Some time ago I wrote about Gerard Ceunis’ poem ‘ ‘t Avendt’, which was published in the Belgian magazine Vlaamsche Arbeid in 1907. I posted both the original text of the poem, taken from the dbnl (Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse letteren) website, and also my own attempt at a more or less literal translation. At the time, I noted my failure to identify the meaning of some of the Flemish words used by Ceunis, which had resulted in me making a number of what I hoped were intelligent guesses.
I mentioned that I would be happy to have my translation corrected by any Flemish-speaking readers. Well, now one of those readers has taken me at my word. Ceunis’ great niece Elsie De Cuyper, who has been such a help to me in my research, has sent a number of corrections to my translation of the poem, at the same time explaining the meaning of some of the archaic or poetic terms used by her great uncle.
Elsie’s first correction concerns the title of the poem. I had translated ‘’t avendt’ as ‘in the evening’, but in fact it means ‘it becomes evening’. In other words, ‘avendt’ is a verb. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent verb in English, but I’ve changed the first line from ‘In the evening’ to ‘it’s evening’, which is slightly closer in meaning to the original.
Another Flemish word for which there is no exact English equivalent is ‘lavend’. Elsie tells me that the verb ‘laven’ means ‘to give to drink’, of which ‘lavend’ is the gerund, meaning ‘giving to drink’. In English, we can say ‘feed’, meaning to give someone something to eat, but when it comes to drinking, the nearest equivalent we have is ‘watering’ animals, perhaps, or ‘quenching’ (a thirst). I’ve opted for ‘quenching’ in my revised translation, though I’m not wholly satisfied with it. As for the second line of the same stanza, I really struggled with ‘luwt’ in my initial translation. However, I now realise that ‘luwt’ is from ‘luwen’, meaning to lull, or to subside.
In the third stanza ‘lijze’ was another word that puzzled me, but Elsie tells me that it’s an archaic word meaning ‘quiet(ly)’, rather like the German ‘leise’ (a similarity I should have spotted).
It seems that my original guess at the meaning of the word ‘teeder’ in the final stanza was correct, and that it’s an archaic form of ‘teder’, meaning ‘tender’. ‘Apparently ‘zijgen’, when used to refer to the sea, means to ‘slowly go down’. Since we don’t have an exact equivalent in English, I’ve opted for ‘calming’, which I think carries the same essential meaning.
Another of my guesses – at the meaning of the final line of the poem – was also on target. Elise points out that ‘vreê’ is simply a poetic form of ‘vrede’, meaning ‘peace’.
As before, I regret that it hasn’t proven possible to bring over into English the musicality of Ceunis’ original: the pervasive use of alliteration, assonance and rhyme that really ‘makes’ this poem and is inseparable from its ostensible ‘content’. And as I also noted in my original post, if the archaic word ‘even’, for ‘evening’, still survived in modern English, it would make it easier to find equivalents for ‘avendbaan’, ‘avendgloed’, etc., in the final lines of each stanza.
Gerard Ceunis, untitled (private collection)
Here is my revised translation of Ceunis’ poem. However, what W.H.Auden (paraphrasing Valéry ) said of poems is surely also true of translations: they are never finished, only put to one side…
My last post, in which I translated some of the Belgian poet and novelist Johan Daisne‘s published writings about the silent film star Lilian Hall-Davis, included three poems dedicated to the actress. I mentioned that there was a fourth poem, included in Daisne’s collected verse, and among the works kindly sent to me recently by his biographer, Johan Vanhecke. Although this poem is only very indirectly related to my research on Daisne’s friend Gerard Ceunis, I’ve decided to translate it anyway, partly for the sake of completeness – and partly because I rather like it. As always, I have to apologise that my own feeble English version fails to capture the musicality and charm of the Dutch/Flemish original.
I was initially confused by Daisne’s repeated use of the word ‘gij’ as a form of address, when the usual word for ‘you’ in Dutch is either ‘u’ (formal) or ‘jij’ (informal). However, I understand that ‘gij’ is an archaic alternative form, rather like ‘thou’ in English, and although no longer used in the Netherlands, is retained in some Flemish dialects. I also have to confess to manipulating the sense of the last few lines of the poem in order to retain the closing rhyme: ‘rijs’ actually means ‘journey’, but I thought ‘way’ was close enough and made possible the rhyme with ‘grey’. What’s more, the fact that ‘roos’ in Dutch can mean both ‘rose’,the flower, and ‘pink’, the colour, makes possible the play on words in the last two lines of the original. Since this is impossible to bring over into English, I took the liberty of making the change you see below, without (I hope) losing the underlying sense of the original.
I’m a man who’s growing old,
but still, within me, there kneels before your image
In the previous post I mentioned that Johan Vanhecke, the author of a recent biography of Johan Daisne (1912 – 1978), had sent me copies of those pages of Daisne’s book Filmathiek (1956) in which the Belgian poet and novelist writes of his lifelong admiration for the English silent film actress Lilian Hall-Davis (1898 – 1933). I was initially interested in what Daisne had to say about Hall-Davis because of the possibility that it might throw on the mystery of how Gerard Ceunis came to paint the actress’ portrait. The more I’ve delved into the connections between Ceunis, Daisne and Hall-Davis, the more intrigued I’ve become, and the more determined to resolve the question of whether the troubled film star, who eventually committed suicide, was actually a neighbour of the Ceunis family in Hitchin towards the ends of her life, as some sources, including Daisne, suggest. As I noted in an earlier post, Johan Vanhecke described Gerard Ceunis’ daughter Vanna and Lilian Hall-Davis to me as Daisne’s two ‘secret loves from Hitchin’.
Lilian Hall-Davis in ‘Quo Vadis?’ (1925) (via wikimedia.org)
I decided to translate in full the sections of Daisne’s book which discuss Hall-Davis, partly in search of clues that might aid my quest, but also out of my growing interest in the silent film star’s own unhappy biography. In Daisne’s determination to bring to light the story of a forgotten artist, I recognised some similarities with my own attempts to rescue not only Gerard Ceunis, but also his fellow Hitchin artist, Theodor Kern, from undeserved neglect. Reading what Daisne writes about Hall-Davis brought to mind some of the frustrations that I’ve encountered in my own research, and also the sheer delight to be had when occasionally discovering an unexpected connection, as well as that uncanny sense one sometimes has that the departed artist is somehow directing one’s search from beyond the grave.
The inscription on the copy of Ceunis’ painting of Lilian Hall-Davis that I reproduced in the previous post claims that Johan Daisne dedicated Filmathiek to the actress. However, Johan Vanhecke tells me that in fact the book has a dual dedication: to Daisne’s son Evert ‘and to Grosvenor Pemberton as a tribute to the memory of his mother: Lilian Hall-Davis’. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, and as Daisne relates in this text, Gerard Ceunis’ neighbour, Grosvenor Pemberton, was Hall-Davis’ only surviving son.) The three sections of Daisne’s book which deal with Lilian Hall-Davis include three poems devoted to her. I’ve included the original Dutch/Flemish text of these, so that the reader can get a sense of the prosody of the original, which once again I’ve found difficult to reproduce in English. There’s a fourth poem dedicated to the film star which can be found in Daisne’s collected verse, but I’ll save that for another post. I’ve added some footnotes to illuminate some of the references in Daisne’s text.
