RENÉ has come home and namely with the flowers which I was able to see months ago in that other world.

I did not believe it myself, it was a wonder again for my life.

A yellow daisy protruded from the bunch, as if it wanted to say:

‘Do you still remember it?

Must you also destroy this again as a result of your disbelief, your searching in the universe?

Did you think that everything was fantasy?

I am a foundation, Uncle Frederik, I belong to that which already received a place in your university.

Did you not know that?’

Karel and I went to collect him.

The doctor was very satisfied and he had to get out for a while; the bond with the family must not be broken.

When we had him in our midst, he came with his flowers, which he kept anxiously hidden under his jacket, because one of the boys would probably reach for it.

He told us that he had picked them a day beforehand for Mother and Father, Anna and me and there were enough.

The child had changed startlingly.

He told us nice things and that he was allowed to draw and paint again.

He asked me whether I still knew about those nice coloured pencils, he had almost used them up.

Karel was over the moon.

He said to me:

‘Do you understand that, Frederik?

I cannot understand it anymore.

Today like an irresponsible, like a lunatic ... tomorrow completely good and healthy.

I do not know anymore!’

‘I know’, I said, ‘we may not complain.’

And I said to René:

‘You will get nice coloured pencils.

We will buy them together.

’To which he says:

‘Uncle Frederik, will you show me those beautiful paintings?’

I look at Karel.

What now?

I ask him:

‘Which beautiful paintings do you wish to see, my boy?’

‘Which were hung up ... which we may see ... which we can see ... because the male nurse told about them.’

‘That is possible, René, we will go and see.

Of course, we will not forget that.’

Do you understand this, Karel?

No, you don’t, neither do I, but they are good signs.

He is starting to think, I say to Karel, and let him know that he feels a great deal, about which we still think that he has no knowledge of.

But we are making progress!

The child looks around it.

It sees everything and thinks.

He has got a nice face, the eyes are sharper.

The lips point to willpower, the forehead also to inspiration, intuition, or what is it?

He appears to be narrower, and is much bigger, he is growing towards the universe.

Karel almost devours him.

I see tears of happiness in his eyes.

This is now his mad child!

Karel ... just devour him, I know your feeling as a father, I know what you feel, what you possess in love; but this life?

This life is precious to all of us, because it is so beaten, was so beaten and is not yet sure that that misery has taken flight.

However, all of us together can take on that monster.

If we may elevate him to us, even if we know that he will soon have to return here, we will be making progress; this life is for all of us, the faith, hope and love!

Karel rides in such away that sparks fly.

He wants to be home with René so soon, it is fear ... if this life was to sink back again on the way.

He wants to make Erica and Anna happy.

And it is going well, he rides fast and carefully.

I think about everything, little René is also thinking, asking questions is over again.

The child knows that it goes to Mother.

He has already become nine years old ...!

What did he say to me again?

It was his birthday yesterday?

That yesterday belongs to his soul universe, not to this where we are now.

I just surrender that, the answer will come one day.

When the car stops Erica and Anna run towards us.

René lies at his mother’s heart.

However, after her kisses Erica presses him into Anna’s arms; these women have one child, possess one life, for which they will die if necessary, which causes an itchy feeling in me and Karel.

We have already had our share, suppressed that feeling, which appear to be impossible for the women.

These waterworks have received colour and shape, they come from the maternal life and being, I believe, these are the flowers of the human heart which the Messiah looks at, whom He will accept, because they are cultivated as a result of misery.

Everything is ready, we eat and drink together, René also joins in.

We are extremely interested how he will now be at the dinner table.

When I still think of the terrible hours, when he got up to pranks at the dinner table, made us miserable since he threw everything and the splashes flew around our ears, Karel forgot himself and almost beat him to death, this is now a bliss to the eye and a happy feeling for the heart, because it concerns your own flesh and blood, which has come back to the human normal.

He talks a great deal, is deathly quiet a moment later and is probably thinking about the things of the day and everything which he was able to experience there.

He has asked me ten times already whether I will show him the paintings.

Erica and Anna are already prepared, they know what is feeling and longing for now.

I thought so, that drawing and painting does not leave him alone, it is a part of his life and must come back to him one day.

Karel will now know that this child will never become a doctor, the soul is now already revealing itself as a result of art, the feeling of creating and bearing.

And we now find everything fine ... he may do what he wants, the sooner we are rid of that trouble the better.

We know one thing, we have him in our midst once agin and no one will take that away from us today, it is so certain!

After dinner silence comes.

He withdraws; in what, we do not know.

Karel takes him with him, he wants to see how René will react to everything.

They have already been gone for half an hour, then he comes back and we are curious again as to how he has absorbed the ‘self’.

Karel says:

‘You would say that he has not been away for one second.

He knows the places where he used to be, he calls to a friend: "Oh, that Piet!"

And that Piet calls: ‘Little René, are you home again?’

Which means happiness to him, the smile on his face proves that.

I do not know, I could be wrong, if only this is not too good to be true.

You are not sure of this life for one second.’

The child is extremely busy.

We do not have enough hands to be able to take care of him.

He runs through the house, sits for a while in his room, races downstairs to do something, which he cannot find after all.

When I ask what he wants, he says:

‘I am looking for my drawings, Uncle Frederik.

I must have them, do you see?’

‘So, do you need them, and what do you want with them?’

‘That’s something.

I want to see them.’

I now outplay him.

I want to know whether he remembers something from his past.

I say:

‘Do you not know then that you tore up all those drawings yourself?’

He looks at me disconcerted and says:

‘I?

I tore up my drawings?

I?

I do not believe that.

Where are they, Uncle Frederik?

They are not in pieces, are they?’

We hear that the child really doesn’t remember none of the dreadful past.

I do not think that he knows anything about all that commonplace carry-on and I do not want to know about it either.

‘Come on, René, there are still a few left.’

We are in my room.

I get the things out of a cupboard and give them to him.

The boy races over to his art and kisses the pieces of paper, kisses everything which is on it and calls out:

‘How happy I am, Uncle Frederik, that you kept this for me.’

He goes to his little room.

Just for a moment, then he runs downstairs and shows them to Anna and Erica.

‘Look, Mother?

Isn’t that beautiful?

Are these just as beautiful?

How happy I am, how good of Uncle Frederik to keep this for me.’

And immediately afterwards:

‘I do not need to go away again, do I, Mother?

Hey, Anna, I do not need to go away again, do I?

Well, just tell me?

Just tell me?

I do not need to go away again, do I, mother?

Do I, Uncle Frederik?

I will ask Father about it.

Fine, I do not need to go away again.’

He says it himself and goes upstairs.

I follow him.

I see that he is starting to look at those things seriously.

I have kept the drawing in pastel with the gate and boeha.

René looks serious, it lasts some five minutes, then he looks at me and says:

‘Did you think, Uncle Frederik, that I had forgotten boeha?

Had you forgotten him?

Now he does not come anymore, does he, Uncle Frederik?

No, he does not come any more, does he?

I am so afraid of him.

Oh, it is so cold there.’

He comes to me and places his delicate hands in mine.

I could weep from happiness.

He takes the drawing and rips the thing.

‘So’, he says, ‘that will not come back again.’

It is as if the child is putting the past behind him.

And then he asks:

‘Are we going to buy nice coloured pencils now, Uncle Frederik?’

‘That is a good idea, René, we will go and do that now.

Come on, go to mother or Anna to get you dressed.’

He has already gone.

When I come downstairs, he is already waiting for me.

Erica thinks it is wonderful of course.

When we are outside and meet his former friends, when he hears the ‘Oh, hello, René!’ he starts to think and he must wonder after all, who are they?

The boys know him, have not forgotten him, he opens his memory door and asks:

‘Do they also draw, Uncle Frederik?’

And then again:

‘And when are we going to look at the paintings?’

‘We will do that first now.

We will go and look at the paintings and then we will buy nice coloured pencils.’

I go to the town museum.

He will see beautiful paintings there; it is a passion which has received life and conscious early.

It is a good sign, as long as there is nothing behind it, of which I am afraid.

Such conscious feelings always upset him.

That goes too fast then, it is too inspiring for his character, he loses himself as a result of it.

We can now prevent that, but he continues to ask, asks just as long until you decide, fine ... just go on; even if you lose yourself as a result of it, go on, we cannot prevent it anyway, neither can you.

Just break the lot, just throw, then we will start another life again.

We enter the museum.

I now get to see him as an art expert.

We are standing in front of an old master, one from the middle class, for which the world now pays little money, the class which represents for me the third or fourth grade for this art and of which the very greatest has reached the fifth, sixth or seventh grade, a selection which I cannot explain further.

I happen to see it like this.

When we are therefore standing there looking, René suddenly says like an adult:

‘Isn’t that wonderful, Uncle Frederik?

Isn’t that beautiful?

Oh, if I could do that one day!

And look at that!

Just look, Uncle Frederik, look at those trees, that light!

Isn’t it beautiful?’

The boy sits down, he must sit down for it.

He is no bother to me, I have a great friend with me who feels for art and also has an understanding of it.

I believe that he is years older.

Or could he be imitating the male nurse.

I ask him:

‘Did you see art in that place, René?’

‘The pictures, Uncle Frederik.

Now I see the real one.’

Well now ... these are the real ones, he knows that.

I also know, but thousands of children of his age do not yet know that.

He is behind the children and at the same time he towers above his own age.

I see his genius, it can do nothing but grow and blossom.

I am mad with happiness, even if he soon breaks the lot to pieces, even if he plucks the feathers from the chickens this evening or tomorrow, even if he ‘boehas’, that our hearing and seeing perish ...

This feeling which he now possesses tells me that René is growing, is getting better!

Art awakens in this life.

What Mozart experienced, experienced as a child, is psychology to him!

What was converted into music by Mozart as a child is boeha to him ... is strange behaviour for René, his supernatural world, everything which adults like us still know nothing about, because we have completely destroyed our self; our eyes are blind, they no longer see that light!

I am starting to understand him.

Every note, interpreted by Mozart, is now an inner phenomenon for René.

God knows that this mankind will have pleasure from what we will still experience with him.

What Mozart brought for hearing and feeling, this ‘spiritual child prodigy’ brings for the soul to our life.

This life is awakening!

How happy I am.

He says:

‘Look at this sea, Uncle Frederik, I think it is so beautiful.’

You should hear that word ‘beautiful’.

He says it as if it received a separate form deep in his heart.

It has become fluid of life.

That word sings sweetly to you.

It has a loving sound, now it gets space, radiation, art, as he says that.

I devour him.

I press the boy to my heart.

He now appears nineteen years old and has feeling for old masters.

He looks at them in order to eat them, his heart is full of them.

Is this child still mad?

I know all too well what this means, we may not cheer too soon or there will be a damper again on this happiness.

Soon he will throw things and break them again, the life will rage like a storm and the straitjacket will appear again.

However, am I proved right again?

Oh, I am so happy, because now we behold the normal.

I do not trust his boeha a jot.

He is standing in front of the painted Christ.

I feel silence in his life.

He looks so attentively at the crucified Messiah, as if he feels that suffering and that inhuman sorrow and wants to experience some of it.

It is just as if he is asking:

‘Why did the people do that?

Why are you so beaten and tortured?

Why and just why ...!’

The child is moved.

He asks me:

‘Is that not Our Lord, Uncle Frederik?

Did they beat Him so much?’

‘Who told you about His life?’ I ask.

‘But the male nurse and teacher.’

‘Which teacher?’

‘Now ... you know, the teacher from before, where I was beaten so much.’

He still knows his past and has apparently forgotten none of it.

It still lives under his little heart.

And yet, how much conscious was then in this child, while we thought that it was completely mad?

How much feeling was in him, when he got a bloody nose and he was rolling over the street with the boys?

When we thought that he was not there, the child looked to us and asked for help, but we did not hear his calling, we were deaf to it.

It tells me that he still possessed day conscious for so many percent, otherwise he would have no longer felt that teacher.

He still knows about it as if it happened yesterday, proof for me, that he can still experience some of his self in everything.

The silence in him can be felt here.

He cannot get enough of the Christ.

The eyes of a child pierced a dreadful past.

A childish soul descends into inhuman suffering and sorrow and wants to know something about it, which is not of this world.

I believe that he is praying, his lips tremble, he would like to embrace that figure.

Just look at his little face.

I hear inward groaning; I must free him, release him from this picture, this world, it beats his being.

‘Look here, René.

Can you see those beautiful plates and glasses and those apples and pears?

Can you see that loaf and the herring and that egg?

This is a still life.People call it that, because material things represent life.

These things mean something to a painter.

Beautiful, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Uncle Frederik, I wish I could do that.’

‘If you do your best, you will make it that far.’

Isn’t it amazing, it is just like an adult.

The child completely absorbs all this beauty.

‘Just look here, René.’

‘Oh, I understand it, Uncle Frederik, this is a landscape.

A windmill and a large field, with cows.

It is beautiful, don’t you think so?’

‘Very nice, René.’

‘Oh, I think it is so nice, Uncle Frederik, I really love paintings.’

Is it not enough to cry until your tears run dry, I think, when you hear this child?

And he immediately asks:

‘I do not need to become a doctor, do I?’

‘Who told you that, René?’

‘Father is a doctor, after all.

And does Father not want me to become a doctor?’

‘We will ask him.’

‘But I want to draw and paint, Uncle Frederik.

Oh, it is so beautiful.’

It is the cry from his soul, nothing can be done about this, it is a great happiness, that the life is now already revealing itself.

His whole self, his personality is art and no one sees it.

What does such a beautiful flower hope to achieve?

He cannot get enough of it, his little life is open to revelations, which border fantastic worlds and which adults like us call a mad carry-on.

I used to see this foolishness with myself.

Everything is hopeful and pities do not exist!

I imprint this in my memory and do not want to lose it again.

I push him towards the door, it has been enough, but when we are outside he asks whether he may have a look at Our Lord again.

I say: ‘No, later!’

He releases himself, and a moment later he already asks:

‘And now we are going to buy coloured pencils, Uncle Frederik?’

‘We will now experience that, René.

Come on, you will have them and paper for which you are buying those coloured pencils.’

We have arrived at an art shop and can buy coloured pencils at the same time.

He is looking at the art again.

I hear him say aloud:

‘What rubbish this is.’

The owner hears him and he says:

‘So, is this rubbish?

Do you wish to destroy my wares, brat?’

René goes pale.

He looks at me, he asks me whether I will defend him.

I say:

‘He is right ... because just a moment ago we were at the old masters.’

‘What did you say?’ the man asks.

‘At the old masters?

And can that little man already see the difference in art?

Now see ...!’

I give him a wink.

Do not go too far, leave it at that, just enough for a child.

We pick out some coloured pencils.

A box of chalk, paper to play about with.

He knows what he wants, he sees differences in art.

What cannot be determined by overgrown children is written in black and white for him and he is not mistaken.

Another expression of feeling to be kissed ... I no longer know him, this is a conscious being, who is far ahead of his time, it cannot be any different!

When we are home he races upstairs.

Erica and Anna – Karel is not there – must know how he got on.

Now that they hear everything from me, they do not believe it, it is too good to be true.

And yet, it is the truth!

We just let him mess about.

Meanwhile I record in the logbook:

Experienced wonders again today.

Our René is healthy!

Yes, we know, that will not remain, but it is still there.

I am being proved right in everything.

Slowly but surely we are going to a better place, there where the oranges grow on the trees and it cannot be a warm climate, which is also a wonder in itself.

I just mean, that we have solid ground on earth, ground under our feet.

Is that not amazing?’

The boy has really exceeded my expectations.

I believe he penetrated the Christ; as long as that does not mean that it is too much for him.

I have the fullest confidence; we are moving towards strange possibilities of feeling?

I must first see it.

We will probably know soon, because I believe that he has dissolved into his drawing.

