Translation:Max Havelaar/01

I am a coffee broker and I live at 37 Laurier Canal. It is not my habit to write novels or similar things, and therefore it took some time before I decided to order some reams of paper and started writing the book that you, dear reader, have just opened, and that you should read if you are a coffee broker, or if you are anything else. Not just that I never wrote something that looked like a novel, but I even do not like to read such a thing. Because I am a man of business. For many years I have wondered what is the purpose of those things, and I am amazed at the effrontery of a poet or novelist who tries to tell you something that never happened, and usually will not happen. If I in my job – I am a coffee broker and I live at 37 Laurier Canal – gave a principal – a principal is someone who sells coffee – a report which contained only a small portion of the lies which are a major part of what is written in poets and novels, he would immediately go to Busselinck & Waterman. Those are coffee brokers too, but you need not know their address. So I am careful not to write novels or to present false reports. I have always seen that people who do such things, usually get bad results. I am 43 years old, I have gone to the exchange market for twenty years, so I can be called for if someone is needed who has some experience. I have seen quite a few houses fall! And usually, when I investigated the causes, I found that these were to be found in the wrong guidance most of them had obtained in their childhoods.

I say: truth and common sense; and I stick to it. The Scripture is an exception, of course. The error starts with Van Alphen, immediately at the first line about those "good little girls". What devil could move the old man to present himself as an adorer of my sister Truitje who had sore eyes, or of my brother Gerrit who always played with his nose? And yet, he says: "that he sang those songs, pressed by love". As a child I always thought: "man, I’d like to meet you, and if you’d refuse to give me the marbles I asked, or my name in pastry letters – my name is Batavus – I’d call you a liar. But I never saw Van Alphen. I think he was already dead when he told us that my father was my best friend – I liked Pauweltje Winser more, our neighbour in Batavierstraat – and that my little dog was so grateful. We had no dogs, because they are so unclean.

All lies! And that’s how education continues. The new greengrocer’s sister came in a big cabbage. All Dutchmen are brave and generous. The Romans were glad that the Batavians didn’t kill them. The Beg of Tunis got sick when he heard the flapping of the Dutch flag. The Duke of Alva was a monster. The ebb, in 1672 I think, lasted a bit longer to protect the Netherlands. Lies! Netherland remained Netherland because the old people took care of their affairs and because they had the true faith. That’s how it is!

And then there are more lies. A girl is an angel. The first person to discover that, never had sisters. Love is a delight. One flies with some object to the end of the earth. The earth has no end, and that love is madness too. Nobody will say that I do not live well with my wife – she is a daughter of Last & Co, coffee brokers – nobody can find any fault in our marriage. I am a member of Artis she has a long shawl of 92 guilders, and between us there has never been such a foolish love that wants to live somewhere in the end of the earth. When we married, we made a trip to The Hague, we bought flannel of which I still wear shirts – and love never chased us further into the world. So it’s all madness and lies!

And would my marriage be less happy than of the people who obtain consumption out of love, or pull the hair from their own heads? Or do you think that my household would be a bit worse than it would have been if, seventeen years ago, I had told my girl in verse that I wanted to marry her? Madness! I could have done it in the same way as anyone else, for writing poetry is a skill which is certainly easier than milling ivory. How else could the ulevellen with rhymes be so cheap? – Frits says "Uhlefeldjes" I don’t know why – And now enquire after the price of a set of billiard balls!

I have nothing against verses themselves. If one wants to order the words, fine! But don’t say anything that’s not true. "I'm on the first floor. It is quarter past four." I agree with that if you are truly on the first floor on quarter past four. But if it is quarter to three, I can, since I do not order my words, easily say: "I'm on the first floor and it is quarter to three". The poet is bound: because he is on the first floor, the time must be something past four. For him it must be seven of eighteen past four, or he must be somewhere else. One past four cannot be used because of the metre. So he starts tampering. The location must be changed, or the time. So either will be a lie.

It's not only poetry that lures the youth into lies. Go to the theatre and see what kind of lies are sold there. The hero of the story is saved from drowning by someone who is almost bankrupt. He gives his saviour half his possessions. That cannot be true. The other day, when at Prinsengracht my hat was blown into the water – Frits says blowed – I gave ten cents to the man who gave it back to me, and he was satisfied. I know that I should have given a bit more if he had saved my own body, but certainly not half my fortune. It is obvious that you only need to fall in the water twice to be penniless. The worst thing with such shows is that the audience gets used to it, it likes them and cheers them. I felt like throwing everyone into the theatre in the water, if only to see how many of them were serious. I praise the truth, and I warn everyone that I will not pay so much money for fishing my person out of the canal. If that does not satisfy you, leave me there. Only on Sunday would I give a bit more, because I wear a fine watch chain, and a different cloak.

