But I know more than all this. I know, and I can prove it, that there were many Adindas and many Saïdjahs, and that what was fiction in one case, becomes truth generally speaking. I have already said that I can give the names of persons who, like the parents of Saïdjah and Adinda, were driven away by oppression from their [[352]]country. It is not my intention to publish in this book communications such as would be suitable for a tribunal that had to decide on the manner in which the Dutch power is exercised in India,——communications that would have the power to convince him only who had patience enough to read them all, which cannot be expected of the public that looks for recreation in its reading. Therefore instead of barren names of persons and places with the dates, instead of a copy OF THE LIST OF THEFTS AND EXTORTIONS WHICH LIES BEFORE ME, I have tried to give a sketch of what can take place in the hearts of the poor people who are robbed of their means of subsistence; or even, I have only made you guess this, as I feared to be mistaken in painting emotions which I never experienced.
But as regards the main point.… O that I were summoned to prove what I wrote! O that it were said, “You invented that Saïdjah: he never sang that lay; there never lived an Adinda in Badoer!” O that it were said with the power and the will to do justice as soon as I have proved myself to have been no slanderer!
Is there untruth in the parable of the Good Samaritan, because perhaps a plundered traveller was never taken to the Samaritan’s house? Is there untruth in the parable of the Sower, because it is clear that no husbandman will throw his seed on a rock? or, to descend to more conformity with my book, can the main thing——truth——be [[353]]denied to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” because there never existed an Evangeline? Shall people say to the author of that immortal protest——immortal, not because of art or talent, but because of tendency and impression——shall they say to her, “You have lied: the slaves are not ill-treated; for there is untruth in your book—it is a novel?” Had not she to give a tale, instead of an enumeration of barren facts, a tale which surrounded those facts, to introduce them into our hearts? Would her book have been read if she had given it the form of a law-suit? Is it her fault or mine, that truth, to find entrance, has so often to borrow the DRESS of a lie?
And to some who will pretend that I have too much idealized Saïdjah and his love, I ask how they can know this; as only very few Europeans have given themselves the trouble to stoop to observe the emotions of the coffee and sugar machines, called “Natives.” But even if this observation were well founded, whosoever quotes this as a proof against the cardinal tendency of my book, gives me a complete triumph. For that observation when translated is as follows:—“The evil which you combat does not exist, or not in such a high degree, because the native is not like your Saïdjah: there is not in the ill-treatment of the Javanese so much evil as there would be if you had rightly drawn your Saïdjah. The Soondanese do not sing such songs, do not love so, do not feel thus.…”
No, Colonial Ministers! no, Governors-General in retirement! [[354]]you have not to prove that. You have to prove that the population is not ill-treated, whether there are sentimental Saïdjahs amongst this population or not; or should you dare to pretend that you may steal buffaloes of men who do not love, who do not sing melancholy songs, who are not sentimental?
On an attack upon literary performances I should defend the exactness of the picture of Saïdjah, but on political grounds I admit immediately all observations on this exactness, to prevent the great question from being removed to a wrong basis. It is quite indifferent to me whether I am thought to be an incapable painter, if it is only admitted that the ill-treatment of the native is EXCESSIVE; that is the word on the notice of Havelaar’s predecessor which he showed to the Controller Verbrugge:——a notice which lies before me.
But I have other proofs, and that is fortunate. For this predecessor of Havelaar could also have been mistaken.
Alas, if he was mistaken, he has been very severely punished for his mistake! [[355]]