But Crisje, they have run over both your Bernard’s legs
A person is sometimes a finely tuned and sensitive being, if he is open to the higher life.
If he is faced with spiritual and social feelings, enforced upon him by life, which sometimes cause chaos as a result of one’s own actions and thoughts, then it is always the personality which has felt some of it, beforehand or a while later, to an extend that he feels and possesses enough sensitivity to be able to cope with these thoughts and feelings and to analyse them for himself.
There are not great deals of people in this wide world who are capable of infallibly checking and accepting the spiritual train of thought.
The majority of the millions of children of Our Lord pay little attention to what the inner side has to tell the day-consciousness.
But that psychology is open to thousands of worlds of feelings, for which he lives and is a part of, and is of course his space!
On the other hand it is certain that everybody finds harmony with those powers and strengths, after all, because the God of all life has wanted it like that.
It has been proved scientifically that the stronger, more aware intellectual lives in a more material and social way, one has now split himself for the natural properties, and also for inner experiences, and now lives outside those universal touches or feelings.
One cannot be reached now.
A person shuts himself off completely from the spiritual inner self!
It is the social task with all its rigmarole, that life has had to split itself, and it brought the lack of that sensitivity, through which the inner life usually speaks to the day-consciousness.
It is true, the town dweller now misses that feeling, he suffers from spiritual anaemia, and that places him for a number of events, of which he has felt nothing, absolutely nothing, but which can suddenly overcome him and knock him down.
Then you hear: ‘I should not have done that.
I could have known after all, but I did not realise it enough.
I would have acted differently then.
I therefore knew it, but I lacked something.’
That is the spiritual sensitivity for each person, for thousands of problems and events, which you have to deal with.
But Crisje is not like that!
She feels happy and it is not her.
Because there is something which is draining her.
When those feelings begin to speak to her life, and she follows them, they take her straight to Jan Kniep, then both are faced with the Grim Reaper.
The most wonderful thing of all now is, Crisje feels, that that power or feelings, or whatever it is, say that when Jan dies they will still be there!
It is funny and strange, but she has her full senses and an extremely finely tuned inner life, as a result of which she can follow and experience her own spirit.
Crisje certainly knows, if those feelings were not there she could say: ‘my life is complete.’
She wouldn’t be able to believe her luck then.
But they are there now, and that is a pity.
Because those feelings disturb the peace and quiet inside, and also the blissful scientific existence of it, if she goes even deeper, then she is faced with something completely different, then human love speaks to her being and her life, which she is then involved with.
However, a while later it is different again, now it is ... anxiety!
Anxiety, which speaks to her day-consciousness and she has to deal with as a person.
Johan and Bernard are already working in Emmerik.
Jeus has taken over delivering the newspapers and he has also come home several times with his legs covered in blood.
Due to the same dog, which also bit the calves of Johan and Bernard.
Only then did those people understand that you could not live with wild dogs; they hung the animal.
That calf was drowned ten times, so to speak, only then did that humane feeling reach a good decision, even if the act was inhuman, but no one spoke about that.
And all that because of the ‘Niederländische Zeitung’, the rise for Tall Hendrik, for the boys the first foundation for their own personality, as a result of which you can safely say that those lives have already started.
The boys have learned from it, Jeus has become older because of it and Tall Hendrik and Crisje can be satisfied.
That was also a sport for Bernard, Crisje could accept, and because of it he forgot the other thing.
A while ago, the boys came home with a cake weighing twenty pounds.
The whole neighbourhood ate from it.
Which they earned honestly.
By their singing.
Tall Hendrik was proud.
The boys had already performed on stage; their success was enormous.
Bernard was first for a job at the brush factory, he worked there for a while, and when he saw no future there, he went to work at a machine factory in Breitenstein, in order to bring in money for himself and Crisje.
Tall Hendrik has already drawn up his plans; the way it now looks, things are going well.
He cannot and may not expect more, it will go left, or right, but in one direction, consciously further and higher!
And Tall Hendrik can be trusted with that, he can make a calculation; he can think!
Who can stop him?
No one can!
Life neither, according to Tall Hendrik, he is there himself and they know that very well!
Hendrik’s quartet is doing well now that the boys of Peter Smadel are ready.
You should now hear those four voices sometime.
He can beat everyone with his quartet.
Ernst and Willy Smadel, Johan and Bernard have received beautiful voices from Our Lord.
