[CONTINUATION OF STERN’S COMPOSITION.]
So that I will only say, to speak with Abraham Blankaart, that I
consider this chapter to be “essential,” because it makes you, in my
opinion, better acquainted with Havelaar, and he seems to be the hero
of the history. “Tine, what sort of Ketimon (gherkin, cucumber) is
this? Never, my dear, give such sour things with fruits; cucumbers with
salt, pine-apples with salt, all that comes from the ground with salt.
Vinegar with fish and meat ... there is something about it in
Liebig....”
“Dear Max,” Tine said, laughing, “how long have we been here? That
Ketimon is from Madam Slotering.”
And it seemed difficult for Havelaar to remember that he had arrived
only the day before; and that Tine, with the best intentions, had not
yet been able to regulate anything in kitchen or household. He had
already been a long time at Rankas-Betong! Had not he spent the whole
night in reading the archives, and had not too many things already
passed through his soul in connexion with Lebak, for him to know so
soon that he only arrived there the day before? Tine knew this very
well; she always understood.
“Oh yes, that is true,” said he; “but still you may like to read
something from Liebig. Verbrugge, have you read much of Liebig?”
“Who was he?” asked Verbrugge.
“An author who wrote much on the preserving of gherkins; he also
discovered how to change grass into wool.... You understand?”
“No,” said Verbrugge and Duclari together.
“Well, it had been known for a long time:—send a sheep into the field,
and you will see. But it was Liebig who discovered the manner in which
it happens. Others, however, say that he knows but little about it:
they are now trying to discover the means of dispensing with the sheep
altogether.... Oh, those scholars! Molière knew it very well.... I like
Molière. If you like, we shall have reading every evening; Tine will
also be of the party when Max is in bed.”
Duclari and Verbrugge liked this. Havelaar said that he had not many
books, but amongst them he had Schiller, Goethe, Heine, Lamartine,
Thiers, Say, Malthus, Scialoja, Smith, Shakespeare, Byron, Vondel....
Verbrugge said that he was not acquainted with the English language.
“What the deuce! You are more than thirty years of age: what have you
been about all this time? But it must have been very disagreeable for
you at Padang, where English is so much spoken. Did you know Miss
Matta-api (Fire-eye)?”
“No, I do not know the name.”
“It was not her name; we gave her this nickname because her eyes were
so brilliant. I think she must be married by this time; it was long
ago. I never saw such eyes ... except at Arles ... you must go there.
That is the prettiest place I ever visited in my travels. It seems to
me that there is nothing that so well represents beauty in the
abstract, as—a beautiful woman—a visible image of true immaterial
purity——Believe me, go to Arles and Nîmes....”
Duclari, Verbrugge, and Tine also, I must confess, could not suppress a
loud laugh at the thought of stepping over so unexpectedly from the
west of Java to Arles or Nîmes. Havelaar, who, perhaps, had stood on
the tower [72] built by the Saracens, near the old Roman amphitheatre
at Arles, had some difficulty in understanding the cause of this laugh,
and then he continued:—
“Well, yes, I mean, when you are in that neighbourhood. I never saw
such a thing. I was accustomed to disappointments on seeing things that
are generally so loudly extolled. For instance! look at the cataracts
we hear so much of;—I felt little or nothing at Tondano, Abaros,
Schaffhausen, and Niagara. One requires to look at his hand-book to
know the exact measure of his admiration of the ‘so many feet of fall,’
and ‘so many cubic feet of water in a minute,’ and when the figures are
high, he says, ‘What!’ I won’t go to see any more cataracts, at least
not when I have to make a détour to get at them. They do not tell me
anything. Buildings speak louder to me, above all when they are pages
out of history; but the feeling which these inspire is quite different;
bringing up the past, and making its shadows pass in review before us.
