Max Havelaar 1732 Studios

Dutch · The Novel

Hoofdstuk 20

Chapter 20

254 sentences · 392 notes

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  1. 1

    It was evening.

    'tithet · pronounsubject of Was
    Waswaszijn · verb, past, singularcopula linking subject to avend
    avendeveningavond · noun, common gender, singularpredicative complement of Was
  2. 2

    Tine sat reading in the inner gallery, and Havelaar was sketching an embroidery pattern.

  3. 3

    Little Max was conjuring a jigsaw picture together, and grew cross because he could not find "the red body of that lady." --Would it be just right like this, Tine? asked Havelaar.

  4. 4

    Look, I have made that palm-frond a little bigger ... now it is exactly Hogarth's the line of beauty, is it not?

  5. 5

    --Yes, Max! But those lace-holes are set too close together.

  6. 6

    --Are they?

  7. 7

    And those other scallops, then?

  8. 8

    Max, let me see your little trousers a moment!

  9. 9

    Ah, have you got that border on?

  10. 10

    Why, I still remember where you embroidered it, Tine!

  11. 11

    --I don't. Where, then?

  12. 12

    --It was at The Hague, when Max was ill and we were so frightened because the doctor said he had so unusually a shaped head, and that great care was needed to prevent a rush of blood to the brain — it was just in those days that you were busy with that border.

  13. 13

    Tine stood up, and kissed the little one.

  14. 14

    --I've got her belly, I've got her belly! cried the child gleefully, and the red lady was complete. --Who is that I hear striking a tontong? asked the mother.

  15. 15

    --I am, said little Max. --And what does that mean?

  16. 16

    --Bedtime! But ... I haven't had any supper yet.

  17. 17

    --First you'll get something to eat, that goes without saying.

  18. 18

    And she rose, and gave him his plain little meal, which she seemed to have fetched from a well-locked cupboard in her room, for one had heard the snapping of many locks.

  19. 19

    --What are you giving him there? asked Havelaar.

  20. 20

    --Oh, set your mind at rest, Max: it is rusk from a tin out of Batavia!

  21. 21

    And the sugar too has always been kept under lock and key.

  22. 22

    Havelaar's thoughts turned back to the point at which they had been broken off.

  23. 23

    --Do you realize, he went on, that we have still not paid that doctor's bill ... oh, that is very hard?

  24. 24

    --Dear Max, we live so frugally here that before long we shall be able to settle everything!

  25. 25

    Besides, you are sure to be made resident soon, and then everything will be put right in no time.

  26. 26

    --That is just the very thing that grieves me, said Havelaar.

  27. 27

    I should so very reluctantly leave Lebak ... let me explain this to you.

  28. 28

    Don't you think we loved our Max all the more after his illness?

  29. 29

    Well, just so I shall love that poor Lebak too, once the cancer it has suffered from for so many years is cured. The thought of promotion makes me shudder: I cannot be spared here, Tine!

  30. 30

    And yet, on the other hand, when I remember again that we are in debt ...

  31. 31

    --All will turn out well, Max! Even if you had to leave here now, you could still help Lebak later, when you are Governor-General.

  32. 32

    Then wild strokes came into Havelaar's embroidery pattern! There was wrath in that foliage, the lace-holes turned angular, sharp, they bit at one another ...

  33. 33

    Tine understood that she had said something amiss.

  34. 34

    --Dear Max ... she began gently.

  35. 35

    --Damnation!

  36. 36

    Would you have those poor wretches go hungry that long?

  37. 37

    Can you live on sand?

  38. 38

    --Dear Max!

  39. 39

    But he sprang up. There was no more sketching that evening.

  40. 40

    He paced angrily up and down the inner gallery, and at last he spoke in a tone that would have sounded rough and harsh to any stranger, but which Tine took in quite differently:

  41. 41

    --Curse this lukewarmness, this shameful lukewarmness!

  42. 42

    Here I sit a whole month now, waiting on justice, and in the meantime that poor people suffers dreadfully.

  43. 43

    The Regent seems to be counting on it that no one dares to face him!

  44. 44

    Look ... He went into his office, and came back with a letter in his hand, a letter that lies before me, reader!