Bernard is the chosen one, his voice is enormous and goes into the air, when Bernard gives his voice the space through his head, you can hear a boyish nightingale with the soprano of a sweet girl in it, and after all, that means something.
They were given that cake weighing twenty pounds for their nice singing.
Which was something wonderful for Crisje, an experience of which she sees and feels the space, it is the future!
However, throughout all of this she feels rotten; anxiety lives in her.
Tall Hendrik doesn’t go into it, he cannot understand that Crisje now wants to accept those things.
After all, is everything not going well?
Have we anything to complain about, Cris?
There is nothing wrong.
The children are healthy, Little Teun is the new addition to the family, they now have six strapping boys and a girl, what else does Crisje want?
Crisje doesn’t want anything else, nothing, but inside she feels sad, always that anxiety.
Something will happen through which she will lose her enormous happiness!
Just shake it off you; is it that simple?
Can you shake yourself off?
It is inside, Hendrik.
And that thing inside talks to me and now raises its dirty dominating head!
Last Sunday Hendrik sung with the quartet at the Plantage.
Germans came to listen to see whether it would be suitable for the stage, it is already at that stage.
At the end Crisje flung her arms around her husband from happiness and kissed him in front of all those people, which is not something Crisje would normally do.
But the singing was so wonderful,
So nice, and the echo at the Plantage sent the voices across the people, yes, they could almost hear them in Montferland.
After this feast Hendrik got new contracts, and that also meant money coming in.
However, Crisje remained sorrowful, continued to have those horrible feelings, not even bitters washed away that urge or power from her life, it remained!
Crisje is not worried about social things.
She looks that life right in the eye, she and her Tall Hendrik are economical, therefore, not a single cent is spent without some thought.
There will be a nice piece of ground and just look what's there at the back of the shed?
Soon there will be a slaughtering again, the children are growing up.
Life is wonderful, except for this one thing to be gone and we will be there.
Is that perhaps a warning received by life?
Can life talk to your day-conscious ‘self’?
That appears to be the case.
Crisje is experiencing it!
The children look well, they wear nice smocks, shoes as well, and Hendrik wears a nice black suit, she wears nice things, but what is it anyway, Crisje?
It was then that she felt ready to think of that inner self.
She could not avoid it and therefore started on it, otherwise she would not be able to look it in the eye.
Jeus is in the highest class, he is learning something, but not too much.
Do not ask him to calculate a sum, he is not capable of it.
However, he regularly transferred to the next class, due to the knowledge he acquired of the masters with his inner life, which then allowed him to give the answers.
Crisje says: “After Teun we will not have any more children, Hendrik.”
She knows this is her last one.
Hendrik thinks so as well, but he will wait patiently.
When they sit together in the evening, and talk about everything, there is always that anxiety as well.
Then Tall Hendrik hears:
“What shall I tell you, Hendrik.
It is there and it isn’t there.”
And that means you have it and can do nothing, nothing!
You cannot get rid of it.
“Even if I resist it, it doesn’t help.
It is stronger than I am, Hendrik.”
It follows you, when you are having a nice sleep, it wakens you, and then it lies under and in your heart.
Now it gives you a lump in your throat, so you think perhaps you will suffocate, it is so bad, but above all so conscious.
You cannot free yourself from it.
But you are still as right as rain and as fit as a fiddle.
Prayers do not help!
“I pray day and night, you know that, Father also knows nothing for it.
Is that life by any chance, Hendrik?”
What is life, actually?
Life is good, but life can also break you and then you are faced with the Grim Reaper, for that matter.
Is it perhaps that?”
If Crisje looks at Jan, then it is as if the feeling inside says: ‘It has to do with that, and it has received its own attunement with that life.’
However, Jan is alive and kicking, he looks really well, and his neck gives no reason to be worried.
What do you want, Crisje?
What does all this mean?
“Have you perhaps worked too hard, Crisje?”
“No”, Tall Hendrik gets to hear, “it isn’t that now, Hendrik, it is something completely different!”
Were we born for worries then, Hendrik wonders.
And it isn’t that either, Our Lord has nothing to do with it, for Crisje then, it is life!
That is really not part of Our Lord.
Not that either, but what is it then?
One morning Jan felt that his neck was tight.
He rubbed his collar ...
Crisje saw it, and then some of the anxiety dissolved, because she now knows a bit more about it.
Jan is now walking with the collar of the Grim Reaper, like a dog fastened to a rope.
Because that's it!
