Max Havelaar 1732 Studios

Dutch · The Novel

Hoofdstuk 4

Chapter 4

205 sentences · 302 notes

Tap a sentence to open its words. The mark beside it plays it.

  1. 1

    On the notion of honour. On the apocryphal books.

    Overonover · prepositionpreposition marking begrip
    hetthehet · determinerdeterminer of begrip
    begripnotionbegrip · noun, neuter, singularhead of the phrase
    vanofvan · prepositionpreposition marking eer
    eerhonoureer · noun, common gender, singularmodifies begrip
    Overonover · prepositionpreposition marking boeken
    dethede · determinerdeterminer of boeken
    apokriefeapocryphalapocrief · adjectivemodifies boeken
    boekenbooksboek · noun, pluralhead of the phrase
  2. 2

    On the laws of SOLON, LYCURGUS, ZOROASTER and CONFUCIUS.

  3. 3

    On parental authority. On SHAKESPEARE as a historian.

  4. 4

    On slavery in Europe. (What he means by this I do not grasp. Well, there is more of that sort!)

  5. 5

    On screw water-mills. On the sovereign right of pardon.

  6. 6

    On the chemical components of Ceylon cinnamon. On discipline aboard merchant ships.

  7. 7

    On the opium farm in Java.

  8. 8

    On the regulations concerning the sale of poison. On the cutting-through of the Isthmus of Suez, and the consequences thereof.

  9. 9

    On the payment of land-rents in kind. On coffee cultivation at Menado. (This I have already mentioned.)

  10. 10

    On the partition of the Roman Empire. On the GEMÜTHLICHKEIT of the Germans.

  11. 11

    On the Scandinavian EDDA. On the duty of France to secure for itself, in the Indian Archipelago, a counterweight against England. (This was in French, I do not know why?)

  12. 12

    On the making of vinegar. On the veneration of SCHILLER and GOETHE among the German middle class.

  13. 13

    On the claims of man to happiness. On the right of revolt under oppression. (This was in Javanese.

  14. 14

    Its title I only came to know later.) On ministerial accountability.

  15. 15

    On certain points in criminal procedure. On the right of a people to demand that the taxes levied be applied for its own benefit. (That was again in Javanese.)

  16. 16

    On the double A and the Greek ETA.

  17. 17

    On the existence of an impersonal God in the hearts of men. (An infamous lie!) On style.

  18. 18

    On a constitution for the Empire of INSULINDE. (I have never heard of that Empire.) On the lack of the linking-n convention in our language rules.

  19. 19

    On pedantry. (I believe this piece is written with great expertise.) On Europe's debt to the Portuguese.

  20. 20

    On forest sounds. On the combustibility of water. (I think he means aqua fortis.)

  21. 21

    On the milk-sea. (I have never heard of it. It seems to be something in the vicinity of Banda.)

  22. 22

    On seers and prophets. On electricity as a motive power, without soft iron.

  23. 23

    On the ebb and flow of civilization. On epidemic corruption in the management of states.

  24. 24

    On privileged trading companies. (There is one thing and another in this that I need for my book.) On etymology as an aid in ethnological studies.

  25. 25

    On the birds'-nest cliffs along the southern coast of Java. On the place where the day begins. (This I do not understand.)

  26. 26

    On personal convictions as the measure of responsibility in the moral world. (Ridiculous! He says that everyone must be his own judge.

  27. 27

    Where would that lead?) On gallantry.

  28. 28

    On the versification of the Hebrews. On the CENTURY OF INVENTIONS by the Marquis of Worcester.

  29. 29

    On the non-eating population of the island of Rotti near Timor. (Living there must be cheap.) On the man-eating of the Battas, and the head-hunting of the Alfurs.

  30. 30

    On distrust of public morality. (He wants, I believe, to abolish the locksmiths. I am against it.)

  31. 31

    On "right" and "rights." On BÉRANGER as a philosopher. (This too I fail to understand)

  32. 32

    On the Malays' aversion to the Javanese. On the worthlessness of the instruction given at the so-called universities.

  33. 33

    On the loveless spirit of our forefathers, evident from their notions about God. (Another godless piece!) On the connection of the senses. (It is true—when I saw him, I smelled attar of roses.)

  34. 34

    On the taproot of the coffee plant. (This I have set aside for my book.)

  35. 35

    On feeling, sentimentality, SENSIBLERIE, EMPFINDELEI, etc. On the confusion of Mythology with Religion.

  36. 36

    On the saguweer of the Moluccas.