  45. 45

    --Look, in this letter he dares to make me proposals about the sort of labour he wants performed by the people he has unlawfully summoned. Is this not carrying impudence too far?

  46. 46

    And do you know who those people are?

  47. 47

    They are women with little children, with infants at the breast, pregnant women who have been driven from Parang-Koedjang to the chief town to work for him! There are no men left!

  48. 48

    And they have nothing to eat, and they sleep on the road, and they eat sand!

  49. 49

    Can you eat sand?

  50. 50

    Must they eat sand until I am Governor-General?

  51. 51

    Damnation!

  52. 52

    Tine knew very well with whom Max was truly angry, when he spoke this way to her whom he loved so dearly.

  53. 53

    --And, Havelaar went on, it all falls to my responsibility!

  54. 54

    If at this very moment any of those poor creatures are wandering about out there ... if they see the glow of our lamps, they will say: "there lives the wretch who was supposed to protect us! There he sits snug with wife and child, sketching little embroidery patterns, while we lie out here like wild dogs on the road, starving with our children!" Yes, I hear it well, I hear it well, that cry for vengeance upon my head!

  55. 55

    Here, Max, here!

  56. 56

    And he kissed his child with a wildness that frightened it. --My child, if they should tell you that I was a wretch who lacked the courage to do what was right ... that so many mothers died through my fault ... if they should tell you that your father's neglect stole the blessing from off your head ... oh Max, oh Max, then bear witness to what I suffered!

  57. 57

    And he burst into tears, which Tine kissed away.

  58. 58

    She then took little Max to his bed — a straw mat — and when she returned, she found Havelaar in conversation with Verbrugge and Duclari, who had come in just a moment before.

  59. 59

    The talk ran on the decision expected from the Government.

  60. 60

    --I quite understand that the resident is in a difficult position, said Duclari.

  61. 61

    He cannot advise the Government to act on your proposals, for then too much would come to light.

  62. 62

    I have been long in the Bantam country already, and I know a good deal about it, more even than you yourself, Mr. Havelaar!

  63. 63

    I was already here as a non-commissioned officer, and then one comes to learn of things the native does not dare to tell the officials.

  64. 64

    But if now, after an open inquiry, all that comes to light, the Governor-General will call the resident to account, and ask him how it is that in two years he has discovered nothing of what struck your eye at once?

  65. 65

    So naturally he must try to forestall any such inquiry ...

  66. 66

    --I have seen this, Havelaar replied, and, roused by his attempt to move the Adhipatti to bring something against me — which seems to show that he means to try to shift the question by accusing me, for instance, of ... I know not what — I have guarded myself against this by sending copies of my letters straight to the Government.

  67. 67

    In one of them there is a request to be called to account, should it perhaps be alleged that I had done something wrong.

  68. 68

    Now if the resident attacks me, no decision can in ordinary fairness be taken on it without my having first been heard.

  69. 69

    This is owed even to a criminal, and since I have done nothing wrong ...

  70. 70

    There comes the post! cried Verbrugge.

  71. 71

    Yes, it was the post! The post, which brought the following letter from the Governor-General of Netherlands India to the former assistant resident of Lebak, Havelaar.

  72. 72

    "Cabinet.

  73. 73

    No. 54.

  74. 74

    Buitenzorg, 23 March 1856.

  75. 75

    The manner in which you have proceeded, upon the discovery or supposition of malpractices by the Chiefs in the district of Lebak, and the attitude therein adopted by you toward your Chief, the Resident of Bantam, have in the highest degree aroused my displeasure.

  76. 76

    In your aforesaid actions there is wanting alike that calm deliberation, judgment and prudence so very requisite in an official invested with the exercise of authority in the interior (sic), as also any notion of subordination toward your immediate superior.

  77. 77

    Already a few days after taking up your post you saw fit, without prior consultation of (sic) the Resident, to make the head of the Native Administration at Lebak the target of incriminating investigations.

  78. 78

    In those investigations you found occasion, without even substantiating your accusations against that Chief by facts, much less by proofs, to proceed to making proposals whose tendency was to subject a Native Official of the stamp of the Regent of Lebak — a man of sixty, yet still a zealous servant of the State, allied by marriage to neighbouring families of rank among the Regents, and concerning whom favourable testimonies had always been rendered — to a treatment morally annihilating to him.