It is not any different.
Jan is attached to the Grim Reaper and he says: “Come on, Jan, come on!
I will go left, you have to follow me from this moment!”
Isn’t that the case?
Or is it different?
A week later that tight band around Jan’s neck was a bit more swollen.
Hendrik, look.
We are losing Jan, the first symptoms are there now.
Tall Hendrik could then also accept the inner anxiety of Crisje.
The fight with the Grim Reaper is nearby, he is now consciously behind the stove.
You will not get rid of him, he will not release Jan for all the world!
The neighbourhood sees that Jan has a bandage around his neck again.
Oh, my Lord, I see it.
I do not need to pray now!
Good Jan’s time has passed; he can now prepare himself.
Jan now consciously walks tied to the collar of the Grim Reaper.
The boys know that.
They do not need to fetch any cow dung from Hosman’s, the black and white cow no longer has any power, the universal willpower of the Grim Reaper dominates.
They all hear it really well; he is now whistling his tune.
But how sarcastic that man is, they may not complain and moan, the time has been divided honestly.
Jan is prepared.
Jan does not need to bark, he is a human being after all, but you would think it!
Blood is flowing.
The doctor does not need to come and look.
They do not need him now!
Nothing else will help.
They know that!
No one can take this away from them and no one can fool them either, this is the end for Jan.
“Jan will soon kick the bucket”, Bernard said, and Jeus felt it.
Jan is capable for it, he knows it, he himself says it: “I am satisfied and I will now give in to it.”
But that big Jan Kniep, the boys think, and Hendrik and Crisje know; but no one amongst all those people is aware of it, they get this space as a gift because Crisje and Hendrik accepted their friend.
Much blood flows.
But how much blood does a person have?
Litres of it flow out of that hole in Jan’s throat.
And it flows like mad, day in day out and it stinks, so that you can smell it over the border.
Crisje therefore bandages Jan in the attic.
When Jan comes downstairs, well wrapped up, he wanders straight to his chair behind the stove and starts his supernatural-universal conversation with Crisje.
They now talk about the Grim Reaper all day, who is sitting there and is sometimes gone for a moment, because he has something to fetch here and there.
Jan can no longer avoid him.
For he is tied to his collar, it is a chain of flesh and blood, and because the flesh and blood is rotting away, it has become like a dead strand.
And fair’s fair, the Grim Reaper does not take any chances now, he knows what he wants!
How is it possible, Crisje thinks, however Jan is rotting away, he has almost no flesh any more, all that flesh, that human appearance, which has such a lot of significance, because it can be so lovely and warm giving external pleasure, but has nothing to do with the inner life, the flesh is rotting away before your eyes, and it now stinks like a corpse which is decomposing.
They know here that the inside of you still shines despite all this rottenness, and it makes you cry, whether you like it or not.
It is so sweet, and it is called Jan Kniep.
People gave him a name, but the more significant inside which shines, is unknown to them, it is this significant side that will continue to exist into eternity for Crisje, Jan and Jeus, because they were able to learn those laws!
Fair’s fair.
The Grim Reaper cannot be attacked, disfigured, or cheated.
Because this was decided beforehand by Our Lord.
If you pray day and night for Jan Kniep you will soon have to accept that your prayers cannot help, and consequently they will not be heard by any God, any Lord.
This is the material and the earthly end!
When, they now wonder, must you pray, and can you pray for your loved ones?
Did you think, Jan and Crisje discuss that with each other – and Crisje, who is like a saint, after all, and a full-blooded Catholic, Father knows that and he will give his own life for that – that she was now still capable of moving Our Lord to give Jan another five months in order to be able to keep the material life for another while ... that she had a Mass said for Jan?
That Mass and those prayers no longer help.
Jan has to die, he will die here, but he will live there for eternity, with José, with Jeus’ Tall One and the many others who have kicked the bucket!
Isn’t it simple, Jan says to Crisje, if you know all this beforehand and if you can give in to the Grim Reaper?
Here spiritual science is discussed; here they experience reality, even if the Catholic church is in their midst, it now gets universal space and truth through Jan and Crisje.
If the people could ever accept that, and if Father could feel that as Jan, and Crisje have, and together could convince ‘Rome’, then this faith would be ...
Divine depth and space, and the Catholic church would represent God and Christ,
Our Lord, for eternal reunion, in which almost each human being wants to believe and can accept, because it is so real and natural, because it is part of a Father of Love!
