_Rembang, August 10, 1904._[1]
Moeska Dearest:
I think of you so much! Above all do I think of you now, always with a
feeling of tenderness, but at the same time, a deep sadness.
Sadness because you are so far from me, and will be even further removed
beyond my reach. Why must it be that just those souls that are most
closely akin should be separated so far from one another? I am so
unhappy when I let myself long for you. I sit still, looking straight
ahead, neither hearing nor seeing what is happening around me. I live in
the past, that sweet and that bitter past, when I was so eager for
suffering, and where your love is interwoven always like a garland of
light. I suffered and I rejoiced. My heart is full of sadness, but also
of gratitude, for the happiness which your love has brought me. I never
cease to thank God for having brought you to us.
* * * * *
Why is it that the Javanese is so poor, they ask? And at the same time,
they are thinking how they will be able to get more money out of him.
Who will that money come from? Naturally from the little man for whose
woe and weal we express such extreme concern that a whole commission is
named to inquire into the cause of his retrogression; "What makes the
Javanese so poor?" When grass-cutters who earn 10 or 12 cents a day are
made to pay a trade tax. Every time a goat or a sheep is butchered a tax
of twenty cents is paid. A Satee[2]-merchant who butchers two every day,
must pay this tax, which amounts to one hundred and forty-four florins
in the course of a year. What is left for his profit? Barely enough to
live on.
I learned much of this at my parents' house, but here where my husband
shares every thought with me, where I share his whole life, his work and
his troubles, I have come to know of conditions of which I was not only
in ignorance, but the very existence of which I did not dream.
There is so much crying injustice, and he who loves righteousness and
holds office, must suffer indeed. He must see much, and do much himself
that is against all principles of right.
* * * * *
Good-day, Moeska; perhaps this will be my last letter to you. Think
sometimes of your daughter who loves you and your husband so dearly, and
who presses you now to her heart.
[1] To Mevrouw Abendanon.
[2] Satee is a dish composed of meat strung on a stick and roasted.