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William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
THE SONNETS
125
Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
When most impeached, stands least in thy control.
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: -Shakespeare Sonnets
Freda Kamphuis: Alexander Calder tot en met terugreis
Expositie: Alexander Calder. De grote ontdekking
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag t/m 28 mei 2012
Voor het eerst sinds 1969 is dit voorjaar een groot overzicht van Alexander Calder (1898-1976) in Nederland te zien. Wereldberoemd werd hij met zijn open draadsculpturen, zijn verbluffende Cirque Calder (1926-1931) en mobiles die gekenmerkt worden door hun immaterialiteit en beweging. Het maakte hem tot een van de belangrijkste grondleggers van de moderne beeldhouwkunst. De tentoonstelling draait om het legendarische bezoek van Alexander Calder aan het atelier van Piet Mondriaan in Parijs in 1930. Dit bezoek markeert een keerpunt in Calders carrière; het opent zijn ogen voor de abstracte kunst.
Foto’s Freda Kamphuis
fleursdumal.nl
More in: Freda Kamphuis, Kamphuis, Freda, Sculpture
Heinrich von Kleist
(1777-1811)
Der Engel am Grabe des Herrn
Als still und kalt mit sieben Todeswunden
Der Herr in seinem Grabe lag; das Grab
Als sollt’ es zehn lebend’ge Riesen fesseln,
In eine Felskluft schmetternd eingehauen:
Gewälzet mit der Männer Kraft, verschloß
Ein Sandstein, der Bestechung taub, die Türe;
Rings war des Landvogts Siegel aufgedrückt:
Es hätte der Gedanke selber nicht
Der Höhle unbemerkt entschlüpfen können;
Und gleichwohl noch, als ob zu fürchten sei,
Es könn’ auch der Granitblock sich bekehren,
Ging eine Schar von Hütern auf und ab
Und starrte nach des Siegels Bildern hin.
Da kamen bei des Morgens Strahl,
Des ew’gen Glaubens voll, die drei Marien her,
Zu sehn, ob Jesus noch darinnen sei;
Denn er, versprochen hatt’ er ihnen,
Er werd’ am dritten Tage auferstehn.
Da nun die Fraun, die gläubigen, sich nahten
Der Grabeshöhle: was erblickten sie?
Die Hüter, die das Grab bewachen sollten,
Gestürzt, das Angesicht in Staub,
Wie Tote um den Felsen lagen sie;
Der Stein war weit hinweggewälzt vom Eingang;
Und auf dem Rande saß, das Flügelpaar noch regend,
Ein Engel, wie der Blitz erscheint,
Und sein Gewand so weiß wie junger Schnee.
Da stürzten sie, wie Leichen, selbst getroffen
Zu Boden hin und fühlten sich wie Staub
Und meinten gleich im Glanze zu vergehn;
Doch er, er sprach, der Cherub: »Fürchtet nicht!
Ihr suchet Jesum, den Gekreuzigten –
Der aber ist nicht hier, er ist erstanden;
Kommt her und schaut die öde Stätte an!«
Und fuhr, als sie mit hocherhobnen Händen
Sprachlos die Grabesstätte leer erschaut,
In seiner hehren Milde also fort:
»Geht hin, ihr Fraun, und kündigt es nunmehr
Den Jüngern an, die er sich auserkoren,
Daß sie es allen Erdenvölkern lehren
Und tun also, wie er getan!« – und schwand.
Heinrich von Kleist poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Heinrich von Kleist, Kleist, Heinrich von
William Shakespeare Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare Sonnet 18
Zal ik je keuren als een zomerdag?
Veel kalmer en veel lieflijker ben jij.
Door ruige wind raakt meibloei teer van slag
En zomer’s pacht gaat al te snel voorbij;
Soms schijnt het oog van d’ hemel al te heet,
En dikwijls wordt zijn gulden blos gedempt;
Eens komt de tijd die aan de schoonheid vreet,
Door ’t lot, of wending der natuur ontstemd;
Maar, tijdloos, zal jouw zomer niet vergaan,
Noch jij onterfd zijn van zijn schoon domein,
Al snoeft de dood, jouw schim treft hij nooit aan,
Daar jij als tijdloos vers in groei zal zijn:
Zo lang de mensheid oog of adem heeft,
Zo lang leeft dit, dat aan jou leven geeft.
