Girl With a Pearl Earring

“1665” opens in March of that year, during one of Griet’s visits home. Her father, who “was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear […] suffered when the winter was long” (89), and is made more irritable by Griet’s inadequate description of the painting that Vermeer is currently working on. When he petulantly asks why she hasn’t brought him sweets smuggled from Tanneke’s kitchen, she admits that she and Tanneke are not getting along. When asked why, she lies and says it’s because she spilled “some of their best ale” (92). Later, when walking her out, Griet’s mother mentions her upcoming seventeenth birthday and Pieter’s romantic interest in her. Griet expects her mother to warn her about protecting her virtue, but instead she asks her to be nice to him, and Griet observes the “hunger for meat” in her eyes “that a butcher’s son could provide [for]” (92).

We learn that the real reason Tanneke is not happy with Griet is because she has been assisting Vermeer for two months in his studio. The assistance began on one of the coldest days in January, when Griet is tasked with going to the apothecary to get medicine for the babies’ coughs.