Of course we are on the lookout, we watch out, we are all on the watch: none of us will go to sleep as long as he is here and we are enjoying his life.

This little soul is experiencing a wonderful eloquence.

He can talk like an adult, he immediately saw that that other art had no meaning.

I can still hear him say that is rubbish, and yes, those pieces cost seven guilders and fifty cents!

Art is awakening in René, material and spiritual art.

I was proved right today and yesterday!

People did not believe me before.

Not now either; if you were ask them outright, I do not believe that you get to hear a straightforward yes.

But what do they want?

Today it is a feast in my heart, also in the hearts of both mothers and in that of our big boy, Karel!

Happiness, oh, my God, I will tell René everything about Your Son!

Everything, so that he will also help to carry Him!

Evening falls, we may not yet see his drawings and we will also give him that honour.

Within five minutes he is sleeping.

When we are downstairs, Karel smokes his cigar and I have lit it, while Anna and Erica are busy with their ties and socks for the child, the tongues loosen and it is René this and little René that.

‘What do you think of him, Karel?’

‘What do you think of it, Frederik?’

‘Do you not think it is any wonder, Anna?’

‘Is it not enough to make you feel happy?

My God, what a time we are having, after all, how happy we are, we possess everything in this world.

Isn’t it the case, dear husband?

Little Karel, my Karel?’

‘Stop it’, says Karel.

‘Quite enough, Frederik would say, do not exaggerate.’

I say to Karel:

‘He is afraid that you will let him become a doctor.’

‘Even now?

And he asked you that?’

‘In the museum, Karel.

He is full of his paintings.

For that matter, those thoughts were never away from him.

He still knows everything about the teacher, also about that severe beating, everything.

But he is afraid of being a doctor.’

‘You do not know; if he will continue in this way?’

‘You will forget it, Karel.

Art lives in him.

You cannot do anything about it, it is for him just as it was for Mozart, the soul lives it up.’

‘You surely do not want to compare him to that genius?’

‘In no way ... but I am talking about the feeling of the child, the revelation of it, nothing more, but also nothing less.’

The women agree with me.

You see, then you stand completely still again with Karel.

He cannot think any differently.

It is such a bang again in his ditch.

We are used to that, but you strand completely, the conversation is suddenly dead, smothered.

You do not know now what you must begin with.

Karel himself feels it and now says:

‘We will see, Frederik.

Wait and see, we have not made it yet, although I admit that he is amazingly conscious today.

I am satisfied and would be able to feel happy, if we did not know that gent.’

Erica also has something to say and she flings at his head:

‘You are like this now.

Yesterday you could not get enough.

Today there is already a damper on it – in such a way you will suppress everything.

You cannot ever just catch your breath.

I tell you, as far as I am concerned, he will fall back in five minutes.

What I now see gives me every hope.

I believe that Frederik will be proved right in everything.

He has always said it. I do not know whether he saw things in the future, but his analyses, Karel, highly exceed yours.

When we had let our heads droop, had hit our heads against the ground, it was Frederik who gave us ground under our feet again.

I will not let this happiness be taken away from me, you are still in the minor key, but that makes me sick; I am suffocating in it.’

‘Wait a minute, quite enough, dear, I do not mean it like that.

I am allowed to give my honest opinion, amn’t I?

Or I must dance for joy.’

Anna also says something and she is suddenly also on the mark, because we hear:‘

You are ungrateful dogs.

Instead of happiness you are making a squabbling match out of it.

You should be ashamed of yourselves, ashamed!’

‘Look at that Anna’, says Karel ...

‘You are right, children.

May I treat you this evening?

Will we drink to René’s health, Erica?’

‘Yes, do that.

And yet?

Why must people always drink if they do not want to lose the health of their friends and own blood?

But I don’t mind, just go ahead, what about you, Anna?

You like a drink too.

Just get that French wine, Karel.

‘Le Chateau le Critique’, isn’t it, Frederik?’

‘That’s the one ...!!

Just pour it in, people approve of that on high.

As long as you do not forget the poor.’

Karel comes back and pours.

Hans phoned a while later and says that he will come tomorrow evening.

He wants to see René.

Next week he will be out of town again ...

He is busy with his professorship.

‘He will get it’, Karel says, ‘you will not recognise him any more.

How that man has changed.’

Anna asks:

‘In the right direction?

Or must he go looking again for a Hansi?

Those grapes are too sour for me.

Ugh ... the things people like.

Cheers!’

‘What is he smudging at now?’ Karel wants to know, to which Erica replies:

‘We may not see it yet.’

‘And are you allowing that?’

‘Why would we cross him, Karel.

I think that a child has the same rights as we adults.

As far as I am concerned, I wish him that fun.’

‘And what do you think about it, Frederik?’ Karel asks me.

‘I see it like this, Karel, if this is nothing else, I must see it as inner awakening.

What does an artist do who is busy?’

‘You are exaggerating again, Frederik.’

I do not need to give him an answer, Erica is already there, she says:

‘Do you call that exaggerating?

Do you call this exaggerating?

Frederik is right.

I would act in exactly the same way.

It is respect for art’, to which Karel roars with laughter and lets slip:

‘That is good ...

That on top of everything, tomorrow it will be the old masters.

Won’t it, Frederik?’

I save the situation, because I feel that Karel has something and is irritated as a result of it.

When I ask: ‘Have you serious ill patients, Karel?’, I smack him to the ground and he bows his big farmer’s head again, because he feels that I see through him.

‘Yes, Frederik ...

this evening, I think, one will be leaving me again.

It is a diabetic.

I think that they will soon call me.’

He looks with his head to the ground ... stares into space.

And not even four minutes later the bell already rings.

Whether the doctor can come.

He asks me:

‘If you wish to know, Frederik, whether people like us possess a soul, you can now enjoy yourself, this is the end of a searching soul, who has never found it in her life.

Forgive me my irritations, everyone has his traps, his ups and downs, don’t they?

What do you want, Frederik?

Do you wish to go with me?’

‘Is that possible?

The people know me here and will know, after all, that I come out of curiosity?

Is that possible?

Can you justify that, Karel?’

‘You are right again, Frederik.

I can and may not do that!

They would think that I am mad.

But that opportunity will come again and then I will not forget you.

I also have something for you, that must also mean a great wonder for you and I now already know that I will give you a happy hour with it.

What do you say to a birth, Frederik?

Does that seem a good thing to you?

You, who between life and death set up a tent in order to work out how many pilgrims pass by every day to go to God, must find this the highest thing of all for your life, your study, your task for soul, spirit and material.

What do you feel?

Are you already trembling?’

"It made me go cold all over, Karel.

Good heavens, do you know exactly what a person carries round with him all his life?

If it is possible, it is not inhuman again.

You know me: I do not want to hurt parents.

Or do you think that it is pleasant, to let a stranger look at what is the most sacred thing for you?

What would you say, if I was to come and look at your wife, because her doctor thought it was so nice to allow a friend to see her birth?’

‘I already feel ashamed, Frederik.

My vision on life must change.

I agree completely with you!

I think that I will never learn it.

But tell me honestly ... is that not the most wonderful thing for you that there is?’

‘Karel, if that happiness could be given to me, I would not wish to experience anything more.

As far as dying is concerned ... that is something different, I have already seen so many dying.

In my arms they went to the same tent and I closed those eyes ... you do not yet know me, after all.

You do not yet know, after all, where I have been all my life?

Do you know what you have taken in by giving me a place in your midst?

I do not care about small feathers now, I have enough in my cap, I also wish you some.

But ... a birth?

To be able to follow that calmly and courteously!

I have certainly seen hundred of little black babies being born.

I received that life, Karel, but if you think that there is a difference between black and white for these sacred matters, I will go with you and you will give me the happiest hour on earth.’

‘Get lost as far as I am concerned ...

You never know where you are with you.

It is as if you are a thousand years old.

Is there nothing which you do not know, Frederik?’

‘You started it yourself, Karel.

Can I help it that I ended up in the middle of the jungle and they made me a doctor for all those black people?’

‘What did you say?’

‘They made me a doctor, for better or for worse, Karel.

This is how I saw little black babies being born.

And how nice ... you should see those little black heads.

How they scream!!’

Karel races out the door.

‘I think’, Erica says, ‘that you have now murdered him.’

And she asks me:

‘Did you mean that, Frederik?’

‘Of course, Erica, did you ever hear me telling things which I sucked from my thumb?’

‘No, not that.

But what in heaven’s name have you not been?

Where have you not already been, Frederik?

What do we actually know about your life?

Nothing.

Tell us something, Frederik.

Well ... do it.

You have never told us anything about yourself and we are continually faced with the facts.

You come out with the most incredible stories at the most unexpected times, you keep on confronting us with a new miracle from your life.

You step from one life to the next just like that, you understand everything and you behave awkwardly and naively.

I admit, you used to be like that, you have changed a great deal, but you tell just like that, as if it has no meaning, that you helped hundreds of little black babies into the world, while Karel just wanted to surprise you.

I believe, Frederik, that you have now killed him.

But now tell us about yourself?’

Anna also looks, but she says nothing.

She does not ask and waits.

I say:

‘Well, children, Hans and Karel have heard something about it.

If I tell you, that in the middle of the night, with the moon crystal-clear and full in the sky ... the Sphinx at my feet, I wanted to climb the Pyramid with a ladder and the Sphinx said to me: ‘Kid, where do you get that impertinence from, how dare you to venture behind my back to climb the most sacred of the very sacred for my and your life as if it is old rust?

You would tremble and shake if you knew why I am lying here watching; you would be ashamed, weep until your tears ran dry and you were stone-dead from sorrow, poverty and misery, if you knew how much sorrow you bring me.

Kid ... go back home or I will have to punish you.’

And then I took to my heels ...!

I have told it differently, but you do not tell all the most sacred things of your life just like that to other people, who make fun of it at the end of the day.

What else should I tell you, children?

I have seen something of this really beautiful earth.

I had money to spare for it, I had everything, and what do you do then?

Really, I was in the jungle, I saw black babies being born, but you do not make a show of such things, do you?

Honestly, I have never seen a white person, everything is black in and around us.’

Erica does not give up.

She asks:

‘Just continue, Frederik.

Give us that fun then, we never ask you for anything.’

‘What do you wish to know, madam?’

‘Do not start with madam, or you will go.

I want to know something about yourself.

When René was not yet there, I kept hearing you say: I am just a layman.

Looking back on it, you are ahead of all of them.

They know nothing, Frederik.

Why did you feign ignorance?’

‘I am still ignorant, dear!’

‘You are not, is he, Anna?’

‘I am as I am, Erica and Anna, you either are there of you are not!

Do you know, Erica, what you called heart to heart talks, what heart to heart talking was for you and for which you could not find any words, I am now experiencing that.

I am starting to understand what it is.

Little René taught me it.

Really, it is a wonder.’

‘How did you suddenly discover that you could hypnotise?’

‘I did not discover that, Erica.

‘Hypnotism’ came over me, brought me to action and thinking.

I still do not know it.

But I believe that it comes to me precisely when I want nothing to do with it.

And that tells me that you get all these things for nothing so to speak, for free.

It is something special.

Well, the things we were able to experience.

Believe me, I had forgotten that again.

However, we do not know what it is good for, for what we will use those powers again one day.

I will just wait and see, you cannot bypass yourself, everything reaches revelation at its own fixed time for your life.

I was able to see and experience a great deal.

Good grief, I have to admit, sometimes I laid it on thick and then it was apparently unapproachable for other people.

Really, I was almost a doctor, almost a magician, almost a yogi, and now I hope to become an ‘Initiated’ under my own power, as my dear Ra once said and came to me through the Sphinx.

You should have heard when that ‘but my kid’ flowed over those lips.

Just as René can do that, if you hear his ‘beautiful’ you could devour him, Erica.

You stare into a world which you have never seen before: my God, children, how happy we are.

I heard him say ‘beautiful’, believe me, I have not heard it before, it was suave, no longer improbable, but supernatural and conscious, as people like us do not yet know.

You are simply in flames as a result of one word and you would be capable of entering a funeral pyre!

Yes, you find me excessive, I tell you, it was just like a space, he said the word in such a hollow, such a round, such an artful way and it rolled over his lips.

For my part I am happy with everything which he gives me.

Now you can see that something else also lives in him.’

‘Who is that Ra, Frederik?’

‘Are you not ashamed, Erica?

You must know that.’

‘I have forgotten.’

‘He is an Egyptian Deity.’

‘Oh, but how far from home you are searching.

Does René also have something to do with it, Frederik?’

‘What makes you suddenly think that?’

‘I thought, it is just like he has those Egyptian phenomena.

I have already read about it.

I mean those things with those priests.

I will tell you honestly, I do not like that to-do.’

‘If I hear you talking like that, I think of the Sphinx.

You would think that you know something about it, yet that is not the case, I am also just a layman.’

‘You see, you are always like that, Frederik.

Isn’t he, Anna?

I think that you have an inferiority complex.

You are the opposite of Karel.

Karel wants to outstrip everything, you go into your shell as a result of one word and then pretend as if you do not have a clue about it, but later you kill a person with those same things.

I do not like that, Frederik, you must not humble yourself too much, just come out with your things.

You know how we mean it.’

‘I am who I am, Erica, I cannot do any differently.’

‘That is not true, Frederik.

You have a talent for thousands of things. Karel is right, you should have become a doctor.

Science lost a genius with you, I believe.’

‘For shame, for shame, what a right-thinking person you are.

You would think that you are right.

Me a doctor.

I can already see myself, I would go to pieces any second.’

‘You are just kidding yourself about that.

You take a delight in keeping quiet for years, what you can say at the same moment and which is of use to people like us.

But you do not do it.

Is that good, Frederik?

I do not believe that you will go to pieces, you can think.

What would we have done if you had not been there?

We would have experienced murder and manslaughter.

Karel was impossible.’

‘Should I have told you everything about our misery in advance?

Did we not see the brown bears, the jackals, the snakes?

Should I have filled you up with all this misery?

Should I have ...?’

‘Just stop it, Frederik, you are right.

But you can open yourself more, you can tell us more about your life, can’t you?

You have been everywhere, we have not.

I must honestly admit that we were at our wit’s end.

I had succumbed.

But, Frederik, where are we now?

How far are we actually on our journey?’

‘I believe that we just have the jungle behind us, my children.

We are now faced with a journey through the desert on camels.

And that is not so easy too.

It can be infernally hot there, but in the evening we lie looking at the moon, we dream, we experience wonderful things and we are one with night, life, immensities, of which we will be a part.

We then hear fairytales and listen like little children.

I see Anna sitting there under the one tree and you back to back with Karel, but high above us we hear the chirping of a bird, the little animal calls to us and says:

‘Drink a lot tonight, tomorrow you have a heavy journey in front of you.’

We take a walk through the desert, we look at our own shadows and feel now for the first time how wonderful life is.

I pick daisies and violets, forget-me-nots there, but you will not believe me anyway, make two wreathes for you and place them on your head.

Now I blow a bit, I make a pleasant wind, I actually kiss everyone in my sleep and thank Him above for everything in my life.

I believe that I will not sleep then, there is so much to think about.

The tree has oranges for us, the fruit, as result of which you can quench your thirst and to which your inner life is opened.

If you now feel your heart beating, you will know that the human kiss walks in sandals and can explain proverbs.’

I wait a moment.

Erica says:

‘Could you not do something to a guy like that, Anna?’

I continue, I want to elevate these two souls into the childish part of my being, so that they see forget-me-nots before them.

‘The guide, Erica, is with us, I hired him from the king of Egypt.

The man once received the golden medal for coming home too late, but you will not believe that either.

He was missing for a fortnight, but this man reappeared again and asked what was actually the matter.

Why had they worried so much, was he not a child of Ammon-Ra?

He also possessed great magic powers.

