“Very well, then create one, and say this of him!”
“All right, I create him, and say it.”
“Then do you know what you have really said? You have said that you, Duclari, are à cheval in theory. I am not a hair’s breadth better. Believe me, we do an injustice in being so angry with a person who is very bad, for even the good ones among us are so near to badness! Let perfection be posited as zero, and one hundred degrees be called bad, then how wrong we are—we who fluctuate between ninety-eight and ninety-nine!—to set up a hue and cry about a man who finds himself at one hundred and one! And even then I believe that many only do not reach the hundredth degree for want of good qualities—want of courage, for instance, to be entirely what they are.”
“At what degree am I, Max?”
“I want a magnifying glass for the subdivisions, Tine.”
“I protest,” exclaimed Verbrugge—“no, Mrs. Havelaar, not against your proximity to zero!—no, but officials have been suspended, a child has disappeared, a general stands accused {{..}} I demand la pièce!”
“Tine, for goodness’ sake see that next time there is something in the house! No, Verbrugge, you are not going to get la pièce before 1 have done a little more riding round on my hobby with regard to contrasts. I said every man sees in his fellow a kind of rival. One is not permitted to be always blaming—which would catch the eye too much!—so we seek to exalt one good quality in particular, in order to draw special attention to the bad quality the revealment of which is in reality all we are after, without risking the appearance of partiality. When someone complains to me then I answer: ‘How can you be so angry about this? Haven’t I also said that your daughter is a sweet girl?’ You see, this gives a double win! We are both grocers, I take away his customers, who will buy no raisins from a thief, and at the same time people will say that I am a kind man, because I praise the daughter of a rival.”
