Her voice almost failed on the last words, which seemed to lose their colour, weaken, grow damp, as if touched by inward tears.
She went towards the door, her feet disturbing the debris, a landscape of ruins that crunched under her steps. In that moment she saw, as if in a flash, their meeting in Saint Saviour’s, their nuptial evening, the exchange of rings over the tombstone.
Truly their love, born on death, was bound to end in disaster.
Her mind was made up. She left, without looking back, irrevocably.
Joris, devastated, was alone, so alone he felt as if he were waking up among tombs. He thought of the two women as of two dead wives – and he their widower.
PART THREE
ACTION
I
High above the world! Joris clung on to the cry, saying it out loud, writing it on the blank air before him, so to speak. He repeated it to himself like an order, like an appeal for help with which he could save himself. It had always been his motto, the cry of joy to rally himself, the end of his sufferings, bursting from among them like water from among the rocks.
After the terrible scene and the departure of Godelieve, he was at a loss what to do.
The following days the house seemed dead to him. It had sunk into silence. All the comings and goings, the sound of steps and of voices had ceased. It was like a house where someone has died and one remains silent, afraid even to walk. The room where the final confrontation had taken place was left as it was: the floor strewn with debris, the mirror split by the wide wound which was continuing to deepen, slashing the pale glass with a mortal blow.
No one had gone in there, it remained closed, the door locked and boarded up. It was truly the room of a dead person, at the door of which we tremble, but do not dare to enter.
Barbara did not leave her apartments, took her meals there, confined, solitary, shunning society, in a state of nervous exhaustion. The discovery of the proof, finally in her hands, her fit of anger, her wild excess, Godelieve’s flight, leaving the next day, at dawn, without seeing her, all that had left her nerves twisted and tangled, like rigging in a storm.
Now her acute irritability was replaced by infinite lethargy. She was no longer prickly and irascible. She curled up in corners, shivering like a sick animal, her blood sluggish and cold. She wandered along the corridors, up and down the stairs, pallid, her face streaked with tears. Sometimes, when she happened to meet Joris in the course of her wanderings, her irritation would return momentarily, expressing itself in some violent, coarse word she threw at him like a stone. But her strength was gone, she only threw the one stone, as if night were falling and her thirst for vengeance too weary.
Joris, too, isolated himself, avoided her, no longer feeling anything more than indifference. Whether deliberately or through illness, she had caused him too much suffering. He even found it impossible to repress a feeling of resentment since, incapable of making him happy, she had wrecked his last, dear love which had been a balm to him, a new beginning. What consolation could he find now that he was alone again? How could he forget Godelieve, who had gone out of his life? She had loved him and yet she had left. It was irrevocable. At first he had made enquiries. No one knew where she had found refuge. Perhaps she had not entered the Beguinage in Diksmuide, as she had said, but had settled in some other town, from where she would call him soon. Was it possible that a love like theirs should end so quickly and for no reason?
It was true that God had come between them. Since the scare that she might be pregnant, her confessor’s advice, the sin laid bare, hell in prospect, Godelieve had suddenly turned away from him, recovered herself. But no doubt absence would be having its effect. It was impossible that the memory of their embrace in the tower would not follow her as she went. And memory can quickly turn into desire.
Joris waited, full of regret, hoping for news and, some day, a return of their love. But all that was over and done with, as he learnt from a friend of Godelieve’s to whom she eventually wrote that she had become a Beguine.
High above the world! Joris drew strength from his cry, rejoiced in it. Twice he had been defeated, held back by love. It was the source of all his woes. First Barbara, then Godelieve. Each in her own way had made him suffer, and in making him suffer had reduced his strength, his drive in dealing with the world, his superiority over other men, his gift for creation and for art.
The astral force of love – a redoubtable power. Man is under the influence of woman as the sea is under that of the moon. Joris had suffered from no longer being his own master, from being
subject to this capricious thing, constantly changing, evolving, smiling then disappearing behind dark clouds, in eclipses. A life in abeyance. Why not free himself, be his own master once more?
Who knows, perhaps this suffering through women is the mark of the hero, atonement for all those who are sensitive, remarkable and strong, and too handsome; the price to pay for great dreams and great influence, as if, after all their victories over art and over men, this reminder of human misery were necessary, as if the victor had in his turn to be vanquished by woman?
Joris refused to be vanquished. He fought against the despair, the ache of regret at losing Godelieve. After all, she had betrayed him, quickly left him with no fault on his part, at the height of their passion, with a hint of desertion since she had abandoned him at a critical moment, in the uncertainty of defeat and ruins after Barbara had risen up, breathing fire, almost armed and stoning him.
Oh, the one was as bad as the other. Excessive weakness had harmed him as much as excessive violence. Neither was worth the hindrance, the obstacle to his future. He returned to higher things, to art, his earlier hopes, his noble ambitions. The love of woman was delusive and vain!
He went back to his love of the town. At least that love was not one that would deceive him, nor make him suffer. It lasted unto death. During those days Joris recalled van Hulle’s death and the ecstatic cry that had revealed the fulfilment, in the hour of death, of the dream that had accompanied him faithfully through life: ‘They have chimed!’ To be worthy of his ideal he had to devote himself to it exclusively.