Yes, the stage spoils a lot, even more than novels. It is so obvious. With some fake gold and lace made of paper it looks very attractive. For children, I mean, and for people who are not in business. Even if those stage players want to represent poverty, they present an untrue show. A girl whose father got bankrupt, works to maintain her family. Very good. There she is sewing, knitting, embroidering. But try to count how many stitches she makes during an entire act. She talks, she sighs, she walks to the window, but she doesn’t work. When a family can live of so much labour, it doesn't need much. Of course that girl is the heroine. She threw some lovers down the steps and all the time she calls: "oh my mother, oh my mother!" so she represents virtue. What kind of virtue is that, when it needs a full year for a pair of woollen stockings? Does this not give a false idea of virtue and "working for a living"? All madness and lies!

Then her first lover returns – he used to be a clerk at the copy book, but he is now very wealthy – and he marries her. Lies again. Whoso has money, does not marry a girl from a bankrupted family. And if you think that such an exception is allowed on the stage, I cannot help but say that this spoils what people think of truth, because they accept the exception as the rule, and that it undermines the public chasteness, because the people get used to applaud something on stage, which every decent broker of merchant would consider a ridiculous madness in the world. When I married, there were thirteen in my father-in-law's office – Last & Co – and there was a lot to do!

And still more lies on stage. When the hero leaves with his stiff comedian's pace to save the oppressed country, why does the double door open by itself? Furthermore, when a person speaks in verses, how can he predict what the other will answer to make rhyming easy for him? When a captain says to the princess: "my lady, the enemy is nigh, I am aware" how can he know in advance that she will say: "Well, come on, undaunted, let the sword be bare"? For if she, on hearing that the enemy was coming, would reply that it would be sensible to hide, or to fly away, what would remain of metre and rhyme? Isn't it a pure lie that the captain looks to the princess, wondering what she will do after seeing the enemy? Again, if the woman felt like going to sleep, instead of baring anything? All lies!

And then the rewarded virtue! Oh, oh, oh! For 17 years I have been a coffee broker – 37 Laurier Canal – and I have seen many things, but it is terrible to see how people bend the good, dear truth. Rewarded virtue? Isn't it to make a trade article out of virtue? The world is not like that, and it is good that it isn't so. What would one deserve if virtue was rewarded? What is the purpose of all those infamous lies?

For example there is Lucas, our warehouse servant who had worked there since the time of the father of Last & Co – at that time it was Last & Meyer, but the Meyers aren't there any more. Now there was really a virtuous man. There was never a bean short, he diligently attended church, and he did not drink. When my father-in-law was in Driebergen, he took care of the house, the cash, everything. One day the bank gave him 17 guilders too much, and he gave them back. He is old and suffers from gout now, so he cannot serve any more. He has nothing now, for there is a lot to do and we need young workers. Well, I find this Lucas very virtuous, but is he rewarded? Is there a prince to give him diamonds, or a fairy to spread his sandwiches? Not at all! He is poor and will be poor, and that's how it must be. I cannot help him – we need young workers, because there is a lot to do, but even if I could, what would he earn if he could live an easy life now that he is old? All warehouse servants would become virtuous, and everyone, and God cannot intend that, because no particular reward would remain for the good people in the hereafter. But on the stage they change that… all lies!

I am virtuous too, but do I ask for a reward? When my business is prosperous – and it is – when my wife and children are healthy, so that I have no trouble with the physician and the apothecary, when I can save some money every year for my old days, when Frits grows up well so that he can take my place when I go to Driebergen, lo, I will be satisfied. But this is a natural cause of my circumstances, and because I take care of my business. I require nothing for my virtue.

And yet I am virtuous, as you can see from my love for truth. This is, after my devotion to faith, my main tendency. And I hope you are convinced of this, reader, because it is the motive for writing this book.

Another tendency, which rules me as much as my devotion to truth, is the passion for my profession. I am a coffee broker, 37 Laurier Canal. Well, reader, it is due to my unbendable love for truth, and to my zeal for business, that these sheets have been written. I'll tell you how it went. For this moment I need to leave you – I'll go to the exchange market – but I invite you to the second chapter. Goodbye then!

Prithee, take this – it's a small thing – it might be handy. Lo, here it is, a business card! The Co is me, since the Meyers are no more in business. The old Last is my father-in-law. Max Havelaar/Bab 1 Max Havelaar of de Koffiveilingen der Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappy - Deel 1