Читать книгу The Spell of Flanders - Edward Neville Vose - Страница 4

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“Flanders! Why, where is Flanders?”

“There! I told you she’d ask that question. You’ll have to start right at the beginning with her, and explain everything as you go along.”

We were planning our next vacation tour in Europe, which we had long before agreed to “do” together this year. That meant a party of four—the “Professor,” as I always called him, and his charming young wife, my wife, and myself. Like the plays in which the characters appear on the stage in the order that their names are printed on the programme, the arrangement I have just given is significant. The Professor is always first, a born[Pg 1] [Pg 2] leader-of-the-way. And I am usually last, carrying the heavy bundles.

Not that I am complaining. No doubt I was born to do it. Moreover, the Professor and I have been chums since boyhood. We worked our way through “prep” school and college together, came to New York together, and—in a modest way—have prospered together. At least, we felt prosperous enough to think of going to Europe. For some years he has been the head of the department of history in an important educational institution within the boundaries of the greater city, while I have devoted myself to journalism—and am therefore dubbed “the Editor,” whenever he wishes to refer to me as a personage instead of a human being, which, happily, is not very often. Of the two ladies in the proposed party I do not need to speak—not because there is nothing to say, but because they can speak for themselves. In fact, one of them has just spoken, has asked a question, and it has not yet been answered.

“Flanders, my dear,” said the Professor, speaking in his most sententious manner—as if delivering a lecture in his classroom—“is the most interesting and the least visited corner of Europe. It has more battle-fields and more Gothic churches per square mile than can be found anywhere else. In other parts of Europe you can see mediæval houses, here and there—usually in charge of a smirking caretaker, with his little guidebook for sale, and hungrily anticipating his little fee. In Flanders there are whole streets of them, whole towns that date from the sixteenth century or earlier—but for the costumes of the people, you could easily imagine yourself transported by some enchantment back to the days of Charles the Bold, or even to the time of the Crusaders.”

“Yes,” I added, “and there is no region in the world where the history of the past seems more real, more instinct with the emotions that govern human conduct to-day, than these quaint old Flemish towns. You stand in front of a marble skyscraper on Fifth Avenue and read a bronze tablet that tells you that here the Revolutionary forces under old Colonel Putnam, or whoever it was, delayed the advancing British and covered General Washington’s retreat. Now, does that tablet help you to reconstruct your history? No, you are quite aware that the fight took place when Fifth Avenue was open country, but your imagination will not work when you try to make it picture that scene for you right there on Fifth Avenue where the tablet says it happened.

“Now, it’s different in Flanders. You read in the history about how the burghers of Bruges, when the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, tried to overawe the city by placing an army of archers in the market-place, swarmed out of their houses and down the narrow, crooked streets like so many angry bees. There are the same old houses, the identical narrow, crooked streets—a bit of an effort and you can picture it all—and how the Duke and his archers were driven back and back, while the burghers swarmed in ever increasing numbers, and the great tocsin in the belfry shrieked and clanged to tell the valiant weavers that their liberties were in danger.

“And take that other famous event, when they flung the murderers of Count Charles the Good—who lived and died five hundred years before the other Prince who, like him, was surnamed “the Good”—from the tower of the very cathedral in which they had murdered him. Why, you can climb the tower and look off across the same sea of red-roofed houses and down upon the same square, paved with cruelly jagged stones, as did the condemned men when, one by one, they were led to the edge of the parapet and sent hurtling down.”

“The point is well taken,” interrupted the Professor, “only that particular church is no longer standing—it was destroyed during the French Revolution. But really that makes little difference—there are plenty of other towers in Bruges that have witnessed stirring scenes. And all over Flanders it is the same way—nothing is easier than to make your history live again, for everywhere you have the original setting practically unchanged.”

“It’s all very well for you men,” observed Mrs. Professor, when her husband and I paused to get our breath, “who admire, or pretend to admire, battles and executions and that sort of thing, but if there is nothing else to see except places with such dreadfully unpleasant associations I, for one, don’t want to go there.”

“On the contrary,” I hastened to reply, seeing that the Professor was much disturbed at this unexpected result of all our eloquence, “Flanders has a lot of things to interest the ladies. Think of its famous laces and lacemakers—we can still find the latter at work in places like Bruges, Malines and Turnhout—of its rare old tapestries from Audenaerde and Tournai, and the fine linens of Courtrai. Then there are wood carvings the like of which you will travel far to see, and old Flemish furniture everywhere.”