It was he who had betrayed his love for Bruges. Perhaps it would be possible, by doubling his efforts, to made good the interruption to his work? He returned to it with a will. He had better things to do than spend his time lamenting over the caprice of women or lost loves. He had to get back to his own destiny, to his vocation and his mission. He took up his projects again, his façades came back to life.
Thanks to him people again started repairing, renovating, resuscitating the old mansions, the ancient houses, everything that ennobles a town, brings a touch of dream to the streets, inserts faces from the past among the modern buildings. Once more Joris was carried away by his work, for the beauty of a town is a work of art that has to be realised, requiring harmony, a sense of the whole, an understanding of line and colour. Bruges would become such a town. And in return he, in the moment of death, would achieve satisfaction at its lasting beauty and, dispatched with it down the centuries, would, like van Hulle, be able to exclaim, ‘Bruges is beautiful! Bruges is beautiful!’
Moreover it is not solely from the point of view of a self-contained work of art that the beauty of a town is important. The
surroundings – colourful, melancholy or heroic – create inhabitants in their image. Joris had a discussion about this with Bartholomeus, one day when he had gone to see what progress he had made in his work, the great decorative paintings, still unfinished, the symphony in grey in which he was trying to encapsulate the beauty of Bruges.
He got carried away as he developed his idea: ‘The aesthetic quality of towns is essential. If, as has been said, every landscape is a frame of mind, then it is even more true of a townscape. The way the inhabitants think and feel corresponds to the town they live in. An analogous phenomenon can be observed in certain women who, during their pregnancy, surround themselves with harmonious objects, calm statues, bright garde
ns, delicate curios, so that their child-to-be, under their influence, will be beautiful. In the same way one cannot imagine a genius coming from other than a magnificent town. Goethe was born in Frankfurt, a noble city where the Main flows between venerable palaces, between walls where the ancient heart of Germany lives on.
Hoffmann explains Nuremberg – his soul performs acrobatics on the gables like a gnome on the decorated face of an old German clock.
In France there is Rouen, with its rich accumulation of architectural monuments, its cathedral like an oasis of stone, which produced Corneille and then Flaubert, two pure geniuses shaking hands across the centuries. There is no doubt about it, beautiful towns make beautiful souls.’
Borluut was himself again, uplifted by vast and noble thoughts.
High above the world! Now he climbed the bell-tower as if he were climbing up into his dream, with a light step, relieved of all the vain afflictions love brings, petty private sorrows which had for too long hampered his ascent to higher goals. He went through a heroic period. The clock face on the tower glittered like a shield with which it defended itself against the night. And the carillon sang proud anthems. No longer a trickle of music that sounded like the tears of the man who had climbed the tower and was crying on the town; nor even a slither of music, like shovelfuls of earth cast into the grave of a dead past. It was a concert of deliverance, the free and virile song of a man who feels himself delivered, looks to the future, dominating his destiny as he dominates the town.
II
During that time Joris was tempted by the prospect of Action.
Until then he had kept away from public life, which did not interest him. Politics were local, petty, sticking to platitudes and to an ancient and artificial division of the populace into two enemy camps which wrangled over influence and jobs. Even the recent socialist upsurge did not excite him; before long things reverted to the futile quarrel between Catholics and liberals, the return of the old parties that had merely changed their names. Ever since the Middle Ages there had been a struggle in
Flanders between the Catholic and the lay factions, conflicts for supremacy between dogma and liberty. Their antagonism even reached up into the air, symbolised by the Spire and the Belfry, the religious tower and the civil tower, the one where the Mystery was preserved in the consecrated host and the one where the charters and privileges were kept in an ironbound chest –
rivals, each risen to the same height, casting the same shadow onto the town, which thus belonged half to each. And they would go on until the sun stood still, unshakeable, like the two principles they embodied, with their bricks rising one on top of the other for ever and ever, like individuals following one after another in a nation.
Borluut remained aloof, indifferent and slightly disdainful. But what if Action was about to be the sister of Dream again? The joy of finally being able to act, to struggle, to know passion, the intoxication of proclaiming a cause and exerting influence over men. And all for an ideal. Not in order to assert himself and his petty vanity, but to spread art and beauty, to give time a bit of eternity. His dream was under threat, the great dream of his life, his dream, for Bruges, of a mysterious beauty which would be made up of hushed sounds, still waters, empty streets, bells muffled in the air, houses with shrouded windows. A town beautiful because it was dead! And now people wanted to force it back to life…
It was the old Seaport of Bruges project, which had seemed a mere pipe dream at first when Farazyn described the plan during one of their Monday evenings at van Hulle’s. It had gradually germinated and grown, thanks to obstinate efforts and daily propaganda.
Farazyn had fashioned it into a weapon that brought success, an instrument that assured his name was known. His career at the bar had prospered, since the project brought him into contact with politicians and businessmen. Beyond that, it gave him the appearance of a public-spirited citizen. With his sonorous and loquacious style, always speaking the rough language of his Flemish ancestors, he lost no chance to evoke the Bruges of trade and commerce that he was going to bring back as soon as the canal was in operation, the new docks full of ships and the coffers of Bruges full of gold. The mirage was not unattractive, even though the inhabitants were sleepy and scorned exertion. They listened to the picture he painted of the future like a child listening to a story, finding it only mildly interesting and close to falling asleep.
