The Bells of Bruges

by Georges Rodenbach

  fortifications. Naive, he deluded himself into thinking the people of Bruges would attend en masse and that he would be able to convince them, get them to kneel before the beauty of Bruges he would evoke. Borluut spent the days leading up to it in a flurry of activity. He rallied his most faithful supporters among the Archers of Saint Sebastian, those who were most up in arms about a venture which threatened their ancient meeting place.

  He was assuming all the members would accompany him there, would protest with him against the vandals, burying the project beneath a storm of laughter and boos. Was not mockery as good a weapon as indignation? That was why Borluut had got his friend Bartholomeus to make a caricature for him. It was done in secret, since the aldermen and town officials were supporters of the Seaport of Bruges project and the painter was dependent on them; they were the ones who had commissioned the paintings for the Gothic Chamber of the Town Hall which had so far been neither accepted nor paid for. However, he too was aquiver with indignation at the idea that they were going to change the town, with noise, demolitions and new buildings, all for the vile purpose of making money. He agreed and made a satirical sketch for Borluut, in the popular taste with simple lines, naive and strong, like a lament.

  It showed people with their houses on their backs, setting off to run towards the sea that could be seen in the background, fleeing as they approached, while their houses were scattering stone after stone behind them and the town was no more than a pile of rubble.

  The coloured drawing was printed as a poster which was stuck up on the walls beside the Association’s announcement of their meeting. It was a direct response, the struggle carried to the enemy’s ground, without remission.

  Borluut was alive with energy and in heroic mood. How he now despised all the pitiful little troubles to which he had attached such importance, the distress caused by Barbara, his regret at losing Godelieve, all the things that were trivial, transitory, petty and vain. He no longer had time to bother with himself, to suffer for trifles, to concern himself with his feelings. It was as if his life were being lived outside himself, carried along in his action, as in a great wind. There was an end to the pain of being free and being himself. He belonged to others, was becoming the Crowd…

  On the morning of the long-awaited day, which was a day for the carillon, he climbed the belfry and put all his exhilaration into the bells, which rang out a battle hymn, the rebellion of the great old bells at being disturbed, the hubbub of the little bells at being threatened, a coalition of sound against those who wanted to bring back a port and fill the air with masts over which their peals would stumble.

  Then came an anthem of hope; the ostinato theme of the melancholy of Bruges floated in the air, sending its grey music forth over the roofs, in harmony with the sky, the waters, the stones.

  Finally the evening came. Borluut had counted on a large number of the Archers of Saint Sebastian attending; only two met him there. As soon as he entered the hall he realised that very few people had bothered to come. There were none of the ordinary folk, at most a few small shopkeepers who had been summoned and who were dependent on the Council. The Association of the Seaport of Bruges, on the other hand, was present, some thirty of its members, the leaders sitting round a table covered in green cloth in the sparse light of a few lamps.

  The hall seemed icy, with its wooden benches, whitewashed walls, expectant silence and dimly lit shadow with the unmoving faces of the few people present arranged as if in a picture. There was a sense of unease, a chill of catacombs in which words are afraid of themselves, fade away, die before they are spoken. The only sound was the rustle of papers, the documents and reports which Farazyn, sitting at the official table, kept looking through.

  Borluut, too, had come prepared for a battle, but he had imagined it quite different. What was this funereal-looking assembly, where a few shadows came in, sat down and did not move any more, like ghosts that were starting to die over again? So this was the

  ‘Monster Meeting’ which had been announced with such commotion.

  There was still only a scattering of people in the hall, even though the time fixed was already past. Just now and then a new arrival would enter, falter, intimidated by the scene, deaden his steps and go and sit down, without making a sound, at the end of an empty bench. Meagre alluvial deposits! The limited group of those present formed a silent, indistinct mass. None of them either wanted or dared to speak, but all were smoking and, because of the smoke, were only hazily visible in a grey gloom.

  Their short pipes had a metal cover to contain the fire, which could not be seen. Increasing darkness was added to increasing silence. The smoke was exhaled methodically, as if it were the mist coming out of the smokers themselves, the fog from brains empty of thoughts.

  Were these the people Borluut had expected, wanted to fight against, dreamt of convincing, conquering? Instead of struggling against the Crowd, he would be fighting ghosts whose deployment would be directed by Farazyn alone, his enemy, whose eyes and irony he could already feel fixed on him.

  This, then, was the contest for which he had devised his speech, a speech that was less technical than lyrical, written with an impressionable audience in mind, that he would have to move in order to carry them with him. In an atmosphere like this his speech would be as effective as the sun in the fog. Why had he not foreseen that this was how it was bound to be? Once again he

  realised too late that he had not seen clearly enough. He would have liked to leave, to give up, but he did not dare because of Farazyn who, from the platform, was sending him a challenging look.

  The meeting was opened. The president of the Association gave a speech, then Farazyn read a long report; in passing he denounced those citizens who obstructed such an undertaking that was in the public interest and would bring prosperity. Then he adduced numerous documents, explanations, plans and figures, from which it emerged that the funds would soon be voted, so that in the very near future work could be started to realise the great enterprise of the Seaport of Bruges.

