[9] The factotum of the Regent. Kliwon, Djaksa,—native officials. [↑]
[10] Willem, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the United Provinces, was obliged to leave his country in the year 1795, because of the revolution; he died at Fulda in 1806. [↑]
CHAPTER VIII.
[CONTINUATION OF STERN’S COMPOSITION.]
Havelaar had requested the Controller to invite the chiefs who were at Rankas-Betong to stay there till the next day to be present at the Sebah (council) which he intended to convene. Such a council generally took place once a month; but either because he wished to spare some chiefs who lived very far from the capital the unnecessary journey to and fro, or because he wished to speak to them immediately impressively, and without waiting for the appointed day, he chose the next morning for the first Sebah.
To the left of his mansion, but in the same grounds, and opposite the house which Madam Slotering occupied, stood a building, part of which was used for the offices of the Assistant Resident, where was also the Treasury. This building contained a large open gallery, which made it a very good place for such a council. There the chiefs assembled betimes in the morning. Havelaar entered, saluted, and sat down. He received the written reports [[127]]on agriculture, police, and justice, and put them aside for after examination.
Every one expected an address such as the Resident had delivered the day before, and it was not quite certain that Havelaar himself intended to say anything else to the chiefs; but you ought to have seen him on such occasions to conceive how he, at speeches like those, grew excited, and, through his peculiar way of speaking, communicated a new colour to the most common things; how he became taller, so to speak, how his glance shot fire, how his voice passed from a flattering softness to a lancet sharpness, how the metaphors flowed from his lips, as if he was scattering some precious commodity round about him, which, however, cost him nothing, and how, when he ceased, every one looked at him with an open mouth, as if asking, “Good God! who are you?”
It is true that he himself who spoke on such occasions as an apostle, as a seer, afterwards did not exactly know how he had spoken, and his eloquence was therefore more powerful to astonish and to touch, than to convince by solid argument. He would have excited the martial spirit of the Athenians to frenzy as soon as they had decided to go to war with Philip; but he would not have succeeded so well, if it had been his task to incite them to this war through cogency of reasoning. His harangue to the chiefs of Lebak was of course in Malay,—a circumstance which added greatly to its effect, [[128]]because the simplicity of the Oriental tongues gives to many expressions a force which has been lost in the greater formality of the languages of the West; whilst, on the other hand, it is difficult to render the sweetness of the Malay in any other language. We must, moreover, take into consideration, that the greater part of his listeners consisted of simple, but not at all stupid men, and at the same time Orientals, whose impressions differ considerably from our own.
Havelaar spoke almost as follows:—