Vertaald door Cornelis W. Schoneveld, (herzien feb. 2012)
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Shakespeare, Shakespeare, William
Georg Heym
(1887-1912)
Berlin I
Beteerte Fässer rollten von den Schwellen
Der dunklen Speicher auf die hohen Kähne.
Die Schlepper zogen an. Des Rauches Mähne
Hing rußig nieder auf die öligen Wellen.
Zwei Dampfer kamen mit Musikkapellen.
Den Schornstein kappten sie am Brückenbogen.
Rauch, Ruß, Gestank lag auf den schmutzigen Wogen
Der Gerbereien mit den braunen Fellen.
In allen Brücken, drunter uns die Zille
Hindurchgebracht, ertönten die Signale
Gleichwie in Trommeln wachsend in der Stille.
Wir ließen los und trieben im Kanale
An Gärten langsam hin. In dem Idylle
Sahn wir der Riesenschlote Nachtfanale.
Berlin II
Der hohe Straßenrand, auf dem wir lagen,
War weiß von Staub. Wir sahen in der Enge
Unzählig: Menschenströme und Gedränge,
Und sahn die Weltstadt fern im Abend ragen.
Die vollen Kremser fuhren durch die Menge,
Papierne Fähnchen waren drangeschlagen.
Die Omnibusse, voll Verdeck und Wagen.
Automobile, Rauch und Huppenklänge.
Dem Riesensteinmeer zu. Doch westlich sahn
Wir an der langen Straße Baum an Baum,
Der blätterlosen Kronen Filigran.
Der Sonnenball hing groß am Himmelssaum.
Und rote Strahlen schoß des Abends Bahn.
Auf allen Köpfen lag des Lichtes Traum.
Berlin III
Schornsteine stehn in großem Zwischenraum
Im Wintertag, und tragen seine Last,
Des schwarzen Himmels dunkelnden Palast.
Wie goldne Stufe brennt sein niedrer Saum.
Fern zwischen kahlen Bäumen, manchem Haus,
Zäunen und Schuppen, wo die Weltstadt ebbt,
Und auf vereisten Schienen mühsam schleppt
Ein langer Güterzug sich schwer hinaus.
Ein Armenkirchhof ragt, schwarz, Stein an Stein,
Die Toten schaun den roten Untergang
Aus ihrem Loch. Er schmeckt wie starker Wein.
Sie sitzen strickend an der Wand entlang,
Mützen aus Ruß dem nackten Schläfenbein,
Zur Marseillaise, dem alten Sturmgesang.
Georg Heym poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Dada, Georg Heym, Heym, Georg
William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
THE SONNETS
124
If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered,
As subject to time’s love or to time’s hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No it was builded far from accident,
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: -Shakespeare Sonnets
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
Gone
To touch the glove upon her tender hand,
To watch the jewel sparkle in her ring,
Lifted my heart into a sudden song
As when the wild birds sing.
To touch her shadow on the sunny grass,
To break her pathway through the darkened wood,
Filled all my life with trembling and tears
And silence where I stood.
I watch the shadows gather round my heart,
I live to know that she is gone
Gone gone for ever, like the tender dove
That left the Ark alone.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal poems
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
Ton van Reen
EEN NOG SCHONERE SCHIJN VAN WITHEID
Een winterverhaal
5
“Alles mag je weten,” zei grootmoeder, “maar jongens hebben soms geheimen.”
“Dus het ging over jou,” zei moeder opgelucht, omdat alles wat wij te vertellen hadden, terwijl zij buiten met de lakens vocht, niets met haar van doen had. “Ik dacht al dat het over mij ging. Ik zag wel dat jullie me uitlachten.”
“We zouden niet durven,” zei grootmoeder.
