returning the next day to that Assistant Resident, as he had given notice in the evening; and to smother his complaint in the yellow water of the Tji-berang, that would carry him away softly to its mouth, accustomed as that river was to be bearer of the brotherly presents of salutation from the sharks in the interior to the sharks in the sea?
And Havelaar was acquainted with all this! Does the reader understand what went on in his mind, when he considered that his vocation was to do justice, that he was responsible for that to a higher power than the power of a Government, that to be sure stipulated for this justice in its laws, but did not always like to see the application of it? Do you understand how he was perplexed with doubt, not of what he had to do; but of how he ought to act? He had commenced with moderation, he had spoken to the Regent as to an elder brother, and he who thinks that I, captivated with the hero of my history, try to extol too much the manner of his speaking, may hear how once after such an interview the Regent sent his Patteh[1] to him, to thank him for the benevolence of his words, and how again long afterwards this Patteh, speaking to the Controller Verbrugge, after Havelaar had ceased to be Assistant Resident of Lebak, when nobody had anything more to hope of or fear from him, how the Patteh at the remembrance of these words had been touched, and cried, “Never as yet any gentleman spoke like him.”
- ↑ A person in service of the Regent.
