Now I had the time to reflect.

My cell was a few meters square.

A weak light which came in through a small window was my only lighting.

When the sun went down it also meant darkness to me.

There was no other light in my possession.

When I first arrived here I sought for the possibility of escaping.

However, I soon relinquished this thought, it seemed impossible.

I did not know whether I lived above or below the ground.

It had to be above the ground, otherwise I would not have had any light.

However, when I came in I had counted the steps which we descended and there were thirty-two.

The walls of my cell were a few metres thick.

What could I do about this?

Nothing, for that matter.

So I soon surrendered and gave into fate.

I now lay on my back for hours on end gazing upwards.

The first days passed in this way.

I had time for everything, did not need to rush with anything.

My whole earthly life passed before me.

I thought of my youth, how carefree it had been.

How much my parents loved me, but they were false and mean.

How I had got to know them!

However, the wonderful hours with Marianne were the best in my life, the most sacred moments.

Then in that other environment, with different teachers who had taught me nothing.

Yet I had become a great artist.

There was a strength within me which served for something and was useful.

Now I no longer asked where I got my feeling for art from, I did not get an answer to it anyway.

If I had stayed at home this would not have happened.

However, I had to.

A power unknown to me drove me from this boiling hot soil and I left, with this as the end.

I felt revenge during my whole life, revenge, nothing but revenge.

Was there a God of revenge?

Would my parents know about this end?

I had still nourished the hope that they would free me.

But no.

Would they still be able to sleep another peaceful hour if they knew this?

Would Marianne tell them?

That would not happen either, because I had forbidden her to do so, after all.

Was Marianne still alive?

Had she not succumbed as a result of all these gripping events?

If my parents were to find out then it would sour their happiness even more and darken their light.

Their God was now a God of revenge, that was a fact to me.

However, I should not think of all these things anymore.

The first few days I had been miserable about my failed life, but I gradually got over it, I could not change anything about it anyway.

I had happened and now I had to pay the punishment with my life.

Yet I felt happy that I had destroyed my family line with myself.

There would be no more heirs, I, the only one, was locked in a dungeon.

I waited for my end here in this hovel.

I would not even want to have children, but I did not know why.

Yet it did me good that the sun had not risen for them.

They now also sat in the darkness, I had destroyed their hope, their light, their task.

I now felt how wrong their thoughts were.

During y childhood I had already thought about it, but did not understand it properly, only now did I feel it.

Their God now thought differently about them.

Would they still be able to love Him, after so much disaster?

This was the only trump card which I had been able to play in order to destroy their happiness.

And it was destroyed.

I had escaped their torture, but now I was also tortured.

I would have preferred my father to have shaken me to death.

Yet, on the other hand, I did not, because I did not wish him that happiness.

Was he capable of that?

Oh, certainly, I knew him only too well for that.

Those beings were in our family and destruction and violence lay within them.

A long time ago, very far in the past, other things had happened.

As a child I had already heard about them, yet I did not get to the truth.

I asked my mother whether this contained any truth, but I was still too young, she said, and I would not understand it.

I was very interested in history, but our history was kept hidden from me.

At least, I thought so.

I saw and felt so much violence that could not be justified.

Everything which had happened in the past had nothing to do with the living.

I should not delve too much in what was past, my mother said.

When I talked to my father about it, he shrugged his shoulders, so that I was none the wiser.

My train of thought was now interrupted, since I had to think of Marianne, because I was eaten away by love, so that a great sadness entered me.

Still I did not want to be sad, for nothing could really be done about it.

It was remarkable, when Marianne came to visit me in my cell, I felt that it was not me who spoke in this way.

I could not have spoken in such a way.

It came forth from my deepest inner self which I myself did not know or understand.

However, it was strange.

Now I no longer had any longings, I was just waiting for death, because I would not get out of here again anyway.

I therefore tried to keep all those thoughts away from me, but they kept coming back and I started to have longings.

My love was deep, I apparently loved too much.

Did Marianne think of me?

If that was the case, then I could clearly feel her and it warmed my inner self.

One day followed another.

I no longer kept a note of the days or weeks, because it just upset me and I wanted to be as calm as possible.

I also felt that the winter was approaching, because it was getting colder and colder.

When the wind howled through the gaps in the only hatch above me, I became afraid.

It was a tormenting feeling when the elements were in rebellion.

How could people still believe in a God of Love?

There were hundreds here with me who cursed him.

All those men had the most miserable time, but I did not ever see them, because I did not get out of my cell.

I lived here, this was my world and their world.

If I was to call to them very loudly, they would not even hear me.

Why did God allow this?

Was I one of them who were destroyed?

God was Father to all of us, He would be able to free me and all those other people.

However, it did not happen.

The food was poor and insufficient, as well as the water which I was given to drink.

My poor body winced and yet I drunk it because I would not get any other water.