Mijn moeder pakte de kam en liep naar haar slaapkamer om haar verwaaide haren te kammen. Wij bleven stil wachten. Wij wisten wat het betekende, vooral als het lang duurde. Soms zag ik mijn moeder als de deur van haar slaapkamer openstond en ze voor de spiegel van de commode zat, soms wel tien minuten. Dan was het altijd alsof ze haar haren kamde voor de grote en sprekende foto van mijn zo vroeg gestorven vader, wiens foto ze zo naar de spiegel had gekeerd dat het was of hij naar haar keek. Het leek alsof ze het voor hem deed. Ze maakte zich mooi voor hem. Door een kier van de deur bleef ik kijken, ademloos. En als ik wist dat zij wist dat ik er stond, liep ik fluitend of zingend naar beneden, spelend dat ik niets had gezien, maar de tranen stonden dik in mijn keel van ontroering.
“Je mag alles weten, mam,” zei ik, toen ze terugkwam in de keuken, haar haren mooi alsof ze naar de kerk ging. “Maar je weet alles al.”
“Ja, ik weet alles,” zei ze, kijkend naar de lakens die zacht als was waren geworden.
Ik liep naar buiten, net of ik naar de konijnen ging kijken, tenslotte wist ik dat van kinderen werd verwacht dat ze zich groot hielden en dat ze nooit klein moesten zijn. Ik speelde dat ik naar de wolken ging kijken, die misschien sneeuw zouden brengen. Of misschien liep ik gewoon naar buiten omdat kinderen soms buiten moeten zijn. Ik zweer het, kinderen moeten soms naar buiten geschopt worden, omdat geen mens snapt wat er in hun hoofden omgaat. Buiten kunnen ze pas alleen zijn. En ze weten dat daarbinnen de anderen over hen praten. Maar of grootmoeders en moeders echt iets van hun kinderen snappen, betwijfel ik.
Ik zweer het, als ik nu naar binnen zou gaan op fluistervoeten, in de sokken die mijn grootmoeder voor me heeft gebreid, zal ik horen dat ze over mij praten, grootmoeder en moeder. Maar ik mag het niet horen omdat wat ze zeggen niet voor mijn oren bestemd is en omdat het tegen de spelregels is. Ik loop buiten alleen maar wat rond om de tranen in mijn ogen te laten bevriezen. En er valt genoeg te lachen. Ik hoor de arbeiders van de steenfabriek met hun gore moppen waar ik geen bal van snap, maar die toch heel lollig moeten zijn.
Ik moet sterk zijn. Want straks komen mijn broers thuis. Ze moeten echt niet denken dat ik een hamster of een hond ben, alleen maar omdat ik een beetje verdrietig ben. Ik begin met terugslaan. Ik sla ze gewoon op hun kop. Ik weet alles.
EINDE
Het verhaal Een nog schonere schijn van witheid van Ton van Reen werd uitgegeven op 26 februari 2012 in opdracht van De Bibliotheek Maas en Peel, ter gelegenheid van de heropening van de bibliotheek in Maasbree. Teksten uit het verhaal zijn aangebracht op glazen wanden.
© Ton van Reen
Proza van Ton van Reen:
Geen oorlog roman
De moord novelle
De gevangene novelle
Lachgas roman
Landverbeuren roman
De zondvloed novelle
Katapult, de ondergang van Amsterdam roman
Bevroren dromen roman
Het diepste blauw roman
Concert voor de Führer roman
Het winterjaar roman
In het donkere zuiden verhalen
Thuiskomst novelle
Roomse meisjes roman
Zomerbloei novelle
Wie zo van vrouwen houdt verhaal
Gevallen ster roman
Brandende mannen roman
De bende van de bokkenrijders roman 12+
Gestolen jeugd roman 12+
Vlucht voor het vuur jeugdroman
Dwars door het glas jeugdroman
Voor meer informatie: www.tonvanreen.nl
fleursdumal.nl poetry magazine
More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive Q-R, Reen, Ton van, Ton van Reen
Wallace Stevens
(1879-1955)
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
(from Harmonium,1923)
Wallace Stevens: The Snow Man
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive S-T
Luigi Pirandello: Shoot! (11)
Shoot! (Si Gira, 1926). The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinematograph Operator by Luigi Pirandello. Translated from the Italian by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
BOOK II
5
A problem which I find it far more difficult to solve is this: how in the world Giorgio Mirelli, who would fly with such impatience from every complication, can have lost himself to this woman, to the point of laying down his life on her account.
Almost all the details are lacking that would enable me to solve this problem, and I have said already that I have no more than a summary report of the drama.
