Child of All Nations Read Online Free PDF Page B

and express their sympathy by standing for hours along the side of the street.
    Then there appeared a military carriage escorted by a troop of
Marechausee
in other carriages. That particular carriage was closed. In there was Madame Annelies. She must have been there. I ordered Marjuki to follow them after the troop
escort had passed by. I couldn’t help but watch the faces of those who were standing along the road. They were all disappointed that they couldn’t see inside the carriage. Many of the older women, Natives, were wiping away their precious tears with handkerchiefs or the corners of their clothing.
    The closer we came to Tanjung Perak harbor, the bigger were the crowds along the road. In some places people threw stones at the Marechausee. Even some little children showed their sympathy with catapults and small slings. I could not but be moved by all this. They were enveloped in a sense of justice—a sense of justice that had been outraged. It was as if Madame Annelies had become one of them, a member of their own families.
    I had never seen so many people come together to express their sympathy and solidarity for another person.
    The Marechausee rode on, ignoring the flying stones. But some soldiers were actually hit and bleeding. They rode on as if nothing had happened. How resolved were their hearts in carrying out their evil orders! I worried, worried very much: It mustn’t happen that any of these stones hit Madame Annelies’s carriage. But no, neither her carriage nor its driver became targets.
    The closer we came to Perak, the greater the number of people waiting along the road. And now they weren’t just throwing stones, they were shouting out too: “Infidels! Infidels! Thieves!”
    About two thousand feet from the harbor, across a road hemmed in on either side by mangrove trees, a string of Madurese buffalo carts were lined up, blocking the way. The carriages of Marechausee stopped, as did Madame Annelies’s. My heart pounded anxiously as I watched the incident from a distance. Would there be another fight?
    “Oh no! It’s terrible, Young Master,” said Marjuki, “Miss Annelies is in that carriage.”
    It was indeed a tense moment, and neither of us could do anything. The Marechausee were all jumping down from their carriages, blowing on their whistles. They charged the Madurese buffalo-cart drivers. The fight was over quickly. The Marechausee were quickly in control of the situation. The now driverless buffalo carts were pushed aside; many tumbled over
into deep channels along the side of the road. Injured cattle and damaged carts filled the channels.
    I’m not really sure whether all this is the proper subject of my letters to you. Marjuki must have told it all to you already. My intention is to let you know just how many people came to express their sympathy in their own way, perhaps in a way that is unknown in Europe. But maybe it too is a European way, if we remember how people expressed their anger against Louis the Sixteenth in France.
    Madame Annelies’s carriage now went straight on to the harbor without stopping at customs. We arrived not long after. When I went into customs, I suddenly realized: Mama and Minke were not accompanying Annelies. You must have been forbidden from doing so, I thought. And because of that thought, a great, deep anger arose within me: Mama and Minke weren’t even allowed to come with her to the ship. And these Dutchmen professed themselves the servants of Christ in the Indies. My feelings were outraged by this. Christ would never have become involved in an abomination such as this. Mama, Minke, let alone Madame Annelies, had never slapped anybody’s cheek, but now you were being forced to put forward your right cheek, I thought. Those Dutchmen were not following the Christianity I was taught, yet your own behavior had been Christian enough.
    Perhaps it is also because of that great anger that I am able to write such a long letter as this. Forgive me, Minke,