Borluut had not seen Farazyn for a long time, not since the unfortunate day when his friend had come to dine with them and met with the refusal of his offer of marriage from Godelieve.
Afterwards Farazyn was annoyed, even harbouring a grudge against Borluut, as if he had somehow been partly to blame for his failure. Since then Farazyn had avoided him, turning aside whenever they met. Subsequently Borluut heard he was making hostile remarks about him. Their close friendship had been poisoned by the Seaport of Bruges affair, which had immediately
roused Borluut to violent indignation, as at a sacrilege, since he clearly saw that if the project was approved and the new port created, it would be the end of the town’s beauty. They would pull down gates, precious houses and old districts, mark out boulevards, railway tracks, all the ugliness of commerce and modern life.
The period of resistance began. Since he had been elected Guildmaster, he possessed considerable influence in the Archers of Saint Sebastian. He went there more often, meeting the bowmen, the regulars, petits bourgeois who were easily manipulated and led quiet lives which did not dispose them to doubtful enterprises. He made them see how fanciful it was to imagine that a prosperity which had vanished could be re-established, how criminal it would be to ruin the authentic beauty of Bruges, which was just becoming famous throughout the world, for an uncertain end.
There was, moreover, a factor with affected them directly and determined their public opposition to the Seaport of Bruges project: their ancient premises themselves were threatened.
According to the plans that had already been published, the new docks where the ship canal would terminate would be dug in that very district, where the picturesque ramparts stood, the two windmills, which gave that part a Dutch look, and the Guild premises, crowned by its 16th-century turret. Thus the glorious turret, pink and slender in the air like a virgin’s body, would disappear along with the patron saint who had been watching over them for centuries and would now fall, assassinated by pickaxes.
An act as barbarous as that of the soldiers massacring Ursula and her companions on the reliquary in St John’s Hospital. And the centuries-old bricks, with all their scratches, would bleed from wounds that would be painful to see.
Borluut also tried to express his opposition through articles in newspapers. He had secured the support of one local paper in which he pursued a sustained, fiery campaign. But the results were meagre. The press has little effect on public opinion and even less on the powers-that-be.
Like other matters, this whole business of the Seaport of Bruges went on behind the scenes, in restricted discussions, meetings of officials, committee tactics. Engineers conspired with financiers and politicians. Farazyn was the moving spirit behind all these combinations. Everything went through him. An association was formed as a centre of propaganda, great care being taken to keep it above party politics. The president was one of the town aldermen; Farazyn was appointed secretary. A huge campaign of petitions was organised. The townsfolk, indifferent and timid into the bargain, all signed. Finally, delegations were received by the various ministers, who gave their agreement and promised state support, part of the millions needed.
The whole of the the political machinery came into play, a formidable apparatus with hidden springs, endless drive-belts, irresistible flywheels.
Borluut felt it was going to snap up the beauty of Bruges and, under the pretext of hardly touching it, grind it down completely with its iron teeth.
Borluut intensified his efforts, seemed to be everywhere at once.
His aggressive zeal even amazed himself a little. Where
had he got these combative postures, these challenges he threw out, this constant sabre-rattling, like a call to arms, he who was a man of silence, of the past, of dreams? But was that not the point, was he not defending his Dream? And this time his dream was identified with Action, impassioned and frenzied action, no longer action against an enemy or adversaries, but action against the Crowd.
The Crowd appeared to be one, either through ignorance or indolence. He stood alone. Was that not the fight all superior men fought, one against all? They have to prevail against the unanimity of voices, which at first repudiate them. The beauty of Bruges, to which he had contributed, was also a work of art which had to be imposed. But by what means? What was the way to defeat a crowd? How could he, on his own, go from one to the other and open with his two hands all the eyes which were blind?
Scattered victories.
Borluut hoped the day would come when he could face the Crowd itself. Since he had written in the newspapers attacking the system of covert intrigues and a campaign conducted behind closed doors, the Seaport of Bruges Association had responded by appealing to all, by convening a public meeting at which they would report on the current state of the project, the plans adopted, the funding that was necessary, the support that had been promised.
Posters in Flemish were put up, indicating the purpose of the gathering and the names of the office-holders of the Association.
They also bore an unusual heading, as shocking as a blasphemous oath in the religious calm of the streets: ‘Monster Meeting’. But the proposers of the scheme knew very well they were taking no risks, knowing the apathy of the townsfolk who, averse to any inconvenience, would hardly bother to read their brash summons, and would be wary of becoming involved in an affair and a meeting of which they knew nothing.
Farazyn had foreseen that Borluut at most would make use of the occasion. It was even he who had had the idea of the public meeting as a trap into which his enemy would fall. And indeed, Borluut did not hesitate. He was fired with bravado, the joy of finally doing battle, face to face with the Crowd and out in the open after too many skirmishes with an enemy behind cover or
The Bells of Bruges Page 18