LILIAN HALL-DAVIS (I)
Your memory won’t let go of me,
as if it’s twenty-five years ago
and I see you twice in a neighbourhood cinema:
seen, loved and avowed, when I was only a child.
.
Star of the silent film, once so blonde
your pale light shone across the screen,
the silent darkness of your mouth lives on,
while through night’s realm your tears still roam.
.
Turzhansky’s and Baroncelli’s star,
heroine of Nichevo and Volga-Volga,
why, when still as young as Annabel Lee,
did you follow the fate of the silent film?
.
When did you commit that desperate act?
Why? And where? How did they find you?
Everything has long been wiped away
from the records of your life throughout the world.
.
But your memory never let go of me,
and I’ll take a moment now to seek you,
your pale beauty and my blush,
on earth, and in the heavenly realm of books!
This poem of mine appeared in the Nieuw Vlaams Tijdschrift of June 1952 [1]. I also made a French translation of it, which was included in Le Journal des Poètes (III-1954) [2]. Thereupon Richard Minne was kind enough to publish an article on the ‘Spiritual Life’ page in Vooruit [3], dated January 16, 1954, illustrated with the photo from the cover of the novelisation of the film Nitchévo mentioned therein, and to which I had given the title: In search of a star, twenty years later, in the shroud of the silver screen. Because I wanted to stop that ‘seek’ from the last stanza of my poem becoming a redundant verb, and to call on the cooperation of all those still interested, via the most widely read medium, that of the newspaper.
It has since become a wonderful story, worthy of the muse with the magic lantern. But here’s the text of the article:
What I accomplished in literature before, in rescuing the talented Dutch (children’s) writer Tine van Berken (1870-99) from ungrateful oblivion [4], I have for some years been trying to do for the English stage and film actor Lilian Hall-Davis, the wonderful artist who was once beloved across our continent, who died in such an untimely and miserable fashion. At every opportunity I repeat her singing name; I brought her into in my Russian literary history From Nitsjevo to Chorosjo (for she was the Persian princess in Volga-Volga, the film based on the well-known ballad about the robber chieftain Stenka Razin); in the N.V.T. of June 1952 one can read my belated poem of mourning in her memory; and in a new novel in preparation, I recall her in the same way that I previously included Tine van Berken in The Stairway of Stone and Clouds, before bringing her authentically on stage in Tine van Berken. In the meantime, I continue to collect data about Lilian Hall-Davis, and in what follows I will probably begin to share some of that, to the extent it can serve my spiritual purpose. After all, ‘repetitio est mater studiorum’ may also apply in love.
Cover of the novelisation of ‘Nitchevo’, from ‘Filmathiek’
First, I recall the three most important of Lillian Hall-Davis’s films; three titles out of a few dozen others.
1.
Quo vadis? (1925) realised in Rome by Georg Jacoby (Marika Rokk’s husband), assisted by Gabriellino d’Annunzio (son of the poet) [5]. In it, Lilian Hall-Davis was the leading lady, alongside Emil Jannings (Nero). More than a quarter of a century before her compatriot Deborah Kerr, she already bestowed the same noble soft profile to the Christian Lygia [6]. Alan Arnold relates in his book Valentino (Hutchinson, London, 1925) how Rudolph Valentino and his wife, the artist Natacha Rambova, attended the filming while traveling through Europe, and how it was like an artist’s depiction of Babel, because of the dozen languages that were spoken at the same time on the sets: the English of the leading lady, Jannings’ German, as well as French, Italian of course, etc. It is a melancholy paradox, the way the talking film has suddenly muted that colourful sound from the heroic era.
2.
Nitchevo (1926). Screenplay and direction by Jacques de Baroncelli. Filming in Paris and at the scene of the action: the military port of Bizerte in Tunis. Here, Lilian Hall-Davis played the haunted role of delicate Russian émigré Sonia Cartier, in a beautiful setting that brought together the names of Suzy Vernon, Marcel Vibert and Charles Vanel. The Cinema-Bibliothèque of J. Tallandier, Paris, published a novel based on this film, drawn by René Jeanne and J. Baroncelli, and illustrated with photographs from the film (1926).
3.
Volga-Volga (1928) realized in Berlin under the director Viacheslav Turzhansky, with Hans Adalbert von Schlettow as Stenka Razin, the ataman, the rebellious Don-kozzaken from the ancient ballad.
I saw those films in the order listed above, and after the second one had already lost my heart so much to the virginal image of the girl Marquita [7], to whom I wrote via a film magazine, sending the required amount in stamps, requesting the address of the star, and begging her for a photo in exchange for my fifteen-year-old heart. The answer to my questions appeared a week later, and informed ‘Don X, in Ghent’ that Lilian Hall-Davis lived in the county of Middlesex, 91 College Road, Osterley Park, and that she would gladly send me her portrait free of charge, by contrast with Suzy Vernon, to whom 3 francs compensation should be sent for the costs.
That address with those comments was the first document for the Lilian Hall-Davis file in my film archive. I was so happy with it that I didn’t even request the picture. Three years later I spent a summer vacation at a villa in the gentle Hertfordshire countryside, just above London and Middlesex; but Don X (who, perhaps not everyone knows, is actually called Don Q, in Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s second Zorro film) could only dream of making a visit. And when I thought I had cherished the clipping long enough, I learned that it was irretrievably too late to make use of the address.
Indeed, in 1950 (yes, poets can wait that long!) I learned from correspondence with RenéJeanne that Lilian Hall-Davis had voluntarily left this life years before. And Jeanne’s Histoire encyclopédique du cinema, part II, published by Laffont in Paris, came in 1953 to confirm this obituary, in the extensive ‘heroic’ filmography at the back of the book: Hall-Davis, Lilian: English actress… summary of her films… and the short funeral oration…Discarded by the studios following the advent of talking pictures, she committed suicide in 1934.
In vain I wrote to all the old-timers among the film connoisseurs known to me, and consulted every new or old biographical resource I could lay my hands on; no one remembered her name more than vaguely, and nowhere, nowhere was she mentioned.
The muse with the magic lantern, however, is not unsympathetic to truly infatuated poets, but she demands long mourning and fidelity. A few months ago, I leafed through the anniversary album The Elstree Story (Clerke & Cockeran, London, 1948?), published on the 21st anniversary of the studios of British International Pictures (now Associated British Pictures) in Elstree, Hollywood, England (in … Middlesex!). On pg. 4, Lilian Hall-Davis is commemorated with an image from the first film of the B.I.P. realised in Elstree (exteriors in Morocco): The White Sheik. The picture depicts Lilian Hall-Davis in a chaste embrace with Warwick Ward, and both as the ‘passion team, vintage 1927’.
