She replied to our salutations with studied indifference, mentally ticking off her prey. I descended to the cabin to remove my hat. One old lady was already established there.
She lay on a rose and white couch, a black shawl tucked round her, fanning herself with a black feather fan. Her grey hair was half covered with a lace cap and her face gleamed from the black drapings and rose pillows with charming old-world dignity. There was about her a faint rustling and the scents of camphor and lavender. As I watched her, thinking of Rembrandt and, for some reason, Anatole France, the stewardess bustled up, placed a canvas stool at her elbow, spread a newspaper upon it, and banged down a receptacle rather like a baking tin. I went up on deck. The sea was bright green, with rolling waves. All the beauty and artificial flower of France had removed their hats and bound their heads in veils. A number of young German men, displaying their national bulk in light-coloured suits cut in the pattern of pyjamas, promenaded. French family parties—the female element in chairs, the male in graceful attitudes against the ship’s side—talked already with that brilliance which denotes friction! I found a chair in a corner against a white partition, but unfortunately this partition had a window set in it for the purpose of providing endless amusement for the curious, who peered through it, watching those bold and brave spirits who walked “for’ard” and were drenched and beaten by the waves. In the first half-hour the excitement of getting wet and being pleaded with, and rushing into dangerous places to return and be rubbed down, was all-absorbing. Then it palled—the parties drifted into silence. You would catch them staring intently at the ocean—and yawning. They grew cold and snappy. Suddenly a young lady in a white woollen hood with cherry bows got up from her chair and swayed over to the railings. We watched her, vaguely sympathetic. The young man with whom she had been sitting called to her.
“Are you better?” Negative expressed.
He sat up in his chair. “Would you like me to hold your head?”
“No,” said her shoulders
“Would you care for a coat round you?...Is it over?...Are you going to remain there?”...He looked at her with infinite tenderness. I decided never again to call men unsympathetic, and to believe in the all-conquering power of love until I died—but never put it to the test. I went down to sleep.
I lay down opposite the old lady, and watched the shadows spinning over the ceilings and the wave-drops shining on the portholes.
In the shortest sea voyage there is no sense of time. You have been down in the cabin for hours or days or years. Nobody knows or cares. You know all the people to the point of indifference. You do not believe in dry land any more—you are caught in the pendulum itself, and left there, idly swinging. The light faded.
I fell asleep, to wake to find the stewardess shaking me. “We are there in two minutes,” said she. Forlorn ladies, freed from the embrace of Neptune, knelt upon the floor and searched for their shoes and hairpins—only the old and dignified one lay passive, fanning herself. She looked at me and smiled.
“Grâce de Dieu, c’est fini,” she quavered in a voice so fine it seemed to quaver on a thread of lace.
I lifted up my eyes. “Oui, c’est fini!”
“Vous allez à Strasbourg, Madame?”
“No,” I said. “Bruges.”
“That is a great pity,” said she, closing her fan and the conversation. I could not think why, but I had visions of myself perhaps travelling in the same railway carriage with her, wrapping her in the black shawl, of her falling in love with me and leaving me unlimited quantities of money and old lace...These sleepy thoughts pursued me until I arrived on deck.
The sky was indigo blue, and a great many stars were shining: our little ship stood black and sharp in the clear air. “Have you the tickets?...Yes, they want the tickets...Produce your tickets!”...We were squeezed over the gangway, shepherded into the custom house, where porters heaved our luggage on to long wooden slabs, and an old man wearing horn spectacles checked it without a word.
“Follow me!” shouted the villainous-looking creature whom I had endowed with my worldly goods. He leapt on to a railway line, and I leapt after him. He raced along a platform, dodging the passengers and fruit wagons, with the security of a cinematograph figure. I reserved a seat and went to buy fruit at a little stall displaying grapes and greengages. The old lady was there, leaning on the arm of a large blond man, in white, with a flowing tie. We nodded.
“Buy me,” she said in her delicate voice, “three ham sandwiches, mon cher!”
“And some cakes,” said he.
“Yes, and perhaps a bottle of lemonade.”
“Romance is an imp!” thought I, climbing up into the carriage. The train swung out of the station; the air, blowing through the open windows, smelled of fresh leaves. There were sudden pools of light in the darkness; when I arrived at Bruges the bells were ringing, and white and mysterious shone the moon over the Grand’ Place.
(1910)
A TRUTHFUL ADVENTURE
“The little town lies spread before the gaze of the eager traveller like a faded tapestry threaded with the silver of its canals, made musical by the great chiming belfry. Life is long since asleep in Bruges; fantastic dreams alone breathe over tower and mediaeval house front, enchanting the eye, inspiring the soul and filling the mind with the great beauty of contemplation.”
I read this sentence from a guide-book while waiting for Madame in the hotel sitting-room. It sounded extremely comforting, and my tired heart, tucked away under a thousand and one grey city wrappings, woke and exulted within me...I wondered if I had enough clothes with me to last for at least a month. “I shall dream away whole days,” I thought, “take a boat and float up and down the canals, or tether it to a green bush tangling the water side, and absorb mediaeval house fronts. At evensong I shall lie in the long grass of the Béguinage meadow and look up at the elm trees—their leaves touched with gold light and quivering in the blue air—listening the while to the voices of nuns at prayer in the little chapel, and growing full enough of grace to last me the whole winter.”
While I soared magnificently upon these very new feathers Madame came in and told me that there was no room at all for me in the hotel—not a bed, not a corner. She was extremely friendly and seemed to find a fund of secret amusement in the fact; she looked at me as though expecting me to break into delighted laughter. “To-morrow,” she said, “there may be. I am expecting a young gentleman who is suddenly taken ill to move from number eleven. He is at present at the chemist’s—perhaps you would care to see the room?”
“Not at all,” said I. “Neither shall I wish to-morrow to sleep in the bedroom of an indisposed young gentleman.”
“But he will be gone,” cried Madame, opening her blue eyes wide and laughing with that French cordiality so enchanting to English hearing. I was too tired and hungry to feel either appreciative or argumentative. “Perhaps you can recommend me another hotel?”
“Impossible!” She shook her head and turned up her eyes, mentally counting over the blue bows painted on the ceiling. “You see, it is the season in Bruges, and people do not care to let their rooms for a very short time”—not a glance at my little suit case lying between us, but I looked at it gloomily, and it seemed to dwindle before my desperate gaze—become small enough to hold nothing but a collapsible folding tooth-brush.
“My large box is at the station,” I said coldly, buttoning my gloves.