It was he who gave an invisible dove material life.

That dove, which received life from his hands just like that, then flew back to the inhabited world in order to bring his message, because people there thought that terrible storms had arisen, which obstructed his progress.

And there were storms and so severe, that the whole desert became a foaming sea.

You will feel, that is even worse than on the water.

You no longer have anything to hold onto, the only stream that is for you to drink from, is now transformed before your eyes into a puddle of mud and then there you are.

No fluid, you are dying of thirst and you cannot quench your thirst.

If you have to experience those desperate hours, believe me, then you will start to think differently.

What were forget-me-nots a moment ago, have now changed into the whining of a desert rat.

And they can whine, that your hearing and seeing perish.

You cling to each other and you no longer know now that you are alive.

You will certainly feel it, the roaring of a storm like that makes you mad, you lose your life, death stands before you and says:

‘What do you want now, screamers?

You see, if I just let myself be heard, be seen, then those big mouth close of their own accord and you are as afraid as anything.

I really have to laugh at your human talks.

But I will add a little extra, I want to put an end to your talk for good, your boasting, I will shatter your arrogant self.

Can you hear my scream?

That was my laughter at you, screamers.’

The people, the men and women, are now almost mad.

However, the guide came and said:

‘What does that noisy eater want?

What does that man want?

What does that depraved being hope to achieve?

Look, children, with one blow I will bring joy and happiness into your hearts.’

And it happened.

He puts out his hand, and look, silence, peace, the people lie under the trees and are better off than ever.

They all dream, they are nice to each other and want to devour each other from happiness.

What a guide, is he a human being?

And yet, did you see his mask?

Did you see his will, his face?

However, at that moment his little dove came back.

He calls the little animal and reads the message which people also gave for him.

I can still hear him saying it.’

‘What did you hear, Frederik?’

‘He said: ‘Faith, Hope and Love have everything in them which He created.

However, try kicking out against it?’

‘Is that all?’ asks Erica.

‘All?

Should there be even more?

We understood it immediately.

If you kick out against all those sacred matters, children, then you kick yourself and everything from Him to pieces as a result of which you received life.

I will just tell you what we thought we heard, which he kept precisely to himself.

Because now we had betrayed his secret, because one person had already almost murdered the other person in order to drink the last little bit which was still there.

Then I felt: now kick out against Faith, Hope and Love and you will succumb yourself.

He wanted to let us feel that you have no trust, no faith, no hope; we look at a mask, which is death, but with which he plays cards and always wins as well.

And that was his little dove.’

‘What kind of person was he, Frederik?

And are you trying to kid us that you experienced a journey through the desert in such a storm?’

‘You see, you do not believe me anyway.’

‘Yes, just listen, Frederik, if we had to believe all those things, then you would certainly be a thousand years old, it is so much.’

‘You see, your lives are behind.

I was with that group, which experienced one of the most severe storms then, which was experienced there in the history.

I had already known him for so long.

We had got to know each other at the Egyptian court.

I was on the way to buy vegetables for His Majesty not in a tin.

A vegetable which protected against pest, against cholera and more things.

I had to make that journey for that purpose.

Have you never heard of messengers of the Lord?"

‘Are you kidding us, Frederik?’

‘That is always the same thing.

You cannot listen.

I am telling you the sacred truth and you do not believe me.

You ask me to tell something about my life and when I do it ... no use!’

‘Continue, Frederik, I do not mean it like that.’

"But you take me away from my dream, Erica."

‘So fantasy after all?’

‘Fantasy?

Is a journey like that not a dream?

Do you call it fantasy, when wild tribes wander around you in order to murder you?’

‘Is it true, Frederik?’

‘As true as I am sitting here.’

"And what is a messenger of the Lord?"

‘A courier ...

Erica, have you never heard of that?’

‘So you were a courier?

A courier?

My God, how interesting.

Tell us about it.

But you talk about Majesty, do you mean that you were a courier for William III?’

‘Now I really have to laugh at you.

But it tells me that you take me for an idiot.

What do you think about it, Anna?’

‘I do, Frederik, I believe everything from you.’

‘Thank you, Anna.

I was a courier and I would buy vegetables for His Majesty.

I said king, but that does not mean anything.

You must not know everything either.

I sometimes distort things that much, because you will go onto other matters anyway and let us be honest, the poetic also wants a new robe.’

‘You are a born writer, Frederik.

Are all those matters in our logbook?’

‘You see, Erica, you cannot listen.

If I tell you something, your soul thinks itself and that must not happen.

You must stick with the story, with the events.

What difference does it make to you if this is a king or a queen?

I was out to get tinned vegetables and I was to order them somewhere, for which I had to go through the desert.

The whole story now seems like kale with bacon ... if you wish to know.

I have floundered!’

‘That is a pity, Frederik, try it again.

I will keep my mouth, my trap shut.

Go on, continue.’

"I was the messenger of the Lord.

The dove which came back had the message that I must change my plans and must leave immediately for the Canaries.

From there I had to go to China and Japan.

I had to make use of the first station, or opportunity to separate myself from the troop, and immediately travel on.

In addition, there was a letter enclosed from my boss, who sent me out as a spy as it were.

And I flatly refused to do that.

To be brief, I did not go to China, or to Japan, well, I went there, but for fun, for myself.

I thought, just convulsions, you people there on firm ground, just drink your wine, I will go for myself.

I travelled on with our guide and learned a great deal from him, since I rode next to him day and night on our camels.

And then he told me about his invisible dove.

I said then:

‘I can hide behind that.

Because this is not a real message, is it?’

‘So, he says, did you think that?

Do you know who I am?

Do you know what I can do and why people give me control?’

I said: ‘Well ... may I know why?’’

‘Did you understand that man then, Frederik?’

‘We spoke English ... he spoke it as his own Arabic.

And then he said to me:

‘Dear Frederik, have you never heard of Ra, Ré and Isis?

Have you never heard of the Sphinx?

The Pyramid of Giza?’

‘Of course’, I said, ‘I have read so much about it.’

‘Well, I am that!’

‘You are that?

You are Giza, the Sphinx, Isis, Ra, Ré and all the Goddesses there during that time?’

‘I am that ...’, he said proudly and pertly, and then I also believed that he had taken me for a ride.

And at that moment he said:

‘So, did you think so.

Do you think that I am telling you stories.

Did you think that?

Look here, Frederik.’

He holds out his hands in front of him.

My God, I thought, how wonderful that man is.

The Egyptian Lotus lay in his hand.

‘Can you see that, Frederik?

That is my Goddess.

I am thousands of years old.

Do you want to see my love?

Do you want to see my happiness?

Do you want to know who I am?’

‘Yes, please!’ I said.

‘Well, just look ...!’

And I now saw the whole of ancient Egypt around him.

I saw temples and buildings, we went in and out.

At that moment I experienced a meeting of the priests, who lay quite simply kneeled at the feet of the Goddess and received Lotuses.

I saw that Queen before me.

And he ... this human being, sat next to her on a beautiful throne.

Around the throne were wild animals, who listened to him and the Goddess like lapdogs.

Then I heard singing, and when that was over, they received their food and drink.

I tasted delicious, fragrant wine.

"Anyone who wants to follow me", says the Goddess, "eat and drink of this matter."

I never discovered whether this has to do with what the bible says.

Then we went outside.

The moon was high in the sky and I had never seen it so full.

Blood-red.

The Goddess said:

‘Oh, my happiness, where were we born?

I will come and sit at your feet.

I will undress, because I want to be as you are.

Mother ... mother ... can you inspire me?

May I precede the others on your path?

The progress for my life will get your blessed view.’

She kneels down and falls into a deep sleep.

The others follow.

And what I see ... I see them again as small as butterflies.

They have beautiful colours, as René can say that, they fly around and visit the Pyramid, the Sphinx.

They go upwards, they climb that Pyramid, they want to enter the tower room, there where life begins and ends, although there is no end or beginning.

They know that, they know that they will soon be released from the material.

I see those little butterflies becoming bigger and bigger, they are just like people.

And now I can also see it.

Then our guide said:

‘Can you still see me, Frederik?

Look there, I am becoming myself!’

And I saw him.

Beautiful, wonderful, in a shroud like I had never seen before, sparkling, wonderful.

He says: ‘Do you know now?’

‘I know, but what were you actually there?’

‘King, Frederik.’

‘And do you wish to show me in this way that you are eternal?’

‘People like us are eternal, Frederik, but you must not want to possess it.’

‘I do not understand that’, I said.

‘It is very natural, Frederik.

What I was there, I am still now.

But when I go into that, what I am actually no longer anyway, people lock me up and I am an abnormal being.’

‘Where did you get that wisdom from?’

‘You possess that as well, Frederik.

That lives in every being, you must awaken it.’

‘How, if you wish to help me?’

‘Remain a child, Frederik!

Look into everything that was created.

I got myself to fly.

Believe me, the little dove, I am that!

I went to have a look to see whether there were more messages for me.

I can do that, but you can do it as well, a desert raven is capable of it, if you have the Faith, Hope and Love to be it!

But enough about that, or you will never be free of it and that will break your neck, Frederik.

I have lost thousands of those treasures.

And yet I am still here.’

And then he closed himself off completely to me.

No matter what I did, not a word passed his lips again.

When we had completed our journey and we were to part, my journey was to take me elsewhere and he had to go back with a new caravan, he also said:

"Go back to your country, Frederik, and educate the good in spirit, so that you too will experience the opening up.

My heart and soul greet you.

You can count on me in hours of danger.

Do not share it out, do not go into it or you will never make it!

And never forget: it is the Lotus!

It can give you all of this, but lay yourself at its feet.

If the word comes to you, Frederik, then you can climb the Pyramid.

If you hear the word coming to you, then you must listen carefully.

Know then, it is the Sphinx!

Nothing else!

Goodbye, my friend, goodbye, we will never be alone again!’

He wanted to disappear, but I also ask:

‘Show me it, let me know it.’

He immediately took over what I thought about.

He took hold of my hand, held it clasped in his in a special way, walked around a bit with me and said:

‘If the ‘light’ is life, Frederik, and you can feel that everything in our existence is Love, it will come to your heart and you will feel it.

Now there is no more need to doubt ...

you can feel it!

And go now or you will fall asleep.’

What an idiot I am ...

What a zebra, what an ass I am.

My God, I could give myself a beating ... what a brute I am.’

‘What is the matter, Frederik?’

‘Nothing, I could give myself a beating now.’

‘Why, all the things you said there are so wonderful.’

‘It is not that, children.

Something occurs to me just now.

What a dope I am.

What poverty, what a canine instinct.

How can it be.

No wonder that God says: ‘You?

When you are right on top of it you still do not know it?’

I am a bundle of misery, if you wish to know.’

‘But what is the matter with you, Frederik?’

‘Nothing, children, nothing, but I will think about it.

I am a dope!

My God, what an oaf I am.’

We do not hear that Karel has come in and was listening all that time.

He says:

‘Who was that, Frederik?

Are you describing all of this?’

‘I also already asked him that, Karel.

It is wonderful.

You could give him what for.

And now he wants to give himself a beating.

Can you understand that?’

‘Who was that, Frederik?’

‘My guardian angel, I believe, Karel, but I never saw that life again.’

Karel laughs, Erica is furious, because she thinks that I want to destroy everything again and crawl back into my shell.

She asks:

‘Frederik, was that man capable of bringing about a storm?’

Karel looks again, he thinks: he's laying it on thick again!

He sits down and listens.

When I tune into his life, I smell a death.

It is a black aura, which I find dirty and which seems slimy.

‘What a death’, I utter.

Karel already understands it.

Erica also understands it now and asks him:

"Has the time come, Karel?"

Karel nods ...

Erica asks me again:

‘And tell us, Frederik!’

‘Truly, Erica, he put his hand out and it was no longer stormy.

But different to what we think, you see.

The stilling of the storm happened from inside out.

And it no longer stormed, it had not even stormed, he gave you power and strength, faith, hope and love for yourself.

Then there was silence and we thought about something completely different.’

"Do you know, Karel, that Frederik has made a journey through the desert and that he has been a messenger of the Lord?"

‘What kind of nonsense have you told this time, Frederik.’

‘Nonsense!’ Erica explodes: ‘Do you call that nonsense?

You should have heard the story.

Frederik was a courier for His Majesty.’

Karel bursts out laughing.

‘But Karel ... you do not believe anything at all.

Tell him, Frederik!

We would like to hear it ten times, wouldn’t we, Anna?

How that man can tell stories.

Karel, you should have heard that.

Frederik is just like an oriental prince.

Oh, the things we will still experience.’

‘When I tell you, Karel ...’, I go into it, ‘that I spent four days and four nights – now listen carefully to what I say, and this is much more interesting than your diabetic who passed away – that I spent four days and four nights with a real Sultan, and that that man showed me his whole doings, as far as the ladies of his harem, you will not believe it, then you will laugh, then you will shrug your shoulders.

I swear it to you.

A human being will never forget a time like that!’

Karel is now lying at my feet.

I have killed him I believe.

He can no longer cope with me, he does not know anymore, but says:

‘If you tell me, Frederik, that you are the sultan of Morocco ... I will believe you immediately.

Man, stop it, or I will give you an injection.’

Erica and Anna come to my aid, Karel cannot take anything again, I believe that the diabetic is out of it.

And precisely out of his hands, which he can never cope with.

Erica says:

‘Oh, Karel, you are putting salt on wounds again, why do you do that, we were having such a wonderful journey.

Always ruin – you ruin things.

Just leave it.’

‘Do not fuss, child, Frederik and the ladies of the harem?

Don’t make me laugh, it is just like a fairground attraction.

You let yourself be deceived in everything.

Frederik and a journey through the desert, do you still not know him?

Certainly to Rijswijk ... just like that night of his to the Pyramid.’

Karel is dejected.

This is the real Karel!

He is bursting inside from sorrow.

It is not actually that either, he is more in rebellion.

He is in conflict with his patients, his task as a doctor.

He hears them calling: your makeshift measures do not help anyway!

Just work it out for yourself, I am going!

You are botchers!

We can read it from his mask.

You should see him, just like a wrecked being.

But this is the best self, he stands naked before death, but it is also poverty.

I tell him:

‘You see, Karel, people like us can, when it comes to it, only hand in empty letters.

You are just like Hans; a fuss about nothing, telling stories, you can do that.

Adding notes to corpses to which you never receive a sufficient answer.

You are powerless and you do not want powerlessness.

You want to have life and death in your hands.

I can see you already, good heavens, how you would let rip.

It is good that it did not come that far or poor wretches like us would no longer have a life as a result of the academic, you did exactly what you wanted yourself.

But it is not yet that far.

Did you think that you could fight against a death?

You must wish a human being it, to die.

You must start to see that this is necessary.

You must be able to overview an illness beforehand.

You must know what you can do for a patient and what is not possible, Karel, you will then always remain yourself.

You keep no reserves for your existence, you want all or nothing, but you must be able to compromise in this.

You will sense what I mean.

What you want is boasting.

You cannot accept that a human being disappears under your hands.

Give me that little hammer of yours in my hands and I will tell you how much life your patients still possess.

What you hear is the material sound, but just listen to that which you can feel and listen to inside?

Now you feel differently about it.

It is as a result of this that you can no longer believe in stories.

Your laughter is now diabetic.

You no longer have common sense, but you have talk about me and other people.

Childish joy means nothing to you.

But we know, Karel, your pure love throws you out of balance.

Keep your chin up, Karel, see things differently, see them as they are.

I know, many of you keep waging a battle of life and death – but that just happens to be necessary.

You are too good a doctor.’

Karel thinks, but a moment later he says:

‘You are right, Frederik.

I do not want to lose life, a patient must get better, but then you are faced with that mask.

That did not use to bother me, it did not affect me.

Now I am destroyed by it, I already go through death months beforehand, the patients follow you and that drains you.