  79. 79

    Moreover, when the resident showed himself disinclined to give ready effect to your proposals, you refused to satisfy the reasonable wish of your Chief that you should give full disclosure of what was known to you concerning the conduct of the Native Administration at Lebak.

  80. 80

    Such conduct deserves all censure, and readily gives reason to believe in unfitness to hold a post in the Interior Administration.

  81. 81

    I have seen myself obliged to relieve you of the further discharge of the post of Assistant Resident of Lebak.

  82. 82

    In consideration, nevertheless, of the favourable reports formerly received concerning you, I have not wished to find in what has occurred any reason to deprive you of the prospect of a reassignment within the Interior Administration.

  83. 83

    I have therefore provisionally charged you with the conduct of the post of Assistant Resident of Ngawi.

  84. 84

    Upon your further conduct in that post it shall depend entirely whether you can remain in the Interior Administration."

  85. 85

    And beneath it stood the name of the man on whose "zeal, ability and good faith" the King said he could rely, when he signed the man's appointment as Governor-General of Netherlands India.

  86. 86

    --We are leaving here, dear Tine, said Havelaar with resignation, and he handed the cabinet letter to Verbrugge, who read the document together with Duclari.

  87. 87

    Verbrugge had tears in his eyes, but said nothing.

  88. 88

    Duclari, a thoroughly well-bred man, burst out with a wild oath:

  89. 89

    --G......... I have seen rogues and thieves here in the administration ... they left with honour, and to YOU they write such a letter!

  90. 90

    --It is nothing, said Havelaar, the Governor-General is an honest man: he must have been deceived ... though he could have guarded himself against that deception by hearing me first. He is caught in the web of the Buitenzorg officialdom.

  91. 91

    We know that! But I shall go to him and show him how matters stand here.

  92. 92

    He will do justice, I am sure of it!

  93. 93

    --But, if you go to Ngawi ...

  94. 94

    --Just so, I know this! At Ngawi the Regent is related to the court of Djokja.

  95. 95

    I know Ngawi, for I was two years in the Baglen, which lies nearby. At Ngawi I should have to do the very same thing I have done here: that would be useless travelling back and forth.

  96. 96

    Besides, it is impossible for me to serve on probation, as though I had behaved badly! And finally, I see that, to put an end to all this jobbery, I must not be an official.

  97. 97

    As an official, there stand between the Government and me too many persons who have an interest in denying the misery of the population.

  98. 98

    There are still more reasons that keep me from going to Ngawi.

  99. 99

    That post was not vacant ... it has been made open for me, look!

  100. 100

    And he showed in the Java Courant, which had come by the same post, that indeed by the very same decree of the Government that assigned him the administration of Ngawi, the assistant resident of that province was transferred to another district that was vacant.

  101. 101

    --Do you know why I am to go precisely to Ngawi, and not to that vacant district?

  102. 102

    I will tell you! The resident of Madiven, under whom Ngawi falls, is the brother-in-law of the former resident of Bantam.

  103. 103

    I have said that the Regent had had such bad examples before him ...

  104. 104

    --Ah, cried Verbrugge and Duclari at once.

  105. 105

    They understood why Havelaar was being transferred precisely to Ngawi to serve on probation, to see whether he might perhaps mend his ways!

  106. 106

    --And for yet one more reason I cannot go there, he said. The present Governor-General will soon retire ... I know his successor, and I know that nothing is to be expected from him.

  107. 107

    So, in order to do something in time for that poor people, I must speak to the present Governor before his departure, and if I went to Ngawi now, that would be impossible.

  108. 108

    Tine, listen a moment!

  109. 109

    --Dear Max?

  110. 110

    --You have courage, haven't you?

  111. 111

    --Max, you know that I have courage ... when I am with you!

  112. 112

    --Well then!

  113. 113

    He stood up, and wrote the following petition, in my view a model of eloquence.

  114. 114

    "Rangkas-Betoeng, 29 March 1856.

  115. 115

    To the Governor-General of Netherlands India.

