Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/96

 why are women so soft?" Then he bit his own arm and said, "Though I am so little, yet I am a man, that is the reason I am hard."

He is such a lovely child, with great dreamy eyes and brown curling hair. Before he came here he made our acquaintance at Soerabaja through our portraits.

His mother told him that they were going to the place where his dear aunts lived. The child thought that he must marry and asked "Maatje, must I marry all three or only one of them?"

When he came here and saw us, his mother said to him, "Well, little brother, have you chosen which one of the aunts you will marry?"

"Maatje, I cannot choose, for I love all three just the same."

The dear little angel then turned to each one of us and said, "I love you, I love you, I love you. Yes, I love the whole world for everything is good, everything is beautiful."

If this had been told me by some one else, I should not have believed it, but I saw and heard it with my own eyes and ears.

The subject which Mevrouw van Suylen-Tromp wishes to have treated is the "The life of the Native Woman." On that I had rather not write just yet. I have far too much to say, and could not possibly make an orderly whole of it now. In a few years perhaps, when I shall have learned more, I shall undertake it.

Now the thoughts blow and whirl through my brain like falling leaves that are driven by the wind. What a comparison, eh?

The mornings are magnificent now and so are the evenings, but in the middle of the day I should like to do nothing but lie in the water, if that were not so warm. We enjoy the mornings so much, nature is then splendidly fresh and beautiful. We wander around the garden where everything is blooming and fragrant. It is truly a pleasure to —74—