Max Havelaar

by Multatuli

  •

  Returning now to the accusation that I have accomplished so little as yet . . . this reproach is not as witless as it looks. A man can become a doctor of letters on the strength of such claims. Good gracious, isn’t that an accomplishment in itself? That people who were catching cold for want of laurels now feel the warmth of a doctoral cap on their bare heads, simply because they were clever enough to hurl a few rascally effronteries at me? In a country where official distinctions are scattered so carelessly . . .

  So be it! What did I do, you ask? Well, I did what I described in Havelaar. Is that not enough? What did you do?

  Again, what did I do? I took up the struggle, entirely on my own, risking my life and giving up every comfort, against your sort of people—that is, against Injustice. Go and do thou likewise!

  And if my struggle has been unsuccessful, if I’m still an easy target for any fool who thinks he’s mastered the art of phrasemaking—often despite meager talents, even in that regard—and if, more significantly, the situation in the Indies is more miserable than ever . . . am I to blame? I believe that I did all that could be done under the circumstances, and certainly more than any other Dutchman has. The taunts about the relative fruitlessness of my attempts call to mind Columbus’s resentful sailors in September 1492. That mob, too, scoffed at their admiral. Whether they became doctors of letters, I don’t know.

  So my work has not borne fruit? This is not the place to examine my influence in fields far removed from Indies affairs. I cannot help but think that my writings have had a salutary effect in the moral and religious—or, perhaps I should say, in the intellectual—domain. There are numerous signs that I have set many people thinking. If anyone would question or deny this, let him say so, and give his name, like the very distinguished gentlemen A. B. Cohen Stuart and Van Vloten, so that he may bear the discredit for his crude envy.

  For I believe envy must be largely responsible for the tone in which some public commentators—or folks who aspire to that role—have attacked me and my work. The tone is generally too coarse for the subject matter.

  I am clearly alone in thinking of jealousy when reading articles like those of Doctor Van Vloten; see, for example, the unminced article by Mr. J. Versluys in the January 19, 1875, issue of ’t Schoolblad, in which Van Vloten’s animosity is attributed to the essay “Vrye Studie” (“Free Study”) in my third collection of Ideeën (“Ideas”). That same topic had also been discussed by Dr. Van V., and his thoughts on the matter had evidently failed to attract a wide audience. Is that my fault? In any case, it was after the publication of my own essay on the subject that I began to notice the antipathy towards me that now seems to prevail. I used to be described in the sweetest terms: “the victim of misrule in the Indies and apathy in Holland.” What I am now, I cannot rightly say. A writer of drivel, I suppose, whose works must be suppressed to make room for the hyperaesthetic compositions of Dr. V. V. If you peruse his anthology, this supposition will start to look very plausible. The patent unfairness in that triumph of literary labor is also, very rightly, pointed out by Mr. Versluys. Even Mr. Vosmaer—assuredly one of our finest poets, perhaps the first among them—is cast from grace by the exalted Anthologist. Having committed the blunder of praising my work in Zaaier, he was not permitted to add his poetic flowerings to the collection.

  But even in the absence of true professional jealousy, it has lately become a tic and a pastime to rail against me. Scores of pamphlets and “offprints” have no excuse for existing aside from such sniping, and they show a dismal lack of creativity. Those incapable of producing any such work themselves try to gain public attention—and royalties!—by sneering at another man’s efforts. You’d almost think I invited such treatment in my Idea 249, if not for the well-known fact that wasps, caterpillars, and shipworms are as ancient as fruit, foliage, and timbered vessels.

  Still, it’s a pity! Of course, the Van Vlotens and their ilk need such stratagems to persuade publishers to risk “offprints” from their not very widely distributed magazines—that’s understandable. And I’m deeply honored to have risen so high in the public esteem that others can still raise their own profiles by taking me down a peg, even if I don’t always choose to encourage such parasites by responding seriously to their scribblings. Mind you, I don’t pledge everlasting silence, but it would be such a relief to me if others would take on the undemanding task of . . . pointing out the difference between wasps and fruit. Being obliged to spell everything out sours my mood, and that’s a shame for me and for my readers. Surely you can see why, when I’m in the middle of sketching some charming subject, I throw down my pen in horror as soon as I think of creatures like Van Vloten lying in wait to smear my work?‖ It’s beneath my dignity to help their kind increase their sales, and a quarter century ago, when I was embroiled in my struggle in Lebak, I would certainly have been amazed if anyone had predicted that, after making my attempts and exertions public, I’d have reason to make such a declaration! It doesn’t speak well of my readers that some of them dare to take a tone with me as if Havelaar were one of them. As long as that continues, I will go on insisting that they have—by old habit—read badly. Otherwise, how can they bear it that a struggle taken up and pursued with such chivalry has, in the service of other interests, been transferred to a dunghill? Many thanks!