  116. 116

    I had the honour to receive Your Excellency's cabinet dispatch of the 23rd of this month, No. 54.

  117. 117

    I see myself constrained, in answer to that document, to request Your Excellency to grant me an honourable discharge from the service of the State.

  118. 118

    MAX HAVELAAR."

  119. 119

    At Buitenzorg the granting of the discharge that had been requested took not so long a time as had seemed to be required for the decision how Havelaar's accusation might be parried.

  120. 120

    This, after all, had demanded a month, whereas the requested discharge arrived at Lebak within a few days.

  121. 121

    "Thank God," cried Tine, "that you can at last be yourself!"

  122. 122

    Havelaar received no order to hand over the administration of his Division provisionally to Verbrugge, and so he supposed that he must wait for his successor.

  123. 123

    The man was long in coming, because he had to travel from an altogether different corner of Java.

  124. 124

    After almost three weeks of waiting, the former assistant-resident of Lebak — who, however, had all the while continued to act as such — wrote the following letter to the comptroller Verbrugge:

  125. 125

    "No. 153 Rangkas-Betoeng, 15 April 1856.

  126. 126

    To the Comptroller of Lebak.

  127. 127

    You are aware that, by Government Decree of the 4th of this month, No. 4, I have at my own request been honourably discharged from the service of the State.

  128. 128

    I might perhaps have been within my rights, upon receiving that decision, to lay down at once my office of assistant-resident, since it seems an anomaly to fill a function without being an official.

  129. 129

    I received, however, no instruction to hand over my office, and partly out of a sense of the obligation not to abandon my post before being properly relieved, partly from causes of lesser moment, I awaited the arrival of my successor, in the belief that this official would arrive soon — this month at the latest.

  130. 130

    I now learn from you that my replacement cannot be expected so soon — you heard that news, I believe, at Serang — and likewise that the resident was surprised that I, in the very singular position in which I find myself, had not yet asked leave to make over the administration to you. Nothing could have been more welcome to me than this report.

  131. 131

    For I need not assure you that I — who have declared myself unable to serve otherwise than I did here ... I who for this manner of serving have been punished with a reprimand, with a ruinous and dishonouring transfer ... with the charge of betraying the poor folk who trusted in my loyalty — with the choice, then, between dishonour and want of bread! — that I, after all this, had with toil and care to weigh every case that arose against my duty, and that the simplest matter fell heavy upon me, placed as I was between my conscience and the principles of the Government to which I owe fidelity so long as I am not relieved of my office. This difficulty showed itself above all in the answer I had to give to those who came with complaints.

  132. 132

    For once I had promised to deliver no one to the rancour of his chiefs!

  133. 133

    Once — imprudently enough! — I had pledged my word as surety for the justice of the Government.

  134. 134

    The poor population could not know that this promise and this surety had been disavowed, and that I, poor and powerless, stood alone with my craving for justice and humanity.

  135. 135

    And still they went on complaining!

  136. 136

    It was galling, after receiving the cabinet dispatch of 23 March, to sit there as a supposed refuge, as a protector without power.

  137. 137

    It was heartrending to hear out the complaints of ill-treatment, extortion, poverty, hunger ... while I myself now, with wife and child, go to meet hunger and poverty.

  138. 138

    And the Government, too, I was not allowed to betray.

  139. 139

    I was not allowed to say to those poor folk: "Go and suffer, for the administration wills that you be ground down!" I was not allowed to confess my powerlessness, which was one with the shame and the unscrupulousness of the Governor-General's advisers.

  140. 140

    Here is what I answered:

  141. 141

    "At once I cannot help you!

  142. 142

    But I shall go to Batavia, I shall speak of your misery to the Great Lord.

  143. 143

    He is just, and he will stand by you.

  144. 144

    Go home quietly for the present ... do not resist ... do not yet move away ... wait patiently: I think — I ... hope that justice will be done!"

  145. 145

    Thus I thought — ashamed at the breaking of my promise of help — to bring my own convictions into accord with my duty toward the administration that still pays me this month, and so I should have carried on until the arrival of my successor, had not a singular occurrence put me today under the necessity of ending that ambiguous relation.

  146. 146

    Seven persons had lodged complaints.

