This Earth of Mankind

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  “Do you still need to be humiliated in public with this whip?”

  “Humiliate me with the horse whip in public,” I answered recklessly, unable to stand such tyranny. “But it would be an honor if that order were to come from a father,” I continued, still more recklessly. And I would show the same attitude as Mama did to Robert, Herman Mellema, Sastrotomo, and his wife.

  “Crocodile!” he hissed angrily. “I took you out of the E.L.S. Dutch-language primary school at T for the same reason. As young as that! The higher your schooling, the more you turn into a crocodile! Bored of playing around with girls of your own age, you’re now holing up with a nyai’s nest. What do you want to become of you?”

  I kept silent. Only my heart shouted in anger: So you insult me thus, blood of kings! Husband of my mother! Good, I will not answer. Come on, keep going, continue, blood of the kings of Java! Yesterday you were just an irrigation official. Now all of a sudden you are a bupati, a little king. Strike me with your whip, king, you who know not that science and learning have opened a new era on this earth of mankind!

  “Prepared by your grandfather to be a bupati, to be honored by all people, the cleverest child in the family . . . the cleverest in the town . . . yes, God, what will become of this child!”

  Good, come on, continue, little king!

  “The only grounds for forgiving you are because you’ve passed and gone up a class.”

  I can go on up to eleventh class! I roared inside my breast, offended. Come on, let fly with your ignorance, little king.

  “Don’t you think it’s dangerous to take up with a nyai? If her master goes into a rage and you’re shot dead by him, or perhaps attacked with a dagger, or a sword, or a kitchen knife, or strangled . . . how will it be? The papers will announce who you are, who your parents are. What sort of shame will you bring upon your parents? If you haven’t thought things through as far as that . . .”

  Like Mama, I was ready to leave all my family, I roared louder inside, a family that burdens me with nothing but bonds that enslave,! Come on, continue, blood of the kings of Java! Continue! I too can explode.

  “Haven’t you read in the papers that tomorrow night your father is celebrating his appointment as a bupati? Bupati of B? Mr. Assistant Resident of B, Mr. Resident of Surabaya, Mr. Controller, and all the neighboring bupatis will be present. It is possible an H.B.S. student doesn’t read the newspapers? If not, is it possible nobody else told you about it? Your nyai, can’t she read the papers for you?”

  Indeed the civil service reports were something that never attracted my interest: appointments, dismissals, transfers, pensions. Nothing to do with me. The world of priyayi, Javanese aristocrats who became administrators for the Dutch colonial bureaucracy, was not my world. Who cared if the devil was appointed smallpox official or was sacked dishonorably because of embezzlement? My world was not rank and position, wages and embezzlement. My world was this earth of mankind and its problems.

  “Listen, you renegade!” he ordered, a newly important official whose spirits were now aroused. “You’ve become absentminded, looking after someone else’s nyai. You’ve forgotten your parents, your duties as a child. Perhaps you’re indeed ready to take a wife. All right, another time we’ll discuss it. Now there is another matter. Pay attention. Tomorrow night you will act as interpreter. Don’t shame me and the family in public before the resident, assistant resident, controller, and neighboring bupatis.”

  “Yes, my father.”

  “You’re able and ready to be interpreter?”

  “Able and ready, my father.”

  “Ah, that’s better, once in a while please your parents’ hearts. I’d begun to worry that Mr. Controller would be carrying out that task. Imagine how it would look at a party to celebrate my appointment, with all the important officials as witnesses, if there was a son missing? When should they start becoming acquainted with you? This will be the best opportunity. It’s a pity you’re such a renegade. Perhaps you don’t understand that your parents are clearing the way to a high position for you. You, a son, glorified as the cleverest in the family. Or perhaps you’re more inclined towards the nyai than towards rank?”

  “Yes, my father.”

  “This is how your road to high rank will be clear.”

  “Yes, my father.”