Would a saint like Crisje be able to feel and think otherwise?
No!!!
She cannot, because this is it!!!
Jan does not cry either!
Jan cannot cry.
He knows!
And because he now definitely knows, faith in God has become supernatural.
Good heavens, people, this is it, after all.
This is it!
Jan, the great, confides in Crisje:
“I am prepared, Crisje.
And I thank God that you wished to take care of me like this.
I will appreciate that, Crisje, and never, ever forget.
You know, I have never been an ungrateful person.”
Jan the colonial says that.
And this colonial is as strong as a master and aware with regard to accepting the Grim Reaper.
“Just let me bleed empty ... good ‘Reaper’ ... I know who you are!
You are not a destroyer, not a demolisher, but a good person.
One thing we do know, despite everything, we will soon knock your rotten crown from your dirty head, because behind the inner life ... No I don’t mean that, ‘Reaper’ ... I mean, behind this grievous, inhuman mask which you wear, I see life and I am therefore not angry with you.
But this crown must be removed from your head!
You hit people through their ignorance.
Of course, honest Reaper, you are not to blame, they do want it any differently, for that matter.
So, just forgive me.”
Jan accepts the justice of the Grim Reaper.
They have shared life honestly,
Jan finds him kind and loving.
Soon Jan will get universal wings, because he was a good person,
Jan has not caused sorrow to anyone.
But whoever has done so, yes, it will be more difficult for them, because you have cheated that universe and that eternity.
And the Reaper will take you there.
It is because of this, even if his collar is not yet around your neck.
The Reaper has more than enough arm and leg chains.
He even has them as trivial as pin-pricks, but still, also as result of such a trivial poisonous little thing you will kick the bucket yourself for the Grim Reaper and Our Lord.
And it is as mean as a dog ... the sound is quarrelsome!
That is now you yourself!
Do you feel it?
You yourself will first kick the bucket but falsely, insincerely and in an ugly way, no one will want to listen to you.
It sounds beastly but your own life is now leering at you and talking to you.
Do you not even want to listen to those nice little voices?
Where you go, you are alone, alone with your insincerity and your own rotten soul and happiness!
Hard?
But you cannot escape it, because now the angels know your name and who you are!
Or did you think you could still cheat even Our Lord?
They would like that, wouldn’t they, Tall Hendrik?
Then the rich people would buy new stomachs and other, new, better brains and everyone would act like Rembrandt, Beethoven, and Bach; but those things are not for sale!
Jan stinks to high heaven, but what does it matter?
And that is called bleeding cancer.
For millions of people the way of stepping out of it in a decent way and that, Crisje knows, in the ‘third degree’ can still be cured.
But woe the person who is troubled with the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh degree, they cannot be cured by cow dung, and Jeus will later explain his own laws and worlds, dear, dear Crisje, because that is also part of his task.
Isn’t that something, Crisje?
Grim Reaper, you will not get the ‘droodles’ here ... you know what this means and that cannot be discussed for your life.
‘Of course, Jan, we will see each other again there.’
Did you hear that?
This is how Jan and Crisje talk.
They will later see each other again.
For these natural lives, there is no eternal damnation,
Also no purgatory, your few sins, even if you have committed murder, you can make up for it again for Jan and Crisje’s Lord, and you also get the Divine opportunity for this.
Is this not just a note for your soul and happiness?
Is that not just music to your human ears?
Yes, just accept that the God of all life, Who is LOVE, and has always been that, does not put you in a purgatory or in an eternal hell, HE cannot miss your life!
You, human being, must go back in order to represent HIM there in everything, for everything, and that represents Light, Life and Love ... also for fatherhood and motherhood!!
You can question this ten million times, and thank the God of all that life and call out: ‘HE is Love!’
However, He will not exclude one spark of Himself from his heavens, because each spark of life, and especially people, has received a Divine independence!
When Crisje and Jan felt and went over all of this, Jan was just skin and bone, his life stank so badly, that the doves on the roof thought: in what kind of rotten world are we now living, it is like the universal manure pit is open.
It was that bad!
They experienced it in the attic, the doves cooed less when Jan was still there, they also knew and understood, we will soon get nothing more from Jan, he is clearing off!
But those good doves!
Four months later there was a stone above the material grave of Jan Kniep and it read:
‘Here rests Jan Kniep in Peace, brother of Gerrit, Anneke, Greida and Willem, may God be with him.’
And also something else ... but that was a part of the Dutch East Indies ...
