Horseshoes on hands and feet

Frits was forty-two, Anna twenty-eight (six years married), Joep thirty-five (unmarried horse dealer). On 27 July 1758 Frits travelled to Maastricht for metal purchase, away three days. He returned one day early because the Maastricht dealer was ill. On 30 July at six in the evening he came home and went straight to the forge to check his iron stock. There lay Anna and Joep. Frits stood one minute still in the doorway, thought a second, made his decision.

Frits, a smith, knew horse handcraft. He struck Joep unconscious with one hammer blow, then Anna. He forged in his workshop eight horseshoes (two per person: hands and feet) to precise measurements, used his glowing fire, and fixed the horseshoes to their limbs with rivets through skin and bone — painful but not deadly. Three days they lay so: shod together with horseshoes. Frits fed them, gave them water, spoke to neither. On the third evening, 2 August, he struck off the horseshoes, treated the wounds with self-prepared herb paste (no infection), and said: «Anna, you go. Joep, you go. I have not killed you because I will not have blood. I have shod you with horseshoes because it seemed meaningful. Three days have hopefully taught you that you do not wish to stand in each other’s shoes. Anna, I divorce you — the priest will arrange it. Joep, never come here again. Go.» Both went. Anna moved to Aachen; Joep to Roermond. Neither came back. The priest of Beek brought no charge, though the forge act was punishable. Frits died in 1791 at seventy-four, never remarried, beloved in Beek. On his grave stands one horseshoe in granite, with under it: «Whoever walks on another’s path may for a moment wear another’s shoes.»