time, fellow? Get the horses—at once—I must see the king immediately!
[_Exit Andries._] My poor boy shall be righted, or they shall never hear
the last of it!
MULTATULI.
(_From_ “_The Bride in Heaven_.”)
_DROOGSTOPPEL INTRODUCES HIMSELF._
I am a coffee-broker, and live at No. 37 Lauriergracht. It is not my
custom to write novels, or any such thing; so it was a long time before
I made up my mind to order a couple of reams of paper and begin the work
which you, dear reader, have just taken up, and which you ought to read
if you are in the coffee business,—or, in fact, if you are anything
else. And not only have I never written anything which was in the least
like a novel, but I don’t hold with even reading anything of the sort,
because I am a man of business. For several years past, I have been
asking myself, what is the use of such things? and I am perfectly amazed
at the impudence of poets and novelists in palming off upon you things
which have never happened, and, for the most part, never can happen.
Now, in _my_ business,—I am a coffee-broker, and live in the
Lauriergracht, No. 37,—if I were to send in to a principal (a principal
is a man who sells coffee) an account containing only a small part of
the untruths which are the main point in all poems and romances—why, he
would at once go to Busselinck & Waterman. (Busselinck & Waterman are
coffee-brokers too; but it is not necessary for you to know _their_
address.) So I take good care not to write any novels, or send in wrong
accounts. I have always noticed that persons who let themselves in for
that kind of thing generally get the worst of it. I am forty-three, and
have been at the Exchange for twenty years, so that I have every right
to put myself forward when a man of experience is in demand. I have seen
plenty of firms fail in my time! And usually, when I examined into the
causes of their failure, it seemed to me that they must be sought for in
the wrong direction given to most people in their youth.
_I_ say, “truth and sound sense!” and that I stick to. The mistake comes
in, in the first place, with Van Alphen;[8] and that in his very first
line about the “dear little creatures.” What on earth could induce this
old gentleman to call himself an adorer of my little sister Truitje, who
had sore eyes; or of my brother Gerrit, who was always biting his nails?
And yet he says that “he sang these verses, compelled by love.” I used
often to think, when I was a child, “Man, I _should_ like to meet you,
just for once—and then, if you refused me the marbles I should ask you
for, or the whole of my name in chocolate letters” (my name is Batavus),
“then I should consider you a liar.” But I never saw Van Alphen. I think
he was already dead when he used to tell us that my father was my best
friend. I thought far more of Pauweltje Winser, who lived next door to
us. And that my little dog was so grateful for kindness! We never kept
dogs, because they are dirty.
That is the way children are brought up; and, later on, come other lies
again. A girl is an angel! The man who was the first to discover that,
never had any sisters of his own. Love is bliss! One is going to fly,
with one object or another, to the end of the earth. The earth has no
ends; and, besides, love is madness. No one can say that I do not live
happily with my wife,—she is a daughter of Last & Co., coffee-brokers. I
am a member of _Artis_,[9]—she has a shawl that cost ninety-two
florins,—and yet there was never any question between us of a foolish
love like that, which insists on living at the very end of the earth!
When we were married, we made a little tour to the Hague, she bought
some flannel there, and I am wearing under-vests made of it to this
day,—but love never drove us out into the world any farther than that.
Thus, it is all madness, and lies together!... It is not verses alone
that seduce the young into untruthfulness. Just go into the theatre, and
listen to the falsehoods that are being spread abroad there! The hero of
the play is pulled out of the water by some fellow on the point of going
into the bankruptcy court. Then he gives the fellow half his fortune.
That cannot happen! Not long ago, when my hat was blown into the
Prinsengracht I gave the man who brought it back to me twopence, and he
was quite satisfied. Of course, I know I should have had to give
something more if it had been myself that he pulled out, but certainly
not half what I possess. Why, it is quite clear that, on this principle,
one need only fall into the water twice to be ruined! But the worst of
it is, with such things represented on the stage, the public gets so
accustomed to all these falsehoods, that it thinks them fine, and
applauds them. I should just like to throw a whole pit full of such
people into the water, and see whose applause was sincere. I, who hold
by the truth, warn every one that I am not going to pay so high a
salvage for the fishing up of my person. Any one who is not satisfied
with less, may just let me stay where I am. On a Sunday, however, I
should pay rather more, because then I wear my gold watch-chain, and my
best coat.
