A few days later, I meet Anna in the street.

The first thing she says is about Erica.

And when I ask Anna how she is, she replies:

“I tell you, Frederik, nothing will happen to Erica, she will not commit suicide.”

When I ask why she is so certain, she replies:

“We women think differently than you men.

Come on, this way, we will get more peace to talk there.”

She pulls me along.

That Anna, I think, how determined she is and impressively strong.

I start to see her differently too.

I feel that I have made a huge mistake.

I saw her and did not see her.

There is not much left of that understanding.

She was mine and I did not even feel what she possesses.

What a mistake, Frederik.

You were fast asleep.

I really believe that I have awakened.

Otherwise, I would have had my own house, a wife and children a long time ago.

Now I am a shrivelled old tramp who longs for life again?

When we are away from the noise coming from the houses, I ask:

“Now tell me, Anna, how you are so sure?”

She smiles at me and answers:

“Did you think, Frederik, that I would be shocked so easily?”

“I believe you, Anna.

I am now certain that I am meeting you for the first time in my life.”

“My good man, that is because you walk around with your eyes closed.

You are a dreamer!”

A cold shower.

But I believe that she is right.

I do not know for certain.

The things I am saying are pathetic.

“So, all the same, Anna?

Despite everything, am I still a dope?”

“You should not look at it like that, Frederik.

You are a good man, we like you.

I am not saying this to flatter you, you know better than that.

I am not getting at anything, we have known each other for so long.”

“And I just said that I saw you today for the first time.”

“You did not say that, Frederik.

Do you see that you are dreaming?”

I got a terrible shock.

I am therefore thinking aloud and my talk can be heard without speaking.

Nevertheless, I speak to her.

She says:

“You dream too much about everything.”

I dream too much.

It is becoming strange.

I will have to watch myself.

“Are you not afraid then, Anna?”

“Why should I be afraid?”

“What about the symptoms then, Anna?”

“They are very good, Frederik, but every mother knows her own little miracles the best.”

“I can understand that, but you are suddenly so clear.”

“Should I tell you nonsense, Frederik?

I saw all those things differently to you.

I know my mistress, Frederik.

You know that we behave like sisters towards each other.

I love Karel just as much as I love Erica.

However, she will not commit suicide.

She will not jump out of the window and she will not drink herself to a stupor.

For that matter, I have already noticed that she no longer touches the bottle.

But she dreams aloud and that is new to me.

Karel can also hear it, but he is not bothered.

However, these are just trivial things, the big things are still to come, but then I will be washing nappies.

Where I got all this, Frederik?

From my mother.

She had a horrible life and a hut full of children.

There was a world of difference between each child, she used to say.

And all those children had their own character.

Mother already knew beforehand what her child would look like and what kind of character it had.

She said that that was an everyday matter, because it is your own flesh and blood.

It will not allow itself to be fooled, and it will not buy a pig in a poke.

It is the way you feel yourself.

I am watching out, Frederik, but I will not get involved.

I am watching day and night.

So, now I have to go, come to visit soon, we miss you.”

“Women”, she also says, “are different than you men, Frederik ...

Do not dream any longer, but keep some strength in reserve, otherwise you will be of no use to anyone.”

She has gone ... it is sheer poetry.

What a terrible idiot you are, Frederik.

Didn’t you know?

Did you think you knew about people?

A hundred guilders in her savings account as a punishment ...

Good grief ... what an idiot you are.

However, Anna is right.

She feels how Erica is.

I have neglected my studies.

Anna feels the soul of Erica as a woman.

I see her from my creative talents and that now appears to be wrong?

I still cannot believe it.

When I reflect upon it I know that I am right after all, but that Anna feels it in a much simpler way.

If I go into it even deeper, then I also know that Anna is at a standstill and is already thinking about the nappies, which tells me that she does not know the depth of these symptoms, even if she thinks they are an everyday matter.

What she has is from a natural source.

Yet we are faced or were faced with problems.

They are really no longer problems.

