Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/252

 mand, nor expect, my fellow-Dutchmen!—that such description will move you in like measure as it would if I sketched for you a Dutch peasant whose cow was taken from him. I ask for no tear to flow with the tears on such dark faces, no noble indignation when I shall speak of the despair of the robbed ones. Also I do not expect that you shall rise and go to the King with my book in your hand, and say: “See. O King, this is what happens in Empire, in your beautiful Empire of Insulind!”

No, no, no, all this I do not expect! Too much suffering near you absorbs all your sympathy, for so much feeling to be left you for what is so far away! Are not all your nerves kept in extreme tension by the distressful task of choosing a new Member of Parliament? Is not your torn soul tossed between the world-renowned merits of Nonentity A and Nincompoop B? And do you not require your precious tears for more serious matters than but what more need I say? Was not the Exchange depressed yesterday, and is not at this very moment a somewhat excessive supply threatening the coffee-market with a slump?

“For goodness’ sake don’t write such senseless things to your papa. Stern!” I said, and perhaps I said it a bit hotly, for I can’t bear untruth: that has always been a fixed principle with me. That evening I wrote at once to old Stern to make haste with his orders, and particularly to be on his guard against false rumours, for coffee-quotes are high.

The reader will realize what I have again had to bear in listening to the last chapters. I found in the children’s playroom a game of solitaire, which in future I shall take with me to the party. Wasn’t I right when I said that this Shawlman had made them all silly with his bundle? Can one, in all this scribbling of Stern’s—and Frits takes a hand also, that is quite certain!—recognize young people who are brought up in a genteel house? What are those stupid sallies against a disease that shows itself in longing for