“I have done all I could possibly do to meet her again; but to no purpose. Not only have her parents taken every precaution to make a meeting impossible; but Anna herself was determined not to see me again when I had at length persuaded Mrs. Meidema to let me know when I might expect to find Anna at her house. Now she is gone—and I received a letter from Sapoeran; but, my dear friend, it is a letter which robs me of all hope. She writes: ‘My union with you is utterly impossible, you cannot, you must not think of making me your wife after the infamous proposals which have been made to you. You will say, perhaps, that a child is not guilty of the actions of her parents and cannot be held responsible for them. In that you are perfectly right, and I must tell you that my conscience is as clear; and that, if in my present forlorn condition I may be allowed so to speak, I, at this present moment hold up my head as high as before I knew anything of my mother’s designs. But to be always face to face with the man to whom the odious propositions were made, to be ever conscious, even in our tenderest moments, of the fact that I was flung to the man I love as the price of dishonour, that is a prospect which is to me utterly unendurable. You are a gentleman, and as such, you would no doubt always have treated my parents with deference and with the proper show of respect; but to know that all this must be a mere empty show, put on in deference to a daughter’s natural affections,—Oh Charles! that would have made life an intolerable burden to me, and must in the end, have destroyed your happiness also.’ William, my dear friend, these lines sounded to me so full of despair, while at the same time they are so full of love, that they made me the happiest and, at the same time, the most wretched of men. I can fully enter into her feelings—I can understand her deep disgust at the actions of her parents; and it is for that very reason that I now, if possible, love her still more ardently than before. Her noble character stands clearly revealed in every word of her letter and commands my respect and admiration. I often ask myself how can such a child have sprung from such parents? It must be by a freak of nature that two such depraved creatures could have begotten so noble a child. How is it possible that amid such surroundings Anna has remained spotless and pure? To us who hold the cynical opinion that with our mother’s milk we imbibe our mother’s faults, it is an insoluble enigma. But, you see William, all this only serves to increase my affection for the lovely girl who happens to have crossed my path of life. What will be the end of it all? That is a question I often seriously put to myself; but I can find no answer to it. There are moments when I recoil from my very self; for I am beginning to discover within me certain feelings which I hardly dare to analyse. Are these feelings to be accounted for by the obstacles which my love to Anna has encountered? Would they ever have arisen in my breast if the course of my love, like that of so many of my fellow-men, had run smoothly along? I cannot tell; for the ideal which once I formed of married life is so strangely different from the storm which now rages within me, that I sometimes cannot repress a painful smile when I call to mind my visions of days gone by. Then woman was to me an ethereal being rather than a companion of flesh and blood who can herself feel the passion she inspires. You know, my dear friend, how little, hitherto, I have been accessible to what is called love. Well, now I am a different man. At times I feel as if a burning fire were consuming me. There are moments when painful yearnings arise within me for that pure and lovely being, for that proud maiden, whose very chastity and purity attract me with irresistible power. She flies from my love—and, oh William! I confess it to you though I confess it with shame—that there are moments in which I not only long to make her mine, but in which I madly swear that at any price she shall be mine. And then—alas that I should have to say so—in this storm of passion there is nothing tender, nothing sentimental; but it is simple passion which masters me, the mere selfish and senseless raging of the grossly material man, who is prepared to fling himself, by force if need be, upon the object which he has determined to obtain.
