Kort verhaal over twee jongens die op een regenachtige avond na het werk en een biertje in de pub een meisje volgen naar haar huis om te zien wat daar gebeurt. Ze krijgen waar voor hun geld.

A wonderful wisp of a short story from Dylan Thomas. “The Followers” has two gents meeting for a drink after work on a rainy night, and then following a random woman home to spy on her through her window in what is apparently regular entertainment for them. Yes, kinda creepy, but it’s “innocent creepy” if such a thing can be, and on this occasion they themselves are in for a little surprise. Thomas is lyrical and creates beautiful imagery; I also loved the artwork in this little edition from 1976 that I happened across in a used bookstore in Berkeley.

Just one quote to give a taste:
“The peeling, liver-coloured room might never have been drunk in at all. Here, commercials told jokes and had Scotches and sodas with happy, dyed, port-and-lemon women; dejected regulars grew grand and muzzy in the corners, inventing their pasts, being rich, important and loved; reprobate grannies in dustbin black cackled and nipped; influential nobodies revised the earth; a party, with earrings, called ‘Frilly Willy’ played the cripple piano, which sounded like a hurdy-gurdy playing under water, until the publican’s nosy wife said, ‘No.’ Strangers came and went, but mostly went. Men from the valleys dropped in for nine or ten; sometimes there were fights; and always there was something doing; some argie-bargie, giggle and bluster, horror or folly, affection, explosion, nonsense, peace, some wild goose flying in the boozy air of that comfortless, humdrum nowhere in the dizzy, ditchwater town at the end of the railway lines. But that evening it was the saddest room I had ever known.” ( )