But all that work, all that toiling is for nothing.

You never have certainty ... never; anyone who has that is an excessive dreamer.

I honestly admit, that you hang with everything in the universe.

I wish I had never started it.

I’m sick and tired of that eternal pill pushing.’

‘You are lying, Karel.

You do not mean what you say.

You are it or you are not, you are it for a hundred percent.

You are capable of giving your life for a patient.

You are now capable of doing what did not use to be possible for you.

Or do you not believe that?

We see, how your life has changed, don’t we?

Before ... well, before, then you were a brute, a vet.

Now you are a doctor, now you and the patient are faced with problems.

You talk with your children, you tell them about your own life, you give them support.

The patients used to walk away from you, Karel, they did not need your natural harshness, they did not want that emptiness.

And now?

Now they see you as a human being.

Now you are a doctor as it should be, before you were a conceited guy.

Before you beat hearts to pieces, you broke symptoms of illness, but you forgot that they were experienced by people.

Before you were busy kicking people into your ditches, you had the greatest fun when you saw how they crawled out again covered in mud.

But usually you were long gone.

Now you no longer do that, you see, you know that you can love people and that a human being is not a cow!

Do you want to make comparisons?

Good, we may also do that.

And all of this is in your favour, thank God, you changed for the better.

Just break your neck, Karel, just die for your patients, just give life and soul to your patients, also bring them flowers if necessary, even if they laugh about it, heaven knows how you mean it!

We would rather see you like this a thousand times over, than that your patients leave you, for another, because Doctor Wolff is a vet.

Have you forgotten all of that?

Are you not capable of being childishly naïve?

Did you think that you would lose your personality as a result of this?

I bet you – I bet ten thousand to one guilder – if we were to ask your patients, what do you think of doctor Wolff now, what was that other one like years ago?

And which one do you wish to come to you?

I assure you, Karel, flowers from love and gratitude, frankness, human joy, happiness, which you get from your patients, are worth more than a little castle, than hundred of thousands, if you ask me.

Serve now, Karel ...

I would have liked to have been a doctor ... if only to support those sick hearts, to pump them full of my own emotional aura, love, a kind word.

Now I am pleased that I am not a doctor, because I like you cannot accept that going to pieces for one hundred percent.

And yet it is necessary ... you are it now and you will have to make of it what can be made of it, you can no longer do anything else.

But I assure you, later, in years to come you will think differently about it.

You are capable of great things, Karel.

Doctors are made of this stuff!’

He butts in on me and says:

‘Big talk ...

Frederik ... you give me too much, I am not like that.’

‘You see, Karel, this is the false part of your own mask.

Sometimes you push everyone into your corners, then it is precisely you who wishes to crush them to pieces and outstrip them, a moment later you wish to fool us that you do not like that arrogance.

You know perfectly well what I mean and what you are like.

I do not believe that you are searching for futilities, that you are accepting praise, but you must not think that we believe that you do not like it that your personality is losing all that farmer-like mentality.

You are busy working on yourself, you know it and you want to kid us that it is not the case, but you suck it from our ribs.

You do not wait for it, but your molasses can be felt.

I actually mean it differently.

You want to outstrip people; not I, I would prefer to go ten steps backwards, but I have the gift of forgetting nothing and I also have that in me, to wait a long time, to then shoot my arrows, which are aimed purely each and every time.

For that matter, I have given you that proof thousands of times and you keep falling for it.

However, I mean it well, I am honest, it is my childish nature which keeps taking me back to both human and natural harmony or we would not have stuck it for one day here together.

But you also have that, Karel.

However, you cannot bear it, that you see that childishness.

You keep kicking that away from you, but then we see a wrong mask!

You do not come from behind it, you fire from there at us and the people and you have the greatest fun when they do not know who you are and what you actually want.

But we know you now so well!

But I tell you, you used to be like that, now a new course has been set, you have started to think differently.

The contents of your life are becoming orderly.

In your character we see naturalness, rural instinct, love.

It is you yourself who demands this evolving for your personality.

You do not kick so much anymore!

You roar now and again, but then your head sinks.

I do not intend to read you the lesson, but this is how it is!

Continue, Karel, do not go to pieces over a death, he will be proved right anyway!

You must try to get to know that mask.

When you feel that and carry it in you, you will be as strong as you like.

Now there will no longer be any poverty, you say to your patients: farewell, greet the other people who went before you, just say that I will also come soon to hand in my empty notes, the flowers for the universal alter, where you yourself will read Mass!’

Erica races over to me and kisses me.

Karel smiles derisively ... he has been conquered again.

Erica has not yet forgotten my story.

She now asks:

‘Come on, Frederik, we will now continue.

Tell us about that harem.

It is meant seriously, isn’t it?

Continue, Frederik.’

‘I want nothing to do with that carry-on, Erica.

It would just cost me my night’s rest.’

‘But you were there, weren’t you?’

‘Of course, I was there and I was right in the middle of it.

Oh, if you had seen those angels.

Good heavens, when I still think of all those pillows of the ladies.’

I look in Karel’s direction.

Doubt and mockery are reflected in his face.

It is a different mask than a moment ago, but now I see: gossip ... dreamer, what do you want?

But just carry on, I also like fun like that, you can tell the biggest nonsense, we are listening.

What I feel is not pleasant, but we know who he is.

I think: just wait, I will get you soon and then I will hit you to the ground.

Erica is convulsed with laughter.

Karel could not get out of it either, when I told about those pillows.

I rather believe that he is only laughing because I always come out with those expressions of my own.

My comparisons, opinions, take on essence and meaning, which used to be a handicap for me, because I then usually started to stutter.

Fortunately, that is now over and a story like that flies out of my mouth just like that.

I say it myself, I can connect things with each other.

I can let the things tell themselves, you see yourself there as well.

You experience it, they have colour and shape, you inspire a word like that and place it where exactly where they do not expect it, but at that moment you shake society to shreds ...

This does not quite make sense. Usually I manage it completely and then it goes without a hitch.

I am therefore not a born storyteller, but a born follower ...

I follow things and then they have something to say.

Anyhow, they already know me a bit.

Erica waits impatiently and will not let go of that harem, as a woman she wants to know all about it.

I now know for sure that Karel thinks that I am just talking nonsense.

He feels cheated again ...

My story hangs between truth and bluffing.

To him I am a Von Münchhausen, a daddy longlegs, a Don Fiasco ...!

But I will get him.

Erica asks again: ‘Now, Frederik?

Will you continue?

Are they wearing beautiful dresses, those ladies?’

"Oh, yes, they did, what a beauty!"

‘And were they beautiful women?’

‘Oh, yes!’

‘And young of course?’

‘Yes, that is of course a requirement.

They were extremely young.

Not all of them, you see, a sovereign like that wants a bit of everything.

I also saw women of an older age.

And of course, fat and thin, narrow and long, small and big, but I saw the finest of the finest gathered there.’

‘Were there black, brown and white, Frederik?’

‘I saw all the colours, Erica ... beautiful colours, apricot-red, the incredible soft green in the eyes, also the outrageous, I saw there our large dictionary represented by women, souls, amazing products of nature, to which you would kneel and would wish to commit thousands of sins, they were so dreadfully beautiful!’

‘Tell us about it, Frederik.

All the nationalities together, of course.’

Karel gets to like it as well now.

Anna gleams from her corner and thinks I am an Adonis.

That Anna.

I can and may fantasise for her as much as I want, she believes everything of me, for which I am grateful to her, even if I tell the biggest nonsense; as long as she continues to accept me, we will grow nicely towards each other and we will soon be flowers of one colour!

But Karel does not know that, Erica does not understand it either, she is very different.

I now reply:

‘I saw Arabic beauties there, Italian, French, Egyptian, and they were so to speak, the flowers of the Nile, which he had paid a great deal for.

I saw one Dutch child, you will not believe it, but it is the truth.

He told me that he took care of this beautiful life, gave her a separate education, because he had got her out of the gutter.’

‘And how was that girl, Frederik?

Did she not long to return to Holland?’

‘I do not think so.

She was far too well off there for that.

Well, I did not look into her heart.

I just saw her for a moment, there was so much to see.

I did not want to ask out of politeness where he dredged her up.

He let it drop that this child would soon get her freedom, but that she had to tell from which source she received her beauty, in other words ... he wanted to make a spatial flight of it and show her his oriental mentality, the secret of which the snakes and scorpions know.

Thistles, the real Dutch ones, I mean, also sting, when it suits them, although we have no pleasure in it, because it reminds you of death.

Ugh, the things a person has pleasure in.

You encountered all the nationalities, Erica, as I already said, they were beauties.’

‘How can it be.

And of course all shrouded in precious silk.’

‘You must see it for yourself, Erica, you will not believe it.’

Karel is convulsed with laughter.

He thinks this game is amazing, but he thinks that I am talking rubbish.

However, he has forgotten his dead patient.

And we continue playfully, the conversation revolves around Erica and me, the others listen and think it is comedy.

‘It is a film’, Anna lets fall.

Erica says to Anna:

‘I would love to be in a harem like that for a few weeks, only just to ask all those women what they actually get up to there.

And you, Anna?’

‘I would, to peel potatoes for them’, she claims.

‘I would like to know ...’ Erica continues, ‘what a man like that wants with all those women and what he has to say to them.

What a world.

Do you like the idea, Karel, of a little harem like that?

I can already see you with twenty different national beauties around you.

How would you feel, Karel?’

Karel does not answer, he finds it too idiotic.

Erica asks me:

‘And did you see any children, Frederik?’

‘I heard them.

They are in another hall and get their education there.

It was actually a town in itself, of which he was king.

I heard that shouting coming to me from afar.

He said: these are my children.

However, I believe that the children used to be killed.

So you see, harems also evolve in their time.

Order and regulation comes into that harem carry-on.

The maharajas and sultans receive consciousness.

I tell you honestly, this was a man of good character.

To me he was the sweetest of all.’

Karel laughs again.

He cannot cope with it, but I feel that he would like to act the sultan.

We continue, when Erica asks:

‘What did you have to do there, Frederik?’

‘Quite simple, I had to bring him a message from our government.’

‘Do you mean that?’

‘Of course ...’

‘Secrets of course?’

‘Something like that.’

Karel almost bursts with laughter.

Erica says:

‘Just stop it, Karel.

You are spoiling everything.

Just leave us alone, you can never really take part.’

And she asks again:

‘You would wonder, what does our government want with a sultan like that.’

‘So, you wonder about that, Erica.

Let me tell you then, that that man is continually in contact with our royal house and the government.

Has contact ... is better.

I believe that our government did wonderful business with him.

And how rich that guy is!

He showed me the ladies’ diamonds.

In total they had, I think, a cool fifty million hanging on their dresses.

They wore them in their hair, on their chest, they were all queens.

And then those silk garments.

Good heavens, what colours ... René would say.

I really got a notion to take a discarded dress like that home, but that did not work.

I would have liked to have come home with such a confession of guilt.

To put it honestly, he received me and took care of me in a regal way.’

‘How, Frederik?’ Karel now wants to know.

‘Yes, you cannot say it like that.’

‘Old glutton ... you are lying through your teeth!’

‘Karel, leave him ... what business is it of yours.

Continue, Frederik!

To me: ‘What did he show you, Frederik?

And why do you not describe all these journeys, you good get a lot of money for it.

You could dish it up tastily enough.’

‘I am not a writer.’

‘And you tell it as if you already have the book finished.

What tasty things did you get, Frederik?

What kind of regal things did you experience?’

‘I do not dare to just say it like that.

I would just make Karel unhappy and that is not the intention.’

‘Oh, old skunk ... I already know.

You are becoming shy again, are you?

Did he perhaps offer you his harem, Frederik?’ Karel calls out.

He is convulsed with laughter.

He walks to the jenever jar and pours us a drink.

‘Here’, he says, ‘dreamer, to the health of your shyness, and that you may become a big boy and not lie so much.

To the health of your failed personal pleasure.

Cheers, Frederik!’

We clink the glasses and I take a swig, when Erica says:

‘You do not believe anything, never a thing, which lies above your capacities.

But it tickles from inside.’

And I add to it: ‘You see, Karel, Erica is right.

You never believe anything, which you cannot achieve yourself and which you consider as supernatural for a sobersides like I am.

But I will now give you the proof, farmer’s son?’

I take out my wallet and rummage about in it.

I take a nice picture and give it to Karel:‘

Here, dreamer ... see for yourself!’

He looks and shouts: ‘Just look at that!

Look at this!

Look, what do you say to this?’

Erica and Anna take the photograph out of his hands.

I am in it with my sultan.

It is the moment when we admire his possessions.

I am just standing there under his beautiful trees, with his servant behind us, who gives us a wonderful shade and makes a western wind.

They see me in an immaculate white suit, behind me a wonderful panorama ...

They feel the titillating under my heart.

Water now runs over Karel’s lips.

You had not thought that, had you!

None of it, you always tell nonsense.

But this does not lie, Karel, none of it.

It is I myself.

Karel is beaten.

He lies on the ground, his big talk has now been smothered.

Erica says:

‘Karel?

You had not thought that, had you?

That is good!

I consider it a fairytale, it is a film, an incredible wonder, if you ask me, Frederik.’

‘And it was that, Erica.

Can you see all that happiness?

Can you see that wonderful natural beauty?’

‘What a celebrity we actually have in the house, Karel!

And he is like a child.

That Frederik.

My God, what a happy person you are.’

And she also says to Karel:

‘That is spot-on, isn’t it, little Karel?

Will you now bow your head to Frederik?

You did not expect this, did you?

This is now our Frederik.

Continue, Frederik.

Where were we again.

Oh, yes, what did he give you?

What did you experience?

Did he himself go into the harem with you?

What did he say to you, when you were with all those ladies?

Tell us, Frederik, what does it matter to you, do not be so awkward, you know us, don’t you?’

‘I have nothing more to tell, Erica.

I was very well off there.’

‘How long were you there, Frederik?’

‘I already said, about four days.’

‘And you do not know that for certain?

Can you forget such a thing?

What are those people like in social contacts, Frederik?

Bothersome?

Busy?

Of course.

They stand high above your head and you may look at them.

Is that not the case?’

‘It is precisely not the case, Erica.

He received respect from me.

You do not notice that you are involved with a sultan, if you yourself do not let him feel it.

I felt quite normal.

And he was interested in that.

Most people do precisely the wrong thing.

They are overturned by all that wealth and they no longer know what to do with themselves.

And he cannot stand that.

Of course, everything which you see beats you to the ground as a sober and poor person.

But because he felt that that did not matter a jot to me, I stayed there longer than I had thought and considered possible.

He himself arranged it for me.

When he offered me the most tasty thing and I refused to accept it, I even made him look foolish.

He did not go into it.

Usually you are immediately out with such people.

However, he accepted it and also understood me.

How I feasted with him from all that tasty food.

I can’t bear thinking about it, Karel.

You should have tasted his wines.

If I had not been able to experience anything else in this life, then my life would already have been supernatural, I enjoyed myself so much during those few days.

I do not know where he got his wines from, however, it is as if you drink from a supernatural life source, that fluid is so pithy, so divine.

You heart gets a butterfly-like feeling, you would want to fly just like that.

And then to know that you live close to a universal harem?

It was precisely different for me.

The man has understanding of everything.

He is a born occultist.

When he noticed that I had travelled, had a bit of understanding of those things, we could not stop talking.

We lay down in his hall.

I on a beautiful sofa and he next to me on his throne.

The bottle within my reach.

He did not want to have servants present then and the women had to see that they left.

We talked about the building of the Pyramid, we descended into the Sphinx, and when he heard that I had met Mohammed Soehn, whom he knew and with whom he had spoken a great deal about the construction of the Egyptian teachings and the Temples of Ra, Ré and Isis, we lived in a heaven.