“To say nothing of the pleasure of learning a little more about the great Flemish school of art in the very home towns of its most celebrated artists,” added the Professor, who was much elated to see that the frowns were leaving the fair face of his better half.

“That’s much better,” she announced. “I’ve always thought fine hand-made lace the most wonderful product of feminine patience and skill, and I should certainly love to watch them make it.”

“For my part,” remarked the fourth member of the party, who had been strangely silent during all this discussion, “while I like to learn a little about the history of the old towns I visit, and see the fine things—whether paintings, or town-halls, or lace or tapestry—for which they are famous, what I like the best is to study the people themselves. I mean the live ones, not those who are dead and gone that our husbands are talking about. I love to sit on the sidewalk on pleasant evenings and have dinner and black coffee while watching the people of the town go by. It’s better than a play. And on rainy days there is always some quaint old-fashioned inn or café where the whole scene looks like a painting by Jordaens or Teniers. The beamed ceiling and the pictures on the walls are grimy with the smoke and steam of countless dinners, the buxom landlady sits in state behind an array of bottles of all sizes and colours and labelled at all prices, her equally plump daughters wait on the tables, the very guests—including ourselves—form a part of the picture. Why, it makes me want to be back there again, just to think of it!”

“The Madame is right!” exclaimed the Professor heartily—all of our friends call my wife “the Madame” because she speaks French as fluently as English. “Our first object on this trip will be pleasure. A little knowledge of the history of Flanders, of tapestry and lacemaking, of architecture and art, may enhance our enjoyment of what we see, because we will thereby understand it better and appreciate its interest or beauty more keenly. But we are not going over as historical savants, or as authorities on art—or pretend that we know any more about such subjects than we really do—”

“Which is just enough to enable us to derive sincere pleasure from seeing them, and having them explained to us, without troubling our heads about this, that or the other element of technique,” I interrupted, completing the Professor’s sentence for him.

“And the best part of the day will be, just as Madame says,” added Mrs. Professor gaily, “the dinners on the sidewalks, where we can watch the people as they go about and tell each other of what we have seen since morning. And, hurray! for the Flemish inns!”

“Well, as to Flemish inns,” observed the Madame, “what I said related to eating a dinner in one. When it comes to sleeping in them there are other things to think of besides beamed ceilings and picturesque interiors.

“A few years ago we had an experience at Antwerp that taught us the folly of arriving at a great continental city late at night without having hotel accommodations secured in advance. We had started at eight in the morning from Hamburg, intending to stop at Antwerp just long enough to transfer our belongings to a train for Brussels that, according to the time-table, would leave fifteen minutes after our train arrived. Now, from Hamburg to Antwerp is quite a long ride—short as the distance looks on the map—and when we finally arrived at our destination, half an hour late, it was long after midnight and our train for Brussels had gone.

“We were both tired out, and hastily decided that we would put up at Antwerp for the night and go on to Brussels in the morning. As we emerged from the great Gare Centrale we found despite the lateness of the hour, about a dozen red-capped hotel runners, each of whom clamoured for our patronage. They all looked very much alike, the names on their caps meant nothing to us as we were not familiar with the Antwerp hotels, and we selected one at random. To our dismay we discovered, when it was too late, that, whereas most of them had hotel busses in waiting—into which they leaped and were driven off—our cicerone was not so provided. He attempted to reassure us by saying that the Grand Hotel de—— was close by—a fact that produced the opposite effect from that intended, as we knew that the immediate vicinity of a large railroad station is seldom a desirable neighbourhood.

“However, the other porters were now gone and, unless we were disposed to sleep in the station, there was nothing to do but follow along. To our further alarm our guide presently turned into a most unprepossessing street on which several drinking places were still open, or were only on the point of closing. Into one of these he led us. After a short conference with the proprietress, who was sitting behind the bar counting the day’s receipts, he took a candle and a huge key and led us out into the court, then up a flight of stairs placed on the outside of the house, and through several narrow passageways. But for the flickering candle everything was completely dark, and when he finally ushered us into an immense room with a mediæval four-post bed in its darkest corner we involuntarily looked for the trap-door down which the murderous inn-keepers of the stories were wont to cast their victims.

