[Scene: Same as before. Evening. A lighted lamp--the illuminated
chimney gives a red glow. A rushing wind howls about the house. Jo
and Kneirtje discovered. Kneirtje lying on bed, dressed, Jo reading
to her from prayerbook.]
JO. And this verse is mighty fine. Are you listening? [Reads.]
"Mother Mary! in piteousness,
To your poor children of the sea,
Reach down your arms in their distress;
With God their intercessor be.
Unto the Heart Divine your prayer
Will make an end to all their care."
[Staring into the bed.] Are you asleep? Aunt! Are you asleep? [A
knock--she tiptoes to cook-shed door, puts her finger to her lips in
warning to Clementine and Kaps, who enter.] Softly, Miss.
CLEMENTINE. [To Kaps.] Shut the door. What a tempest! My eyes are
full of sand. [To Jo.] Is Kneir in bed?
JO. She's lying down awhile in her clothes. She's not herself yet,
feverish and coughing.
CLEMENTINE. I've brought her a plate of soup, and a half dozen
eggs. Now then, Kaps! Kaps!
KAPS. Yes?
CLEMENTINE. On the table. What a bore! Deaf as a post! What were
you reading?
JO. The "Illustrated Catholic."
CLEMENTINE. Where did you put the eggs?
KAPS. I understand.
KNEIRTJE. [From the bedstead.] Is anyone there?
CLEMENTINE. It's me, Clementine.
KNEIRTJE. [Rising.] Hasn't the wind gone down yet?
CLEMENTINE. I've brought you some veal soup, Kneir. It's
delicious. Well, Almighty! You've spilled it all over.
KAPS. I'd like to see you carry a full pan with the sand blowing in
your eyes.
CLEMENTINE. Well, its mighty queer. There was twice as much meat in it.
KAPS. What? Can't hear, with the wind.
KNEIRTJE. Thank you kindly, Miss.
CLEMENTINE. [Counting the eggs.] One, two, three, four! The others?
KAPS. There's five--and--[Looking at his hand, which drips with egg
yolk.]--and----
CLEMENTINE. Broken, of course!
KAPS. [Bringing out his handkerchief and purse covered with egg.] I
put them away so carefully. What destruction! What a muss!
JO. [Laughing.] Make an omelet of it.
KAPS. That's because you pushed against me. Just look at my keys.
CLEMENTINE. [Laughing.] He calls that putting them away
carefully. You'd better go home.
KAPS. [Peevishly.] No, that's not true.
CLEMENTINE. [Louder.] You may go! I can find the way back alone!
KAPS. My purse, my handkerchief, my cork screw. [Crossly.] Good
night. [Off.]
CLEMENTINE. I don't know why Father keeps that bookkeeper, deaf,
and cross. Does it taste good?
KNEIRTJE. Yes, Miss. You must thank your mother.
CLEMENTINE. Indeed I'll not. Pa and Ma are obstinate. They haven't
forgotten the row with your sons yet. Mouth shut, or I'll get a
scolding. May Jo go to the beach with me to look at the sea? The
waves have never been so high!
JO. Yes, I'll go, Miss.
KNEIRTJE. No, don't leave me alone. Go on the beach in such a
storm! [Crash outside, she screams.]
JO. What was that?
CLEMENTINE. I heard something break. [Enter Cobus.]
COB. God bless me! That missed me by a hair.
JO. Are you hurt?
COB. I got a tap aft that struck the spot. Lucky my head wasn't
there! The tree beside the pig stye was broken in two like a pipe stem.
KNEIRTJE. Did it come down on the pig stye?
COB. I believe it did.
KNEIRTJE. I'm afraid it's fallen in. The wood is so rotten.
JO. Ach, no! Aunt always expects the worst. [Surprised.] Uncle Cobus,
how do you come to be out, after eight o'clock, in this beastly
weather?
COB. To fetch the doctor for Daan.
CLEMENTINE. Is old Daan sick?
COB. Tja. Old age. Took to his bed suddenly. Can't keep anything on
his stomach. The beans and pork gravy he ate----
CLEMENTINE. Beans and pork gravy for a sick old man?