Karel is right; it is a process.

Is everything back to normal again?

I will just wait and see!

I go back home and now want to read the letters.

I read:

“You wish to have information for scientific research.

Well, here is my story.

When I was approximately three to four months pregnant I became suicidal.

But I am still here and have a beautiful baby girl.

That is really everything.

Of course, you will want to know where those feelings came from, but I cannot make head nor tail of it myself.

They are there and yet, they are not.

Like myself.

Sometimes I was completely normal but at other times, I was surprised at myself for my strange inclinations.

When I look at my child, I have to say: I felt a part of her.

She sometimes behaves strangely and I start to worry.

But a few days ago, it was as if she was born again.

Now she sings every day, it is simply a miracle.”

I will send her a nice doll and some money.

She is an honest mother but with a bit of a bad temper.

I can see that from her handwriting ... although I am not a handwriting expert.

Writing speaks directly to me.

Another woman has exactly the same symptoms.

She is depressed and has to fight against her suicidal inclinations.

“It is a pressure, a heavy burden, which rests on your shoulders, and you do not know what to do about it.

I now understand that when my son was born, those feelings went away.

I now have four children ... with all the others the pregnancy was different, but there was no question of suicidal feelings.

I had other longings, but they could have been hallucinations.

I was attracted to all good things.

I wanted to be rich, and of course, I was dissatisfied with everything.

The doctor thought it was normal.

And my husband just laughed about it.

I do not want to think about it anymore, because the event itself is a miracle, after all?

It grows in you and it gets everything that you have yourself.

It talks and it is happy.

It is life and soul at the same time.

But one day you will have to lose it again.

I am already afraid of that now.”

Another mother says: “I just wanted to go out.

The house had become too small for me.

If we had had the money, I would have flown around the world.

I saw space in everything.

I flew in everything.

I was the first in everything, and I never stopped talking.

Before I was silent ...

Something changed in me, but that horrible silence has gone from me.

I now live more, and I enjoy life more.

My boy has a good head on his shoulders, a good brain.

It is a pity that we cannot let him study.

I would give anything for that.

Is that perhaps what I felt and wanted to experience during my pregnancy?

It is strange, but you cannot get to the bottom of these things.

They must be of some significance.”

She and the other mother will get twenty-five guilders each.

I will do something about the boy.

But I understand from the letter that he is very young.

Oh well, it will sort itself out!

It is really nothing special.

One feels suicidal, and another has her glass of wine or beer.

The higher social class, which Erica belongs to, has much imagination.

Only some of them behave normally.

I determine that the refined women put on the most act.

Ordinary women accept all these things because they do not have a fussy personality.

There are some that suddenly like animals and others who cannot stand animals any longer.

I sense that these are qualities that are fed directly from the personality.

Hey, Frederik, what is that?

Say it again ...?

It does not sound bad

But it was too fast again.

Other mothers have cravings for a cigarette ... they smoke like chimneys and feel completely happy.

They are stimuli, one woman says, because the growth within you demands everything from your body.

To me, at least, if I am right.

And I believe so ... it is very natural.

There is one ... who even wanted to strangle her child before it came into the world.

They had to go all out to stop her from mutilating herself and her baby.

When it was born, it was half a child.

Did that mother feel everything about her child?

The doctor says: self destruction.

She would probably have stabbed near the baby’s heart because they found a puncture in that delicate little body!

How was it diagnosed?

I see tears on the paper and I also have to reply to her.

For her suffering, I promise her ... a bit more material!

How can it be, how clear ...

Were feelings being expressed here?

I have a lot to think about.

Yet, I am grateful that I have done that.

So you see, you still have your uses, mother.

There are other women who get immediate symptoms of clairvoyance.

As well as beautiful dreams.

And art.

That therefore corresponds to what Erica experienced.

With mild inclinations to destroy the embryo.

And being able to offer resistance to it.

She practices theosophy.

She started it because of her pregnancy.

