I was
there for more than an hour. I doubt whether it was quite wise. At my time
of life one had best keep out of cathedrals; they are vault-like places,
pregnant with rheumatism--at best they are full of ghosts. And a good many
_revenants_ visited me during that hour of meditation. Afterwards I paid a
visit to the Memlings in the Hopital. Nothing has altered very much; even
the women, with their placid, ugly Flemish faces, sitting eternally in
their doorways with the eternal lace-pillow, might be the same women. In
the afternoon I went to the Beguinage, and sat there long in the shadow of
a tree, which must have grown up since my time, I think. I sat there too
long, I fear, until the dusk and the chill drove me home to dinner. On the
whole perhaps it was a mistake to come back. The sameness of this terribly
constant old city seems to intensify the change that has come to oneself.
Perhaps if I had come back with Lorimer I should have noticed it less. For,
after all, the years have been kind to me, on the whole; they have given
me most things which I set my heart upon, and if they had not broken a
most perfect friendship, I would forgive them the rest. I sometimes feel,
however, that one sacrifices too much to one's success.
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