Max Havelaar 1732 Studios

Dutch · The Novel

Hoofdstuk 19

Chapter 19

128 sentences · 180 notes

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  1. 1

    I have seldom had a more pleasant outing, and my wife thought so too.

    IkIik · pronoun, nominative, singularsubject of ben
    benhavezijn · auxiliary verb, present, singularperfect auxiliary of geweest
    zeldenseldomzelden · adverbmodifies ben uit geweest
    prettigermore pleasantlyprettig · adjective, comparative, adverbialmodifies uit geweest
    uitoutuit · adverbpredicative complement of geweest
    geweestbeenzijn · verb, past participlemain verb of the perfect construction
    enanden · conjunctioncoordinates the two main clauses
    mynmymijn · possessive determinerdeterminer of vrouw
    vrouwwifevrouw · noun, common gender, singularsubject of vond
    vondthoughtvinden · verb, past, singularmain verb of the coordinated clause
    hetsohet · pronoun, neuter, singulardirect object of vond
    ooktooook · adverbmodifies vond
  2. 2

    NINETEENTH CHAPTER

  3. 3

    In the private little note that Mr. Slymering sent to Havelaar, he informed him that, in spite of his "pressing engagements," he would come to Rangkas-Betoeng the following day to confer about what was to be done.

  4. 4

    Havelaar, who knew only too well what such a conference was meant to signify — his predecessor had so often "talked things over" with the resident of Bantam! — wrote the following letter, which he sent ahead to the resident so that the man would have read it before he arrived at the chief town of Lebak.

  5. 5

    Commentary on this document is superfluous.

  6. 6

    "No. 91.

  7. 7

    Secret.

  8. 8

    Urgent.

  9. 9

    Rangkas-Betoeng, 25 February 1856, in the evening at 11 o'clock.

  10. 10

    Yesterday at midday at 12 o'clock I had the honour of dispatching to you my urgent missive No. 88, containing in substance:

  11. 11

    that after long investigation, and after having tried in vain to bring the man concerned back from his wrongdoing through gentleness, I felt myself bound by my oath of office to ACCUSE the Regent of Lebak of abuse of authority, and that I held him SUSPECTED of extortion.

  12. 12

    I took the liberty in that letter of proposing to you that the Native Chief be summoned to Serang, so that, after his departure and after the neutralizing of the corrupting influence of his far-flung family, an investigation might be set on foot into the well-foundedness of my accusation and of my suspicion.

  13. 13

    Long, or to put it more exactly, much, had I reflected before I resolved on this.

  14. 14

    It was known to you, through my care, that I had tried by admonitions and threats to preserve the old Regent from misfortune and disgrace — and to spare myself the deep grief of being, were it even only, the immediate antecedent cause of that.

  15. 15

    Yet on the other hand I saw the population, sucked dry for years, deeply oppressed; I thought of the necessity of an example — for I shall have many other vexations to report to you, unless at least this case, by its repercussion, puts an end to them — and, I repeat it, after mature deliberation I did what I held to be my duty.

  16. 16

    At this very moment I receive your kind and esteemed private lines, conveying the news that you will come here tomorrow, and at the same time a hint that I ought rather to have handled this matter privately beforehand.

  17. 17

    Tomorrow, then, I shall have the honour of seeing you, and it is precisely for this reason that I take the liberty of sending you this letter to meet you, so that, before that meeting, I may establish the following.

  18. 18

    Everything I investigated concerning the dealings of the Regent was deeply secret. He alone and the Patteh knew of it, for I had warned him in good faith.

  19. 19

    Even the controller still knows the result of my inquiries only in part.

  20. 20

    This secrecy had a twofold purpose.

  21. 21

    First, when I still hoped to bring the Regent back from his course, it was so that, if I succeeded, I should not compromise him.

  22. 22

    The Patteh, on his behalf — it was on the 12th of this month — expressly thanked me for that discretion. But later, when I began to despair of any good outcome to my efforts, or rather, when the measure of my indignation overflowed at a fresh incident just then come to my ears, when to keep silent any longer would have become complicity, then that secrecy had to serve to my own benefit, for I have duties to discharge toward myself and mine as well.

  23. 23

    For, after writing yesterday's missive, I should be unworthy to serve the Government if what it contained were idle, groundless, plucked out of thin air.

  24. 24

    And will it, or shall it, be possible for me to prove that I have done "what a good Assistant Resident ought to do" — to prove that I do not fall short of the post that has been given me, to prove that I am not frivolously and rashly staking seventeen difficult years of service, and, what matters more, the welfare of wife and child ... shall it be possible for me to prove all that, if a deep secret does not conceal my searchings and prevent the guilty man from, as the saying goes, covering himself?

