Walter Pieterse: A Story of Holland

by Multatuli

When our hero got home, he stuck his greasy Glorioso under Leentje’s sewing-table—the same Leentje who had sewed up his breeches after that wonderful leap, so that his mother never found out about it. She went down to her grave in ignorance of these torn breeches.

But Leentje was employed to patch breeches and such things. She received for this seven stivers a week, and every evening a slice of bread and butter.

Long after the Habakkuk period, Walter often thought of her humble “Good-evening, Juffrouw; good-evening, M’neer and the young Juffrouwen; good-evening, Walter,” etc.

Yes, Walter’s mother was called Juffrouw, on account of the shoe-business. For Juffrouw is the title of women of the lower middle classes, while plain working women are called simply Vrouw. Mevrouw is the title of women of the better classes. And so it is in the Netherlands till to-day: The social structure is a series of classes, graduated in an ascending scale. Single ladies are also called Juffrouw, so that Juffrouw may mean either a young lady or a young matron—who need not necessarily be so young. The young Juffrouwen were Walter’s sisters, who had learned how to dance. His brother had been called M’neer since his appointment as assistant at the “intermediate school,” a sort of charity school now no longer in existence. His mother had spliced his jacket that he might command the respect of the boys, and remarked that the name “Stoffel” scarcely suited him now. This explains why Leentje addressed him as M’neer. To Walter she simply said Walter, for he was only a small boy. Walter owed her three stivers, or, to be exact, twenty-six doits, which he never did pay her. For, years afterward, when he wanted to return the money to her, there were no more doits; and, besides, Leentje was dead.

This pained him very much, for he had thought a great deal of her. She was ugly, even dirty, and was stoop-shouldered, too. Stoffel, the schoolmaster, said that she had an evil tongue: She was thought to have started the report that he had once eaten strawberries with sugar in the “Netherlands.” This was a small garden-restaurant.

I am willing to admit the truth of all this; but what more could one expect for seven stivers and a slice of bread and butter? I have known duchesses who had larger incomes; and still in social intercourse they were not agreeable.

Leentje was stooped as a result of continuous sewing. Her needle kept the whole family clothed; and she knew how to make two jackets and a cap out of an old coat and still have enough pieces left for the gaiters that Stoffel needed for his final examination. He fell through on account of a mistake in Euclid.

With the exception of Walter nobody was satisfied with Leentje. I believe they were afraid of spoiling her by too much kindness. Walter’s sisters were always talking about “class” and “rank,” saying that “everyone must stay in his place.” This was for Leentje. Her father had been a cobbler who soled shoes, while the father of the young Juffrouwen had had a store in which “shoes from Paris” were sold. A big difference. For it is much grander to sell something that somebody else has made than to make something one’s self.

The mother thought that Leentje might be a little cleaner. But I am going to speak of the price again, and of the difficulty of washing when one has no time, no soap, no room, and no water. At that time waterpipes had not been laid, and, if they had been, it’s a question if the water had ever got as far as Leentje.

So, everyone but Walter had a spite against Leentje. He liked her, and was more intimate with her than with anyone else in the house, perhaps because the others could not endure him, and there was nothing left for him to do but to seek consolation from her. For every feeling finds expression, and nothing is lost, either in the moral or in the material world. I could say more about this, but I prefer to drop the subject now, for the organ-grinder under my window is driving me crazy.