Letters of a Javanese Princess Part 8

Mother had dark rings under her eyes, and looked weak and worn out, and little brother had done that; little brother who would not let her rest, but called her every night again and again. Never mind how wearisome the heavy burden might be, there was never a single expression of impatience on Mother's face; whenever little brother cried for her, in a second she was by him. She would take him up and never lay him out of her arms till he was in a sweet sleep. Had Mother held her, too, and never put her down, till she was sound asleep? The ice-crust around Ni's heart melted, and it beat warmly once more toward the woman who had given her life.

Brother was a healthy child during his first year, but when he was weaned, and for three years after that the little one was sick, as though he kept wrestling with death. And by his sick bed, Ni the young child, learned to understand her Mother.

She saw her own shortcomings; she was too selfish, she was always thinking of her own troubles, and never thought that others could have troubles and that she could have a share in causing them. She had once been always with Mother as little brother was now, she could do nothing without Mother. Mother must have suffered and perhaps did even now; well, she could not help it if she thought differently from her mother, but she could be very careful to do nothing that would cause her pain.

Little brother taught her consideration; how to see the other side of things; he taught her submission, and grat.i.tude, and to give without asking anything in return.

Four years went by, calm and quiet on the surface, but to those who could see below it, full of strife for Ni. She learned much in those years; self-mastery, submission, not always to think first of herself; but peace and acquiescence she had not learned, could never learn; her head was haunted by turbulent thoughts. Voices too still came to her from the distant West in books, newspapers, and magazines, and in letters from Dutch friends.

For a year her sisters and she had every day an hour's lesson in handiwork from a Dutch lady. These were pleasant hours for Ni because then she could speak Dutch, the language which she loved so much.

Her oldest brother, meanwhile, was given a position at a distance, and Ni was ashamed that she should be so very glad. He was still her brother, although he had not loved her.

Time and separation work wonders; they took away all resentment from Ni's heart, and she grew to love her brother. She felt sorry for the great boy who had allowed himself to be deceived by the silly flattery of fawning, favour-seeking men. It comforted her to think that toward the last she had noticed a change in his conduct toward her. He said nothing in words, but his actions spoke of his sorrow for his former injustice; and Ni thanked G.o.d with tears in her eyes that her brother was beginning to be fond of her. She who had been formerly disliked and hated was now first. She was always with him, and he would do more for her than for any one else.

A half year before a younger sister had come to share the imprisonment.

Bemi was fortunate, at an age when Ni had already been for a long time safely immured behind high thick walls, she could run freely around, go on little journeys and do many other things that were forbidden to Ni.

Bemi was fourteen and a half years of age when she came home to stay.

Ni was now sixteen. The oldest sister married, and with the wedding celebration changes came into her own life. Ni learned to know her sisters, who up to this time had lived near her, but as strangers. There could never have been very much confidence between her older sister and herself; she was only an older sister. And Ni did not wish to be so regarded by the younger ones: she wished to be loved, and not feared.

Freedom and equality were what she asked for herself; ought she not to begin by giving them to others? The intercourse between the younger sisters and herself must be free and unrestrained. Away with everything that would hinder it. With Bemi and Wi, a little sister who had meanwhile come to the house, Ni took sister's room. And the three lives that had hitherto been strange to one another met, flowed together and became as one.

[1] To Mevrouw Abendanon-Mandri.

_August, 1900._

O, the inward pain of caring for nothing. We must have something; work, that will take entire possession of us, and leave no time for torturing thoughts. That is the only thing that can awaken our slumbering souls, and give us back our strength of spirit. Work, that is just it.

The longing for work that we will love is what presses upon us so heavily. It is frightful to feel the power to work, and the will to work, and yet be condemned to idleness.

We will not believe that our whole lives to the very end will be monotonous, dull and commonplace. And yet we see no chance for a single one of all our beautiful dreams to ever become a reality. We do not know clearly what we shall do, but we are determined to follow only the voices of our own hearts.

"If we had been boys, our father could have brought us up to be fine fellows," we hear till we are weary. When it is certainly true that if the same material is in us out of which fine boys could be made, the same trouble could just as easily make fine women of us. Is it only fine men that have been of use hitherto? And are fine women of no value to civilization?

But we Javanese women must first of all be gentle and submissive; we must be as clay which one can mould into any form that he wishes. But why speak of this now? It is as though men on a sinking ship complained because they had not remained at home, investigated the cause of the misfortune, and punished those responsible for it. That would not prevent the ship from going down; they would be drowned just the same, and only the courage of the hand at the rudder, and pumping at the leak, could have saved them from destruction.

X

_23 August, 1900._[1]

Your encouragement is a support--it strengthens me. I will, I shall obtain my freedom. I will, Stella, I will! Do you understand that? But how shall I be able to win it, if I do not strive? How shall I be able to find it, if I do not seek? Without strife there can be no victory. I shall strive, and I shall win. I am not afraid of the burdens and difficulties; I feel strong enough to overcome them, but there is one thing I am afraid to face squarely.

Stella, I have often told you that I love Father dearly. I do not know whether I shall have the courage to carry my will through, if it would break his heart, which is full of love for us.

I love him unspeakably, my old grey Father--old and grey through care for us--for me. And if one of us should be condemned to unhappiness, let me be the one. Here lurks egoism, for I could never be happy, even if I had freedom, even if I gained my independence, if in attaining them, I had made Father miserable.

