breathing. A metal identification disk hung on a cord from about
his neck over a chest which was like a wicker-work of ribs. His
belly was sunken until one almost saw the spinal column through it.
His tortured lungs subsided little by little, the terrifying sound
of his breathing sank to nothing, his head thrust far back and over
to the right side, his arms stiffened slowly, his mouth fell open.
We watched, as if fascinated, the pulsing vein in his emaciated
neck, still pumping blood through a body which had ceased to
breathe. The top of the blood column at last appeared, like
mercury in a thermometer. It fell half an inch with each stroke
of the famished heart. It reached the base of the neck and sank
from sight, and still we stared and stared. The man was dead, yet
I seemed to have an awful vision of billions of sentient cells,
billions of little selfish lives which had made up his life,
fighting, choking, starving to death within that cooling clay.
The Baas bent his head, uncovered, and crossed himself. With a
quick stooping motion he closed the wide-open eyes and straightened
the bent limbs. Then he rose to his full height and looked at me
sadly. “This man had a mother, monsieur,” he said. “We must forget
the rest.”
* * * * *
In the pit where the other German had lain we buried the body of
the deserter, and we found and repaired the little lath cross and
set it up at the grave’s head. But first I took from about the neck
of the corpse the oval medallion which told the man’s name and
regimental number. It was a silver medal, finer than those usually
worn by privates in the German army. I have it by me as I write,
and on it is etched the brave sentence, “God shield you from all
dangers of warfare, and render you back to us safe and victorious!”
I was late for breakfast at the Château, but Van Steen kindly made
room for me at his right hand. “Aha, monsieur,” he called gaily,
“we thought you were helping to find the deserter.”
“Wha-what, monsieur le Baron?” I stuttered in amazement.
“The German deserter. A file of soldiers woke us up at seven
o’clock, inquiring for one of their men who ran away from Mons a
month ago. They are searching the stables and the forest. They have
traced him here to our commune. I hope they catch him!”
My fingers clutched the silver disk in my pocket. “I think they
will not catch him, messieurs. He ran away a month ago, you say?”
“A month ago.... But it is nothing to us, eh? Let us eat our
breakfasts.” The Baron bowed grandly to me. “Monsieur le Délégué,”
he began in his smooth, formal voice, “once again we remind
ourselves that it is thanks to you and the generous American people
that we have bread. It is thanks to you that our noble Belgium is
not starving.... Eh bien! Let us eat our breakfasts.”
And so we did.
VIII
THE GLORY OF TINARLOO
A second time we seated ourselves at our little round table in
the restaurant on the boulevard Anspach--the director of the art
museum and I. A mug of light Belgian beer was before each of us,
and a copy of _La Belgique_ telling of the Somme battles. The
director’s hands shook as he reached for the newspaper and his
half-finished beer. His breath came in short, apoplectic gasps. He
was wildly angry. A couple of minutes before a Flemish newsboy had
rushed into the restaurant and shouted, “Aeroplane! The Germans are
shooting it!” And the restaurant had emptied like a hive, filling
the boulevard, where every one gazed at the dull gray dragonfly
droning at an immense height over the city, pursued with soft
white smoke-flowers which thudded as they bloomed in the upper air.
While we watched, an old peasant in wooden shoes and padded black
petticoats dropped her market basket on the director’s toes. He
forgot aeroplane and anti-aircraft guns, war, the crowds, and me,
his guest. He howled, he cursed, he danced; and now that we were
safe again at our table in the restaurant, anathema and malediction
still tumbled from his full red lips.
“_Ces sales paysants, ils sont des brutes! Imbéciles! Idiots!
Cochons!_” he stuttered, his feet prancing under the table. “They
are beasts truly, monsieur: not men, but beasts, these peasants.
What a temper I am in. But these beasts of peasants. Ah!...” he
smiled suddenly and went on, “I will tell you a story of them.
“You have heard, monsieur, of Van de Werve, the artist? He was of
the school of Rubens; he died in Italy, very young. He had only
twenty-three years when he died. He was not rich; he was very poor.
But he had the spirit, the genius, the _flair_, and Rubens loved
him. The Master said one day, ‘You must go to Italy to study. Here
is a purse of gold. Here are letters of introduction to my friends.
Here is a horse. Go to Italy.’ And the young man started. Months
went by and no word of him came to Rubens or the other friends he
had in Antwerp. He did not arrive in Italy. The purse of gold, the
letters of introduction, the horse, the pupil of Rubens--all were
completely lost to sight. After a year some friends set out to
search for him, and behold! in the village of Tinarloo in Brabant
they found him, painting an altar piece for the chapel of that
place, and kissing and clipping the daughter of the burgomaster,
who sat on his knee! He was always gallant, was Van de Werve, and
as he rode into Tinarloo on his way to Italy, he had seen and
fallen in love with the burgomaster’s daughter and sat at her feet
for a year.
