Levensschaduwen

Summary

Henri van Dijck, an engineer employed by the Atlas Steel Works, has found a very cheap method of producing tempered steel but has not yet told the manager who, as business is bad, is considering closing the factory.

A workman who has quarreled with Van Dijck gets hold of his formula and presents it to the manager as his discovery. As a result, the factory is kept open. When he reads this news, Van Dijck asks the manager to show him the formula and recognizes it as his own. In a fit of rage he kills the manager. He is sent to prison for ten years. During that time his wife dies and his married son is appointed manager of the company. Van Dijck requests his son not to visit him and to try to forget him.

After his release, Van Dijck finds work as a stoker but is discharged because of his bodily weakness. Longing to see his son, he manages, under an assumed name, to get the position of night-watchman at the factory. On his first night, a young employé breaks in and steals five one hundred guilder banknotes. Van Dijck, suspected of the theft, is dismissed. That night, the real thief, visiting the "Palais de Cristal", notices that he has been robbed. He accuses a woman and when the police arrive they find four banknotes on her person.

At that moment, the two detectives in charge of the investigation at the factory come in and recognize the young man. Finding the business suspicious, they compare the numbers of the banknotes with those of the notes stolen from the factory. The young man is arrested and the manager informed. Van Dijck jr sends a letter of apology to the night-watchman, asking him to return to his job. He then discovers that the man known as Mr de Bruin is really Henri van Dijck, his father, whom he had driven away as a thief.

When young Van Dijck tells his wife the story, she says that the old man's place is with his family. She sends their little daughter to the factory with a message. The child approaches her grandfather and says: "Grandpa, may I give you a kiss, and will you come with me and stay with us for ever?" Overjoyed, Van Dijck embraces the girl and his son and goes home with them to spend the rest of his life in peace.