I know from various sources that the Nestoroff, at Capri, when Giorgio Mirelli saw her for the first time, was in distinctly bad odour, and was treated with great diffidence by the little Russian colony, which for some years past has been settled upon that island.
Some even suspected her of being a spy, perhaps because she, not very prudently, had introduced herself as the widow of an old conspirator, who had died some years before her coming to Capri, a refugee in Berlin. It appears that some one wrote for information, both to Berlin and to Petersburg, with regard to her and to this unknown conspirator, and that it came to light that a certain Nikolai Nestoroff had indeed been for some years in exile in Berlin, and had died there, but without ever having given anyone to understand that he was exiled for political reasons. It appears to have become known also that this Nikolai Nestoroff had taken her, as a little girl, from the streets, in one of the poorest and most disreputable quarters of Petersburg, and, after having her educated, had married her; and then, reduced by his vices to the verge of starvation had lived upon her, sending her out to sing in music-halls of the lowest order, until, with the police on his track, he had made his escape, alone, into Germany. But the Nestoroff, to my knowledge, indignantly denies all these stories.
That she may have complained privately to some one of the ill-treatment, not to say the cruelty she received from her girlhood at the hands of this old man is quite possible; but she does not say that he lived upon her; she says rather that, of her own accord, obeying the call of her passion, and also, perhaps, to supply the necessities of life, having overcome his opposition, she took to acting in the provinces, a-c-t-i-n-g, mind, on the legitimate stage; and that then, her husband having fled from Russia for political reasons and settled in Berlin, she, knowing him to be in frail health and in need of attention, taking pity on him, had joined him there and remained with him till his death. What she did then, in Berlin, as a widow, and afterwards in Paris and Vienna, cities to which she often refers, shewing a thorough knowledge of their life and customs, she neither says herself nor certainly does anyone ever venture to ask her.
For certain people, for innumerable people, I should say, who are incapable of seeing anything but themselves, love of humanity often, if not always, means nothing more than being pleased with themselves.
Thoroughly pleased with himself, with his art, with his studies of landscape, must Giorgio Mirelli, unquestionably, have been in those days at Capri.
Indeed–and I seem to have said this before–his habitual state of mind was one of rapture and amazement. Given such a state of mind, it is easy to imagine that this woman did not appear to him as she really was, with the needs that she felt, wounded, scourged, poisoned by the distrust and evil gossip that surrounded her; but in the fantastic transfiguration that he at once made of her, and illuminated by the light in which he beheld her. For him feelings must take the form of colours, and, perhaps, entirely engrossed in his art, he had no other feeling left save for colour. All the impressions that he formed of her were derived exclusively, perhaps, from the light which he shed upon her; impressions, therefore, that were felt by him alone. She need not, perhaps could not participate in them. Now, nothing irritates us more than to be shut out from an enjoyment, vividly present before our eyes, round about us, the reason of which we can neither discover nor guess. But even if Giorgio Mirelli had told her of his enjoyment, he could not have conveyed it to her mind. It was a joy felt by him alone, and proved that he too, in his heart, prayed and wished for nothing else of her than her body; not, it is true, like other men, with base intent; but even this, in the long run–if you think it over carefully–could not but increase the woman’s irritation. Because, if the failure to derive any assistance, in the maddening uncertainties of her spirit, from the many who saw and desired nothing in her save her body, to satisfy on it the brutal appetite of the senses, filled her with anger and disgust; her anger with the one man, who also desired her body and nothing more; her body, but only to extract from it an ideal and absolutely self-sufficient pleasure, must have been all the stronger, in so far as every provocative of disgust was entirely lacking, and must have rendered more difficult, if not absolutely futile, the vengeance which she was in the habit of wreaking upon other people. An angel, to a woman, is always more irritating than a beast.
I know from all Giorgio Mirelli’s artist friends in Naples that he was spotlessly chaste, not because he did not know how to make an impression upon women, but because he instinctively avoided every vulgar distraction.
To account for his suicide, which beyond question was largely due to the Nestoroff, we ought to assume that she, not cared for, not helped, and irritated to madness, in order to be avenged, must with the finest and subtlest art have contrived that her body should gradually come to life before his eyes, not for the delight of his eyes alone; and that, when she saw him, like all the rest, conquered and enslaved, she forbade him, the better to taste her revenge, to take any other pleasure from her than that with which, until then, he had been content, as the only one desired, because the only one worthy of him.