In thinking over Javanese and European conditions and comparing them with one another, one can easily see that it is hardly better there than here in so far as the morality of the men is concerned, and that women are unfortunate there as here, with this difference, however, that the great majority there, of their own free will follow the man in the marriage bond; while here the women have no say at all in the matter, but are simply married out of hand, according to the will of their parents, to whomsoever those powerful ones shall find good.

In the Mohammedan world the approval, yes, even the presence of the woman is not necessary at a marriage. Father can come home any day at all and say to me, "You are married to so and so." I must then follow my husband. It is true I can refuse, but that gives the man the right to chain me to him for my whole life, without ever having come near me. I am his wife although I will not follow him, and if he will not allow me to be divorced, then I am bound to him all my life, while he is free to do as he pleases. He may marry as many women as he chooses without being concerned in the least about me. If Father should marry me off in this manner then I should find a way out at the beginning, one way or another. But then Father would never do that.

G.o.d has created woman as the companion of man and the calling of woman is marriage. Good! it is not to be denied, and I gladly acknowledge that the highest happiness for a woman is, and shall be centuries after us, a harmonious union with the man of her choice.

But how can one speak of a harmonious union as our marriage laws are now? I have tried to picture them to you. Must I not for myself, hate the idea of marriage, scorn it, when by it the woman is so cruelly wronged? No, fortunately every Mohammedan has not four wives or more, but every married woman in our world knows that she is not the only one, and that any day the man's fancy can bring a companion home, who will have just as much right to him as she. According to the Mohammedan law she is also his wife. In the Government[2] countries, the women have not such a hard time as their sisters in those ruled by the princes, as in Soerakarta and Djokjakarta. Here the women are fortunate with only one, two, three or four co-wives. There, in the princes' countries, the women would call that child's play. One finds there hardly a single man with but one wife. Among the n.o.bility, especially in the circle surrounding the emperor, the men have usually twenty-six women.

Shall these conditions endure, Stella?

Our people have grown so accustomed to them, and moreover they see no other way in which every woman would be provided for. But in her heart almost every woman that I know curses this right of the man. But curses never help; something must be done.

Come, women, girls, stand up; let us reach our hands to one another, and let us work together to change this unbearable situation.

Yes, Stella, I know it; in Europe, too, the state of morality among men is tragic. I say with you, teach the young men to turn their backs upon temptation and deplorable, half-acknowledged customs, and to feel disgraced at the existence of those short-sighted girls who follow men not ignorantly into the places where life is sordid. Yes certainly the young mothers could do most there, I have already maintained that to my sisters.

I should so love to have children, boys and girls to nourish and to form after my own heart. But above all things I should never follow the unhappy custom of putting boys before girls. We have no right to be surprised at the egoism of men when we consider how as children they are placed above the girls, their sisters. Even as a child a man is taught to despise girls. Have I not many times heard mothers say to their boys when they would fall and cry: "Fie, a boy cry just like a girl!"

I should teach my children, boys and girls, to regard one another as equal human beings and give them always the same education; of course following the natural disposition of each.

I should not allow my girl, although I wished to make a new woman of her, to study as though she had no other desire in life; nor would I cut her off in anything so that her brother could have more. Never!

And then I should let down the bars which have been so foolishly erected between the two s.e.xes. I am convinced that when this is done much good will come of it, especially to the men. I shall never believe that educated and cultivated men designedly avoid the society of women who are their equals in education and enlightenment, to throw themselves deliberately into the arms of disreputable women. While many men seek the society where cultivated ladies are to be found, there is a vast army who cannot take the slightest interest in a girl without thinking of s.e.x. Now all this will disappear when men and women can mingle freely together from childhood.

You say, "We girls could do much toward bringing young men upon the good path, but we know so little of their lives." Everything will change with time, but here in Java we stand only on the threshold of the new age.

Must we not go through all the corresponding stages of development, through which you have already pa.s.sed in Europe?

Among my new treasures I have "Het Jongetje" by Borel.[3] A delightful book. Many here think it sickly and over-drawn. But to me; it is sickly not at all, and over-drawn even less. There may not be many like Borel's little boy, but I know at least one. The child of the a.s.sistant-Resident is Borel's boy personified. Once he said to Kardinah "Tante, I like girls so much. Girls smile so indolently. They are quite, quite different from boys; they are so sweet, so soft." A little fellow of five said this. He bit Kardinah's arm once, saying, "Tante, why are women so soft?" Then he bit his own arm and said, "Though I am so little, yet I am a man, that is the reason I am hard."

He is such a lovely child, with great dreamy eyes and brown curling hair. Before he came here he made our acquaintance at Soerabaja through our portraits.

His mother told him that they were going to the place where his dear aunts lived. The child thought that he must marry and asked "Maatje, must I marry all three or only one of them?"

When he came here and saw us, his mother said to him, "Well, little brother, have you chosen which one of the aunts you will marry?"

"Maatje, I cannot choose, for I love all three just the same."

The dear little angel then turned to each one of us and said, "I love you, I love you, I love you. Yes, I love the whole world for everything is good, everything is beautiful."

If this had been told me by some one else, I should not have believed it, but I saw and heard it with my own eyes and ears.

The subject which Mevrouw van Suylen-Tromp wishes to have treated is the "The life of the Native Woman." On that I had rather not write just yet.

I have far too much to say, and could not possibly make an orderly whole of it now. In a few years perhaps, when I shall have learned more, I shall undertake it.