  25. 25

    At the slightest suspicion the Regent sends an express to his nephew, who is on the road, and who has an interest in his maintenance. He asks, at any cost, for money, hands it out with a lavish hand to everyone he has lately shortchanged, and the consequence would be — I hope I shall not have to say: will be — that I shall have passed a rash judgment, and, in short, am an unfit official, to say nothing worse.

  26. 26

    To secure myself against this eventuality, this letter serves this purpose.

  27. 27

    I have the greatest respect for you, but I know the spirit that one might call "the spirit of the East Indian officials," and I do not possess that spirit!

  28. 28

    Your hint that the affair would have been better handled privately beforehand makes me fear a parley. What I said in my letter of yesterday is true.

  29. 29

    But perhaps it would appear untrue, were the affair handled in a way that might tend to make my accusation and my suspicion public before the Regent has been removed from here.

  30. 30

    I may not conceal from you that even your unexpected arrival, in connection with the express sent by me to Serang yesterday, makes me fear that the guilty man, who earlier would not yield to my admonitions, will now wake up before the time and try, if he can, to exculpate himself tant soit peu.

  31. 31

    I have the honour to abide for the present, to the letter, by my missive of yesterday, yet I take the liberty of noting alongside it that that missive also contained the proposal: to remove the Regent before the investigation, and to render his dependents provisionally harmless. I do not consider myself further answerable for what I advanced, than insofar as you may be pleased to concur in my proposal regarding the manner of the investigation, that is: impartial, open, and above all free.

  32. 32

    That freedom does not exist until the Regent has been removed, and to my humble mind there is nothing dangerous in this. He can surely be told that I accuse and suspect him, that it is I who run the risk, and not he, if he is innocent.

  33. 33

    For I myself am of the opinion that I ought to be dismissed from the service, should it appear that I have acted rashly, or even merely prematurely.

  34. 34

    Prematurely! After years and years of abuse!

  35. 35

    Prematurely! As if an honest man could sleep, and live and enjoy, so long as those for whose welfare he is called to watch — those who, in the highest sense, are his neighbours — are being extorted and sucked dry!

  36. 36

    It is true that I have been here but a short time, yet I hope the question will one day be: what has been done, and whether it has been done well, not whether it was done in too short a time.

  37. 37

    To me, every span of time is too long that is marked by extortion and oppression, and heavily would weigh on me the second that, through my negligence, through my dereliction of duty, through my "spirit of compromise," had been passed in misery.

  38. 38

    I repent of the days I let slip by before I reported to you officially, and I beg pardon for that omission.

  39. 39

    I take the liberty of asking you to give me the opportunity to justify my letter of yesterday, and to guard me against the failure of my efforts to deliver the district of Lebak from the worms that, within living memory, have been gnawing at its prosperity.

  40. 40

    It is for this reason that I once more take the liberty of asking you to be pleased to approve my actions in this matter — which, after all, consist only in investigation, report, and proposal — to remove the Regent of Lebak from here without any prior direct or indirect warning, and then to have an investigation set on foot into what I reported in my letter of yesterday, No. 88.

  41. 41

    The Assistant Resident of Lebak,

  42. 42

    MAX HAVELAAR"

  43. 43

    This plea not to take the guilty under his protection reached the Resident on the road.

  44. 44

    An hour after his arrival at Rangkas-Betoeng he paid a brief visit to the Regent, and asked him on that occasion: what he could bring forward against the Assistant Resident? and: whether he, the Adhipatti, needed money?

  45. 45

    To the first question the Regent answered: "nothing, that I can swear to!" To the second he answered in the affirmative, whereupon the resident gave him a couple of banknotes, which he — brought along for the occasion! — drew from his waistcoat pocket.

  46. 46

    It will be understood that this passed entirely without Havelaar's knowledge, and presently we shall learn how that shameful proceeding came to his ears.

  47. 47

    When the resident Slymering alighted at Havelaar's, he was paler than usual, and his words stood further apart from one another than ever.

  48. 48

    For indeed it was no small matter for a man who so excelled in "compromise" and tranquil annual reports, to receive all at once letters in which there was no trace either of the customary official optimism, or of any artful glossing-over of the affair, or of any fear of the Government's displeasure at being "troubled" with unfavourable news.

  49. 49

    The resident of Bantam was startled, and — if I may be forgiven the indelicacy of the image for the sake of its aptness — I am inclined to liken him to a street urchin who complains of a violation of ancestral custom because some eccentric little comrade has struck him without first delivering the customary insults.

  50. 50

    He began by asking the controller why the latter had not tried to dissuade Havelaar from his accusation.

  51. 51

    Poor Verbrugge, to whom the whole accusation was unknown, attested as much, but was not believed.

  52. 52

    Mr. Slymering simply could not grasp that anyone, entirely alone, on his own responsibility and without protracted deliberations or "consultations," could have proceeded to so unheard-of a discharge of duty.