And yesterday, by far greater coincidence, I found something again, specifically in the Who’s Who in the Theatre, compiled and edited by John Parker, published by Pitman & Sons, London, 1947. For the umpteenth time, I was in that thick alphabetical book to look for Miss Hall-Davis’ missing name. Annoyed, I decided to look up the address of John Parker in the general Who’s Who 1953, to finally write him a heartfelt letter. But Parker turned out to have passed away just a year ago. I picked up the first book again with shaky hands, and it fell open at the end of a list of ‘Theatrical wills’ that had hitherto eluded me. And yes, the beloved name suddenly smiled at me again.
That list, truly an (Anglo-Saxon) curiosity, gives in order of importance the sum of the estates of ‘a few well-known managers, actors, dramatic authors, composers and others’. The always flamboyant Phineas T. Barnum, showman, aged 80, up front, with £1,000,000. Last on the list comes Florenz Ziegfeld, manager, aged 64, also with a million pounds, but in debt! Douglas Edgar Wallace (age 57), famed detective novelist, £64,000 in debt. Oscar Wilde (46) was rich to the tune of £100 at his death…and Lillian Hall-Davis, just a few lines before him, £411. She was thirty-four years old…
See to what strange archaeology cinema sometimes devotes its soul. To those who are interested, I warmly appeal for all possible information and documentation (newspaper clippings, programmes, prints, photos) concerning Lilian Hall-Davis. I will gladly reimburse the costs, and try to repay the effort in literary terms. I could, of course, proceed more scientifically and formally: consult the Middlesex registry office, the History Committee of the British Film Institute, etc. But I hesitate. I prefer to collect scraps, from which a clearer image may arise. For anyone who wants to help me should only do it from the living memories of his heart, and that will be the best service of love that one can still render to this childlike artist – better to leave the great words Art and History to rest with that sleeping beauty.
LILIAN HALL-DAVIS (II)
The appearance of the above reprinted article has given me more pleasure than any other publication. I can still see myself buying the newspaper on a dreary winter morning, after taking my boy to school, and walking happily with it along the Leie [8], with my eyes caressing the capitalised name and the reproduced image of the disappeared one, and moved by a rare bliss of satisfaction, muttering over and over, ‘If only she knew…if only she knew!’ And she seems to have known.
First of all – I would not have dared to hope for this – I received letter after letter from my readers. Mostly unsigned sheets, but accompanied by faithfully preserved and generously donated clippings and photos, and even a letter from Prof. Dr. Herman Uyttersprot [9], with a touching word of remembrance, a surprise that no longer amazes me from that renowned Kafka specialist:
‘Coincidentally, I found your article about Lilian Hall-Davis in an issue of Vooruit... It also prompted me to search for information about her… If everything goes well for you, you will find in your impressions treasure from an apparently vast emotive youth, still have enough Mutterboden [10] for a powerful production… That you also managed to find the grave of the author of Mädchen in Uniform [11] in a small French cemetery, says more to me than long eulogies, and a good deal about the one who is bold enough to write. I believe that one day your work will also be regarded as a great song of Liebe und Tod…[12]’
Johan Daisne (right) with Herman Uyttersprot in 1961 (via Johan Vanhecke, ‘Johan Daisne: tussen magie en werkelijkheid,1912 – 1978’)
At the same time a friend returned from England, which she had visited for the Christmas holidays, and brought me as a New Year’s gift a bouquet of wild flowers behind glass, like those wall decorations that were very popular in the days of the Old West and are now coming into fashion again. My friend hadn’t read the article, but the magical realist that I am accepted the flowers – most likely from Lilian Hall-Davis’ region – as a greeting from the beloved dead.
At the beginning of February I also wrote in Vooruit:
Unexpectedly, there are many readers who have been moved to respond to my article about Lilian Hall-Davis. They wrote to me, in sometimes touching terms, to encourage me on my ‘quest’, and they sent me all kinds of interesting memories: clippings, photos, etc. In this way they made me very happy, by providing their personal, intimate proof, that the subject of the heroic film is and will always be topical, and that Lilian Hall-Davis has not yet died the death of oblivion (the worst for an artist). Therefore, on her behalf, thanks to everyone!
I have to follow this public route to make this acknowledgment, because my correspondents have been too modest: most have given neither name nor address. (Perhaps they consider a writer, especially in this age of the ball-point pen, an all too unreliable individual!) Nevertheless, that silence makes their gesture an even more beautiful mourning tribute. Let me then express my gratitude to them, also in my own name, with a few lines:
On 100,000 copies
after 20 long years dead,
your name is suddenly there in the paper!
.
Then someone brought from your land,
a heart-sized memento
full of flowers sprung from your grave.
.
So still there blooms, through the winter sadness,
the spring green, the summer red:
.
Of love that cannot forget,
and, God knows how, your grateful knowing!
LILIAN HALL-DAVIS (III)
And then, one February morning, the mail brought me two letters from England, one from London and one from Hitchin.
The letter from London answered the one I had finally sent, asking for official confirmation of Lilian Hall-Davis’ end.
It read as follows [13]:
‘Ambassador of Belgium
London, 20 February 1954.
Sir,
I have the honour of being charged with receiving your letter of the 5th of this month, which was forwarded to me by the secretary to the Lord Mayor of London concerning the English actress Lilian Hall-Davis.
According to the information with which I have been furnished, this artiste of the theatre and cinema made her debut on screen in 1915.
Date and place of birth: Hampstead London N.W., 1898.
Married to Walter Pemberton, actor.
She had a son who was aged 14 in 1933, and a brother, Henry Charles Davis, a postal engineer.
Lilian Hall-Davis committed suicide by cutting her throat with a razor on 25 October 1933 at Cleveland Gardens, Golders Green, London N.W.
Please accept, sir, the assurance of my distinguished consideration.’
I read this letter first. After all, I was expecting it and without knowing it, I also followed the right order in so doing. After this tragic nightmare of death there now awaited me the fairy tale of resurrection. Because the other letter, from Hitchin, as already mentioned, was from the Ghent-born writer and painter ‘Uncle’ Gerard Ceunis, who has lived in England since World War I and with whom I once spent that sweet summer vacation in the rolling Hertfordshire countryside as an eighteen-year-old. At that time, I wandered a good deal through that landscape, alone or with Vanna, and kept silent about both my inevitable love for her and about the name of Lilian Hall-Davis.[14]
The ‘rolling Hertfordshire countryside’, near the home of Gerard Ceunis in Hitchin (author’s photo)
And here’s the miracle. On New Year’s Eve, my uncle and aunt had ordered a work of art from a well-known shop in Ghent; it had been sent to them, wrapped in a newspaper, the Vooruit; they had read my article in it, and immediately translated it for a certain Mr. Pemberton, who has been coming to play bridge with them every week for years, and who they said would write to me without delay and send me whatever I wanted. Because Grosvenor’s mother was… Lilian Hall-Davis. She spent the last years of her life in Hitchin; she was there that time when I stayed at my friends’ villa; as I roamed around Hitchin, beside her garden hedge, perhaps under her weary gaze. But now she has lifted that gaze and we talk to each other through her son.[15]
However, I want to reserve that material for my novel [16]. Let me conclude this reflection with a final poem, for cinematography is an epic lyric of the seventh art.