“After the receipt of that last letter I have repeatedly written to Anna. Again and again I have told her of my love. I have conjured her not to trample upon my affection. I have begged, I have entreated, I have prayed her not to refuse me her hand. Her parents would surely not persist in rejecting me; my worldly prospects might improve; indeed, I let her know that, as far as mere money was concerned, she need have no anxiety whatever; for that one of my mother’s sisters had left me, not indeed any very considerable sum, but yet a competence. I told her that I must succeed in getting an appointment far away from the abode of her parents, and that, if life in India was really unbearable to her, we could cross the sea and go to Australia; that we might there marry and live quietly and forgotten by all, yet happy in our mutual affection. All this I wrote, and a great deal more; but, my dear friend, I received not a single word in reply. Regularly my letters have been returned to me and always unopened. Then I began to see that her determination was not to be shaken. With her own hand she enclosed my letters in an envelope and with her own hand firmly and boldly wrote the address. There could be no mistake about it; it was indeed her own handwriting. What was I to do? What could I do? I was in the most excited frame of mind; yet the huge mass of arrears with which the courts at Santjoemeh are overloaded would not allow me to ask for even a single day’s leave of absence. I felt that I must get away—that I must fly to Karang Anjer; for I was persuaded that even yet I might induce Anna to look with less coldness upon my love. At length my last letter was returned to me unopened as all the others had been. As I held it in my hand a strange feeling of dread seemed to come over me for—the address was not in Anna’s handwriting. Hastily I tore open the cover. Yes, there was my letter, unopened, and upon it were written these few hurried words: ‘Anna van Gulpendam has left Karang Anjer!’ You may perhaps be able, William, to understand my feelings as I read the words ‘Anna has left Karang Anjer!’ and not another syllable to give me a clue as to where my darling then was. Who could have written those few words—it was certainly not Anna’s hand, that I could see at a glance. But who could it be? Was it a woman’s hand at all? The writing was regular, the letters were fairly formed; but they told me nothing. One thing I felt quite distinctly, namely that, at any cost, I must get to Karang Anjer or else anxiety and suspense would kill me. The only question was, how to get away. You know that my superior officer in the High Court of Justice is a friend of van Gulpendam, and thus I knew I could not venture to ask him for leave of absence, I am glad I did not, for had I done so, I feel convinced that every one of my steps would have been watched. Happily, however, help came from an unexpected quarter. I became seriously indisposed. Congestion and feverish attacks made me wholly unfit for work, and though I was not forced to take to my bed, yet the doctor was so uneasy about the state of my health, that he insisted upon my starting at once for the hills; for, he declared, immediate change of climate was the only remedy for my complaint. You may imagine my feelings of joy when I heard this. I said, however, as quietly as I could, ‘Well, doctor, is there any particular spot to which you advise me to go?’
“ ‘I fancy,’ he replied, ‘Salatiga will be about the best place; it lies pretty high up, 1800 feet I think.’
“ ‘Would not Wonosobo do just as well?’ I asked, with assumed indifference.
“ ‘Have you any preference for that place?’ he asked.
“ ‘Oh no,’ I replied, ‘not exactly a preference; but the Assistant Resident there is a friend of mine and I know several of the landowners in the neighbourhood. At Salatiga I shall be quite a stranger and must feel very lonely.’
“ ‘Well then by all means,’ said the doctor, ‘go to Wonosobo. In fact it lies up higher still, quite 2200 feet, that will be still better for you.’
“The necessary certificate was soon signed, and in two days I was seated in a travelling carriage and was off on my way to the hills. Wonosobo, as you probably know, is 73 miles from Karang Anjer; but what were they in my eyes? Was it the hope which began to dawn within me, or had a reaction already set in? I cannot tell; but this much I know, that from the very commencement of my journey, I felt as if fresh life had been infused into me. In any other frame of mind the trip would have been highly interesting; for the country through which I passed was enchantingly lovely. I traversed the mountain district of Prahoe which is quite 8000 feet above the sea-level; then I went through the Dieng plateau, that classical volcanic region which the German naturalist Franz Junghuhn has so graphically described. My road then took me along Goenoeng Panggonang and Goenoeng Pakoeodja with their still active solfataras and their springs of boiling water; along the Telerep, that shattered old volcano whose very appearance testifies of eruptions and convulsions which defy description; along the Telogo Mendjer, the deep crater-lake inbedded in walls of rock and offering one of the loveliest basins in the whole world. Then further along the western slopes of the Goenoeng Lindoro, the fairest and most symmetrical volcano in Java which rises to a perpendicular height of fully 10,000 feet above the sea-level; and thus, at length, I arrived at Wonosobo. But for all this I had no eyes. I passed unmoved by all these marvellous beauties of nature, which in the shape of pyramids, of jagged mountain-ridges, of steep and towering rocks, of dashing mountain torrents, of thundering cataracts, of magnificent lakes, of green table-lands, of picturesque valleys, of dizzy ravines, of deep, dark precipices, of hoary forests, of delightful coffee and tea plantations, moved before me like some wondrous and ever varied panorama. One only thought possessed me: Anna! and I had but one object in view, namely, to hurry on as quickly as possible and to get to the end of my journey.
“ ‘Come coachman, drive on, drive on!’ was my only cry to the Automedon who certainly did his best and plied his long whip with merciless dexterity.
“But when I arrived at Wonosobo my impatience was far from being satisfied.