Chapter V: Introduction (4)

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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.

“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.

“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_.

“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.

Yet the _old-fashionedness_ is, perhaps, only relative. Who knows whether it was not counted new-fangled in its day; or how soon the same thing may be said of us. However that may be, the man was addressed as “_meester_,” and his school was called a _school_, and not an _institution_. In his school, where, according to the simple fashion of the time, boys and girls sat side by side, you learned—or you could learn, if so minded—reading, arithmetic, writing, the history of your own country, psalm-singing, wool-work, knitting, marking, and religion. All this was in the ordinary curriculum; but any pupil who particularly distinguished him or herself by talent, application, or obedience, received, over and above, lessons in verse-making,—an art wherein the soul of Dominie Pennewip greatly delighted. He “finished” the boys to the point of complete fitness for “acceptance”;[11] and, with the help of his wife, brought the girls the length of a sampler, with a red text on a black ground, or a spitted heart between two flowerpots. Then their education was complete, and they were quite fit, if so minded, to become the grandmothers of our present generation of citizens.

* * * * *

The school was empty, and the forms looked as though the pupils had left all their weariness behind them there. The map of Europe looked ill-temperedly down on the pile of copy-books, next to which lay the quill pens, worn down to the gums, so to speak, in the pot-hooks and hangers which have opened the gate of access to all learning so long that the memory of man goeth not to the contrary. The difficult sum in fractions was still visible, in all its glory, on the blackboard; but yet, the school was no school; its spirit had fled—it was a corpse.

Yes, the informing mind had departed with the children. For that these carried about with them a large quantity of the above article shall speedily be made evident.

It was the great day on which Dominie Pennewip was to judge of the fruits of his pupils’ poetic genius. There he sat. His much-moved wig shared in the emotions which filled him on reading the poems; and we will be indiscreet enough to look over his shoulder, so as, in our turn, to be touched by impressions of never-sufficiently-to-be-appreciated artistic enjoyment.

Wig to the right, and at rest.

TRYNTJE FOP, ON HER CAP.

“My name is Tryntje Fop,
I have a cap on my head atop.”

“Not bad; but—let us see—yes, that is better. The superfluous words, ‘on my head,’ weaken the impression of the whole.”

He scored through the superfluous words, and now Tryntje Fop has simply a cap on, without a head.

“This is the sort of terse and concise style I like.”

Wig somewhat to the left.

LUCAS DE BRYER, ON OUR COUNTRY.

“Fatherland, cake, and almonds also,
In the moonlight I a-walking go;
Cake, Fatherland, and brandy-wine,
I go a-walking in the moonshine.
Five fingers have I upon my hand,
In honour of our dear Fatherland.”

“Melodious,” said the master; “it runs quite melodiously. And there is depth in the cake and the brandy, with the Fatherland in between them.”

Wig to the right.

LYSJE WEBBELAAR, ON HER FATHER’S TRADE.

“The cat fell downstairs to-day;
My father, he sells pota-
Toes and onions.”

“Original; but I do not like her dividing the word potatoes.”

Wig to the left.

JANNETJE RAST, ON A WEATHERCOCK.

“He stands on a chimney, all soot below,
And shows the wind the way it must blow.”

“This is not quite accurate; for, strictly speaking——, but, as a poetical license, it may pass.”

Wig to the front.

GRIETJE WANZER, ON A CATERPILLAR.

“The little caterpillar, without fear,
Jumps round upon the trees, both far and near.”

“Descriptive poetry. There is a certain boldness in the idea of the caterpillar fearlessly jumping about.”

Wig at rest.

LEENDERT SNELLEMAN, ON SPRING.

“In the spring all is bright and gay;
My brother’s birthday is in May;
But now he has chilblains on his feet.
So we’ll praise the spring, as it is meet.
Then we’ll go for walks together,
And look for eggs at Easter.”

“It is a pity that the rhyme is so very careless. His ideas are really uncommon, and well developed. The transition to the egg is quite characteristic.”

Wig pushed down to the back of his neck.

KEESJE, THE BUTCHER’S SON—EULOGY OF THE DOMINIE.

“My father has killed many an ox with his knife,
But Master Pennewip is still in life.
Sometimes they were lean, and sometimes fat,
And he wears a wig underneath his hat.”

