CHAPTER XVIII

BURGOMASTER MAX

The hotel is closed to the public.

"We shut it up so that we should not have Germans coming in," says the little Bruxellois widow who owns it. "But if Madame likes to stay here for the night we can arrange,--only--there is no cooking!"

The old professor from Liège asks in his pitiful childlike way if he can get a room there too. He would be glad, so glad, to be in a hotel that was not open to the public, or the Germans.

Leaving my companions with many expressions of friendliness, I now rush off to the Hotel de Ville, accompanied by the faithful Jean.

Just as we reach our destination, we run into the man I have come all this way to see.

I see a short, dark man, with an alert military bearing. It seems to me that this idol of Brussels is by no means good-looking. Certainly, there is nothing of the hero in his piquant, even somewhat droll appearance. But his eyes! They are truly extraordinary! They bulge right out of their sockets. They have the sharpness and alertness of a terrier's. They are brilliant, humorous, stern, merry, tender, audacious, glistening, bright, all at once. His beard is clipped. His moustaches are large and upstanding. His immaculate dress and careful grooming give him a dandified air, as befitting the most popular bachelor in Europe, who is also an orphan to boot. His forehead is high and broad. His general appearance is immediately arresting, one scarcely knows why. Quite unlike the conventional Burgomaster type is he.

M. Max briefly explains that he is on his way to an important meeting. But he will see me at eleven o'clock next morning if I will come to the Hotel de Ville. Then he hurries off, his queer dark face lighting up with a singularly brilliant smile as he bids us "Au revoir!" An historic moment that. For M. Max has never been seen in Brussels since!

Of itself, M. Max's face is neither particularly loveable, nor particularly attractive.

Therefore, this man's great hold over hearts is all the more remarkable.

It must, of course, be attributed in part to the deep, warm audacious personality that dwells behind his looks.

But, in truth, M. Max's enormous popularity owes itself not only to his electric personality, his daring, and sangfroid, but also to his _common-sense_, which steered poor bewildered Brussels through those terribly difficult first weeks of the German occupation.

Nothing in history is more touching, more glorious, than the sudden starting up in time of danger of some quiet unknown man who stamps his personality on the world, becomes the prop and comfort of his nation, is believed in as Christians believe in God, and makes manifest again the truth that War so furiously and jealously attempts to crush and darken--the power of mind over matter, the mastery of good over evil.

From this War three such men stand out immortally--King Albert, Max of Brussels, Mercier of Malines.

And Belgium has produced all three!

Thrice fortunate Belgium!

Each stone that crumbles from her ruined homes seems, to the watching world, to fly into the Heavens, and glow there like a star!

On foot, swinging my big yellow furs closer round me in the true Belgian manner, I walked along at Jean's side, trying to convince myself that this was all real, this Brussels full of grey-clad and blue-clad Prussians, Saxons, and Baverois, with here and there the white uniform of the Imperial Guard. Suddenly I started. Horribly conscious as I was that I was an English authoress and with no excuse to offer for my presence there, I felt distinctly nervous when I saw a queer young man in a bulky brown coat move slowly along at my side with a curious sidling movement, whispering something under his breath.

I was not sure whether to hurry on, or to stand still.

Jean chose the latter course.

Whereupon the stranger flicked a look up and down the street, then put his hand in his inner breast pocket.

"_Le Temps_," he whispered hoarsely, flashing looks up and down the street.

"How much?" asked Jean.

"Five francs," he answered. "Put it away toute suite, vous savez c'est dangereux."

Then quickly he added, walking along beside us still, and speaking still in that hoarse, melodramatic voice (which pleased him a little, I couldn't help thinking), "Les Allemands will give me a year in prison if they catch me, so I have to make it pay, n'est-ce-pas? But the Brussels people _must_ have their newspapers. They've got to know the truth about the war, n'est-ce-pas? and the English papers tell the truth!"

"How do you get the newspapers," I whispered, like a conspirator myself.

"I sneak in and out of Brussels in a peasant's cart, all the way to Sottegem," he whispered back. "Every week they catch one of us. But still we go on--n'est-ce-pas? We don't know what fear is in Brussels. That's because we've got M. Max at the head of us! Ah, there's a man for you, M. Max!"