Jan the colonial was as dead as a doornail!
Are there any things left from Jan?
Here you have everything.
Is that really everything?
Yes, there is not any more.
You see, we would have liked a reminder of Jan; you can understand that, after all!
Of course!
Just take everything, Jan lives in our hearts.
You take the things and that will mean something, after all.
Jan wasted away.
The Grim Reaper ate at his body and it happened infallibly consciously and certainly ...
Just say it, Crisje?
Say it, Bernard?
Did you not go to the funeral?
Did you see Crisje’s boys crying?
Did you not see Bernard?
He cried as if he had lost Crisje.
Did you see Johan?
Did you not see Jeus, Hendrik, Gerrit, Miets and Teun?
Did you not see Tall Hendrik and Crisje amongst Jan’s family?
No, then as a punishment you will experience Jan’s deathbed at six o’clock tomorrow evening, because you will have to learn to think for this and the next life!
People, get out of my sight.
I cannot see you!
It is a pity, but it is the truth!
Do I love you?
Do not believe it!
It is nonsense!
I cannot live any more without you?
Tomorrow, or in only three years’ time, you will be stabbed in the heart!
Do not believe what people have to say to you, only look at their deeds, weigh them, and consider them, because in fifty years they will still succumb.
Only then will you be faced with human cheating!
You will never leave us anymore?
Tomorrow they walk away themselves!
You love me?
I will give you everything?
When it comes to it, believe it, then you will leave, they will throw you out on the street with everything you once gave and were able to give, out of love, yes certainly, or do material things no longer mean anything?
Of course not, no ... only if your heart is in it, then it lives and the material will become eternal of its own accord.
Whether Bach, your Beethoven as well, God forgive me, also your Titian and all those great people of soul and spirit, went under before that, and their precious necks were broken; as if those things hadn’t happened.
Therefore, because of this the world knows, that flesh and blood did not get everything, after all, Crisje has got to know that.
Just doll yourself up ... it is that what’s inside!
That gives colour and shape to the material being and brings it to inspiration.
Only now do the soul and personality speak through the material being and a person is nice, and awe-inspiringly great.
You would now think, those inner feelings are completely indulged by this.
However, Crisje feels that she is not yet free.
On the contrary, they are still there, even though, and that can be felt very clearly, it has nothing more to do with the collar of the Grim Reaper.
It is true, she thinks, when she experienced all that misery through Jan, it was a bit softer, now it has come back with great intensity.
Now her feelings go to Bernard.
The boy knows no danger.
Even if Tall Hendrik is strict and Bernard sometimes sits downstairs in the darkness, Tall Hendrik does not beat it out of him.
Bernard gets his money for a tram ticket, but he enjoys selling this security and jumping on the Zutphen-Emmerik tram.
Jan de Neus wanders through the carriages, from front to back, Bernard and his friends jump on and off, speed past Zutphen-Emmerik and now get on the tram for nothing.
But Crisje didn’t even know that until Tall Hendrik got wise to him, took him to task, which didn’t help anyway.
At the end of the day you cannot beat him to death.
Jan de Neus serves Zutphen-Emmerik in his way.
He knows, eventually those lads will be at their last gasp and all those parents will have troubles.
He punches the tickets and looks, Jan is not strict enough, and there are all kinds of things to see.
“Bennad, will you not cause mother any sorrow?”
“No, mother, I will make sure of that.”
Every morning Crisje has her hand on her heart.
You are powerless.
As an adult, and parent, you have nothing more to say.
Jeus dreamt one night that Bernard was walking around on two crutches.
Bernard was lying under the tram, went to a hospital, and was walking around on those two crutches.
When he awoke in the morning, he still knew about it, but he did not mention it to Crisje; mother has worries enough.
It was a horrible dream!
Crisje is sitting one afternoon behind the stove and slumbers off a bit.
Suddenly she is wandering through the Zutphen-Emmerik tram.
Isn’t Hendrik here?
There is Tall Hendrik and here is Johan.
Where is Bernard?
He isn’t here.
She races through the tram four times and cannot find Bernard.
She screams, but she doesn’t hear it.
Miets wakes up with a fright.
Daydreaming, she thinks, is dangerous, and she is left with a horrible feeling.
But what is Bernard doing?
If only the men were here.
They are home an hour later.
She talks to Bernard, the boy bows to her, but the anxious feeling inside still does not lessen, it eats at her heart.
