Translation:Max Havelaar/17

When it comes to principles, I spare no-one, but I realised that I must handle Stern in a different way from Frits, and because it could be foreseen that my name – the firm is Last & Co, but I am Drystubble, Batavus Drystubble – would be on the cover of a book which mentions things which are incompatible with the respect that every decent man and broker owes himself, I consider that it is my duty to tell you how I attempted to get this Stern back on the true way.

I did not speak about the Lord – because he is Lutheran – but I did work on his mind and his honour. Here's how I did it, and you will see how far one can come with a bit of judgement of the human nature. I heard him say auf Ehrenwort and I asked what he meant.

"Well," he said, "it means that I pledge my honour on the truth of what I say."

"That's a lot," I said. "Are you so sure that you always speak the truth?"

"Yes," he declared, "I always say the truth. When my breast glows..."

The reader knows how it continued.

"That's really fair," I said, and I pretended that I believed it.

But this was the snare that I laid for him, with the intention to show that young chap what things are, without running the risk that the old Stern would go to Busselinck & Waterman. I wanted to make him feel how great the distance is between someone who has just begun – even if his father is a big man of business – and a broker who has been visiting the exchange market for twenty years. I namely know that he knew all kinds of poems by heart – he says "externally" – and since poetry always contains lies, I was sure that one day I'd betray him into saying something untrue. This did not last long. I was in the side room and he was in the suite - for we have a suite. Marie was knitting and he would tell her something. I listened carefully, and when he was finished, I asked whether he had the book that contained the thing he had recited a moment ago. He said yes, and showed it to me. It was one of the works of a man named Heine. On the morrow I gave him – Stern, I mean – the following:


 * Notes about the love of truth of someone who repeats this piece of rubbish by Heine to a young girl who is knitting in the suite.

Dear heart? Marie, your dear heart? Do your folks know about that, and Louise Rosemeijer? Is it good to say such a thing to a child who by such a thing could become very disobedient to her mother, by pretending that she is grown-up, because she is called Dear heart? What is the meaning of that carrying on wings? You have no wings and neither has your song. Try to fly over Laurier Canal, which isn't very wide. But even if you had wings, can you say such things to a girl who has not yet done her confessions? And if she had been accepted, what would it mean to fly away together? Shame! Well, go there alone, and hire a house, but don't take a girl who must help her mother in the house! But you aren't serious. First, you never saw the Ganges, so you cannot know whether life is good there. Shall I tell you what the situation is? They are all lies, which you only recite because that poetry makes you a slave of the rhyme. If the first line had ended in book, rich or finer, you would have invited her to go to Brook, Norwich, China and so on. This proves that the suggested travel was not serious, and it is only a cowardly ringing of words without ending or intention. What would it be like if Marie really felt like making that silly voyage? I do not speak about the uncomfortable way you intend. But she is, thank Heaven, too sensible to long for a country of which you say: What do you intend to do with Marie in that garden while the moon shines, Stern? Is that moral, is that good, is that decent? Do you want me to be ashamed, just like Busselinck & Waterman, with whom no decent merchant will do business, because their daughter ran away and because they are interlopers? What should I have answered if one asked me on the exchange market why my daughter has been so long in that red garden? For this you will understand, nobody would believe me if I told them that she had to visit those lotus flowers which, as you say, have been waiting a long time. And every sensible man would laugh at me if I was so foolish as to say: Marie is there in that red garden – why red, why not yellow or purple? – to listen to talking and snickering pansies, or to the fairy tales which the roses whisper secretly in one another's ears. Even if it could be true, what advantage would it be to Marie if it is secret, so that she will not understand? But lies they are, stupid lies. And ugly too, for do take a pencil and draw a rose with an ear and judge what you think of it. And what does it mean that those fairy-tales are fragrant? Shall I tell it in good, clear Dutch? It means that those silly fairy-tales stink! That's how it is! Can't you go to Artis – you told your father that I am a member – say, can't you go to Artis if you really want to see strange animals? Do you really want to see those gazelles on the Ganges, where you would not see them as easily as in a neat fence of tarred iron? Why do you call these animals pious and wise? I agree with the latter – they do not write such foolish verses – but pious? What does that mean? Isn't it abuse of a holy word that should only be used for people of the true faith? And that holy stream? Can you tell Marie things which might make her a pagan? Can you harm her conviction that there is no holy water but that of baptism, and no holy river but the Jordan? Isn't this undermining of decency, virtue, religion, Christendom and good behaviour?

Think about this, Stern! Your father's is an esteemed house and I am sure that he will allow that I work on your mind, and that he likes to be in business with someone who fights for virtue and religion. Yes, principles are holy to me, and I am not ashamed to say frankly what I mean. So make no secret of it, feel free to write to your father that you are in a fine family, and that I help you to be good. And perhaps you may wonder what would have happened if you had come at Busselinck & Waterman. You would have recited the same verses, and no-one would have been working on your mind, because they are interlopers. Feel free to write this to your father, for if it is about principles, I spare no-one. Those girls would have joined you in your voyage to the Ganges, and you would have been with them under the tree in the wet grass, and now, because I warned you like a father, you can stay with us in this decent house. Write all that to your father, and tell him that you are thankful to be here and that I care for you, and that the daughter of Busselinck & Waterman ran away, and send him my greetings, and write that I will drop another sixteenth percent of the brokerage below their offer, because I cannot stand interlopers who steal a competitor's bread with more favourable conditions.

And do me a favour, when you read from Shawlman's packet, to produce something more sturdy. I saw reports of the coffee yields in the last twenty years, from all residencies in Java – that's something to read! See, the Rosemeijers, who are sugar merchants, will also like to hear what happens in the world. And you mustn't say that the girls and all of us are cannibals who have eaten something of you – it isn't decent, my good boy. Do believe someone who knows what's for sale in the world. I already served your father before you were born – his firm, I mean – no, our firm: Last & Co – it used to be Last & Meijer, but the Meijers are no more in business – so you understand that I want the best for you. And encourage Frits that he pays some more attention, and teach him not to make poetry, and pretend not to see when he makes funny faces to the bookkeeper, and all such things. Give him a good example, and attempt to teach him to be gentle and distinguished, for he will be a broker.
 * I am your fatherly friend
 * Batavus Droogstoppel.
 * (firm: Last & Co, coffee brokers,
 * 37 Laurier Canal)