain moneys which were owing to the Tax Collector could not be paid.
“Certainly not,” exclaimed Verbrugge, “the Adhipatti knows that this may not be done before his accounts are approved.”
Havelaar was playing with Max. But it became apparent that this did not prevent him reading on the face of the Regent that Verbrugge’s answer did not please him.
“Come on, Verbrugge, we won’t be disagreeable,” he said. And he sent for a clerk from the office. “We may as well pay this . . . the accounts will no doubt be approved.”
When the Adhipatti was gone, Verbrugge, who was greatly interested in the Gazettes, said:
“Surely, Mr. Havelaar, this is not permitted! The accounts of the collector are still at Serang for examination . . . suppose there 1s something wrong with them?”
“Then I shall make it good,” said Havelaar.
Verbrugge could not for the life of him understand the reason for this great indulgence towards the Tax Collector. The clerk soon returned with some papers. Havelaar signed and gave orders that the payment should be expedited.
“Verbrugge, I’ll tell you why I do this! The Regent hasn’t a penny in his house, his clerk told me so, and besides . . . his brusque request! The thing is obvious. It is he himself who wants that money, and the collector will lend it to him. I’d sooner on my own responsibility set aside a formality than leave a man of his rank and years in embarrassment. Moreover, Verbrugge, in Lebak there is a scandalous abuse of authority. You must know this. Do you know it?”
Verbrugge was silent. He knew it.
“I know it,” continued Havelaar, “I know it! Didn’t Mr. Slotering die in November? Well, the day after his death the Regent summoned people to work his Sawahs . . . without payment! You should have known this, Verbrugge. Did you know it?”
This Verbrugge did not know.
“As Controller you ought to have known it! I know it,” Havelaar continued. “Over there are the monthly reports of the districts”—and he showed the parcel of papers which he had received at the meeting—“you see, I have opened nothing. But in that parcel are, among other things, the statements of labourers furnished at the head-centre for statute service. Well, are these statements correct?”
“I have not yet seen them . . .”
“Neither have I! And yet I ask you whether they are correct. Were the statements for the previous month correct?”
Verbrugge was silent.
“I’ll tell you: they were false! For three times more people had been summoned to work for the Regent than the Regulations on statute service permit, and of course one does not put this into the statements. Is it true what I say?”
Verbrugge was silent.
“Again the statements I have received to-day are false,” continued Havelaar. “The Regent is poor. The Regents of Bandoong and Tjiandjoor are members of the family of which he is the head. The latter has only the rank of Tommongong; our Regent is Adhipatti, and yet his income, because Lebak is not suitable for coffee, and therefore pays him no emoluments, does not permit him to compete in pomp and splendour with a humble Dhemang in the Preanger, who would hold the stirrup when his cousins mounted their horses. Is this true?”
“Yes, this is true.”
“He has nothing but his salary, and this is subject to a deduction in payment of an advance which the Government made him when he . . . do you know it?”
“Yes, I know it.”
“When he wished to have a new medsjid built, for which money was wanted. Besides, many members of his family . . . do you know it?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“Many members of his family, which in reality does not belong to Lebak, and therefore is not in favour with the population, hang round him like a gang of pirates, and extort money from him. Is this true?”
“It is the truth,” said Verbrugge.
“And when his coffers are empty, which is often the case, they despoil the people in his name of all that pleases them. Is this as I say?”
“It is.”
“Then I am correctly informed; but about this later. The Regent, who, with advancing years, is afraid of death, is possessed with the wish to win merit by gifts to the priests. He spends much money on outlay for pilgrims to Mecca, who bring thence to him all sorts of rubbish by way of relics, charms and djimats.[9] Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, that is so.”
“Well, then, through all this he is so poor. The Dhemang of Parang Koodyang is his son-in-law. Where the Regent himself, afraid of bringing shame on his rank, dare not take, it is this Dhemang—but not he alone—who courts favour with the Adhipatti by extorting money and kind from the poor population, and by fetching the people away from their own rice-fields and driving them to the sawahs of the Regent. And the latter . . . look, I am willing to believe that he would like it to be otherwise, but necessity forces him to resort to such means. Is not all this true, Verbrugge?”
“Yes, it is true,” said Verbrugge, who began to realize more and more that Havelaar’s eyes were keen.
“I knew,” continued the Assistant-Resident, “that he had no money in his house, when just now he began to speak about the settlement with the sub-collector. You heard this morning that it is my intention to do my duty. I will brook no injustice, by God, I will not brook it!”
And he jumped up, and in his tone there was something very different from that of the previous day on the occasion of his official oath.
“But,” he resumed, “I wish to do my duty with forbearance. I do not wish to know too precisely what has happened. But whatever happens from to-day is on my responsibility, of it I shall take charge. I hope to be here long. Do you know, Verbrugge, that our calling is gloriously beautiful? But do you know also that everything I said to you just now should really have come from you to me? I know you as well as I know who are making garemglap[10] on the south coast. You are an honest man . . . this also I know. But why did you not tell me that there was so much wrong here? For two months you were Acting Assistant-Resident, and moreover you have been here a long time as Controller . . . you ought therefore to know it, don’t you think?”
“Mr. Havelaar, I have never served under anyone like you. There is something unusual about you, pardon me.”
“Certainly! I know quite well that I am not like all people, but what difference does this make?”
