RENÉ has now started drawing.

He pounced on his prey like a wolf, I have never seen anything like it before.

The child was really hungry for this drawing material, which gives a lot to think about.

It is as if his soul sees and appreciates it as food and drink, but we cannot understand it.

You would be amazed at all the things he puts together.

You see lines, of course, it begins with that.

However, there is a purpose, a calculation, which can be observed, this is not drawing aimlessly, his young and old soul is thinking.

He just lacks routine, I believe, and then we see paintings emerge.

He is also already hanging up his rough paintings.

Anna was given a few, Erica’s room is full and I also got his examples of art.

He does not touch his food and drink because of it, as it were.

He draws greedily, I do not have another word for it.

He prefers to mess about with bright colours on the paper.

No one is any longer allowed to touch the box of pastels which I bought for him, it is the most precious and beautiful thing which he possesses.

We say: thank God ... we have peace again in the house for the moment, just let him get on with it.

Karel now also sees that this gives his soul some relaxation.

I paid attention to everything.

Of course, to those last curls, as a result of which those notes were born.

It seems that they try to give shape and space to the whole, but after a few hours I thought differently about it.

Then I saw a different picture, which made me think and which only I knew and recognised.

I stand next to him watching, but I have to go.

He does not tolerate any spectators.

They disturb him, according to Anna, who has to leave the room as I do.

When he has to come downstairs for some food, I nip into his room.

What do I see there?

A little landscape ...

I see a picture there of a meadow with one tree.

Guess what that is ...?

When the object, the picture is lying like that in front of you, you see nothing in it.

What is there to see if a child daubs down a piece of ground and a puts a tree on it?

That rough carry-on up there in that tree, Frederik, I said to myself ... are your and René’s blossoms.

The child is busy portraying his subconscious?

It cannot be any other way.

Now I immediately understand his hunger, his thirst for drawing and painting.

This is another foundation for me!

My God, how cheap everything is, you get it all for nothing.

I thank You!

Then there was something else, which interested me intensely.

Imagine a little garden, a little fence, a chair with a doll in it, and on top of that doll a very small doll with a kind of hydrocephalus-head.

In front of that little gate someone else on long legs, a bit shady, ready to run off.

Under the drawing it says ‘boeha’.

Not René, but boeha ...!

What did you say?

Children draw just like that!

What is inspiration? I will come back to that later.

This hit me right in the face.

The drawing stabbed me in my heart, so much that it forced me to kneel and to thank God for all of this.

People can call me a simpleton, I did it!

Erica asked me why I was so quiet and Anna thought that I had been sleeping badly lately, but they were all bothered by it, Karel had something for me.

However, I do not need Karel’s art.

His crazy son’s art is better, it means more to me, it speaks to my soul, spirit, life and heart, it suddenly knocks the mask from your head.

What did you say?

I was upset by it.

I tried everything to be allowed to get into that drawing-phase.

I tried telling him that I was extremely interested in it and that I also knew about some really nice chalks which I would soon buy for him when he had got the hang of it better.

Then René asked me:

‘Do you like them, Uncle Frederik?’

‘How can I like your drawings when I am not even allowed to look at them?’

‘What?

What did you say?

Is that not allowed, Uncle Frederik?

Just come, I would like that a lot.’

You see, there you are again, as usual.

Did I say that?

Did I say, Uncle Frederik, that you were not allowed into my room?

Did I close the door to you?

Did I behave strangely, really?

I do not believe any of it, you just dreamt that.

Just come in, I would really like that.

They are good, don’t you think, Uncle Frederik?

I will make one for Anna.

Could you call Anna.

Let Mother just come as well.

What does Father say about it?

It is a list of questions ... but what can you reply?

I already know: nothing.

Just run off, I know you.

How amazing a human being is, a fool.

He has been busy for days.

Not one hour is wasted.

He does not want the school boys to know.

That is not normal either, another child likes to show what it can do, not he.

However, that horrible chap is drawing.

As far as we know, that is his inner life.

I no longer know how many of those chaps we already know about.

Then something else came.

The things which have nothing to do with the daily consciousness are exactly the ones which get shape and meaning through and for him and which he models.

