DEATH IN LIFE
What is it I've been saying about gaiety?
How could one ever use such a word?
Here in the heart of Brussels one cannot recall even a memory of what it
was like to be joyful!
I am in a city under German occupation; and I see around me death in
life, and life in death. I see men, women, and children, with eyes that
are looking into tombs. Oh those eyes, those eyes! Ah, here is the agony
of Belgium--here in this fair white capital set like a snowflake on her
hillside. Here is grief concentrated and dread accumulated, and the days
go by, and the weeks come and pass, and then months--_then months_!--and
still the agony endures, the Germans remain, the Belgians wake to fresh
morrows, with that weight that is more bitter and heavier than Death,
flinging itself upon their weary shoulders the moment they return to
consciousness.
Yes. Waking in Brussels is grim as waking on the morn of execution!
Out of sleep, with its mercy of dream and forgetfulness, the
_Bruxellois_ comes back each morning to a sense of brooding tragedy.
Swiftly this deepens into realization. The Germans are here. They are
still here. The day must be gone through, the sad long day. There is no
escaping it. The Belgian must see the grey figures striding through his
beloved streets, shopping in his shops, walking and motoring in his
parks and squares. He must meet the murderers in his churches, in his
cafés. He must hear their laughter in his ears, and their loud arrogant
speech. He must see them in possession of his Post Offices, his Banks,
his Museums, his Libraries, his Theatres, his Palaces, his Hotels.
He must remain in ignorance of the world outside. Worst of all! When his
poor tortured thoughts turn to one thought of his Deliverance, he must
confront a terror sharper than all the rest. Then, he sees in clear
vision, the ghastly fate that may fall upon the unarmed Brussels
population the day the Germans are driven out. The whole beautiful city
may be in flames, the whole population murdered. There is no one who can
stop the Germans if they decide to ruin Brussels before evacuating it.
One can only trust in their common-sense--and their mercy!
And at thought of mercy the _Bruxellois_ gazes away down the flat, dusty
road--away towards Louvain!
The peasants are going backwards and forwards to Louvain.
Little carts, filled with beshawled women and children, keep trundling
along the road. A mud-splashed rickety waggonette is drawn up in front
of a third-rate café. "Louvain" is marked on it in white chalk. On a
black board, in the café window, is a notice that the waggonette will
start when full. The day is desperately wet. There is a canvas roof to
the waggonette, but the rain dashes through, sideways, and backwards and
forwards. Under cover of the rain as it were, I step into the
waggonette, and seat myself quietly among a group of peasants. Two more
get in shortly after. Then off we start. In silence, all crouching
together, we drive through the city, out through the northern gateway;
soon we are galloping along the drear flat country-road that leads to
the greatest tragedy of the War. It is ten o'clock when we start. At
half-past eleven we are in Louvain. On the way we meet only peasants and
little shop-keepers going to and from Brussels.
Over the flat bare country, through the grey atmosphere comes an
impression of whiteness. My heart beats suffocatingly as I climb out of
the waggonette and stand in the narrow Rue de la Station, looking along
the tram-line. The heaps of débris nearly meet across the street.
The rain is falling in Louvain; it beats through the ruined spaces; it
does its best to wash out the blood-stains of those terrific days in
August. And the people, oh, the brave people. They are actually making a
pretence of life. A few shops are opened, a café opposite the ruined
theatre is full of pale, trembling old men, sipping their byrrh or
coffee; Louvain is just alive enough to whisper the word "_Death!_"
But with that word it whispers also "Immortality."
In its ruin Louvain seems to me to have taken on a beauty that could
never have belonged to it in other days. Those great fair buildings with
gaps in their sides, speak now with a voice that the whole world listens
to. The Germans have smashed and flattened them, burnt and destroyed
them. But the glory of immortality that Death alone can confer rests
upon them now. Out of those ruins has sprung the strongest factor in the
War. Louvain, despoiled and desolate, has had given into her keeping the
greatest power at work against Germany. Louvain, in her waste and
mourning, has caused the world to pause and think. She has made hearts
bleed that were cold before; she has opened the world's eyes to
Germany's brutality!
Actually, in Africa, Louvain it was that decided a terribly critical
situation. Because of Louvain, many, many hesitating partisans of
Germany threw in their cause with the Allies.
Ah, Louvain! Take heart! In your destruction you are indestructible. You
faced your day of carnage. Your civilians bravely opposed the enemy. It
was all written down in Destiny's white book. The priests that were shot
in your streets, the innocent women and children who were butchered,
they have all achieved great things for Belgium, and they will achieve
still greater things yet. Louvain, proud glorious Louvain, it is
because of you that Germany can never win. Your ruins stand for
Germany's destruction. It is not you who are ruined. It is Germany!
* * * * *
I wander about. I am utterly indifferent to-day. If a German officer
took it in his head to suspect me I would not care. Such is my state of
mind wandering among the ruins of Louvain.
I am surprised to find that in the actual matter of ruins Louvain is
less destroyed than I expected.
Compared with Aerschot, the town has not been as ruthlessly destroyed.
Aerschot no longer exists. Louvain is still here. Among the ruined
monuments, houses and shops are occupied. An attempt at business goes
on. The heaps of masonry in the streets are being cleared away. With her
interior torn out, the old theatre still stands upright. The train runs
in and out among the ruins.
The University is like a beautiful skeleton, with the wind and rain
dashing through the interstices between her white frail bones.
Where there are walls intact, and even over the ruins, the Germans have
pasted their proclamations.
Veuve D. for insulting an official was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Jean D. for opposing an official, was shot.
And in flaunting placards the Germans beg the citizens of Louvain to
understand that they will meet with nothing but kindness and
consideration from Das Deutsche Heer, as long as they behave
themselves.
I step into a little shop as a motor car full of German officers dashes
by.
"How brave you are to keep on," I say to the little old woman behind the
counter. "It must be terribly sad and difficult."
"If we had more salt," she says, "we shouldn't mind! But one must have
salt. And there is none left in Louvain. We go to Brussels for it, but
it grows more and more difficult to obtain, even there."
"And food?"
"Oh, the English will never let us starve," she says. "Mon Mari, he says
so, and he knows. He was in England forty years ago. He was in the
household of Baron D., the Belgian Ambassador in London. Would you like
to see Mon Mari."
I went into the room behind the shop.
Mon Mari was sitting in a big chair by the window, looking out over some
rain-drenched purple cabbages.
He was a little old Belgian, shrivelled and trembling. He had been shot
in the thigh on that appalling August day when Louvain attempted to
defend herself against the murderers. He was lame, broken, useless,
aged. But his sense of humour survived. It flamed up till I felt a red
glow in that chilly room looking over the rain-wet cabbages, and
laughter warmed us all three among the ruins, myself, and the little
old woman, and Mon Mari.
"Yesterday," he said, "an American Consul was coming in my shop. He was
walking with a German Colonel. The American says: 'How could you Germans
destroy a beautiful city like Louvain?' And the Alboche answered, 'We
didn't know it was beautiful'!"
And the old woman echoes ponderingly:
"_Didn't know it was beautiful!_"