  *1873 edition, p. 97 ff. There I also explain what compelled me, after Havelaar, to move on to a wider field than Indies affairs.

  †Harsh indeed! See the closing pages of Pruisen en Nederland (“Prussians and the Netherlands”).

  ‡The notion that Aceh has been conquered and the Acehnese defeated is a lie.

  §For a clearer picture of the typical frequency of such misunderstandings, see the amusing incident in an audience with the Czar of Russia described in my pamphlet Vryen-arbeid (“Freedom of Labor”), 1873 edition, p. 137.

  ‖I give you my word that this is, in the most literal sense, one of the reasons for the repeated delays in publishing the story of Little Wouter.

  NOTES

  1 The book was divided into chapters by Mr. Van Lennep.* I myself—especially in 1860—was not enough of a writer to impose such a system on my argument, and I still believe that, from a literary perspective, these divisions could be left out without detriment. If sections by Drystubble and Stern succeed each other without interruption, there is a piquancy to the unexpected transition that keeps—or jars—the reader awake. Still, experience has shown that it is easier to cite specific passages if the chapters are numbered, and I have therefore left the divisions in place.

  2 This Polish coffeehouse was, or still is, a popular establishment on Kalverstraat in Amsterdam, and above all a meeting place for certain classes of brokers.

  3 “Dass er bei uns speisen kann” (“That he [young Stern] can dine with us”): that’s how a certain Mr. Stromer renders these words in his so-called translation of Havelaar. If I add that the same artful pen pusher can’t tell the difference between the words pantalon (“trousers”) and pantoffel (“slipper”) either, that he changes witte mieren (“white ants”) into schweinsnieren (“pigs’ kidneys”), etc., etc., then you will appreciate the quality of his work. Furthermore, he simply left out about two-fifths of the book without a word of explanation, turning the whole thing into nonsense. I propose that he be appointed a famous foreign author.

  The French translation by Nieuwenhuis and Crisafulli is likewise very disappointing, but simply couldn’t be as bad as the German. An impossibility!

  The English adaptation by my noble friend Alphonse Nahuÿs, in contrast, is good, and has also been praised in Britain.

  4 Far be it from me to disapprove of all the words I put into Drystubble’s mouth. He “doesn’t normally concern himself” with verses of the sort that follow. Well, neither do I! The difference lies in the reasons for our dislike. When a young heart that thirsts for poetry, misled by the hypnotic power of the literature forced upon it, goes astray in its first attempts at self-exp
ression, taking as essential what ultimately proves to be no more than vain noise—“jingling and jangling,” as I call it in my “Naschrift op de Bruid daarboven” (“Postscript to The Bride Up Above”)—this misstep is not only forgivable, but highly necessary. There’s no way around it! Before the oak tree can supply us with dry, sturdy wood, it must begin its days as a tender shoot. But the Drystubbles of this world were never tender and had no need to change to become what they are: dry and useless. They stand not above but below such youthful excesses, and besides, they would be the first to assign value to “verses and the like” if such commodities were listed on the Exchange. If Drystubble’s realist outpourings can go any length toward pruning the love of false poetry from the souls of our young people, I warmly recommend his diatribes to the attention of parents, educators, and reviewers. As for me, if I had to choose between him and versifiers of a certain type . . . well, I still wouldn’t choose him! But I admit that the choice, however justified, would cause me pain.

  5 To what poem could Drystubble be referring? Chronology rules out Sentot’s “De laatste dag der Hollanders op Java” (“The Dutchmen’s Last Day in Java,”) because that was written after Havelaar and possibly under its influence. Since I don’t have Shawlman’s parcel at hand but, even so, would like to give my readers an impression of Drystubble’s indignation, I will take the liberty of presenting this work of Sentot’s to the eyes of the nation. Future historians will be grateful for the chance to show that there were plenty of warnings.