Amongst them are abominable ones, and therefore, however interesting
they may be, one does not always find in them what satisfies æsthetical
tastes. And without reference to history, there is much beauty in some
buildings; but this beauty is again corrupted by guides—either in
print, or of flesh and blood—who steal away your impression by their
monotonous babble. ‘This chapel was erected by the Bishop of Munster in
1423; the pillars are sixty-three feet high, and are supported by....’
I don’t know what. This is tiresome; for one feels it necessary to have
exactly sixty-three feet of admiration at hand not to be taken for a
Turk or a bagman. You will tell me now, perhaps, that you keep your
guide, when a printed one, in your pocket, and in the other case, order
him to hold his tongue, or stand outside; but sometimes to arrive at a
correct judgment, information is wanted; yet even if that could be
dispensed with, we might seek in vain in some building or other for
anything to gratify for more than a moment our passion for the
beautiful, because there is nothing to move us. This also holds good,
in my opinion, of sculpture and paintings. Nature is motion. Growth,
hunger, thought, feeling, all these are examples of motion....
Stagnancy is death. Without motion there is no grief, no enjoyment, no
emotion. Sit there motionless for a while, and you will see how soon
you will make a ghostly impression on every one else, and even on your
own imagination. At a tableaux vivants, one soon wants a new figure,
however impressive the sight may have been at the commencement. As our
taste for beauty is not satisfied with one look at anything beautiful,
but needs a good many successive looks to watch the motion of the
beautiful, we are dissatisfied when contemplating works of art, and
therefore I assert that a beautiful woman, provided her beauty is not
too still, comes nearest to the ideal of the divinity.
“How great is the necessity for motion that I speak of, you can partly
realize from the loathing which a dancer causes you, even if an Elssler
or a Taglioni, when she having just finished a dance, stands on her
left foot, and grins at the public.”
“That is beside the question,” Verbrugge said; “for it is absolutely
ugly.”
“That is just my opinion; but she fancies it beautiful, and as a climax
to all the previous performance, in which much beauty may have been
displayed. She regards it as the point of the epigram, as the ‘aux
armes!’ of the Marseillaise which she sang with her feet; or as the
murmuring of the willows on the grave of the love represented in the
dance. And that spectators, who generally, like us, found their taste
more or less on custom and imitation, think that moment to be the most
striking is evident, because just then every one explodes in applause,
as if they said, ‘All the former was beautiful, but now we cannot
refrain from giving vent to our feelings of admiration.’ You said that
these pauses were absolutely ugly, so do I; but what is the reason? It
is because motion was at an end, and with that the history which the
dancer told. Believe me, stagnation is death.”
“But,” interrupted Duclari, “you also rejected as an exponent of
beauty, the cataracts ... yet they move....”
“Yes, but without a history. They move; but do not change their place.
They move like a rocking-horse, minus the ‘to and fro.’ They make a
noise, but don’t speak.... They cry ‘rroo ... rroo ... rroo!’... Try
crying ‘rroo, rroo’ ... for six thousand years, or more, and you will
see how few persons will think you an amusing man.”
“I shall not try it,” said Duclari; “but still I do not agree with you,
that this motion is so strictly necessary. I give up the cataracts;—but
a good picture can express much, I should think.”
“To be sure, but only for a moment. I will try to explain my meaning by
an example. This is the 8th of February....”
“Certainly not,” said Verbrugge, “we are still in January....”
“No, no; it is the 8th of February 1587, and you are shut up in the
Castle of Fotheringay.”
“I?” asked Duclari, who thought that he had not quite understood the
remark.
“Yes, you. You are weary, and try to get some variation. There in that
wall is a hole;—it is too high for you to look through, but still that
is what you desire to do. You place your table under it, and upon this
table a three-legged stool, one of the legs being decidedly weak. You
have seen at a fair an acrobat, who piled seven chairs one above
another, and then placed himself on the top with his head downwards.
Self-love and weariness press you to do something of the kind. You
climb on your chair, and reach the object.... You look for one moment
through the hole.... ‘Oh, dear!’ You fall.... And don’t you now know
why?”
