Max Havelaar

by Multatuli

  “I know what you mean. Those lines show my position. Back then there was a magazine called The Copyist; I was a subscriber. It was under patronage of the government—the editor was a high official82—so the subscription fees were paid into the treasury. I was presented with a bill for twenty guilders. The fees were dealt with at the governor’s office, and this bill, if unpaid, had to pass through that office prior to being returned to Batavia, so I took the opportunity to complain about my poverty on the back of that sheet of paper:

  “A fortune—twenty guilders! Literature, farewell!

  Farewell, my Copyist! Fate deals me a cruel blow.

  I starve, I freeze, I die of boredom and of woe:

  With twenty guilders, for two months I could eat well!

  For twenty guilders, think how well shod I could be,

  Well housed, well fed—oh yes, how sumptuously I’d dine . . .

  What matters is to go on living, rain or shine,

  Crime is the shameful thing, and not mere poverty!

  “Afterwards, when I went to the editor of The Copyist with my twenty guilders, it turned out I owed him nothing. Apparently the General himself had paid that money on my behalf, just so he wouldn’t have to send that embellished bill back to Batavia.”

  “But what did he do when his turkey . . . er . . . disappeared? Considering it was a case of theft . . . no two ways about it! And after that epigram?”

  “He punished me terribly! If he’d made me stand trial as guilty of disrespect to the governor of West Sumatra, which could, if you will, be explained as an ‘attempt to undermine the Dutch authority and foment revolt’ or ‘theft on the public road,’ he’d have shown himself to be a good-natured man. But no, his punishment was crueler! He gave orders for the man in charge of his turkeys to take a different road. As for my epigram, well, that was even worse. He said nothing and did nothing. Now that is heartless! He begrudged me the faintest martyrdom, there was to be no prosecution to make me in the least interesting, no suffering for my superlative wit! Oh, Duclari . . . oh, Verbrugge . . . it was enough to turn me against epigrams and turkeys once and for all. Such a dearth of encouragement snuffs the flame of genius to the last . . . indeed: I never did it again!”

  THIRTEENTH CHAPTER

  “AND NOW will you tell us the true reason you were suspended?” Duclari asked.

  “Oh, yes, with pleasure! And since I attest to the truth of everything I have to tell you, and can even prove some of it, you’ll see I had my reasons for refusing to dismiss those rumors about the missing child in Padang as sheer nonsense. You’ll find them very plausible, once you’ve heard more about the estimable General Vandamme’s conduct in my own affairs. Anyway, it so happened that my cash accounts in Natal contained inaccuracies and omissions. As you know, every inaccuracy has its cost; carelessness has never yet saved money. The head of accounting in Padang—who was anything but a close friend—claimed I was thousands short. But I must point out that nobody drew my attention to this as long as I was in Natal. All at once, I was transferred to the Padang highlands. I don’t have to tell you, Verbrugge, that in Sumatra a post in the highlands is regarded as more desirable and agreeable than one in the north. Since the governor had paid me a visit just a few months earlier—you will presently learn why and how—and since during his stay in Natal, and in fact in my home, I believed I had demonstrated my strength of character, I took the transfer as a mark of favor and set out from Natal for Padang. I took a French ship, the Baobab of Marseilles, which had loaded pepper in Aceh and, of course, was short of drinking water by the time it reached Natal.

  “As soon as I arrived in Padang, expecting to travel on to the interior without delay, I went to see the governor, as custom and duty require, but he sent word that he couldn’t receive me, and that I was to postpone my departure for my new station until further orders. As you may imagine, I was astonished to hear this, especially since his mood when we parted in Natal had left me with the impression that he thought rather highly of me.