I saw a little head.

You know what a thing like that looks like, a round circle with eyes, two lines for the mouth, some curls and Bob’s your uncle.

However, under it I read ‘Marja’ ... it was written clearly.

Where did he get this name from, as a result of which is he already able to write?

He has learned a few things from Anna, I also taught him some things, but this?

A moment later he dashes over to me and says:

‘Here, Uncle Frederik, let's see how you get to the top.

This is your path.’

Thirty-two lines and a line along it decorated with bright red colours, a surface, a painting on the wall.

Above and below on the stairs a few dolls.

One of them is lying stretched out on the stairs, the top one is sitting.

It is a mystery to me how he managed that.

However, we know that scene, it is just a few days behind us.

That is René!

I get it from him, my staircase, my climbing upwards.

How can it be.

That is a drawing in daily consciousness!

He was sitting there sleeping.

He slept deeply and we know what happened at that moment.

Everything has meaning for me!

Erica and Anna were not aware of it.

They think that he is just daubing.

Karel thinks that his things are very boyish.

However, if we go a bit deeper?

Must I kid myself that this is all imagination?

I see here that a half lunatic portrays my thoughts and dreams, or whatever it is.

This messing about is worth a fortune to me.

I also know that this has nothing to do with occultism, is not spiritualism, even if it is drawn by the little devil.

This belongs to him and is tuned to his life, his soul is revealed through this drawing.

The diary therefore states:

Experienced more miracles today.

René is a genius!

I will not only be proved right today, but tomorrow and, God willing, for years to come as well.

Or is this not a child prodigy?

Have all those parents of healthy and crazy children understood the messing about of their children?

Did you see that little devil?

Did you recognise the little fence and the mowed lawn, Frederik?

Of course I did!

These things take me back to thousands of matters.

If René transforms inner feelings into line and colour, why should a child inside the mother not be capable of passing on to her what it is feeling?

You see, Frederik, we are laying stone for stone on top of each other, I am climbing upwards like René, my path, it is my life.

Underneath it says ‘boeha’, as an indication of that through which he experiences all his troubles.

He draws from his subconscious, which is a world to me.

I was sitting in that world, took him on my knee.

Is that subconscious?

Is that subconscious so within our reach?

Do we live as a result of it?

Do we act as a result of it?

Are we in the middle of it or just outside of it?

René is already proving that.

As a result of that very ordinary mess, adult people like us get served the spiritual goods.

However, then we are capable of getting to know ourselves.

How deep the soul of a human being is then.

How many spaces does the soul possess?

I could carry on asking questions.

These are miracles.

We have not yet reached the end.

René is a spiritual child prodigy!!

In the days that followed I was not able to discover anything in particular anymore.

He is now also drawing chairs and tables and dogs and cats and colours in the animals.

When he paints trees they are not green but gold.

I also understand that.

In this way he passes his free time drawing, painting.

He tidied away his things neatly, no one was allowed to touch them.

I paid attention to whether he took his drawings with him, but no, because the boys and girls were not allowed to see them.

I assume, in the first place afraid of criticism, but carefully thought-out.

The inner life does not wish to be understood, it is the little devil.

That sends from inside the command: watch out.

That is why we had to leave the room first.

This phenomenon has to do with his strange behaviour.

As a result of this we speak to the fool.

The fool in him wants to be alone, not René as a material person.

He wants to talk.

He wants you to look at his things, the unconscious is afraid of the conscious person, they are two worlds in one and yet posses their own soul with its own personality.

This is how I see it.

It will also be like that.

I shall wait and see again, but I received amazing foundations.

I am starting to see behind his mask precisely because of those drawings.

The mask betrays itself.

That was the fear!

This is the self-preservation in the human being, crazy or healthy, all life, in whatever degree we are, has it, takes care of it and watches out for it.

I can accept that.

The last few days at school went well.

We bring him and collect him and may not complain.

When he comes home he races upstairs in order to draw.

It seems that he cannot get enough of it, he lets rip so passionately.

When we thought that we had made it, a storm beat about our ears, we hear bears growling and a jackal howling.

Erica and I saw snakes and Anna was also really upset again.