  “There, go to your mother. You indeed did not intend to return home. It was so shameful, having to ask the help of my assistant resident. You’re happy, aren’t you, being arrested like an unpracticed thief? No sense of shame at all. Go kneel before your mother, though I know you’re resolved to forget her. Sever your relations with that nyai who doesn’t know when she’s already well off!”

  Naturally, I did not answer. I just made the sign of obeisance again. Then, walking on half legs, assisted by my hands, I crawled off, carrying the burden of my indignation on my back, like a snail. Destination: the place I had taken off my shoes and socks, the place where this accursed experience began. There were no Natives in the bupati’s building wearing shoes. With my shoes in my hands I walked alongside the visitors’ gallery, entering the inner courtyard. The gloomy lanterns showed the way to the kitchen. I collapsed into a broken-down lounge chair, ignoring the things I was carrying.

  Someone came to have a look. I pretended not to notice. I was served a cup of black coffee, which I gulped down.

  If my elder brother hadn’t turned up, perhaps I would have fallen asleep. Putting on a vicious countenance, he spoke to me in Dutch.

  “It seems you’ve forgotten politeness too, and so have not gone quickly to kneel before Mother?”

  I rose and accompanied him, a S.I.B.A. student, a future Netherlands Indies civil servant. He kept frowning as if he were the guardian whose job it was to ensure the sky wouldn’t fall in and smash up the earth. Because his Dutch was limited, he resumed in Javanese his lecture about how I was a child who no longer knew proper custom. I, of course, didn’t respond. We entered the bupati’s building, passing by several doors. Finally, in front of one door, he said:

  “Enter there, you!”

  I knocked slowly on the door. I didn’t know whose room it was, but opened it and entered. Mother was sitting in front of the mirror combing her hair. A tall oil lamp stood on a stand beside her.

  “Mother, forgive me,” I said, kneeling down before her and kissing her knees. I don’t know why my heart was seized so suddenly by this longing for my mother.

  “So you have come home at last, Gus. Thank God you’re safe.” She lifted up my chin, looked into my face, as if I were a four-year-old child. And her soft, loving voice moved me. My eyes overflowed with tears. This was my mother, just as before, my own mother.

  “This is Mother’s wayward child,” I submitted hoarsely.

  “You’re a man now. Your mustache is beginning to come through. People say you like a rich and beautiful nyai.” Before I could deny this, she continued, “It’s up to you, if you indeed like her and she likes you. You’re an adult now. You’re no doubt ready to shoulder the consequences and responsibilities and not run like a criminal.” She took a breath and stroked my cheek as if I were a baby. “Gus, they say you are doing very well at school. Thanks be to God. It amazes me sometimes how your schooling can go so well while you’re in the power of that nyai. Or perhaps you’re truly very clever? Yes, yes, that’s a male for you; all men are cats pretending to be rabbits. As rabbits they eat all the leaves, as cats they eat all the meat. All right, Gus, you must do well at school, keep advancing.”

  Mother didn’t fault me. I did not have to deny anything.

  “Men, Gus, they love to eat. Who knows if leaves or if meat? That’s all right, providing you understand, Gus, the more you advance at school does not mean the more you can eat other people’s food. You must be able to recognize limits. That’s not too hard to understand, is it? If people don’t recognize such limits, God will make them realize in His own way.”

  Ah, Mother, how many pearllike words have you burned into my soul.


  “You’re still silent, Gus. What are you going to report to your mother? My waiting is not going to be in vain, is it?”

  “Next year I will graduate, Mother.”

  “Thanks be to God, Gus. Parents can only pray. Why have you only come now? Your father was so worried, Gus, angry every day because of you. Your father was appointed bupati very, very suddenly. No one guessed it would be so fast. You, one day, will reach the same heights. You surely must be able to. Your father only knows Javanese, you know Dutch; you are an H.B.S. student. Your father only went to a Basic People’s School. You have mixed widely with the Dutch. Your father hasn’t. You will surely become a bupati one day.”

  “No, Mother, I don’t want to become a bupati.”

  “No? Strange. Yes, as you wish. So what do you want to become? If you graduate you can become whatever you want, of course.”