“It makes this difference, that you give one conceptions and ideas that did not exist before.”
“No, they had been lulled asleep by the cursed lax custom which finds its style in ‘I have the honour,’ and its peace of conscience in ‘The high satisfaction of the Government.’ No, Verbrugge! do not libel yourself! You need learn nothing from me. For instance, did I tell you anything new this morning in the Sebah?”
“No, not exactly new, but you spoke differently from others. . . .”
“Yes, that is . . . because my education has been somewhat neglected: I speak only occasionally. But you were to tell me why hitherto you have acquiesced in all that was wrong in Lebak.”
“I never before had such an impression of initiative. Besides, all this has never been otherwise in these parts.”
“Yes, yes, I know that! Everyone cannot be a prophet or an apostle . . . hm! so many crucifixions would otherwise make timber dear! But surely you will help me to set the whole thing right? You will do your duty, won’t you?”
“Certainly! Especially under you. But not everyone would demand that so rigorously, or would even take it in good part, and then one easily gets into the position of a man who fights windmills.”
“No! Then those who love injustice, because they live by it, say that there was no injustice, in order that they may have the amusement of calling you and me Don Quixotes, and that they may at the same time keep their windmills grinding. But, Verbrugge, you needn’t have waited for me to do your duty! Mr. Slotering was an able and honest man: he knew what was happening; he disapproved it and set himself against it . . . look at this!”
And Havelaar took from a portfolio two sheets of paper, which he showed Verbrugge, asking:
“Whose writing is this?”
“That is Mr. Slotering’s handwriting.”
“Exactly! Well, these are rough notes, apparently containing subjects he wished to discuss with the Resident. I read here . . . look: ‘1°, On rice culture; 2°, On the houses of the District-Chiefs; 3°, On the collection of land-rents!! etc.’ Behind that there are two exclamation marks. What did Mr. Slotering mean by those?”
“How can I know that?” exclaimed Verbrugge.
“I do! It means that far more is paid in land-rent than flows into the State coffers. But I will now show you something we both know, as it is written in letters, and not in signs. Look here:—
“ ‘12°, On the abuse made of the population by Regents and lesser Chiefs. (On the practice of keeping up several residences at the expense of the population, etc.)’
“Is this clear? You see that Mr. Slotering unquestionably was a man who knew how to take an initiative. You might therefore have joined up with him. Listen again:—
“ ‘15°, That many persons of the families and servants of the native chiefs appear on the pay-sheets who in reality take no part in the cropping, so that the profits of this fall to them, to the disadvantage of the real participants. Also they are illegally put in possession of sawah-fields, which rightly only belong to those who take part in the cropping.’
“Here I find another memo: and that in pencil. Look: on that also there is a very clear statement:—
“ ‘The falling off in the population of Parang Koodyang is entirely due to the scandalous way the people are abused.’
“What do you say to that? Do you see, now, that I am not so eccentric as it appears, when I pay attention to justice? You see now that others did so!—And what followed then?”
“Then the Regent would be called: there would be an oral interview . . .”
“Exactly! And then?”
“The Regent usually denied everything. Then witnesses would be called . . . no one dared give witness against the Regent . . . ah, Mr. Havelaar, these things are so difficult!”
The reader will, before he has finished reading my book, know just as well as Verbrugge why these things were so particularly difficult.
“Mr. Slotering,” continued the Controller, “had a great deal of annoyance through it all; he wrote sharp letters to the Chiefs . . .”
“I read them . . . last night,” said Havelaar.
“And I often heard him say that, if there were no change, and if the Resident did not take proper action, he would write direct to the Governor-General. This he also said to the Chiefs at the last Sebah over which he presided.”
“That would have been a great mistake on his part. The Resident was his Chief, whom he should under no consideration have passed by. And why, indeed, should he? It surely may not be supposed that the Resident of Bantam would approve injustice and arbitrariness?”
“Approve . . . no! But one would rather not charge a Chief before the Government.”
“I am not fond of accusing anyone, whoever he may be, but if it must be done, then a Chief as soon as anyone else. But here, thank God, there is not yet any question of laying a charge! To-morrow I am going to see the Regent. I shall represent to him the wrongfulness of illegal exercise of authority, especially where the property of poor people is concerned. But in anticipation that everything will right itself, I shall assist him as much as I can in his ticklish circumstances. You now understand why I had that money paid to the collector, don’t you? I also intend asking the Government to remit the advance owed by the Regent. And to you, Verbrugge, I propose that we together do our duty punctiliously. As long as it is possible, gently, but if necessary, without fear! You are an honest man, I know, but you are timid. In future say frankly how matters stand, come of it what may! Throw off half-heartedness, my dear fellow . . . and now, stay to dinner: we have Dutch cauliflower tinned . . . but everything is quite simple, for I have to be very economical . . . I am much behind in my finances: the voyage to Europe, you know! Come, Max . . . good gracious, lad, how heavy you are getting!”
And, having taken Max astride on his shoulder, he entered the front veranda, followed by Verbrugge. Tine was waiting for them with the table laid, which, as Havelaar had said, was truly very simple! Duclari, who came to ask Verbrugge whether he expected to be home for dinner, was also invited to stay, and if the reader is keen on a little variety in my story, I refer him to the next chapter, in which I shall relate all the things that were said during the meal.