Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/289

 quest to the doctor at Serang for a statement of the symptoms observed at Slotering’s death. The answer he received to this request was not in accordance with the suspicions of the widow. According to the doctor Slotering had died from an “abscess in the liver.” I have not been able to obtain evidence as to whether such a complaint can show itself all of a sudden, and cause death in a few hours. I am of the opinion that here Mrs. Slotering’s declaration that her husband had until that occasion always been healthy demands serious attention. But if one attaches no importance to such a declaration, seeing that the conception as to what constitutes health, especially in the eyes of non-medical persons, is very subjective, yet the important question remains whether a person who dies to-day from an “abscess in the liver” could yesterday have mounted, with the intention of inspecting a mountainous region so extensive that in some parts its width would constitute a twenty hours’ journey. The doctor who treated Slotering may have been an able physician, and yet have been mistaken in his opinion as to the symptoms of the illness, unprepared as he was for the suspicion of crime.

However this may be, I cannot prove that Havelaar’s predecessor was poisoned, as the authorities did not leave Havelaar the necessary time to try successfully to throw light on the question. But I certainly can prove, and that they connected this suspicion with his desire to resist injustice.

Controller Verbrugge entered Havelaar’s room. The latter asked briefly:

“What did Mr. Slotering die of?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he poisoned?”

“I don’t know, but ”

“Speak plainly, Verbrugge!”

“He tried, like you, to resist the abuses, Mr. Havelaar, and and ”

“Well,go on!”