The wig was pushed to one side—very far to one side.

“H’m—strange—what shall I say about it?”

The wig went back again to the extreme right.

“What have I got to do with the oxen?”

The wig protested, with some impressive movements, against all such bovine relationships.

“WIG PUSHED DOWN TO THE BACK OF HIS NECK.”
]

“H’m—could that be what these new-fangled writers call _humour?_”

The wig was drawn forward to Dominie Pennewip’s eyebrows, which denotes doubt.[12]

“I must take that boy in hand one of these days.”

The wig came to anchor on the zenith, by way of expressing its satisfaction at the Dominie’s intention of taking Butcher’s Keesje seriously in hand.

LUCAS DE WILDE, ON RELIGION.

“Religion’s a good thing indeed,
Of which all people have great need.”

“The fundamental idea is correct and beautiful,” said Pennewip, “but it ought to have been further developed.”

The wig nodded assent.

TRUITJE GIER, ON MRS PENNEWIP.

“The path of virtue she does show,—
Who would not gladly with her go?
And at odd moments, as is fit,
She teaches us to darn and knit.”

The wig gave a leap of joy, and its curls embraced one another. The master could not refrain from calling his wife to share in the enjoyment of Truitje Gier’s effusion, which was pasted on a piece of cardboard, and hung up above the mantelpiece in honour both of the poetess and her subject....

LOUWTJE DE WILDE, ON FRIENDSHIP.

“Friendship is a good thing indeed,
Of which all people have great need.”

The wig did not appear quite satisfied. Lucas de Wilde’s “Religion” was brought to light, and placed for comparison beside Louwtje’s “Friendship.”

“H’m ... well ... it might be possible. Instances do occur of the same idea springing up simultaneously in two different minds.... It might ... or could ... be so....”

WIMPJE DE WILDE, ON ANGLING.

“Angling is ...”

“How! What is that?”

Yes, indeed! there it was—

“Angling is a good thing indeed,
Of which all people have great need.”

The wig was in perpetual motion; it seemed as though it too were taking part in the angling operations.

Master Pennewip hastily turned over the papers he had not yet examined, sorted out the productions of the whole Wilde family, and ... yes, indeed! Mietje de Wilde, Kees de Wilde, Piet and Jan de Wilde, declared, with touching unanimity, that religion, friendship, fishing, dreaming, cauliflower, and conjuring are good things indeed, of which all people have great need. It was an overwhelming flood of good things and human need!

What was an honest wig to do? It did the best thing that could be done under the circumstances, and more cannot be required of any one. After perceiving the fruitlessness of its efforts to find out any difference between fishing and friendship, conjuring and dreaming, cauliflower and religion, it behaved as though the matter did not concern it in the least, and assumed a neutral position, with an air, on the part of its little curls, of looking forward with interest to the sequel—as the reader is no doubt doing.

“ANGLING IS A GOOD THING INDEED.”
]

LEENTJE DE HAAS, ON ADMIRAL DE RUYTER.

“He climbed to the top of a tower,
And twisted ropes on the same;
Then he went to sea in a vessel,
And was crowned with eternal fame.

“He did great deeds and glorious,
And overthrew Sallee;
The States named him victorious,
Our hero of the sea.

“Then to marauding England
He went in wrath so dire,
The same he, most intrepid,
Besieged and set on fire.

“How many Christian captives
He freed from slavery’s chains!
Then Netherland’s valiant warriors
Broke all his window-panes.

“For terror of all traitors
What time he sailed the sea,
His title it was ‘Daddy’—
His wife was ‘Granny,’ she!

“He gave the Lord the glory,
A Christian life he led,—
Then got he through his garments
A bullet, and was dead!”

The wig clapped its curls applaudingly. It seemed delighted. Alas! the joy of such a wig does not last long. This, too, was soon to——But we will not anticipate.... We shall know only too soon.

“WOUTER PIETERSE—THE SONG OF THE BRIGAND.”

“Hey! What’s this? And Virtue—where is Virtue?”

“ADMIRAL DE RUYTER.”
]

Dominie Pennewip could not trust his own eyes. He turned the sheet over and looked at the back, to see if the Virtue he had given Wouter as a subject was hidden there.