“I think that the weak leg of the stool broke down,” said Verbrugge.
“Yes; that leg broke down,—but that is not the reason why you fell, the
leg broke after your fall. Before every other hole, you could have
stood a year on that chair, but now you would have fallen even if there
had been thirteen legs to the stool. Yes, even had you been standing on
the ground....”
“I take it for granted,” said Duclari. “I see that you intend to let me
fall, coûte que coûte. I lie flat enough now, and at full length; but
really I don’t know why.”
“Well; that is very simple ... you saw there a woman, dressed in black,
kneeling down before a block. She bowed her head, and white as silver
was the neck, which appeared whiter from its contrast with the velvet
... and there stood a man with a large sword; [73] and he held it high,
and he looked at this white neck ... and he considered the arc which
his blade must describe, to be driven through just there ... there
between those joints with exactness and force——and then you fell,
Duclari; you fell because you saw that, and, therefore, you cried: ‘Oh,
dear!’ and not because your chair had only three legs.
“And long after you have been delivered from Fotheringay through the
intercession of your cousin, or because they have grown tired of
feeding you there any longer like a canary, long afterwards, yes, even
now, your day-dreams are of this woman; you are roused from sleep, and
fall down with a heavy shock on your bed, because you want to arrest
the arm of the executioner!... Is it not so?”
“I am willing to believe it, but I cannot say very decidedly, because I
have never looked through a hole in the wall of Fotheringay.”
“Granted! nor have I. But now I take a picture, which represents the
decapitation of Mary Stuart. Suppose the representation to be perfect:
there it hangs in a gilt frame, suspended by a red cord, if you
like.... I know what you are about to say,—‘Granted!’ No! you do not
see the frame; you even forget that you left your walking-stick at the
entrance of the picture-gallery; you forget your name, your child, the
new model shako, not to see a picture, but to behold in reality Mary
Stuart, exactly the same as at Fotheringay. The executioner stands
there exactly the same as he must have been standing in reality; yes, I
will even suppose that you extend your arm to avert the blow, that you
even cry, ‘Let this woman live, perhaps she will amend.’... You see, I
give you fair play as regards the execution of the picture.”
“Yes, but what more? Is the impression then not exactly the same as
when I saw the same in reality at Fotheringay?”
“No, not in the least, because you did not climb on a chair with three
legs. This time you take a chair,—with four legs, by preference an
easy-chair,—you go and sit down before the picture, in order to enjoy
it completely and for a long time—[We do enjoy ourselves in seeing
anything dismal!]—and what is the impression which it makes on you?”
“Well, dread, anguish, pity, trouble!... just the same as when I looked
through the hole in the wall. You supposed the picture to be perfect,
so I must have the same impression from it as from the reality.”
“No, within two minutes you feel pain in your right arm out of sympathy
with the executioner, who has to hold up so long that blade of
steel....”
“Sympathy with the executioner?”
“Yes; an equal sense of pain and discomfort ... and also with the woman
who sits there so long in an uncomfortable position, and probably in an
uncomfortable state of mind, before the block. You still sympathize
with her; but this time not because she had to wait so long before
being decapitated——and if you had anything to say or to cry,—suppose
that you felt disposed to trouble yourself with the matter,—it would be
nothing else than, ‘Give the blow, man, she is waiting for it!’ And if
afterwards you look again at that picture, and look often at it, is
your first impression that it is not yet done? ‘Is he still standing
and she lying?’”
“But what motion is there then in the beauty of the women at Arles?”
asked Verbrugge.
“Oh, that is quite different! In their features you may read a whole
history. [74] Carthage flourishes, and builds ships: you hear
Hannibal’s oath against Rome ... here they twist cords for their bows
... there the city burns....”
“Max! Max! I believe that you left your heart at Arles,” said Tine.
“Yes, for a moment ... but I have got it back again: you shall hear it.