  “I only want to become a free human being, not given orders, not giving orders, Mother.”

  “Ha! Will there be a time like that, Gus? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  When I was a little boy, I used to tell her excitedly about what my schoolteachers had said. This time too. About Miss Magda Peters, whose stories were so interesting, about the French Revolution, its meaning, its basic principles. Mother only laughed, not refuting anything. Just as when I was a little child.

  “Ugh! You’re so dirty, you smell of sweat. Bathe, and with hot water! It’s already so late. Rest. Tomorrow you’ll be working hard. You know your duties tomorrow?”

  * * *

  I was not yet acquainted with the building. I went into the room prepared for me. An oil lamp was alight inside. It appeared that my brother was also in that room. He was sitting reading by the table lamp. I passed by to get my things ready. And my brother, who always exercised his rights as the firstborn, did not lift his head at all, as if I did not exist on this earth. Was he trying to impress me with his diligence as a student?

  I coughed. He still showed no reaction. I glanced at what he was reading. Not printing: handwriting! And I became suspicious when I looked at the book’s cover. Only I owned a book with a beautiful cover, hand-made by Jean Marais. Slowly I moved up behind him. I was not wrong: my diary. I seized it from him and I became enraged.

  “Don’t touch this! Who gave you the right to open it? Is this what your school has taught you?”

  He stood up, staring at me wide-eyed, and said, “Indeed you are no longer Javanese.”

  “What’s the use of being Javanese only to have one’s rights violated? Perhaps you don’t understand that notes like that are very personal? Haven’t your teachers taught you about ethics and individual rights?”

  My brother was silent, observing me in a powerless anger.

  “Or is this indeed the practice given to trainee officials? Fiddling in other people’s affairs and violating the rights of anybody they like? Aren’t you taught the new civilization? Modern civilization? You want to become a king who can do as he pleases, like your ancestors’ kings?”

  My resentment and anger had spilled out.

  “And is this what the new civilization means? To insult people? To insult government officials? You yourself will become one!” he defended himself.

  “A government official? The person you’re facing now will never become one.”

  “Come on, I’ll take you to Father, and you can tell him that yourself.”

  “Not only tell him, with or without you, but I’m quite able even to leave behind this whole family. And you! You touch my things, violating my rights, and don’t know you should apologize. Have you never been to school? Or have you indeed never been taught civilized behavior?”

  “Shut up! If I’d never been to school, I’d have already ordered you to crawl and make obeisance to me.”

  “Only a buffalo-brain would think that way about me. Illiterate.”

  And Mother entered, intervening:

  “You meet for the first time in two years . . . why do you have to carry on like village children?”

  “I’ll fight anyone at all who violates my individual rights, Mother, let alone just a brother.”

  “Mother, he has admitted all his evil doing in his diary. I was going to present it to Father. He was afraid and went amok.”

  “You’re not yet an official with the right to sell your brother just to obtain some praise,” said Mother. “It’s not certain that you are any better than he.”

  I picked up my things.

  “It’s better I return to Surabaya, Mother.”

  “No! You have received a task from your father.”

  “He can do it,” I said, looking at my brother.

  “Your brother is not an H.B.S. student.”

  “If I am needed, why am I treated like this?”

  Mother ordered my brother to another room. After he had left, she resumed.

  “You’re indeed no longer Javanese. Educated by the Dutch, you’ve become Dutch, a brown Dutchman, acting this way. Perhaps you’ve become a Christian.”

  “Ah, Mother, don’t go on so. I’m still the same son as before.”

  “My son of the past wasn’t a rebel like this.”

  “Your son didn’t know right and wrong then. I only rebel against that which is wrong, Mother.”

  “That is the sign you’re no longer Javanese, not paying heed to those older, those with greater right to your respect, those who have more power.”

  “Mother, don’t punish me this way. I respect what is closest to what is right.”

  “Javanese bow down in submission to those older, more powerful; this is a way to achieve nobility of character. People must have the courage to surrender, Gus. Perhaps you no longer know that song either?”

