(Max Havelaar, of De Koffieveilingen der Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappij, ed. AnnemarieKets-Vree, 1998, p. 212)We return to the fragment. Apart from being a digression about digressions, the fragment is a digression about the layout of Max Havelaar’s house and compound in Lebak. Our narrator believes that this ‘side path’ will not only give us satisfaction, but, above all, he thinks this digression is necessary for a correct understanding of the event he is describing and of the events still to come.
Before we continue, we need a digression ourselves about what happens before the fragment begins. A short summary:
Our fragment starts as follows: Havelaar, ##Tine, inspector Verbrugge and commander Duclari are sitting on the front veranda of Havelaar’s house. Havelaar is just going to tell about his suspension in Natal, which is going to make clear “why and how he had so crossed General Vandamme”. Then Mrs Slotering, the widow of the former Assistant Resident, who is a native woman, appears on the front veranda and orders a policeman to turn away a man who has just entered the compound. The company would probably not have paid that much attention to that, if Tine had not said earlier that Mrs Slotering was so timid and seemed to keep a check on everyone who entered the compound. Havelaar comments:
(Max Havelaar, of De Koffieveilingen der Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappij, ed. Annemarie Kets-Vree, 1998, p. 209)
Click >here to see a picture of 'Namiddagbezoek' (Aquarel by J.C. Rappard, Stichting Cultuurgeschiedenis van de nederlanders Overzee, Amsterdam).Click >here to see a picture of Multatuli’s house in Lebak (Multatuli Museum, Amsterdam).
Here, the story is interrupted by our narrator, who says we need a digression, because there is too close a connection between places and events for him to leave those places altogether undescribed. Do you want to find out what the connection is between Mrs. Slotering’s behaviour, the layout of Havelaar’s house, and subsequent events? Go ahead: read the text-fragment, try to analyse it, and prepare yourself for some questions!
Click >here to read the Havelaar-fragment as a whole, without word-explanations (PDF).
Click >here to read the fragment divided into short passages, including word-explanations and an audio version.
