Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/231

 usually to be found in the room which on our plan we have represented as the seventh space. There he was nearly always writing, or receiving the persons who asked for an audience. He had chosen that place because there he was in the vicinity of his Tine, who usually stayed in the next room. For they were so closely bound up in each other that Max, even when he was busy with some work that demanded all his attention and exertion, constantly felt the need of seeing or hearing her. It was often amusing how he would suddenly address a word to her which arose in his mind with regard to the subjects that occupied him, and how quickly she, without knowing what he was dealing with, was able to follow the sense of his thoughts, which in fact he usually did not even explain to her, as though it were self-evident that she would know what he meant. Often too, when he was dissatisfied with his own labour, or with disappointing news just received, he would jump up and say something unkind to her, although she was in no way responsible for his discontent! But she liked to hear it, because it was a proof the more how Max confused her with himself. Nor was there ever any question of regret for such seeming harshness, or, on the other hand, of forgiveness. This to them would have seemed like someone begging his own pardon for having in anger struck himself on his own head.

Indeed she knew him so well that she knew exactly when she should be there to give him a moment’s relaxation exactly when he was in need of her advice, and no less exactly when she was to leave him alone.

In that room Havelaar was sitting one morning when the Controller came in with a letter, just received, in his hand.

“This is a difficult matter, Mr. Havelaar,” he said on entering. “Very difficult!”

Now when I say this letter simply contained an order from Havelaar to explain why there had been a change in the prices of wood-work and labour, the reader will think that the Controller Verbrugge very soon considered a thing difficult. I therefore