  37. 37

    On the future of Dutch commerce. (This is really the piece that moved me to write my book. He says that such great coffee auctions will not always be held, and I live for my trade.)

  38. 38

    On Genesis. (An infamous piece!)

  39. 39

    On the secret societies of the Chinese. On drawing as a natural script. (He says that a newborn child can draw!)

  40. 40

    On truth in poetry. (To be sure!) On the unpopularity of rice-hulling mills in Java.

  41. 41

    On the connection between Poetry and the mathematical sciences. On the Wayangs of the Chinese.

  42. 42

    On the price of Java coffee. (This I have set aside.) On a European currency system.

  43. 43

    On the irrigation of common fields. On the influence that the mingling of races has upon the mind.

  44. 44

    On equilibrium in trade. (In it he speaks of exchange premium. I have set it aside for my book.)

  45. 45

    On the persistence of Asiatic customs (He claims that Jesus wore a turban.)

  46. 46

    On the ideas of MALTHUS regarding the size of the population in relation to the means of subsistence. On the original population of America.

  47. 47

    On the harbour-piers at Batavia, Samarang and Surabaya. On architecture as the expression of ideas.

  48. 48

    On the relations of the European officials to the Regents in Java. (Some of this goes into my book.) On dwelling in cellars, at Amsterdam.

  49. 49

    On the power of error. On the idleness of a Supreme Being, given perfect laws of nature.

  50. 50

    On the salt monopoly in Java. On the worms in the sago palm. (These, he says, are eaten ... bah!)

  51. 51

    On the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and the PANTOENS of the Javanese. On the JUS PRIMI OCCUPANTIS.

  52. 52

    On the poverty of the art of painting. On the immorality of angling. (Whoever has heard of such a thing?)

  53. 53

    On the crimes of Europeans outside Europe. On the weapons of the weaker animal species.

  54. 54

    On the JUS TALIONIS. (Yet another infamous piece! In it there was a poem that I would surely have found utterly scandalous, had I read it to the end.)

  55. 55

    And this was still not all! I found—not to speak of the verses, of which there were some in all manner of languages—a number of little bundles wanting any heading, romances in Malay, war-songs in Javanese, and what not!

  56. 56

    I also found letters, many of them in languages I did not understand.

  57. 57

    Some were addressed to him, or rather they were only copies, yet he seemed to have some definite purpose with them, for each had been signed by other persons as: in conformity with the original. Then I found, besides, extracts from diaries, jottings, and loose thoughts ... some of them really very loose.

  58. 58

    I had, as I have already said, set aside a few pieces, because they seemed to me likely to serve my trade, and for my trade I live. But I must confess that I was at a loss with the rest.

  59. 59

    Sending the parcel back to him I could not do, for I did not know where he lived. It was open now, once and for all.

  60. 60

    I could not deny that I had looked into it, and this I would not have done either, since I am so fond of the truth. Nor did I succeed in closing it again in such a way that nothing of the opening could be detected.

  61. 61

    Moreover, I will not dissemble that several pieces dealing with coffee aroused my interest, and that I would gladly make use of them. I read a few pages here and there each day, and I came more and more—Frits says: "more and more so," but this I do not do—the more, I say, to the conviction that one must be a coffee broker to learn so exactly what is going on in the world.

  62. 62

    I am convinced that the Rosemeyers, who deal in sugar, have never had anything of the kind before their eyes.

  63. 63

    Now I feared that this Shawlman might suddenly stand before me again, and that he would again have something to say to me.

  64. 64

    I began now to regret that I had turned into the Kapelsteeg that evening, and I saw that one ought never to leave the respectable path. Naturally he would have asked me for money, and spoken of his parcel.

  65. 65

    I might perhaps have given him something, and if he had then sent me, the next day, that mass of scribbling, it would have been my lawful property.

  66. 66

    I could then have separated the wheat from the chaff, kept out the numbers I needed for my book, and burned the rest, or thrown it into the wastepaper basket, which I now could not do.

  67. 67

    For if he came back, I should have to hand it over, and he, seeing that I took an interest in a couple of pieces of his, would surely demand too much for them.

  68. 68

    Nothing gives the seller more of an advantage than the discovery that the buyer is hard pressed for his wares.

  69. 69

    Such a position is therefore avoided as far as possible by a merchant who understands his trade. Another idea—I have already spoken of it—which may prove how susceptible a visit to the Exchange can leave a man to humane impressions, was this.