There is no coincidence in this life,
there is the blind logic of fate,
there are the miracles of God.
.
I have held back for a quarter of a century,
only dreaming of the departed beloved
and then – simply sobbing as I write to her.
.
And strange flowers from her land,
souvenirs from unknown hands
suddenly came to enrich us.
.
Even some wrapping paper,
in which the mourning verse was printed,
succeeded in reaching the son of the departed.
.
It’s no coincidence. It’s a token
that in a radiant logical realm
those we love still live.
.
They read our belated letters,
they pass them on with a smile,
and with a gentle blush enlighten us!…
Notes
‘New Flemish Magazine’, published between 1946 and 1983. See here.
French-language Belgian literary journal, launched in 1931. See here.
Literally ‘Forward’. Flemish left-wing newspaper. See here.
Tine van Berken, pseudonym of Anna Christina Witmond-Berkhout (1870 – 1899), Dutch children’s writer.
‘Son of the poet’, i.e. the Italian writer and Fascist sympathiser Gabriele D’Annunzio.
The British actress Deborah Kerr played the part of Lygia in the 1951 version of Quo Vadis?
‘Marquita’ was the name Daisne used to denote a particular feminine ideal, and to describe Vanna Ceunis, among others, in his collection Zes domino’s voor vrouwen. See this post.
The Leie, or Lys, is the river that runs through Ghent, Daisne’s home city.
Another of the poems by Johan Daisne sent to me by his biographer, Johan Vanhecke (see these posts) bears the title ‘Weduwe’ (or ‘Widow’), though on its original publication in 1966, in Elsiever Weekblad, it was headed ‘Schildersweduwe’ (‘Painter’s Widow’), and in at least one version it bore the dedication ‘Voor Lize Ceunis’ – i.e. for Lize (Alice) Ceunis, the wife of Gerard Ceunis.
Gerard Ceunis died in September 1964. His granddaughter, Tessa Cathcart, tells me that her grandmother was so distraught that she refused to attend the funeral, at the parish church in the nearby village of St Ippolyts. Daisne’s poem suggests that he himself held back from expressing his condolences to Gerard’s widow for some time after the artist’s death. The poem reflects the affectionate relationship that persisted between Daisne and his ‘aunt’ Lize, who had been a close friend of his mother’s: in his obituary for Gerard in the newspaper Vooruit, Daisne mentions ‘all the children’s books I regularly received from Aunt Lize via Santa Claus’.
Gerard and Alice on an outing to Knokke, Belgium, in 1907/8 (see this post)
As with other poems by Daisne, it’s difficult to bring over into English the rhyming and scansion of the Dutch/Flemish original, but I hope the following translation gives some sense of this brief but affecting poem.
Among the poems by Johan Daisne sent to me earlier this week by his biographer, Johan Vanhecke, is one that was dedicated to Gerard Ceunis. ‘Enthousiasme’ was first published in the autumn of 1944 in Klaverdrie (literally ‘three-leaved clover’), a journal that Daisne co-founded with the writer Luc van Brabant. The poem was later included in various collections of Daisne’s verse.
Cover of an earlier issue of ‘Klaverdrie’
This short poem recalls a snippet of homespun advice that his ‘uncle’ Gerard apparently gave Daisne when he was a young man, perhaps during his summer visit to Hitchin in 1929, advice that he rejected at the time but which, following the disappointments attendant on the passing of time, he has come to regard differently. ‘Enthousiasme’ can be translated straightforwardly as ‘enthusiasm’, though it’s interesting that in repeating the phrase in the final line, Daisne uses a different word – ‘Geestdrift’ – which I understand can also mean zeal or even rage.
The mirroring pattern in the opening and closing lines is reflected in the extremely regular rhyming scheme. Not only does Daisne use the same ABABAB pattern in both stanzas, but he also uses exactly the same rhymes, so that in each stanza every pair of lines ends with the syllables ‘oom’ and ‘en’. This makes it possible for the first and last lines of the whole poem to end identically, with the word ‘oom’, for uncle.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to reproduce anything like this rhyming scheme in an English version without departing radically from the sense. For example, the English word ‘uncle’ isn’t anything like as sonorous, or as easy to rhyme, as the Dutch/Flemish ‘oom’. In the translation that follows, I’ve taken one or two liberties with the meaning, but I hope retained the overall sense of the original.
‘Enthusiasm’
For Gerard Ceunis
.
Happiness is enthusiasm, my uncle said.
The English countryside was stewing in the sun.
I was a little boy still building up steam,
and this wisdom I could not, would not believe.
Happiness, I thought, is rain, snow, and dream!
.
I got my autumn, my winter, and my dream
first exulted, then it faded away.
It sleeps, and when I call it barely moves.
This year’s sun doesn’t shine so brightly.
Uncle, you were right: Happiness is Enthusiasm, indeed!
I’ve written before, in a number of posts on this site, about Johan Daisne (1912 – 1978), the Belgian magic realist novelist and poet who maintained contact with Gerard Ceunis throughout his life and who wrote his obituary in the newspaper Vooruit. Daisne’s real name was Herman Thiery and he was the son of the progressive educators Leo Michel Thiery and Augusta de Taeye, who knew Gerard and Alice Ceunis through their membership of the radical Reiner Leven and Flinken groups in Ghent.
The story of the summer vacation that the young Daisne spent with Gerard and Alice at their home in Hitchin, and his seemingly unrequited love for their daughter Vanna, is recounted in his novel Lago Maggiore and his short story collection Zes domino’s voor vrouwen, as well as in the Basque author Kirmen Uribe’s docu-fictionMussche, which tells the story of Daisne’s rivalry with his friend the poet Robert Mussche for Vanna’s affection.
I discovered recently that Gerard Ceunis painted a portrait of Johan Daisne, which apparently featured on the cover of the latter’s 1964 novel Als Kantwerk aan de Kim. My efforts to trace a copy of this portrait were unsuccessful, until last week, when I found it included in the set of Ceunis-related items sent to me by Elsie De Cuyper.
Cover of Johan Daisne’s novel ‘Als Kantwerk aan de Kim’ (Brussels: Manteau, 1964) with Gerard Ceunis’ portrait of the author
The material sent by Elsie also included a copy of a poem by Johan Daisne which I hadn’t seen before. Entitled simply ‘Vanna’, it’s an extremely poignant expression of the writer’s frustrated love for Gerard Ceunis’ daughter. I’m sharing the text of the poem below, followed by my attempt at a loose and rather unpoetic English translation. Sadly, I’ve not been able to reproduce the regular rhythm and rhyming scheme of the Flemish/Dutch original, which contributes to the intensity of the emotion.
In other posts on this site I’ve attempted translations of a number of Gerard Ceunis’ youthful literary works, including the poems ‘De Bleeke Kaarsen’ (‘The Pale Candles’) and ‘t Avendt’ (‘In The Evening’), and the prose poem ‘Droom’ (‘Dream’). All of these were originally published in the Belgian literary journal, Vlaamsche Arbeid (‘Flemish Labour’) in 1907 or 1908, when Ceunis would have been in his early twenties.