Observe, I do not say I saw a woman there who was in this or that
respect beautiful—no, they were all beautiful, and so it was impossible
there to fall in love, because the next person always drove the
preceding from your admiration, and really I thought of Caligula or
Tiberius,—of which of them do they tell the story?—who wished that all
humankind had but one head ... now therefore involuntarily I wished
that the women of Arles....”
“Had but one head together?”
“Yes.”
“To knock it off?”
“Certainly not ... but to kiss it, I was going to say; it is not
that.... No, to look at it, to dream of it, and to ... be good!”
Duclari and Verbrugge certainly thought this conclusion very strange.
But Max did not notice it, and continued:—
“For so noble were the features that one felt somewhat ashamed to be
only a man, and not a spark ... a beam ... no, that would be substance
... a thought..... But——suddenly a brother or a father sat down beside
these women, ... goodness! I saw one blow her nose!”
“I knew that you would draw a black stripe across it,” said Tine.
“Is that my fault? I would rather have seen her fall down dead;——
“Ought such a girl so far to forget herself?”
“But, Mr. Havelaar,” asked Verbrugge, “suppose she had a bad cold?”
“Well, she ought not to have a bad cold with such a nose....”
As if an evil spirit spoke, Tine suddenly sneezed ... and before she
thought of it, she had blown her nose!
“Dear Max! don’t be angry!” said she, with a suppressed laugh.
He did not reply; and however foolish it seems, or is,—yes, he was
angry. And what sounds strange too, Tine was glad that he was angry,
and that he required her to be more than the women of Arles, even
though she had no reason to be proud of her nose.
If Duclari still thought Havelaar a fool, one could not be surprised if
he felt himself strengthened in this opinion, on perceiving the short
anger that could be read in Havelaar’s face, after that nose-blowing.
But he had returned from Carthage, and he read on the faces of his
guests, with the rapidity with which he could read, when his mind was
not too far away from home, that they had made the two following
theorems:—
“1. Whoever will not let his wife blow her nose is a fool.
“2. Whoever thinks that a beautiful nose may not be blown, is wrong to
apply that idea to Madam Havelaar, whose nose is a little en pomme de
terre.”
Havelaar would not speak of the first theorem, but the second
one....—“Oh,” he said, as if he had to reply, though his guests had
been too polite to speak their thoughts, “I will explain that to you,
Tine....”
“Dear Max!” she said entreatingly; and she meant by these words to say,
“Do not tell these gentlemen why I should be in your estimation
elevated above a bad cold....”
Havelaar appeared to understand what Tine meant; for he replied, “Very
well, dear.” But do you know, gentlemen, that one is often deceived in
estimating the rights of men by material imperfections? I am quite sure
that his guests never heard of these rights.
“I knew a little girl in Sumatra,” he continued, “the daughter of a
datoo [75] ... well then, I am certain that she had no claim to such
imperfection; and yet I saw her fall into the water in a shipwreck just
like another. I, a man, had to help her to land.”
“But ought she to have flown like a sea-mew?”
“Certainly, ... or, no ... she ought not to have had a body. Would you
have me tell you how I became acquainted with her? It was in ’42, I was
Controller at Natal. [76] Have you been there, Verbrugge?”
“Yes.”
“Now then, then you know that pepper is cultivated at Natal. The
pepper-grounds are situated at Taloh-Baleh, north of Natal, near the
coast. I had to inspect them, and having no knowledge of pepper, I took
with me in the pirogue [77] (prakoe) a datoo—some one who knew more
about it than I. His daughter, then a child of thirteen years, went
with us. We sailed along the coast and found it very wearisome.”
“And then you were shipwrecked?”
