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Updated: July 6, 2025
I must hear it, that I may love you without any feeling of shame." As Riekje leaned against her husband's breast, she threw herself back a little, and it was evident that she would soon be a mother. "Come, children," cried maman Nelle, "it's time now to make the batter." She reached down an iron pan, lined with shining white enamel, poured in the flour, the eggs, and the milk.
Riekje raised her eyes, in which stood a tear, and said softly: "Dolf, it's a good heart you have." He sat down beside her and threw his arm round her waist: "I am neither good nor bad, my Riekje, but I love you with all my heart." Riekje kissed him. "Dolf dear, when I think of the past I hardly know how I can still care for life." "The past is past, my beloved Riekje," replied Dolf. "Ah!
It is better not, so the others have carried him off to have a drink to give him courage." "I shall be braver, too, if he is not here," replied Riekje, raising her eyes full of tears. "Yes," said Nelle, in her turn," it's better for every one that Dolf should not be here." Tobias then poured out a glass of gin and gave it to the man, saying: "There's something for your trouble, Lucas.
Riekje and Dolf, sitting side by side on the same bench, took some apples from a basket, cored, and afterwards sliced them. Then Nelle went slyly to fetch a second saucepan from the cupboard and placed it on the fire; she poured in some warm water, adding flour, thyme, and laurel leaves.
Riekje wrung her hands and cried out: "Mamae Puzzel! Mamae Puzzel!" "Mama Puzzel can do nothing for you, Riekje," replied the midwife. "You must be patient." Within the room, the kettle sang on the fire; without, the water lapped against the boat. Voices died away along the banks, and doors were shut. "It is midnight," said Tobias, "those are the people leaving the inn." "Ah!
Riekje cried incessantly. "Why does he stay away so long when his Riekje is dying?" Tobias went up the ladder now and again to see if Dolf were not coming back. The little port-hole of the Guldenvisch reflected its red light on the dark water; there was no other window alight in the town.
There comes Dolf over the planks, bringing us flour, eggs, and cream; you will have something to say about my pancakes, Riekje." She opened the door, for a heavy step could be heard on the bridge of the boat. As a broad-shouldered man, with a frank, smiling face, stepped into the cheerful light of the room, his head almost touched the ceiling. "There you are, mother!" he cried.
She put on her spectacles, took up her knitting, sat down by the fire and began to knit. She wore a woollen flowered jacket under a black shawl, and a skirt of linsey-woolsey. From time to time she looked over her spectacles without raising her head and glanced at Riekje walking up and down the room groaning.
"Maman Nelle sees straight into my heart," said she, sitting down near the fire, and stitching away at a baby's cap, which she held in her hand. "Who could not see straight into the heart of a woman who is in love with her husband, Riekje?" asked old Nelle.
Tobias threw his cap up in the air, and Nelle, laughing, pinched the face of the new-born babe whom Madame Puzzel swaddled on her knee. When the baby was well wrapped up, Madame Puzzel placed it in Dolf's arms and he kissed it cautiously with little smacks. Riekje called Dolf to her side, took his head in her hand, and fell asleep until morning.
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