  70. 70

    Bastiaans—this is the third clerk, who is growing so old and feeble—had of late, out of thirty days, certainly not been in for twenty-five, and when he does come to the office, he often does his work badly besides.

  71. 71

    As an honest man I am bound to the firm—Last & Co, since the Meyers are out of it—to see that everyone does his work, and I may not, out of misplaced compassion or oversensitivity, throw away the firm's money. Such is my principle.

  72. 72

    I would sooner give that Bastiaans three guilders out of my own pocket than go on paying him the seven hundred guilders a year that he no longer earns.

  73. 73

    I have reckoned that this man, over the past thirty-four years, has drawn in income—whether from Last & Co or formerly from Last & Meyer, but the Meyers are out of it—the sum of nearly fifteen thousand guilders, and for a man of his station that is a tidy little sum.

  74. 74

    Few in his station possess so much. He has, then, no right to complain.

  75. 75

    I arrived at this calculation through that piece of Shawlman's on multiplication. That Shawlman writes a good hand, thought I.

  76. 76

    Besides, he looked shabby, and did not know what time it was ... how would it be, thought I, if I gave him Bastiaans's place?

  77. 77

    In that case I would tell him that he must call me "sir," but this he would understand of his own accord, for a clerk cannot, after all, address his employer by name, and he would perhaps be provided for the rest of his life.

  78. 78

    He might begin at four or five hundred guilders—our Bastiaans, too, worked a long while before he rose to seven hundred—and I should have done a good deed.

  79. 79

    Yes, with three hundred guilders he might well begin, for since he has never been in business, he could regard the first years as an apprenticeship, which is only fair too, for he cannot put himself on a level with people who have worked a great deal.

  80. 80

    I am sure he would be content with two hundred guilders.

  81. 81

    But I was not easy about his conduct ... he wore a shawl. And besides, I did not know where he lived.

  82. 82

    A few days afterwards, young Stern and Frits had been together at a book auction in the Wapen van Bern.

  83. 83

    I had forbidden Frits to buy anything, but Stern, who has plenty of pocket money, came home with a few trifles. That is his affair.

  84. 84

    But behold, Frits then related that he had seen Shawlman, who appeared to be employed at the auction. He had been taking the books out of the cases and pushing them down the long table toward the auctioneer.

  85. 85

    Frits said that he looked very pale, and that a gentleman who seemed to have charge there had scolded him, because he had let a couple of volumes of the Aglaia fall, which I also think very clumsy, for it is a most delightful collection of ladies' handiwork. Marie has it together with the Rosemeyers, who deal in sugar.

  86. 86

    She copies patterns out of it ... out of the Aglaia, I mean. But amid that scolding Frits had heard that he earned fifteen stivers a day.

  87. 87

    "Do you think I mean to throw away fifteen stivers a day on you?" the gentleman had said.

  88. 88

    I reckoned out that fifteen stivers a day—I suppose the Sundays and holidays do not count, otherwise he would have named a monthly or yearly wage—come to two hundred and twenty-five guilders a year.

  89. 89

    I am quick in my decisions—when one has been in business so long, one always knows at once what one has to do—and early the next morning I was at Gaafzuiger's. That is the name of the bookseller who had held the auction.

  90. 90

    I asked after the man who had let the Aglaia fall. —He has had his dismissal, said Gaafzuiger.

  91. 91

    He was lazy, pedantic, and sickly. I bought a little box of wafers, and resolved at once to look a while longer at our Bastiaans.

  92. 92

    I could not bring myself to put an old man out into the street like that.

  93. 93

    Strict, but, where it can be so, gentle—that has always been my principle.

  94. 94

    I never neglect, however, to find out anything that may come in useful in business, and so I asked Gaafzuiger where that Shawlman lived. He gave me the address, and I wrote it down.

  95. 95

    I brooded continually over my book, but since I am fond of the truth, I must say outright that I did not know how I should go about it. One thing is certain: the materials I had found in Shawlman's parcel were of importance to the coffee brokers.

  96. 96

    The only question was how I should set about sorting those materials properly and bringing them together. Every broker knows of what weight a good sorting of the lots is.

  97. 97

    But ... writing—apart from the correspondence with our principals—does not exactly lie within my sphere, and yet I felt that I had to write, because the future of the trade may perhaps depend on it.

  98. 98

    The information I found in Shawlman's bundles is not of such a kind that Last & Co could keep the benefit of it to themselves alone.

  99. 99

    Were this so, everyone understands that I would not take the trouble to have a book printed that Busselinck & Waterman would also get to read, for whoever helps a competitor along the way is a fool.

