Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/299

 so poor, he continually advanced money to the Regent, and that on his own responsibility, in order that necessity should not urge too strongly to rapine, and, as was ordinarily the case, he forgot himself so far as to offer to retrench in his own family to what was strictly necessary, that he might assist the Regent with the little that he could still spare of his income.

Were it still necessary to prove the gentleness with which Havelaar fulfilled his difficult duty, that proof could be found in the verbal message which he intrusted to the Controller, when Verbrugge was going for a few days to Serang. “Tell the Resident that he, on hearing of the abuses that take place here, must not believe that I am indifferent on the subject, of which I do not immediately make an official report, because I would spare the Regent, for whom I feel pity, from too great severity, so I will try first to bring him to a sense of duty by gentleness.”

Havelaar was often out for many days together. When he was at home, he was for the most part to be found in the room which we represented in our plan as No. 7. There he was generally occupied in writing, and received the persons who asked an audience. He had chosen this spot, because there he was near his Tine, who was generally in the next room;—for so cordially were they bound together, that Max, even when he was occupied with work that needed attention and exertion, continually wanted to see and hear her. It was often comical how he