"And you, too, Juffrouw Mabbel; and you, Juffrouw Laps; and you, Juffrouw Zipperman; and you, Mrs. Stotter--what do you all think you are?"
This will not be surprising to anyone who knows how difficult knowledge of the "self" is; but Stoffel had something else in mind. There was a deeper meaning involved.
Juffrouw Laps was the first to answer, and she spoke with proud self-sufficiency:
"But for Heaven sake, am I not Juffrouw Laps?"
"Y-e-s. Of course you are Juffrouw Laps; but Stoffel didn't ask who you were, but what you were. There's the fine point."
"Y-e-s. That you are, too; but--it isn't that. The question is, What are you? Help her out, Stoffel."
Between puffs of smoke, and with the air of a professor, Stoffel proceeded to "help":
"Juffrouw Laps, I wished to know what you were from a zoˆlogical standpoint."
"I won't have anything more to do with it," said Juffrouw Laps in the tone of one who feels that he is going to be insulted.
"I am a midwife," said Mrs. Stotter, "and I'm going to stick to it."
"And I am the baker's wife," cried Juffrouw Mabbel, with a positiveness in her tone which showed her intention to hold to this opinion.
"Certainly, certainly, Juffrouw Mabbel; but I mean from a zoˆlogical standpoint."
"If it's going to be indecent, I prefer to go home."
"I, too," added Juffrouwen Krummel and Zipperman. "We came here to be entertained."
"But you're not going to get angry about it! I tell you, it's in the book, Stoffel--you will laugh when you hear it, Juffrouw Mabbel; and the best part of it is, that it's in the book, and one can't say anything against it. Tell her, Stoffel!"
"Juffrouw Laps," said Stoffel with dignity--an important moment in Juffrouw Pieterse's tea-evening had arrived--"Juffrouw Laps, you are a sucking animal."
I admit frankly that I cannot adequately describe the crisis that followed these two words. If Stoffel had only said mammal, perhaps then my task would have been easier.
Juffrouw Laps's face took on all the different colors that are generally supposed to express anger. She had been attacked more openly than the others, it is true; but her attitude toward the prayer-class would go to show that she was naturally polemical.
In French novels people used to turn green; but Juffrouw Laps did not read French, so she stopped at a terrible violet and screamed--no, she didn't. She didn't scream anything; for she was choking for breath. But she did pulverize that piece of ginger cake; and she looked at Stoffel and his mother in a manner that would have been most damaging for her if those two persons had happened to die that night.