Alas, alas! there was no trace of virtue in Wouter’s composition.

Poor wig!

Yes—poor wig! For after having made it to undergo what no wig ever underwent before,—after having tugged, plucked, ill-used, and tormented it to an extent which would have taken more than the imagination of the whole De Wilde family to conceive,—Dominie Pennewip tore it from his head, doubled it up between his convulsively clenched hands,—stammered, “Heaven and earth! Gracious goodness! where in nature did he pick that up?”—banged it down on his head again, clapped his venerable three-cornered hat atop of it, and flew out of the front door like a man possessed. He went straight to the Pieterses’ house.

Juffrouw Pieterse, Wouter’s mother, had been entertaining a few of her friends and neighbours at a “little evening,” with tea and cake.

“Good evening, Juffrouw Pieterse; I am your obedient servant. I see you have company,—but——”

“Don’t mention it, sir! Just come in and sit down!... Will you take a cup with us—sage-milk?”

“Juffrouw Pieterse,” replied the master, solemnly, “I did not come here to drink sage-milk!”

“But please sit down, Dominie——”

It was not easy, under the circumstances, but the ladies shifted their chairs a little, and the Dominie was finally installed in his. He was coughing with overwhelming seriousness. He looked round on the company, drew out a roll of papers, pulled his wig to one side, and spoke:

“Juffrouw Pieterse! you are an honest, respectable woman,—and your late husband—sold shoes——”

Juffrouw Pieterse cast on Juffrouw Laps a glance of vindictive triumph.

“Yes, sir, he did!”

“Don’t interrupt me, Juffrouw Pieterse. Your deceased consort sold shoes. I have had your children at my school, from the time when they were _so_ high, to their confirmation. Is not that true, Juffrouw Pieterse?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, somewhat uneasily, for she began to be frightened at the impressive solemnity of Pennewip’s tone. “Yes, that’s true, Dominie!”

“And I ask you, Juffrouw Pieterse, whether you, so long as you, through the means of your children, have had anything to do with my school, have had any complaints—I mean, well-founded complaints, Juffrouw Pieterse—to make of the way in which I—with the help of my wife—have given your numerous offspring instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, Dutch history, psalm-singing, sewing, knitting, marking, and religion? That is what I ask you, Juffrouw Pieterse.”

A ghastly silence. The neighbour in the back-room downstairs, who had repeatedly complained of the noise during the evening, had every reason to be satisfied.

“That is what I ask you, Juffrouw Pieterse,” repeated the Dominie, putting on the _pince-nez_, which was considered antiquated in those days—destined, as it was, to become the height of fashion some decades later.

“But, Dominie——”

“No buts, Juffrouw Pieterse. I ask of you—or I ask you,—for it is quite allowable, Juffrouw Pieterse, in this case, to omit the preposition,—I ask you if you have any complaints to make—I mean, of course, well-founded complaints—of the instruction given by me in reading, writing——”

“Goodness, no, Dominie!—I have no complaints; but——”

“Is that so? No complaints? Well, then, I declare to you—— Where is your son Wouter?”

“Wouter? Why—oh! he went out, so he did! Hasn’t he come in yet, Trui? Wouter is out for a walk, Dominie, with the little Hallemans—very nicely-behaved children, Dominie,—and they live——”

“Eh! what?—with the Hallemans, is he?—the Hallemans who go to the French school? oh! indeed—yes! So it’s from the Hallemans he learns such things—it must be——... loose morals ... utter depravity ... the French school...! Well, in short, Juffrouw Pieterse,—I say that your son——”

“Eh?”

“I tell you that your son Wouter——”

“Well—what has Wouter been doing now?” asked Juffrouw Laps, rejoiced, pious person that she was, at the new misdeed she was to hear of.

Just as Pennewip was about to open the indictment, there was another ring at the bell,—and the unfortunate delinquent entered the room.

“Juffrouw Pieterse,” Pennewip began, “my school is known as a good school even so far off as Kattenburg[13]—do you hear that, and understand it?”

“Oh yes, Dominie!”