COB. Tja. The matron broils him a chicken or a beefsteak--Eh? She's
even cross because she's got to beat an egg for his breakfast. This
afternoon he was delirious, talking of setting out the nets, and paying
out the buoy line. I sez to the matron, "His time's come." "Look out or
yours'll come," sez she. I sez, "The doctor should be sent for." "Mind
your own business," sez she, "am I the Matron or are you?" Then I
sez, "You're the matron." "Well then," sez she. Just now, she sez,
"You'd better go for the doctor." As if it couldn't a been done this
afternoon. I go to the doctor and the doctor's out of town. Now I've
been to Simon to take me to town in his dog car.
JO. Is Simon coming here?
CLEMENTINE. If drunken Simon drives, you're likely to roll off
the dyke.
COB. He isn't drunk tonight.
JO. Give him a chalk mark for that. Must the doctor ride in the dog
car? Hahaha!
COB. Why not if he feels like it? Shall I tell you something? Hey,
what a storm! Listen! Listen! The tiles will soon be coming down.
JO. Go on, now, tell us the rest.
COB. What I want to say is, that it's a blessing for Daantje he's
out of his head, 'fraid as he's always been of death. Afraid!
JO. So is everyone else, Cobus.
COB. Every one? That's all in the way you look at it. If my time
should come tomorrow, then, I think, we must all! The waters of the sea
will not wash away that fact. God has given, God has taken away. Now,
don't laugh, think! God takes us and we take the fish. On the fifth
day He created the Sea, great whales and the moving creatures that
abound therein, and said: "Be fruitful," and He blessed them. That
was evening and that was morning, that was the fifth day. And on the
sixth day He created man and said also: "Be fruitful," and blessed
them. That was again evening and again morning, that was the sixth
day. No, now, don't laugh. You must think. When I was on the herring
catch, or on the salting voyage, there were times when I didn't dare
use the cleaning knife. Because when you shove a herring's head
to the left with your thumb, and you lift out the gullet with the
blade, the creature looks at you with such knowing eyes, and yet
you clean two hundred in an hour. And when you cut throats out of
fourteen hundred cod, that makes twenty-eight hundred eyes that look
at you! Look! Just look. Ask me how many fish have I killed? I had few
equals in boning and cutting livers. Tja, tja, and how afraid they all
were! Afraid! They looked up at the clouds as if they were saying:
"How about this now. He blessed us same as He blessed you?" I say:
we take the fish and God takes us. We must all, the beasts must,
and the men must, and because we all must, none of us should--now,
that's just as if you'd pour a full barrel into an empty one. I'd
be afraid to be left alone in the empty barrel, with every one else
in the other barrel. No, being afraid is no good; being afraid is
standing on your toes and looking over the edge.
KNEIRTJE. Is that a way to talk at night? You act as if you'd had
a dram.
COB. A dram? No, not a drop! Is that Simon?
KNEIRTJE. [Listening between the bedsteads.] Am I right about the pig
stye or not? Hear how the poor animal is going on out there. I'm sure
the wall has fallen in.
JO. Let me go then. Don't you go outside!
KNEIRTJE. Ach, don't bother me! [Off.]
JO. You pour yourself out a bowl, Uncle Cobus! I'll give her a
helping hand.
COB. Take care of the lamp chimney.
CLEMENTINE. [At the window.] Oh! Oh! Oh! What a gale! [Returning to
the table.] Cobus, I'll thank God when the Good Hope is safely in.
COB. Tja. No ship is safe tonight. But the Hope is an old ship,
and old ships are the last to go down.
CLEMENTINE. That's what you say.
COB. No, that's what every old sailor says. Have a bowl, Miss?
CLEMENTINE. [After a silence, staring.] All the same, I shall pray
God tonight.
COB. That's real good of you, Miss. But the Jacoba is out and the
Mathilda is out and the Expectation is out. Why should you pray for
one ship?
CLEMENTINE. The Good Hope is rotten--so--so----[Stops anxiously.]