“Lighting a pair of candles on the mantelpiece from his, and wishing us a civil ‘Bon soir,’ our red-capped guide now left us—to our great relief. Although we tried to dismiss our fears as childish, we both felt more insecure and helpless than we cared to admit, even to each other. None of our friends knew that we were in Antwerp. If we disappeared they would hardly think to look for us there—and still less on this shabby street, the very name of which we did not know.

“We barricaded the door against a sudden surprise, inspected the walls with a candle for signs of the secret door (at the head of the winding stairway up which the wicked innkeeper so often creeps upon his prey, according to the chronicles) and at last, the fatigue of the day overcoming our fears, we slept. It was broad daylight when we awoke, and the street was alive with people—mostly cartmen and peasants it seemed. With some difficulty we found our way down to the room where we had seen the landlady the night before. She greeted us warmly, our fears of the night had fled—and we sat down and ordered, and enjoyed, a most excellent breakfast. The hotel was quite a popular one, we learned, much frequented by people from near-by towns, and we had never been safer in our lives. Yet, just the same, we both vowed firmly that ‘Never Again’ would we take similar chances—and we never have.”

“I have thought of that incident more than once while talking over our Flemish tour with the Professor,” I observed, “and have decided upon this plan. When we find a hotel that suits us all, as regards cleanliness, cuisine and safety—or rather the sense of security, for I daresay we would be safe enough in many that we would hardly care to patronise—we will stay overnight in whatever town we may chance to be visiting. If, on the other hand, we have not had time to find such a place, we’ll take a train back to Antwerp or Brussels, where there are hotels that we know all about. We’ll get second-class billets d’abonnement every two weeks anyway, so the rail trip will only cost us our time.”

“And are Antwerp and Brussels both in Flanders?” inquired Mrs. Professor. “Between you, you have given me an idea that I should like to visit Flanders, but you have none of you answered my question as to where it is.”

“I think I can answer you, my dear,” replied her husband. “There are, as you probably know, two little provinces in the northern part of Belgium called East and West Flanders. The boundaries of the Flanders of history and of art, however, cover a considerable wider area than these two provinces. Over in France a considerable part of the Department du Nord was for centuries subject to the Counts of Flanders. On the other side, to the eastward, the cities of Antwerp and Malines were for many centuries independent of the Counts of Flanders, but their people spoke Flemish, their houses, churches and town-halls were built in the best style of Flemish architecture, and they became famous centres of Flemish art and learning. To my mind, therefore, they both belong to Flanders. Brussels, however, while its Hotel de Ville and Grande Place are splendid examples of Flemish architecture, is more French than Flemish, and belongs to the Walloon or French part of Belgium.

“Now, as the Editor here has proposed a plan which seems to me a good one as regards our hotels, I will venture to suggest one as regards our itinerary. It will make comparatively little difference which towns we visit first, and as some are more closely identified with the early history of Flanders than the others I propose that we visit these older towns first. At the time of the Crusades Ypres, for example, had two hundred thousand inhabitants when the population of London was less than thirty-five thousand and Antwerp was an obscure little town. Nieuport and Furnes were, at that time, the chief seaports of Flanders. Now they are miles from the sea. Dixmude, near by, was another important city of those olden days. Now all these places are country villages—‘the dead cities of Flanders,’ they are called, and scarcely a tourist from America ever visits them, although they are fairly familiar to our English cousins.

“If we start our pilgrimage in Flanders with Bruges, which was the first capital of the County of Flanders, and with these old towns—all of which are hard by—we can plan our journeys chronologically, so to speak, visiting first the monuments that date from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, then those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and so on. In that way we not only can keep the little history we know straight, but we can trace with our own eyes the gradual development of Flemish architecture and art.”

This plan was unanimously voted to be a capital one—in theory, at any rate—and thus it was that in our subsequent wanderings about Flanders, under the guidance of the indefatigable Professor, we often crossed our trail, and now and then visited the same place more than once. In practice it did not accomplish quite all that was expected of it by its learned originator—but what plan ever does, or ever will? That it enhanced the interest of the trip manyfold we all agreed; it often sustained our flagging zeal, and it helped us to know Flanders—the Flanders of the past especially—far better than we would have done in any other way.