My God, I cannot bear thinking about it, how happy I felt at that moment.

You should have heard him about the Egyptian Lotus!

There was one woman whom he saw as the Nile-Sphinx and whom he loved.

I was allowed to admire her for hours.

I do not believe that I was still alive at that moment.

I do not wish to be hateful, but what do the women in Europe hope to achieve?

I do not wish to make any distinction, because that is not laid aside for us anyway, but if you look into the eyes of such a Sphinx of flesh and blood!

And hang her with the most precious stones, dressed in a heavenly blue garment and not forgetting ... the sandals which she wore.

Erica, get lost ... go away, because you do not possess any beauty, you are as ugly as can be.

Let us just laugh about it, our children are better ... I tell you.

Such an inspired snake bites you from the front and behind and you cannot do anything about it, you are now, as we call it, a dishcloth!

A doormat!

You will be destroyed by it!

Oh, well!

I lie there and see into those eyes, into the eyes of the first one!

His wife ... his queen!

I knew it, as a result of all those frills, a soul like that enters the darkness.

I therefore did not like such an angelic being.

I could have descended into the most tasty pudding, but I did not want to eat from it.

I could choose between brown and ivory black, between yellow and reddish, between Arabic and Egyptian, German, French, Italian ...

I could have learned Norwegian in the East and the scandalous Jerusalem language as well, but that was too much for me.

I was too awkward for it.

And when he knew that, he received that certainty, the first one had to come and we started to feel the mysticism of the East.

We discussed Socrates, Plato ... went to Vienna, Budapest, Paris, London and all the large cities of the world, where we had both been and which we had an understanding of, because my wandering nature knew what he had sought there!

I had wanted to die that night.

We continued to talk until the morning.

When the sun rose he took me outside.

We drank our strong coffee and had a bath in nature.

Then I lay down.

Yes, my God, can you forgive me?

I submitted to that overindulgence.’

‘What was it, Frederik?

What did you experience then?’ Erica sighs, who really feels the tension.

‘Continue!’

‘Well, Erica, I was given an Egyptian massage.

It was a brown person, with incredibly long fingers, who put me in the bath.

I do not know what lived in that bath, but my body started to itch.

I was gasping for breath.

And a moment later I felt as if I was floating.

Then I was given that massage.

The man drew tiredness and sleepiness from my ribs.

I felt as if I was born again and namely fifty years younger.

I lay down and fell asleep.

When I awoke, I thought that I was seeing a fairytale.

An immense pile of fruit next to my bed.

A small glass with a monkey, which I had to drink first.

Then food; which all lay displayed there.

A note with it, that the sovereign expected me in an hour’s time.

I had to put on the garment which lay ready for me.

You will not believe it either, of course, Karel.

But I can also show you that proof.

We went outside.

He received me in a gallery, surrounded from the East, in colour, green, nature.

We first went to the women.

He asked them whether they had slept well and whether there were any requests.

I walked along with him like a prince, the trains behind me.

You laugh, Karel, but watch out, or I will hit you.

What seems incredible to you, now lives under my heart and is perfectly ordinary.

When there is a masked ball here, I will put on my outfit.’

‘Are you trying to claim, Frederik, that you still have that garment?’

‘Precisely, Erica, I still have it, I received it as a present from His Highness.

He has remained a friend of mine.’

‘Continue, Frederik, what did he say to the ladies?’

‘I already said, he asked whether there were any requests.

And then I saw the beauties differently.

Now an aurora shone everywhere on those living things, a light, so incredible that we want to pull out our hair; you will succumb, if you can see that.

Our personality is not able to cope with such a thing either.

You could write a thick book about it, but I tell you, all that is really no longer news for this world.

It is all very everyday.

At least as I see and feel it and which is usually the case for them there.

Those people no longer see that and we fall as a result of it, succumb under it, our eyes are not used to that.

Then we went to see his snakes.

To him amazing animals, to me children of Satan which I want nothing to do with, but which are as tame as flies to him.

He played with his favourite animals, I trembled and shook from fear.

I did not let it show, but he knew it ...!

These people do a great deal as a result of concentration.

They were sacred animals to him.

After having seen that wild, I got to see another hobby and I stood before the old masters.

Then we talked about Rembrandt and Van Dyck, of which he had about ten paintings.

Your purest exhibition.

That day we were in the nature a great deal and especially on horseback.

What a lot of cattle a prince like that has.

I saw horses there, Karel.

I rode horses there.

He let me ride an Arabic stallion.

Many people tumbled off, I remained on it.

He wished me to have a hard bath, but I did not take it, I was soon one with the animal.

Then I had won his heart.

In the evening I was dead tired and went to sleep early.

I now actually saw my oriental bed for the first time.

Really, what a bed.

I sunk into the silk.

A night like that, surroundings like that, so many flowers around you, also perfumes, and then to sleep.

I will not tell you what I did.

You would wish to die.

Even if you do not have a gram of inspiration in your body, these people get it into you.’

‘And then there was probably a knock on your door, wasn’t there, Frederik?’

‘No, Erica, I had sent that away a long time before.’

‘Pull the other one, Frederik.’

‘So, is Mr Karel also so unbelieving now?

Would you like to have known what I did?

You would like to have possessed his harem of course.

I can already see you.

But I did not succumb, I did not feel like wild cats, like anything which connected me in any way with the jungle.

I had already known that world for so long.

I did not go to ancient Egypt for that.

I wanted to get to know the Pyramid!

I wanted to sleep and rest, but especially dream.

I knew that they were also dreams, but count me out.’

‘So you let a princess of the Nile like that wait at your door, Frederik?’

‘That Karel ... man, with the palm and fig trees there.

I would rather go to Switzerland.

Rather take a tumble in the cold snow, than to die in that boiling hot nocturnal darkness.

Now you can think, what a dope you are, but you would have forgotten yourself and lost yourself in five minutes there.

Then you would have been sent out the door.

With a soft line, with a regal gesture you would have been sent off, but you would be put out!

Not me, I could have stayed there all my life.

Woe betide me, if I had violated myself!

Now I played with him.

Even if he was incomprehensible, I had the upper hand over him in this and the man got respect for that, which I had thus mastered.

You will always lose it against those people, I won it!

I got him as a result of it and I already said, we became friends.

No, Karel, I stripped completely naked ...

That was all I did, but I tell you, I have never slept like that.

You can also try it here, but now it is as if you lie on nettles, you get lumps on your body as a result of it.

There it was a divine experience.

I did not tell him, but he wanted to know how I had slept.

Now you think that that man wants to know whether you have really slept, don’t you?

Yes, it is the case, but that does not matter a jot to him.

If I had said: yes, great, sir, highness, or whatever I had said it, to show my gratitude, I would not have achieved anything by it.

And that is not even what concerns him.

If I had given such an answer, then he would have thought: you see, now you give a person like that a nice bed, you know what a person deserves and what a person longs for, but it is pearls before swine.’

‘What should you have said, Frederik?

It seems so simple to me.’

‘So, Erica, simple again, is it?

I tell you, you are then faced with a big problem: either leave, and as quickly as possible, or a deep and amazing conversation, which usually ends with life and death, Isis, Ra, Ré, Ammon-Ra, all of ancient Egypt is involved.

You go through Temples, you experience carrying, being carried in an old prehistoric sedan chair, lions walk behind you, tigers lick your hands as if it is the most normal thing in the world, women stand looking, stark naked, beside you, and you will soon visit the pharaoh.

Do you want a bed like that?

Karel thinks again: gossip, nonsense, dreaming.

But what did you think, Karel, that I said?

I will give you my capital if you give the answer.

I knew how I had to act and he felt happy.

The man was as happy as a small child, I had affected him so much.

I could have received everything from him, he knew that it was felt and experienced, he had not received any corpse as a visitor in his house.

You do not know, do you?

You are not yet suitable for it either, if you wish to know, Karel, you must experience worlds for that purpose, be a courier for His Majesty.

Then you will come across these trifles and are you ready for them.

Then people will start to love you.

But in particular, then the West and the East reach unity.’

‘Describe all of this, Frederik, this book is a best-seller.’

‘You would like that, I would worsen many a person as a result of it.

I would create pneumonia and I do not want that.

Did you think that you would not try that?

I know my people, Erica.

No, I told him ...

But do you not want to earn my possessions, Karel, I can have a bit more patience ... I told him ... that I had experienced the 'Turret room' of the Pyramid of Giza.’

And that was everything!

He said:

‘I knew it. Remember me, when you multiply it as a result of wisdom.

Carry on like that, and you will regain your Lotus.

Descend into the spheres of Juda, make western comparisons and walk forwards backwards, if you can, and you will be it!

I gave you your own birth, my nobility and yours are one!

Thank you, I am open completely to your life.

I am very happy, my friend.

Oh, I am so happy!

Is it possible that I can continue?’

And there you are again, Karel.

What did the man want?

Where to with me? I could have received everything now.

I now said:

‘Can you feel, highness, does your life understand mine, can you take me back in just a few hours to where I was once?

Has the eye of the Goddess given you joy of life, is mine ready for it?

How gladly my life accepts your dignity, your happiness, I am ready to follow you.

I will drink ... I will also resist all the laws.

I have gone to sleep, highness!’

‘Thank you ... thank you, stay here if you want, stay here and we will continue to build.’

He would liked to have kept me there, in order to make me into a follower, a priest, because I was suitable for it and my living heart felt what it would be like.

However, I did not dare to chance it.

I understood what he wanted and that was enough.

He wanted to see whether I possessed the conscious of a swine.

He laid my body down on roses and worshipped it, he gave me an Egyptian present, I was crowned by His Highness, carried, and did not walk next to him, I let myself be carried.

I did not hang out of the small open window like a madman looking at people.

I lay down as an oriental prince does!

I experienced a royal night!

And you have to be willing to be stark naked for that, it is only then that you are one with sun and moon, stars and planets, the Goddess smiles at you, she tucks you in, she laughs after you, because your path goes through millions of lives, the garments of which she wears and owns.

I was not naked, I wore wonderful garments, but I would have lost all of that as a result of a tigress cat like that.

I would only now understand it and he had given me that wilderness.’

‘My God, how beautiful’, Erica utters and Karel and Anna lie at my feet.

‘Frederik, but you are no slouch.

Continue, please.’

‘Did Frederik not succumb after all?’

‘Keep quiet, Karel’, Erica defends me.

‘You would have succumbed.

I would bet my life and my whole being on it.

You would, but not Frederik.’

‘I saw his birds, hundreds of species, which would just about drive you mad, it is so wonderful, I was allowed to see his possessions, everything!

And then you are mad, as poor as anything and yet so immensely happy.

He himself took me back.

I will never forget these days.

I could talk about them for years.’

‘Do not stop, Frederik ... continue, even if it is early morning.

Go on ... continue.’

‘I was able to experience something else similar, Karel, even if it was not so amazing, yet worthwhile.

It was in China.

People thought I was someone else.

I experienced a temple service such as I never will or can experience again.

You do not get in just like that.

I experienced temple dances, sat next to dignitaries, next to priests and priestesses, was treated like a sovereign and when it came down to it, I was precisely not what they had expected.

Gosh, how furious those people were, even if they did not show it.

But I had just let myself be spoilt and ate up all those niceties from under the nose of our messenger.

All those tasty things, I had the greatest fun ...

Do you believe me?’

‘Tell us, Frederik!’ Erica urges.

‘Yes, I will do that, but I will go upstairs.

It is bedtime ... tomorrow is another day.

I will have a nice sleep and namely in silk.

But now I need a jumper.

And I am not afraid of tigresses here.

Karel, what louts we still are.

If I come back here and we live more than once, I will be a sultan!

Even if I am a small one, I want to be one.

And Anna will be my princess then.

I really do not need many women, but I will decide it with herself.

She will get some names then.

What do you say?

I have the honour to greet all of you.

Majesty, get out of my sight.’

And that was to Karel.

Karel says:

‘Good night, colleague ... do not let your little black people shout any longer, I can hear them.

And do not take the heart out of the ribs of a person.’

That is Anna!

Precisely, I think, but Anna sees it very differently.

I also say to her:‘

Did you see all those masks, Anna?’

‘I did, Frederik.

I also go backwards forwards.

I will learn it!’

‘Thank you ... there is no more need to doubt this faith.

I repeat, God bless you!’

René is sleeping like a baby, I see.

Yet I do not know.

I just work it out for myself.

How will this life suddenly deal with all that beauty?

Well, we will see.

I kiss him in my thoughts and lie down.

The logbook also says:

Although everything was experienced by me, I still notice that you can deceive adults in everything.

It is priceless!

Karel would have succumbed in that.

And Erica – I must honestly say, because I will not try to get round it, because I do not want to hide anything from myself – she would have given herself completely!

If the Sultan had had to receive her, she would give in and she would have been treated as a street girl.

All that benevolence would have numbed her, she would have been under anaesthetic.

I will give my life for this.

Anna could not have experienced this succumbing, but she would not have experienced any less, people would have ignored her completely, and yet, you must know her life.

People would have looked at her from the left and from the right, in order to accept her life and personality anyway.

You know those hawkers.

We say: flags on boats, but without the mud, because Anna is a princess!

In short, I am too tired to still depict her shape, a reborn dream like that makes you dead tired.

Karel would have sucked up the harem immediately.

He would have sought out the most beautiful child that there was.

However, Karel does not know that this Sultan has one more department and then you are faced with the sixth-class climate, where it rains and is misty.

First that and then higher up; usually you are long gone and people no longer need you there.

Yet remarkable, you feel the people kissing, the lips are made wet from it and the hearts overrun with benevolence.

But why?

Erica is deep within herself a public woman.

Nonsense!

She gives in as a result of her longing for sensation, it is that other thing, and precisely this other thing which destroys you.

Without thinking, they stand naked before you and now you can pick as many apples as you like.

I bet she dreams tonight that Karel is a Sultan.

I have nothing to do with their own destruction, as long as they wish to understand this.

It is wonderful, we have truly experienced a film.

I will go to sleep!

I will see you later, pleasant dreams!

Oh, my Lord ...

Can You forgive me for this?

In the morning Erica crawls towards me, she approaches me across the floor and asks:

‘And now, Frederik, I want to see that garment.

I am just like a snake, do you believe it?

It has gone to my head.

Man, how you can tell stories.

Will this also come in the logbook, Frederik?

What do you write about us?

Do you destroy us, Frederik?

Do you lie to save us?

You may write everything about me that you want.

I tell you honestly, I would also have succumbed.

Karel laughs, but I bet my life on it that he would also have bolted from the brown bears.

I know sir so well.

I do not mince words.

Not Anna ... they would have put her with a hothouse to care for the white lilies.

Well, how crazy, isn’t it, Frederik, what idiots people like us are.

You lose yourself just like that, just through a story.

But how strong you must be.

Or have you not told us everything about it?

It was interesting.

Where is the garment now?

May we see it?’

‘In that case, Erica, that one there ... you will find it there.’

‘May I open it?’

‘Go ahead.

But how is our child?’

‘Fine, Frederik, only we may not see what he has splurged together.’

‘So, he does not want that.’

Erica rummages in my case and finds what she is looking for.

She is flabbergasted with surprise.

‘Good grief!’ she calls out.

‘My God, how can it be.

And a guy like that keeps such a thing for himself alone!

You should have a beating, Frederik.

I only now understand who you really are.

I believe that we do not know a gram of your inner life.

May I show it to Karel?’

‘Go ahead, dear.’

I hear her calling: ‘Karel!!!!

Come quickly out of the bath.

I have a wonder for you.’

Anna must also come.

I think of little René.

This is not a good sign again.

It is abnormal, I know that carry-on.

It comes from inside.

From inside there is someone who does not want us to look at those things.

And that is that boeha again, you will see.

He wants to keep the child for himself and that is both subnatural and supernatural at the same time.

