Quotes from Georges Rodenbach

Every town is a state of mind, a mood which, after only a short stay, communicates itself, spreads to us in an effluvium which impregnates us, which we absorb with the very air.

It is distance that creates nostalgia.

Woman is the window through which we see the world.

Oh the joy of an idée fixe! The contentment of a life taken up some ideal, any ideal! A gentle trap to catch the infinite, like the sun in a piece of mirror in a child's hand.

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.

Is this not the collector's exquisite pleasure, that his desire should know no bounds, should reach out into the infinite, should never know full possession which disappoints by its very completeness. O what joy to be able to postpone the fulfillment of desire to infinity!

He felt more cheerful, revived by the journey, released from himself and his poor life, uplifted by thoughts of the infinite.

Thus the tower was both disease and cure. It rendered him unfit for the world and it remedied the hurts inflicted by the world.

Oh, the sudden change of perspective brought about by travel and absence! How different everything was here: the people in the streets, the houses, the color of the air, the sky above the roofs, a low sky, very close, with molded clouds, and which looked as if it had come out of a painting. A unique setting, a subtle atmosphere of silvery greys, the patina of centuries on the old walls—a shimmering marvel for the eyes of a painter. ("The Dead Town")

All lovers desire solitude in order to possess each other more completely. They create for each other a new universe inhabited by the two of them alone. ("The Dead Town")

Does it not sometimes happen in life that our actions are solely for an enemy, so as to stand up to him, to confound him, to humiliate him by a finer effort or a more difficult victory? Without him we might perhaps give up. Having an enemy stimulates us, gives us strength. In him we hope to defeat the universe and the malevolence of fate.

También era un alma piadosa, con esa fe de Flandes donde subsiste un poco del catolicismo español, esa fe en la que el terror y los escrúpulos pesan más que la confianza, y que siente más miedo del infierno que nostalgia del cielo". "Brujas la muerta" (1892), capítulo VIII, p. 64.

Opposite is the old bell-tower of a church, all the more moving for being unfinished. What beauty there is in interrupted towers, which continue in dream and which we all complete within ourselves!

It is precisely resemblance that reconciles habit and novelty, balancing them out, fusing them at some indefinite point, acting as their horizon line.

Nothing goes unobserved in that strict town where people lack occupation. Malicious curiosity there has even invented what is known as a busybody, that is a double mirror fixed to the outside of the windowledge so that the streets can be monitored even from inside the houses, all the comings and goings watched, a kind of trap to catch all the exits and entrances the encounters and gestures that do not realize they are being observed, the looks that prove everything.

Il y a donc des amours pareils à ces fruits de la Mer Morte qui ne vous laissent à la bouche qu'un goût de cendre impérissable.

that exquisite sensual pleasure of collectors, who are a tactile species—

We) fell out of love with life for having learnt too much of death. ("At School")

As he made his way back to his home on the Dijver, along the canals, beside the calm waters, Borluut felt his regret, his remorse at having divulged his worries grow at the sight of the noble swans, sealed-in snow, which, prisoners of the canals, prey to the rain, the sadness of the bells, the shadow of the gables, have the modesty to remain silent and only complain, with a voice that is almost human, when they are about to die...

Bartholomeus went on, 'I wanted to show that these objects are sensitive, suffer at the coming of night, faint at the departure of the last rays, which, by the way, also live in this room; they suffer as much, they fight against the darkness. There you have it. It's the life of things, if you like. The French would call it a nature morte, a picture of inanimate objects. That is not what I'm trying to show. Flemish puts it better: a still life.

Now Borluut tried to work out how this had happened to him. Passion flows like a river and it is very difficult to go back to its source. It began imperceptibly.

But any great happiness is a bright light, a challenge to fate to do its worst. There must not be people who are too happy. They would discourage all the rest, to whom life grants nothing more than unexceptional moments, intermittent joys, roses that have to be watered with tears.

They needed to take action, make haste, embalm the dead town, dress the wounds of the sculptures, heal the sick windows, give succour to the ageing walls.

Contemporary architecture was of necessity mediocre.