COB. [Drinking coffee.] Who said that?
CLEMENTINE. That's what----Why--that's what----I thought----It just
occurred to me.
COB. No, you are lying now.
CLEMENTINE. Oh, you are polite!
COB. If the Good Hope was rotten, then your father would----
CLEMENTINE. Oh, shut your fool mouth, you'll make Kneir anxious. Quick,
Kneir, shut the door, for the lamp.
KNEIRTJE. [Entering with Jo.] Good thing we looked.
JO. The stye had blown down.
KNEIRTJE. Oh, my poor boys! How scared Barend will be, and just as
they're homeward bound.
JO. Coffee, Mother? Aunt! Funny, isn't it, eh? I keep saying
Mother. You take another cup, Miss. The evening is still so long and
so gloomy--Yes?
[Enter Simon and Marietje, who is crying.]
SIMON. Good evening. Salamanders, what a wind! Stop your damn
howling----
KNEIRTJE. What's the matter?
MARIETJE. When I think of Mees.
KNEIRTJE. Now, now, look at Jo. Her lover is also--be a good seaman's
wife. Foolish girl! Don't be childish. Give her a bowl to cheer her up.
MARIETJE. It's going into the sixth week.
COB. Don't cry before you're hurt! You girls haven't had any trouble
yet! Is the carriage at the door?
SIMON. I'm damned if I like the trip. If it wasn't for Daan----
JO. Here, this will warm you up, Simon.
SIMON. [Drinking.] Curse it, that's hot. It's happened to me before
with the dog car, in a tempest like this. It was for Katrien. She was
expecting every minute. I was upset twice, car and all. And when the
doctor came, Katrien was dead and the child was dead, but if you ask
me, I'd rather sit in my dog car tonight than to be on the sea.
KNEIRTJE. Yes! Yes!
JO. Another bowl?
SIMON. No, don't let us waste our time. Ready, Cobus?
COB. If you'll only be careful! Good night, all! [Both exit.]
JO. Jesus! Don't sit around so solemn! Let's talk, then we won't
think of anything.
MARIETJE. Last night was stormy, too, and I had such a bad dream. It
was so awful.
CLEMENTINE. Foolish girl! Dreams are not real.
MARIETJE. I can't rightly say it was a dream. There was a rap on the
window, once. I lay still. Again a rap, then I got up. Nothing to be
seen. Nothing. Soon as I lay down there came another rap, so. [Raps on
the table with her knuckles.] And then I saw Mees, his face was pale,
pale as--God! Oh, God! and there was nothing. Nothing but the wind.
KNEIRTJE. [In deadly fear.] Rapped three times? Three times?
MARIETJE. Each time--like that, so----[Raps.]
JO. You stupid, you, to scare the old woman into a fit with your
raps. [A rap. All startled. Enter Saart and Truus.]
SAART. How scared you all look! Good evening, Miss.
TRUUS. May we come in awhile?
JO. Hey! Thank God you've come.
SAART. Nasty outside! My ears and neck full of sand, and it's
cold. Just throw a couple of blocks on the fire.
TRUUS. I couldn't stand it at home either, children asleep, no one
to talk to, and the howling of the wind. Two mooring posts were
washed away.
KNEIR. [Darning a sock.] Two mooring posts!
SAART. Talk about something else.
JO. Yes, I say so too. What's that to us----Milk and sugar? Yes, eh?
SAART. What a question! I take coffee without sugar!
JO. Well, Geert never takes sugar.
CLEMENTINE. Your little son was a brave boy, Truus. I can see him
now as he stood waving good-bye.
TRUUS. [Knitting.] Yes, that boy's a treasure, barely twelve. You
should have seen him two and a half months ago. When the Anna came
in without Ari. The child behaved like an angel, just like a grown
man. He would sit up evenings to chat with me, the child knows more
than I do. The lamb, hope he's not been awfully sea sick.
SAART. [Knitting.] Now, you may not believe it, but red spectacles
keep you from being sea sick.
