The only joy I experienced during those long study evenings was looking forward to Saturday. The little farmhouse had become my actual home. The silence of the uninhabited world at the bottom of the dyke calmed my soul and the happy girl created a joy in me that lasted throughout the week. I did not feel much like spending my first holiday week at home. Mother would ask me thousands of questions and my solemn, silent father would again pretend that nothing in life changed or was allowed to change. Day to day town hall and the regularity of sight and church life gave him a stability in which he felt so safe that the rest of the world was none of his business. His attitude was one of continuous self-protection. Only later would I know that he deliberately arranged his life this way…I would do the same!