The excellent Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse letteren (DNBL) – the digital library of Dutch literature – includes one other early piece by Ceunis, a second, longer prose poem entitled ‘Legende. Gedicht van den avond op de Leie’ (‘Legend. Poem of the evening on the Lys’). It was published in a different literary journal, the Antwerp-based De Vlaamsche Gids (‘The Flemish Guide’) a few years after the other pieces, in 1911. (For a detailed analysis of the rise and fall of Flemish literary magazines, including Ceunis’ own short-lived journal Iris, during this period, see Christophe Verbruggen’s Schrijverschap in de Belgische belle epoque: een sociaal-culturele geschiedenis, which I wrote about in this post). The Lys is the French name for the river that flows through Ghent and the surrounding region: in Dutch it is called the Leie, which is the term Ceunis uses in this piece, though I have used the French version in my translation since it is better known internationally.
Emile Claus (1849 – 1924), ‘Fog on the Lys’, Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai
‘Legende’ has many similarities with ‘Droom’, Ceunis’ other published prose poem, similarities which make it particularly difficult to render into English, especially if (like me) your knowledge of Dutch is limited and you’re forced to rely on Google Translate (which doesn’t have a specifically Flemish option). Occasionally I’ve had to guess at the meanings of words and I apologise in advance to Flemish speakers for any inaccuracies.
Like ‘Droom’, ‘Legende’ is clearly influenced by French Symbolism in its use of synaesthetic imagery, with colours used to describe sounds, and emotions ascribed to natural objects such as trees and flowers. At the heart of both pieces is an idealised female figure (one can see, perhaps, why Ceunis fell out with the feminists of Reiner Leven and the Flinken), though whereas in ‘Droom’ she is an imaginary lover, in ‘Legende’ the beautiful young lady whose music enchants the children of the village resembles a magical figure from mythology, though I have no idea whether the writer was drawing on an actual folktale. The whole late-Romantic atmosphere of this long prose poem, with its sensuous visual imagery, makes one think of a melancholy Pre-Raphaelite painting, such as John William Waterhouse’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’, or the mystical fantasies of Aubrey Beardsley, about whom Ceunis wrote admiringly in his artistic manifesto of 1907.
Cover of the issue of ‘De Vlaamsche Gids’ in which Ceunis’ prose poem appears
Legend. Poem of the evening on the Lys.
I.
Who was the woman? Where had she come from? Nobody knew.
When the red evening sun had drifted over yonder, in the bloody opulence of a crimson glow; when the soft-fading evening mist blew tenderly over the fields and drove weary people and weary things to take their rest; when all the sounds of work were silenced and satisfied cows had returned to their stables; when all the field and meadow flowers had closed their pale cups, and in the air there rose from the earth a sweet fragrance, which was the blessed evening scent of the fields; then, beautiful and holy as the night itself, she came up softly, the woman with such pale hands, and with them moved the oars so quietly in the water that no rumour rose along the bank, while only the lonely irises held their silent assembly.
Thus she came at twilight every day, silent and mysterious …
And when the Lys no longer laughed in the mild glare of the sun, but grew lonely and melancholic, a pale figure slid over her still waters … it was she, the mysterious one, who like a floating water lily left a mark on the dark Lys in the twilight.
Then she rose up on to the river bank and moved slowly towards the orchard.
That orchard was not far from the village, and was deserted, belonging to everyone and no one; – the trees were old and broken, though every spring they were heavily weighed down with silver-white and pink flowers, and in the month of May the tall wild grass was dotted with sweet pale leaves falling from the trees. The villagers held that orchard in high esteem, and it was the source of all kinds of legends that were heard from the mouths of both parents and children.
This young lady came here every day at dusk, playing and singing with the peasant girls and boys, who looked upon her as a saint and followed her in unending worship.
Her hair, dark as night, fell long down her back, creating a great dark stain against the pallor of her slender robe. Her eyes were deep and large, heavy with love and sorrow. And her movements sang with grace and sobriety, while pale hands, with their gentle gestures, emerged from the wide sleeves of her white robe.
In that orchard there was a harmonium; – where did that harmonium come from? They did not know that either; but she, the lady with the pale hands, played it, and then soft long tones wept over the Lys region, and then all the children were silent …
The boldest and bawdiest cowman listened piously and reverently, feeling tenderly happy; and so did all the boys, and so did all the girls, and then there shone something in their glistening child eyes that came from their souls and that they did not understand.
And meanwhile the slender hands slid over the keys, so soft and so light, as if those pale hands were carved from marble, from pure white marble; … and yet they were so white-shining, so diaphanous … And the long fine fingers, like those of the Madonna of the mystics,slid over the keyboard, sometimes so slowly, and sometimes so swiftly and quickly, as if silver-winged dragonflies flew over the white-legged keys …
And the fruit trees, in that half-twilight, seemed as reverent as the children, and all the while they slowly dropped the pale leaves of their flowers that fell on the grass, tender and sad, like the blue lamentations of the harmonium itself.
Then all the orchard was one silent place of holiness, where everything seemed to pray in silent listening. And when a gentle evening breeze caressed the trees, and the young leaves rustled softly, then this yellow sound of nature mingled with the organ-soft tones, and then that glory was carried on the wind, so weeping-sweet, over the resting fields along the quiet Lys to the village, where the pious inhabitants, sitting on the borders of their town, sat peacefully listening to those melancholic songs, which drifted along with the evening breeze …
And when those simple, well-behaved children of nature had listened carefully to that beautiful music, as to something grand and sacred to which they were devoted but which they did not understand, – they too played happy songs, old folk songs to which they sang along and to which they danced joyfully.
The young lady had taught them all, tapping their blushing cheeks with her pale marble hands, if all was well.
There was one song that sounded sad and melancholic, and that the stranger had sung so divinely; – and that all the children, although they didn’t understand it, preferred to sing.
With this song the twilight-delicate ceremony ended; the strange singer lifted herself up, and her pale hands softly closed the harmonium. By then there was already a dark shroud around the trees, and dream-like threads of mist flecked more densely and sweetly around the things of the orchard.
The young lady moved in it like a shining angel, and every gesture of her white hands was a caress, whose golden music made more beautiful and more sacred the breath of the sad evening. The stars also shone in the sky, at first faint, rising and disappearing, then brazenly, heather-sparkling pearls and diamonds.
Then she stepped slowly from the orchard, and for each of the great crowd around her she had a tender word and a holy smile; with her long soft fingers she stroked every girl along the cheeks, with every boy she placed a comforting hand on the hair of their head … The girls always thought of that soft friction with childlike devotion, the boys always felt that holy hand on their head like a rich blessing whose value they could scarcely imagine.
Alone she moved further between the prayer trees, and her pale figure floated serenely through the evening …
The children never ran noisily when they returned to the village, but they went quietly and happily – peace and compassion hung over the crowd of children, and that evening each parent received a soft and tender child into their home…
John William Waterhouse, ‘The Lady of Shalott’, 1888 (Tate Britain)
II.