JO. [Mending a flannel garment.] Hahaha! Did you ever try it
yourself? You're like the doctors, they let others swallow their doses.
SAART. Many's the night I've slept on board; when my husband was
alive I went along on many a voyage.
JO. Should like to have seen you in oil skins.
CLEMENTINE. Were you ever married, Saart?
SAART. Hear, now, the young lady is flattering me. I'm not so bad
looking as that, Miss. Yes, I was married. Spliced good and fast,
too! He was a good man. An excellent man. Now and then, when things
didn't go to suit him, without speaking ill of the dead, I may say,
he couldn't keep his paws at home; then he'd smash things. I still
have a coffee pot without a handle I keep as a remembrance.--I wouldn't
part with it for a rix dollar.
CLEMENTINE. I won't even offer you a guilder! Hahaha!
JO. Say, you're such a funny story teller, tell us about the Harlemmer
oil, Saart.
SAART. Yes, if it hadn't been for Harlemmer oil I might not have been
a widow. I could marry again!
CLEMENTINE. How odd!
JO. You must hear her talk. Come, drink faster!
SAART. I'm full to the brim! What are you staring at Kneir? That's just
the wind. Now, then, my man was a comical chap. Never was another like
him. I'd bought him a knife in a leather sheath, paid a good price
for it too, and when he'd come back in five weeks and I'd ask him:
"Jacob, have you lost your knife?" he'd say, "I don't know about my
knife--you never gave me a knife." He was that scatter-brained. But
when he'd undress himself for the first time in five weeks, and pulled
off his rubber boots, bang, the knife would fall on the floor. He
hadn't felt it in all that time.
CLEMENTINE. Didn't take off his rubber boots in five weeks?
SAART. Then I had to scrub 'im with soap and soda; he hadn't seen
water, and covered with vermin.
CLEMENTINE. Hey! Ugh!
SAART. Wish I could get a cent a dozen for all the lice on board;
they get them thrown in with their share of the cargo. Hahaha! Now
then, his last voyage a sheet of water threw him against the bulwarks
just as they pulled the mizzen staysail to larboard, and his leg was
broke. Then they were in a fix--The skipper could poultice and cut a
corn, but he couldn't mend a broken leg. Then they wanted to shove a
plank under it, but Jacob wanted Harlemmer oil rubbed on his leg. Every
day he had them rub it with Harlemmer oil, and again Harlemmer oil,
and some more Harlemmer oil. Ach, the poor thing! When they came in
his leg was a sight. You shouldn't have asked me to tell it.
JO. Last time you laughed about it yourself.
SAART. Now, yes; you can't bring the dead back to life. And when you
think of it, it's a dirty shame I can't marry again.
CLEMENTINE. Why not? Who prevents you?
SAART. Who? Those that pieced together the silly laws! A year later
the Changeable went down with man and mouse. Then, bless me, you'd
suppose, as your husband was dead, for he'd gone along with his leg
and a half, you could marry another man. No, indeed. First you must
advertise for him in the newspapers three times, and then if in three
times he don't turn up, you may go and get a new license.
TRUUS. [Monotonously knitting.] I don't think I'll ever marry again.
SAART. That's not surprisin' when you've been married twice already;
if you don't know the men by this time.
TRUUS. I wish I could talk about things the way you do. No, it's
anxiety. With my first it was a horror; with my second you know
yourselves.
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!
SAART. It's nothing. Only the wind.
TRUUS. Now in Vlaardingen they have a tower and on the tower a lookout.
MARIETJE. Same as at Maassluis.
TRUUS. And this lookout hoists a red ball when he sees a lugger or
a trawler or other boat in the distance. And when he sees who it
is, he lets down the ball, runs to the ship owner and the families
to warn them; that's to say: the Albert Koster or the Good Hope is
coming. Now mostly he's no need to warn the family. For, as soon as
the ball is hoisted in the tower, the children run in the streets
shouting, I did it, too, as a child: "The ball is up! The ball is
up!" Then the women run, and wait below for the lookout to come down,
and when it's their ship they give him pennies.