Yes! the stage ruins many—still more than the novels. It looks so well!
With a little gold tinsel and paper lace, things can be made so
attractive. For children, that is to say; and for people who are not in
business. Even when they want to represent poverty on the stage, the
picture given is always a false one. A girl, whose father has gone
bankrupt, is working to keep the family. Very good! There she sits,
then, sewing, knitting, or embroidering. But just count the stitches
that she takes in the course of the whole scene. She talks, she
sighs,—she keeps running to the window,—but she does not work. The
family who can live on such work as this, must have few wants indeed! Of
course a girl like this is the heroine. She has thrown several villains
down the stairs. She continually calls out, “Oh! my mother! my mother!”
and thus represents virtue. What sort of a virtue do you call that, that
takes a year to finish a pair of woollen socks? Does not all this give
people wrong ideas about virtue and working for their living?
[Illustration:
“AND HE WAS QUITE SATISFIED.”
]
Then her first lover—he was formerly a clerk at the copying-book, but
now a millionaire—suddenly comes back and marries her. Lies again. A man
with money will never marry a girl from a house that has failed.... And
then—virtue rewarded! I have had plenty of experience in my time; but
still it shocks me terribly when I see truth perverted in this way.
Virtue rewarded! Isn’t it just like making a traffic out of virtue? It
is not so in this world, and a very good thing it is that it is not.
Where is the merit of being virtuous, if virtue is to be rewarded? Now,
I am as virtuous as most people, but do I expect to be rewarded for it?
If my business goes on well,—which, in fact, it does;—if my wife and
children keep in health, so that I have no worry with the doctor and
chemist;—if, year by year, I can put away a little sum for my old
age ...;—if Fritz grows up a good man of business, so that he can step
into my shoes when I retire and go to live at Driebergen, ...—well, if
all these things are so, I am quite content. But all that is a natural
result of circumstances, and of my attention to business. I don’t ask
for any special reward for my virtue.
That I am virtuous, is quite evident from my love for truth. This—next
to my attachment to our orthodox belief—is my ruling passion. And I
should like the reader to be quite convinced of this, because it is my
excuse for writing this book.
A second passion, which rules me quite as much, is my devotion to my
business. And it is these two which have caused me to write this book. I
am now going to explain how this happened.
MULTATULI.
(_From “Max Havelaar.”_)
_DROOGSTOPPEL PAYS A CHARITABLE VISIT._
Droogstoppel had undertaken to publish a volume selected from the MSS.
of his old schoolfellow Havelaar—_alias_ “Sjaalman,”—who had returned
from the Indies in great poverty. He was preparing it for the press
with the help of his son Fritz and his German clerk Stern. He soon
found that the work involved difficulties.
Besides the difficulty of selecting and arranging what was necessary out
of such a mass of materials, there were constantly occurring in the MSS.
words and expressions which Stern could not understand, and which were
new even to me. They were mostly Javanese or Malay. Moreover, many
abbreviations were used, which were difficult to decipher. I saw that we
needed Sjaalman, and as I do not think it good for a young man to pick
up undesirable acquaintances, I was unwilling to send either Stern or
Fritz. I took with me some sweets that had remained over from our last
party,—for I am always one to think of things like that,—and I set out
to look for his abode. It was not a very brilliant one,—but there is no
such thing as equality among people, so how can they all expect to live
in the same sort of houses? He says something of the same kind himself
in his essay on “Claims to Happiness.” Besides, I don’t think anything
of people who are always discontented.
It was in the Langeleidsche Dwarsstraat, in a back-room upstairs. The
ground floor was occupied by a second-hand dealer, who sold all sorts of
things—cups and saucers, furniture, old books, glass, pictures by Van
Speyk, and I don’t know what else. I was terribly afraid of breaking
something; for in such a case the people always charge you more than the
things are worth. A little girl was sitting on the steps, dressing her
doll. I asked her whether Mr Sjaalman lived there. She ran away, and
presently her mother came.
[Illustration:
“A SECOND-HAND DEALER, WHO SOLD ALL SORTS OF THINGS.”