  147. 147

    I gave them the answer set out above.

  148. 148

    They turned back toward their dwelling-place.

  149. 149

    On the way their village chief met them.

  150. 150

    He must have forbidden them to leave their kampong again, and — so I am told — took their clothes from them, in order to force them to stay at home.

  151. 151

    One of them escaped, presented himself again before me, and declared that he dared not return to his village.

  152. 152

    What I am now to answer that man, I do not know!

  153. 153

    I cannot protect him ... I may not confess to him my powerlessness ... I will not prosecute the accused village chief, since that would create the appearance that this affair had been stirred up by me pour le besoin de ma cause: I no longer know what to do ...

  154. 154

    I charge you, subject to the further approval of the Resident of Bantam, with the administration of the division of Lebak from tomorrow morning. The Assistant-Resident of Lebak,

  155. 155

    MAX HAVELAAR."

  156. 156

    Thereupon Havelaar departed from Rangkas-Betoeng with wife and child.

  157. 157

    He refused all escort.

  158. 158

    Duclari and Verbrugge were deeply moved at the parting.

  159. 159

    Max too was stirred, above all when at the first relay station he found a great crowd that had slipped away from Rangkas-Betoeng to greet him there one last time.

  160. 160

    At Serang the family stopped at the house of Mr. Slymering, who received them with the usual Indian hospitality.

  161. 161

    In the evening many visitors came to the resident's.

  162. 162

    They said, as meaningfully as they could, that they had come to greet Havelaar, and Max received many an eloquent handshake ...

  163. 163

    But he had to go on to Batavia to speak with the Governor-General ...

  164. 164

    Having arrived there, he sent in a request for an audience.

  165. 165

    This was refused him, because there was a boil on the foot of His Excellency.

  166. 166

    Havelaar waited until that boil was healed.

  167. 167

    Then he asked once more to be heard.

  168. 168

    His Excellency "was so busy that he had even had to refuse an audience to the Director-General of Finance," and so could not receive Havelaar either.

  169. 169

    Havelaar waited until His Excellency should have struggled through all that press of business. Meanwhile he felt something like envy of the persons who had been attached to His Excellency in the work.

  170. 170

    For he liked to work fast and much, and usually such "presses of business" melted away beneath his hand.

  171. 171

    Of that, however, there could now of course be no question.

  172. 172

    Havelaar's labour was heavier than labour: he waited!

  173. 173

    He waited.

  174. 174

    At last he asked again to be heard.

  175. 175

    He was given for answer "that His Excellency could not receive him, being prevented from doing so by the press of his imminent departure."

  176. 176

    Max commended himself to the favour of His Excellency for one half-hour's audience, as soon as some small gap should fall between two "presses of business."

  177. 177

    At last he learned that His Excellency would depart the following day!

  178. 178

    This was a thunderbolt to him.

  179. 179

    Still he clung convulsively to the belief that the outgoing Governor was an honest man, and ... had been deceived.

  180. 180

    A quarter of an hour would have been enough to prove the justice of his cause, and that quarter of an hour they seemed unwilling to grant him.

  181. 181

    Among Havelaar's papers I find the draft of a letter that he seems to have written to the outgoing Governor-General on the last evening before that man's departure for the mother country.

  182. 182

    In the margin there is noted in pencil: "not exact," from which I conclude that some passages were altered in the copying out.

  183. 183

    I point this out so as not to let the lack of literal agreement of this piece breed any doubt as to the authenticity of the other official documents I have communicated, all of which have been certified by an outside hand as a true copy.

  184. 184

    Perhaps the man to whom this letter was addressed has a mind to make the wholly exact text of it public. By comparison one could see how far Havelaar departed from his draft.

  185. 185

    In substance the contents ran thus: "Batavia, 23 May 1856.

  186. 186

    Excellency! My official request, made by dispatch of 28 February, to be heard concerning the affairs of Lebak, has remained without result.

  187. 187

    Likewise Your Excellency has not been pleased to comply with my repeated requests for an audience.