  Farazyn sat down, smiling and looking pleased with himself. Some members of the Association, interested in the financial arrangements, applauded. The rest of his audience remained somnolent, their faces continued to be the faces of painted portraits. They looked as if their eyes were fixed on the centuries. Mechanically, moving their lips as little as possible, they blew out slow puffs of smoke into the lifeless air, a scattering of rising columns, each one contributing to the warp and weft of grey. It was impossible to say what they were thinking or whether they were thinking at all. The smoke was weaving an ever thicker veil between them and the speakers.

  Once Farazyn had finished, the president seemed ready to close the meeting. Nevertheless he did enquire whether anyone had any observations to make. Borluut stood up to speak. He was under no illusion as to the futility of his speech in such an assembly, of this empty show which he had imagined would be a battle. But because of Farazyn, who was watching him, and since he had made the effort to come, he decided to go on to the bitter end.

  He took out the text of his tirade, which he had written in advance, and started to read, trembling a little but unwavering in his conviction, which came across as spirited and profound.

  First of all he cast doubt on the projected results of the enterprise. It was not sufficient, he said, to dig a ship canal, as was proposed, to link Bruges artificially with the North Sea.

  Even supposing the canal worked well over the distance of ten miles, allowing unhindered passage to large ships, a town was not a port simply because it was joined to the sea. Having docks was one thing, but beyond that, and most important of all, it needed trading companies, warehouses, outlets, railway stations, banks; it needed a population that was young, active, rich, energetic, bold. To do business it needed to have businessmen, to bring in the Jews.

  Bruges would never be able to do that. In that case being a port would be a sham, an empty luxury.

  Borluut warmed to his subject: ‘
The goal that is being pursued here is a delusion. True, Bruges was a great port – but in the

  past. Can ports be resuscitated? Can one tame the sea, persuade it to return to habits it has abandoned? Can one renew routes across the waves that have been erased?’

  As he spoke, Borluut sensed the discrepancy between his speech and his morose audience. He had come prepared for a struggle, contradiction, the gathering a true crowd, quivering, tense, drinking in sincere words like wine flowing from a fountain. He realised that everything he said immediately lost its strength, its flavour, in the pipe smoke, in the fog, which seemed to be the fog, rendered visible in the air, inside the skulls of those present, who resisted him with their indolence, their invincible, grey unanimity. So he was not getting through to them, was not communicating with them. He was even separated from them in physical terms since, because of the accumulation of smoke, he could hardly make them out; they were distant, hazy, like figures seen in a dream or in the depths of memory.

  ‘What’s the point?’ he asked himself, but he continued to the end, so as not to capitulate before Farazyn who was exultant, regarding him with an expression that was ironic and also full of hatred. Does it not sometimes happen in life that our actions are solely for an enemy, so as to stand up to him, to confound him, to humiliate him by a finer effort or a more difficult victory?

  Without him we might perhaps give up. Having an enemy stimulates us, gives us strength. In him we hope to defeat the universe and the malevolence of fate.

  So eventually Borluut was speaking for Farazyn alone. After having demonstrated the absurdity of the project, he evoked, by contrast, the glory of being a dead town, a museum of art, all the things which were the better destiny of Bruges. Its fame as that kind of town was being established. Artists, archaeologists, princes were coming from all parts. Imagine the scorn of the outside world, how people would laugh when they heard it had abandoned such a noble dream, the notion of being a city of the ideal, something unique that is, in order to devote itself to the mean and common ambition of becoming a port. He contrasted it with Bartholomeus’s project, though without mentioning the originator, of buying up all the paintings of the Flemish Primitives, which could then only be seen in Bruges – a much more useful way of spending the millions.

  He concluded forcefully: ‘In that way Bruges would become a place of pilgrimage for the elite of mankind. People would come, on a few special days but from all over the world, from the ends of the earth, as if to a sacred tomb, the tomb of art. Bruges would be the Queen of Death, while, with these commercial projects, it demeans itself and will soon merely be the Unfrocked Priest of Mourning.’

  As he sat down, Farazyn, to spoil the effect of his peroration, closed it with an exclamation: ‘An artist’s arguments!’

  An artist! Precisely the word that was needed there, a backhanded compliment, the height of derision! An artist! The definitive irony, sufficient to destroy a man in this provincial world.

  Farazyn knew that well and his blow was well-aimed. Satisfied smiles appeared on the faces of the alderman who was chairing the meeting and the other promoters of the project. As for the audience, dry from their smoking, tired of long harangues, taciturn in the parallel rows of benches, not having understood much of all the statistics and elaborate sentences, impatient to get back to their snug homes, they waited.

  No one had anything to add. After a minute’s silence, during which the fluttering flames of the weak, smoking lamps could be heard, the meeting was closed.

  Borluut left, mingling with the small gathering as it drifted away in silence. Hemmed in by the walls of the vestibule, it was a dark mass, something indeterminate, mechanical, a silent slippage which soon ceased.

  Borluut wandered aimlessly, accompanied by the two Archers of Saint Sebastian, who remained faithful to him and did not speak.