“I repeat it,—well known; and more especially so on account of the good moral tone which prevails there,—I mean, of course, in my school. Religion and virtue are put foremost. I could show you verses on such subjects that—but I will pass over that for the present. Let it suffice you to know that my school is known as far as ... what do I say?—I have even taught the son of a resident in Wittenburg,[13]—a block-maker he was—and once, indeed, I was consulted in writing as to what was to be done with a boy whose father lived no nearer than Muiderberg!”

“Very good, Dominie!”

“Yes, Juffrouw Pieterse! I am still in possession of the letter—which I could show you if I chose; the man was a sexton, and the youth had fallen into a sad habit of drawing unseemly figures on the tombstones—but just on that account—I mean for the sake of the religion and virtue for which I am so well known—I feel it my duty to take this opportunity of informing you that I do not choose to see the good name of my school ruined by means of that good-for-nothing rascal of a son of yours, who stands there!”

Poor Wouter was aghast. That sounded very unlike the appointment he had been dreaming of—brigand-in-chief to the Pope of Rome,—which, however, he no longer desired, having thought of a different position which would suit him better.

His mother was about to proceed to what she called “_her_ religion,” and administer chastisement on the spot, in order to satisfy the Dominie, and show him that, in her house, too, religion and sound morals had the first place. But the schoolmaster thought it better to inform the company what was toward, and thereby bring the culprit to a deeper sense of his delinquencies.

“Your son, Juffrouw Pieterse, belongs to the class of robbers, murderers, and fire-raisers!” ...

No more than that!

“Gracious goodness! Merciful justice! What next! Oh! my gracious patience! How is it possible? What human beings have to endure!” Something like this—for I will not answer for textual accuracy—was the flood of exclamations which overwhelmed the ten-year-old robber, murderer, and fire-raiser. Poor Wouter!

“I will read you a piece in his own handwriting,” said the Dominie, “and any one who, after this, can still doubt the utter depravity of this boy——”

The whole company promised with one voice not to doubt it. The poem, indeed, which Master Pennewip thereupon proceeded to read, was of a kind which rendered doubt on that head very difficult; and I myself, though I have chosen Wouter as my hero, shall not find it easy to convince the reader that he was not so bad as would appear from his atrocious—

SONG OF THE BRIGAND.

“With my sword—
On my steed—
And my helmet on head,
Ride at them! The foeman’s skull cloven in twain,—
And forward!—”

“Christian souls!” cried the whole company, “is he mad?”

“And forward!—
And never draw rein
Along the high-road,
The brigand’s abode,—
With a thrust and a blow;
Drive back the Dragoons—the Viscount’s laid low!” ...

“Dear heavens above us!” moaned Wouter’s mother, “what in the world has this Viscount done to him?”

“For the spoil”—

“Look at that now,—for the spoil!” said Juffrouw Laps, “_I_ always say,—they begin with a Bible, and then——”

“And the spoil
Is my bride.”

“Did ever any one hear the like?—his bride! Why, the boy’s only just cutting his second set of teeth!”

“And the spoil
Is my bride,
Bought for mine own with the sword at my side——”

“With the sword at his side!!”

“And the spoil is my bride,
Bought for mine own with the sword at my side.
Like a feather I bear her right into the hall,
To the grotto——”

“Gracious patience! what does he want in a grotto?”

“As swift as the wind
I ride on with my prey,—
And I heed not her weeping—her groans are my joy,
What delight!——”

“Mercy on us! does he call that delight? It makes me go cold all over!”

“Then again
Up and down,
East and west through the land!”

“There he goes again!”

“Then again
Up and down,
East and west through the land,
Here a villa to raze—there a convent ablaze—
With rifling of treasure:
My pleasure!——”

“The devil must be in the boy ... his pleasure!”

“And then we are gone!—
Ride on! ever on,
New adventures to seek—
My path it is marked by the steel and the fire—
On, on, ever on, let me hasten—nor tire,
My vengeance to wreak!”

“Gracious goodness! what can they have done to him?”

“For revenge is the task
He would ask—
The king of the wood——”

“Is the boy mad? I’ll king him!”

“For revenge is the task
He would ask—
The king of the wood—
Who alone, against all, his sceptre holds good——”

“What sort of a thing is that?”

“Who alone, against all, his sceptre holds good,
And his banner of might!—
Up! Hurrah!
Who will come to the fight?”