  188. 188

    Your Excellency has thus set an official who stood in good repute with the Government — these are Your Excellency's own words! — a man who served the Land in these provinces for seventeen years, a man who not only did nothing amiss, but with rare self-renunciation aimed at the good and held all things cheap for the sake of honour and duty ... such a man Your Excellency has placed beneath the criminal. For him, at least, one hears.

  189. 189

    That Your Excellency has been misled concerning me, I understand. But that Your Excellency has not seized the opportunity to escape that misleading, I do not understand.

  190. 190

    Tomorrow Your Excellency departs from here, and I may not let you go without having said once more that I have done my DUTY, MY WHOLE DUTY ENTIRE, with prudence, with composure, with humanity, with gentleness, and with courage.

  191. 191

    The grounds on which the censure in Your Excellency's cabinet dispatch of 23 March is based are wholly fabricated and false.

  192. 192

    I can prove this, and it would already have been done, had Your Excellency been willing to grant me one half-hour's hearing. Had Your Excellency been able to find one half-hour's time to do justice!

  193. 193

    This has not been so! A respectable family has thereby been brought to the beggar's staff ...

  194. 194

    Of this, however, I do not complain.

  195. 195

    But Your Excellency has sanctioned: THE SYSTEM OF ABUSE OF AUTHORITY, OF PLUNDER AND MURDER, UNDER WHICH THE POOR JAVANESE GOES BOWED DOWN, and of that I do complain.

  196. 196

    That cries out to heaven!

  197. 197

    There is blood upon the hoarded coins of the Indian salary you have thus received, Excellency!

  198. 198

    Once more I ask for a moment's hearing, be it this very night, be it tomorrow at dawn!

  199. 199

    And again I ask this not for myself, but for the cause I champion, the cause of justice and humanity, which is at the same time the cause of well-understood policy.

  200. 200

    If Your Excellency can reconcile it with your conscience to depart from here without hearing me, my own conscience will be at rest in the conviction of having done everything possible to forestall the mournful, bloody events that will soon be the consequence of the wilful ignorance in which the Government is kept regarding what is happening among the population.

  201. 201

    MAX HAVELAAR."

  202. 202

    Havelaar waited that evening.

  203. 203

    He waited the whole night through.

  204. 204

    He had hoped that perhaps irritation at the tone of his letter might bring about what he had vainly tried to achieve through gentleness and patience.

  205. 205

    His hope was vain!

  206. 206

    The Governor-General departed without having heard Havelaar.

  207. 207

    Yet another Excellency had gone to his rest in the mother country!

  208. 208

    * * * * * Havelaar wandered about, poor and forsaken.

  209. 209

    He sought ...

  210. 210

    Enough, my good Stern!

  211. 211

    I, Multatuli, take up the pen.

  212. 212

    You are not the one called to write Havelaar's life-history.

  213. 213

    I called you into being ... I had you come from Hamburg ... I taught you to write tolerably good Dutch, in a very short time ... I had you kiss Louise Rosemeyer, who is in sugar ... it is enough, Stern, you may go!

  214. 214

    * * * * * That Sjaalman and his wife ...

  215. 215

    Halt, you wretched product of foul greed and blasphemous cant!

  216. 216

    I created you ... you grew up into a monster beneath my pen ... I am sickened by my own handiwork: choke in coffee and vanish! * * * * *

  217. 217

    Yes, I, Multatuli — "who have borne much" — take up the pen.

  218. 218

    I ask no pardon for the form of my book. That form seemed to me fitting for the attainment of my purpose.

  219. 219

    This purpose is twofold:

  220. 220

    In the first place, I wished to bring into being something that might be kept as a holy poesaka by little Max and his sister, when their parents shall have perished of misery. I wished to give those children a patent of nobility from my own hand.

  221. 221

    And in the second place: I want to be read.

  222. 222

    Yes, I want to be read!

  223. 223

    I want to be read by statesmen, who are bound to attend to the signs of the times ... by men of letters, who must after all once look into the book of which so much ill is spoken ... by traders, who have an interest in the coffee auctions ... by lady's-maids, who hire me for a few pennies ... by Governors-General in retirement ... by Ministers in office ... by the lackeys of those Excellencies ... by sermonizing chaplains, who will say more majorum that I assail Almighty God, where I rise up merely against the little god they fashioned in their own image ... by thousands and tens of thousands of copies among the Droogstoppel breed, who — going on tending their little affairs in the well-known manner — will shout loudest of all about the prettiness of my scribbling ... by the members of the People's Representation, who must know what is happening in the great Empire across the sea that belongs to the Realm of the Netherlands ...

