At first Borluut was indignant and upset. He had been utterly defeated, all his efforts, his long campaign, had had no effect whatsoever; in the parliament, with its narrow outlook, there was no one to speak up for art. Electoral interest had prevailed and that was that. And then Bruges had renounced its fame as a dead town. He was devastated, and now they were demanding songs of joy from him, his participation in the blind jubilation of the populace. He thought of refusing, of resigning on the spot rather
than climb up to the belfry and exhaust himself at the keyboard for hours on end, making his noble bells sing out at the tops of their voices in joyous peals when his soul, like theirs, was in mourning.
But he feared the reproaches he would hear from Barbara and dreaded the days to come when he would feel at a loss without the refuge of the bell-tower, the dormitories of the bells, where he could go to let his sorrows sleep awhile.
Towards eight he went to the belfry. It was the first time he had climbed up in the evening. The caretaker of the Draper’s Hall gave him a lantern and he started to go up the stairs. The sensation was even stranger than during the day. In the daylight he was so used to it that he climbed almost unconsciously, drawn on, as if in a calm whirlwind, by the twisting staircase. Now, with the black of night superimposed on the obscurity of the tower, it was pitch-dark. He could no longer sense, far above, the bleaching of the gloom by air coming in through an arrow-slit or a gap in the masonry. Borluut stumbled and had to hold on to the smooth rope, which serves as a banister, hanging, slightly slack, around the pillar, like a snake round a tree trunk. The light from the lantern splashed over the walls, making it look as if there were patches of blood here and there. Beasts fled before it; they had always lived in the gloom and took the glare for a flash of lightning which had pierced the tower, pierced their eyes. It had all the ambiguity of chiaroscuro. Borluut saw his shadow preceding him and then, immediately after, following, moving, climbing the walls, squashing itself over the concave ceiling. His shadow had gone crazy. Was he keeping up his steady ascent?
Reality returned. As he approached the platform the noise of the crowd in the square below, like the murmur of water, came streaming down the stairs as if they were a sluice. He recalled that he had heard the same murmuring before, the day of the contest, they day when he had been victorious. On that day his soul had imposed itself on the crowd. He had made it understand art, melancholy, the past, the heroic.
He had transubstantiated it! He had lived inside it. Now it was going to live inside him, impose its soul on him in its turn, that is its ignorance, its triviality, its cruelty.
The Market Square was already packed. The procession was being organised, was about to move off. A confusion of bands, bouquets, banners and torches. All the societies – the choirs, the sports clubs, the political bodies, the Seaport-of-Bruges Association –
set off, one after the other, all wearing some badge, a cocade or an armband, some emblem to identify the group. Elaborate invention abounded. The members of the Circle of St Christopher were wearing luminous hats, each representing a letter to create a celebratory chronogram. Those of the gymnastic societies strutted along in jerseys as unsightly as swimming costumes and
carried canes, ridiculous weapons, which they brandished as they marched in step. They were followed by the cycling club, their machines decorated with paper lanterns and some made to look like boats as an allegory of the future shipping and prosperity of the port. A parade of all the vulgarity, the limited imagination of the crowd.
The carillonneur at the top of the tower was cut to the heart.
What was happening to the dead town? The graveyard was being desecrated by a carnival. What had the noble swans to say to that? Borluut imagined there was not a single one of them left on the leaden waters of the canals. Doubtless they had fled, sought refuge in the outskirts, so as not to know, to preserve a little silence, to cry amid the water lilies.
Suddenly Borluut, leaning out to have one last look, to drink his fill of the desolation, was shocked by an even more unseemly sight, causing him a distress that was more personal. He saw the company of the Archers of Saint Sebastian, represented by a fairly large number of its members, shaming its venerable banner, the medals and insignia worn by the King of the Shoot, all its history, in these ridiculous saturnalia. And yet for a long time the Guild had opposed the Seaport-of-Bruges project. What is more, Borluut was still the Guildmaster; it would have been courteous of them to show more consideration and not disavow him in public.
