Hans Cadzand's Vocation and Other Stories

by Rodenbach, Georges; Mitchell, Mike; Baker, Phil

• ISBN13: 9781903517864
• ISBN10: 1903517869
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-01
• Publisher: Dedalus Ltd

Summary

Hans Cadzand's father dies when he is an infant and he becomes the centre of his mother's life. As he grows up from a pretty child to a serious young man with deep religious convictions, she hopes she will remain the focus of his life. She sees his desire to enter holy orders as a threat to their life together and tries to keep him near her by marrying him off to the daughter of her closest friend. This plan founders on the rock of his 'vocation', but then Mevr. Cadzand engages the beautiful and experienced Ursula as housemaid.This long nouvelle is supplemented by shorter pieces from the collection Le Rouet des Brumes, brief episodes of love and death in characteristically atmospheric settings.

Excerpts

At SchoolEvery year when October returns I recall, almost with terror, the moment when, at the end of the holidays, I would go back to school. A dismal season which, from the depths of the years regards me with the white eyes of a statue on a tomb. Those who went to school in Paris know nothing of this sorrow. Here at least something of the noise of the big city comes in through the doors and windows, something of its pleasures, its music, of its vices too, intoxicating adolescent curiosity - in short something to give you a desire for life.But out in the provinces the great colleges run by the Church are so gloomy and so grey! Mine was as enclosed as a seminary. And, all around, the dead town grieved in the tear-ridden concert of its bells. There was a central courtyard, a strip of ground as bare as a beach where the ebbing tide has left its sadness. Not even a few trees to liven it up. Alone in its gable was the implacable face of a great clock with hands that came together, parted; the hours, as they were struck, fell on us so plaintively it made them seem dark. It was like a rain of iron and ash. A dreary, invariable existence behind the high walls of the yard blocking out the sun. It was there that my soul fell out of love with life for having learnt too much of death.!Death! It was death that the priests, who were our masters, placed among us from the moment we got back. We came from our homes with our pretty outfits of fresh, new linen. They added the funeral pall, its black velvet with yellow braid. All we wanted to do was to grow up, to learn so that we could finally walk alone, love, conquer the world, live! They taught us to prepare for a good death.And everything had a taste of death, as if by design, even the walks the boarders took one afternoon every week. We left in a long file, three by three, going at a swift pace through the centre of the town, along the canals with their lifeless water, across the deserted districts round the Cathedral close, to get as quickly as possible to the dismal suburbs where the cemeteries are. Almost every time we encountered a hearse, a large, draped carriage with undertakers wearing black, sinister three-cornered hats. As soon as they left the centre of the town, the horses were set at a trot and the carriage sped along, swaying on the uneven cobbles. How frightening for the poor deceased who might be hurt by the severe jolts!