CLEMENTINE. And then----
TRUUS. [Staring into the fire.] And--and--the Magnet with my first
husband, didn't I say I'd been married a year? The Magnet stayed out
seven weeks--with provisions for six--and each time the children
shouted: "The ball is up, Truus! The ball is up, Truus!" Then I
ran like mad to the tower. No one looked at me. They all knew why
I ran, and when the lookout came down I could have torn the words
out of his mouth. But I would say: "Have you tidings--tidings of
the Magnet?" Then he'd say: "No, it's the Maria," or the Alert,
or the Concordia, and then I'd drag myself away slowly, so slowly,
crying and thinking of my husband. My husband! And each day, when
the children shouted, I got a shock through my brain, and each day I
stood by the tower, praying that God--but the Magnet did not come--did
not come. At the last I didn't dare to go to the tower any more when
the ball was hoisted. No longer dared to stand at the door waiting,
if perhaps the lookout himself would bring the message. That lasted
two months--two months--and then--well, then I believed it. [Toneless
voice.] The fish are dearly paid for.
CLEMENTINE. [After a silence.] And Ari?--What happened to him?
TRUUS. Ari?
JO. Now, that's so short a time since.
TRUUS. [Calmly.] Ach, child, I'd love to talk about it to every
one, all day long. When you've been left with six children--a good
man--never gave me a harsh word--never. In two hours he was gone. A
blow from the capstan Bar. He never spoke again. Had it happened six
days later they would have brought him in. We would have buried him
here. The sharks already swam about the ship. They smell when there's
a corpse aboard.
KNEIRTJE. Yes, that's true, you never see them otherwise.
TRUUS. [Resigned.] You'll never marry a fisherman, Miss; but it's sad,
sad; God, so sad! when they lash your dear one to a plank, wrapped in
a piece of sail with a stone in it, three times around the big mast,
and then, one, two, three, in God's name. The fish are dearly paid
for. [Sobs softly.]
JO. [Rising and embracing her.] Now, Truus!
SAART. Pour her out another bowl. [To Marietje.] Are you crying
again? She keeps thinking of Mees?
MARIETJE. No, I wasn't thinking of Mees, I was thinking of my little
brother, who was also drowned.
JO. [Nervously.] You all seem to enjoy it.
CLEMENTINE. Wasn't that on the herring catch?
MARIETJE. [Going on with her knitting.] His second voyage, a blow
from the fore sail, and he lay overboard. He was rope caster. The
skipper reached him the herring shovel, but it was smooth and it
slipped from his hands. Then Jerusalem, the mate, held out the broom
to him--again he grabbed hold. The three of them pulled him up; then
the broom gave way, he fell back into the waves, and for the third
time the skipper threw him a line. God wanted my little brother, the
line broke, and the end went down with him to the bottom of the sea.
CLEMENTINE. Frightful! frightful!--Grabbed it three times, and lost
it three times.
MARIETJE. As if the child knew what was coming in the morning, he had
lain crying all night. So the skipper told. Crying for Mother, who was
sick. When the skipper tried to console him, he said: "No, skipper,
even if Mother does get well, I eat my last herring today." That's
what started Father to drinking.
CLEMENTINE. Now, Marietje.
MARIETJE. No, truly, Miss, when he came back from Pieterse's with the
money, Toontje's share of the cargo as rope caster, eighteen guilders
and thirty-five cents for five and a half weeks. Then he simply acted
insane, he threw the money on the ground, then he cursed at--I won't
repeat what--at everything. And I, how old was I then? Fourteen. I
picked up the money, crying. We needed it. Mother's sickness and burial
had cost a lot. Eighteen guilders is a heap of money, a big heap.
JO. Eighteen guilders for your child, eighteen--[Listening in alarm
to the blasts of the wind.] Hush! keep still!
SAART. Nothing, nothing at all! What makes you so afraid tonight?
JO. Afraid? I afraid? No, say, Hahaha!----
KNEIRTJE. [Staring straight ahead.] Yes, yes, if the water could
only speak.