In its turn the old guild was giving up, denying its past and the town, supporting the vile ideal. For Borluut it was the final blow. Henceforward he would be completely alone.
He no longer wanted to see or hear anything of the vulgar display that was going on at ground level.
He threw himself into his task, plunging his hands into the keys, as if into the sea. He played. The Victory Bell was already sounding. It was leading the way, pitching and tossing in the air. The whole flotilla of the notes of the carillon followed, dispersed, flew in the wind and the stars.
The carillonneur played frenetically so that nothing of the scenes in the street would reach him, calling on all the bells, from the biggest which, usually, only came in to punctuate a melody, as the windmills punctuate the plain, to the smallest, tiniest, childlike bells whose sparrow-like twittering created a cloud of noise, a strident chorus in which no individual bell could be heard. A huge orchestra, a final unison. The belfry was vibrating, creaking, as if all the bells, having decided to leave their joists, their monotonous dormitories, and go elsewhere, were already tumbling down the staircase. The carillonneur was carried away. He hit the keys with his hands and feet, hung onto the iron rods that raise the clappers, working himself up into a frenzy as he made the bells ring, as if he were in the midst of a battle between his sounds and the noise from below.
Exhausted, he had to rest for a few moments between two pieces.
The cries were heard once more, the murmur as of water, the demented shrillness of the fanfares. The procession continued on its noisy way, trailing its glitter, its stupidity, its gaudy snake, its funereal fancy-dress frolics through the gloomy maze of the streets.
It went on for several hours. The carillonneur, resigned, kept on playing, mocking the irony of fate which forced him to make the bells sing, to sprinkle the town with joyful airs, while his dream had died that very day. He thought of actors who, sometimes, have to amuse the audience on the day their child has died.
Later, when he returned home, Borluut was confronted with a dramatic scene. The servants, still agitated and trembling, were going to and fro like madwomen. The hall was covered in stones, debris and broken glass. They told him that, after the procession, some groups had continued to walk round the town.
They had heard them approaching, singing Flemish songs, worked up and a little drunk already. Then, as they passed the house, one of them started up a racket, shouts and shrill whistles, insults and curses. Loud voices cried, ‘Down with Borluut!’ There were many of them and they were organised. There was no doubt that it had been premeditated, that they were obeying orders. Amid their shouts a tinkling crash was heard, the sharp sound of all the windows breaking and falling to the ground, splintering. A volley of stones had been thrown, flying though the windows and into all the rooms, breaking ornaments and mirrors, scattering debris over the whole of the house.
Borluut looked around, aghast. It was as if there had been a war.
The house looked as if it was in ruins.
His immediate suspicion was that it was an act of vengeance by Farazyn, who, since Godelieve’s refusal, and especially since his opposition to the Seaport project, of which Farazyn had been the prime mover, had been unremitting in the hatred with which he had pursued him. It would have been easy, this time, to stir up some of the common people against him by representing him as a public enemy, as an undesirable who had almost wrecked the project, the glorious vote in favour of which they were ce
lebrating that day.
Barbara appeared at the top of the stairs, simmering with fury.
In order to avoid a scene in front of the servants, Joris went into one of the ground-floor rooms. The floor was covered in stones and shards of glass. They had even thrown in some excrement. Barbara came in, livid. Her too-red lips looked like a wound, as if she had been struck in the face by a stone and was bleeding. She was dishevelled, her hair flopping against her back like angry waves.
‘Look what’s happened to us now. It’s all your fault. You behaved like a madman.’
Joris realised what a state she was in, her nerves jangling, a paroxysm of rage imminent. He managed to contain himself and tried to get to the door and escape. Barbara, exasperated even more by his calm, which was nothing but indifference and disdain, threw herself at him, seized him by the arms and shouted into his face, ‘I’ve had enough! I’ll kill you!’