  There are those who claim that my friend S. E. W. Roorda van Eysinga was banished from the Indies for writing this poem. Mr. Van der Wyck, a member of the Council of the Indies and as such one of the advocates of his expulsion, has denied it. Other members of government have also denied any link between Sentot’s prophetic gifts and Roorda’s sad and undeserved wanderings. Some believed that the parliamentary debate on the Roorda affair would bring light into this darkness. There the disclosure of the official decision in this case could be expected—yes, even demanded, according to government decree. But Minister Fransen van de Putte believed that all he had to produce was an excerpt from that decision, and the members of the lower house resigned themselves, once again, to the flouting of the law. A question: What was in the undisclosed part of that document? Something about Sentot’s Curse? Perhaps the curse itself? Might there have been some sense of guilt that accounts for the reluctance to make that poem public? In any case, the plot was unsuccessful, for it appeared in print a number of times—even though R.v.E. was never personally involved in its publication—and I myself found it printed in more than one provincial newspaper. For the sake of both its fine and noble outrage and its literary merits, may it find a lasting place here. I have commented elsewhere that, in its fervor and expressive power, it out-shines even Camille’s famous imprecation.

  “THE DUTCHMEN’S LAST DAY IN JAVA” BY SENTOT

  Will you continue to oppress us?

  Will lucre make your heart so coarse

  That, caring not for law or justice,

  You goad the gentle into force?

  Then let the buffalo inspire us,

  Which, tired of torment, whets its horn,

  And casts its driver down before it,

  To crush him with its clumsy brawn.

  Then may war’s flame consume your fields,

  May vengeance roll through hills and dells,

  May smoke engulf your palaces,

  May death-blows ring like mighty bells.

  Then how it will delight our ears

  To hear the wailing of your wives,

  And how we shall rejoice to see

  The end of our oppressors’ lives.

  We’ll lead your children to the slaughter

  And use their blood to bathe our own

  To cleanse our endless debt and interest—

  A rich repayment of our loan.

  Then as the final rays of sunset

  Shine crimson through a haze of blood,

  We’ll hear a last farewell from Holland:

  A slow death rattle in the mud.

  And as the pitch-black veil of night

  Descends upon the blasted scene,

  Jackals will snatch the lukewarm corpses,

  And gnaw and lick and pick them clean.

  Then we will carry off your daughters

  And turn each maid into a whore,

  And resting on their snowy bosoms

  We’ll find relief from blood and war.

  And once we’ve thoroughly defiled them,

  And kissed them to our hearts’ content,

  Once sated to the point of nausea,

  Our ardor and our rancor spent,

  Then we shall set about our banquet:

  We’ll toast—“To Profit!”—and applaud.

  The second toast: “To Jesus Christ!”

  The last one: “To the Dutchmen’s God!”

  And when the Eastern sun comes up,

  “Praise to Mohammed,” we shall say,

  “He saved the world’s most peaceful race

  And chased the Christian dogs away.”

  The astute reader will have noticed that the worthy Mr. Drystubble was wrong to be offended by this poem, or some other one like it. In fact, Fransen van de Putte could have handed over the government’s unexpurgated decision to banish Mr. R.v.E. without the slightest trepidation. After all, Sentot doesn’t actually say these events will come to pass. He merely warns that they would take place if the Dutchmen persisted in hardening their hearts with lucre and oppressing the Javanese. As this prospect is inconceivable—especially after the founding of the Society for the Benefit of the Javanese and all the pettifoggery in Parliament—things are sure to work out much better than Sentot imagined in his fit of despair. For those who are unaware, I might also mention that the pseudonym Sentot rather appositely brings back the memory of the Java War. You see, Sentot was the literal nom de guerre of Alibassa Prawiro Dirdjo, the most outstanding general among the “insurgents”—as the followers of Diponegoro were called in chauvinistic Dutch, the same translation error made by the Spanish with respect to the Dutch when the latter tried to rid themselves of indelicate foreigners. The accuracy or otherwise of such expressions often depends on geographical location, date, skin color, belief, and the need for Profit. Yesterday’s insurgents are often today’s heroes and martyrs.†

  Incidentally, the original Sentot was treated as a friend to the Dutch once the Java War had ended. In the final years of his life, he received a pension from the State of the Netherlands and his soldiers were absorbed into the Netherlands East Indies army, although not as a single corps . . . and there were good reasons for that. In my own day—which began in January 1839, as far as the Indies are concerned—the soldiers from Sentot’s barisan (regular troops) were noteworthy for their good conduct, discipline, and military attitude. It was not unusual, during inspections or parades, for a field officer to point out a strapping soldier and say, “That’s one of Sentot’s men, still with us!”