‘We ought’, I say, to assume this, but only if we wish to be ill-natured. The Nestoroff might say, and perhaps does say, that she did nothing to alter that relation of pure friendship which had grown up between herself and Mirelli; so much so that when he, no longer contented with that pure friendship, more impetuous than ever owing to the severe repulse with which she met his advances, yet, to obtain his purpose, offered to marry her, she struggled for a long time–and this is true; I learned it on good authority–to dissuade him, and proposed to leave Capri, to disappear; and in the end remained there only because of his acute despair.
But it is true that, if we wish to be ill-natured, we may also be of opinion that both the early repulse and the later struggle and threat and attempt to leave the island, to disappear, were perhaps so many artifices carefully planned and put into practice to reduce this young man to despair after having seduced him, and to obtain from him all sorts of things which otherwise he would never, perhaps, have conceded to her. Foremost among them, that she should be introduced as his future bride at the Villa by Sorrento to that dear Granny, to that sweet little sister, of whom he had spoken to her, and to the sister’s betrothed.
It seems that he, Aldo Nuti, more than, the two women, resolutely opposed this claim. Authority and power to oppose and to prevent this marriage he did not possess, for Giorgio was now his own master, free to act as he chose, and considered that he need no longer give an account of himself to anyone; but that he should bring this woman to the house and place her in contact with his sister, and expect the latter to welcome her and to treat her as a sister, this, by Jove, he could and must oppose, and oppose it he did with all his strength. But were they, Granny Rosa and Duccella, aware what sort of woman this was that Giorgio proposed to bring to the house and to marry? A Russian adventuress, an actress, if not something worse! How could he allow such a thing, how not oppose it with all his strength?
Again “with all his strength”… Ah, yes, who knows how hard Granny Rosa and Duccella had to fight in order to overcome, little by little, by their sweet and gentle persuasion, all the strength of Aldo Nuti. How could they have imagined what was to become of that strength at the sight of Varia Nestoroff, as soon as she set foot, timid, ethereal and smiling, in the dear villa by Sorrento!
Perhaps Giorgio, to account for the delay which Granny Rosa and Duccella shewed in answering, may have said to the Nestoroff that this delay was due to the opposition “with all his strength” of his sister’s future husband; so that the Nestoroff felt the temptation to measure her own strength against this other, at once, as soon as she set foot in the villa. I know nothing! I know that Aldo Nuti was drawn in as though into a whirlpool and at once carried away like a wisp of straw by passion for this woman.
I do not know him. I saw him as a boy, once only, when I was acting as Giorgio’s tutor, and he struck me as a fool. This impression of mine does not agree with what Mirelli said to me about him, on my return from Liege, namely that he was ‘complicated’. Nor does what I have heard from other people, with regard to him correspond in the least with this first impression, which however has irresistibly led me to speak of him according to the idea that I had formed of him from it. I must, really, have been mistaken. Duccella found it possible to love him! And this, to my mind, does more than anything else to prove me in the wrong. But we cannot control our impressions. He may be, as people tell me, a serious young man, albeit of a most ardent temperament; for me, until I see him again, he will remain that fool of a boy, with the baron’s coronet on his handkerchiefs and portfolios, the young gentleman who ‘would so love to become an actor’.
He became one, and not by way of make-believe, with the Nestoroff, at Giorgio Mirelli’s expense. The drama was unfolded at Naples, shortly after the Nestoroff’s introduction and brief visit to the house at Sorrento. It seems that Nuti returned to Naples with the engaged couple, after that brief visit, to help the inexperienced Giorgio and her who was not yet familiar with the town, to set their house in order before the wedding.
Perhaps the drama would not have happened, or would have had a different ending, had it not been for the complication of Duccella’s engagement to, or rather her love for Nuti. For this reason Giorgio Mirelli was obliged to concentrate on himself the violence of the unendurable horror that overcame him at the sudden discovery of his betrayal.
Aldo Nuti rushed from Naples like a madman before there arrived from Sorrento at the news of Giorgio’s suicide Granny Rosa and Duccella.
