“Is it possible!”
“Yes, and then there are others where there’s music and singing. They are nice, and moral too. They are called operas; and people who are entirely respectable go there. You see, mother, there’s nothing bad about it; and we ought not to be so narrow. The old Greeks had comedies, and our professors still study them.”
“Is it possible!”
“Walter’s pictures are from real comedies; but I can’t tell all the details now. I will only say there are good comedies.”
“You must tell Juffrouw Laps. She always says——”
“And what does she know about it? She never saw a comedy in her life.”
That was the truth; but it was just as true of the Pieterse family—with the exception of Leentje.
One afternoon Leentje had complained of a terrible headache and had left off sewing and gone out. Later it was learned that she had not spent the evening with her mother; and then there was a perfect storm. But Leentje would not say where she had been that night. “That night” was Juffrouw Pieterse’s expression, though she knew that the girl was at home by eleven o’clock. Leentje betrayed nothing. She had promised the dressmaker next door not to say anything; for the dressmaker had to be very careful, because her husband was a hypocrite.
In Leentje’s work-box was found a mutilated program; and then one day she began to sing a song she had never sung before—“I’m full of honor, I’m full of honor; oh, yes, I’m a man of honor!”
And then it was all out! She had been to the Elandstraat and had seen the famous Ivan Gras in a comedy!