Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/252

LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS We are so sorry that you did not know us in the full glow of our triple bond.

We were three souls welded together—one in thought and feeling—living side by side in life as sisters. Storms passed over the young heads, storms raged in the young hearts!

I think of your "In order to reach our ideals, we must lay down many illusions." From the death of young spring blossoms, the strong fruit ripens. It is so with human life—is it not? From the death of young illusions, sometimes mature ones rise up, which ripen and bring forth fruit.

We have laid down a great illusion. It was a bitter, miserable hour; we buried it in our heart's blood, but still we felt as though we were being rushed along as by a river, which was carrying us forward to fresh, strong life.

We know that many tears must be shed to water the young fruit and bring it to full growth. We are beginning now to understand what Dr. Abendanon meant when he told us that through his wife. What was formerly dark to us has meaning now. Yes, we shall only be able to move slowly. The journey is long and the way steep and difficult. The idea of personal suffering does not trouble us, but if it should react upon ourselves, and in that way, impede our cause, it would be terrible.

I think of a certain evening not long ago, an acquaintance took both of us to a concert at the play-house at Semarang; it was the first time that we two had ever, in our whole lives, been alone in the midst of a great sea of humanity, without sister, without father, without mother; both of us absolutely alone, with all those strange faces. We had the same thought: "So shall our life be in the future; we two alone on the great sea of Life! But we are comforted, there is a God who will watch over us." —230—