Now she is experienced and, as she says, a good astrologist.

I personally have no time for it ...

A friend once did a calculation for me, which appeared to be completely wrong.

When I noticed that it still left you searching, it did not mean anything to me anymore.

Therefore, lady, that is all!

The other things are nothing special.

We said goodbye to each other.

Again another mother says: “I knew spiritual and physical poverty ...

I became numb through the baby and had terrible trouble with my kidneys.

I was very anxious and was also bothered by fits of crying.

I did not know what to do anymore.

I had the feeling that something was happening to my child.

Yet it was a bouncing baby boy.

However, at the age of eight, my boy was brought home dead.

Hit by a car and dead.

Should I have felt that beforehand?

We had another one and this one is doing fine.

I hope that I may keep him.

But I will never forget the other one.

I hope that this is of some use to you.”

I determine that these are symptoms, which we will have to examine soon, if we do not want to be deceived by our own sources.

One thing is certain and conscious: the process, the process of growth and blossoming can infallibly predict the future.

Oh, Van Stein, why do you not research this matter?

That stupid process therefore has a supernatural consciousness.

I am pleased with this material, from which you can immediately draw a conclusion.

Why does a doctor not think things through?

It is material for a parapsychologist.

A psychiatrist could also be involved and the psychologist.

I continue, even the spiritual faculties are at a deadlock!

They do not yet know what to do with themselves and they are all spongers!

Why do they give those people a title?

What real use are they to science?

However, that is none of my business.

I am shivering.

I will not cover up anything for them, because they behave so conceitedly and yet they know nothing.

There is another letter and its contents are really special.

The mother is bothered by facial hair during her pregnancy, as a result of which she knows for certain that it is a boy.

And it was a boy!

That process of growing and blossoming is already aware at the age of four or five months that it will have to be shaved.

A thing like that will put Van Stein’s nose so out of joint that it will look bad for him and his kind.

Everything considered; it is worth thinking about.

I ended my research.

I sent everyone who had participated a present and then locked myself up in my own world.

A while later, by coincidence, I heard more things about mothers but I did not feel like getting involved.

It was often worthwhile, but it usually concerned things that we had already determined in Erica’s case.

For example, there was the fact that when a mother was pregnant and one with her child she could say without a doubt what kind of nature it would have.

The child in question is now in prison!

The mother knew beforehand that it would become a convict, and that this child would be out of control.

It is consciously bad.

She has an answer to all her experiences, the sorrow that overcame her and the cursed gnawing at her heart.

Yet again: what Karel and Van Stein call ‘process’ can predict the future infallibly!

Does the child have a soul and a conscious?

It is obvious that the child has a soul, and we know that.

But consciousness?

According to science, that is impossible.

Are we mad or do we have to accept that all those academics still have to be born?

Should they not go to boarding school?

Or is this the conscious of this poor world?

What is it?

Should they not ensure new and better research as soon as possible, keener research to start with, rather than letting all these natural miracles go unnoticed?

I know what they will say; those phenomena are all abstract.

We are going to pieces anyway.

However, they ignore everything!

I do not let it bother me, but at the same time!

I believe that it is not yet time to talk about all these matters.

It brings me to the reality of this superhuman event.

“It speaks for itself!”

Our academics are either calves or they are busy bringing a miracle into the world while they are sleeping.

I should probably look before I leap ... and soon I will be faced with the real facts.

But even so we will see.

If they are right, I will bow my head.

The editors let me know that more letters had come.

However, I thought it was enough and put them along with the others who had served their purpose.

I went to Erica ...

She read them one by one.

She thought I was a genius.

“How can it be”, she says, “that you should think of that.

That is typical of you.

I am really grateful to you.

Karel would never have thought of it.

What a nice letter this is.

I still have a nice dress, Frederik, and she can have it.

Here is some money for her boy ...

Then she will be able to buy some books.

This letter is really sweet, don’t you think?

How wonderful.

You see, Frederik, that we have to start thinking in another way and that Karel cannot justify everything?