“But the altar piece, monsieur! You have never seen it? Ah,
that was magnificent--‘The Virgin of the Stair’--gold, green,
ravishing! What atmosphere! What feeling! What soul!
“I saw it only once before the war. I tried to buy it for the
museum, but those dirty peasants of Tinarloo would not give it up.
Ugh--a village of fat farmers smelling of dungheaps and cattle pens
and garlic! Their chapel was bastard Gothic--no fit place for such
an altar piece. I urged the curé to sell, but he would not. He
was ignorant as his peasants, but he was crafty, too. He said the
picture was the glory of Tinarloo, the chief joy of the peasants.
I offered him twice as much as I first intended, thinking he meant
to bargain with me; three times, four times as much. He refused two
thousand francs, monsieur!
“Afterward came the war. I am a brave man, monsieur. I am not
afraid of the Germans. When they advanced near to Tinarloo I
thought of the ‘Virgin of the Stair.’ ‘It must be saved,’ I said
to myself. ‘Those peasants, that curé will be glad to give it up
now.’ I hurried there in a cart. Eastward, near Namur, the great
guns roared. There stood sentries along the roads. Peasants were
running away before the Germans with farmcarts piled with goods.
They blocked the road, and I had even to beat them out of my way
with my whip.
“So I reached Tinarloo. Every one was terrified. I went to the
chapel. The curé was there, and the burgomaster, a toothless old
man with a dirty beard. ‘Give me the picture, quick,’ I exclaimed.
‘I will save it from the Germans. Quick!’ ‘No, monsieur,’ said the
curé. ‘The picture will stay here. It is the glory of Tinarloo; it
is the chief joy of our peasants.’
“There came a scream and a roar from the street, monsieur, like
the sound of a great storm, and I knew the Germans were shelling
the village. The old burgomaster bellowed something. I do not
understand Flemish, but I knew he said something of the church and
the picture; maybe it was that the Germans always destroy churches
and pictures. He hobbled out ‘The picture, the picture, give me the
picture!’ I roared at the curé. ‘Give it to me or I will take it.
Fool! the Germans will take it if I do not. Give it to me. Quick!’
‘It is the glory of Tinarloo; the chief joy of our peasants. I will
not give it.’ ‘Then I will take it,’ I shouted, for I was stronger
than he, monsieur. He clutched me, but I threw him off and grasped
the picture by the corner. There came another roar, terrible, and a
part of the church tower fell through the roof. The curé screamed
and dropped to his knees, praying. I worked to get the picture from
the frame.
“Suddenly, monsieur, I was grasped and thrown down. Those brutes
of peasants had come into the church; twelve, fifteen of them,
following the burgomaster with the dirty beard. They held me fast
with their stinking hands. One of them tried to strangle me, and
my neck bears the marks to this day. _Bang_--a shell fell in the
churchyard and bits of shrapnel ripped the windows. The church was
choked with dust and roared with noise. The curé stood up before
the picture. He yelled to the animals who held me down. They loosed
me, and I stood upright, gasping. One of them had a great club in
his hand, another a dung-fork, another a flail. They gathered close
to the curé, close to the picture, and talked; the fools talked
while shells flew, knowing the Germans always aim at churches; yet
they talked.
“Then the curé came down to me where I was standing. ‘They say to
give you the picture, monsieur,’ he said. ‘But you must swear by
this cross to bring it back when all is safe. It is the glory of
Tinarloo; it is the chief joy----’
“Monsieur, there was a scream like devils in torment and a shock
like earthquake. I was knocked from my feet. Bricks, timbers
fell. Dust covered me, and I lost consciousness. Long afterward
I found myself lying in the grass of the churchyard, among the
black crosses, and the curé kneeling over me; only the curé!
‘Go,’ he said. His mouth was bleeding from a deep cut and his gown
was slashed to ribbon. ‘Go, go,’ he said. I heard him as if in a
dream. ‘Go! There is no longer any picture. Go! before the Germans
come.’
“So I came away, monsieur.... They are strange beasts, these
Belgian peasants.”
IX
A FLEMISH FANCY
“The instant Father Guido died his naked soul leaped from his
body and ran up the air as on a stair.” Odile stopped her story.