“No, it was fine weather ... the shipwreck happened many years
afterwards; otherwise I should not have been weary. We sailed along the
coast, and it was fearfully hot. Such a pirogue gives little occasion
for relaxation, and, moreover, I was then in a very bad humour, to
which many causes had contributed. First of all, I had an unfortunate
love,—that was in those days my daily bread;—but, moreover, I found
myself in a state between two attacks of ambition. I had made myself a
king, and been dethroned, I had climbed up a tower, and had fallen down
again to the ground.... I shall now pass by the reason of this. Enough,
I was sitting there in that pirogue with a sour face and a bad humour;
I was, as the Germans call it, ungeniessbar. I thought it derogatory to
inspect pepper-fields, and that I ought a long time ago to have had the
appointment of governor of a solar system. Moreover, I thought it moral
murder to put a spirit like mine in a pirogue with that stupid datoo
and his child. I have to tell you that generally speaking I liked the
Malay chiefs very much, and harmonized well with them. They even
possess qualities which make me prefer them to the Javanese grandees.
Yes, I know, Verbrugge, that you do not agree with me in this matter,
there are but few who do ... but I leave this question now. If I had
performed this voyage on another day, when less restless, I should
perhaps immediately have commenced a conversation with this datoo, and
perhaps have found that it was worth my while. Perhaps the little girl
would have spoken too, and that would have entertained me; for a child
has generally something original,—though I was still myself too much a
child to take an interest in originality. Now this is otherwise; now I
see in every girl of thirteen years old a manuscript, in which little
or nothing has been effaced. They surprise the author en négligé, and
that is often pretty.
“The child was stringing coral beads, and this seemed to absorb all her
attention. Three red, one black ... three red, one black ... it was
pretty!
“Her name was ‘Si Oepi Keteh.’ This means in Sumatra about the same as
‘little miss.’... Yes, Verbrugge, you know it, but Duclari has always
served in Java. Her name was ‘Si Oepi Keteh,’ but in my thoughts I
called her ‘poor creature,’ because I was exalted in my own ideas so
very much above her.
“It was afternoon ... almost evening; the corals were laid aside. The
land passed slowly by, and grew fainter and fainter behind us. To the
left, far in the west, above the wide, wide ocean, which has no limit
as far as Madagascar—the sun set over Africa, and his beams fell—more
and more obliquely on the waves, and sought for coolness in the sea.
What the dickens is it?”
“What? the sun?”
“No, no.... I used to make verses....
“Thou askest why the ocean stream,
That washes Natal’s shore,
Elsewhere so gentle and serene,
Is known to boil and roar.
“Thou askest the poor fisher’s son,
Who scarce can understand;
And he points out th’ horizon dun,
Without a trace of land.
“He casts a glance of his dark eye
Along the Western main;
And he and you can nought descry
But sea, and sea again.
“And here the Ocean tears the land,
And beats the sandy shore,
Because from Madagascar’s strand
There’s sea and nothing more—
“A sea where shrieks of terror wild,
To all the world unknown,
Unheard by friend, or wife, or child,
Are heard by God alone!
“A hand with agonizing bound,
Oft sprang above the wave;
And snatched, and clutched, and swung around,
For something that could save.
“But there was nought to give a hold:
The waves that on him pressed,
Soon o’er his head for ever rolled——
And——* * * *”
“I don’t know the rest!”
“You could ascertain it,” said Verbrugge, “by writing to Krijgsman, who
was your clerk at Natal; he knows it.”
“How did he get hold of it?” asked Max.
“Perhaps out of your waste-basket. But certain it is that he has it.
Does not then follow the story of the fall of man, which made the
island sink, that formerly protected Natal’s coast ... the history of
Djiwa and the two brothers?”
“That is true. This legend—was no legend at all, it was a parable which
I made, and which two hundred years hence——will be a legend if
Krijgsman often relates it. Such has been the origin of all legends.
Djiwa is ‘soul’ as you know....”
“Max, what became of the little girl with the coral beads?” asked Tine.
