Borluut would have liked to know, to be clear about what was happening to him.
Since he had started going up the tower, life had become a mystery to him. The alternatives were making him very unhappy. He tried to pull himself together, to think things through.
Oh, how wretched I am, he thought. Things are so badly arranged.
The elements that we have of our destiny are so tenuous, it’s difficult to recognise them. We only have a small detail, the colour of a pair of eyes, of someone’s hair. He, for example, had always been looking for eyes the colour of the water in the canals – and Barbara and Godelieve both had them. But what face, what lips, what hair, what body, above all what mind was he to choose to go with those eyes? In short, we only know enough to mislead ourselves. The known element, which we have by instinct, by some vague indication, is like a key fate has thrown us. So we start looking for the house to which the key belongs, the house that will contain our happiness. Unfortunately, there is not just the one door the key will fit. We search – nothing but fumbling, groping in the dark! Futile gestures to stop the horizon as it passes. Then we enter one, at random. Most often we’re wrong, it’s not the house of our happiness. There’s a slight similarity.
Sometimes we think there are worse places we could have gone into. But we also think we could, as surely happens to some people, have entered the one, unique, special house, the house of our happiness. And our awareness that it does exist somewhere is enough to give us an aversion to the one where we live. However, mostly we resign ourselves to it.
Therefore, Borluut concluded, since we know nothing, there is no point in choosing. After all, it is Fate which does it for us.
Our free will is an illusion. Thus the inescapable conclusion of his analysis was that he felt that if he had been free, he would have continued to prefer Godelieve, but Fate was driving him to desire Barbara and, in the end, she was the one he would marry.
VIII
Oh, the vanity of plans! Our lives proceed regardless. All the things we work out in such minute detail slip away from us at the last moment, or change.
You are following the highroad through the forest of events, where it is always evening. You catch a glimpse of a small light, at the end, which you think is the right inn to stay at. Then, suddenly, you branch off, you take a path, a short cut, which leads to other lighted windows. Everything turns out differently.
And almost always it is the Woman who guides our steps, leading us into a maze according to the lines of her hand. Her whim alone, the state of her nerves on a particular morning or evening, determines our happiness or unhappiness.
The whole of Joris’s life was decided in one minute. He thought he was in a state of indecision with no way out. One glance from Barbara and everything was resolved, beyond recall. One Monday evening he arrived early for van Hulle’s weekly soirée. Was he distracted, had he forgotten what time it was or was it premeditated so that, arriving first, he would be alone and could enjoy all the more the closeness, the familiarity? That day he had dreamt of Barbara more than ever, was haunted by her. It was like a signal, a premonition of the approach of something decisive. When he had been shown into the usual drawing-room, he found Barbara there, setting out glasses and teacups. She was alone, looking preoccupied. At first Joris was slightly embarrassed, but also delighted at the prospect of a tête-à-tête.
As if to ascertain that it would be prolonged, he asked, ‘And your father?’
‘Oh, he’s very busy today. He’s rearranging his clock museum. The servants are never allowed to enter. He’s been shut in there all day, together with Godelieve.’
‘And you?’
‘Me? Oh, I’ve been alone, as always. They hardly need me…’
Barbara gave a deep sigh.
‘What’s wrong?’ Joris asked, suddenly seized by a vague agitation, a tenderness full of pity at seeing her so forlorn, holding back her tears.
She did not reply, remaining impenetrable.
‘Tell me. What’s wrong?’ Joris asked again, his voice almost trembling with emotion.
Now Barbara vented her feelings in an angry, vehement outburst, the words coming in spurts, like a spring that has been too constricted:
‘It’s … it’s my life that’s wrong. I would like … to change my life.’
And she described her monotonous young girl’s life. Her father, she claimed, did not love her. All his affection was directed towards her younger sister, who resembled him. They were always making arrangements from which she was excluded. Little kindnesses, intimate gestures, tokens of affection … And always in agreement … Always together … They spent whole days side by side in the clock museum – her father working at his bench, taking clock mechanisms to bits, the way he was always doing; Godelieve beside him, with her lace-making pillow – and from time to time they would look up from their work and smile at each other. Such mawkishness was not for her … that was why neither her father nor her sister loved her. She was like an intruder in her own home.
Once more the tears were about to fall. ‘Oh yes, I would like to change my life,’ she repeated.
Joris was moved to see her so forlorn. She looked beautiful like that, the more beautiful for her loss of composure, with her eyes cut like diamonds by the teardrops welling up.
Joris’s emotions were in turmoil. He suddenly felt an immense desire that she should be happy, and that she should owe her happiness to him. Her lips, onto which a few tears had rolled down, were a moist flower, suffering, offering themselves…
Soon Joris could see nothing but those tempting, haunting lips.