  “I had few acquaintances in Padang but heard from the few I had—or rather, I could tell by their manner—that Vandamme was very displeased with me. I say ‘could tell’ because, in an outpost such as Padang was then, people’s attitude towards you is a fairly reliable gauge of whether you’re in the boss’s good graces. I sensed a storm coming, but didn’t know which way the wind would blow. Since I needed money, I asked around for assistance, and was truly surprised when everyone refused. In Padang, and indeed throughout the Indies, credit is normally extended only too easily. In any other case, there would have been many people who were happy to advance a few hundred guilders to a controleur in transit who’d been unexpectedly detained. Yet I was refused all forms of assistance. I sometimes demanded an explanation for this distrust, and bit by bit I pieced together the answer: in my financial accounts in Natal, errors and omissions had been discovered in my bookkeeping that raised suspicions of ‘disloyalty.’ The news of errors in my bookkeeping didn’t surprise me in the least. I would have been astonished if it were otherwise. But I did think it strange that the governor, who had witnessed for himself my ongoing struggle, far from my office, with a discontented, rebellious population—that he, who had praised me for what he called ‘firm resolve,’ could interpret those errors as evidence of disloyalty or dishonesty. Surely he knew as well as anyone that such situations are invariably a question of force majeure.

  “Yet even if force majeure had been denied, even if I had been held responsible for errors committed while I—often at the risk of my life!—was obliged to venture far from the cash box, with no choice but to entrust its management to others, and even if one were to insist that, while performing one duty, I should not have neglected the other, even then I wouldn’t have been guilty of anything more than a carelessness that has nothing to do with ‘disloyalty.’ Furthermore, there were, especially in those days, numerous cases in which the difficulties facing officials in Sumatra were recognized by the authorities, and the accepted practice seemed to be not to scrutinize the accounts too closely. The officials in question were simply expected to make up the deficiency, and conclusive evidence was required before the word ‘disloyalty’ was spoken or even thought. This had become such a fundamental rule that I had told the governor himself, in Natal, that I feared I would owe a large sum after my accounts were examined at the offices in Padang, whereupon he shrugged and said, ‘Ah, well . . . those money matters!’ as if to say that such trifles shouldn’t distract from more serious matters.

  “I do acknowledge the importance of money matters. But however important they are, they were in this case subordinate to other areas of responsibility and activity. If my accounts were a few thousand short through carelessness or oversight, I wouldn’t call that a trivial matter per se. But those thousands were missing due to my successful efforts to quell an uprising that not only threatened to set the Mandailing region ablaze but also to bring the Acehnese back to the very places we had just driven them out of at great expense of blood and treasure! The significance of such a deficit pales by comparison, and so it could even be regarded as somewhat unfair to expect a man to make up the difference when he had prevented infinitely greater losses. Nevertheless, I was happy to repay the money. For without that requirement, the door would be wide open to dishonesty.

  “After many days of waiting—you can imagine my state of mind!—I received an official letter informing me that I was suspected of disloyalty and ordering me to respond to scores of criticisms of my administration. A few of these could be put to rest immediately. In other cases I needed to review the documents, and above all, it was important for me to investigate these matters in Natal and track down the sources of the discrepancies with the help of my staff. Once I was there, I’d probably have been able to clear up everything. Those unfortunate errors could, for instance, have arisen from an omitted entry for funds sent to Mandailing—as you know, Verbrugge, the troops in the interior are paid from Natal—or from some such thin
g I’d be bound to notice right away if I’d been allowed to investigate on the spot. But I couldn’t get permission to go to Natal. This refusal drew my attention to the strange manner in which the charge of disloyalty had been brought against me. Why had I suddenly been transferred away from Natal while under suspicion of disloyalty? Why had I been told nothing about this disgraceful suspicion until I was far from the place where I’d have the opportunity to clear my name? And above all, why had these matters immediately been put in the worst possible light, contrary to custom and fair practice?

  “Before I could respond to all those criticisms as well as possible without recourse to my records or any chance to talk to my staff, I learned through indirect channels that I had incurred General Vandamme’s displeasure by having ‘so rudely crossed him in Natal,’ which had been ‘a great mistake.’