  53. 53

    Since, however, Verbrugge — in perfect truth — maintained his ignorance of the letters Havelaar had written, the resident, after many exclamations of incredulous astonishment, had at last to give way, and he proceeded — I do not know why? — to the reading-aloud of those letters.

  54. 54

    What Verbrugge suffered as he listened to it is hard to describe.

  55. 55

    He was an honest man, and would certainly not have lied had Havelaar appealed to him to confirm the truth of the contents of the letters.

  56. 56

    But even apart from this honesty, he had not always been able, in many written reports, to avoid telling the truth, even where it was sometimes dangerous.

  57. 57

    How would it be, if Havelaar made use of that?

  58. 58

    After the reading-aloud of the letters, the resident declared that it would be agreeable to him if Havelaar withdrew those documents, so that they might be regarded as unwritten — which the latter refused with polite firmness.

  59. 59

    After trying in vain to move him to this, the resident said that nothing was left him but to set on foot an investigation into the well-foundedness of the complaints that had been made, and that he must therefore ask Havelaar to have the witnesses summoned who could confirm his accusations.

  60. 60

    Poor folk who had wounded yourselves on the thorn-bushes down in the ravine, how anxiously would your hearts have beaten had you been able to hear this demand!

  61. 61

    Poor Verbrugge! You, first witness, chief witness, witness ex officio, witness by force of office and oath!

  62. 62

    Witness who had already borne witness in writing!

  63. 63

    In writing that lay right there, on the table, under Havelaar's hand ...

  64. 64

    Havelaar answered: "Resident, I am Assistant Resident of Lebak, I have promised to protect the population against extortion and tyranny, I accuse the Regent, and his son-in-law of Parang-Koedjang, I shall prove the well-foundedness of my accusation as soon as I am given the opportunity for it that I proposed in my letters, I am guilty of slander, if my accusation is false!"

  65. 65

    How freely Verbrugge breathed!

  66. 66

    And how strange the resident found Havelaar's words!

  67. 67

    The interview lasted long.

  68. 68

    With courtesy — for courteous and well-bred Mr. Slymering certainly was — he tried to move Havelaar to give up such mistaken first principles. But with equal courtesy the latter remained immovable.

  69. 69

    The upshot was that the resident had to give way, and by way of a threat said what was, for Havelaar, a triumph: that he then found himself obliged to bring the letters in question to the notice of the Government.

  70. 70

    The session was adjourned.

  71. 71

    The resident visited the Adhipatti — we have already seen what he had to transact there! — and afterward took the midday meal at the meagre board of the Havelaars. Immediately thereupon he set off back to Serang, in great haste: Because.

  72. 72

    He. It.

  73. 73

    So.

  74. 74

    Particularly.

  75. 75

    Pressing. Had.

  76. 76

    The following day Havelaar received a letter from the resident of Bantam, the contents of which appear from the reply that I here transcribe: "No. 93.

  77. 77

    Secret. Rangkas-Betoeng, 28 February 1856.

  78. 78

    I have had the honour of receiving your urgent missive of the 26th of this month, La O, secret, conveying in substance the following:

  79. 79

    that you had grounds for not entering into the proposals made in my official letters of the 24th and 25th of this month, Nos. 88 and 91;

  80. 80

    that you had wished for a confidential communication beforehand;

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    that you do not approve my proceedings described in those two letters;

  82. 82

    and finally, some orders.

  83. 83

    I now have the honour, just as I did orally in the conference of the day before yesterday, once again and to abundance to assure you:

  84. 84

    that I fully respect the lawfulness of your authority where it concerns the choice of whether or not to enter into my proposals;

  85. 85

    that the orders received will be carried out with strictness and, if need be, with self-renunciation, as though you were present at all I do and say, or more exactly: at all I do not do and do not say.

  86. 86

    I know that you rely on my loyalty in this matter.

  87. 87

    Yet I take the liberty of protesting most solemnly against the least shadow of disapproval regarding any single act, any single word, any single phrase performed, spoken, or written by me in this affair.

  88. 88

    I have the conviction of having done my duty, in aim and in manner of execution, my whole duty, nothing but my duty, without the slightest deviation.

  89. 89

    Long had I reflected before I acted — that is: before I investigated, reported, and proposed — and if I had failed in anything in the least ... it was not out of overhaste that I failed.

  90. 90

    In like circumstances I would, once more — somewhat more quickly, however — do and leave undone the very same things, wholly, literally the same.

  91. 91

    Even were it so that a higher power than yours disapproved of something in what I did — save perhaps the peculiarity of my style, which is a part of myself, a defect for which I am no more answerable than a stammerer for his own — even were it that ... but no, this cannot be, yet even were it so: I have done my duty!