]
“Yes, he lives here, sir. Just you go upstairs to the first door, and
then up the next floor to the next door, and then another flight of
stairs, and then you can’t miss it. Mijntje, just run up and say there’s
a gentleman. Who shall I say is asking for them, sir?”
I told her I was Mijnheer Droogstoppel, coffee-broker in the
Lauriergracht, but that I would announce myself. I climbed up as high as
they had told me, and heard a child’s voice singing inside the door on
the third floor. I knocked, and the door was opened by a woman—or a
lady. I really did not quite know what to make of her; she looked very
pale, and tired, and the look in her face made me think of my wife on
washing-day. She was dressed in a long white shirt or jacket, without a
waist, that hung down to her knees, and was fastened in front with a
black pin. Under this, instead of a proper skirt or petticoat, she wore
a piece of dark flowered linen, wound round her several times, and
rather tight at hips and knees. There was no trace of folds, width, or
fulness, such as there ought to be in any decent woman’s dress. I was
glad I had not sent Fritz, for I thought her costume very indelicate;
and what made it still stranger was the ease with which she moved—as if
she felt quite comfortable like that. The creature seemed quite
unconscious that she did not look like other women. Moreover, she did
not seem in the least embarrassed at my coming. She hid nothing under
the table, and did not push the chairs about, or do any of the things
you always see people do when a respectably dressed stranger comes in.
She had her hair combed back like a Chinese, and fastened behind her
head in a sort of twist or knot. I have heard since that her dress was a
sort of Indian costume, which they call _sarong_ and _kaabai_ out there,
but I thought the whole thing very ugly.
“Are you Juffrouw Sjaalman?” I asked.
[Illustration:
“A LONG WHITE SHIRT OR JACKET.”
]
“Whom have I the honour of speaking to?” she said, in a tone that seemed
to convey that I ought to have said something about _honour_ too.
Well—I don’t hold with compliments. A principal is a different matter,
and I have been in business long enough to know what I am about; but I
didn’t think it necessary to use much ceremony in a third-floor back. So
I said, without more ado, that I was Mijnheer Droogstoppel,
coffee-broker, Lauriergracht, No. 37, and I wanted to see her husband.
Well—and why should I have made any more fuss about it?
She offered me a rush-bottomed chair, and took a little girl on her lap,
who was sitting on the ground playing. The little boy, whom I had heard
singing, looked full at me, and stared at me from top to toe. He, too,
did not seem in the least embarrassed. He was a little chap of about
six, as queerly dressed as his mother. He had on a wide pair of
knickerbockers that did not come down to the knees; and his legs were
bare from there to the ankle. Very indecent, I think. “Have you come to
talk to papa?” he asked, in a way which showed me at once that his
upbringing was not at all what it ought to be. But because I did not
quite know what attitude to take up, and also wanted to talk a little, I
answered, “Yes, my little fellow, I want to talk to your papa. Do you
think he will be coming in soon?”
“I don’t know; he’s gone out to look for some money to buy me a
paint-box.”
“Hush, my boy,” said the woman. “Play with the pictures a little, or
with your Chinese puzzle-box.”
“Why, you know the gentleman came and took all the things away
yesterday.”
So that was the way he spoke to his mother—h’m! ... and there had been
“a gentleman,” it appeared, to “take everything away.” ... Cheerful
visit, this! The woman, too, did not look in good spirits; she turned
away and wiped her eyes, when she thought I could not see her, as she
put the little girl down on the floor beside her brother. “There,” she
said, “now play with Nonnie a little.” An extraordinary name for a
child.
“Well, Juffrouw,” I asked, “do you expect your husband in soon?”
“I cannot say for certain,” she answered.
At this the little boy suddenly left his sister, came up to me, and
asked,
“Sir, why do you call mamma Juffrouw?”[10]
“Why, what then, youngster?” said I, “what ought I to say?”
“Why ... just like other people. The Juffrouw lives downstairs—she sells
saucers and tops.”
Well—I am a coffee-broker—Last & Co., Lauriergracht, 37—there are
thirteen of us in the counting-house, and, if you count Stern, who gets
no salary, fourteen. And yet my wife is simply called _Juffrouw_; and
does any one expect me to go and say _Mevrouw_ to _that_ person?