Poor Duccella, poor Granny Rosa! The woman who from thousands and thousands of miles away came to bring confusion and death into your little house where with the jasmines bloomed the most innocent of idylls, I have her here, now, in front of my machine, every day; and, if the news I have heard from Polacco be true, I shall presently have him here as well, Aldo Nuti, who appears to have heard that the Nestoroff is leading lady with the Kosmograph.
I do not know why, my heart tells me that, as I turn the handle of this photographic machine, I am destined to carry out both your revenge and your poor Giorgio’s, dear Duccella, dear Granny Rosa!
Luigi Pirandello: Shoot! (11)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
(to be continued)
More in: -Shoot!, Archive O-P, Pirandello, Luigi, Pirandello, Luigi
Ton van Reen
EEN NOG SCHONERE SCHIJN VAN WITHEID
Een winterverhaal
4
Onze lakens zwegen gelukkig altijd, ook als de pastoor voorbijfietste en ze hem toe hadden kunnen schreeuwen wat jongens in bed wel deden maar nooit opbiechtten, maar dat deden de lakens, die net zo’n hekel hadden aan wasbeurten als ik, lekker niet. De pastoor met zijn zoete praatjes kon hen gestolen worden.
“En toen, grootmoeder?”
Moeder, nog rood van de kou, spreidde haar armen naar de kachel om zich te warmen en keek mij beschuldigend aan.
“Je had me wel kunnen helpen, kwajong,” zei ze.
“En toen?” vroeg ik. Ik probeerde me voor te stellen hoe mijn moeder, die nu in die oude jas, die ooit van vader was geweest maar nog te goed om weg te gooien, met haar gezicht rood van de kou in de rozige gloed van de kachel stond, ooit als meisje in de gang had gestaan voor de spiegel met zijn gepolitoerde nepgouden lijst en haar haren kamde. Maar het beeld van het meisje met de vlechten, dat ze was toen ze twaalf was en zoals ze op een foto op het dressoir stond, kreeg ik niet voor ogen. Hoewel die oude jas zo oud en haveloos was, vond ik hem nu heel erg mooi en precies bij haar passend. Het kon niet schelen dat er geen knopen aan zaten. Ik begreep opeens dat ze die jas nooit weg zou kunnen doen omdat hij van mijn vader was geweest. Het kon niet schelen dat hij legergroen was en dat hij tien jaar in de paardenstal van de marechaussee aan de kapstok had gehangen. Er was geen lekkerder lucht dan de geur van de paardenstal van mijn vader de wachtmeester bij de marechaussee die, hoog gezeten op zijn paard, mijn moeder ooit ten huwelijk had gevraagd, zonder dat hij wist hoe ze heette en zonder dat ze hem bij zijn naam kon noemen, terwijl ze beiden wisten dat ze nooit meer buiten elkaar zouden kunnen.
“En toen, grootmoeder?”
Ze keek me een beetje verbaasd aan.
“De rest weet je zelf wel.”
“Ja ja, de rest weet ik zelf.” Ik wist dat ik nu haar verhaal aan mezelf moest vertellen, omdat mijn moeder, die de hoofdpersoon in haar vertelsel was, nu bij ons in de keuken was. Nu kon grootje het verhaal over haar dochter, die haar niet wilde helpen met de was, niet afmaken, want dat was tegen haar regels. Een andere keer, als moeder naar de bakker was of bij een buurvrouw thee was drinken, zou ze de rest vertellen.
“Ja ja, ik weet alles,” herhaalde ik.
“Is er weer iets wat ik niet mag weten?” vroeg moeder, een beetje ontdooiend in de gloed van de kachel, hoewel de koude lucht nog steeds tussen de plooien van haar jas ontsnapte en de geuren van ijs en rook van de steenfabriek de keuken binnenbracht.
wordt vervolgd
Het verhaal Een nog schonere schijn van witheid van Ton van Reen werd uitgegeven op 26 februari 2012 in opdracht van De Bibliotheek Maas en Peel, ter gelegenheid van de heropening van de bibliotheek in Maasbree.
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Reen, Ton van, Reen, Ton van
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Freda Kamphuis
(c)2010 Freda Kamphuis
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Kamphuis, Freda
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