  100. 100

    This is a fixed principle of mine. No, I saw that a danger threatens which would ruin the whole coffee market, a danger that can be warded off only by the united efforts of all the brokers, and it is even possible that these efforts are not in themselves sufficient, and that the sugar refiners too—Frits says: raffineurs, but I write nadeurs.

  101. 101

    The Rosemeyers do this too, and they deal in sugar.

  102. 102

    I know well that people say: a refined rogue, and not: a refinaded rogue, but this is because everyone who has dealings with rogues gets the matter over as briefly as possible—that the refiners then, and the dealers in indigo, will be needed in it as well.

  103. 103

    As I go on writing and reflecting like this, it occurs to me that even the shipping firms are to some extent involved in it, and the merchant fleet ... certainly, this is true!

  104. 104

    And the sailmakers too, and the minister of finance, and the boards of poor relief, and the other ministers, and the pastry-cooks, and the dealers in fancy goods, and the women, and the shipwrights, and the wholesalers, and those who sell retail, and the house-keepers, and the gardeners.

  105. 105

    And—how strange, after all, the way thoughts come into one while writing—my book concerns the millers too, and the clergymen, and those who sell Holloway's pills, and the liqueur distillers, and the tile-bakers, and the people who live on the national debt, and the pump-makers, and the rope-makers, and the weavers, and the butchers, and the clerks in a broker's office, and the shareholders of the Dutch Trading Company, and indeed, all things considered, all others as well.

  106. 106

    And the king too ... yes, the King above all! My book must go out into the world.

  107. 107

    There is nothing to be done against this!

  108. 108

    Then let Busselinck & Waterman get to read it too ... envy is no affair of mine.

  109. 109

    But bunglers and underminers they are, this I do say!

  110. 110

    I said as much again today to young Stern, when I introduced him at Artis.

  111. 111

    He is quite free to write it to his father.

  112. 112

    So, a few days ago, I was still in a dreadful fix over my book, and behold, Frits has helped me along the way.

  113. 113

    I have not told him so myself, because I do not think it well to let anyone notice that one is under an obligation to him—this is a principle of mine—but true it is.

  114. 114

    He said that Stern was such a clever lad, that he was making such rapid progress in the language, and that he had translated some German verses of Shawlman's into Dutch.

  115. 115

    You see, the world was topsy-turvy in my house: the Dutchman had written in German, and the German was translating into Dutch. If each had kept to his own language, the trouble would have been spared.

  116. 116

    But, thought I, what if I let that Stern write my book? If I have anything to add, I will write a chapter myself from time to time.

  117. 117

    Frits can help too.

  118. 118

    He has a little list of words that are written with two e's, and Marie can copy everything out fair.

  119. 119

    This is, at one stroke, a guarantee to the reader against all immorality.

  120. 120

    For you do understand this, that a respectable broker will put nothing into his daughter's hands that does not square with morals and decency.

  121. 121

    So I then talked the two young men over my plan, and they thought it a good one.

  122. 122

    Only Stern, who has a streak of literature about him--as so many Germans do--seemed to want a say in the manner of carrying it out.

  123. 123

    Now this did not please me much, but because the spring auction is at hand, and I still have no orders from Ludwig Stern, I did not want to cross him too sharply.

  124. 124

    He said that: "if the breast glowed within him with feeling for the true and the beautiful, no power on earth could keep him from striking the notes that accord with such a feeling, and that he would far rather hold his tongue than see his words clamped fast by the degrading shackles of the everyday."--Frits says: it should be 'part,' but this I will not do. The word is long enough as it stands.--Now I did find this very odd of Stern, but my trade comes before everything with me, and the Old Man is a sound firm.

  125. 125

    So we settled on the following:

  126. 126

    1° That every week he was to deliver a couple of chapters for my book. 2° That I would change nothing in his writing.

  127. 127

    3° That Frits would correct the language mistakes.

  128. 128

    4° That now and then I would write a chapter myself, to give the book a solid appearance. 5° That the title would be: The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company.

  129. 129

    6° That Marie would make the fair copy for the printer, but that one would have to be patient with her when the wash came.

  130. 130

    7° That the finished chapters would be read aloud at the circle every week. 8° That all immorality would be avoided.

  131. 131

    9° That my name would not stand on the title page, because I am a broker. 10° That Stern would be allowed to issue a German, a French, and an English translation of my book, because--so he maintained--such works are better understood abroad than here at home.

  132. 132

    11° (On this point Stern pressed very hard) That I would send Scarfman a ream of paper, a gross of pens, and a little jug of ink.