  224. 224

    Yes, I shall be read!

  225. 225

    If this purpose is attained, I shall be content.

  226. 226

    For it was not my aim to write well ... I wished to write in such a way that it would be heard.

  227. 227

    And just as a man who cries out: "Stop, thief!" troubles himself little over the style of his improvised speech to the public, so too it is wholly indifferent to me how people will judge the manner in which I have shouted out my "Stop, thief."

  228. 228

    "The book is motley ... there is no continuity in it ... a hunting after effect ... the style is bad ... the writer is unskilled ... no talent ... no method ...

  229. 229

    Good, good, all of it good!

  230. 230

    But ...

  231. 231

    THE JAVANESE IS BEING MALTREATED! For: any refutation of the MAIN PURPORT of my work is impossible!

  232. 232

    The louder, moreover, the condemnation of my book, the dearer it will be to me, for so much the greater grows the chance of being heard.

  233. 233

    And that is what I want! But you, whom I disturb in your "presses of business" or in your "rest," you Ministers and Governors-General, do not count too much on the clumsiness of my pen.

  234. 234

    It might train itself, and with some effort might perhaps attain a skill that in the end would make even the truth believed by the People!

  235. 235

    Then I should ask that People for a seat in the Representation, were it only to protest against certificates of integrity that Indian dignitaries issue to one another vice versa — perhaps to suggest the strange notion that one sets some value on that quality oneself ...

  236. 236

    To protest against the endless expeditions and feats of heroism against poor, wretched creatures whom one first drove to rebellion by ill-treatment.

  237. 237

    To protest against the shameful cowardice of circulars that disgrace the honour of the Nation by appealing to public charity for the victims of chronic piracy.

  238. 238

    It is true, those rebels were starved skeletons, and those pirates are able-bodied men!

  239. 239

    And if that seat were refused me ... if I continued to be disbelieved ...

  240. 240

    Then I should translate my book into the few languages I know, and into the many languages I can learn, to ask of Europe what I should have sought in vain in the Netherlands.

  241. 241

    And in every capital city songs would be sung, with refrains like this one: there lies a robber-state by the sea, between East Friesland and the Scheldt!

  242. 242

    And what if even this were of no avail?

  243. 243

    Then I would translate my book into Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Alfur, Buginese, Battak ...

  244. 244

    And I would hurl klewang-whetting war-songs into the hearts of the poor martyrs to whom I have pledged my help — I, Multatuli.

  245. 245

    Rescue and help, by lawful means where it can be done ... by the lawful path of force, where it must be.

  246. 246

    And this would weigh very heavily upon the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company!

  247. 247

    For I am no fly-sparing poet, no gentle dreamer like the trampled Havelaar, who did his duty with the courage of a lion and goes hungry with the patience of a marmot in winter.

  248. 248

    This book is a preface ...

  249. 249

    I shall grow in strength and in the sharpness of my weapons, in proportion as it shall be needful ...

  250. 250

    God grant that it not be needful!

  251. 251

    No, it shall not be needful!

  252. 252

    For to You I dedicate my book, William the Third, King, Grand Duke, Prince ... more than Prince, Grand Duke, and King ... EMPEROR of the splendid realm of INSULINDE that coils there about the equator, like a girdle of emerald ...

  253. 253

    Of You I dare to ask, in confidence, whether it is Your imperial will: That Havelaar be spattered with the mud of the Slymerings and Drystubbles?

  254. 254

    And that out there Your more than thirty millions of subjects are MISTREATED AND PLUNDERED IN YOUR NAME? * * * * *

The particulars

The text
Max Havelaar, Multatuli. The Novel.
Translation
Public-domain Dutch (Multatuli, d. 1887; published 1860). English translation © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC.
Reading aloud
Digital narration, directed by 1732 Studios.
Words
Every word of the text, by letter.
Data
JSON · Markdown · A guide for agents
Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.