De kellner en de levenden

[3] The twelve are ordinary, middle-class people (including Protestants, Catholics, and atheists) who appear to be arrested, all at one time, by the police, and loaded onto a bus without any explanation.

He is also confronted with his past—in a reenactment of the gravedigger scene from Hamlet, he is given the skull of a young actress who committed suicide because he led her to believe he loved her.

When they are finally forced to leave, the monsters from 500 having been unleashed, they end up attending a grotesque parody of Christ in judgment.

By the time of its publication, just after World War II, Vestdijk had already acquired the status of "grand old man" of Dutch literature.

[2] A contemporary review by critic Adriaan Morriën noted that many of Vestdijk's readers would have been confused or disappointed by the novel, which they could have read as "a dream, a publicity stunt, or a tremendous joke".