  133. 133

    I consented to it all, for there was great haste about my book. By the next day Stern had his first chapter ready, and there you have it, reader, the question answered, of how it comes about that a coffee broker--Last & Co, Lauriergracht No. 37--writes a book that resembles a novel.

  134. 134

    Yet scarcely had Stern set to his work when he ran into difficulties. Besides the trouble of picking out and arranging the needful matter from so much raw material, there kept turning up in the manuscripts words and expressions he did not understand, and which were strange to me as well.

  135. 135

    It was mostly Javanese or Malay. Here and there, too, abbreviations had been put in that were hard to decipher.

  136. 136

    I saw that we had need of Scarfman, and since I do not think it good for a young man to strike up wrong connections, I wanted to send neither Stern nor Frits over there.

  137. 137

    I took along some sweets that were left over from the last circle evening--for I always think of everything--and I sought him out.

  138. 138

    His lodging was not splendid, but equality among all men, and so among their dwellings too, is a fancy of the brain. He had said as much himself in his treatise on the claims to happiness.

  139. 139

    Besides, I do not care for people who are always discontented. It was in the Lange-Leidsche-Dwarsstraat, in a back room.

  140. 140

    On the ground floor lived a secondhand dealer who sold all manner of things, cups, dishes, furniture, old books, glassware, portraits of Van Speyk, and so forth.

  141. 141

    I was very much afraid of breaking something, for in such a case people always demand more money for the goods than they are worth.

  142. 142

    A little girl sat on the doorstep, dressing her doll. I asked whether Mr. Scarfman lived there.

  143. 143

    She ran off, and the mother came.

  144. 144

    --Yes, he lives here, sir. Just go up the stairs, sir, to the first landing, and then up the stairs to the second landing, and then one more flight, and then you're there, sir, for you'll come to it of itself.

  145. 145

    Myntje, go on up and say there's a gentleman.

  146. 146

    Who shall she say it is, sir?

  147. 147

    I said that I was Mr. Drystubble, coffee broker, of the Lauriergracht, but that I would announce myself.

  148. 148

    I climbed as high as I had been told, and heard, on the third landing, a child's voice singing: papa's coming soon, that sweet papa. I knocked, and the door was opened by a woman or lady--I myself did not rightly know what to make of her.

  149. 149

    She looked very pale.

  150. 150

    Her features bore traces of weariness, and put me in mind of my wife when the wash has been seen to.

  151. 151

    She was dressed in a long white shift, or jacket without skirts, that hung to her knees and was fastened at the front with a little black pin.

  152. 152

    In place of a proper gown or skirt, she wore beneath it a piece of dark flowered linen that seemed to be wrapped several times about her body, and clasped her hips and knees rather closely.

  153. 153

    There was no trace of pleats, fullness, or breadth, such as there ought to be with a woman after all.

  154. 154

    I was glad I had not sent Frits, for her dress struck me as most indecent, and the strangeness of it was heightened still further by the ease with which she moved, as though she found herself quite all right that way. The creature seemed to have no notion at all that she did not look like other women.

  155. 155

    It also seemed to me that she was not in the least embarrassed by my coming. She hid nothing under the table, did not shove the chairs about, and did none of the things that are after all the custom when a stranger of respectable bearing arrives.

  156. 156

    She had, like a Chinese woman, combed her hair back, and bound it behind her head into a sort of knot or bun.

  157. 157

    Later I learned that her dress is a kind of Indian costume, which over there they call sarong and kabaai, but I found it very ugly.

  158. 158

    --Are you Mrs. Scarfman? I asked.

  159. 159

    --Whom have I the honor of addressing? said she, and in a tone that carried something in it, as if I too ought to have brought a little more honor into my question.

  160. 160

    Now, I am no friend of compliments.

  161. 161

    With a principal it is a different matter, and I have been in business too long not to know my world. But to peddle a deal of ceremony there, on a third floor, I did not think necessary.

  162. 162

    So I said curtly that I was Mr. Drystubble, coffee broker, Lauriergracht, No. 37, and that I wished to speak with her husband.

  163. 163

    Well, yes, why should I stand on ceremony?

  164. 164

    She pointed me to a little rush-bottomed chair, and took onto her lap a small girl who had been sitting on the floor at play.

  165. 165

    The little boy whom I had heard singing stared at me fixedly, and looked me over from head to foot.

  166. 166

    He too seemed not in the least bashful! He was a little fellow of six years or so, also oddly dressed.