  “That put the situation in a new light. Yes, I had crossed him, but in the naive assumption that he would respect me for it! I had crossed him, but when he left, I had seen not the slightest hint of his displeasure! Foolishly, I had taken the welcome transfer to Padang as a sign of Vandamme’s approval. You see how little I understood him then.

  “But once I knew that this was why my accounts had been judged so harshly, I was at peace with myself. I responded to each point as well as I could and concluded my letter—I still have the first draft—with these words:

  I have responded to the criticisms of my administration as well as I could without records or local investigations. I request that Your Excellency make no generous allowances for me. I am young, and insignificant in comparison to the prevailing views that my principles compel me to oppose, but nonetheless, I remain proud of my moral independence, proud of my honor.

  “The next day, I was suspended for ‘disloyal administration.’ The public prosecutor was instructed to indict me, in accordance with his ‘office and duty.’

  “So there I was in Padang, barely twenty-three years old, staring into a future that would bring disgrace! I was advised to ask for leniency because of my tender age—I had been a legal minor when the alleged misdeeds had taken place—but I refused to do that. Because I’d already done too much thinking, too much suffering, and—I venture to say—too much work to hide behind my youth. The closing words of my letter, quoted above, show that I didn’t want to be treated as a child, I who had done my duty in Natal towards General Vandamme, the governor, as a man. The letter also shows how unfounded the accusations against me were. A base criminal would never write in that style!

  “I was not taken prisoner, as I ought to have been had the criminal charges been in earnest. Yet perhaps there were reasons for this apparent negligence. Prisoners are entitled to food and shelter, after all. Since I couldn’t leave Padang, I was a prisoner nonetheless, but one without a roof and without bread. I wrote several letters to the General, but always in vain, arguing that he had no right to prevent me from leaving Padang, because even if I had committed the foulest deeds imaginable, no crime is punishable by starvation.

  “After the court, which apparently saw the case as something of an embarrassment, had conveniently found that it lacked jurisdiction, since crimes committed by an official in the line of duty may be prosecuted only on the authority of the government in Batavia, I was kept in Padang for nine months by the General, as I mentioned before. He was finally ordered by his superiors to let me go to Batavia.

  “A few years later, when I had a little money—thanks to you, my dear Tina!—I paid a few thousand guilders to settle the Natal cash accounts for 1842 and 1843, and somebody who could be seen as representing the East Indies government said to me, ‘In your place, I wouldn’t have paid until doomsday.’83 Such is the way of the world!”

  •

  Havelaar was about to launch into the story his guests expected from him, which would explain why and how he had “rudely crossed” General Vandamme in Natal, when Mrs. Slotering came out onto her veranda and beckoned the police officer assigned to Havelaar, who was sitting on a bench next to the house. After going over and speaking to her, the officer called out something to a man who had just entered the grounds and was probably headed for the kitchen behind the house. Our gathering would most likely have taken no notice of this, if Tina hadn’t made a remark during the midday meal about Mrs. Slotering having a nervous disposition, and that she seemed to check everyone entering the grounds. The man to whom the police officer had called out went over to her, and she appeared to put him through an interrogation that didn’t end well for him. In any case, he turned around and left.

  “It’s too bad,” Tina said. “He may have been selling chickens, or vegetables. And there’s no food in the house yet.”

  “Well, then, send someone out to buy some,” Havelaar replied. “You know how native ladies love to exercise authority. Her husband was once in charge here, and however insignificant an Assistant Resident may be in reality, in his regency he’s like a king. She hasn’t adjusted to the loss of the throne yet. Let’s not deprive the poor woman of this small pleasure. Just pretend you didn’t notice.”

  That was not hard for Tina; she did not care for authority.