  He quickly took his leave of them and plunged into the dark of nocturnal Bruges, alone and taking pleasure in being alone. He was escaping, as if from a nightmare, from a meeting with ghosts who were his enemies. It soon seemed as if it had never been.

  Then he came back to reality.

  He went over the evening again, his futile speech, the pale silhouettes, the surly looks of Farazyn and the leaders of the Association. They were the only ones who seemed alive among all the self-effacement. They could have been a court in session.

  Borluut had the feeling he had just heard the beauty of Bruges condemned – to death! Everything had been decided in advance. All the publicity about open debate had been a sham. The decree had already been signed. Nothing would be stopped, they would have their Seaport of Bruges. Borluut could do nothing about it. He had achieved nothing, convinced no one. It had been as pointless as trying to convince the fog here, which was engulfing the nocturnal town, floating over the water, blurring the bridges.

  Oh, the Crowd! To do battle with the Crowd! Everything he had imagined, everything that had fired him with enthusiasm –

  vanished in the air with the smoke from flames he, more than anyone, had fanned himself. And his speech, so fiery and from which he had hoped so much, had ended like a puff of smoke among all the other smoke.

  III

  War had been declared between Borluut and the Town Council, most of whom, being involved in business and speculation, had an interest in the Seaport enterprise. Borluut had exposed them.

  Henceforward he was regarded as suspect, almost a traitor. Soon

  he was being called a public enemy who was harming the town’s interests. His opponents’ newspapers were not sparing in the insults and attacks they heaped on him and his friends. It was the start of a campaign of petty harassment, base and underhand.

  The Society of the Archers of Saint Sebastian, of which he was Guildmaster, received an annual subsidy, enough to buy a few items of silverware as prizes for its competitions. The grant was cancelled, in order to get at Borluut, and also because the guild was seen as colluding with him in his opposition to the project.

  But it was above all the painter, Bartholomeus, against whom the campaign was directed. He was known to be a close friend of Borluut; in addition he was suspected of being the author of the caricature about the Seaport project, the drawing which showed the inhabitants, with their homes on their backs, chasing after the sea.

  He had just finished the series of large-scale paintings, which had been commissioned for the Gothic Chamber of the Town Hall. It was, perhaps, a good opportunity for reprisals.

  Bartholomeus had been working on them for years and had refused to show anyone, even Borluut, the four panels of which the work consisted. In carrying it out he had borne in mind the place for which they were destined, keeping it in harmony with the style of the building, the colour of the walls and panelling, the curve of the ceiling, the sober light from the windows in the ceremonial hall. All that was left was to view them in their intended location.

  Bartholomeus installed them and, despite his usual misgivings, his eternal dissatisfaction with himself, he was pleased, almost surprised, by the distancing effect produced now they were set in the frames, rather as if they were deep within a dream and outside time.

  Borluut saw them and was filled with enthusiasm, was carried away. It was not so much painting as an apparition, as if the centuries-old walls had opened up and one could finally see what the stones are dreaming .

  Bartholomeus had found a new manner of mural decoration in which things appeared through a mist, the way they must appear to a sleepwalker, the way they persist in memory. Human proportions no longer obtained. Everything was increased by one order of magnitude. The stones of the old canalside streets were wilting like a bed of flowers. Bells were making their way like little old women. The gestures of the figures were designed for eternity, they had the beauty of unnecessary gestures.

  Borluut, as municipal architect, had supervised their installation. He then summoned the fine art committee who were to

  take delivery. He was a member himself, together with
an alderman and several councillors.

  They were disappointed, indeed, they were stunned and demanded explanations from Bartholomeus, who was there.

  ‘What is the subject of your paintings?’ the alderman asked.

  The painter took them to the centre of the chamber, where the light was best, and then, after some hesitation, launched into an explanation, getting carried away, as if he had forgotten they were there.

  ‘Look. They form a whole, a symphony on the grey town that is Bruges. That means a symphony in black and white: swans and Beguines on the one hand, bells and cloaks on the other; and all brought together by the circular landscape, which continues from one to the other and which is the orchestration.’

  The members of the committee, disconcerted, gave each other grim looks, suspecting some irony on the part of the painter, who did not deign to explain things to them but was taking refuge in abstruse phrases, the clouds of his pride. They also quickly came to the conclusion that his paintings matched his gobbledygook.

  Should they uglify the Gothic Chamber, leave it open to ridicule with these incomprehensible paintings?

  Wait and see. They could still be rejected. The paintings had not been paid for.

  The examiners walked round, went to the other side, stationed themselves in front of the panel with the Beguinage. One councillor sniggered.

  ‘But the Beguinage isn’t like that at all.’

  Bartholomeus decided there was no point in arguing.

  Another remarked, ‘There’s no perspective.’

  ‘Nor in Memling’s paintings either,’ Borluut retorted, hardly able to contain himself. At that very moment he had been in raptures at the delightful background which Bartholomeus had embedded with footpaths, as languid as wisps of smoke going up to the sky, as in the Flemish Primitives.