The first thesis Havelaar left alone, but . . . the second!
“Oh,” he exclaimed, as if he had to reply, although his guests had been too polite to express their theses, “I’ll explain. Tine is . . .”
“Dear Max!” she said deprecatingly.
This meant: “For heaven’s sake don’t tell these gentlemen why in your estimation I should be exalted above colds!”
Havelaar seemed to understand what Tine meant, for he answered:
“All right, my child! But, gentlemen, do you know that one is often mistaken in judging the claims of some people to the right of physical imperfection?”
I am certain that the guests had never heard of those claims.
“I knew in Sumatra a girl,” he went on, “the daughter of a datoo.[1] Well, now, I held that she had no right to this imperfection. And yet I saw her fall into the water during a shipwreck . . . just like any other person. I, a human being, had to help her ashore.”
“But . . . did you want her to be able to fly like a sea-mew?”
“Certainly, or . . . no, she ought to have had no body. Shall I tell you how I made her acquaintance? It was in ’42. I was Controller of Natal[2] . . . were you ever there, Verbrugge?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then you know that they grow pepper there. The pepper-gardens are situated at Taloh-Baleh, to the north of Natal, on the coast. I had to inspect them, and as I had no knowledge of pepper, I took with me in the prao a datoo, who knew more about it. His daughter, then a child of thirteen, came with us. We sailed along the coast, and had a tedious journey . . .”
“And then you were shipwrecked?”
“Not at all, the weather was fine, too fine. The shipwreck you are thinking of took place much later. Otherwise I should not have
