‘All the rest is a postscript – the cloud of ash that rises into the stratosphere from the volcano, circles around the earth, and continues to rain down on all its continents for years.’ page 55

‘Yet he himself did not take part. Not because he was worried about his parents or Peter, for he never thought about that, but more because none of this was really a part of him or ever would be. His entire universe had become that other one which now fortunately had come to an end, and about which he never wanted to think again. Nevertheless it was part of him, so that all in all, he didn’t have much left.’ page 56

‘At such moments it was if he had remembered a dream, but not so much what the dream had been about, as simply the fact that it had been a nightmare. Yet at the core of that hermetic darkness now and then flashed a single source of blinding light: …’ page 57

Ruysdael’s painting of Haarlem with the bleaching grounds. Reference on page 58

The Tram in Haarlem: 1945

Ortskommandantur: De Hout Straat, Haarlem, 1945

“Thanks for the memory … “ He smiled at the coincidence … page 61

‘… the creatures stared at him out of a past as deep and immovable as themselves. Though some of them seemed to be grinning broadly, their eyes spoke a different language, of a gravity so immovable and undisturbed as to be almost unbearable.’ page 69

“All those seeds blow over to their place and into our garden; it’s impossible to keep up with the weeding.” page 69

“I understand, Mrs. Beumer. Life continues.” page 70

‘In that case the troublesome weeds would have been growing on this spot.’ page 70

‘It was the lilac hour. The sun had just gone down, the quay and the meadows were bathed in a light that belonged neither to day nor night. It came out of another world where nothing ever moved or changed, and it lifted everything out of the ordinary.’ page 73

G.J. Sorgdrager

W.L. Steenwijk

D. Steenwijk – van Liempt

J. Takes

K.H.S. Veerman

A. Van der Zon

‘For the first time he felt a kind of fear, something sucking him in, a deep hole into which things fell without reaching the bottom, as when someone throws a stone into a well and never hears it land.’ page 75

‘Then he would disappear once more, upside-down, into the depths. After many years, also mathematically calculable, he would at last stop and remain floating, weightless, at the center of the earth, where he would be able to reflect upon the state of things in eternity.’ page 76