CLEMENTINE. Come now, you tell a tale of the sea. You've had so
much experience.
KNEIRTJE. A tale? Ach, Miss, life on the sea is no tale. Nothing
between yourself and eternity but the thickness of a one-inch
plank. It's hard on the men, and hard on the women. Yesterday I passed
by the garden of the Burgomaster. They sat at table and ate cod from
which the steam was rising, and the children sat with folded hands
saying grace. Then, thought I, in my ignorance--if it was wrong, may
God forgive me--that it wasn't right of the Burgomaster--not right
of him--and not right of the others. For the wind blew so hard out
of the East, and those fish came out of the same water in which our
dead--how shall I say it?--in which our dead--you understand me. [A
pause.] It was foolish to think such nonsense. It is our living,
and we must not rebel against our living.
TRUUS. Yes, I know how that is.
KNEIRTJE. [Quietly darning.] My husband was a fisherman. One out of a
thousand. When the lead was dropped he could tell by the taste of the
sand where they were. Often in the night he'd say we are on the 56th
and on the 56th they'd be. And what experiences he had sailing! Once
he drifted about two days and nights in a boat with two others. That
was the time they were taking in the net and a fog came up so thick
they couldn't see the buoys, let alone find the lugger. Two days and
nights without food. Later when the boat went to pieces--you should
have heard him tell it--how he and old Dirk swam to an overturned
rowboat; he climbed on top. "I'll never forget that night," said
he. Dirk was too old or tired to get a hold. Then my husband stuck
his knife into the boat. Dirk tried to grasp it as he was sinking,
and he clutched in such a way that three of his fingers hung
down. Yes! yes! It all happened. Then at the risk of his own life,
my husband pulled Dirk up onto the overturned boat. So the two of
them drifted in the night, and Dirk--old Dirk--from loss of blood
or from fear, went insane. He sat and glared at my husband with the
eyes of a cat. He raved of the devil that was in him. Of Satan, and
the blood, my husband said, ran all over the boat--the waves were
kept busy washing it away. Just at dawn Dirk slipped off, insane
as he was. My man was picked up by a freighter that sailed by. But
it was no use, three years later--that's twelve years ago now--the
Clementine--named after you by your father--stranded on the Doggerbanks
with him and my two oldest. Of what happened to them, I know nothing,
nothing at all. Never a buoy, or a hatch, washed ashore. Nothing more,
nothing. You can't realize it at first, but after so many years one
can't recall their faces any more, and that's a blessing. For hard it
would be if one remembered. Now, I've told my story. Every sailor's
wife has something like this in her family, it's not new. Truus is
right: "The fish are dearly paid for." Are you crying, Miss?
CLEMENTINE. [Bursting out.] God! If any ships should go down tonight.
KNEIRTJE. We are all in God's hands, and God is great and good.
JO. [Springing up wildly.] Ships go down! Ships go down! The one
howls. The other cries. I wish I'd sat alone tonight. [Beating her
head with her fists.] You're all driving me mad, mad, mad!
CLEMENTINE. [Amazed.] Jo, what ails you?
JO. [Passionately.] Her husband and her little brother--and my poor
uncle--those horrible stories--instead of cheering us up! Ask me now
for my story! [Shrieking.] My father was drowned, drowned, drowned,
drowned! There are others--all--drowned, drowned!--and--you are all
miserable wretches--you are! [Violently bangs the door shut as she
runs out.]
TRUUS. [Anxiously.] I believe she's afraid.
MARIETJE. Shall I go after her?
KNEIRTJE. No, child, she will quiet down by herself. Nervous strain
of the last two days. Are you going now, Miss?
CLEMENTINE. It has grown late, Kneir, and your niece--your niece was a
little unmannerly. No, I'm not offended. Who is going to take me home?
SAART. If one goes, we all go. Together we won't blow away. Good
night, Kneir.
MARIETJE. [Depressed.] Good night, Aunt Kneir.
KNEIRTJE. Thank you again, Miss, for the soup and eggs.
