Droogstoppel had undertaken to publish a volume selected from the MSS. of his old schoolfellow Havelaar—alias “Sjaalman,”—who had returned from the Indies in great poverty. He was preparing it for the press with the help of his son Fritz and his German clerk Stern. He soon found that the work involved difficulties.

Besides the difficulty of selecting and arranging what was necessary out of such a mass of materials, there were constantly occurring in the MSS. words and expressions which Stern could not understand, and which were new even to me. They were mostly Javanese or Malay. Moreover, many abbreviations were used, which were difficult to decipher. I saw that we needed Sjaalman, and as I do not think it good for a young man to pick up undesirable acquaintances, I was unwilling to send either Stern or Fritz. I took with me some sweets that had remained over from our last party,—for I am always one to think of things like that,—and I set out to look for his abode. It was not a very brilliant one,—but there is no such thing as equality among people, so how can they all expect to live in the same sort of houses? He says something of the same kind himself in his essay on “Claims to Happiness.” Besides, I don’t think anything of people who are always discontented.

It was in the Langeleidsche Dwarsstraat, in a back-room upstairs. The ground floor was occupied by a second-hand dealer, who sold all sorts of things—cups and saucers, furniture, old books, glass, pictures by Van Speyk, and I don’t know what else. I was terribly afraid of breaking something; for in such a case the people always charge you more than the things are worth. A little girl was sitting on the steps, dressing her doll. I asked her whether Mr Sjaalman lived there. She ran away, and presently her mother came.

“Yes, he lives here, sir. Just you go upstairs to the first door, and then up the next floor to the next door, and then another flight of stairs, and then you can’t miss it. Mijntje, just run up and say there’s a gentleman. Who shall I say is asking for them, sir?”

I told her I was Mijnheer Droogstoppel, coffee-broker in the Lauriergracht, but that I would announce myself. I climbed up as high as they had told me, and heard a child’s voice singing inside the door on the third floor. I knocked, and the door was opened by a woman—or a lady. I really did not quite know what to make of her; she looked very pale, and tired, and the look in her face made me think of my wife on washing-day. She was dressed in a long white shirt or jacket, without a waist, that hung down to her knees, and was fastened in front with a black pin. Under this, instead of a proper skirt or petticoat, she wore a piece of dark flowered linen, wound round her several times, and rather tight at hips and knees. There was no trace of folds, width, or fulness, such as there ought to be in any decent woman’s dress. I was glad I had not sent Fritz, for I thought her costume very indelicate; and what made it still stranger was the ease with which she moved—as if she felt quite comfortable like that. The creature seemed quite unconscious that she did not look like other women. Moreover, she did not seem in the least embarrassed at my coming. She hid nothing under the table, and did not push the chairs about, or do any of the things you always see people do when a respectably dressed stranger comes in.

She had her hair combed back like a Chinese, and fastened behind her head in a sort of twist or knot. I have heard since that her dress was a sort of Indian costume, which they call sarong and kaabai out there, but I thought the whole thing very ugly.

“Are you Juffrouw Sjaalman?” I asked.

“Whom have I the honour of speaking to?” she said, in a tone that seemed to convey that I ought to have said something about honour too.

Well—I don’t hold with compliments. A principal is a different matter, and I have been in business long enough to know what I am about; but I didn’t think it necessary to use much ceremony in a third-floor back. So I said, without more ado, that I was Mijnheer Droogstoppel, coffee-broker, Lauriergracht, No. 37, and I wanted to see her husband. Well—and why should I have made any more fuss about it?

She offered me a rush-bottomed chair, and took a little girl on her lap, who was sitting on the ground playing. The little boy, whom I had heard singing, looked full at me, and stared at me from top to toe. He, too, did not seem in the least embarrassed. He was a little chap of about six, as queerly dressed as his mother. He had on a wide pair of knickerbockers that did not come down to the knees; and his legs were bare from there to the ankle. Very indecent, I think. “Have you come to talk to papa?” he asked, in a way which showed me at once that his upbringing was not at all what it ought to be. But because I did not quite know what attitude to take up, and also wanted to talk a little, I answered, “Yes, my little fellow, I want to talk to your papa. Do you think he will be coming in soon?”

“I don’t know; he’s gone out to look for some money to buy me a paint-box.”

“Hush, my boy,” said the woman. “Play with the pictures a little, or with your Chinese puzzle-box.”

“Why, you know the gentleman came and took all the things away yesterday.”

So that was the way he spoke to his mother—h’m! ... and there had been “a gentleman,” it appeared, to “take everything away.” ... Cheerful visit, this! The woman, too, did not look in good spirits; she turned away and wiped her eyes, when she thought I could not see her, as she put the little girl down on the floor beside her brother. “There,” she said, “now play with Nonnie a little.” An extraordinary name for a child.

“Well, Juffrouw,” I asked, “do you expect your husband in soon?”

“I cannot say for certain,” she answered.

At this the little boy suddenly left his sister, came up to me, and asked,

“Sir, why do you call mamma Juffrouw?”^[10]

“Why, what then, youngster?” said I, “what ought I to say?”

“Why ... just like other people. The Juffrouw lives downstairs—she sells saucers and tops.”

Well—I am a coffee-broker—Last & Co., Lauriergracht, 37—there are thirteen of us in the counting-house, and, if you count Stern, who gets no salary, fourteen. And yet my wife is simply called Juffrouw; and does any one expect me to go and say Mevrouw to that person? Certainly not. Every one ought to keep his place; and what’s more, the sheriff’s officers had been there the day before, and taken away the furniture. So I thought it quite the proper thing to say Juffrouw, and stuck to it.

I asked why Sjaalman has not come to my house to fetch back his parcel. She seemed to know all about it, and said that they had been away—at Brussels. He had been writing for the Indépendance there, but had been obliged to give it up, because the paper had so often been refused admission into France on account of his articles. They had returned to Amsterdam a few days since, because Sjaalman had heard of a situation there.

“At Gaafzuiger’s, I suppose?”

Yes, that was the name. But it had come to nothing, after all, she said. Well, I knew more about that than she did. He had dropped the bound volume of Aglaia, and he was lazy, pedantic, and in bad health ... just so; that was why they discharged him.

She added that he meant to come and see me one of these days,—perhaps he was even now on his way to my house,—to ask me for an answer to the request he had made to me.

I said that he could come when it suited him, but that he was not to ring the bell, because that gives the servant so much trouble. If he waited a little, I told her, some one would be sure to come out sooner or later, and he could go in then. And then I departed, taking my sweets with me, for, to tell the truth, I didn’t like the look of things at all. I did not feel at my ease there. Why, a coffee-broker is not a crossing-sweeper, or a street-porter, I should think; and I am sure I look respectable enough. I had on my fur-lined overcoat, and yet she sat there as calmly, and talked as unconcernedly to her children, as if she had been alone. Besides, she seemed to have been crying, and if there is anything I cannot put up with, it is discontented people. Besides, it was chilly and unsociable in the place,—I suppose, because the furniture had been taken,—and I like a room to look cosy and comfortable. As I was going home, I thought I would try and keep on my old clerk Bastiaans a little longer,—because, after all, I don’t like turning a man into the street.