They had been with him for such a long time now, as if they had a life of their own, a single flower that could be gathered separately in the garden of her flesh. That is the way it is, we always fall in love because of a detail, a nuance. It is a marker we set up for ourselves in the midst of the confusion, in the infinite space of love. The greatest passions come from such little causes. What makes us fall in love? Hair of a particular colour, the tone of a voice, a beauty spot which disturbs us and hints at others, an expression in the eyes, a contour of the
hands, a certain palpitation of the nose, which quivers as if it were always facing the sea. Joris loved Barbara because of her lips which, at that moment, were trembling from the evocation of her unhappiness, were more lustrous because of the tears that had flowed, like a flower in too much rain.
Barbara fell silent. She had perceived Joris’s inner turmoil, the wavering inside him. So she gave him a decisive look, her two eyes spearing into his, a look which signalled acquiescence.
At the same time her mouth, as if ripening all at once, changed from a flower into a fruit, with a promise of its succulent flesh. Joris, sensing the iron hand of Fate, had gone up to her.
‘You would like to change your life?’ he said, after a pause. His voice was hesitant, panting a little, as if he had been running, precisely in time with the rhythm of his pulse, with the beating of his heart, of which he could hear every single palpitation.
‘Oh yes,’ said Barbara, not taking her eyes off him.
‘Well, that would be easy,’ Joris went on.
Barbara did not reply. She had lowered her eyes, slightly embarrassed, anxious, realising that the decisive moment had come. Despite her dark complexion, she had suddenly gone pale, making her lips seem even more red.
Her pose was one of consent.
It was more than Joris could bear. Words were beyond him.
Suddenly, pressing up against her, he took her hands, holding them to her body, and, on an impulse, in a moment of wild recklessness, without knowing why, he yielded to the temptation of those lips and flung his lips onto them, eating them, partaking of their sacrament … Eucharist of love with a red host!
Was it not truly a real presence? In that moment he possessed her entirely in the species of her lips in which she was subsumed and transubstantiated.
A few moments later van Hulle and Godelieve came in together, hav
ing finally finished ordering and meticulously removing the dust from the clocks in the museum. They were not at all surprised to find Joris with Barbara. He was one of the regular visitors to the house. Anyway, van Hulle’s mind was still preoccupied with the work he had done during the day, with the changes he had carried out; for a collector, to move items is almost like acquiring them anew. He did not notice anything, nor did Godelieve, whose eyes, as always, seemed fixed on more distant spheres, her thoughts elsewhere. Borluut threw out some non-committal remarks, stock phrases, empty words, which floated aimlessly round the room … What an effort it was to return to normal life after having plunged all of a sudden into the depths of love!
Then Borluut was beset by the sense of a strange confusion, such as he felt when he came back down from the belfry. He was stumbling over words as he stumbled on the paving stones. He felt the way one does returning from a voyage, slightly abnormal, with a sense of solitude inside oneself, of infinity. Was entering into love like entering the tower? But love seemed like a tower with steps made of light … He felt he had taken leave of the world, had climbed up very high, was once more high above the world . A dizzying ascent, a couple mounting the stairs together to seek their souls as he had sought the bells. The whole of the evening Borluut remained distracted, bemused, sad at having come back down to earth.
During the days that followed the thought of Barbara continued to haunt him. He realised that something definitive, unforgettable had happened. What was the point of going over things again and again, hesitating, examining his feelings? It is the flesh which, all of a sudden, decides everything. An unknown force had thrown him onto the young woman’s lips. And there had been no lack of prior warning from Fate. It was her lips by which he had felt obsessed, refreshed and scorched, as if they were both flower and flame. All at once her lips had granted him communion and now love resided in those lips, as God resides in the host. There was no going back. There was no way of undoing it. It had only lasted a moment, but that moment was bound to eternity.
From that point on Borluut felt committed. To renounce her would be a sacrilege, a blackguardly profanation of those consecrated lips. He already thought of Barbara as his fiancée, his wife. His conscience did not resort to subterfuge to avoid his obligation, even though no decisive words of love, no promise nor vow, had passed between them on the evening of the kiss. No matter! The kiss itself was sufficient. In placing his lips on those lips of red wax Joris had imprinted on them the seal of a pact that was as irrevocable as it was tacit.
And anyway, the thought of withdrawing had not occurred to him for one minute. His mind was made up. He went to see van Hulle.
‘I have come to see you, my friend, on a serious matter…’
‘What a tone of voice! What is it, this serious matter?’
Borluut felt embarrassed. He had worked out a plan for this conversation; at that moment he forgot it completely. He was overcome with emotion and became sentimental.
‘We’ve been friends for a long time now.’
‘Yes, for five years,’ said van Hulle, ‘the date is on the house, the date of its restoration – and of the start of our friendship.’
It provided an opening and Borluut seized it. ‘Well, would you like us to be even better friends, even closer to each other?’
Van Hulle stared at him, eyes wide, not understanding.
‘Yes,’ Borluut went on. ‘You have two daughters…’
Immediately the expression on van Hulle’s face changed; his eyes blazed up briefly. ‘Oh, no! … Let’s talk about something else,’
he went on hurriedly, as if something was causing him deep distress.
‘I’m sorry, but –’ Borluut said.