The child has been upstairs less than half an hour when we hear a terrible creaking.

I dash towards him and see that he is tearing up everything which he had made the past few days.

Another strange thing, I thought, he does not want anything which does not concern his subconscious.

It is a battle of life and death.

This is the continuation of it.

Just let him do what he wants, what he can, tomorrow he will go to pieces, because the daily consciousness is fighting with the unconscious or subconscious.

People call that crazy.

Honestly, we have had moments when you would swear that he was normal.

Now this misery.

He is foaming at the mouth.

He lashes out, is as strong as seven others, he bits and hits like a wild man.

He bit Anna’s arms, he almost gauged out Erica’s eyes.

I took him in my arms and held him but he tried to wriggle loose.

The end of the story was that he was tied in bed with a straitjacket which Karel had had made for him.

Little René is lying there.

Asleep ... exhausted, the child knows nothing about it.

The women weep again.

Karel just wants to talk.

Now he says again:

‘Do you call that a spiritual child prodigy, Frederik?’

I was expecting that.

I cannot say another word, of course.

They are right again.

However, René is sick.

What should we do?

Karel does not know.

We shall wait until tomorrow.

Anna brought him his milk, has a talk with him, but does not get an answer.

I try it, he does not utter a word.

Erica comes, it does not help.

René is deaf and dumb again.

Weeping women, a tension in the house, misery upon misery.

Will this come to an end?

What will this be like?

I have had to listen to this at least ten times: is this a child prodigy?

Whether I am or he is, is no concern of theirs.

Both René and I are.

We are both crazy.

Everyone actually.

Then it is a question of wait and see.

In this way we talk all day.

However, there is no change.

He is lying there stock-still, as if the storm has raged, the bears were shown the door, the jackal has been smothered in his howling.

However, there is something else, we do not know what it is.

We wait.

René does not touch his food and drink.

After three days new life enters this soul.

The machine is starting to operate again.

He asks me:

‘Is it raining outside, Uncle Frederik?’

I say: ‘No.’

‘May I go into the woods with you then?’

‘Why of course, why not.

It will do you good.’

‘How was school, Uncle Frederik?’

‘Fine, René.’

‘Were you beaten and kicked, Uncle Frederik?’

‘Not me, René ... were you?’

‘They started on me, but I got them.’

‘Just a moment ago?’

‘No, tomorrow ... it will be tomorrow!’

‘I see, tomorrow.

Would you like something to eat?’

‘If I get it?

Is Mother not there?

Or Anna?

How are father’s patients?’

‘Fine ... do you want to see your father?’

‘I do not have to become a doctor, do I, Uncle Frederik?’

‘I do not think so.

But why not actually?’

‘I find that being ill so horrible.

Did the chickens get new clothes yet, Uncle Frederik?’

‘The tailor has started on them.’

‘Oh, then it is okay.

Now my milk ...

Anna???

Anna, can I have my milk?’

Anna and Erica rush into the room at the same time.

Here is your milk, dear.

René gulps it down.

He wants some more.

We see that he drinks five glasses in a row.

Now his egg to follow ...

Anna soon comes back with his egg.

He says:

‘We also have things like that, don’t we, Uncle Frederik?

The chickens are like Mother and Anna ...

Father is sleeping, otherwise he would lay a lot more eggs.

I like them.’

Anna and Erica are downstairs again.

They feel that they are no longer wanted here, men belong with men.

It would just upset them.

I listen ... What do I hear?

Something else new ...

Pity, what a pity, it was going so well.

When I ask him what he is doing, he says:

‘I am wetting the bed ...

Anna is there, after all?’

Now it will become a mess, I think.

I really had not expected this.

It will be a dirty mess.

What a pity ... pity. But Anna has already put him in the bath.

I watch and conclude that the wild part has gone from his life.

His eyes are a bit dull, yet there is something flickering there which I do not like.

It reaches you like a lighthouse light, but it is immediately dark again.

How difficult it is to understand this life.

Are all fools like this?

Suddenly he asks you fluently and consciously for different things, adds something himself, since it is spooking in his brains which are very tired.

A moment later he is deaf and dumb again.