  167. 167

    His wide little breeches reached barely to the middle of the thigh, and his little legs were bare from there down to the ankle. Most indecent, I find.

  168. 168

    "Have you come to talk to papa?" he asked all at once, and I understood at once that the boy's upbringing left much to be desired, for otherwise he would have said: "have you, sir." But because I was at a loss for what to do with myself, and felt rather like talking, I answered:

  169. 169

    --Yes, little chap, I have come to talk to your papa. Will he be along soon, do you think?

  170. 170

    --That I don't know.

  171. 171

    He's out, looking for money to buy a paintbox for me. (Frits says 'paynt-box,' but this I will not do. Paint is paint, and not paynt.)

  172. 172

    --Hush, my boy, said the woman. Play a while with your pictures or with the Chinese music-box.

  173. 173

    --But you know that gentleman carried everything off yesterday.

  174. 174

    His mother, too, he addressed as "you," and there seemed to have been some "gentleman" who had "carried everything off" ... a merry visit indeed!

  175. 175

    The woman did not seem cheerful either, for on the sly she wiped her eye while she brought the little girl over to her little brother.

  176. 176

    "There, said she, play a while with Nonni." An odd name.

  177. 177

    And this he did.

  178. 178

    --Well, madam, I asked, do you expect your husband soon?

  179. 179

    --I cannot say for certain, she answered.

  180. 180

    Then all at once the little boy, who had been playing boats with his little sister, abandoned her, and asked me:

  181. 181

    --Sir, why do you say 'madam' to mama?

  182. 182

    --How then, little chap, said I, what ought I to say then?

  183. 183

    --Why ... like other people! The madam is downstairs.

  184. 184

    She sells dishes and spinning-tops.

  185. 185

    Now I am a coffee broker--Last & Co, Lauriergracht, No. 37--there are thirteen of us at the office, and if I count in Stern, who draws no salary, there are fourteen.

  186. 186

    Well now, my wife is 'madam,' and was I now to say 'my lady' to that creature?

  187. 187

    That would never do! Everyone must keep to his station, and what is more, the bailiffs had carried off the whole lot the day before.

  188. 188

    So I found my 'madam' quite right, and stuck to it. I asked why Scarfman had not presented himself to me to fetch back his parcel.

  189. 189

    She seemed to know about it, and said that they had been away on a journey, to Brussels in fact.

  190. 190

    That there he had worked for the Indépendance, but that he had not been able to stay, because his articles were the reason the paper was so often turned back at the French border. That for some days now they had returned to Amsterdam, because Scarfman was to get a post here ...

  191. 191

    --With Gaafzuiger, no doubt? I asked. Yes, that was it!

  192. 192

    But this had fallen through, said she.

  193. 193

    Now, of this I knew more than she did herself.

  194. 194

    He had let the Aglaia drop, and was lazy, pedantic, and sickly ... precisely, that was why he had been sent packing. --And, she went on, he would surely come to me one of these days, and was perhaps even on his way to me just then, to ask for an answer to the request he had made of me.

  195. 195

    I said that Scarfman might just come along, but that he was not to ring, for that is such a nuisance for the maid. If he waited a while, I said, the door would surely open at some point, when someone had to go out.

  196. 196

    And then I went off, and took my sugarplums away with me again, for, to put it plainly, I did not like it there.

  197. 197

    I did not feel at my ease.

  198. 198

    A broker is no porter, I should think, and I maintain that I make a respectable appearance. I had my coat with fur on, and yet she sat there so plainly, and chatted so calmly with her children, as if she were alone.

  199. 199

    Besides, she seemed to have been weeping, and I cannot abide discontented people. It was cold and cheerless there, too--no doubt because the furniture had been carried off--and I am very fond of coziness in a room.

  200. 200

    On the way home I resolved to give Bastiaans yet another chance, because I am loath to put anyone out on the street.

  201. 201

    Now follows the first week of Stern.

  202. 202

    It goes without saying that there is much in it that does not please me.

  203. 203

    But I must hold to article two, and the Rosemeyers thought it good. I believe they puff Stern up, because he has an uncle in Hamburg who deals in sugar.

  204. 204

    Scarfman had indeed been there. He had spoken with Stern, and had explained to him a number of words and matters that he did not understand.

  205. 205

    That Stern did not understand, I mean. I now beg the reader to chew his way through the following chapters, and then I promise afterward something of more solid sort again, from me, Batavus Drystubble, coffee broker: Last & Co, Lauriergracht, No. 37.

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.