“They had been laid aside. It was six o’clock, and there under the
equator—Natal being a few minutes north of it [when I went on horseback
to Ayer-Bangie, I made my horse walk over the equator, or almost walk;
fearing I should fall over it]—it was six o’clock, a signal for evening
thoughts. Now, I think that a man in the evening is always a little
better, or less vicious, than in the morning—and that is natural. A
Controller wipes his eyes, and dreads meeting an Assistant Resident,
who assumes a foolish ascendency because he has been a few years more
in the service; or has to measure fields that day, and is in doubt
between his honesty——you do not know that, Duclari, because you are a
military man; but there are indeed honest Controllers——then he is in
doubt between that honesty and the fear that Radeen Demang So-and-so
will desire to have that grey horse that ambles so well;—or, he has to
say that day Yes or No in answer to letter No——. In a word, when you
awake in the morning, the world falls on your heart; and that is a
heavy burden for a heart, even when it is strong.
“But when it is evening you pause. There are ten hours; thirty-six
thousand seconds before you will see your official coat again. That
allures every one. That is the moment when I hope to die ... to arrive
yonder with an unofficial face. That is the moment when your wife finds
something once more in your face of what caught her when she allowed
you to keep that pocket-handkerchief with an ‘E’ in the corner....”
“And before she had time to catch a bad cold.”
“Ah, don’t disturb me ... I only mean to say, that during the evening
one is more susceptible (gemüthlicher). So when the sun set, I became a
better man, as the first proof of my improvement may show, and said to
the little girl—
“‘Now it will soon be cooler.’
“‘Yes, sir,’ she replied.
“But I lowered my dignity still further, and commenced a conversation
with this poor creature. My merits were still greater, because she
replied little. I was right in all that I said; which is annoying, even
in spite of one’s arrogance.
“‘Should you like to go again to Taloh-Baleh?’ I asked.
“‘As you please, sir.’
“‘No, I ask you if you think such an excursion agreeable?’
“‘If my father does,’ she replied.—Was not this enough to anger me?
Well, then, I did not get angry, the sun had set, and I felt myself
good (gemüthlich) enough not to be disheartened by so much stupidity;
or rather, I believe, I began to enjoy hearing my own voice,—for few
amongst us do not like to listen to their own voices,—and after my
muteness during the whole day, I thought, now that I did speak, it
merited something better than the silly replies of ‘Si Oepi Keteh.’
“I will tell her something, I thought, then I shall hear it too,
without wanting any replies. Now you know that, as at the unloading of
a ship, the ‘Kranjang’ (cask) of sugar last put on board is the first
to be taken out, so we generally unload first that thought or tale that
was acquired last. In the periodical paper, ‘Dutch India,’ I had read
not long before a story by Jerome, ‘The Japanese Stone-Cutter.’... This
Jerome has written many beautiful things. Did you read his ‘Auction in
the House of the Dead’? And his ‘Tombs’? And, above all, the ‘Pedatti’?
I will give you the last. I had just read ‘The Japanese
Stone-Cutter.’... Now I suddenly remember that my anger that day was
connected with the perilousness of the Natal roads.... You know,
Verbrugge, that no man-of-war can approach these roads, certainly not
in July.... Yes, Duclari, the rainy season is there at its height in
July, quite different from here ... now then, the perilousness of these
roads was linked with my mortified ambition. I had often proposed to
the Resident to construct at Natal a breakwater, or at least an
artificial harbour at the mouth of the river, with a view to bring
commerce into the district of Natal, which unites the battah districts
with the sea. One million and a half of inhabitants in the interior do
not know what to do with their produce, because the Natal roads are so
bad. Now then, these proposals had not been approved by the Resident,
or at least he asserted that the Government would not approve of them,
and you know that the Residents never propose anything but what they
know pretty well beforehand will be agreeable to the Government. The
making of a harbour at Natal was in principle contradictory of the
separate system; and far from encouraging ships there, it was even
forbidden to admit ships with yards on the roads, unless in case of
superior force. Yet when a ship came—they were mostly American whalers,
or French ships that had loaded pepper in the small independent
countries on the north side—I always caused a letter to be written by
the captain, wherein he asked permission to take in fresh water. My
anger about the miscarriage of my efforts to do something for the
benefit of Natal, or rather my offended vanity at being still of so
little consequence that I could not even have a harbour made where I
liked, and all this in connexion with my candidateship for the ruling
of a solar system,—all this made me so peevish that day. When I
recovered a little at sunset, for discontent is a sickness
exactly,—this sickness reminded me of the Japanese stone-cutter, and
perhaps I only thought this history aloud, in order to take the last
drop of the medicine which I felt that I wanted, whilst I imposed upon
myself by saying that I did it out of benevolence for the child. But
she, the child, cured me, for some days at least, better than any tale.