Joris had already heard the horrible threat once before. Beside himself, he freed himself from her grasp and pushed her away roughly. It drove her wild and she started to scream. All the old insults reappeared, raining down on him as if she wanted to stone him with words after the crowd had stoned him in effigy.
Joris went to his bedroom. Everywhere was the same devastation, projectiles had been thrown in through every window. He remembered he had looked on a similar scene before, recalling the room where the old quarrel had taken place, the room in which Barbara, when she discovered Godelieve’s treachery, had also broken the mirror and the furniture, the room no one had entered since and which had remained in the same state, like the room of someone who has died … Now all the rooms were like that one. It was contagious, perhaps, the ills of the one calling them down on the others. Now every one was a dead person’s room. They were all dead. The whole house was dead.
Borluut wished he was dead too.
He seemed to have been shown the order of things . Immediately he felt it was settled, irrevocably.
Death itself had beckoned him, had hunted him out in his own home. The stones, the murderous stones, had searched him out.
After all, had not the crowd condemned him to death? He valiantly accepted their verdict. And above all let there be no delay! He was ready, he would give himself up the very next day, at dawn.
He did not want to see his home by the light of day again, desecrated as it was, like a ruin, all its mirrors broken, repeating the ill omen from one room to another. Nor did he want to meet Barbara again, who, out of spite or because of her ruined nerves, had gone too far this time in offering physical violence amid the worst insults and threats.
At that moment he heard her above his head, on the upper floor, pushing trunks around, emptying wardrobes, once more preparing –
or pretending to prepare – to leave, as she did after every scene. He listened to the sounds coming through the ceiling and began to pace up and down the room, getting carried away as he talked out loud to himself:
‘I’m the one who’ll leave first, and on a journey from which there’s no return. I’m tired, tired of it all. I’ve had enough.
Tomorrow will be another horrible day: more scenes with Barbara; or she’ll run off, without any idea of where she’s going, like a lost sheep; and the mess everywhere, the stones, the revolting
filth; and the petty annoyances, the formalities with the police, with the law; and, all around, the cruel laughter of the town when the news gets out. No, I cannot face that day, not at any price! I’ll be dead first.’
Reasoning thus with himself, Joris had calmed down. He was even astonished that he had made up his mind so quickly and so clearly. Doubtless it was something that had been building up inside him for a long time. During the last few weeks he had acquired too much of a taste for death when he went up the bell-tower. It was like an initiation, a presentiment, the shadow of the goal he was approaching already falling across him. Now he was going to reach it. What peace suddenly spread inside him once he had made up his mind! Once chosen, a destiny takes possession of us in advance. We already are what we will be.
Joris had entered upon the serenity of death. He went back over his life. He recalled far-off times, episodes from childhood, his mother’s caresses, a few details, the things that flash before our eyes in the moment of death, things which sum up our life. He also thought of Godelieve, the faint pink flush of a unique dawn; again he relived the sweetness of the beginning, their secret marriage in the church.
The church! He suddenly saw God again. God appeared to him, spoke to him, was his witness, almost his judge. Joris defended himself. He believed in God. But in a sublime God, not in the God of simple folk, the God who forbids them to kill themselves because they would do it without discernment, but in God the All-intelligent who would understand. He worshipped him, he humbled himself before him, rediscovered the faded prayers, a slightly jumbled mosaic that he put together again.
Again he thought of Godelieve. It was time to destroy her letters, the last memento, relics he had preserved, a packet of consolation he had kept until now. He reread them, conjuring up the past with the aftertaste of their kisses, the ghostly fragrance of dried flowers, the bitter residue of tears – all the sadness contained in old letters where the ink is fading and seems to be returning to nothingness. Then he tore them up and burnt them.
There was nothing left tying him to the world, to life.
