Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/260

 XLIX

October 12th, 1902.

URING the last year I often heard something about myself, which distresses me. I am a coquette. Do not spare me, but answer outright; am I a coquette and if so, in what way? I am seriously troubled, for I dislike anything that is inconstant.

Some one, no slanderer, says that I speak with my eyes. Is that true? I have asked my sister to watch me well, and to tell me what they see in me that is strange, what there is in the play of my eyes. And my truth-loving little sister says — she is always conscientious — that my eyes dance as if they were saying much when I talk long, never mind with whom. Believe me, when I say that I do not do it intentionally; that I have no thought of pleasing; and if what she says is true, it is unconscious and in spite of myself.

It is a strange sensation, when one has always thought oneself a serious, candid girl, to hear all at once that one is a coquettish creature. I was astonished and distressed ; I had never given the matter a thought, and would not be guilty of such conduct knowingly.

I am told that I must modestly (hypocritically) cast down my eyes. I will not do that; I will look men, as well as women, straight in the eyes, not cast down my own before them. I know very well that we shall be made to promise, perhaps under oath, when we go from here, that we will not bring to our families the terrible disgrace of sharing our love and sorrow with a European; on that point they can be at peace. —238—