But what was the Assistant Resident now to do, when the next day other complainers announced themselves? Or—and this often happened—when the same plaintiffs returned and revoked their revocation? Must he again insert this affair in his memoranda, to speak to the Resident about it a second time, to see the same comedy played again, to run the same risk as before, to pass at last for a person who, stupid and malicious, was continually producing complaints that were to be rejected every time as unfounded. And what would become of the relation so necessary between the first Native chief and the first European functionary, when the latter seemed to give ear continually to false complaints against his younger brother? [[277]]And, above all, what became of those poor plaintiffs, after they had returned to their village, under the power of the district or village chief, whom they had accused as the instrument of the Regent’s arbitrariness,—what became of these poor men? He who could fly, fled.
Therefore were there many Bantam people in the neighbouring provinces. Therefore were there so many inhabitants of Lebak among the rebels in the Lampong district. Therefore had Havelaar asked in his speech to the chiefs:—“Why is it that so many houses are empty in the villages; and why do many prefer the shadow of the wood elsewhere to the coolness of the forests of Lebak?”
But not every one could fly. The man whose corpse floats down the river in the morning, after having asked the foregoing evening—secretly, hesitatingly, and anxiously—for an audience of the Assistant Resident, he needs flight no more. Perhaps it may be deemed philanthropy to spare him a further life, by consigning him to an immediate death. The torture was spared him that awaited him on his return to the village, and the stripes which are the punishment of every one who could for a moment think himself above the brute, and no inanimate piece of wood or stone,—the punishment for him who in a moment of folly had thought that there was justice in the country, and that the Assistant Resident had the will and the power to maintain that justice.
Was it not indeed better to prevent that man from [[278]]returning the next day to that Assistant Resident, as he had given notice in the evening; and to smother his complaint in the yellow water of the Tji-berang, that would carry him away softly to its mouth, accustomed as that river was to be bearer of the brotherly presents of salutation from the sharks in the interior to the sharks in the sea?
And Havelaar was acquainted with all this! Does the reader understand what went on in his mind, when he considered that his vocation was to do justice, that he was responsible for that to a HIGHER POWER than the power of a Government, that to be sure stipulated for this justice in its laws, but did not always like to see the application of it? Do you understand how he was perplexed with doubt, not of what he had to do; but of how he ought to act? He had commenced with moderation, he had spoken to the Regent as to an elder brother, and he who thinks that I, captivated with the hero of my history, try to extol too much the manner of his speaking, may hear how once after such an interview the Regent sent his Patteh[1] to him, to thank him for the benevolence of his words, and how again long afterwards this Patteh, speaking to the Controller Verbrugge, after Havelaar had ceased to be Assistant Resident of Lebak, when nobody had anything more to hope of or fear from him, how the Patteh at the remembrance of these words had been touched, and cried, “Never as yet any gentleman spoke like him.” [[279]]
Yet he would save, restore—not destroy. He had sympathy with the Regent; he who knew how want of money oppresses, above all where it leads to humiliation and scorn, sought for reasons to avoid the unpleasant duty. The Regent was old, and the head of a family that lived magnificently in neighbouring provinces, where much coffee was reaped,[2] and where many emoluments were enjoyed. Was it not grievous for him to be so far behind his younger relatives in style of living?
Moreover he was fanatical, and thought whilst his years advanced to be able to purchase the welfare of his soul by paying for pilgrimages to Mecca, and by giving alms to prayer-singing idlers.
The functionaries who had preceded Havelaar in Lebak had not always shown a good example, and finally, the extensiveness of the Lebak family of the Regent, that lived entirely at his expense, made it very difficult for him to return to the right path.
Therefore Havelaar sought for reasons to delay all severity, and to try once more, and still once more, what could be done by gentle means.
And he went further still than kindness. With a generosity which reminded him of the faults that had made him [[280]]so poor, he continually advanced money to the Regent, and that on his own responsibility, in order that necessity should not urge too strongly to rapine, and, as was ordinarily the case, he forgot himself so far as to offer to retrench in his own family to what was strictly necessary, that he might assist the Regent with the little that he could still spare of his income.