Certainly not. Every one ought to keep his place; and what’s more, the
sheriff’s officers had been there the day before, and taken away the
furniture. So I thought it quite the proper thing to say _Juffrouw_, and
stuck to it.
I asked why Sjaalman has not come to my house to fetch back his parcel.
She seemed to know all about it, and said that they had been away—at
Brussels. He had been writing for the _Indépendance_ there, but had been
obliged to give it up, because the paper had so often been refused
admission into France on account of his articles. They had returned to
Amsterdam a few days since, because Sjaalman had heard of a situation
there.
“At Gaafzuiger’s, I suppose?”
Yes, that was the name. But it had come to nothing, after all, she said.
Well, I knew more about that than she did. He had dropped the bound
volume of _Aglaia_, and he was lazy, pedantic, and in bad health ...
just so; that was why they discharged him.
She added that he meant to come and see me one of these days,—perhaps he
was even now on his way to my house,—to ask me for an answer to the
request he had made to me.
I said that he could come when it suited him, but that he was not to
ring the bell, because that gives the servant so much trouble. If he
waited a little, I told her, some one would be sure to come out sooner
or later, and he could go in then. And then I departed, taking my sweets
with me, for, to tell the truth, I didn’t like the look of things at
all. I did not feel at my ease there. Why, a coffee-broker is not a
crossing-sweeper, or a street-porter, I should think; and I am sure I
look respectable enough. I had on my fur-lined overcoat, and yet she sat
there as calmly, and talked as unconcernedly to her children, as if she
had been alone. Besides, she seemed to have been crying, and if there is
anything I cannot put up with, it is discontented people. Besides, it
was chilly and unsociable in the place,—I suppose, because the furniture
had been taken,—and I like a room to look cosy and comfortable. As I was
going home, I thought I would try and keep on my old clerk Bastiaans a
little longer,—because, after all, I don’t like turning a man into the
street.
MULTATULI.
(_From “Max Havelaar.”_)
_APHORISMS._
I think so much of Heine that I am glad I never met him.
Two people are never at the same moment equally angry with one another.
The assertion that we prefer other work than that given us to do,
frequently implies a dislike to any work whatever.
* * * * *
Two left-hand gloves do not make a pair. Two half truths do not
necessarily constitute a truth.
* * * * *
A horseman once fell from his horse, and since then every one who is
thrown calls himself a good rider.
* * * * *
Every one has thoughts. Only with a few persons does the _thought_
become an _idea_. Still fewer are those who know how to reproduce the
form and colour of their ideas. And to those who do, people continually
say, “Just what I was thinking!” Just so—except for the outline—except
for the colour—except for the light and shade. That is—except for a
great deal.
* * * * *
He who has gone farthest astray is best able to find the right road. I
do not say that much straying is necessary to know the way. Nor yet that
every one who has gone astray knows it.
* * * * *
When a swift runner breaks his leg, the crawlers have a _bal paré_.
[Illustration:
“TWO PEOPLE ARE NEVER AT THE SAME MOMENT EQUALLY ANGRY WITH ONE
ANOTHER.”
]
* * * * *
Take one piece of advice. Don’t be advised by any one.
* * * * *
Between soul and speech lies the length of a trumpet. I think—I almost
believe—that few trumpets are as short as the Dutch.
* * * * *
In the hospital at Amsterdam a sailor was to have his leg amputated. The
professor—I mean Tilanus—took it off for him. The man calmly smoked his
pipe, clenched his teeth now and then, but kept the upper hand of the
pain.
Professor T. admired his spirit, and spoke in praise of it while he was
putting on the bandages.
Suddenly the courageous patient gave a yell. The Professor had pricked
him with a pin.
“How! _you_ calling out like this? You, who just now——”
“That’s true; but look here, Professor, _the pin was not in the
bargain_!”
The sailor was right.
* * * * *
Professor Z. was a friend of Apothecary Y.’s. He invited him to tea one
day by means of a note, which got lost.
The note was picked up by a man who knew the signature, and deciphered
the rest. He read it as a prescription for convulsions in cattle.