Now, since he was going to die, no scandal. An invisible death that would be like a disappearance. If his body could not be found! Would the belfry not be the best place? He now understood perfectly why, when he had been handed the key after the contest, he had felt he was taking the key to his tomb. His soul knew already. It had trembled at the sign which created the inevitable. There could be no doubt that from that moment on his destiny had been brought to a standstill. The bell-tower became a premature tomb where he was to busy himself for a few days before the long sleep.
That, then, was where he would die. And a clean death … no blood, no firearm, no knife. A rope does the job silently and is more certain. Joris went to fetch one and examined it coldly, testing its strength, then put it in his pocket in order to avoid any hesitation or a renewed debate with himself in the morning, at dawn.
Thus settled, he waited for day to break, at peace and strong, already feeling a little avenged, satisfied at his bequest of remorse to Barbara, to the town; happy above all to be dying in the bell-tower which, in the future, would cast a more sombre shadow, truly the shadow of a tomb, a gesture of reproach, over the grey square.
X
Dawn broke, hesitated, then spread over the sky, greenish and sad. As soon as it was light, Borluut left the house, furtively, so as to be neither heard nor held up, but steadfast in his intention. The bell-tower immediately rose up before him, the implacable tower that can be seen from the end of every street.
The belfry was waiting; it was calling. Borluut did not look for an escape. He even took the most direct route. He went along beside a canal, across a bridge. Bruges was asleep. All was empty, drab, silent, still shivering from the rainy night. How melancholy a bare city is, at dawn! It makes one think of an epidemic, when everyone has fled. It makes one think of death.
Borluut kept going. He was not interested in anything any more, not even in the Town, for which he had had such an enduring love.
He walked through it, already indifferent, as one is to a country one is leaving for good. He did not look at anything, neither the façades, nor the towers, nor the reflections in the water, nor the old roofs, monochrome in the dull morning light.
Is it not strange how quickly one can become detached from everything? How empty life appears when one is close to death!
When he reached the bell-tower he entered with the dawn, and just as pale. The staircase was trembling. The light was descending to meet the man who was going up, it was like the meeting, the final struggle of darkness and light. Borluut climbed. With each step he seemed to be leaving life a little more, starting a little more to d
ie. He was not thinking of anything any longer, neither of Barbara, nor the town, nor himself. The only thing in his mind was the ‘act’.
However, climbing the stairs seemed to take a long time. It was icy cold. The musty smell of the walls grew worse. It was like being in a graveyard. Noises could be heard, bats, birds flapping blindly against the ceiling. Also the damp slither of animals that only come out at night quickly scuttling back into some dark hole. A proliferation of hidden life was crawling, flying, clustering round Borluut, as if he already smelt of death .
Fear coursed across his skin, as real as a touch. His flesh trembled, while his spirit remained resolute and calm. Instinct awoke, protested, but tended to dither, not casting doubt on the events or the decisive reasons. Its skill lies in questioning the act alone, whether to carry it out or not carry it out, but solely on physical grounds. A clever ploy of instinct, which causes a person to hesitate before throwing themselves into the canal because they don’t like the idea of the cold water and which, in Borluut’s case, suggested the horrors of the viscous trails of creatures going to feast on the corpse.
Borluut shuddered. It was his moment of weakness, his sweat of agony on the Mount of Olives. He halted, struck with anguish. But the stairs kept turning quickly, showing no mercy, offering no respite, pulling him up into their short spirals. Borluut went on, still determined but weakening in the flesh. A little further on he stumbled. Despite being accustomed to the steps, he had to hold on to the rope that serves as a banister, hung round the pillar of the stairs like a snake round a tree. The Serpent of Temptation! The rope was a further temptation, implying that he had hesitated. Had he not chosen it as the instrument of his death? Now, resuming his hold of the rope, it was as if he had resumed his intention, abandoned for a moment and quickly grasped again. His grip weakened, his hands drew away, rejecting the dreadful contact … But the stairs plunged on in a rapid vortex; the darkness thickened. He had no choice but to hold onto the support. The rope reappeared, asserted itself…
The Bells of Bruges Page 23
