Rembang, March 6th, 1904.
My Own Dearest Moedertje:
I wish that I could throw my arms around your neck, I long from my soul to tell you of my great joy, to make you a sharer in our splendid secret. A great, sweet happiness awaits me. If Gods so wills it, toward the end of September, there will come one sent from heaven to make our beautiful life still more beautiful, to draw the bond closer and tighter that already binds us together. Mother, my mother, think of the little soul that will be born from our two souls to call me mother.
Can you picture it? I a mother! I shall make you, old Moedertje, I shall make you a grandmother! Will you come later on to see your grandchild? I shall not be able now to go to Batavia. Our plan was first to go on a journey this month, to take a month's holiday. Now we must give up the idea. I am not able to travel, and when our little one is here, then, too, I may not travel. So I shall see Batavia no more, at least while you are there. And what would it be worth to me without you and Mijnheer? My husband is so glowingly happy because of this new life which I carry under my heart. That alone was wanting to our happiness.
LXXI
Rembang, April 10th, 1904.[1]
Highly Honoured Friends:
It must have seemed strange to you to have heard from me in reply to your cordial letter, and to have had no word of acknowledgment for the splendid presents with which we have been so greatly pleased. If every thought sent to you had become a deed, what an array of letters you would now have! Forgive me, dear friends, that no word has gone to you long before this.
The change from a simple young girl to a bride, a mother, and the wife of a highly placed native official—which means much in our Indian life—is so great that I could think of nothing at first but of how best to fulfil my new duties. But that was not the only reason. Shortly after our wedding, my husband was taken very ill. After that I myself began to ail. Even now the Rembang climate does not agree with me. We live flat by the sea, but what, at Japara was an advantage, is here, at Rembang, a plague. Here we must have a care for the sea wind, which is very unwholesome, because it must first blow over coral reefs and slime before it reaches us. But let me thank you, also in my husband's name, most gratefully for the magnificent presents which you sent to us at the time of our marriage.