[Emerging from behind the partition.] What's that? You reelly got a summons, Miss Walburga? Well, then you better look out! I ain't jokin'. An' maybe you're thinkin' o' the black man!
SPITTA
What you're saying there is quite incomprehensible, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
[Taking up her domestic tasks.] Did you hear that 'way out in the Lauben settlement, beyond the Halle Gate, the lightenin' struck a man an' a woman an' a little girl o' seven this mornin'. It was right under a tall poplar tree.
SPITTA
No, Mrs. John, we didn't hear that.
MRS. JOHN
The rain's splashin' down again.
One hears a shower of rain beginning to fall.