This morning the feeling is extremely bad.
She has made the sandwiches.
Last night it was freezing slightly.
They race out the door one by one.
Her heart is thumping now, but what is the matter?
Bernard, but Bernard, she should just have kept him at home this morning, if only he was ill.
But what can a person do if you are healthy?
Can a person make a wrong decision about his own life?
No, it is not in your hands.
Bernard has run out the door in the same way as usual.
Half an hour later the door opens.
A woman is standing in front of Crisje, and that is the most terrible human monster they know here.
If she comes round she brings a pile of misery with her and the devils sing in hell.
Crisje, now your anxiety has gone, now you may hear it.
“But Crisje, they have run over both your Bernard’s legs.”
At the same time Crisje is lying on the floor, she succumbs!
Jeus flies out of bed and makes a go for that woman.
He grabs her and, as young as he is, he flings the woman onto the street.
He sees the big person tumbling head over heels twice, but that is for her gossip.
If it had only been other people who told Crisje this powerful news.
As far as misery is concerned, she is always the first.
As far as gossip is concerned, she always gossips and has sullied and disfigured many a person through her demonic character.
Jeus runs away.
He is flying again off the Grintweg, almost breaks his neck because of a height at Theet Hendrik’s, loses a piece of his kneecap, but doesn’t feel it.
He must go to Bernard.
When he arrives there, he sees that they have just laid Bernard on a ladder and taken him away.
Bernard is laid on a table at the house of a family member of Tall Hendrik; the doctor has already been called.
Bernard looks him in the eye.
He asks:
“Does it hurt much, Bernard?”
“No”, he says definitely and consciously, “I don’t want anything to do with pain.”
Jeus feels that his brother is forcing him to look behind him.
There is a sheet lying over Bernard, when he turns round, he is looking at the piece of Bernard’s leg with a shoe and a piece of his trousers on it, good heavens, is that of Bernard?
The sheet is lifted, he is now looking at the leg run over and succumbs, but keeps himself attached to his day-consciousness.
Adults now get to know Tall Hendrik’s Bernard.
The boys laughs, as if he has only had a scrape; it is no more than that.
Jeus changes his mind, he sees that Bernard has lost a piece of one leg and not both his legs, and mother must know that.
“What happened, Crisje?”
Trui assisted Crisje.
Trui does everything to support her.
Tall Hendrik, Crisje, just went to Jan Hieltjes as always, the stop before Zutphen-Emmerik.
Precisely when the tram was approaching, Tall Hendrik couldn’t see either Johan or Bernard, he was at the bottom of the Grintweg and could get on immediately.
The tram goes dead slow there and that monster has to reach the height of the graveyard, for which it has to use all its strength.
Tall Hendrik is sitting in the tram, but he does not feel that Bernard over there, just at the side of the graveyard, is bleeding to death on the street, because Bernard walked a bit towards the Zutphen-Emmerik and there he jumped on it.
Crisje, the footboards are slippery, because there was frost last night.
Bernard slipped between the footboard and a wheel, and dragged along by Zutphen-Emmerik.
If Tall Hendrik had looked to the left, he would have seen Bernard crawling.
Bernard is crawling in the direction of the graveyard and starting to scream.
His scream is not heard by Tall Hendrik, who is having a nice seat in the heat and knows nothing about it; nothing, Crisje.
Even if he is right on top of it, he feels nothing!
What you have already felt for months and which went for your heart, that Tall Hendrik is now on top of, and does not notice that this same Zutphen-Emmerik has run over his child’s leg.
Bernard’s blood gushed against the bottom boards, it had almost reached Tall Hendrik, but he does not feel or see anything!
He is not sensitive to his own blood, Crisje.
That is now something completely different, you know better than that, but there is a very big difference between the inner emotional life and inner feelings and thoughts.
And either you have that, or you do not have that precisely.
It is no more than that.
Johan has just caught the tram at Hieltjes at his ease.
And meanwhile, Hendrik is being told of what has happened.
Crisje hears from Jeus what Bernard looks like,
And that Bernard is not going to die.
He tells her about his dream, in which Bernard went to a hospital and came home with two crutches and one leg.
Crisje thinks about her own dream.
The anxiety has changed to pure and clear knowledge.
The human heart now gets natural relaxation; it is over.
Because now she knows, that Bernard has been tamed.
Life itself has taken Bernard to task, Bernard is now quiet for his life!!