The company shuddered audibly at this invitation.

“Up! Hurrah!
Who will come to the fight?
We will spare no creature that ever was born—
Now we’ll hang all the men——”

“_Lodderyn!_[14] Trui! you see I——”

“We’ll hang all the men, and the women——”

“Lodderyn! lodderyn! lodderyn! Trui!”

“And the women shall mourn,
For our joy and delight!”

“Our joy and delight!” repeated Pennewip in a sepulchral voice,—“our joy and delight!... He ... does ... these ... things ... for ... his ... delight!”.

The whole company was near swooning. Stoffel’s pipe had gone out. But Wouter had a sort of passive strength in his nature; and when his mother had thrashed him enough to secure her own return to consciousness, he lay down, not altogether discontented, in his corner of the back room, and soon fell asleep, to dream of Fancy.

MULTATULI.
(_Ideen._)

_GOING INTO BUSINESS._

The plan of “going into business” was quite attractive to Wouter. Perhaps because he did not quite know what it meant. He asked his brother Stoffel about it.

“Well—don’t you understand _that_? ‘In business’ means the same thing as—as being a merchant.”

“But what shall I have to sell? And how shall I know what people want?”

“Oh, you must not imagine that you will have to go about with a peddler’s pack, and ring at people’s front doors to know if they want to buy anything. You’re a stupid; you never will understand anything. ‘In business,’ you see, means—it means——”

Stoffel began to stammer. He was not the first to stumble over a definition—and will not be the last. But there are few who, in such a case, have an ally at home to help them out.

“How can you always talk such nonsense, Wouter?” cried his mother. “There’s Stoffel, now, explaining everything to you so clearly, and there you are again making out you don’t understand. Who in the world ever told you that you would have to go about the street with a pack on your back, like an oilman or a _mersan de la perreplu_?[15] Is that what I have brought you up for, and made you take the highest place in the school? You are an ungrateful child. What is the good of your knowing so much, and being able to make such fine letters, with curls and flourishes to them, if you must insult your own mother?”

Readers who care anything for justice, will find it strange, and perhaps unfair, that Wouter should have been overwhelmed with this flood of reproach. Unfair? Certainly! But—strange? Why, no! I solemnly affirm my accuracy in depicting a certain manner of carrying on a controversy, of which Juffrouw Pieterse was unquestionably mistress.

But now, supposing Wouter had, in all humility, remarked that he had given no occasion for the above sermon? Well, in that case he would have been overwhelmed with a second lecture on the far-reaching and infamous wickedness of being in the right, which, indeed, under certain circumstances, _is_ a fault—and a bad one.

MULTATULI.
(_Ideen._)

_TWO PARABLES._

A Professor of Ichthyology was delivering his lecture. The students were listening—well, pretty attentively as students go—not to mention students of _Ichthyology_.

“The carp, gentlemen, the carp——”

Then followed some facts about the carp.

“Now the carp, gentlemen, as I was saying——”

At that moment a carp came swimming into the lectureroom. How the beast did it, considering how dry it was there, does not concern us. The poor students had suffered from drought for ever so long,—and, after all, a carp is no better than a student.

“There he is himself!” they cried, with one voice.

So they left the professor in the lurch with his lecture on the carp, and went to look at the carp for themselves. Now I think this quite right and natural on the part of the students. But I wish we could do the same, and try to look at men—and women too—for ourselves, instead of listening to somebody’s dicta about Man!

MULTATULI.
(_Ideen._)

“AM I NOT JUST LIKE PLATO?”
]

_THERSITES AND PLATO._

Plato once had a bad cold—so bad that it was evident to every one. Thersites imitated his way of coughing, and said:

“Am I not just like Plato?”

However, this was not the worst—any man is free to ask a question. The worst of it was that thousands upon thousands of people immediately replied, “Just so. Hurrah for Thersites, the new philosopher!”

The man founded a school on the spot. And, therefore: _Cave_, _caveto_, _caveto_, _cavete_, _cavetote_, _caveunto_!

MULTATULI.
(_Ideen._)

_EGOTISM._

“You talk a great deal about yourself,” say many who never get talked about, either by themselves or other people. “This is against the tone of good society.”

“I advise you to seek better society than mine.”