Anyone who does not know this, will not see and feel it.

I am on my guard, I must watch out, otherwise accidents will happen.

Oh, what a pity, what a pity it is, but, I knew it.

It would be too good to be true.

There is Karel already, and Erica and Anna follow him.

Karel has put on my silk and it looks good on him, only he must have a different face, he looks just like a red cabbage.

I do not say it, but Erica utters:

"What do you think of my St. Nicholas, Frederik?"

Karel is gone, the fun is already over for him, but he believes more of me than he used to.

I am now far ahead of him.

It has taken a long time, but I have made it, ditches no longer have any meaning now.

Yet he comes back and now says:

"Frederik, it is not one-nil, but fourteen-nil!"

I say: ‘Thank you, Karel, but this has no meaning, I bought the thing in Antwerp.’

‘What ...??’ says Erica.

‘What are you trying to say, Frederik?

Do you want to destroy us?

Do you want to take away these illusions from us?

Do you want to go back into your shell?

Do you believe him, Karel?

You see, that is the way Frederik is.

First you enjoy, you believe everything, he makes you happy, but then he himself lets everything collapse again.

They are just like castles in the air and fata morganas!

I do not believe it.

I can see that from the pearls and diamonds.

Are those things real, Frederik?’

‘Yes, I believe that you can fetch some twenty thousand for this same garment, dollars then, not guilders, and then you are still being cheated.’

‘Are you are trying to tell me that you bought this just like that in Antwerp?’

‘I must give an answer anyway.

Just clear out of here, I am going out.’

That René, I am haunted by the thought, that poor boy.

Here they are as if there is nothing the matter.

Only Anna watches out.

Anna already knows it, it will be crazy again today or tomorrow.

When I see her later in the garden, I say:

‘Anna, we must keep watch just now.’

‘I know, Frederik!’

‘Do you have to show tears again now?

But why, Anna, I am also here, after all?’

‘I know, Frederik!’

She looks me in the eye, just for a moment, and I say:

‘Will you continue to wait for me, Anna?’

‘I know, Frederik!’

‘And will you make a journey through the desert with me?’

‘Yes, Frederik?’

‘And are you not afraid of storm and rain?’

‘No, Frederik, you pick daisies, violets, after all!’

‘Thank you, Anna, I will come; I will expect you in the middle of the desert, I will wait for you.

It will take a while, but I will come, Anna.

Just let it sink in, dear.

I am busy cultivating such a dove for you also.

When it is finished, then you will get the answer.

And now go quickly or they will have seen our flirting and that must not happen for the time being.

Goodbye, my dear?

I will see you again later!

When you are alone, just write me a note.

If it takes too long, you may knock on my door, no one, no other soul!

Only you, Anna, Lotus?’

Anna is gone.

The lady no longer totters, the princess of my life walks stately like a queen, from the West then!

Egyptian nobility lives in her blood, but no one may know it.

Perhaps later!

Anna does not yet know it either ... but I have also kept silent about my dreams of her life and mine.

I will give them a place in the logbook, when I have told everything about the others and myself and there is nothing else.

It is only then that little René will hear about it!

Everything is for him!

I will then eat up the love from it ...

Yes, my children, it is up to you to solve the mystery!

René is not eating again, but is still very cheerful, high-spirited.

He races downstairs, stands looking at Karel’s paintings for half an hour, runs back upstairs to lock himself up and then surely to copy this whole.

He does not dare to ask Father whether he may copy the painting.

Karel will not care, but it is not this.

The supernatural or the underground phenomena have got him again.

I say to myself: this is not going well again.

Karel and Erica do not yet see it and I cannot do anything about it.

I got the urge a moment ago to put him under hypnosis.

I know for sure that he will go to sleep, I have already experienced that several times.

I do not need to do much for it and he will already be sleeping.

But I am afraid of it.

What can a child like that hope to achieve?

What do I want to know about such a young life!

No, I thought, still too soon.

I may not do it.

He has painted and drawn the whole day.

After dinner he asked to be alone for a bit.

Karel did not mind, because he does not know of anything else.

I know, nothing can be done about it anyway.

If they take him away from this drawing, I swear to them, then he will break everything to pieces again.

If you take this carry-on away from him, then you will immediately be faced with a provoked lion and that animal will jump on you.

I will let him go, we will not oppose, we will just wait and see.

When Hans comes, he wants to know how René is.

The child is sleeping and Erica does not want to waken him for all the money in the world.

The conversation is about the child.

We do not know of anything else to say, at least if there are strangers, it is always a bit different amongst ourselves.

Hans is no stranger to us, we have him back completely, but, happiness from the heart is not for sale just like that.

You do not sell bonds for hearts.

Happiness from the heart does not lie in the street, you do not find that in the street gutters of the town, you must build this up yourself and give everything for it.

We feel that, Hans is still just outside of it!

You cannot do anything about it, you either have it or you do not and then those doors remain closed.

Hans is talking about his years of puberty.

Karel does not mind, I do not say a word.

I know, he started about it long ago and they are almost behind him.

Yet Hans gets to see René.

There are drawings everywhere, we take a few with us, we want to know all the things he has splurged.

Hans thinks that he is okay and thinks that it is now over.

He admits that I have now already won the bet.

I say something.

I must now throw salt in old wounds, because tomorrow or the day after I will be faced with the misery anyway!

‘What do you think, Frederik?’ Hans asks.

‘I see it differently, Hans.

People know here, I do not take part in pessimism, put salt in old wounds, that is not in my character.

But it can take a while, but then it will come and we will be faced with new misery.’

‘I do not believe that’, says Karel, and Erica feels the same way as he does.

‘Then I must disappoint you, people.

I see the case differently.’

‘But there are no more phenomena, Frederik.

He is great, he works well, yes.

It is not going too well with food, but that does not mean anything, it is perfectly normal.’

‘I tell you, that I am not clutching at straws, at least not now, I can see and feel it differently.

But let’s forget it, I do not want to take away your happiness.’

‘Are there phenomena, Frederik?’

‘There are and there are not, Hans.

I do not believe that you, Karel or Erica can see them, even if you are right on top of them.’

‘What kind of drawings are they, let us have a look’, Hans asks.

We take the things to hand.

There is a bit of everything.

A load of scribbling, the familiar little notes, field, trees, meadows, flowers and strange symbols you would say and think, if they were not so awkward.

But there is something to it.

Hans sees them as childish nonsense.

Karel and Erica also, I see nothing else but misery.

The familiar gate, the piece of ground, the fence can be seen clearly, a mass of sticks, which are his friends, and over the gate: boeha!

Everything points to inner chaos.

Hans asks:

‘What do these things represent, Frederik?

Do you have an answer and an explanation for them?’

‘Yes ... what will I tell you, Hans.

It is all so deep ... so inhuman.

I do not believe that I have an answer for it.

I can tell you that all these things take me to trouble.’

‘But why do we think that drawing is good?

Why do you buy that rubbish then, Frederik?’ I get saddled with from Karel.

‘I will give you an answer to that, Karel.

If you take this away from him, you will already have an argument in half an hour and you will see a different child.

I assure you, if he now knew that you had his drawings, the child would go for your neck.’

‘Imagination ...

Frederik.’

‘It is the way to follow this, and I know it.

The life would break you.

I know him.

You are now dabbling in something, the laws of which you do not know.

René would tear you apart.’

‘You are exaggerating, Frederik’, I hear from Karel.

‘I repeat, I do not hope so; I cannot feel it differently.’

‘And these are inner phenomena according to you, Frederik?’

‘They are your own mad people, Hans.

These are Sonjas and Mrs Van Soest and old Piets, if you wish to know, but which is no use to you anyway.

You can never be reached.

You keep falling back again into your rotten world.’

‘Since when?’

‘I can see that now!’

‘Thank you, Frederik.’

‘You do not need to thank me for it, Hans, it is the sacred truth.’

‘Must I then accept, this these are inner Rembrandts?’

‘Now you are starting to exaggerate.

That means nothing.

I do not intend either to argue with you about this life.

I tell you what it is about, I give you my honest feeling and thinking.

But you will see it.

These are inner conflicts, Hans.

That colour here and there, are alarming airs and graces, it is frightening moaning.

It beats him, it destroys him, it strangles the life.

These are inner conflicts the life of which you cannot see.

These are worlds for René.

You see these stripes and all this daubing from the normal, not from the abnormal.’

"Frederik, it is as if you are asking for trouble, what is the matter?"

‘I am not asking for trouble, Karel, but I do not put up an umbrella if it is not raining.

I am warning.’

‘How, Frederik?

Tell us, by what?’ Karel wants to know.

‘I already told you, can you not see anything?

I would need a book for it, I would have to go back years to explain it to you.

And then I will not yet have made it.

As a result of that stupid post, this here.

You see it, this is a gate, and on that gate a little figure, that figure is hanging on top of it, doesn’t it?’

‘If you explain it like that, yes, but they are actually just scribbles.’

‘Good, even if they are scribbles, I tell you, those same scribbles will already take him back there in a few days.

I will just tell you now, then you will be prepared for it.

This happiness was only temporary.

We may not forget the aim of this life.

René would come back to us for a moment, but then the boy must leave again.

Of course, if it remains like this, he will not need to go, of course.

But this will not remain like this.

These drawings have brought that truth forward.

That same stripe is a world for René, I tell you again and you cannot understand, your psychology is not yet so deep, Hans, even if you are the smartest man in the world.

Yours has does not mean a thing for this life.

Let him do as he pleases.

If you take this stuff away from him, the house will be in an uproar.

He must have something as a result of which he lives it up or there will be an inner rebellion.’

‘How do these things have to do with the Sonjas, Frederik?’

"Because here, Hans ... now listen carefully ... the narcosis or the hypnosis is transformed into art.

What Sonja and old Piet experienced as a result of hypnosis and we got from those lives, René throws on paper.

Do you understand where am I heading?’

‘Remarkable ... Frederik.’

‘You say that now, but you do not mean it.

I tell you, it is worthwhile thinking about.’

‘Can you not put him to sleep?’

‘That is also possible.’

‘Do it then!’

‘What would you do, Hans?’

‘I would start immediately, at least if he shows wildness.’

‘So.

And you, Karel?’

‘I would do as Hans feels.

Let him sleep and bring order into the subconscious.’

‘You see, you are just like academics.

What do you hope to achieve, if you start stirring in ground, in which you have just laid the seed?

Did you think that you would see fruits next year?

If you place an egg under a chicken and you take that egg out from under the animal every day and you put it somewhere, where there is no heat, what will come into the world?

Decay, but no new life.’

‘What are you trying to say by this, Frederik?’ Hans asks.

‘That you can never give day conscious to something which still has to experience the growing and blossoming process and therefore is not mature, because this life, that thinking and feeling must still awaken.

If you administer sleep to René, you will murder the child.

You will smother the life, you intervene in something, which still has to live, still has to grow.

The mature conscious takes you to the mature personality.

Don‘t you feel then, Hans, that you cannot achieve anything with hypnosis on children in such a state?

That, which still lies deep in the life and still has to awaken, I see as in the winter for nature in the tree, but not outside it.

Do you wish to get that life outside as a psychologist and give it a place in this cold nature?

Hans, this exceeds your feeling, just come out with it honestly or you will think that I am gibbering in space.

But that is the case!

There is nothing to be hypnotised here, there is nothing to be done, because you are now disturbing the life!

That is good for adults, not for children!

However, I tell you, what we can achieve for old Piet, Sonja and for many other people, that same thing manifests itself through scribbling.

I know that René is a very different matter, however, the material reaction is a phenomenon, are these colours, are also these trivial drawings.’

‘What should we do then, Frederik?’ Erica asks.

‘Nothing, my child, we will just wait and see.

After all, Hans thought he was great.

I do not, I thought he was already wretched today!’

‘You have a depressing picture of it, Frederik.’

‘Just listen to that Karel.

I already told you, I never look on the black side.

You can do better.

But look here.

Flowers ... they look like flowers, but they are not.

What are they then?

Do you feel what it is?’

‘What is it, Frederik?’

‘They are grades of conscious, Hans.’

‘What did you say?’

‘That in the East or precisely in the middle of the world there is a pyramid.

Do you not know that thing, Hans?’

Karel, Erica, Anna, all three look at me.

Hans asks:

‘Are you irritated, Frederik?’

‘Yes, and precisely by you.

You can never accept anything.

I could give you what for, if you did not know that you will achieve nothing anyway.

You see, I no longer let it bother me.

I never used to go into that, because I thought that you were amazing people.

But I now know that you are so unpleasant, so abnormal, that I feel like playing with your ears for hours on end.

You forget your own stupid things.

You forget, for example, that you declare people insane, who are as healthy as anything.

You forget all of that.

You disregard it and just trundle on.

That irritates a normal person.

I have forgotten it alredy, I no longer fall for it.

However, I tell you: you do not know the slightest about this psychology.

Now I find it a wonderful word, because you do not go to pieces up against the same stone once, but a thousand times.

These are grades of conscious.

And René Wolff draws these grades of conscious, which are just like flowers for you, a strange child, but you do not see that.

You are now standing with your professor legs on top of the corpse and you do not feel it.

This, Hans, is one of the phenomena.

Did I not tell you that they are present and they are not present?

Erica felt like that as well, today she was there and tomorrow she was precisely not there.

She was standing in front of you and she was walking in the street.

She experienced intimate conversations, from which Van Stein received an inner stroke and brought her before the university council, so that this family was a subject of gossip.

You are like that, I will not take it any longer, your learning makes me sick!

But that does not mean, Hans, that I will bump against those same stones.

I therefore mean well.

I am concerned with your doubting Thomas face.

Today I have you and tomorrow I have lost you again.

Karel has changed.

Now he is back next to you.

Yesterday I declared wonders to him, he has also forgotten again.

Today a friend, tomorrow a stranger to you, only because sir is a doctor!

And you are always like that!

I tell you, therefore according to my feelings, Hans, these sharp red colours and this harsh green, are grades of conscious for him, they are worlds, with which his life has to do.

The child lives it up as a result of this.

The life lets off steam and that is already healing.

Here he lets off steam, a medicine for him and for his soul.

What destroyed Sonja, devastated old Piet, just completely lets off steam here calmly, according to natural laws!

What we received with them as a result of hypnosis, happens here of its own accord!

These sharp colours, Hans, Karel, full of red and harsh yellow, they are enflamed, will soon be trouble!

They are characteristics.

These blue colours are part of his peculiar sleep.

His dream world, his eternity.

In this I see the years of transition if you ask me, and not anything else!’

‘Do you want my honest answer, Frederik?’

‘Please, Hans.’

"You are only making a guess.

With the best intentions I cannot make of it what you see.

Honestly, Frederik, I have sacred respect for your knowledge of matters, this is going too far!’

‘But do you not feel then, that this life has been deeply black?

And that we are now already getting colours for light and heat?

Do you not know that we were involved with hell and the devil?

Should we not be grateful that it is going well?’

‘Who is throwing a spanner in the works, Frederik, you are, aren’t you?’

‘That is what you thought, I do not intend, I already told you, to make life sour for Erica, Karel or Anna.

I have never done that before!

Now I am fighting against your faculty.

Our conversations will soon receive a deep meaning.

It is the fight of a layman against all your learning.

I have not yet forgotten my bet, Hans.

I have not yet won it, but that will come.

If we keep the life and all of us may experience this, you will also see it!

I now lay conscious foundations.

I will not let myself be taken in again by you, I will go against it!

That is everything!

Can this child make more of it that lives in his conscious?

No!

But soon, Hans, soon, when this life awakens, then what?’

‘I must first see it.’

‘Me too, but I can already see it now!

Then he will beat you with wonders.’

‘So, despite everything still a child prodigy, Frederik?’

‘Despite everything, yes!

