Hoofdstuk 3

I am quite certain that this Shawlman—for so I shall keep calling him—would never have come to me with such a request had he seen me by daylight.

For dignity and respectability cannot be hidden. But it was evening, and so I take no offense at it.

It goes without saying that I wanted nothing to do with such nonsense. I would have had Frits carry the parcel back, but I did not know his address, and he gave no sign of himself.

I supposed he was ill, or dead, or something of the sort.

Last week there was a card-party at the Rosemeyers', who are in sugar.

Frits had gone along for the first time.

He is sixteen, and I think it good for a young fellow to get out into the world. Otherwise he goes loitering off to the Westermarkt and the like.

The girls had played the piano and sung, and over dessert they teased one another about something that seemed to have happened in the front room while we were at the back playing Ghent whist—something in which Frits appeared to be mixed up. "Yes, yes, Louise," cried Betsy Rosemeyer, "you cried, you did!

Papa, Frits made Louise cry." To this my wife said that Frits should then not be allowed to the card-party again.

She thought he had pinched Louise, or something of the kind that is not proper, and I too was getting ready to add a stern little word, when Louise cried out:

—No, no, Frits was very sweet! I wish he would do it once more!

What, then? He had not pinched her—he had recited, there you have it.

Naturally the lady of the house is glad when there is some little entertainment at dessert. It fills the time.

Mevrouw Rosemeyer—the Rosemeyers have themselves called mevrouw because they are in sugar and own a share in a ship—Mevrouw Rosemeyer understood that what had made Louise cry would amuse us as well, and asked Frits for an encore, while he turned as red as a turkey-cock.

For the life of me I could not imagine what he had been holding forth about, for I knew his repertoire to a hair.

It was: the wedding of the gods, the books of the Old Testament in rhyme, and an episode out of the wedding of Camacho, which the boys always find so amusing because there is something of a "peep-show" in it.

What in all this could have drawn out tears was a riddle to me. True, a girl like that cries readily.

"Come, Frits! Oh yes, Frits!

Go on, Frits!" So it went, and Frits began. Since I have no taste for that studied way of stretching out a reader's curiosity, I shall say at once that at home they had opened Shawlman's parcel, and out of it Frits and Marie had drawn a know-it-all conceit and a sentimentality that have since caused me much trouble in the house.

Still, I must own, reader, that this book too comes out of that parcel, and I shall duly account for this later on, for I set store by being regarded as a man who loves the truth and who is sound in his business. Our firm is Last & Co., Coffee Brokers, Lauriergracht, No. 37.

Then Frits recited a thing that hung together out of nonsense. No, it did not hang together at all.

A young man was writing to his mother that he had been in love, and that his girl had married another—in which she was quite right, I think—but that he, in spite of this, had always loved his mother dearly. Are these last three lines clear or not?

Do you think much ado is needed to say that? Well now, I ate a roll with cheese, then peeled two pears, and I was a good half done with disposing of the third before Frits had finished that recitation.

But Louise wept again, and the ladies said it was very beautiful.

Then Frits told them—he believed, I think, that he had performed some great feat—that he had found the thing in that parcel belonging to the man who wore a shawl, and I explained to the gentlemen how it had come into my house. But of the Greek woman I said nothing, because Frits was there, and I also said nothing about the Kapelsteeg.

Everyone agreed that I had done very well to rid myself of that man.

Presently you shall see that there were also other things in that parcel of a more solid kind, and some of these find their way into this book, because the Coffee Auctions of the Trading Company are bound up with them. For I live for my profession.

Later the publisher asked me whether I would not append here what Frits had recited. I am willing enough to do so, provided it be understood that I do not occupy myself with such things.

All lies and folly! I hold back my own remarks, otherwise my book grows too thick.

I will only add here that the recitation was written somewhere around 1843 in the neighborhood of Padang, and that this is an inferior brand. The coffee, I mean.

Mother, I am far indeed from the land where life was granted to me, where my first tears glistened, where I grew up at your hand... where your motherly faith devoted its cares to the soul of the boy, and stood lovingly at his side, and lifted him up when he fell...

Seemingly fate tore the bonds that held us, cruelly apart.. Here I stand on foreign shores, with myself and God, alone...

But still, mother, whatever grieved me, whatever gave me joy or sorrow, mother, never doubt the love, the heart of your son!

It is barely two pairs of years since I last stood silent on yonder ground at the water's edge, gazing into the future... when I called to myself the beauty I awaited from what was to come, and boldly scorned the present, and made myself paradises...

Then, through every hindrance that arose before my steps, the heart boldly cut itself a way out, and dreamed itself into bliss...

But that time, since the last farewell—however swiftly it has been wrested from us, inconceivably lightning-fast, flown by like a shade...

Oh, in its forward march it left deep, deep traces behind! I tasted joy and pain at once, I have thought and I have struggled, I have rejoiced and I have prayed: it is to me as though ages had flown by! I have striven after life's happiness, I have found and lost, and, a child but lately, lived years in a single hour!

But still, mother! believe it, by the Heaven that looks on me, mother! do believe it, no, your child did not forget you! I loved a girl.

My whole life seemed beautiful to me through that love. I saw in her a crown of honor, as a final reward for my striving, set before me as a goal by God. Blessed by the pure treasure that His care had weighed out to me, that His favor had bestowed, I gave thanks with a tear in my eyes.

Love was one with religion...

And the soul that, enraptured, rose in thanks to the Most High, gave thanks and prayed for her alone! That love bore me cares, unrest tormented my heart, and unbearable was the grief that pierced through my tender soul. I have gathered nothing but anguish and woe where I awaited the highest delight, and for the happiness I reached after, poison and pain were laid up for me...

I found delight in suffering silence! Steadfast I stood there, hoping, adversity only made the prize rise higher for me: I bore and suffered so gladly for her sake! I counted neither calamity nor blows of misfortune, I made joy out of sorrow, all, all I was willing to bear...