Letters of a Javanese Princess Part 38

When our little troop comes in, then we are done with play. Father sits down to read the paper, and they range themselves around mother. I sit in a rocking-chair with the two smallest on my lap, a child on each arm of the chair and the two eldest at my knee. We tell stories; soon afterward supper-time comes around. We eat early with the little ones, the smallest of all sits next to mother. The little fellow has taken upon himself the task of lifting the gla.s.s cover for mother. No one must take that little work away from him, and if he is not allowed to do it, he knows it is because he has deserved a punishment.

At eight o'clock the little treasures are sent to bed. And we parents sit up and talk to each other till Klaas Vaak drives us to the poeloe kapok, and this is not so late as at j.a.para, for we get up very early in the morning.

Sunday is a holiday for both of us. We begin it always with a walk; after that I teach my girls cooking, and then the mother and wife can do the things for which she has not had time during the week. It is not much that she can do, for my husband is happier when I sit by him. He charms me sometimes with beautiful gamelan music and songs. I think it is delightful in my husband to add the songs. For the gamelan music alone makes too great an impression upon me. It takes me back to times of which I must not think. It makes me weak and sad.

So the days fly by, calm, quiet and peaceful as a little brook deep in the forest.

If the child that I carry under my heart is a girl, what shall I wish for her? I shall wish that she may live a rich full life, and that she may complete the work that her mother has begun. She shall never be compelled to do anything abhorrent to her deepest feelings. What she does must be of her own free will. She shall have a mother who will watch over the welfare of her inmost being, and a father who will never force her in anything. It will make no difference to him if his daughter remains unmarried her whole life long; what will count with him will be that she shall always keep her esteem and affection for us. He has shown that he respects women, and that we are one in thought, by his desire to trust his daughter wholly to me.

Oh, if you only knew the things that slander has spread abroad about me!

What I heard before my marriage was praise compared to what I have since learned. My husband must indeed have had courage, to offer me his heart, his hand, and his name. He had heard many things concerning me, but never a single word of praise; still, in his heart there was a conviction, which nothing could shake, that we were the bearers of new ideas, which were incomprehensible to the great mult.i.tude, who scorned us because they could not understand. When his first wife was still living, he would always take my part when they dragged my name through the mud. She had been so anxious to know me and during her last illness, she slept with my portrait in her hand. And he had a premonition that some day I should play an important role in his life. Every one here in the house had been interested in me. So there are premonitions, secret longings, that come often as forerunners of what will happen in the future. Only I alone did not think, did not dream that this would be my future existence.

I am not giving my little ones any vacation; they will have one in September when my child is born. For the first fortnight I must rest, and then my baby will go into the schoolroom. I have already prepared a corner where baby can sleep, while mother and little sisters and brothers study. Now we shall have something _a la_ Hilda van Suylenburg--a mother who with a suckling baby goes out to work.

[1] To Mevrouw Abendanon.

[2] In Java it is customary to take an hour's rest in the afternoon.

LXXIII

_Rembang, June 30, 1904._[1]

When shall I ever be able to write to you as of yore? From all sides come reproaches that I write so seldom. But I cannot do anything else; I have undertaken a great task, and it is my hard duty to carry it through to completion. The children are doing their best, and I have now twelve, among them several who are full-grown.

I am busy now with the outfit for your little grandchild. My sisters are eager for a girl, and my husband for a son. If it should be a girl, then I shall have to love her doubly, for every one here is anxious for a boy.

[1] To Mevrouw Abendanon.

LXXIV

_Rembang, July 17, 1904._

My Own Dearest Moedertje:

My love for you and my interest in everything that concerns you must not be measured according to the number of my letters to you.

With the best will in the world, it is almost impossible for me to write to any one at all, now especially, when I am struggling against bad health. I have been quite sick: I caught a cold and suffered severely.

That is now past, thank G.o.d! but I still have to take care of myself.

And I must--I will be well, for our child's sake.

How much a child costs its mother! All the tedious suffering is still to come. Oh Moeska, I must take care of myself, and be prudent in everything. For a month past, I have only received members of the family, who can come into my room. I write this in a long chair. I cannot sit up straight comfortably.

Mamma was with me last week; the dear one, nothing is too much for her, where the welfare of her children is at stake. Just so she went to Pamalang when Kardinah was sick, and just so she came all the way here, when my husband in his distress telegraphed for her. My husband is looking forward to the approaching time with great apprehension. He cannot bear to see me suffer, poor dear one; he really suffered more than I when I was so sick. He would turn the whole world upside down to spare me suffering and pain.

LXXV

_Rembang, August 10, 1904._[1]

Moeska Dearest:

I think of you so much! Above all do I think of you now, always with a feeling of tenderness, but at the same time, a deep sadness.

Sadness because you are so far from me, and will be even further removed beyond my reach. Why must it be that just those souls that are most closely akin should be separated so far from one another? I am so unhappy when I let myself long for you. I sit still, looking straight ahead, neither hearing nor seeing what is happening around me. I live in the past, that sweet and that bitter past, when I was so eager for suffering, and where your love is interwoven always like a garland of light. I suffered and I rejoiced. My heart is full of sadness, but also of grat.i.tude, for the happiness which your love has brought me. I never cease to thank G.o.d for having brought you to us.

Why is it that the Javanese is so poor, they ask? And at the same time, they are thinking how they will be able to get more money out of him.

Who will that money come from? Naturally from the little man for whose woe and weal we express such extreme concern that a whole commission is named to inquire into the cause of his retrogression; "What makes the Javanese so poor?" When gra.s.s-cutters who earn 10 or 12 cents a day are made to pay a trade tax. Every time a goat or a sheep is butchered a tax of twenty cents is paid. A Satee[2]-merchant who butchers two every day, must pay this tax, which amounts to one hundred and forty-four florins in the course of a year. What is left for his profit? Barely enough to live on.

I learned much of this at my parents' house, but here where my husband shares every thought with me, where I share his whole life, his work and his troubles, I have come to know of conditions of which I was not only in ignorance, but the very existence of which I did not dream.

There is so much crying injustice, and he who loves righteousness and holds office, must suffer indeed. He must see much, and do much himself that is against all principles of right.

Good-day, Moeska; perhaps this will be my last letter to you. Think sometimes of your daughter who loves you and your husband so dearly, and who presses you now to her heart.

[1] To Mevrouw Abendanon.

[2] Satee is a dish composed of meat strung on a stick and roasted.

LXXVI

_Rembang, August 24, 1904._

Dearest Moedertje Mine:

After all, that was not to be my last letter. I have been afraid; but perhaps it will be for the best that my time is coming quickly. I feel it, Moedertje; it is very probable that your grandchild will be born sooner than we first expected him.

Greetings, my dear one. Think well of me, both of you; in my heart there is a prayer which says, "G.o.d keep my dear friends."