5*
voice and held up his finger. Then the child would
look at him and immediately clutch again at what
it had been forbidden to touch. Then he had to
take it by the shoulder and give it a slap. It took
no notice of his reprimands. He said that it looked
as though Floris did on purpose what he was
forbidden to do ; he had told him many times
already not to climb on the chair by the side-table
and touch the statuettes, charming heirlooms, more
than eighty years old by now, or to pull the Bible
towards him ; and repeatedly he would find him
on that very chair. He said the boy was not to
be left alone in the parlour but kept in the kitchen.
Although the other uncle had to forbid him some-
times, Gerbrand's manner of doing it was something
quite different. When Frans forbade something and
was disobeyed, his voice was not stern and he didn't
become even more severe and hold up his finger.
But from Gerbrand the child learnt which were the
forbidden things. And when his hands nonetheless
stretched out towards them, Gerbrand said that was
original sin, the disobedience which leads man to
his fall.
When the child could walk, Frans took him with
him one day when he had to go out on an errand.
Floris saw the street, the blue front steps, the
round cobble stones, the milkman's dog, the gleaming
window-panes of the shops, and, high up above, the
strip of blue sky and the sun. After this first day