Modern! How quickly that word had surged forward and multiplied itself like bacteria throughout the world.
Thomas Aquinas, she said, once saw two people who were born in the same year, in the same month, on the same day and at the same hour, even in the same place. The joke played by astrology was that one became a great landowner and the other his slave.
In his body ran some Native blood. Who knows how many drops or clots.
Under the illusion he was actually a Dutch citizen he strove to act as one for the sake of his grandchildren’s future.
She is just a nyai, living in sin, giving birth to illegitimate children, low in moral character, selling honor to live easily and in luxury.
Her attitude toward her daughter was refined and wise and open, not like that of Native mothers.
The Dutch generals almost gave up. The Dutch were only ever able to destroy the children, the grandmothers and grandfathers, the ill, the pregnant women.
Once in their lives people must take a stand. If not, they will never become anything.
My world was not rank and position, wages and embezzlement. My world was this earth of mankind and its problems.
I felt so totally Javanese. But when the ignorance and stupidity of Java was mentioned, I felt European.
So don’t indulge yourself. Strengthen your heart.
You are among the first of the educated Natives. Much is demanded of you.
“May I ask why Mr. Mellema did not like Dutch literature?” “I don’t really know, miss. But he used to say that it was dominated by triviality, had no spirit, no fire.”
If that vengefulness was missing, she’d be truly, brilliantly outstanding, Minke.
“Shame is not a concern of European civilization.”