And Jeus had to tell Crisje, on behalf of Bernard, he has no pain!
But what a day.
The urge felt and experienced in her has infallibly materialised.
However, there is still something left.
Not everything has gone yet.
What is that?
Will Bernard still die then?
No, he will come home on two crutches; and she does not need to doubt Jeus’ visions.
Now they must wait for father.
If only Tall Hendrik would come quickly.
Finally, father is here.
“How is Bernard, Hendrik?”
“Bernard is doing well, Crisje.
The doctors say that they have never seen such a strong child.
He immediately asked for a pickled herring.”
Bernard felt a bit weak and had a horrible taste in his mouth.
It is a miracle.
It is not so bad, Crisje.
One leg off.
Right arm broken in three places.
Right leg broken in three places, right arm like a cork screw, hit by Zutphen-Emmerik.
There are no internal injuries, Crisje, he will be home soon, everything is going really well, Bernard sends his love.
How is it possible, Bernard can still get well?
Jeus saw him coming home on crutches.
Now Tall Hendrik hears about his dream, they know about it.
The worst thing, Tall Hendrik feels, they are crossing him.
And for Crisje everything is still the same inside, her feeling has not dissolved either, she feels, there will be more misery.
Tall Hendrik can bow his head, Bernard will no longer sing for the time being.
Jeus is walking about with half a kneecap, and life goes on, the papers are delivered now as well, but it is nearing an end, Tall Hendrik self is not in favour of it.
It is Crisje who gives Tall Hendrik new life.
He seems broken inside.
His future lies in pieces.
Life has dealt him a blow from behind.
Tall Hendrik is strong, but this was a hit, and Our Lord gave him this blow in order to think.
Isn’t that the case, Tall One?
The whole family is in Emmerik on Sunday.
“Good day, mother.
Are you angry at me, mother?”
That Bernard.
They will try everything to keep his knee.
Two weeks later, they give that up and Bernard undergoes a few operations, there is only a little stump left of his left leg.
Life now goes to the right ... That of last week always went left, now right, Bernard will not be a mechanic, but a tailor.
Nine months later he comes home, on two crutches.
Now the ulcers inside start, there are still some splinters in his hip, and they must be removed.
The child suffers terribly, but they now also get to know him as a strong character, you stand there crying.
However, the dash has been driven out of Bernard, he is calm and the whole neighbourhood spoils him.
Good heavens, you should see him.
Is there nothing to pinch?
Does Bernard not fancy a tasty apple?
Will I go and have a look for you, Bennad?
Jeus now goes out to pinch for his brother and brings him nice wine apples; but that was once and never again, they were after him.
Is there still pleasure in living?
Yes, by losing a leg your brains and your inner being have not been destroyed.
That is something else, peace has come to it; they have tamed the old Bernard.
Jeus now goes through hell for Bernard; he lies like a dog in front of his bed.
And Tall Hendrik?
He has become quieter, there is something brewing inside him, it is just like he is grieving about something.
Father is failing inside, all the children see that.
The fire in his eyes, which people are so afraid of, has died slightly, extinguished is something different.
Gerrit Noesthede became involved and gave Tall Hendrik a going over.
They were not used to doing that to him, but Tall Hendrik had to swallow it.
“Cris, but what is the matter with Hendrik?”
“He is hanging down his head, Gerrit.”
Bitters didn’t bring about any change in Tall Hendrik.
Still if you saw him, it was not even noticeable.
You would have to know him longer for that.
Perhaps, did the Grim Reaper sit beside them at the table?
Were the clairvoyants here too involved with poor Bernard?
Tall Hendrik, wake up, accept it!
Crisje and Bernard are now outgrowing you.
However, is that not the Grim Reaper sitting there?
No, but it is beginning to saw and scream inside Crisje: no, it is not that, if only that was the case?
It is languishing, it is something which is slowly growing, and rears also its own head.
It is also something with a strong personality and which sees the chance to torment you day in, day out.
It is something which slowly sucks your blood away, does not give you the time of the day and much more as well, from which you can no longer rest, the tastiest soup no longer tastes good any more,
Your appetite has gone!
You now feel that your prayers do not go any higher than the kitchen ceiling.
That is bad.
That is terrible.
That is something awful.
It is above you and you cannot feel it, but still, it crawls towards your human heart like a poisonous reptile.
It lives there and rests, or it is consciously occupied with suffocating you yourself.
Now it is just a case of waiting to see how it reveals itself!