Moral: Not a day passes but the public surprises me with a reading of my
writings which is still wilder than the interpretation of Professor Z.’s
note.
MULTATULI.
_OF SELF-DEPRECIATION._
Now I am going to tell you how humility came into the world.
_Pygmee_ was small of stature, and liked looking over other people’s
heads. In which he was seldom successful, because he was so very small.
He went on a journey to look for people smaller than himself, but he
could not find them. And his longing to look down on them became more
and more intolerable.
At last he came to Patagonia, where people are so tall that even the
children just born look down on their fathers.
_Pygmee_ did not like this—in other people. But in his despair of
finding any smaller than himself, he bethought himself of a plan. He
invented a virtue, which proclaimed as its first principle, “_Whosoever
is taller than Pygmee must stoop till he comes within Pygmee’s line of
vision_,”—and the novelty made its way. All the Patagonians became
virtuous. When any one, by walking upright, sinned against the “first
principles” of Pygmee’s virtue, he was punished in a peculiar way. Every
one who was bowed down and virtuous jumped up and caught him round the
neck till his head reached the level of Patagonian good conduct. And the
man who was strong enough to carry all Patagonia on his shoulders,
without becoming virtuous, was set in the pillory, with a collar round
his neck, and a word inscribed thereon in the Patagonian tongue, which,
being literally translated, signifies—
“THIS MAN MADE HIMSELF OBNOXIOUS TO PYGMEE.”
People have tacitly agreed, however, to express it in our language
by—“_Pride_.”
MULTATULI.
_OF EDUCATION, WITH PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATIONS._
... I am positively forced to tell you that I think Dominie Pennewip’s
lot might have been counted an extenuating circumstance had he been
convicted of eight deadly sins at once.
I have noticed that a considerable number of great men began their
careers as swineherds (see all biographical dictionaries); and it seems,
therefore, as if this employment called out the elements of all the
qualities needed to govern men—or to enlighten them. Which is not quite
the same thing....
... As for comparing human beings and pigs, let the reader remember the
connection between coal and diamonds, and every one will be
satisfied—even the theologians!
But, since making this observation on the splendid prospects which await
any one who has spent his tender youth in the society of the grunting
coal-diamonds of the animal kingdom, I have several times thought it
strange that, in the biographies of great men, there should be so few
examples of ex-schoolmasters. For, after all, all the elements which
seem to constitute a pig-pasture the nursery of genius are abundantly
present in the schoolroom.
The reverse process frequently occurs. Every day we see exiled princes
giving instruction to idle youth. Dionysius and Louis Philippe are not
the only ones; and I myself have attempted to teach French to an
American. Which proved impossible.
If elective monarchies should come into fashion again, I should like to
see the people’s choice confine itself, by preference, to persons who
had studied mankind from models in miniature, just as one learns
geography from portable globes and atlases. All virtues, inclinations,
passions, errors, misdeeds,—all points which have to be studied in human
society,—are found in a small and comprehensive scale on the benches of
the school; and the boasted diplomacy of many a statesman only amounts,
when looked at carefully, to the tricks of which our Machiavels of three
feet high make the warp and woof of their tactics.
The schoolmaster’s profession is not an easy one; and I have never
understood why it is so poorly paid, or, since it seems that this is an
inexorable law of nature, how it is that people are always found to fill
it, instead of drawing the same pay as drill-instructors, and showing
soldiers how to load their guns, which is less perplexing to the mind,
and gives you more fresh air, with oxygen in it.
Or else, I should prefer to be a minister. For the latter has to do with
people who are quite at one with him as to the matter in hand, and come
and listen to him of their own free choice; while the teacher has to
keep up a constant fight with reluctance on the part of the pupils, and
also with a highly dangerous set of rivals, in the shape of tops,
marbles, and paper dolls—not to mention sweets, changing teeth, scarlet
fever, and weak mothers.
Pennewip was a man of the old school,—at least so he would appear to us
if we saw him now-a-days, in his grey coat, long waistcoat, and
knee-breeches with buckles, the whole figure crowned with a brown wig,
which he was constantly pushing hither and thither, and which was always
curled just so at the beginning of the week—if there was no rain in the
air. For curls cannot stand damp; and it was on Sundays that the man
came with the curling-tongs.