  Here a digression is called for, and in fact I would like to digress about digressions. It is not always easy for a writer to steer between the two cliffs of too much and too little, and it is all the more complicated with descriptions that are meant to transport the reader to unfamiliar terrain. There is too close a connection between places and events to leave out all description of the setting, and it is doubly difficult to avoid the two cliffs when the setting is the Indies. Whereas a writer describing events in Europe can assume many things to be understood, anyone setting his scene in the Indies must constantly ask himself whether readers unfamiliar with the region will interpret the situation correctly. A European reader who imagines Mrs. Slotering to be “lodging with the Havelaars,” as she might in Europe, is bound to be mystified why she was not taking coffee on the veranda with the others. I have already mentioned that she lived in a separate house, but for the proper understanding of this and later episodes, I must briefly acquaint the reader with Havelaar’s house and grounds.

  The accusation so often leveled against the great master who wrote Waverley, namely that he often tries his readers’ patience by devoting too many pages to describing the setting, strikes me as unfounded, and I believe that to ascertain the justice of such a charge, it’s enough simply to ask whether a particular description was necessary for conveying the writer’s intended impression. If so, then he can hardly be blamed for expecting you to take the trouble of reading what he went to the trouble of writing. If not, then you should fling the book away. A writer empty-headed enough to give a topography for his ideas for no good reason is rarely worth the trouble of reading, even after his scenic description finally comes to an end. But let’s not forget that, quite often, the reader is not in a position to judge the need for a digression, because it’s only after the cataclysm that he can tell what is and what is not required for the gradual unfolding of events. And if he takes up the book again afterwards—I’m not speaking of books that are read only once—and still believes that certain digressions could have been left out without detriment to the story as a whole, the question still remains whether he’d have received exactly the same impression if the author had not, artfully or otherwise, guided him to that cataclysmic point, precisely through the digressions that the nonchalant reader deems unnecessary.

  Do you think Amy Robsart’s death would be half so moving if you were a stranger to Kenilworth’s halls? And do you believe there is no connection—connection through contrast—between the lavish attire in which the unworthy Leicester presented himself to her, and the darkness of his soul? Can’t you see that Leicester—this is obvious to anyone who knows him from sources other than the novel alone—was infinitely viler than his portrait in Kenilworth? But the great novelist, who would rather fascinate his readers through the artful arrangement of colors than through gaudiness, considered it b
eneath him to dip his brush in all the blood and filth that clung to Elizabeth’s unworthy favorite. He simply wanted to point out one speck in that cesspool, but he had mastered the art of making that speck stand out through the hues he placed beside it in his immortal writings. By dismissing such adjoining passages as superfluous, one completely loses sight of the fact that, in order to create the desired effect, an author would have to join the school that has flourished in France since 1830, though I must add, to that country’s credit, that the gravest offenders against good taste are most popular not in France itself, but abroad. That school—which I hope and trust is finally past its peak—liked to dip an entire hand into pools of blood and thrust great splotches onto the canvas, so that the blood could be seen from a distance! And it’s certainly easier to paint coarse swathes of red and black than to render the delicate features of a lily’s petals. That is why the authors in question are inclined to take kings as the heroes of their stories, preferably from the days when their subjects had not yet gained a voice. You see, the sorrow of a king can be translated, on paper, into wailing masses . . . his wrath permits the author to slay thousands on the battlefield . . . his errors are an opportunity to depict famine and pestilence . . . all suitable tasks for coarse brushes! If you aren’t racked by the mute horror of that corpse on the ground, there’s room in my tale for another victim, still flailing and shrieking! If you didn’t weep for the mother searching in vain for her child, why, I’ll show you a second mother, having to watch as her child is quartered! If one man’s martyrdom leaves you cold, I’ll multiply your emotion a hundredfold by having ninety-nine other men martyred with him! If you’re so jaded that no shiver runs down your spine when a soldier in a besieged fort, crazed with hunger, devours his own left arm . . .

  Epicurean! I suggest you give these marching orders: “Right and left, form a circle! All of you, eat the left arm of the man on your right . . . proceed!”