I had to drink because I had such a terrible thirst.

However, with every gulp I felt stabbing pains in my stomach.

Were they busy here torturing me to death in this way?

Why not immediately, why such a torment?

Only people could do that, an animal did not do such a thing, its feeling was not so far advanced, that was not animal-like enough.

However, a human being possessed intellectual gifts and could therefore invent better torments.

However, did God give him these gifts for that purpose?

Where people therefore divine as the bible said.

I was a murderer, had to pay, but I was not capable of such a thing.

It seemed dreadful to me to do such a thing, even more cruel than my crime, it was even worse and meaner.

I had acted in anger, but here they tormented me and all those other wretches in a slow excruciating way.

We had to die but how long would it take?

I chose the scaffold above this slow decline.

In addition there was my inner sadness, that being locked up and that thinking, always that thinking, which was indescribable.

All that suffering made me long for death, the sooner the better it would be for me.

If only I had not been born.

Would I have come to earth for this purpose?

I cursed the moment that I was born.

Or was it my own fault that I was locked up here?

Who could give me an answer to this?

How I hated my parents, now even more than before.

After each suffering that I felt, my hate grew.

How long would this still have to last?

Perhaps ten, twenty or thirty years.

I would go crazy because of it.

I lay for hours with both hands under my head, staring in front of me.

I was like the living dead.

Yet my heart beat like every other person and I felt longings within me for a bit of sun, a small amount of love and humanity.

I yearned for it and a person who possessed freedom did not realise that he was still so well-off.

It lived in me and gnawed at my poor heart.

But when I sensed all of this, my thoughts still went to that incomprehensible God and I begged Him to put an end to this misery.

He, the Almighty, could do this.

However, I did this silently, no person or animal should hear it.

I did not dare to ask or pray aloud, if that was praying.

The animals around me would have sympathise with me if they were conscious of it.

They represented the only life which I saw and felt here.

Their presence did me good, I was not the only one here then who was locked up.

It was amazing, but as a result of them I bore my suffering more easily, because I followed all their movements during the day and so the time flew past, the days passed and my end was approaching.

Every day which passed meant old age for people who were free, to me it meant weakness and loss of strength.

As a result of this food I would and should die, my poor body had to go downhill, it could not be any other way.

Therefore I kept on sitting having a think, also about God.

However, the days and weeks flew past and I was still alive.

God did not hear me.

Did I have to call for help loudly, really loudly?

This was still not possible for me and I doubted whether God would hear me.

In churches people sung so that it could be heard in the street and no prayers were answered there either.

In this way I became thinner before my eyes, my poor body suffered from rheumatism, cold and poverty and my face became angular.

However, I found the nights the worst of all, they lasted a year to me.

Within me I started to have longings again.

My heart asked for all those earthly things which make life on earth pleasant.

I yearned for the sun, food and drink, for some space and many other things.

My heart asked and my soul begged.

Both were sad, were dying.

If everyone on this earth could experience this, they would appreciate their possessions more.

They did not realise what it is, to possess freedom, food and drink and all the other things.

The most unhappy people on earth are rich, compared to me and all the others.

The warbling of the birds, the barking of a dog, to be able to talk to a person, oh, how happy that would make me.

I yearned for all these things, as I already said, for all that earthly happiness.

During my life I had always appreciated it, but now I did not have any of it.

To be able to see the firmament, the night and day on earth, to be able to live it up in my art, oh, I had nothing, nothing more.

When I was in my other cell I did not want to meet anybody, now I longed for it.

A beaker of water, a piece of fruit, I would give my life for those small trivial things.

My body asked for all these things because I lived.

However, it was cold here, horribly cold and I sat huddled up and fought with myself.

People, appreciate what you have.

How ungrateful many people are.

You grumble and complain, you are dissatisfied and yet you have everything.

You do not appreciate the sunlight which shines on you.

Lock yourself up and you will learn to appreciate.

I was also ungrateful, but did not understand it.

Yet I lived with nature, it gave me peace and joy.

Now I was sitting here in deep darkness and gazing, gazing, so that my eyes burned and hurt until I was tired of all that staring, that thinking and longing and I collapsed and wished that I would never waken again.

Yet I kept waking again and then started to long again and ask: why, what is the purpose of all of this?

I have sinned, I am a murderer, but what would you have done?

Would you have been in control of everything?

I had already asked myself this many times, but could not find an answer to it.

I will pay, will bear everything, but I felt that there would be few people amongst you who would have acted differently.

Those powers are not in you when you love, truly love.

My love for Marianne made me do it, only through love.

Did I have to watch Roni completely fulfilling his satanic game?

Watch him sullying her?

All these thoughts and thereby that terrible silence almost made me crazy.

Yet I got used to it, but I felt that something was starting to change within me.

In this way I kept following all my feelings and the days, weeks, months and years passed.