“I will express my meaning in plainer terms,” returned van Gulpendam, very deliberately, “I advise you, as I have done already, to take back this report and to modify it.”
“Why should I do so, Resident? Why do you give me that advice?”
“Because, in the first place, the facts mentioned in it are twisted, exaggerated, and represented from a prejudiced and partial point of view.”
“Resident!” interrupted Verstork.
But without heeding him van Gulpendam went on:
“In fact that paper reads like a sensational report, which evidently is aimed at attaining some ultimate object. And then again there occur in it passages which most certainly will be highly displeasing to the Government. Here, for instance, is one of them:”
The Resident turned over the leaves of the document, and seemed to be looking for a certain passage; having found it he read as follows:
“Allow me also to state that my official career of twelve years has taught me that the opium-monopoly is an imperium in imperio; that in order to promote the opium-trade everything the people loves and honours is trampled upon and trodden under foot. The opium-farmer does not trouble himself in the least about police regulations or about penal statutes, his satellites simply enter people’s houses and violate the right of domicile; his spies and his policemen—at all events the police which he has in his pay—have no scruples whatever, and pay no respect to anything. A European would make himself liable to severe punishment were he to treat the natives in the manner in which the refuse of mankind, if only they are in the opium-farmer’s employ, dares to treat them. These opium-agents have respect neither for the husband, the wife, nor the daughter. In the houses, aye even on the public roads, they strip them, they search them in the most disgusting manner, and never trouble themselves about any protest at all. These scoundrels, sheltering themselves under the impunity which the opium monopoly casts over them, inflict upon the natives the most horrible insults frequently to satisfy their own passions, sometimes merely for the purpose of revenge. A sad proof of this is the treatment to which the Javanese girl, Dalima, has been subjected.”
The Resident paused here for an instant and fixed a penetrating glance upon his subordinate; but the latter as steadily returned his gaze.
“You see,” he continued, “when I read such rant as that, then I am forced to suspect”—and here the high functionary significantly tapped his forehead with his finger—“that there is something wrong with you here!”