_1st October, 188--_
_Hotel du Lys, Bruges._
After all, few places appeal to my imagination more potently than this
autumnal old city--the most mediæval town in Europe. I am glad that I
have come back here at last. It is melancholy indeed, but then at my
age one's pleasures are chiefly melancholy. One is essentially of the
autumn, and it is always autumn at Bruges. I thought I had been given
back my youth when I awoke this morning and heard the Carillon,
chiming out, as it has done, no doubt, intermittently, since I heard
it last--twenty years ago. Yes, for a moment, I thought I was young
again--only for a moment. When I went out into the streets and resumed
acquaintance with all my old haunts, the illusion had gone. I strolled
into Saint Sauveur's, wandered a while through its dim, dusky aisles,
and then sat down near the high altar, where the air was heaviest with
stale incense, and indulged in retrospect. I was there for more than
an hour. I doubt whether it was quite wise. At my time of life one had
best keep out of cathedrals; they are vault-like places, pregnant with
rheumatism--at best they are full of ghosts. And a good many
_revenants_ visited me during that hour of meditation. Afterwards I
paid a visit to the Memlings in the Hôpital. Nothing has altered very
much; even the women, with their placid, ugly Flemish faces, sitting
eternally in their doorways with the eternal lace-pillow, might be the
same women. In the afternoon I went to the Béguinage, and sat there
long in the shadow of a tree, which must have grown up since my time,
I think. I sat there too long, I fear, until the dusk and the chill
drove me home to dinner. On the whole perhaps it was a mistake to come
back. The sameness of this terribly constant old city seems to
intensify the change that has come to oneself. Perhaps if I had come
back with Lorimer I should have noticed it less. For, after all, the
years have been kind to me, on the whole; they have given me most
things which I set my heart upon, and if they had not broken a most
perfect friendship, I would forgive them the rest. I sometimes feel,
however, that one sacrifices too much to one's success. To slave
twenty years at the Indian bar has its drawbacks, even when it does
leave one at fifty, prosperous _à mourir d'ennui_. Yes, I must admit
that I am prosperous, disgustingly prosperous, and--my wife is dead,
and Lorimer--Lorimer has altogether passed out of my life. Ah, it is a
mistake to keep a journal--a mistake.
_3rd October._
I vowed yesterday that I would pack my portmanteau and move on to
Brussels, but to-day finds me still at Bruges. The charm of the old
Flemish city grows on me. To-day I carried my peregrinations further
a-field. I wandered about the Quais and stood on the old bridge where
one obtains such a perfect glimpse, through a trellis of chestnuts, of
the red roof and spires of Notre Dame. But the particular locality
matters nothing; every nook and corner of Bruges teems with
reminiscences. And how fresh they are! At Bombay I had not time to
remember or to regret; but to-day the whole dead and forgotten story
rises up like a ghost to haunt me. At times, moreover, I have a
curious, fantastic feeling, that some day or other, in some mildewing
church, I shall come face to face with Lorimer. He was older than I,
he must be greatly altered, but I should know him. It is strange how
intensely I desire to meet him. I suppose it is chiefly curiosity. I
should like to feel sure of him, to explain his silence. He cannot be
dead. I am told that he had pictures in this last Academy--and yet,
never to have written--never once, through all these years. I suppose
there are few friendships which can stand the test of correspondence.
Still it is inexplicable, it is not like Lorimer. He could not have
harboured a grudge against me--for what? A boyish infatuation for a
woman who adored him, and whom he adored. The idea is preposterous,
they must have laughed over my folly often, of winter evenings by
their fireside. For they married, they must have married, they were
made for each other and they knew it. Was their marriage happy I
wonder? Was it as successful as mine, though perhaps a little less
commonplace? It is strange, though, that I never heard of it, that he
never wrote to me once, not through all those years.
_4th October._
Inexplicable! Inexplicable! _Did_ they marry after all? Could there
have been some gigantic misunderstanding? I paid a pilgrimage this
morning which hitherto I had deferred, I know not precisely why. I
went to the old house in the Rue d'Alva--where she lived, our
Comtesse. And the sight of its grim, historic frontal made twenty
years seem as yesterday. I meant to content myself with a mere glimpse
at the barred windows, but the impulse seized me to ring the bell
which I used to ring so often. It was a foolish, fantastic impulse,
but I obeyed it. I found it was occupied by an Englishman, a Mr.
Venables--there seem to be more English here than in my time--and I
sent in my card and asked if I might see the famous dining-room. There
was no objection raised, my host was most courteous, my name, he said,
was familiar to him; he is evidently proud of his dilapidated old
palace, and has had the grace to save it from the attentions of the
upholsterer. No! twenty years have produced very little change in the
room where we had so many pleasant sittings. The ancient stamped
leather on the walls is perhaps a trifle more ragged, the old oak
panels not blacker--that were impossible--but a trifle more
worm-eaten; it is the same room. I must have seemed a sad boor to my
polite cicerone as I stood, hat in hand, and silently took in all the
old familiar details. The same smell of mildewed antiquity, I could
almost believe the same furniture. And indeed my host tells me that he
took over the house as it was, and that some of the chairs and tables
are scarcely more youthful than the walls. Yes, there by the huge
fireplace was the same quaintly carved chair where she always sat. Ah,
those delicious evenings when one was five-and-twenty. For the moment
I should not have been surprised if she had suddenly taken shape
before my eyes, in the old seat, the slim, girlish woman in her white
dress, her hands folded in her lap, her quiet eyes gazing dreamily
into the red fire, a subtile air of distinction in her whole
posture.... She would be old now, I suppose. Would she? Ah no, she was
not one of the women who grow old.... I caught up the thread of my
host's discourse just as he was pointing it with a sharp rap upon one
of the most time-stained panels.
'Behind there,' he remarked, with pardonable pride, 'is the secret
passage where the Duc d'Alva was assassinated.'