"
"Our good people of Kessin. Is that sarcasm, or are they really so
good?"
"That they are really good is not exactly what I mean to say, but they
are different from the others; in fact, they have no similarity
whatever to the country inhabitants here."
"How does that come?"
"Because they are entirely different human beings, by ancestry and
association. The people you find in the country here are the so-called
Cassubians, of whom you may have heard, a Slavic race, who have been
living here for a thousand years and probably much longer. But all the
inhabitants of our seaports, and the commercial cities near the coast,
have moved here from a distance and trouble themselves very little
about the Cassubian backwoods, because they derive little profit from
that source and are dependent upon entirely different sources. The
sources upon which they are dependent are the regions with which they
have commercial relations, and as their commerce brings them into
touch with the whole world you will find among them people from every
nook and corner of the earth, even here in our good Kessin, in spite
of the fact that it is nothing but a miserable hole."
"Why, that is perfectly charming, Geert. You are always talking about
the miserable hole, but I shall find here an entirely new world, if
you have not exaggerated. All kinds of exotics. That is about what you
meant, isn't it?"
He nodded his head.
"An entirely new world, I say, perhaps a negro, or a Turk, or perhaps
even a Chinaman.
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