We will not try to explain further this fruitful principle of
"limitation of space." Walter knew the fruit of it, even if he failed
to recognize the origin. He was not worried so much by the mere coming
home as by the punishment he expected to receive as soon as that New
Testament should be missed. He had returned from his little excursion
into the country with Glorioso, and now in Amsterdam again the memory
of his recent offense--or shall I say the anticipation of what was
coming?--lay heavily on his mind.
If we could think away all the results of crime committed, there
would be very little left of what we call conscience.
But Walter consoled himself with the thought that it wasn't a thimble
this time. The testament will not be missed at once, he reflected,
because Sunday was a long way off, and no one would ask about it
during the week.
No, it was not a thimble, or a knitting-needle, or a sugar-bowl,
or anything in daily use.
When our hero got home, he stuck his greasy Glorioso under Leentje's
sewing-table--the same Leentje who had sewed up his breeches after
that wonderful leap, so that his mother never found out about it. She
went down to her grave in ignorance of these torn breeches.
But Leentje was employed to patch breeches and such things. She
received for this seven stivers a week, and every evening a slice of
bread and butter.
Long after the Habakkuk period, Walter often thought of her humble
"Good-evening, Juffrouw; good-evening, M'neer and the young Juffrouwen;
good-evening, Walter," etc.
Yes, Walter's mother was called Juffrouw, on account of the
shoe-business. For Juffrouw is the title of women of the lower middle
classes, while plain working women are called simply Vrouw. Mevrouw
is the title of women of the better classes. And so it is in the
Netherlands till to-day: The social structure is a series of classes,
graduated in an ascending scale. Single ladies are also called
Juffrouw, so that Juffrouw may mean either a young lady or a young
matron--who need not necessarily be so young. The young Juffrouwen
were Walter's sisters, who had learned how to dance. His brother
had been called M'neer since his appointment as assistant at the
"intermediate school," a sort of charity school now no longer in
existence. His mother had spliced his jacket that he might command
the respect of the boys, and remarked that the name "Stoffel" scarcely
suited him now. This explains why Leentje addressed him as M'neer. To
Walter she simply said Walter, for he was only a small boy. Walter
owed her three stivers, or, to be exact, twenty-six doits, which he
never did pay her. For, years afterward, when he wanted to return the
money to her, there were no more doits; and, besides, Leentje was dead.
This pained him very much, for he had thought a great deal of her. She
was ugly, even dirty, and was stoop-shouldered, too. Stoffel, the
schoolmaster, said that she had an evil tongue: She was thought to
have started the report that he had once eaten strawberries with
sugar in the "Netherlands." This was a small garden-restaurant.
I am willing to admit the truth of all this; but what more could one
expect for seven stivers and a slice of bread and butter? I have known
duchesses who had larger incomes; and still in social intercourse
they were not agreeable.
Leentje was stooped as a result of continuous sewing. Her needle
kept the whole family clothed; and she knew how to make two jackets
and a cap out of an old coat and still have enough pieces left for
the gaiters that Stoffel needed for his final examination. He fell
through on account of a mistake in Euclid.
With the exception of Walter nobody was satisfied with Leentje. I
believe they were afraid of spoiling her by too much kindness. Walter's
sisters were always talking about "class" and "rank," saying that
"everyone must stay in his place." This was for Leentje. Her father
had been a cobbler who soled shoes, while the father of the young
Juffrouwen had had a store in which "shoes from Paris" were sold. A
big difference. For it is much grander to sell something that somebody
else has made than to make something one's self.
The mother thought that Leentje might be a little cleaner. But I am
going to speak of the price again, and of the difficulty of washing
when one has no time, no soap, no room, and no water. At that time
waterpipes had not been laid, and, if they had been, it's a question
if the water had ever got as far as Leentje.
So, everyone but Walter had a spite against Leentje. He liked her,
and was more intimate with her than with anyone else in the house,
perhaps because the others could not endure him, and there was nothing
left for him to do but to seek consolation from her. For every feeling
finds expression, and nothing is lost, either in the moral or in the
material world. I could say more about this, but I prefer to drop the
subject now, for the organ-grinder under my window is driving me crazy.
Walter's mother called him, "That boy." His brothers--there were
more beside Stoffel--affirmed that he was treacherous and morose,
because he spoke little and didn't care for "marbles." When he did say
anything, they attributed to him a relationship with King Solomon's
cat. His sisters declared he was a little devil. But Walter stood
well with Leentje. She consoled him, and considered it disgraceful
that the family didn't make more out of such a boy as Walter. She
had seen that he was not a child like ordinary children. And I should
scarcely take the trouble to write his story if he had been.
Up to a short time after his trip to Hartenstraat, Ash Gate and the
old bridge, Leentje was Walter's sole confidant. To her he read
the verses that slender Cecilia had disdained. To her he poured
out his grief over the injustice of his teacher Pennewip, who gave
him only "Fair," while to that red-headed Keesje he gave "Very good"
underscored--Keesje who couldn't work an example by himself and always
"stuck" in "Holland Counts."
"Poor boy," said Leentje, "you're right about it." They went over into
the Bavarian house. It's a disgrace! And to save a doit on the pound.
She claimed that Keesje's father, who was a butcher, let Pennewip
have meat at a reduced price, and that this was what was the matter
with all those Holland counts and their several houses.
Later Walter looked upon this as a "white lie," for Pennewip, when
examined closely, didn't look like a man who would carry on a crooked
business with beefsteak. But in those days he accepted gladly this
frivolous suspicion against the man's honor as a plaster for his own,
which had been hurt by the favoritism towards Keesje. Whenever our
honor is touched, or what we regard as our honor, then we think little
of the honor of others.
When his brothers jeered at him and called him "Professor Walter,"
or when his sisters scolded him for his "idiotic groping among
the bed-curtains," or when his mother punished him for eating up
the rice that she intended to serve again "to-morrow"--then it was
always Leentje who restored the equilibrium of his soul and banished
his cares, just as, with her inimitable stitches, she banished the
"triangles" from his jacket and breeches.
Ugly, dirty, evil-tongued Leentje, how Walter did like you! What
consolation radiated from her thimble, what encouragement even in
the sight of her tapeline! And what a lullaby in those gentle words:
"There now, you have a needle and thread and scraps. Sew your little
sack for your pencils and tell me more of all those counts, who always
passed over from one house into another."