“Hoo-oo,” she sighed reproachfully, crossing her gaunt old hands
over her middle and staring at my sleepy head. “Mynheer is not
listening!”
Odile always came into my bedroom before I was up in the morning.
It was her function to waken me, and then to gossip with me while
she opened the green Venetian blinds, tightly closed the windows
against the noxious air of morning, laid out linen, and prepared my
bath in an adjoining room. Her thin, motherly face was the first
thing I saw when I wakened; always smiling, no matter if things
had gone well or ill, always ready to tell me a story if that
were needed to put me in a good humour. “All well, Odile?” “_Ja_,
mynheer, except that the Germans half killed a policeman in front
of the house last night. He screamed horribly, mynheer.” Such was a
typical morning’s news.
She petted me outrageously, and, although she never summoned
courage to assert it to my face, among the servants below-stairs
she gave herself airs and boldly called me her _bébé_. I confided
to her my love affairs in return for which small flatteries she
embroidered my handkerchiefs, criticised my unstarched American
shirts, doped me faithfully whenever I fell ill, and protested
eloquently against the perils of too frequent bathing. Daily baths
might be healthy in America; they were certainly unhealthy in
Belgium, said Odile.
The tale of what happened to Father Guido comes back to me in
fragments. Perhaps Odile did not tell it to me at all. Perhaps she
told it when I was too sleepy to remember. In any event, I cannot
now tell how much is hers and how much my own. The words, alas! are
mine, in any case.
“Nay, Odile, I am listening. Tell me about Father Guido.”
“He was a holy priest, a canon in his monastery, but he doubted
God’s promise of the bliss of heaven!”
“Dreadful!”
“Yes, wasn’t it, mynheer? So he died, and his soul ran up the air
as on a stair. And now listen! The soul of Father Guido stopped
for breath and wheezed hard. It was not used to running. It stood
stark naked in the sunlight just three meters above the bell-tower
of the monastery where he had lived and served God twenty-seven
years. The garden looked very sheltered and inviting. You must know
that Father Guido loved gardening, mynheer. The soul could see
his favourite mulberry tree, and acolytes in gray gowns walking
beneath, meditating. One of the acolytes lifted a hand and stole a
berry. ‘Rogue!’ the soul thought. It was about to walk down into
the garden and remonstrate with the thief when suddenly it leaped
into the air as if a wasp had stung it. The heavy monastery bell
just below it clanged like an explosion. _Bang!_ went the bell;
then again, _bang!_ and after a pause, again, _bang!_ ‘Some one
is dead,’ thought the soul. It licked its lips thoughtfully. They
tasted damp and oily. And suddenly it remembered--that was the oil
of extreme unction. ‘I am dead,’ said the soul of Father Guido with
resignation, ‘and on my way to bliss--I hope.’
“The soul began to climb up long vistas of air, but abruptly it
stopped. ‘My God, I’m stark naked!’ it thought; ‘stark naked, and
the eye of all the world is on me.’ Not once since Father Guido
donned his habit had he been unclothed in public. But the waste
of air about the poor soul offered no shelter, and there was no
returning the way it had come. Its chest heaved with sorrow and its
eyes peered everywhere, above, below, beside it; but nothing--not
even a summer cloud--came near to give it shelter. ‘I’m thin and
withered and I’ve a belly like a tun,’ the soul said bitterly, and
it slapped its thin shanks as it ran, and breathed hard.
“A hawk circled in space, and the soul turned and climbed in the
direction of the swinging bird. It got within two meters of the
hawk and hailed him in Flemish--for all the birds understand
Flemish, mynheer--but the hawk sailed by unheeding, its eye on the
distant earth. Father Guido’s soul was disappointed. ‘But if I
can’t be heard or seen, it doesn’t much matter about my clothes,’
it said, and climbed on slowly.
“The high air grew very cold, but the exertions of the soul kept
it in a healthy perspiration. It gathered strength and agility
as it climbed; it seemed to leap from hilltop to hilltop of the
atmosphere, and below it earth fell away like a ball dropped into a
well. A shadow came crawling from the east, devouring the earth as
Father Guido’s soul watched and climbed; the shadow floated like
pitch over all the world, silently, swiftly eating everything. It
reached the centre of the world. It devoured the monastery and went
on, gathering all things into its mouth. Long afterward the sun
dropped out of sight, and darkness leaped upon the soul high in air
and cloaked it in freezing night.
“The soul was dreadfully alone now, alone with millions of winking
stars, but it climbed on and on and on.
