Christ in Flanders | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Dagny, [email protected] and John Bickers,
[email protected]

Christ in Flanders
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION
To Marcelline Desbordes-Valmore, a daughter of Flanders, of whom
these modern days may well be proud, I dedicate this quaint legend of
old Flanders.
DE BALZAC.

CHRIST IN FLANDERS

At a dimly remote period in the history of Brabant, communication
between the Island of Cadzand and the Flemish coast was kept up by a
boat which carried passengers from one shore to the other. Middelburg,
the chief town in the island, destined to become so famous in the annals
of Protestantism, at that time only numbered some two or three hundred
hearths; and the prosperous town of Ostend was an obscure haven, a
straggling village where pirates dwelt in security among the fishermen
and the few poor merchants who lived in the place.
But though the town of Ostend consisted altogether of some score of
houses and three hundred cottages, huts or hovels built of the driftwood
of wrecked vessels, it nevertheless rejoiced in the possession of a
governor, a garrison, a forked gibbet, a convent, and a burgomaster, in
short, in all the institutions of an advanced civilization.
Who reigned over Brabant and Flanders in those days? On this point

tradition is mute. Let us confess at once that this tale savors strongly of
the marvelous, the mysterious, and the vague; elements which Flemish
narrators have infused into a story retailed so often to gatherings of
workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely in poetic merit
and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every generation, handed
down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night and day, and the
chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in every age. Like
some great building that has suffered many modifications of successive
generations of architects, some sombre weather-beaten pile, the delight
of a poet, the story would drive the commentator and the industrious
winnower of words, facts, and dates to despair. The narrator believes in
it, as all superstitious minds in Flanders likewise believe; and is not a
whit wiser nor more credulous than his audience. But as it would be
impossible to make a harmony of all the different renderings, here are
the outlines of the story; stripped, it may be, of its picturesque
quaintness, but with all its bold disregard of historical truth, and its
moral teachings approved by religion--a myth, the blossom of
imaginative fancy; an allegory that the wise may interpret to suit
themselves. To each his own pasturage, and the task of separating the
tares from the wheat.

The boat that served to carry passengers from the Island of Cadzand to
Ostend was upon the point of departure; but before the skipper loosed
the chain that secured the shallop to the little jetty, where people
embarked, he blew a horn several times, to warn late lingerers, this
being his last journey that day.