Letters of a Javanese Princess

by Raden Adjeng Kartini

She had always been fond of reading, but now her love for reading became a passion; as soon as she had time, when all her little duties were done, she would seize a book or a paper. She read everything that came into her hands; she greedily devoured both the green and the ripe. Once she threw a book away which was full of horrors. She did not have to look into books when she wished to know of loathsome, nauseating things; real life was full of them; it was to escape from them that she buried her soul in realms which the genius of man has fashioned out of the spirit of fantasy.

There were so many beautiful books which gave her unspeakable pleasure, and which she will never be able to forget; stories of strong characters nobly laying hold on life, of great souls and spirits, which would make her heart glow with enthusiasm and delight. She lived in everything that she read, while she was reading there was nothing more for which she wished, she was lost! Her Father took great pleasure in her love of reading and showered her with presents of books. She did not understand everything that she read, but she did not allow herself to be discouraged by that. What she could not understand in the first reading became in the second less obscure, and at the third or fourth, it would be quite clear. Every unknown word that she found she noted down; and later, when her dearest brother came home, she would ask him its meaning. And he helped his little sister so willingly, and lovingly.

If she had not had her loving Father, her dear brother and her books, she could not have lived through the sorrowful years. Father and brother stilled the yearning for love and affection, and the books gave to her hungry spirit food.

A little brother was born, and this helpless baby held Ni back from misfortune; he brought her again into the good path from which she had begun to wander. She was fast becoming a bad child toward her Mother. She had closed her heart more and more toward her, and the little brother made the doors of that heart spring wide open again. Little brother taught her what a mother is, and what a child owes to its mother.

Mother had dark rings under her eyes, and looked weak and worn out, and little brother had done that; little brother who would not let her rest, but called her every night again and again. Never mind how wearisome the heavy burden might be, there was never a single expression of impatience on Mother's face; whenever little brother cried for her, in a second she was by him. She would take him up and never lay him out of her arms till he was in a sweet sleep. Had Mother held her, too, and never put her down, till she was sound asleep? The ice-crust around Ni's heart melted, and it beat warmly once more toward the woman who had given her life.

Brother was a healthy child during his first year, but when he was weaned, and for three years after that the little one was sick, as though he kept wrestling with death. And by his sick bed, Ni the young child, learned to understand her Mother.

She saw her own shortcomings; she was too selfish, she was always thinking of her own troubles, and never thought that others could have troubles and that she could have a share in causing them. She had once been always with Mother as little brother was now, she could do nothing without Mother. Mother must have suffered and perhaps did even now; well, she could not help it if she thought differently from her mother, but she could be very careful to do nothing that would cause her pain.

Little brother taught her consideration; how to see the other side of things; he taught her submission, and gratitude, and to give without asking anything in return.

Four years went by, calm and quiet on the surface, but to those who could see below it, full of strife for Ni. She learned much in those years; self-mastery, submission, not always to think first of herself; but peace and acquiescence she had not learned, could never learn; her head was haunted by turbulent thoughts. Voices too still came to her from the distant West in books, newspapers, and magazines, and in letters from Dutch friends.

For a year her sisters and she had every day an hour's lesson in handiwork from a Dutch lady. These were pleasant hours for Ni because then she could speak Dutch, the language which she loved so much.