Without letting him explain, van Hulle went on, getting more and more worked up. ‘There’s no point … I beg you … Anyway, Godelieve wouldn’t think of it … Godelieve will never marry … She wants to stay with me … At least wait until I’m dead…’
His features contorted in an expression of anguish, of deep distress. Unaware of his surroundings, letting himself go as if he were alone, he started to moan, to pour out his feelings aloud: ‘It was bound to happen! It was inevitable. Love is contagious. But my dear Godelieve had kept her love for you well hidden. I was the only one who knew. I was the only one to whom she confided it, at that point she had not even admitted it to herself. We tell each other everything. But she had renounced her love, she had forgotten it, for me, to stay with me, so as not to leave me all alone in my old age, to keep me from dying, because I would die straight away without her. And now it’s you, you love her, you’ve come to tell me. She’ll know, she’ll see. What will become of me? Oh, no, no, don’t take Godelieve away from me.’
The old antiquary was imploring him, hands clasped, breathing heavily because of the danger he felt was imminent, repeating the name of Godelieve over and over again, like a miser the value of a treasure he is about to lose.
Borluut was stunned by this revelation, by the passion of paternal affection revealed in the heartrending cries. Van Hulle had spoken so quickly, the words pouring out like a spring bursting forth, he had given himself up so completely to his distress, had so instantly become deaf to everything around that he gave Borluut no time to think and interject to bring the conversation back to the matter in hand.
A lull gave him the opportunity to break in quickly. ‘But it’s Barbara I’m in love with. She’s the one whose hand I’ve come to ask in marriage.’
At that van Hulle, rescued from the peril he had thought was about to engulf him, threw himself at Joris, as if he had gone mad, and clasped him to his breast, crying and laughing at the same time, resting his head on his friend’s shoulder, as if the
excess of happiness were more than he could bear. And he repeated the same words over and over again, mechanically, like a man in a trance:
‘Oh yes … oh yes! It’s not Godelieve … it’s not Godelieve…’
He calmed down a little. So this wasn’t about Godelieve. What a relief! Of course. Of course he agreed. He would be delighted to let him have her.
‘May she make you happy, you who really deserve it. But how could I have known?’ van Hulle became very thoughtful. He turned to Borluut again. ‘So you didn’t know?’ he asked, seeming hardly able to believe that things were as they were. ‘You didn’t guess that Godelieve was in love with you, last year? She suffered so much, poor girl. She sacrificed herself for me. Now it’s over …
But Barbara now, does she love you in return? Has she told you?’
Borluut nodded.
The old antiquary was astounded. How could it have happened? The two sisters had both fallen in love with Borluut, one after the other. Though it wasn’t surprising, all things considered. They didn’t meet many young men, spending all their time at home, with no mother. And Borluut was attractive, he had been successful, a fine career was in prospect, his name was well known. Fortunately everything had turned out for the best. Barbara was the only one who had aroused his feelings and he was going to marry her. Van Hulle was still slightly concerned. As long as she did not make Borluut unhappy with her capricious and irascible temperament, the tangle of nerves that would suddenly tighten inside her, confusing all her thoughts and feelings – Borluut, that fine fellow whom he already loved like a son. But van Hulle’s scruples did not last long. ‘All that will disappear with love, or pass as she gets older,’ he told himself, quickly regaining his habitual serenity, his agitation calmed, exultant, rejoicing in the thought that Godelieve was left to him, dearer than ever, like a convalescent recovering from his fear of losing her, which had for a moment thrown him into a panic.
‘Above all,’ van Hulle advised, ‘never say anything about this to Godelieve – nor to Barbara, either. We must keep this to ourselves. As if I had not told you anything, as if nothing had…’
Borluut paid no further attention to his confidences. All young girls had these passing fancies for men they came into contact with. Preliminar
y sketches of their future happiness, models in clay before the great statue of love which would take up their life and sit on their tomb. Besides, he was completely committed to Barbara. He felt bound to her. Brushing her lips with his had created an eternal obligation. Now her mouth seemed to him like an open wound, the point where they had come together, where, for a moment, they had been as one and which was now left bleeding, painful, as if something had been torn away.
He was delighted with what had been done. His obsession with her continued. She was truly beautiful, and she aroused his desire.
An aroma of ripe flesh, a freshness like the juice of a fruit, persisted in his mouth from those lips of which he had eaten and drunk. He longed to taste them again, to possess them entirely…
Now he realised that all the time it had been Barbara, and Barbara alone, whom he had desired when an as yet indefinable charm had drawn him to van Hulle’s, bathing the Monday evenings in a halo of light, something to look forward to in the grey monotony of the week. Now that the old man had confided in him, he understood. He had never lusted after Godelieve, but she had caused him some agitation, despite himself, because she had secretly been in love with him and love can influence, can affect others. For a time he had been between the two sisters, as if he were being pulled in opposite directions by two mysterious forces. In that moment he was not master of himself. When Godelieve renounced her love, he had become himself again. And his will, now released, had chosen Barbara. He loved her! He was in raptures as they poured out their hearts, as they gazed into each other’s eyes, as their hands met in those first touches in which we possess each other in a small way.
The Bells of Bruges Page 6