The bath and the food have done him good, the body and the soul are tired, tired out, the human organism falls into a deep sleep.

Just sleep, just rest, then you cannot get up to any mischief and no one will be bothered by you.

I shall go to my room and have a think.

Hours pass like this, sleeping, eating and drinking, now and again a bit wild, and we are forced to stay and watch him and tie him up.

There is no question of going to school.

Yet this life scrambles upwards again, you see him walking upstairs, downstairs, you see the personality resting and behaving wildly.

The weeks pass like this, there is no progress.

He does not think about drawing and painting, it is as if he has never held a pencil in his hands.

I believe that he has aged, I am starting to think that all these things will open him and bring him to awakening.

He knows that he is a man.

He smells of the eggs ... smells many times, but does not say a word.

I know that!

I know it from before.

Many boys have wanted to get to know this problem, we are all the same!

However, he thinks because of it, it is spooking that brain again, you will see.

Within an hour the house is in an uproar again.

He is lying quietly in his bed, suddenly climbs out and breaks a window with his shoe.

Then he bangs on the doors and tries to hit his mother and Anna.

I get involved and the end of it is: straightjacket on.

He wanted to tear that thing apart like a dog, but it seems to be too tough for his teeth.

He did not manage it.

The life in him wants to be free, but is at odds with the entire society.

It is hopeless, we decide.

We think that we are not making progress.

Karel is already sorry again that we started him drawing.

As if his soul hears it, enjoys it, he asks me the next morning:

‘May I draw again, Uncle Frederik?’

‘Do you want to draw now?’

‘What do you mean you ...

A bit more respectful, Uncle Frederik.

Can you ask again?’

I say to Karel: ‘What do you think?’

‘What do you think?

Must we put up with more misery?’

‘I myself, Karel ... have a different opinion.

Just let him.

We got peace as a result of it in any case.’

‘I notice that.

I do not know anymore.

My God ... where will it end?’

‘We have also talked about that so often.

Just leave him be.’

‘He exhausted himself mentally as a result of that messing about ...

I think that I will start treating him again.’

‘Don’t do it, Karel.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he is already taking himself to task.

You will only beat the body.

The soul will suffer because of it.’

‘Since when did you understand lunatics and patients, Frederik?’

‘I do telepathy, Karel.’

‘Oh, is that so?

But what do you want?’

I had not wanted to tell him anything about what I knew, because he laughs at everything anyway, especially if it is something new.

I fathomed his situation and said:

‘René will heal himself, Karel.’

‘What do you mean, put your cards on the table.’

‘You know what happened a few weeks ago.

The incident on the stairs.

He has drawn that climbing.’

‘Nonsense, Frederik, hallucinations.

Exaggeration.

Prove it then!’

I fetch the drawing.

‘Look ... that is the staircase, the wall, the rail.

He is sitting upstairs and downstairs.

When this thing was finished, he said: ‘It is for you, Uncle Frederik.

Just go upstairs, or just see that you get to the top.

And I have already started crawling upstairs.’

‘Don’t make me laugh, Frederik.

You are starting to become childish.

Watch out for yourself.’

‘That is all very well, you can tell me what you like, Karel.

But what about this?

Will you come with me?’

We count the steps ...

‘Thirty-two lines, thirty-two steps ...

Then you are upstairs.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Do you not understand anything then, Karel, or are you just pretending?’

‘Good grief, I do not understand what you are after.’

‘Quiet, quiet ... take it easy, stay calm.

René drew this staircase.

I saw that there was a similarity.

I counted the steps and it was right.

Does this simple messing about not mean anything to you?’

‘No, nothing ... not a jot, if you wish to know.

I am too sensible for it and thank God, otherwise I will come to grief as well.’

‘I thank you for your honesty.

But just wait.’

I fetch the drawing on which Marja is written.

‘Look, Karel, another strange thing.

A bow for a head, lines for eyes and a mouth, the little chin descends and looks like nothing.

That is Marja.

René is sitting on the staircase and is talking about this little head.

She and I ... we ... together.

I do not know yet whether that is nonsense.

However, where does a child like that get such a clear name?

All nonsense?’