“Mynheer, no man has ever told how lonely the dead are; how they
cry out in the darkness and stretch out their arms; where yesterday
there was warmth and light and friendly hands and soft laughter
there is only cold, emptiness, nothing. Oh, how lonely the dead
are! How lonely the dead are!
“Men do not know how many months or years or centuries the soul
climbed up through the swarming stars, but at last it came to the
foot of battlements shooting up into space--battlements that rose
like flames rooted in clouds, and burning so brightly that the
strained eyes of the soul pinched with the bliss of gazing. And
still the soul of Father Guido climbed and climbed and climbed.
“‘It’s too beautiful for purgatory; this must be heaven,’ said
the soul to itself, ‘but there’s no door.’ And indeed, mynheer,
there seemed to be no door, for the poor soul climbed up and up
those topless cliffs, but found no entrance at all. ‘There’s no
door! There’s no door! There’s no door!’ the soul of Father Guido
repeated like a prayer as it climbed beside the battlements.
“‘God and Mary help us!’ it sobbed at last in despair; and no
sooner had it said these words than it saw a little gate opening
into the jewelled heights, and it flew up hopefully.
“Outside the doorway it paused. There was a door, half closed, and
the soul was afraid. It felt conscious again of its nakedness,
although the paunch was gone from constant exercise and hard
muscles showed under its star-burned skin. ‘I’m a thin old codger,
though; not presentable to St. Peter at all. I’ll wait behind the
door-post until somebody appears.’ So it pressed its ribs close
against the door-jamb and waited. An hour went by, or a minute, or
an age; still nobody appeared. Father Guido’s soul grew anxious.
‘I’ll look inside--just one peek,’ it whispered. ‘One peek won’t
matter.’ So it gently pried open the pearly door and looked in.
“An armchair, mynheer, carved of jewels, like the battlements,
stood beside the door, but the chair was empty. The soul looked
farther. ‘Hum!’ it said thoughtfully; ‘there’s no _pater
hospitalis_ here. I’m disappointed. And St. Peter’s left no
substitute.’
“Father Guido, you must understand, mynheer,” said Odile, by way
of parenthesis, “had been _pater hospitalis_ in his monastery. He
took care of the guests, he selected the wines, he was jovial in
welcoming those who came and tearful in bidding adieu to those who
went; so he was distressed that no one should meet him at the gate
of heaven.”
I nodded sympathetically, and she went on: “A little weed grew in
a crack in the golden pavement where the holy saint’s feet had worn
the flagstone smoothest, and a green scurf of moss pushed out here
and there in the golden gutters. ‘That’s strange; that’s strange
indeed,’ said the soul of Father Guido; but it had little time to
wonder at small things like these, for the whole of heaven towered
before its eyes. Streets and mansions and gardens blazed with
lights of a thousand colours; mansions of silver and amethyst and
jacinth rose amid bowers of roses; towers and roofs and walls and
lattices shone like jewels in changeless sunlight, and avenues of
strange trees stretching farther than eye could see glowed green as
emerald along streets of gold.
“But there was no sound anywhere, mynheer. Father Guido’s soul held
its breath with holy awe and fear. In spite of the warmth of the
eternal sunlight sluicing its bare limbs, cold perspiration came
out on its neck and face, and goose-flesh pricked its legs. The
soul hid itself in a rose hedge and waited breathlessly. Nothing
appeared. Still there was no sound. Presently the soul crept out
again and pattered cautiously up the golden avenue, picking little
rose thorns from its sides and back as it marched.
“Glorious beyond the prophecies of saints and evangels was heaven,
rising terrace on terrace, height upon height, glowing with the
light of gems, bourgeoning with gardens, and flashing with pools
of clear blue water; so that the soul of Father Guido climbed and
climbed, speechless and marvelling. And still there was no sound
but those of its bare feet slapping the golden pave.
“So the solitary soul came at last to the summit of all Created
Things; to the Mountain that is like a Diamond, with the sunlight
flashing naked swords above it; to the Palace which is carved like
a human heart from a Jewel for which there is No Name; and the soul
knew that this was the Home of the King of Kings, of the Verigod
of Verigods, and it knelt on the pavement in terrified awe and
worshipped.
“But, mynheer, the naked toes of the poor soul of Father Guido
nestled into the heart of a little thistle growing in the grass
beside the golden stair leading up to the Palace of God, and the
prick roused it from its devotions, so that it sprang to its feet
abruptly, and bent over and rubbed the hurt digits. ‘God save us!’
it ejaculated piously. ‘Salvation or damnation, that hurts! But I
must go on!’ And it pattered up the palace steps.
