Stamkroeg

Still another question:

What is it to sit quietly at the quiet bar? Drink one beer and another in the company of people who share the same devotion to the middle distance: call them friends, decent people. So sometimes there's talk, certainly; there are observations like there are beer mats.

Because this is the bar where the regulars go. Not a wise-cracking place or a back-slapping place or a place where the almost lucky drink to sentimental oblivion. Noone doesn't make it home.

There's laughter, too, some comfort. But the silence shames them both in time -- it's no punishment, no unusually bitter flavor to the beer, it's just that time and modesty are in abundance here.

So who's to say what this is?