“Oepi! There was a man who cut stones out of a rock. This labour was
heavy, and he laboured much; but his wages were small, and he was not
content. He sighed because his labour was heavy, and he cried, ‘O that
I were rich, in order to rest on a baleh-baleh [78] with klamboo.’ [79]
“And there came an angel out of heaven, who said, ‘Be it as you have
said.’
“And he was rich. And he rested on a baleh-baleh, and the klamboo was
of red silk.
“And the king of the country passed with horsemen before his carriage,
and likewise behind the carriage there were horsemen, and the golden
pajong [80] was held over the head of the king.
“And as soon as the rich man heard this, he was sad, because they held
no golden ‘pajong’ over his head, and he was not content. He sighed and
cried, ‘I should like to be a king.’
“And there came an angel out of heaven and said, ‘Be it as you have
said.’
“And he became a king. And before his carriage were many horsemen, and
behind were also horsemen, and over his head they held the golden
‘pajong.’
“And the sun shone with hot beams, and burned the earth in such a
manner that the grass was dried up.
“And the king complained that the sun burned his face, and had more
power than he; and he was not satisfied.
“He sighed, and cried, ‘I should like to be the sun.’
“And there came an angel out of heaven who said, ‘Be it as you have
said.’
“And he became the sun. And he sent up his beams on high, and down to
the earth; to the right and to the left——everywhere.
“And he burned up the grass on the earth, and the faces of the princes
who were on the earth.
“And a cloud came between him and the earth, and the beams of the sun
were turned back.
“And he was angry that his power was resisted; and he complained that
this cloud had more power than he; and he was dissatisfied.
“He desired to be the cloud that was so mighty.
“And there came an angel from heaven who said, ‘Be this as you have
said.’
“And he became a cloud, and placed himself between the sun and the
earth, and intercepted the beams, so that the grass became green.
“And the cloud rained in large drops on the earth, and made the rivers
swell, and the ‘banjers’ carried away the herds.
“And the cloud devastated the field with much water.
“And it fell on a rock which did not move, and rattled in large
streams, but the rock did not yield.
“And the cloud was angry because the rock would not yield; and because
the strength of its streams was vain. And it was not contented.
“It cried, ‘This rock has more power than I have. I wish to be this
rock.’
“And there came an angel out of heaven who said, ‘Be this as you have
said.’
“And it became a rock, and moved neither when the sun shone nor when it
rained.
“And there came a man with pickaxe and sharp chisel, and heavy hammer,
who cut stones out of the rock.
“And the rock said, ‘What is this, that the man has power over me, and
cuts stones out of my bosom?’ And it was discontented.
“It cried, ‘I am weaker than he, I should like to be that man.’
“And there came an angel out of heaven who said, ‘Be this as you have
said.’
“And he became a stone-cutter. And he cut stones out of the rock with
heavy labour, and he laboured hard for small wages, and was contented.”
“Very nice,” said Duclari, “but now you still owe us the proof that
this little ‘Oepi’ ought to have been imponderable.”
“No, I did not promise to prove that. I only desired to tell you how I
got acquainted with her. When I had done with my story, I asked: ‘And
you, “Oepi,” what would you choose, if an angel from heaven came to ask
you what you desired?’”
“Sir, I should pray him to take me with him to heaven.”
“Is not that beautiful?” said Tine to her guests, who perhaps thought
it very foolish.
Havelaar stood upon his legs, and wiped away something from his
forehead.