The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short 1966

Govert Miereveld, a married man with two children who works as a secondary school teacher, attends the end-of-year awards with a growing, troubling fascination. He becomes infatuated with Fran Veerman, one of his pupils who combines sharp intellect with remarkable singing talent. Though he cannot bring himself to confess his love, he secretly arranges for a different student to deliver Fran a parting gift: a valuable old book. When Fran leaves the school, Govert sinks into despair, and he moves his family to a new town, taking a job there as a court clerk. A summons soon arrives to attend the on-site autopsy of a decomposed corpse found in the river, an event that deeply unsettles him and exposes the stark, fragile reality of the human body.

After this disturbing experience, Govert checks into a hotel and is astonished to see Fran descending the stairs. She is performing a concert in the town that very evening, and when he knocks at her door late at night, she admits him and listens as he pours out the meaning she has come to hold in his life. She answers with a confession of her own: she had loved him too, but cautions that she is not a goddess. She reveals that she had already begun an affair before joining his class and has had many partners since. Then she unveils three treasures that define their connection and her past:

• a gift from her first lover

• the very book Govert had given her

• and a pistol with which she killed her abusive father, a revelation that makes Govert suspect this father may indeed be the corpse from the river

She begs Govert, should his love be genuine, to end her life, and he fires the pistol.

The aftermath unfolds in a psychiatric institution, where Govert discovers, almost by chance, that Fran did not die from his shot. This realization shatters the illusion that fueled his obsession, pushing him toward a stark, painful clarity. He concludes that the only true path is to abandon his fixation on Fran and renew his commitment to his faithful wife and their children, choosing a life grounded in reality rather than the dangerous pull of an idealized love.