TRUUS. Are you coming to drink a bowl with me tomorrow night? Please
say yes.
KNEIRTJE. Well, perhaps. Good night, Miss. Good night, Marietje. Good
night, Saart. If you see Jo send her in at once. [All go out except
Kneirtje. She clears away the cups. A fierce wind howls, shrieking
about the house. She listens anxiously at the window, shoves her
chair close to the chimney, stares into the fire. Her lips move in
a muttered prayer while she fingers a rosary. Jo enters, drops into
a chair by the window and nervously unpins her shawl.]
KNEIRTJE. You'd better go to bed. You are all unstrung. What an
outburst! And that dear child that came out in the storm to bring me
soup and eggs.
JO. [Roughly.] Your sons are out in the storm for her and her father.
KNEIRTJE. And for us.
JO. And for us. [A silence.] The sea is so wild.
KNEIRTJE. Have you been to look?
JO. [Anxiously.] I couldn't stand against the wind. Half the guard
rail is washed away, the pier is under water. [A silence. Kneirtje
prays.] Oh! Oh! I'm dead from those miserable stories!
KNEIRTJE. You're not yourself tonight. You never went on like this
when Geert sailed with the Navy. Go to bed and pray. Prayer is the
only consolation. A sailor's wife must not be weak. In a month or two
it will storm again; each time again. And there are many fishermen on
the sea besides our boys. [Her speech sinks into a soft murmur. Her
old fingers handle the rosary.]
JO. Barend, we almost drove him away! I taunted him to the
last. [Seeing that Kneirtje prays, she walks to the window wringing
her hands, pulls up the curtain uncertainly, stares through the window
panes. Then she cautiously opens a window shutter. The wind blows the
curtain on high, the lamp dances, the light puffs out. She swiftly
closes the window.]
KNEIRTJE. [Angry from fear.] Have you gone crazy! Keep your paws off
that window!
JO. [Moaning.] Oh! oh! oh!----
KNEIRTJE. [Terrified.] Shut your mouth! Look for the matches! Not so
slow! Quick! Beside the soap dish. [A silence.] Have you got them? [Jo
lights the lamp, shivering with fear.] I'm completely chilled. [To Jo,
who crouches sobbing by the chimney.] Why do you sit there?
JO. I'm afraid.
KNEIRTJE. [Anxiously.] You must not be.
JO. If anything happens--then--then----
KNEIRTJE. Be sensible. Undress yourself.
JO. No, I shall stay here all night.
KNEIRTJE. Now, I ask you, how will it be when you're married? When
you are a mother yourself?
JO. [Passionately.] You don't know what you say! You don't know
what you say, Aunt Kneir! If Geert--[Stops, panting.] I didn't dare
tell you.
KNEIRTJE. Is it between you and Geert? [Jo sobs loudly.] That was not
good of you--not good--to have secrets. Your lover--your husband--is
my son. [A silence, the wind shrieks.] Don't stare that way into the
fire. Don't cry any more. I shall not speak any hard words. Even if
it was wrong of you and of him. Come and sit opposite to me, then
together we will--[Lays her prayerbook on the table.]
JO. [Despairingly.] I don't want to pray.
KNEIRTJE. Don't want to pray?
JO. [Excitedly.] If anything happens----
KNEIRTJE. [Vehemently.] Nothing will happen!
JO. [Wildly.] If anything--anything--anything--then I'll never pray
again, never again. Then there is no God. No Mother Mary--then there
is nothing--nothing----
KNEIRTJE. [Anxiously.] Don't talk like that.
JO. What good is a child without a husband!
KNEIRTJE. How dare you say that?
JO. [Beating her head on the table.] The wind! It drives me mad, mad!
KNEIRTJE. [Opens the prayerbook, touches Jo's arm. Jo looks up, sobbing
passionately, sees the prayerbook, shakes her head fiercely. Again
wailing, drops to the floor, which she beats with her hands. Kneirtje's
trembling voice sounds.] Oh Merciful God! I trust! With a firm faith,
I trust. [The wind races with wild lashings about the house.]
CURTAIN.