Bernard Duke’s death turns a small failure of workmanship into a family and business emergency. A nail in a new boot wounds his foot; aboard ship, the injury worsens despite care, and Bernard dies before reaching home. Nicolaus’s account of his brother’s final illness gives the episode its stark sequence, while the message sent from Boston makes clear that the loss comes amid a wider crisis in the company.

The wound before the voyage

Before embarking, Bernard is occupied with the practical and social preparations for travel. His bucket-top boots are being made by a boot maker known for fine leatherwork, and he has chosen a needlepoint flounce as a present for Birgit. When the boots are ready, he puts them on in the shop and walks to Piet Roos’s house. On the way, a sharp object begins to hurt his left foot. Rather than risk worsening the injury by removing the boot in the street, he returns to the boot maker, favoring the foot.

At the shop, Bernard explains that something sharp is inside the boot. Blood has reached his stocking. The boot maker finds that a nail has gone awry, removes it with pincers, replaces it, and checks the boot again before returning it. Bernard tests the repaired boot and leaves. The episode’s cause is therefore presented plainly: not an established illness or an accident at sea, but a nail set badly in a new boot. Yet the quick repair does not undo the puncture already made.

Illness aboard ship

During the passage across the North Sea, Bernard’s boot occupies so much room in the shared stateroom that he folds it over and stows it in his trunk, intending to wear it again in Boston. Nicolaus notices that Bernard is limping. His old injury had already made him limp for years, but now he is also unusually slow and seems dazed. The narrative leaves the possible effect of troubling family news as Nicolaus’s speculation, not a confirmed explanation for Bernard’s condition.

When Nicolaus asks what is wrong, Bernard removes his stocking and shows him a swollen foot. Nicolaus seeks help from the ship’s surgeon. The treatment is poor: the surgeon provides tepid water and a thick, tar-like substance used on ropes. Although Bernard says by afternoon that he feels better, by the next morning he cannot walk, and the swelling has spread through his foot and lower leg. The worsening course makes the apparent short-lived improvement deceptive.

The surgeon’s subsequent instructions are to keep the leg elevated, soak it in hot water, and drink rum. The soaks do not help. The swelling continues, and sores develop up the leg; Bernard becomes confined to his bunk and slips into a half-swoon. When the surgeon finally says the leg needs amputation, he leaves to find his saw and does not return. Nicolaus discovers him incapacitated by drink and finds the medical chest open and depleted; the saw lies on the cabin floor. The failure is not simply that a treatment proves ineffective: the person responsible for medical care has also left Bernard without dependable help at the point of crisis.

Death and the voyage home

Nicolaus returns to Bernard, who is comatose and feverish. A painting of a woodland hunt, brought from Cornelia’s house, stands near the bunk. One painted huntsman is raising a horn; as Nicolaus looks at the scene, he almost thinks he hears it, and understands that Bernard will not make it home. The painting provides a quiet contrast to the confines of the cabin and the failed effort to save him: an image of a hunt remains beside a man who can no longer leave his bed.

Bernard is buried at sea three weeks out from Amsterdam. His death occurs before the planned return to Boston, where he had expected to wear the boots. The boot that had been repaired and packed for later use is thus associated with an injury that follows him onto the ship and becomes fatal during the passage. The account does not describe a recovery or a farewell; its decisive recognition falls to Nicolaus, who witnesses Bernard’s decline and then must carry the news onward.

Family and company consequences

In Boston, Nicolaus finds a ship soon to sail for Amsterdam and sends a message to Jan, Piet, and George Pickering Duke, telling them that Bernard has died and demanding their immediate return. The message treats the death as more than a private bereavement. Nicolaus calls the situation a crisis beyond Bernard’s loss and points to the company’s accumulated timber and lumber orders, the absence of a bookkeeper and a woodland overseer, and the uncertainty surrounding Henk Steen. He also reports that Sedley is ill in bed with grief over the loss of his wife, while the wives are distressed and Birgit is grieving Bernard.

Nicolaus’s appeal joins household loss to the need to marshal the family’s business resources. He urges the recipients to return quickly and secure a ship before the company’s position deteriorates further. Bernard’s death therefore closes one voyage while precipitating another kind of urgency: the family must respond to grief and to a weakened organization at once. The narrative’s force comes from that convergence, with a defective nail, a failed shipboard response, a burial at sea, and a summons home forming one chain of consequence.