Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/65

 said that I was Mr. Drystubble, coffee-broker, at No. 37 Laurier Canal, but that I should introduce myself. I mounted as high as they told me, and heard on the third landing the voice of a child singing, “Papa will come soon,—sweet papa.” I knocked, and the door was opened by a woman or lady,—I did not know what to think of her. She looked very pale, and her features wore signs of fatigue. She made me think of my wife when washing-day is over. She was dressed in a long white gown or robe without waist-band, which descended to her knees, and was fastened in front with a black pin; Instead of a respectable skirt, she wore underneath a piece of dark linen covered with flowers,—which seemed to be wrapt round her body, hips, and knees very tightly. There was no trace of the folds, width, or amplitude becoming a woman. I was glad that I did not send Fred; for her dress seemed to be extremely immodest, and the strangeness of it was still heightened by the gracefulness of her movements, as if she thought herself quite right in this way, and seemed quite unconscious that she did not look like other women. I also perceived, that she was not at all perplexed at my arrival: she did not hide anything underneath the table, did not move the chairs,—in a word, she did not do as is generally done, when a stranger of respectable appearance arrives.

She had combed her hair back like a Chinese, and bound it behind her head in a sort of knot. Afterwards I heard