“Mynheer, there were no guards at the steps. There were no watchmen
at the door. There were no angels inside the door. The corridors
were empty. But at the far end of the central corridor the soul saw
a curtain hanging from ceiling to floor, red as blood, tremendous,
veiling mysteries.
“The soul of Father Guido went forward to see what the curtain
concealed. It reached the curtain. It stretched out its hand. It
touched the curtain. Then it caught the hem and pulled.”
Odile stopped and drew a long breath, watching me narrowly.
“Please go on,” I begged.
“Mynheer, there was nothing inside!”
“What?”
“There was nothing inside!”
“Ugh! Served him right, then,” I grunted.
“But no, listen. You have forgotten the power of God. The soul of
Father Guido dropped the curtain and fell flat on the ground. It
could not believe what it had seen, and it fell to screaming, the
most horrible screams that heaven ever heard. It screamed again and
again, like a child in the dark, like a little lost child.
“And then suddenly, mynheer, there was a roar of wings, and
loud singing, and a brightness new, like lightning, and the air
was thick with angels playing and dancing and whistling. Father
Guido had believed, you see, or else his soul would not have been
disappointed and would not have screamed. He doubted as you doubt,
mynheer!
“And now, when St. Peter is tired, the soul of Father Guido sits in
the chair beside the little gate to welcome newcomers, as he used
to do in the monastery, and he is kind to those who come, mynheer,
for he, too, has known what it is to doubt.”
X
THE SWALLOWS OF DIEST
My automobile broke down on the outskirts of Diest, and I was
obliged to spend the night in the _Gouden Kat_--a typical Flemish
inn. A dozen little round tables stood outside on the flagstones
bordering the Grand’ Place, the supper room within was divided
about equally among food, drink, and billiards, and madame sat in
state behind a showcase of cigarettes. There were no Germans lodged
in the _Gouden Kat_ so I was given the best room, and as I came
down the tiny, twisted stair after a good night’s sleep in a high
bed with carved posts at either corner, a tester and lacy hangings,
under a black crucifix and the faded eyes of a colour print of King
Albert, a small gray feather spun slowly down and fell at my feet
in the doorway. There was a flutter of wings, and a swallow skimmed
over my head, almost touching me, and out through the open door.
A few gloomy citizens, an occasional housewife, small boys and
girls in neat cheap clothes and noisy wooden shoes stalked across
the open square before the cathedral. A squad of German soldiers
tramped by on their way to the Kommandantur in the Stadthuis. Soon
mass was over, and a flood of grave, black-clad figures filled
the square and melted away into the by-streets. A worn black flag
fluttered from a pole on the very top of the church.
“Madame, what is the black flag on your cathedral?” I asked,
sipping black coffee.
“It was once white, that flag, monsieur.”
“But, madame! it is coal black.”
“Monsieur, it is the flag which we of Diest hoisted when the
Germans came. Aerschot, Louvain, Schaffen--they were destroyed by
the Germans. Diest,” she shrugged her shoulders, “Diest is as you
see it.”
Across the Grand’ Place, behind the gates of a porte cochère
belonging to a rival inn, I found my chauffeur, Alexis, busy with
the broken motor.
“Monsieur, this is the cylinder which does not march,” he called
loudly, his tricky eyes eager for praise and his mouth smiling
blandly behind his curved moustaches. “More oil!” he ordered
imperiously from the bent old innkeeper who stood, cap in hand,
watching; and while the man shuffled off with a wash-bowl, Alexis
loudly continued to explain to me the difficulty. “I am mechanician
as well as chauffeur, monsieur,” he declaimed, although I was well
aware of the fact. “I will arrange everything. In an hour all is
arranged.”
A side glance gave me the clue to Alexis’s authoritative tone. The
young wife of the innkeeper, a heavy flaxen-haired Flemish woman,
watched smiling from the open door. Alexis’s gestures and mouthings
were for her.
In the rafters over the motor-car I heard soft cheeping, and a
swallow slid from a mud cup fixed to one of the timbers and stole
out into the morning sunshine. There were other earthen cups,
lined no doubt with feathers, in the shadow above us: three or four
cups brimming with swallow babies. One after another the gray-blue
mothers came and went, circling fearlessly over us, engaged in the
sensible business of filling the world with swallows.
“In an hour, monsieur, all is arranged,” Alexis repeated, trying to
get rid of me. So I determined to stay.
“Madame, a cup of the white beer of Louvain, if you please,” I
ordered.
She answered my French with a question in Flemish. “_Wat segt U,
mynheer?_”
“_Wittebeer van Leuven, als ’t je belieft, madame._”