“No,” said Verbrugge and Duclari together.
“Well, the thing itself was of course always known: send a sheep into a paddock . . . and you will see what happens. But he has investigated the manner in which it happens. Other sages again say that he knows little about it. Now they are trying to find out the means of omitting the whole sheep from the operation[1] . . . Oh, those savants! Molière knew all about them . . . I like Molière very much. If you like we’ll arrange a course of evening readings, a couple of times a week. Tine will join, after Max has gone to bed.”
Duclari and Verbrugge liked the idea. Havelaar said that he had not many books, but among them were Schiller, Goethe, Heine, Vondel, Lamartine, Thiers, Say, Malthus, Scialoja, Smith, Shakespeare, Byron . . .
Verbrugge said that he did not read English.
“The deuce! aren’t you over thirty? What have you been doing all that time? But surely that must have been rather difficult for you at Padang, where so much English is spoken. Did you know Miss Mata-api?”
“No, I don’t know the name.”
“It wasn’t her name either. But they called her that in 1843, because she had such sparkling eyes. I suppose she is married by now . . . it’s already so long ago! Never did I see anything like it . . . yes, I did, after all, at Arles . . . you ought to go there one of these days! It’s the most beautiful thing I have found in all my travels. There is nothing, I think, that brings before you so clearly beauty in the abstract, the visible image of truth, of immaterial purity, as a beautiful woman. Believe me, just go to Arles and Nîmes . . .”
Duclari, Verbrugge and—I must admit it!—also Tine, could not suppress a loud laugh at the thought of just crossing over from the Western extreme of Java to Arles or Nîmes in the south of France. Havelaar, standing no doubt in his imagination on the
- ↑ Surely the first mention of “synthetic wool” in literature! Trsl.