It was Sunday. All day the Lys had put on her shimmering sun-robe, and the poplars on the banks had been constantly reflected in it, proud and content, looking so freshly green and sunny. There was also a feast in the meadow, and all the flowers vied for the purest and most beautiful colours.
In that smiling sunshine everything was beautiful and silvery, and numerous happy boats sailed on the happy water, with generous talk and laughter everywhere.
If then that lady with the pale hands had come, gliding softly and stately along the Lys in her little boat that was always crowned with white lilies and seemed covered with silver ornaments, she would have been mildly illuminated with golden sunlight around her white robe, like a knight of the Grail, solemnly in his swan boat with silver-like armour.
But now, at dusk, when peaceful rest had descended and all the rumours of laughter had died away; now the poplars again stood dreaming and seemed so serious and sad; now that a shade was caressing across the Lys, a sultry summer air that caressed the leaves and sang its evening song; now that instead of a silver and gold shimmer there were only pale spots in the twilight, and all things were spun over with mist threads and melted together in the tender mood of the evening, … now that young lady came as always without a sound, and again her white robe was one white spot of holiness … No swan knight she seemed, but she seemed like the evening itself, a hazy image of tenderness and love.
It was as if there a great silent sad love accompanied her boat over the region of the Lys valley, full of infinity and goodness … The water lapped so strangely soft against the dreaming banks…
The girls and boys had been waiting for her, and when she appeared they all walked together to the orchard. She took the two smallest ones by the hand and this was a wonderful joy for the little ones. She was the unknown holy lady and they were allowed to go along with her. But they did not simply go along, the little ones, they ran on yelping and pulling her forward almost without reverence; they were still so young. Only then did the stranger’s face glow with a smile … a smile as fragile and tender as that of the Gioconda.
It was a special day today, there was no playing in the orchard.
Three cowmen had already loaded the harmonium on a wheelbarrow, and they now continued on along the Lys to the village …, followed by the lady and all the gang of children. But no happy sounds reverberated from their youthful throats today, now there would be no singing of:
In Bruges there is a house
with spiders, rommom,
In Bruges there is a house
with flowers all around.
There was something soft and delicious in their child eyes, and their cherry-red mouths remained innocently closed. Dreamily and with a somewhat roguish look, they continued hand in hand. Those were truly lovely, sweet children’s faces.
The procession reached the courtyard of a farm. Everything was silent here, such a sad oppressive silence. The guard dog had been taken away, there was no industrious business as usual on the farm by evening.
Inside was a sick girl, Meelke, who would otherwise usually come to the orchard and play with them. Now she was sick, very sick …
The stranger with her pale hands would play wonderfully for the sick child …
Inside, Meelke lay on her bed with pale cheeks, blonde curls of hair played around her head, and blue, dream-blue eyes gazed at the beautiful stranger who sat and played the harmonium. Around her the pious family stood humbly; the mother wept, wept softly, and held her blue apron in front of her.
And Meelke looked so happy now that shewas there. Now her child’s eyes had regained some of their former shine. She should now be allowed to listen to that beautiful music again, as it used to be in the orchard.
Outside, all the girls and boys stood dumbly at the door and window; they did not move a muscle and listened sweetly as if in church.
And the harmonium played softly, so evening-soft, so delicate, so embalming …
Low, low sank the evening down, with blessing and with peace, spinning soft gloom over the farmhouse. Inside, where yellow-singing lamps were already burning, sifting light fell on the courtyard in oblique beams from the door and window. Blond strands of light were caught in the hair of the listening crowd of children …
The stables were already so gloomy now, it seemed as if they were already asleep under the warm mantle of the night.
And the tones wept around the farm like yellow-gleaming garments of light, along the fields to the Lys that flowed yonder, where the high poplars made their narrow crowns sway mysteriously, and there were dark ghostly spots on the after-glowing blue-dark sky.
That evening, all the children would be anxious to return to their homes through that darkness … They would go into deep darkness close together, in the tender emotion of joyful embarrassment …
Inside, in the little house, where the lamp light shone so dimly, little Meelke was dreaming of the sweet tones, and knew no darkness …
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, ‘Le Recueillement’, 1866, Musée d’Orsay
III.
Meelke had died, her eyes had been full of sweetness and grace, like a flower that closes its cup at night, she was dozing for eternity, and no suffering had shrunk her beautiful girl’s face; she had even smiled at her parents and brothers for a while, and perhaps in that subtle ray of sunshine there was something for the stranger … something for her music.
Like a processional virgin she lay on her snow-white bed, her blond shining curls along her porcelain cheeks.
She lay on display for two days. All the inhabitants of the village and all the children made the sad journey and stared at the dead Meelke for a while. They all had a word of comfort for the mother:
‘She’s in heaven, young … She’s in heaven, young …‘
But she also came; towards evening she came to her with her white robe full of love and holiness. They were respectful and withdrew a little. The son of the house, a rude fellow, who had always spoken viciously and harshly about the lady and said that she was a witch, now stood back humbly.
She kissed little Meelke. The eerie room was full of mysterious silence, the people held their breath, and the settling evening surrounded everything with greyness and vagueness. Next to the bed were two candles burning, spinning around them a trembling yellow-red light that lay so strangely on the twilight …
Then she left again, shuffling slowly in her pale robe… Her feet were not seen, she floated like the dead over the ground.
Now Meelke had been buried for three days.
The villagers had talked a lot about the girl’s death, and now there were still all kinds of whispers, for a wind had blown into the simple lives of the peasants, and it had awakened suspicion. They talked about Meelke’s dying and some mentioned that lady. But people did not dare to believe it yet; yet it was whispered from neighbour to neighbour, though in a growing voice; for had she not such a beautiful, young and sad face?
Was it possible that she was a …?
Soon people spoke of the witch, they no longer said: the lady. And what had been whispered before, was now heard loudly.
Only when evening had fallen and darkness lay over the black fields in front of their houses, those people grew a little more frightened, and then they thought of those sayings, and that – lady, and they began…
And when the lady came to the shore with pale hands, not a single child met her, and she was alone in the quiet orchard.
The leaves blew so mysteriously among themselves, and the tall grass swayed, so deserted in the evening wind …
But she continued to play, soft and sweet-floating as ever, and the tones drifted sadly with the evening breeze along the Lys, towards the village, where the shutters were closed in fear and the lamps were lit …
Aubrey Beardsley, ‘La Beale Isoud at Joyous Gard’, 1884
IV.
The children of the village did not speak about the ‘witch’, rather they spoke of her with reverence and love. The first days, when the parents had forbidden them to return to the orchard, they cried a good deal; their parents had also spoken of her with disgust as they admonished them. The gentlest of the girls, who could still feel that pale marble hand glide down their cheeks, were therefore very sad and wept every time when she was insulted.
And now, full of homesickness for the orchard, they would sit together every day at dusk under the linden trees of the church square and talk about Her … Sometimes they quietly sang the songs they had learned…
But there were also other rumours circulating in the village. Cows had died of unknown diseases, and this was associated with Meelke’s death.
