Saidjah by Multatuli

Saidjah was about fifteen years old when his father ran away to / Buitenzorg. He did not accompany him because he had plans of his own / to carry out. He had heard that in Batavia there were rich gentlemen / who would employ slender youths like him, if they were nimble footed, / to sit on the rear seat of the two wheeled carriages. He had been told / that he could earn money in this way. In two years he could earn enough / money to buy two water buffaloes. This prospect pleased him. He walked / along proudly like a person who carries something important in his / head. He was on his way to see Adinda to tell her his plan.

"When I come back," he explained, "we shall be old enough to marry -- and / then we shall have two buffaloes to do the plowing."

"Good, Saidjah, I will be your wife when you come back. I will spin. I / will weave and embroider _sarongs_."

"I believe you, Adinda. And when I come back, I will call you a long / way off -- "

"Who could hear if we happened to be pounding rice in the village?"

"That is true. Then wait for me by the Djati Forest, under the / _ketapan_ tree, where you gave me the _melatti_ flower."

"But, Saidjah, when can I know when you are coming? When shall I go to / the tree?"

Saidjah thought a moment and replied.

"Count the moons. During three times twelve moons I will remain away. / But this moon now does not count. See, Adinda, -- cut a notch in the / rice-block for each moon. When you have cut three times twelve notches, / I will return. On that day wait for me under the _ketapan_ tree."

"I will be there by the Djati Forest, waiting for you under the / _ketapan_ tree."

Saidjah tore a piece of cloth from his blue head-dress, and gave it / to Adinda. Then he said good by to her and to Badur. He went through / Rangas-Betung, which was not yet a place of importance, and on to / Warong-Gunang, where the assistant governor lived. The next day he saw / Pandeglang, the village that looks as if it lay in a garden. A day / later he reached Serang, and stood astonished at the splendor and the / number of the houses. He remained here one day because he was tired, / but when the sun set, he went on again and at length reached Tangerang. / Here he took a bath in the river and rested in the house of a friend of / his father.

As soon as it was dark he took out the _melatti_ flower which Adinda / gave him and looked at it. Then he was sad because he had not seen her / for so long. The farther he traveled from Badur, the more he began to / think that the thirty six moons represented a very long time. It was / not so easy for him to go ahead. He felt weary and without ambition.

Saidjah arrived in Batavia. He sought a rich gentleman who hired him at / once, when he found he could not understand what he said. In Batavia / they prefer servants who do not understand Malay, and are not spoiled / by contact with Europeans. Saidjah soon learned Malay, but he kept it / to himself, because he thought only of Adinda and the two buffaloes. He / grew tall and strong because he had something to eat every day, which / did not happen in Badur. His master promoted him to the position of a / house servant and increased his pay. But at the end of three years they / said he was ungrateful, because he gave up his position. But he did not / care what they said, his heart was glad because he was getting ready / to go back. He counted over and over the treasures which he was going / to carry home. In a hollow, bamboo stick he had his passport and the / testimonial of his master. In a case swung over his shoulder by a piece / of leather, was something heavy that beat against his back. Within this / case were thirty Spanish dollars, with which he intended to buy three / buffaloes. What would Adinda say to that! And that was not all. In his / girdle shone a Malay _kris_ with a sheathe of silver. The handle was of / carved wood which he had wrapped carefully in silk. In the folds of his / outer garment was a leathern girdle with silver links, and a clasp of / gold. This was for Adinda. Around his neck in a little silk purse, he / carried the dried _melatti_ flower.

He did not pause to visit any of the cities along his route. It seemed / to him that he could hear the voice of Adinda calling him. This music / made him deaf to everything else.

At length, in the distance, he saw a great black spot. That must be the / Djati Forest, which was near the tree where Adinda was going to wait / for him. He groped in the darkness and felt the trunks of many trees. / Soon he stumbled upon a piece of level ground that seemed familiar -- the / south side of a tree. He put his fingers in a gash in the side of the / tree which he remembered had been cut to drive away an evil spirit that / had hidden there and given some people of the village toothache.

This was the _ketapan_ tree which he was seeking. He sat down in front / of the tree and looked up at the stars. And when he saw a falling star / he understood it as a greeting to him on his return to Badur. Then he / wondered if Adinda were sleeping now, and if she had counted the moons / correctly on the old rice-block. Would it not be a pity if she had cut / one too many, or one too few? Thirty-six moons there should be! He / wondered if she had woven beautiful _sarongs_. And he wondered too who / was living in the old home of his father. Then he recalled his youth, / and his mother, and the buffalo that had saved him from being torn to / pieces by the tiger.

Very carefully he watched the setting of the stars in the west, as they / disappeared along the horizon line, and estimated the time before light / would begin to come from the East, and how much time would elapse / before he met Adinda. She, of course, would come with the very first / ray of light. Why in the world could she not have come the day before? / He was sad that she had not got ahead of this beautiful hour, which had / fed his soul with delight for three long years.