Yes, you will experience it!’

Karel and Hans go upstairs, to the child, we remain downstairs.

Erica does not like it.

Karel does what he thinks he must do.

What the academics want is a mystery to me.

Yet I follow the gentlemen in thoughts.

They are gone at least a quarter of an hour.

What does the professor expect.

I think Hans has changed, now that he has reached the highest for his life.

Still very young and then already on that universal staircase; but a height which means nothing, if it concerns supernatural phenomena.

There they are.

I can see from the eyes and the masks that the gentlemen were involved in a scientific conversation.

They sit for a moment, it is heated, you can cut the scientific art.

It is already like cigar smoke, it stinks so much.

I must watch out, I am starting to feel, now it is a fight to the finish, one university against another, which has no meaning for them.

Great science against flowerbed wisdom ... a comparison which you must feel, or you will not understand any of it, but it is proverbial.

To me it has almost become a concept.

I get it from the street gutters, they get it served up artfully.

And they still do not know it.

Erica is also feeling what is brewing.

Anna is not out of the room for a second.

What is it?

Must the academic not first have a cough?

Do you need a glass of water, professor?

Are your papers in order?

Is your tie straight?

Do you not break your neck over the threshold?

Did the doorman say good morning to you?

Or are you faced with an inner operation this evening?

What is it?

And there you have it.

‘Is it not possible, Frederik, that René has come under your influence?’

Flaming fire from Erica and Anna, pseudo-friendliness radiates from Karel to us, the academics are completely in agreement.

‘What?!’ asks Erica.

‘What do you want now?

René under the influence of Frederik?

Do you wish to have an argument?

Do you wish to attack Frederik?

Do you wish to ...’

She does not get any further, Karel slows her down.

‘Just be quiet ...

We just want to talk.

There is nothing the matter.

Patience.’

Hans asks:

‘What do you think, Frederik?

Is that possible?’

‘Just work it out for yourself.

I have no words for you.’

‘It is just a question, Frederik’, Karel assures him.

"So, it is searching."

‘We can accept that influence is possible.

The life, you say yourself, absorbs feelings.

And you are searching for all these things.

It is obvious, that a sensitive child also absorbs your feelings.

It is possible.

We are just setting up a study, aren’t we?’

‘And you think the boy is okay like that, Hans.

You have already admitted defeat in advance.

What you actually hope to achieve with this study?’

The conversation peters out on its own.

Karel and Hans talk outside.

We talk about very different things.

Hans is more learned than ever.

‘But it is up to him’, Erica says, ‘he will stay away from my child.’

I think about everything.

When Karel comes back I am already in bed.

There is something brewing here, Hans wants something.

I am growing above his head?

Nonsense.

But that he can still influence Karel is a mystery to me.

I also write down:

You can never rely on academics.

They can never be trusted.

You can never start a friendship.

If you think that you have them, you have lost them precisely!

I know: a layman remains a layman.

They accept nothing!

They may not do it, but we have proof.

Hans had to establish that a great deal can be achieved by hypnosis.

He has seen me work, he himself did not get round to it, his life will works all wrong.

But the academic does not believe that either.

And now trying again to finish me off.

Come what may ... I am now going to sleep!

Little René is wild the following morning.

Anna races into my room and says: ‘Frederik, now we’re in for it again.

My God, what misery again.’

I race to his room.

The boy is standing on his bed, upright, and is letting rip like a wild man.

He is shouting, he wants to talk, but he is suffocating as a result of his seething disposition.

He is foaming at the mouth.

And yes, a cup flies past my head.

Karel arrives in a rush, Erica behind him.

Karel races back to his sanctuary and wants to give him an injection.

Erica is like a wild cat and knocks the thing out of his hand.

Meanwhile I have tuned in my will, but I cannot start anything, René’s life is not reacting.

I will get him, the boy is as strong as a big man.

A few minutes later he is in a straightjacket.

He spits at us, his eyes are wild, this is no longer a child.

A pity?

Karel gathers all these things together and tears up the rubbish.

He lets me know:

‘If anything else must be bought, Frederik, then I will be there as well.’

‘Thank you, Karel, I will certainly not forget it.

Thank you very much.’

‘Thank you?

The trouble comes from that cursed drawing, Frederik!

Can you not see that then?’

‘Do you mean that, Karel?’

‘Whether I mean that?!

Do you think that I want to have my child totally mad?’

Karel cannot be reached.

Erica says:

‘Are you starting again?

Do you let yourself be influenced by that professor?

I will tell you something, Karel.

Do not lift a hand to my child, or I will strangle you.

That foreman will go out the door.

If you bring along that pig again, I will chase him out the door.’

And to me she says:

‘Come, Frederik, no worries, we are behind you.’

Karel is furious.

He takes off.

The wonderful happiness of a few days ago has dissolved.

Other masks came in their place.

And that as a result of a professor!

I go to my room and write in the logbook:

What still meant happiness yesterday, is arguments today!

And that as a result of one person!

And precisely a person of whom you hoped that the soul would feel understanding for ‘seelische’ revelation.

You cannot say it like that in your own language, because you are immediately faced with the word ‘spiritual’, which we do not know.

‘Seelisch’ ... it sounds better and it says more, but that has no depth for Hans.

Hans rips up apart and Karel falls for it again.

I am curious where this ship will strand.

However, I was proved right, I saw it from the drawing.

I knew it beforehand.

I let him go his way, that letting off steam means nothing to Hans and Karel.

And yet, as a result of it, we will later have to admit that again, the life is developing.

I do not understand that Hans cannot accept this.

It is as clear as possible.

There is nothing else.

It is so clear because nature is speaking here and searching for its own way.

The worse thing of all is that the boy must go back again.

We will lose this life again.

I must stop, Erica and Anna need me.

I can hear her footstep.

‘What do you think, Frederik?’

‘Do not worry, Erica.

One thing: I do not like it that Hans and his kind are now making a mess.

Hans and Karel will get professor Volt involved.

You will see.

Hans saw his study completed there, but he is falling in a ditch.

I do not understand Karel.

Do not worry, child.

Of course, we will lose him again for a while, but we had not yet made it.

We are now in those desert storms.

We are thirsty!

However, we have a guide, Erica, who know the way.

So no worries.

Everything will be okay again.

You also, Anna.

No fear ... no worries, I swear that to you, I will be proved right.

I know those drawings, all too well.

Later you will read all about them.

I will describe the foundations.

They are not sickly.

But no scientific messing with little René!

If they need any guinea pigs, they will just have to search elsewhere.

I do not wish to persuade you in any way, Erica, but I ask you, use your common sense.

Hans is now too learned for us and he wants to have revenge.

He does not want to go through life under my mask.

I have grown above his head and he does not tolerate that.

I must be destroyed!

He wants to be right, and if he is, Hans will have his respect.

But that will be at René’s expense.

Everything is possible now.

I have influenced René.

We now see what I have been writing for years in the logbook coming true.

I am therefore prepared!

You are too.

We have lost Karel for the moment, but that will be okay as well.

I give you my sacred assurance, Erica, if it is necessary, I will leave!’

‘Never that, Frederik.

As long as you know, we will go with you.’

‘That is wonderful, but you have to finish your own task.’

‘It does not matter ...

I will go with you and Anna too.

Even if I have to walk with shoelaces, I will go with you.

Karel can get lost as far as I am concerned.

You know who I am and what I am like!

I will not let you be trod on.

Your friendship is worth more to me than anything.

I will leave Karel on his own for that.

Does it not mean anything to you?’

‘I am grateful to you, Erica.

But is that necessary?

Must we, who have worked on each other for years, tear apart a bond?

I will go, and if I go, you will have peace and quiet.

I know for sure, Karel will not manage a single day without us.

I know him.

It is Hans!

I will soon give him and Hans the proof.

Just wait, Erica, we will experience another life, other times.

I have complete faith.

This will be okay.’

‘No Hans on little René’s body, Frederik.

Come on, we will see how our child is.’

‘Good day, dear ... good day, little René ... good day, little human child.

How are you?

Are you still angry at Uncle Frederik?

Little René, little René ...

Look me in the eye?’

The child asks for help.

But there is something, which I cannot get under control.

And I know that.

I know that.

“It is the winter, little René ...

No one can change this, you went to sleep for it.

I cannot achieve that, I cannot elevate that into my life, that must grow and awaken.

It lives in the human sperm and soon, when the life is big, it will reach growth and blossom.

Precisely, little René, but then it is called cancer, or tuberculosis; they are illnesses.

You cannot yet be helped like that.

Hypnosis is destruction for a young life, it is smothering the life, it is beating the head to a pulp.

It is destroying the seed, which we planted in the ground yesterday.’

Erica and Anna hear what I say aloud to René.

The child has become calmer.

Erica says:

‘I believe you, Frederik.

I accept that immediately.

And you, Anna?’

‘I too, it must awaken.’

‘Precisely, it must awaken, it must grow, awaken, evolve also, it is only then that you can put a soul to sleep.

If you do it anyway, because you see it is possible, then you lay this life still.

Then the child no longer expresses itself, then it is completely dead.

You smother it!

You now cause disharmony.

You do not give it the opportunity to bud.

Did you see those colours, little René?

Did you not see boeha?

Did you not see him?

And did you think, little René, that we are not here?’

‘But dear!’ I hear Erica say, and that is for me and René.

‘Can you see Uncle Frederik, little René?’

No answer, the child cannot see me.

The day conscious eyes have been disengaged.

The windows are sealed.

What belongs to the day conscious has now gone to sleep.

You could just torture him.

Nothing can be done about it, we must surrender to this process.

‘The child cannot see you, Erica, this life now lies under the normal, it lives there, it rests there, because relaxation has come again.’

René closes his eyes, we go downstairs.

Now there is talking again.

Now we are up to our necks in misery again.

We did not think about it, but it is the case.

The life goes on, it awakens, grows up.

This is significant, but adults like us do not yet know the laws for it.

It is true word for word, you stand before it and you stand behind it and next to it.

What I saw there with Hans, I can now see again with René.

There was a woman there who preened herself the whole day ... stroking like a cat, licking herself.

Did she have a beauty illusion?

In my opinion she did ...

Hans thinks differently about it, contaminated!

And I now saw that astrally.

I did not want to think about it yet, because I did not have proof .

But people had to lock up the woman, because she was busy cleaning, washing herself ten hours a day.

She messed about with water, the whole day, day in day out the same story, but people did not understand it.

Until she became rather wild and she had to move house.

What is it?

Where does a beauty course of treatment like that come from?

You should have heard Hans about it.

I still have no proof of it, but I am starting to think of ‘spiritual contamination’!

There is a demon in that life aura.

And the soul feels that.

The soul as a human being now starts to wash itself and continues to do that, but there is no end.

In this way thousands wash themselves into the madhouse.

That unnatural beauty destroys the soul.

The people of that female being did not understand it, the doctor just guessed.

I say to myself: this is ‘astral pest, astral influence’, the soul as a woman wants rid of that dirty carry-on.

I tell you honestly: I could not see behind that mask.

I have no proof of it, but I will get that proof.

I already said before that I would not go one step too far!

But I will not let myself be ridiculed by any Hans, by any professor Volt, by any Karel, I will now start a fight, which will give us all pleasure.

For little René it is no different.

What you see with those women as attempts to wash themselves clean, I see here as his ... boeha!

It is that skunk who pulls the life downwards.

I have seen it.

Those dolls are not worth a jot to the academics, but they are my proof, it is the life of René!

But I will not tell them yet!

They will just make a scramble of it.

They will make a St. Nicholas out of it, a layman acts the academic.

Good, I assume, but there is also ancient Egypt.

There is also Mohammed!

More of my friends, who gave themselves.

I call them to me!

They have to assist from there?

I do not need them yet.

If I need them, I will get their full co-operation.

Now the East is tuned into the sober West.

I greet you, my Sultan, I am already busy.

Good, that a human being can keep something for himself, or they make a mess of everything, the most sacred matters.

They spoil and ruin everything.

I stand sharp, I have had my irons jacked up, they may come!

Just come, I have become ‘clairvoyant’.

I go one way which takes me and anyone who wants to follow me straight through the Pyramid of Giza.

You may just remain seated on the back of your camel, you do not need to walk for it, I place it in your hands!

You will get it dished up as you have never seen it before!

But, heads down!

Masks off!

Masks off!

What do you want?

That boeha is a man?

I believe it and I do not believe it!

I saw him as a man, as a little devil, but that is the material apparition, the soul expresses itself through those phenomena and we see that little chap.

But I think it is different and much more natural.

I will think about it later, when we have taken little René away again, however horrible it is.

A pity!

A pity!

What a pity, Erica, Anna, but we must have patience!

Later you will say: how did everything fit together.

The phenomena were laid next to each other like building bricks and then we see that landscape with all those waterfalls for our life.

Now you can see yourself in it.

Now human gossip has no more meaning.

Now everything is supernatural, because every thought carries and represents a universe!

Can you see that mask?

I go upstairs and record all these thoughts.

People like us cannot change anything about it.

We can hand in empty notes, but behind that lives the reality, or there would never have been a Saint Peter and that crowing of the cock which people make such a fuss about would have been nonsense!

They would be fabrications then.

But are you trying to deceive me that Christ did not live on earth?

Must we, as is accepted by many wretched academics, accept that as a legend from Jerusalem?

They would like that!

But that is not possible!

He was there, and we will fight for that!

I at least on my own and they as a result of their depraved pedestals!?

Oh, Mohammed, I am starting to understand why it was so difficult for you, for everyone for that matter, who were able to do something for this progress.

An academic is a sheep with human feelers!

Did you see this mask as well?

Karel has not yet changed.

He is infernal!

It is Hans now and professor Volt.

They set up a investigation.

The gentlemen are already coming this afternoon.

We are curious.

Erica says: they may do what they like, but so far and not further.

She is strong together with Anna!

They know what they want!

They readily admit it.

I go my own way.

I cannot do anything.

Karel has to decide about his flesh and blood.

They have been!

Little René did not get any injections because Erica let rip like a wild thing.

She showed the academics the door.

Karel almost attacked her, but Anna stood before the brute.

Then over my dead body.

That is as old as the Kralingen road, but Karel got a fright.

The academics did not know what to do.

They behaved with contempt.

Volt wanted to talk to me, Erica advised me to not say a word to that riffraff.

I did not mind and sir asked:

‘Are you sure of yourself ...

is it out of the question that your will was transferred to the child?’

He put it differently, but I understood him.

I said this:

‘Are you the academic or is it me?’

‘I am asking you something, you can answer me, can’t you?’

‘I will only talk to Mr Wolff.

If Wolff says that I must talk, I am prepared.’

Volt goes away and returns with Karel.

They want to know something from me.

Volt restrains himself a bit, Karel is like a big rogue.

They will come back this evening, then Hans will also be there.

I do not mind.

But Erica says:

‘What shameless dogs they are, Frederik!

You will not say a word to those dogs.

I will get Karel for this.’

But Karel cannot be caught yet, we have also lost little Karel.

Just for a while, I believe, because I cannot believe in that destruction.

But people remain people, remain herd animals, remain strange being!

You have them today, and tomorrow?

And little René has become calmer, but under the straightjacket.

If we free this wild life, it will bite you.

And that may not happen.

We do not talk, we think.

This evening a fight for life and death?

I do not believe it.

I rather think that this will blow over.

For that matter, I do not know what I will say.

I do not know where to start.

The academics want to crush me and Karel will help with it?

I believe it now.

Will I go on a journey after all?

I am getting feelings!

I am getting ideas.

I am open to it.

If that has to happen as well, Karel?

Fine, I am capable of anything!

But then you will have to come to me on your bare knees, you will have to lay your heart on a plate or I will no longer believe you.

For me, Karel, something is dying.

You can go so far, because then I myself cannot do anything more about it.

I will never leave here of my own accord.

