TO LET

in this room the fair Athenian maid gave up her ghost — lying on silken coverlets her fair hair loose around her waxen head — while through the open window could be heard the bells of Sainte-Sauveur ringing vespers as on the morrow dawned the feast of the Prophet Samuel

within this room the two terrible monsters had intercourse and revelled with wheezing and wild grunting and ferocious cries as if Bulgarian woodcutters were wrestling with giant firs or as if (even better) mountains were crashing down

in this room the aged miss spent years and years of boredom barely moving her trembling hands endeavouring in her dim and clouded mind to bring back images of her former glory till the day when with short steps slowly she set out — was led out — for the old people's home

in here three children were born — offspring of an honourable and respectable family — who came to nothing — none of them made good — one went to America one came to a bad end — a drunk — and the third is somewhere still a lighthouse-keeper

here — yes in here, in this room — an ignoble hand killed that brave young lad "to punish — so it goes — anarchy in his person" and the fir-tree bent and toppled to the ground and that dull stain on the floor over there in the corner is the blood that streamed from the wound and nothing ever was able to clean it from the boards

yet enough thus far: what am I trying to do? how fatiguing it would be perhaps also impossible at any rate endless and pointless even and boring to note now in so much detail the history endless as it is of this room

(sometimes they put in beds sometimes took them out sometimes there was a cabinet there afterwards a cupboard then a chest sometimes heavy curtains covered the windows sometimes the panes were bare with only the shutters in that corner once they had icons at other times frames hung everywhere)

so then: all kinds of people passed through and left and others — many — were born in here while others again were put in their caskets in here and what these walls have heard cries of grief and cries of joy they've seen christenings mute despondency and wedding rites

(I almost forgot: a piano too resounded in here delicately playing the Romance du Mal-Aime)

I too — the writer — lived in this room many years — in poverty — and as always here too full of passion I concerned myself with painting with poetry sculpture yet also with philosophy and love and I spent hours sitting — smoking — at that very window gazing now at the sky now at the street

and now — alas — I too must leave — besides it's not impossible that better things await me —

again they're letting the room

Bruges, 1956