‘Are you trying to drive me mad, Frederik?

Should I start to consider my child as supernatural?’

Erica comes in, she hears us and says:

‘I really do not understand what it was, Karel, but I saw into a universe, so nice, so beautiful, so incredible were his eyes, his look, his whole little face.

I thought then that I had given birth to an angel.

And now?

Everything is gone again, an animal could not behave like that.’

There we are again.

I also have something to say:

‘Whatever it is, Karel, do not react to anything again.

Wait and see, but do not ask me anything else.

A large question mark?

It is your own business, but leave me alone ...’

René is drawing again.

He now see things differently, he devotes himself to drawing cups and saucers and colouring them in.

I have to admit that he manages it.

Will it stay like that?

However, now I see that the daily consciousness has beaten that unprecedented wonderful ego.

As long as it works out.

Only two days later ... all hell broke loose again with finally: tied in bed.

Food is no longer necessary, he only wants some drinks.

Karel took him to task after all, he sees the child growing weak before his eyes.

That is not good.

Now we wait again ... we follow this life, it is an odd state of affairs, at least for them, not for me!

‘We are now on a journey’, it says in my diary ...

‘We have a lot behind us, I think that we are approaching the jungle.

Those panthers and brown bears are not so bad after all, snakes are more dangerous ... because they lie under the grass and suddenly go for you.

Anna was wounded by them; I patched the wound up again with some bandages.

The logbook is kept by me.

Karel stokes like a born pulverizer ...

The man who takes care of the food supply, I believe, I do not know exactly either.

However, we are on a journey.

It was long ago when I predicted all those things.

I do not know whether this is predicting.

Yet you would say that this has become ‘knowledge’ and as a result of a certainty which interprets things so infallibly and passes them on to you, just as René has to experience that.

We have yet to experience whether there is a difference.

Received a letter from Hans today.

He is getting married there.

We shall see Hansi.

He has already had the real celebrations there.

What we will have here is a belated party for all of us.

I am very curious as to what kind of woman Hansi is.

I have the feeling that she would rather see the back of us.

However, I could be entirely wrong.

Yet I am afraid.

Something within me warns me, tells me: watch out, Frederik!

It will probably be the case’ ... it says now ... and I go to sleep.

René has been taken care of ... everything is quiet in the house, we are not lacking in anything, but we catch our breath.

Every day there is something else.

I will never tell Karel anything again.

It is not so simple to look behind the masks.

I now know that what to me are revelations, they shove aside just like that, into the gutter.

If it is at all possible, they even lie down beside it.

Then you hear:

‘Should I look upon my child as supernatural?’

No, not you, I will do it.

I am happy that he is not involving Hans.

I do not know what it is, it just comes into you and warns you then.

I do not know, yet it exists.

What is all of this good for?

I will find a name for it.

I believe in everything and trust in the future.

It does not concern me what they think of it and what they pick up of it.

If there are shots, they will waken up again.

I am sitting for a moment in front of the logbook.

I note: I am the man around whom everything actually revolves.

I make sure there are bullets.

If I was not here, there would already have been fights and one would have consciously murdered the other.

As a result of trouble and misery!

What I used to experience years ago I now see around me and is lying in bed with a straightjacket on.

Even before it was born, this life let rip, so that broken pieces flew around you.

Now it is drawing, it is painting ... just like before, but more clearly, and still they say there is nothing the matter.

They do not see it, because they do not want to tear off their own masks!

That is the way it is!

We continue.

Palm trees above our heads, a stream is murmuring in the distance.

I can see shadows.

I am looking for the tree in blossom.

The carriers are afraid, not a good sign, but I am at my post.

I become sleepy and lie down to rest.

What a lot an old person can put up with.

Yet I feel like twenty-four years old.

I now hear something ...

Who just said ‘good day’?

Oh, it was the clairvoyant, the star.

Your nonsense will not become true!

René is still alive!

I am still here and I sold my house last week for a good deal of money.

There was therefore no fire, but I have known that for some time, because my neighbours were not there.

Who else?

What else?

Nothing more.

Goodnight together.

Can you feel this silence?

It is silent, yes, silent ...!