  92. 92

    It does indeed grieve me — without surprising me, however — that you judge otherwise on this; and as far as my own person is concerned, I would at once acquiesce in what seems to me a failure to be recognized — but there is a principle at stake, and I have reasons of conscience that demand it be settled which opinion is the right one, yours or mine. To serve otherwise than I served at Lebak, I cannot.

  93. 93

    Should the Government, then, wish to be served otherwise, I must, as an honest man, respectfully ask to be relieved of my post.

  94. 94

    Then, at thirty-six years of age, I must try to begin a career anew. Then, after seventeen years, after seventeen heavy, difficult years of service, after having sacrificed my best vital powers to what I held to be my duty, I must once more ask Society whether it will give me bread for wife and child, bread in exchange for my ideas, bread perhaps in exchange for labour with wheelbarrow or spade, should the strength of my arm be judged worth more than the strength of my soul.

  95. 95

    But I cannot and will not believe that your opinion is shared by His Excellency the Governor-General, and I am therefore obliged, before I proceed to the bitter extremity I set down in the preceding paragraph, respectfully to ask you to propose to the Government:

  96. 96

    to write to the resident of Bantam to approve after all the actions of the Assistant Resident of Lebak, bearing on his missives of the 24th and 25th of this month, Nos. 88 and 91.

  97. 97

    Or else:

  98. 98

    to call the said Assistant Resident to account on the points of disapproval to be formulated by the resident of Bantam.

  99. 99

    I have the honour, finally, to give you the grateful assurance that, if anything could turn me back from my long-pondered principles in this matter — held calmly but ardently — then truly it would have been the gracious, winning manner in which you contested those principles in the conference of the day before yesterday. The Assistant Resident of Lebak,

  100. 100

    MAX HAVELAAR."

  101. 101

    * * * * * Without pronouncing on the well-foundedness of the Widow Slotering's suspicion as to the cause that had orphaned her children, and admitting only what is provable — that in Lebak there was a close connection between the discharge of duty and poison, even though that connection existed only in surmise — everyone will nonetheless see that Max and Tine had grievous days to live through after the resident's visit.

  102. 102

    I do not think it necessary to sketch the dread of a mother who, in handing food to her child, must again and again put to herself the question whether she is perhaps murdering her darling.

  103. 103

    And little Max truly was a "prayed-for child," who had stayed away for seven years after the marriage, as though the rogue knew it was no advantage to come into the world as the son of such parents!

  104. 104

    Twenty-nine long days Havelaar had to wait before the Governor-General informed him ... but we are not yet so far.

  105. 105

    Shortly after the vain attempts to move Havelaar to withdraw his letters, or to betray the poor folk who had trusted in his magnanimity, Verbrugge once stepped in to him.

  106. 106

    The good man was deathly pale, and could hardly speak.

  107. 107

    "I have been to the Regent," he said ... "that is infamous ... but do not betray me."

  108. 108

    "What?"

  109. 109

    What must I not betray?

  110. 110

    "Will you give me your word to make no use of what I am going to tell you?"

  111. 111

    "Half-measures again," said Havelaar. "But ... very well!"

  112. 112

    I give my word.

  113. 113

    And then Verbrugge related what is already known to the reader: that the resident had asked the Adhipatti whether he knew of anything to bring forward against the Assistant Resident, and had at the same time, quite unexpectedly, offered and given him money.

  114. 114

    Verbrugge knew it from the regent himself, who asked him what reasons could have led the resident to this.

  115. 115

    Havelaar was indignant, but ... he had given his word.

  116. 116

    The following day Verbrugge came back, and said that Duclari had brought home to him how ignoble it was to leave Havelaar — who had such adversaries to contend with — so entirely alone, whereupon Verbrugge came to release him from the word he had given.

  117. 117

    "Good!" cried Havelaar, "write it down!"

  118. 118

    Verbrugge wrote it down.

  119. 119

    That declaration too lies before me.

  120. 120

    Surely the reader has long since seen why I could so easily renounce all claim to the juridical authenticity of the history of Saïdjah?

  121. 121

    It was most striking to observe how the timid Verbrugge — faced with Duclari's reproaches — dared to rely on Havelaar's word in a matter that so tempted one to break it!

  122. 122

    And one more thing.

  123. 123

    Years have passed since the events I am recounting.

  124. 124

    In that time Havelaar suffered much; he saw his family suffer — the papers lying before me bear witness to it! — and it seems he has waited ... I give the following note in his own hand:

  125. 125

    "I have read in the newspapers that Mr. Slymering has been made a knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

  126. 126

    He now appears to be Resident of Djokjakarta.

  127. 127

    I could therefore now return to the affairs of Lebak without danger to Verbrugge."

  128. 128

    CHAPTER TWENTY

The particulars

The text
Max Havelaar, Multatuli. The Novel.
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Public-domain Dutch (Multatuli, d. 1887; published 1860). English translation © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC.
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.