Dagonet Abroad

by George R. Sims

Many Englishmen, I have no doubt, share with me an antipathy to being ‘guided’ through cathedrals, picture-galleries, and museums on the Continent. But no one should miss the Antwerp pictures. ‘The Descent from the Cross’ makes one forget the flippancy and bad English of the guide. One doffs one’s hat reverently to Peter Paul Rubens, and yields one’s imagination to him without a murmur.

When I entered the ‘sacred edifice’ the famous Rubens pictures were uncovered. A British tourist in a violent red and yellow tweed suit was staring at ‘The Descent from the Cross’ through a pair of race-glasses, while the raucous-voiced and grinning guide, who seems nowadays to be part and parcel of a cathedral, was explaining carefully to him that the fat female was the painter’s wife. I wish I had never known that the well-developed and modern lady who constantly appears in Peter Paul’s pictures was Mrs. Rubens. One can have too much even of this lady, whom I once heard an American irreverently describe as ‘Mrs. R.’ Rubens could no more keep the head of Mrs. R. (would that he had been satisfied with the head!) out of his pictures, than Mr. Dick could keep King Charles’s head out of his memorials, and I can’t help thinking that, had she been a Mrs. Jackson, instead of ‘a model wife,’ it would have been a distinct gain to art.

Irritated by the eternal Mrs. R., the tourist with the race-glasses, and the irreverent comments of the grinning guide, I turned from the Rubens picture, and seeing a crowd in the centre of the building, made my way towards it. I found myself in front of a beautifully-decorated ‘May altar.’ Evidently some ceremony was expected, for on both sides was a densely-packed mob of bareheaded women and girls. I asked what was expected, and someone told me at three o’clock was to take place ‘the benediction of the children.’ Wondering what this might mean, I waited patiently, and my patience was later on rewarded by a touching and beautiful spectacle.

Presently a priest came out of the gloomy recesses of the cathedral, clad in raiment of white and gold, and ascended the altar-steps and waited. Soon afterwards there came from the far corner of the cathedral, by the small entrance door, the faint sound of little children’s voices singing. All that one could hear as the baby chorus rose and fell was ‘Ave Maria.’ Nearer and nearer came the sound, and every head was turned in one direction. Then there came into sight a long procession of baby girls and boys, walking bareheaded, two and two. There were some two hundred children, and not one of them was over seven. The little girls were perfect Rubens babies; chubby-faced and rosy-cheeked, and their fair hair was prettily tied with gay ribbons, pink and blue being the prevailing colours. The little baby-boys had each his right arm tied up with a light blue or pink bow, and every little boy and every little girl carried a candle as an offering to the Virgin. Slowly the sweet procession filed along, the children breaking out from time to time in their little hymn of praise. The procession passed between the crowd of mothers and sisters right up to the altar, and then the good priest took from each little hand the candle it bore aloft and laid it on the altar-steps. All the children passed to the chairs arranged for them, and then the sunshine streamed through the stained-glass windows on their little sea of golden curls, making a picture that will linger in my mind for many a year to come.

After the children had presented their candles, a few lame and sickly little ones were carried up to the altar by their mothers to give theirs. One baby-boy had to be coaxed to let his candle go. He had been playfully beating his nurse with it, after the manner of infants, and when he got to the priest he had succeeded in putting the candle into his mouth. Gently the priest unclosed the little fist, and, patting the baby on the head, took the candle and laid it with the rest, while all the mothers smiled.

The last candle had been given up, the last child had been quietly seated in its chair, and there was a deep silence. Then a little girl of about six—a pretty little mite, with long fair hair, dressed in a red-spotted frock and a white pinafore—was lifted on to a chair in front of the altar, and, raising her little hands, she began to speak. The whole proceedings were in Flemish, and the child’s words hardly reached me, as I stood at the edge of the crowd, so I may be wrong in saying that it was a speech—it might have been a prayer. Whatever it was it was intensely dramatic, and yet sweetly simple. Amid the dead silence that reigned in the great cathedral, the little mite spoke for nearly five minutes, using her hands with the grace and skill of a baby Bernhardt. And the mothers—rough working women, coarse of frock, stern of feature, and innocent of headgear most of them—wept. Some of the fathers—artisans and dock-labourers—who had come to see their children take part in the ceremony, tugged at their moustaches for a bit and blew their noses defiantly, and then rubbed their knuckles in their eyes, and at last gave it up as a bad job and let the big tears come. I could see the tears in the good priest’s eyes as he listened to the baby’s speech, and when she sat down, and the women, overcome with emotion, sobbed, I had to yield to the influence of my surroundings, and I bit my lip hard and had a wild struggle with the apple in my throat, and then I had to let the salt drops have their way.

I would give a good deal to be able to paint that scene, to reproduce on canvas that beautiful May altar in Antwerp Cathedral, and the great congregation of fair-haired, blue-eyed Flemish babies, in their simple little frocks and their pretty ribbons, all sitting as still as mice while their little playmate, standing on a chair, lifted her baby hands to heaven and prayed her prayer. I would that I were even an artist in words that I might give you some faint idea of the simple grandeur, the quiet pathos, the gentle beauty of that ‘children’s service’ in the great cathedral. Alas, that glorious privilege is not mine! I am but a journeyman labourer in the great field of literature. I can but bow my head and uncover when the Angelus rings out, and leave you to read upon my face the message that it carries to my soul. I only know that in Antwerp Cathedral that sunny afternoon the message of the children touched me as no words of man have ever touched me yet, and I stole softly away from the flower-laden altar of the Mother of God, and passed out into the busy world with a baby’s voice whispering words of hope and comfort to my doubting and desponding heart.

In the evening the scene was changed. On the Place Verte I was stopped by a mighty procession, headed by a band, and bearing illuminated banners. It was a Liberal manifestation, and five thousand lusty Liberals were yelling, ‘Down with the Jesuit schools!’ Presently, in an opposite direction, came a Catholic demonstration several thousand strong. They also had a band, and a yell, and a battle-cry. I was in the middle of the two processions, and I stopped till they met.

Then the fun began, and the police rushed in, and sticks were whirled about, and feet and fists went busily to work. I had dropped in for a political riot. Heads were broken—thank goodness, not mine. I managed to scramble out of the crowd and get behind a tree. After a good fight the processions separated and marched in different directions, shouting, hooting, cheering, singing. The whole town was in an uproar. The row was deafening. Till long past midnight the rival bands promenaded, and twice again they met and fought, and the sticks came down like a rain of hail. In Antwerp the political feeling is fiercer than in any part of Belgium, and the enmity of Liberals and Catholics leads at times to considerable bloodshed. I followed the Liberals, as they looked the stronger, and I huzzaed and shouted ‘Hear, hear!’ when a stand was made and a speech delivered.

But directly the fighting began I retired to a convenient distance. It was past one in the morning when I withdrew from the battlefield of the Liberals and the Catholics, but the shouts of the rival factions rang in my ears until I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. I shall have to try Holland. I have heard of a very nice quiet place there where the peaceful Dutch enjoy themselves, and only express their joy in a quiet grunt. I sincerely hope there won’t be a fête or a riot on when I arrive at the next station of my journey in search of a day’s repose.