What a man that Van Stein is.

Will I let him read this?

Oh, I forgot, I do not want to see that man again.

What a reality, Frederik.

I believe that I am beginning to feel grateful that I have felt that misery.

This letter is sad.

What can you do to change things?

What a terrible prediction.

Goodness ... I think it is terrible.

The rest do not mean very much to me.”

What does all of this mean?

She hears me and asks:

“What does it mean, Frederik?”

“It means that even if the academics define your child’s life in developing, the process is capable of thinking like a human being, making infallible predictions and passing on its feelings to the mother.

Put more clearly ... this brings us to a conscious personality and we can, could accept that the child in the mother already knows where later the beard will be.”

She splits her sides laughing and thinks it is a revelation for me.

Well, it was said and experienced without a doubt.

I also said: “This is connected to all your own problems.

To everything!”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“I cannot put my finger on it.

However, it points us in different directions, where a sun shines and people live, even if they have not yet been born.

I will have to think about it first.”

And I thought about it.

Of course, I did not mention it to Erica too much.

I will be careful, because she is feeling much and much better and is herself again.

After all, I promised Karel.

Something has been proved to me without a doubt, and I do not know what its laws are yet, but I was able to see its conscious life.

I determined that the soul of a person is a great miracle, has intellect and can be considered universal.

I cannot explain whether all of this is for the child, that the mother herself therefore receives a higher consciousness, or that the child is conscious and has its own personality during those months, but it seems possible to me.

I have written in my diary: “Today, I received some letters with astounding contents.

I experienced miracles.

Now I know that I am alive!

I analyse all those unknown things at home ...

I think that is best.

To think about it as much as possible.

I now notice that one thing blends in with another and gets things right.

I heard voices there ...

The facts themselves contradict each other.

However, I am listening properly, until they become crystal clear to me.

Karel’s nonsense is already like a heavenly choir to me.

My university is starting to make sense!

I even believe that I could give lectures in the future.

I think that if I know everything that I will have a name for it, which will sound wonderful, and people will say: how can it be?

I am starting to get to know God!

I had not thought that life could be so wonderful for us people.

I now also know that He speaks to His people.

I picked up all of this knowledge just like that from the gutters of the street!

There are treasures there; you only have to see them!

Anyone who opens his eyes gets colour in his heart and now has to admit that life is rich and varied.

Before I could not see those treasures either, but recently I have opened my inner eyes.

My castle is now wide open!

That is it for now!”

I already said, the rest ... is still in my laboratory ...

However, no one is capable of creating chaos.

My guards are on the look-out!

I send Erica a beautiful basket of flowers.

As well as Anna.

Karel gets his favourite brand of cigarette, Simon Arzt.

I will send him tons of them, because I feel so happy.

I tell you, and anyone who believes me, these symptoms take you back to God.

I repeat, I had not thought that He lived so close to people.

He reaches out to us every second and pulls us upwards.

Then we hear: “Is there something the matter, my son, or my daughter?”

When we fall, He is right beside us!

If we are bothered by inexplicable things, He explains everything to us, has immediately done with it, and places His signature so that we will understand that everything has been reckoned with in His eyes.

Of course, I felt yet again that you have to make sure yourself that those wounds are healed and you need a physical bandage for that.

That is not so bad after all!

I can already hear Him talking, it sounds so wonderful!

I now know those hours, months, years, time and space, have meaning, if you are there yourself.

All of this is completely one!

However, you have to understand it.

I tell you, anyone who picks up the threads also gets holds of the bobbin around which it is wound, so you can look into its origin.

That origin is light, believe me, it is life, the soul and the spirit!

It can pray and it has already prayed before it started having its effect on earth.

I would even dare to say: it even once stood at the altar and said Mass, before it itself came to life.

It is the breath of His breath, the growth of His growth.

I saw all of that lying in the street.

Oh, how grateful I am to Him!

What a day.

It was wonderful!

I am practically bursting with happiness!