People began to look with vengeance toward the deserted orchard.
The son of Meelke’s house was the firestarter, fanning the kindled flames that quickly spread and were fostered in the inns where the roughest people gathered. All kinds of plans were being made there.
One day, when the sun was already low and already of warm gold, a sombre group of men came together outside the village. The children who sat under the limes of the square and knew nothing of what was going to happen, nevertheless had a fearful premonition.
That evening they remained under the trees for a long time and sat very close together and spoke soft whispering words to each other.
No harmonium sounds came over the village … Was there not a shadow she could cast?
Then the sombre group returned, all swanky and with wild songs, and all the children scattered in terror and ran to their houses.
They were so frightened of their dark rooms and hid themselves face down under the covers, where they sobbed and cried without knowing why …
While terrible work was being done in the orchard, the evening had crept in invisibly. First it laid down to rest in the grass and stared at the setting sun, which glowed so strangely and was so fiery red. And all the trees looked with melancholy at that beautiful cruel blood sun, and it seemed as if their leaves also had deep wounds and were bleeding …..
Then the sun sank behind the fields and there lay its dirty work to rest …
A free breeze cooled across the Lys, and came to the orchard, where it began to sigh in the leaves of the trees, which rustled quietly and had whispering voices …it was like a sigh of relief…
Then the evening rose, and with his fingers, which were softer and more tender than a prayer,he first and foremost closed the flowers in the grass, then moved around a few times with his beautiful misty cloak around his shoulders, and climbed slowly up the trees over which he gently let his breath pass, which, as if in a delicate veil, hung around the leaves, bringing rest, peace and evening beauty to them. Then he went on and did his same work of love everywhere; and when the whole region was enveloped in his soft peace garment, he went to the Lys, satisfied, and slept there.
Even paler than the whiteness of her robe, now bearing dark stains of blood, She strode slowly toward the mournful lapping water. The gloomy evening had sunk around her, in a misty beauty full of sorrow and melancholy. Her hair hung loose against the garment, and was like a deep night’s darkness because of the diaphanous pallor of her face.
She peered in the direction of the village, and her suffering eyes shone with the soft glow of a great love … an infinite love of goodness and feminine tenderness …
On the Lys the poplars sang their silent, sad evening song; and the lonely one who still goes to receive the kiss of the evening in that region, hears that song … that strange beautiful evening song of the Lys.
A few weeks ago I reproduced the text of Gerard Ceunis’ poem ‘De Bleeke Karsen’ (‘The Pale Candles’), which appeared in the Belgian magazine Vlaamsche Arbeid in 1907. Ceunis had another poem published in the same journal in the following year. Like ‘De Bleeke Karsen’, ‘ ‘t Avendt’ ( ‘In the Evening’) is obviously influenced by the Symbolist verse that Ceunis extolled in the artistic manifesto that he wrote for the short-lived literary journal Isis. The influence of Belgian Symbolist poets like Emile Verhaeren and, even more so, of French Symbolists like Baudelaire seems clear. Indeed, from one perspective Ceunis’ poem can as an attempt to produce a Flemish version of Baudelaire’s ‘Harmonie du Soir’. Some of the imagery is very similar, with Ceunis’ ‘de zonne bloedt heur bloedend goud’ echoing the French poet’s ‘Le soleil s’est noyé dans son sang qui fige…’
‘Roodend, de zonne bloedt heur bloedend goud van d’avendgloed.’ Sunset over Priory Park, Hitchin, 2nd June 2020, not far from ‘Salve’, Gerard Ceunis’ former home (author’s photograph)
The music of the poem, conjured out of the pervasive use of alliteration and assonance (‘Gedaante gaan’ , ‘zigt een zee’) can certainly be appreciated, even by those who don’t speak the poet’s language. The poem has a regular rhyming system, with the second and fourth line of each stanza rhyming, and half-rhymes between the first and third lines, as well as repetition/echoing of syllables –’ bloedt’/’bloedend’, ‘vlietend’/’vliet’.
However, even more than the earlier poem, this one presents difficulties for the non-Flemish reader and would-be translator. Not only does Ceunis use Flemish variations on standard Dutch spellings, but, as in the prose-poem ‘Droom’ (‘Dream’) that I wrote about in another recent post, his Symbolist style often involves yoking words together in original combinations to create a striking image.
I understand that ‘avend’ is a Flemish variation on ‘avond’, the Dutch word for evening. I’ve had less luck translating some other words in the poem, and have often had to make an intelligent guess. I’d certainly be happy to be corrected by any Flemish-speaking readers. I’ve found this online Flemish word list enormously helpful, though there are some words in the poem that even this comprehensive source fails to find, and I suspect are Ceunis’ own coinings or variations, and may even combine French with Flemish influences. For example, I assume that ‘lavend’ has something to do with washing or cleansing, while ‘teeder’ is probably a variation on the Dutch ‘teder’, for tender. So far, I’ve drawn a blank with ‘lijze’, which can mean ‘mode’ in Dutch, though I can’t quite see how it fits here, and also with the second part of the final compound word ‘avendsvreê.’ Is ‘vreê’ related to the Dutch ‘vrij’, meaning ‘free’, or ‘vrees’ meaning ‘fear’? I’ve opted for ‘peace’ in my version, though I can’t recall where I saw that suggested as a possibility, mainly because it seems to fit with ‘ruste’ – ‘rest’ – in the preceding line.
It’s a pity that ‘even’, for ‘evening’, is now considered archaic in English, except in established compound words such as ‘evensong’ (a direct translation, as it happens, of Ceunis’ ‘avendlied’), making it difficult to find an equivalent for the compounds that Ceunis invents to end every stanza. To match the feeling of the original, it would be necessary to translate the final words of each stanza as, respectively, ‘evenway’, ‘evenglow’, ‘evengown’, ‘evenlight’, ‘evensong’, and perhaps ‘even’s peace’.
Anyway, here is the original text of the poem, copied from the excellent dbnl website, followed by my more-or-less literal translation:
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, ‘The Dream’ , 1883 (Walters Art Museum)
DBNL – digitale bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse letteren – the digital library for Dutch literature – includes a number of samples of Gerard Ceunis’ early published writings. In an earlier post I reproduced, and offered a free translation of, one of his youthful poems, ‘De Bleeke Kaarsen‘ – ‘The Pale Candles’ – which appeared in the Belgian magazine Vlaamsche Arbeidin 1907. In this post, I’m sharing my translation of a prose-poem by Ceunis that was published in the same magazine in the following year, 1908. Like ‘De Bleeke Kaarsen’, ‘Droom‘ – ‘Dream’ – betrays the heavy influence of late-nineteenth-century Symbolist literature and art. Its eroticism, synaesthetic imagery, and fascination with myths, dreams and heightened states of consciousness, recall the poetry of Baudelaire and Mallarmé, or the paintings of Redon, Klimt, or Ceunis’ Ghent contemporary, Constant Montald, while the prose-poem form had been pioneered by Rimbaud in Une Saison En Enfer.
