“Dear Max!…”
But he jumped up from his chair, and there was no more drawing that evening.
He went up and down in the inner gallery, and at last he spoke in a tone which would have sounded rough and hard to every stranger, but which was thought of quite differently by Tine.
“A curse on this indifference, this shameful indifference! Here I have waited a month for justice, and meanwhile the poor people are suffering terribly. The Regent seems [[392]]to calculate upon nobody daring to take it up against him—look.…”
He went into his office, and came back with a letter in his hand—a letter which lies before me, reader!
“Look, in this letter, he dares to make me proposals about the kind of labour which he intends to have done by men whom he has summoned unlawfully … is not that shamelessness going too far? And do you know who these persons are? They are women with little children, with sucklings; women who are pregnant, who have been driven from Parang-Koodjang to the capital, to work for him——there are no more men! And they have nothing to eat, and they sleep on the road, and eat sand.… Can you eat sand? Must they eat sand till I am Governor-General?
“Curse it!…”
Tine knew very well with whom alone Max was angry, when he spoke thus to her whom he loved.
“And,” continued Havelaar, “that is all on my responsibility. If at this moment some of these poor creatures are wandering there outside, and seeing the light of our lamps, will say: ‘There lives the wretch who ought to protect us; there he sits quietly with wife and child, and draws embroidery patterns, while we lie here like dogs on the road, and starve with our children!’ Yes, I hear it, I hear it; that cry for vengeance upon my head! … here, Max, here!…” [[393]]
And he kissed the child with a wildness which frightened it.