I will never lose friends!

Never!

They do not stick it with me, that’s it, because my life is always too heavy, too difficult for them, because they are too lazy to start a life for later!

Get lost, as far as I am concerned ... to hell with you ...!

I have never been so coarse before, but then you should not have placed these words in our perfect piece of writing.

I think it is perfectly simple, I do not wish you dead, you cannot go to hell anyway ...

I actually say something which does not need justification.

I might as well brandish violets, but they have not yet earned that ‘sacred assurance’!

René remains calm.

He has eaten something.

Karel will not let me go to him.

He wants a pure examination.

That is a good one.

But when he is gone for a moment, the women take me to our child.

‘Good day, dear.’

What we do not expect – it is always like that with our child – now happens.

‘Do I have to leave again, Uncle Frederik?

I was just so nicely occupied.’

Conscious again!

If that also comes from me, came as a result of me, I do not need to go on the funeral pyre after all.

It is to us, as if he wants to help us.

This morning a wild man, totally mad, now completely calm and also healthy.

Just let the gentlemen come.

I say:

‘You see, René, you must know, there it is ever so good.

You must go back to your little friends for a while.

And, René, are we not with you?

Are we not waiting for you?

Do we not think of you?

If you come back later, little René, then we will buy large canvasses.

And then I will help you.’

‘Yes, will we, Uncle Frederik?

And will we look at all the beautiful paintings?

And will you not forget that, Uncle Frederik?

And will I also get beautiful things in my room?’

Erica says: ‘My dear.

You will get your own museum from us!’

‘Really, mother?

Really ... are you behaving just like boeha, will you throw me out again?

Father is a rotter!

Father is a rotter, Uncle Frederik.

Ugh, Father makes me sick.

I will get him.

I will cover him in pooh.’

He spits at his father.

‘For shame’, says Erica, ‘Father is sweet.’

‘You are lying, Mother, Father is a pink dahlia!’

‘You see’, says Erica, ‘they now talk of influence.

Sir should have heard this.

When they can learn, they are not there.

Good heavens, but what a mercy.

’And to René she says:

‘You are going away for a while, aren’t you, son?

We will keep everything here for you.

Anna, Frederik and I will buy beautiful paintings for you.

But you may not say anything of father, Father means well with you.

And when you come back, then everything will be fine.

Won’t it, little René?’

‘Yes, Mother.

Yes, mongrel ... yes, bitch!

Just get lost ...!!

You can go to hell.’

He turns round and wants nothing more to do with us.

I pull the hair from my head.

I start to think of influence, I must leave here for some time, the child sucks you completely empty, the academics are right.

But not a second later I think differently about it again.

That is part of it, also that other thing!

Everything together it is a supernatural stew!

And we eat from it, but it does not taste good.

Karel has become sick because of it.

What will this day bring us?

Hans, Volt, Karel – Erica and Anna did not want to be there – they are sitting on hot coals, the conversation has started.

We have started the last act, masks go off?

Masks have just been cleaned up and put on!

Hans now has a prehistoric mask, Karel not so pitiful and crumpled, but it is not up to much.

That Volt is just like a living corpse!

That man comes from Groningen.

An instinct runs across that face, which leaves me cold.

If you were to hang a bag on his shoulders with some junk in it, wearing an old worn suit and then kicked out on the street, he would be the man who does business in the street and on the door.

And that has become a professor and does psychology with Hans.

They are just imitating the last ones!

There is no more to it, and now to the court.

Just come, Your Honours ...

Prevent misery ...

The gates of heaven are now open!

Volt says: ‘We have reached agreement ...

Your presence is the irrevocable destruction of this life.’

‘What do the gentlemen want?

What do the academics want?

Karel, do you approve of that?

Out of my house, riffraff ...

Out of my house.’

Karel saves the situation.

I look at Erica.

She understands me; just wait and see, I give her.

Erica races off for a moment.

I know where she is going.

Anna will tell her what to do.

Soon she can forget herself as much as she wants, now patience is needed.

She is sitting there and waiting.

‘Sorry ...’ she says, ‘but I am mother.’

Volt can agree with that.

I ask nothing, but Hans asks something:

‘What do you think of it, Frederik?’

‘What do I think about this, gentlemen?

Rather clear.

I completely give into what the gentlemen think and can imagine about it.

I believe very certainly in influence, because a child learns everything from adults.

Very correct!’

‘But now what?’ Hans wants to know.

‘Now what?

How can I prevent that influence, I mean: how can I bring change in this, now that it is so far?

I will go, of course, I will leave here, I will be already gone by tomorrow.

Certainly a good decision.

Of course, I must offer you my apologies.

It is pity, why did Karel not let me know this much sooner?

It is a pity, professor, but I am to blame, I do not need to do anything about this, the gentlemen will very probably agree with me.

But, how does the child calm down again?’

‘Those are my affairs!’

Karel says this.

It is cuttingly cold.

North pole carry-on, you need fur coats for it, but the academics agree.

Hans starts to talk about learned systems, and I do not understand them??

I will just go ... because what can I do about this?

Erica is still waiting, she is tigerish.

I must have peace, peace!

Hans knows, if he wants to talk to me about all these things, then he must not start with learned terms.

I close myself off completely to them and I also have no understanding of them??

I have built up an own terminology for these matters.

And it is not bad, you say the same things for them and they are much clearer to understand.

I cannot make any sense of what they make of it.

Hans also starts and provokes me, when he asks:

‘You must understand it properly, Frederik, Karel is concerned with René.

We have found a new way, as a result of which a cure is possible.’

‘I will tell you one thing, Hans.

Must I start to see your personality differently?

Fine ...

Yesterday sir thought differently about it.

Then I had won my bet. Now we are far from home, strangers, now layman’s talk is compared to the university laws.

I do not mind.

What do you wish to know from me?’

‘The core lies with you, Frederik.

We assume that you have had the child under your influence all these years.

We do not say that this happened consciously, you know better.

Murdering destruction was diagnosed here, which has murdered the day conscious for years.

And the young life absorbs those powers, Frederik.

Is that not clear enough?

Is this so wrong?’

Karel does not say a word.

But Erica is sitting next to me, who could rip him apart.

She is still waiting!

Of course, I withdraw into my shell.

You cannot compete with so much horrible talk anyway.

This is just the way I am.

I no longer act then, I deal with it from inside.

I am sad about it, it hurts me!

I will not cast any more pearls before swine!

But how can it be.

That Karel, that poor Hans.

That Volt is a pig!

You should see those bulging eyes.

That nose.

That mouth!

It is like a hay cart.

Look at the elbow steam.

I would bet my head on it, that this man is merciless.

This man has reached his height by being merciless.

I throw my contempt.

Look, he wants to hide behind his glasses.

Can you see that slimness?

Did you see that mask?

I can hear what he is thinking ... I hear:

‘Dirty bastard ... I will kick you out of my house if you come near me.’

And that dirty wagtail, that perfectly ordinary insect, is sitting there and could kill me.

Just give me the Ten Hoves!

Just love those children!

Give them everything ...!

They will kill you anyway!

I will go, learned sir ... but you also will come to me on your bare knees one day and ask for forgiveness.

I will already tell you now: you can send your dirty nonsense to Him, who was born and died for all of us.

There I will be proved right!

He knows what I am like!

He knows what I wanted and what I did!

He knows everything about me!

I am not concerned with what you think of it.

Just banter my name about the street ...

Just say at your university that a layman has made a child mad.

Just put me behind bars ...

I will come back anyway and I will be proved right after all!!

About everything!

Bastards!

Dirty carry-on!

Wretches!

Bunglers!

Big fuss!

Grass blades!

Animal instinct!

Filth!

False carry-on!

Deception!

Liars!

Do you want to step over my dead body?

God preserve me!

God knows who I am!

I will go both over and on the funeral pyre for Him!

Just make me out to be an evil genius!

I did not say any of this aloud.

Ugh!

They sit there and say nothing.

When Karel does not know what to do with himself, he awkwardly reaches for a box of cigars.

‘Thank you, poet ... doctor, job stealer!!’ I utter, and I feel that little René is helping me, ‘I never smoke!

No, I never smoke!

You would like that.

Wouldn’t you?’

I now carry on, I will strengthen their diagnosis.

Hans already feels what is coming and they will enjoy it as well!

‘Not I, I never smoke!

You thought that.

Never heard of those frills, professor?

The wind flies softly over the hills and makes the learnedness of this world soaking wet.

I say to Van Buitenstein: hold onto your hat.

But what does the man do, he throws me smack to the ground.

I will get him.

Of course you thought that I was going to kill him, didn’t you?

Not at all.

I said: come on, we will go home together, we will have a nice meal.

What bad weather, isn’t it?

Are you also coming to pray?

Help is needed.

Now let your mass be read and behave consciously like a cow, you will then get inspiration.

Knock that bitch down.

Do not throw snowballs at this life.

Put stones in it and you will know what you throw on target.’

They sit there and think: totally mad.

Karel gets a meaningful nod from Volt!

Hans also understands it.

Totally mad.

And we have had that wretched life in the house for years?

When Volt also wants to say something, Erica flies at the man, takes hold of the monster by his black suit, rips that piece completely open as far as his neck and pushes him out the door.

Karel wants to prevent this, but he gets a sensitive tick on his nose.

Anna is standing in front of Karel.

You can go over her dead body, Karel.

And when Volt is almost lying on the street and it is Hans’ turn, the God of all life stands in our midst, but as a result of the ‘majesty’ of a mad child.

And that child has a stick in his hands?

It is an iron poker.

The child stands before his own father.

The child calls for mother.

Erica has thrown Volt out on the street, she is back again to let Hans become acquainted with holes, streetgutters ... René takes Hans into his protection and says:

‘It is that rotter!

It is him!

It is that brute!

It is that dirty boeha carry-on!

There, there, there!’

Hans thought he would get protection.

But René suddenly hits him on his jaw.

Hans moans.

Karel now wants to attack his son.

Anna and Erica plunge on this living instinct and throw him where he should be.

Karel collapses into a chair.

Hans dashes after Volt.

Erica says:

‘You can come back, Hans, but then with a clear head, otherwise we no longer need you.

Out!

Out, I tell you.

Out, Hans, out!’

Hans has gone.

Hans is out!!

Now what?

Karel is like a wild lion.

It is me, he is after me.

But Erica and Anna are standing in front of him.

Erica talks:

‘And now you want to kill Frederik, do you?

Good, just go ahead.

I will teach you how to do it, Karel.

Point at Frederik.

Piece of shamelessness, you are a scandal.

Do you want to lose Frederik, hypocrite?

Do you want to lose him, because you are in a mess with dead bodies?

Because you cannot bear the truth?

Try doing it.

I already told you once, if Frederik goes, then we also go.

If he has to go, we will go.

But you will stay away from my child!’

Now we all look at René.

Where is the angel!

He is sitting quietly on a chair and is looking at Karel’s art.

He looks for along time, we leave the child alone.

Karel also looks ...

Karel looks different ...

Karel is still like a bull, but the anger is decreasing.

Anna wants to know how the child got free.

And she lifts him up, presses the life to her heart and goes upstairs.

In less than five minutes she is downstairs again.

Karel says nothing more, he is sitting there with his hands in front of his head thinking ...!

I go to my room.

I believe that the parents still have something to discuss with each other.

Upstairs I hear Erica’s screaming voice.

Karel is getting it.

She is right ...

She tells him that she is capable of taking care of her child.

Science has no meaning.

Does husband dear not know that?

Has he forgotten everything which we experienced in these years?

And does Hans want to know it?

That beast?

That wretch?

That rich castle?

Does he wish to take care of people?

That drastic ivy?

Where does she get those words from.

It is as if good helps itself, inspires itself.

René calls to me.

I go to the child.

‘Is Father angry at me, Uncle Frederik?’

‘I do not think so, dear boy, I do not think so!’

‘Then it is okay, I am going straight to sleep.’

And look, as before, he lies down and sleeps again!

Phenomena which we know, it is progress, awakening!

It says in the logbook:

It has now reached an outburst!

I had really not expected this.

I would not have been able to believe it.

Yet, as you see yourself, people like us are strange beings.

I do not know all the masks yet.

How deep is a mask like that, a human scaffold like that?

I do not know.

I myself could not have done anything else.

When I shouted from within, all kinds of ugly things at them, I meant it with my heart.

I do not believe that I will take back one word of it.

That Volt is a scandalous braggart.

I really thought that I had to do with a burglar.

It is a morphine addict, if you ask me.

A stealer of buildings, a thief of buildings, a lowlife character, with whom Hans walks away and whom he saddles us with.

It is not Karel, it is Hans.

I hear Erica saying from my place:

‘And you surrender to that piece of scandal?

Do you not know that past then?

Do you not remember, Karel, that you told me a few years ago about that demonic character?

And our Frederik has to leave for that?

For a morphine addict like that?

For such a miserable sod?

Are you not ashamed of yourself?’

I do not wish to listen anymore and continue.

I record:

It is still remarkable, Erica also feels what a scoundrel that man is.

I have met hundreds of thousands of people, but not yet such animal instinct as a human being and academic.

It is particularly dirty!

It will surprise me how Karel takes this.

I already know, but we will have to have patience.

Oh, how shocked I was after all.

What a lowlife being, how can it be, Hans.

But you will come back, you cannot live without good friends.

I still love you.

Erica as well, but you must not get up to that nonsense with us again.

You will stay way from little René!

Erica gives Karel all she has got.

The grumbling bear just has to swallow it.

He fell back into an old fault of his.

However, I think that he will now overcome this.

In this way characteristics go to the ground.

A human being must not fight against it once, but a thousand times.

That is as old as humanity.

But the human being does not yet believe and know it.

To see friends and to accept friends, that is art.

To keep them is a supernatural law!

Anyone who can do this, is busy breeding a dove.

What a situation.

Suddenly you are in trouble.

When I think of yesterday evening, I could weep now.

But then Karel had already lost.

Little René is going away again, away from us, because it has to happen.

I do not believe that I have made mistakes.

I believe that I will go away for a while.

Karel must be rid of me for a while or he will have to beg me to stay.

I hope to be able to experience the latter, although I love him like all of them, but he does not yet understand that!

What would you think, Frederik, of a trip to ancient Egypt?

I want to ‘reach for the moon’ there!

I want to talk to the Sphinx!

In my previous youth I overlooked all those sanctities.

I am still capable of helping René, from whatever place.

Meanwhile peace comes.

I will go!

I will let Karel know, that I do not want any charity from him.

I put on another garment again.

I will go into diplomacy again ....

I will start another intimate conversation

It is a pity, but it just cannot be helped.

I was so wonderfully myself.

I gave myself as I am. I spoke like an awkward child, I came out with things as they came to me, even if I myself was horrified by all those words.

I must put on my mask again for a while.

Sultan... highness ... see you soon!

I had not thought that we would see each other already.

Meanwhile we have aged.

We will have more to give each other.

I now want to know whether you kept your word.

Have you helped all your women to find a good husband?

Have you given them the choice, what they wanted and longed for themselves?

I now want to hear that from your mouth.

There is nothing more for now.

See you soon!

When Karel and Erica knock on my door, I call:

‘I am already seen for, darlings.

I have just started to pack my cases.’

I hear:

‘Do not do that, Frederik!’

‘There are things, Karel ...’ I throw at his head through the closed door ‘which a poor soul like me must decide for myself.

I will go, but I will first take little René away, if you do not mind?’

‘You are not going, Frederik!’

‘I am going, Karel, my Sultan is calling to me.

Sleep well, sleep good, I will remember you in my sleep.

‘Adios, with pleasant dreams too!’’

There were no flowers this evening!

It was a great deal of commotion!

But everything will be okay again!

We go to the next and final act.

Little René is leaving!

I will continue to watch out!

Did you also see these masks?