Cover of Vlaamsche Arbeid, 1908 – 1909
Its symbolist word-play makes the piece very difficult to translate. As before, I’ve had to rely on Google Translate and a degree of guesswork, but I’m sure a native Dutch speaker would be able to spot plenty of errors. Nevertheless, it’s useful to have this insight into the youthful Ceunis’ literary sensibility. I wonder if the customers of Maison Gerard, his ladies’ clothing shop in Hitchin Market Place, realised that the man serving them had such hidden depths?
Like a light, the angel-fine morning light, which dwells in the silvery sky with a soft-burning vibration, she had risen to me.
Her gauzy fairy robe, delicately pleated in a marvellous play of deep-purplish morning colours, was like a dream-golden legend on her slender body, filling the small room with summer scents that swirled in a sacred opulence of incense and thyme-filled air. A sweet-softly sense-singing music of falling silk leaves sang about her, and led her to me, who, beneath the strange blue mist of my melancholy, had suddenly arisen, greedily thinking of her, happily startled, and was unable to hurry to her under the divine weight of love and overwhelming joy.
How sweet of you to visit me!
Oh yes! I know the subtle softness of your soul; you have heard my homesickness for you, you have felt the complaint that rose from my soul … and you have come.
I thank you dearly, for I needed you, I was waiting for you; I drew love from your soft face …
O beloved! Do you know the divine power of my love? Do you know the blessed depth of my soul, where I keep you as a sacred thing? Do you know that your sweet image radiates the only magical light, which makes my sick blue eyes joyfully shine? Do you know that my glad ears hear only your silver voice – heavenly music – of which I always wanted to hear the echo vibrate in my dying head?
Even the depths looked up when they saw you enter, beautiful and completely unexpected, in the misty space of my room; but they were gentle and good, as if they understood that you were a saint and I worshipped you; as they understood that the apparition came to comfort me, to wipe away the tears in my gloomy mind, and to bring a higher joy to my being, which was soiled with human nothingness.
Odilon Redon, ‘Apparition’, 1905 – 1910 (Princeton University Art Museum)
I still recall, in golden vagueness, singing with tender-sweet tones in my remembering mind, how we then descended the stairs together and came into the garden – my big beautiful garden.
And then we searched for the most beautiful places, where the trees whispered words of love to each other and the wind passed sweetly in angel songs.
And all of a sudden, in my garden, where the golden sunlight seeped between the trees, bright sunny spots thrown on fresh wet grass, and dry fallen leaves artfully edged with gold, where great shadows of dark green lay melancholy dreaming amid the soft fire of the morning sun; where there was a wonderful variegated pattern of generous-spinning light and softly blazing green, and thick blue, and silver of flowers, and gold and red – I no longer saw you, I was alone.
You had melted altogether, had become one with all of these wonders, the sight of which made me drunk. You had hidden yourself in the most beautiful flowers, for they opened wide their chalices which, like silent censers, were heavy with scents, and sent up dreamy perfumes in graceful twisting, with rich colours of sunlight, fairy tales twirling and rising to heaven. You were lifted up to the crowns of the trees, for an abundance of ripe fruits was sprinkled around me; and the leaves fell, bronze-brown and golden-yellow twinkling around the fruits that gleamed and laughed with sweetness, like your love.
Odilon Redon ‘Arbres sur un fond jaune’, 1901 (via en.wikipedia.org)
And you were everywhere, gold-sprinkling and pouring happy-light, the ruling goddess in my garden; and every leaf shone with clear freshness, golden-green with silver sparkles of living dewdrops; all the flowers were shining with satisfaction on their slender stalks, in splendour of gold a thousandfold; and, in the colourful grass, which rolled in a graceful swell in the lusty rays of the sun, were little white flowers, bright glittering specks of silver, finely scattered seedlings of heather-white, sun-drenched snowflakes.
Everything was radiant with your deep love; everything was trembling and tingling with pure soft-glowing light; there was a solemn mystic silence in my garden … and in the strange expectancy of that silence, soft music rustled for a moment, modestly lamenting and weeping on the air – died away – came back, first silent singing, an avant-garde of melancholy nymphs – then loud-voiced, with clear crystalline sounds; and the mournful crying had risen to a sweet melody, singing silver and dripping gold, which lay on the restful blue air and sensually lingered there; then the sounds would be loud-sounding, rising in wild-roaring jubilation, swinging with happy-ravishing tones around things, and gently kissing with their breath; and all my garden trembled in sacred desire, the trees, the flowers, the plants, the grass, the sky and the buzzing blue flies, they all sang with that inspiring music, your love sang from everything.
I didn’t know my garden was so big, so beautiful! I had never seen it like this; I had never felt such ecstasy as I did then, blazing purple in my soul, lavishly spreading divine perfumes of love.
Gustav Klimt, ‘The Kiss’, 1907-1908 (Belvedere Museum, Vienna)
Then I saw you again, oh holy love! your soft-lined body fluttered in tender youthful green. Eyes, fairytale-blue, with dark pensive glances; within, a sweet-burning evening-red body, a dream glow of feeling wonderfully fine. And I, beholding you with ecstasy, and feeling warm as your eye-rays drip into my soul, with a pure desire of great love, ran to you, and pressed my covetous mouth on those sweet-pink lips, and kissed, kissed so intimately for so long, so divine … and I felt my happy mouth sink into something soft, like I don’t know what … I sat up and looked around … and my garden had become dark-sad, without the light-life, without the gold-tingling and the silver sheen of late – you were gone – you were gone …
Most people, if they have heard of Gerard Ceunis at all, know him as a painter. A few sources also describe him as a playwright, the author of The Captive Princess (1909) andGothic Fairy Tale (1910), and as an essayist, the writer of a treatise on Individualism (1910). However, very little attention has been paid to Ceunis the poet, and yet it’s on record that, as a young man in Belgium, he wrote and published a number of poems in literary magazines. In the book discussed in the previous post, Christophe Verbruggen states that by 1907, when he helped to found the literary magazine Iris, Ceunis had ‘only published one poem’, in the journal Vlaamsche Arbeid (Flemish Labour). However, I’ve discovered that at least one other poem of his was published in the same journal in 1908, as well as two pieces of what might be described as poetic prose, in 1908 and 1911.
Cover of the first issue of Vlaamsche Arbeid, 1905-1906
In this post, I’m reproducing the text of Ceunis’ first published poem, from 1907, entitled ‘De Bleeke Kaarsen’ – ‘The Pale Candles’ – followed by a literal translation, and then my first attempt to render the poem into something like English verse, seeking to capture some of its original poetic qualities, which inevitably means taking a few liberties with the literal sense (I’m sure others could do a better job). I believe that even non-Dutch speakers like me can appreciate the rhythmic and musical qualities of the original, the poet’s use of alliteration, assonance and rhyme, while perhaps recognising the derivative nature of some of its imagery, and the heavy influence of the Symbolist poetry of Mallarmé, Rimbaudet al.
The Quest for Ceunis 