Clementine.
Go on, Truus. I could sit up all night hearing tales of the sea.
Kneirtje.
Don’t tell stories of suffering and death——
Saart.
Hey! How fretful you are! Come, pour us some more coffee.
Truus.
[Quietly knitting and speaking in a toneless voice.] Ach, it couldn’t have happened here, Kneir. We lived in Vlaardingen then, and I’d been married a year without any children. No, Pietje was Ari’s child—and he went away on the Magnet. Yes, it was the Magnet. On the herring catch. That’s gone up now. And you understand what happened; else I wouldn’t have got acquainted with Ari and be living next door to you now. The Magnet stayed on the sands or some other place. But I didn’t know that then, and so didn’t think of it.
Jo.
Ssst! Keep still!