  “I still remember, Mother. I still read the Javanese books. But those are the misguided songs of misguided Javanese. Those who have the courage to surrender are stamped and trodden upon, Mother.”

  “Gus!”

  “Mother, I’ve studied at Dutch schools for over ten years now in order to find out all this. Is it proper that Mother punish me now I’ve found out?”

  “You’ve mixed too much with the Dutch. So now you don’t like to mix with your own people, even your own family, not even with your father. You won’t answer our letters. Perhaps you don’t even like me anymore.”

  “Oh, forgive me, Mother.” Her words had struck me sharply. I dropped to the ground, kneeling before her and embraced her legs. “Don’t speak like that, Mother. Don’t punish me more than my errors deserve. I only know of what Javanese are ignorant, because such knowledge belongs to the Europeans, and because I indeed have learned from them.”

  She twisted my ear, then knelt down, whispering:

  “Mother doesn’t punish you. You’ve discovered your own way. I will not obstruct you, and will not call you back. Travel along the road you hold to be best. But don’t hurt your parents, and those you think don’t know everything that you know.”

  “I’ve never intended to hurt anyone, Mother.”

  “Ah, Gus, this is perhaps the fate of a woman. She suffers pain when giving birth, then suffers pain again because of her child’s actions.”

  “Please! For Mother to feel pain because of my actions is excessive. Didn’t Mother always tell me to study hard and well? I’ve done that to the full. Now Mother finds fault with me.” And as if I were still a little child she caressed my hair and cheeks.

  “When I was pregnant with you, I dreamed that someone I didn’t know came and gave me a dagger. Since then I’ve known, Gus, the child in my womb held a sharp weapon. Be careful in using it, Gus. Don’t you yourself become its victim.”

  * * *

  Since early morning people had been preparing the place for the reception to celebrate my father’s appointment. The news was that the best and most beautiful dancers in all the region had been hired for the occasion. Father had brought the best gamelan pure bronze orchestra from T, my grandmother’s gamelan, which was always wrapped in red velvet wh
en not being used. Every year it was not only tuned, but bathed in flower water.

  With the gamelan came an expert tuner. My father wanted not only the gamelan itself, but the harmony too, to be pure East Javanese. So since morning, the pavilion had been buzzing with the sounds of people filing things into tune.

  The administrative work of the bupati’s office stopped altogether. Everyone was helping Mr. Niccolo Moreno, a well-known decorator brought in from Surabaya. He brought with him a big chest of decorating tools the like of which I had never seen before. And it was then that I first realized that arranging decorations and ornamentations was a skill all of its own. Mr. Niccolo Moreno came on the recommendation of Mr. Assistant Resident B, approved of and guaranteed by Mr. Resident Surabaya.

  That morning I too had to meet him. With his own hands he took my measurements, as if he wanted to make me some clothes. Then he let me go.

  He had turned the pavilion into an arena whose focus was the portrait of Queen Wilhelmina, that beautiful maiden I had once dreamed after—brought from Surabaya, the work of a German artist named Hüssenfeld. I still admired her beauty.

  The Dutch tricolors were hung everywhere, singly or in twos. Tricolor ribbon also streamed out from the portrait to all parts of the pavilion, and would later captivate the audience with its authority. The pavilion’s columns were painted with some new kind of paint, made from flour, that dried within two hours. Banyan-tree leaves and greenish-yellow coconut fronds in traditional color harmonies transformed the dry, barren walls into something refreshing, and impelled people to enjoy their beauty. Eyes were drawn by the play of flowers’ colors; yellow, blue, red, white, and purple—a saturating beauty—flowers that in day-to-day life stuck separately and silently out along fences.

  The big night in my father’s life arrived. The gamelan had already been rumbling softly and slowly for some time. Mr. Niccolo Moreno was busy in my room, dressing me up and adorning me. Who would have ever guessed that I, already an adult, would be dressed up by somebody else? A white person too! As if I were a maiden about to ascend the wedding throne.