Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/203

 and reach the object You look for one moment through the hole ‘Oh, dear!’ You fall And don’t you now know why?”

“I think that the weak leg of the stool broke down,” said Verbrugge.

“Yes; that leg broke down,—but that is not the reason why you fell, the leg broke after your fall. Before every other hole, you could have stood a year on that chair, but now you would have fallen even if there had been thirteen legs to the stool. Yes, even had you been standing on the ground”

“I take it for granted,” said Duclari. “I see that you intend to let me fall, coûte que coûte. I lie flat enough now, and at full length; but really I don’t know why.”

“Well; that is very simple you saw there a woman, dressed in black, kneeling down before a block. She bowed her head, and white as silver was the neck, which appeared whiter from its contrast with the velvet and there stood a man with a large sword; and he held it high, and he looked at this white neck and he considered the are which his blade must describe, to be driven through just  between those joints with exactness and forceand then you fell, Duclari; you fell because you saw that, and, therefore, you cried: ‘Oh, dear!’ and not because your chair had only three legs.