_Rembang, June 28th, 1904._[1]
We do not go out often, and we entertain very little, yet my life is
always full. Splendid! I divide my days between my dear husband, my
housekeeping, and my children--both my own and the adopted ones. And
these last take the largest share of my time and attention. When father
is at work, then the children work with me from nine until twelve
o'clock. At half-past twelve, father finds a troop of clean-faced but
very hungry children. At half-past one the little ones are sent to
bed,[2] and if father is in bed, and I am not too tired, I work with the
young girls. At four o'clock I preside at the tea-table. When the little
ones have drunk their milk and have bathed, they can drive the fowls to
the coops, or walk with us, or play in the garden. We amuse ourselves
for a little, and prattle about everything or about nothing.
When our little troop comes in, then we are done with play. Father sits
down to read the paper, and they range themselves around mother. I sit
in a rocking-chair with the two smallest on my lap, a child on each arm
of the chair and the two eldest at my knee. We tell stories; soon
afterward supper-time comes around. We eat early with the little ones,
the smallest of all sits next to mother. The little fellow has taken
upon himself the task of lifting the glass cover for mother. No one must
take that little work away from him, and if he is not allowed to do it,
he knows it is because he has deserved a punishment.
At eight o'clock the little treasures are sent to bed. And we parents
sit up and talk to each other till Klaas Vaak drives us to the poeloe
kapok, and this is not so late as at Japara, for we get up very early in
the morning.
Sunday is a holiday for both of us. We begin it always with a walk;
after that I teach my girls cooking, and then the mother and wife can do
the things for which she has not had time during the week. It is not
much that she can do, for my husband is happier when I sit by him. He
charms me sometimes with beautiful gamelan music and songs. I think it
is delightful in my husband to add the songs. For the gamelan music
alone makes too great an impression upon me. It takes me back to times
of which I must not think. It makes me weak and sad.
So the days fly by, calm, quiet and peaceful as a little brook deep in
the forest.
If the child that I carry under my heart is a girl, what shall I wish
for her? I shall wish that she may live a rich full life, and that she
may complete the work that her mother has begun. She shall never be
compelled to do anything abhorrent to her deepest feelings. What she
does must be of her own free will. She shall have a mother who will
watch over the welfare of her inmost being, and a father who will never
force her in anything. It will make no difference to him if his daughter
remains unmarried her whole life long; what will count with him will be
that she shall always keep her esteem and affection for us. He has shown
that he respects women, and that we are one in thought, by his desire to
trust his daughter wholly to me.
Oh, if you only knew the things that slander has spread abroad about me!
What I heard before my marriage was praise compared to what I have since
learned. My husband must indeed have had courage, to offer me his heart,
his hand, and his name. He had heard many things concerning me, but
never a single word of praise; still, in his heart there was a
conviction, which nothing could shake, that we were the bearers of new
ideas, which were incomprehensible to the great multitude, who scorned
us because they could not understand. When his first wife was still
living, he would always take my part when they dragged my name through
the mud. She had been so anxious to know me and during her last illness,
she slept with my portrait in her hand. And he had a premonition that
some day I should play an important rôle in his life. Every one here in
the house had been interested in me. So there are premonitions, secret
longings, that come often as forerunners of what will happen in the
future. Only I alone did not think, did not dream that this would be my
future existence.
I am not giving my little ones any vacation; they will have one in
September when my child is born. For the first fortnight I must rest,
and then my baby will go into the schoolroom. I have already prepared a
corner where baby can sleep, while mother and little sisters and
brothers study. Now we shall have something _à la_ Hilda van
Suylenburg--a mother who with a suckling baby goes out to work.
[1] To Mevrouw Abendanon.
[2] In Java it is customary to take an hour's rest in the afternoon.