"
"Yes, a Chinaman, too. How well you can guess! It may be that we still
have one. He is dead now and buried in a little fenced-in plot of
ground close by the churchyard. If you are not easily frightened I
will show you his grave some day. It is situated among the dunes, with
nothing but lyme grass around it, and here and there a few
immortelles, and one always hears the sea. It is very beautiful and
very uncanny."
"Oh, uncanny? I should like to know more about it. But I would better
not. Such stories make me have visions and dreams, and if, as I hope,
I sleep well tonight, I should certainly not like to see a Chinaman
come walking up to my bed the first thing."
"You will not, either."
"Not, either? Upon my word, that sounds strange, as though, after all,
it were possible. You seek to make Kessin interesting to me, but you
carry it a trifle too far. And have you many such foreigners in
Kessin?"
"A great many. The whole population is made up of such foreigners,
people whose parents and grandparents lived in an entirely different
region."
"Most remarkable. Please tell me more about them. But no more creepy
stories. I feel that there is always something creepy about a
Chinaman."
"Yes, there is," laughed Geert, "but the rest, thank heaven, are of an
entirely different sort, all mannerly people, perhaps a little bit too
commercial, too thoughtful of their own advantage, and always on hand
with bills of questionable value. In fact, one must be cautious with
them.
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