“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.”
“Een potteke Lovens voor mynheer, Marieke, allez!” chuckled the bent old innkeeper, coming up with a bowl of oil and shoving her with his shoulder.
“Goed, goed,” she answered, and disappeared, still smiling.
Alexis sulked, but worked; the innkeeper watched admiringly; I sat in a tiny chair propped against the inn door and talked with madame, while the swallows circled and cheeped overhead. The motor backfired when it was tested, and the swallows screamed in fright and fled through a cloud of stifling smoke which rose into their nests. But in a moment they were back again at work, filling the world with swallows.
“Like the cannon, is it not?” said madame in sluggish, country-bred Flemish, speaking of the motor’s tricks. “But the swallows return.” She laid her hand on her breast with a curious, passionate gesture.
“He is your husband?” I pointed to the old innkeeper, bent almost double over the motor as he watched Alexis.
“Yes, mynheer.”
“You have children?”