A look of pride and tenderness flashed across his dark, crafty face, then he was gone, and I found myself longing for the morning, when I should talk with M. Max myself.

But Sunday I was awakened by the loud booming of cannon, proceeding from the direction of Malines.

"What is happening?" I asked the maid who brought my coffee "Isn't that firing very near?"

"Oui, Madam! On dit that in a few days now the Belgian Army will re-enter Brussels, and the Germans will be driven out. That will be splendid, Madam, will it not?"

"Splendid," I answered mechanically.

This optimism was now becoming a familiar phrase to me.

I found it everywhere. But alas! I found it alongside what was continually being revealed as pathetic ignorance of the true state of affairs.

And the nearer one was to actual events the greater appeared one's ignorance.

This very day, when we were saying, "In a few days now the Germans will be driven out of Brussels," they were commencing their colossal attack upon Antwerp, and we knew nothing about it.

The faithful Jean called for me at half-past ten, and hurrying through the rain-wet streets to meet M. Max at the Hotel de Ville, we became suddenly aware that something extraordinary was happening. A sense of agitation was in the air. People were hurrying about, talking quickly and angrily. And then our eyes were confronted by the following startling notice, pasted on the walls, printed in German, French and Flemish, and flaming over Brussels in all directions:--

"_AVIS._

"Le Bourgmestre Max ayant fait default aux engagements encourus envers le Gouvernement Allemand je me suis vu force de le suspendre de ses fonctions. Monsieur Max se trouve en detention honourable dans une forteresse.

"Le Gouverneur Allemande, "VON DER GOLTZ."

Bruxelles, _26th Septembre_, 1914.

Cries of grief and rage kept bursting from those broken-hearted Belgians.

Not a man or woman in the city was there who did not worship the very ground Max walked on. The blow was sharp and terrible; it was utterly unexpected too. Crowds kept on gathering. Presently, with that never-ceasing accompaniment of distant cannon, the anger of the populace found vent in groans and hisses as a body of Uhlans made its appearance, conducting two Belgian prisoners towards the Town Hall. And then, all in a moment, Brussels was in an uproar. Prudence and fear were flung to the wind. Like mad creatures the seething crowds of men, women, and children went tearing along towards the Hotel de Ville, groaning and hooting at every German they saw, and shouting aloud the name of "Max," while to add to the indescribable tumult, hundreds of little boys ran shrieking at the tops of their voices, "_Voici le photographie ed Monsieur Max, dix centimes!_"

The Civic Guard, composed now mostly of elderly enrolled Brussels civilians, dashed in and out among the infuriated mob, waving their sticks, and imploring the population to restrain itself, or the consequences might be fatal for one and all.

Meanwhile the Aldermen were busy preparing a new _affiche_ which was soon being posted up in all directions.

"_AVIS IMPORTANT._

"Pendant l'absence de M. Max le marche des affaires Communales et le Maintenance de l'ordre seront assurés par le College Echevinal. Dans l'interêt de la cité nous faisons un suprême appel au calme et sangfroid de nos concitoyens. Nous comptons sur le concours de tous pour assurer le maintien de la tranquilité publique.

Bruxelles. "LE COLLEGE ECHEVINAL."

Accompanied by Jean, I hurried on to the Hotel de Ville.

"Voyez vous!" says Jean under his breath. "Voici les Allemands dans l'Hôtel de Ville! Quel chose n'est-ce-pas!"

And I hear a sharp note in the poor fellow's voice that told of bitter emotion.

It was an ordeal to walk through that beautiful classic courtyard, patrolled by grey-clad German sentinels armed to the teeth. The only thing to do was to pass them without either looking or not looking. But once inside I felt safer. The Germans kept to their side of the Town Hall, leaving the Belgian Municipality alone. We went up the wide stairs, hung with magnificent pictures and found a sad group of Belgians gathered in a long corridor, the windows of which looked down into the courtyard below where the Germans were unloading waggons, or striding up and down with bayonets fixed.

Looking down from that window, while we waited to be received by M. le Meunier, the Acting-Burgomaster who had promptly taken M. Max's place, I interested myself in studying the famous German leg. A greater part of it was boot. These boots looked as though immense attention had been given to them. In fact there was nothing they didn't have, iron heels, waterproof uppers, patent soles an immense thickness, with metal intermingled, an infinite capacity for not wearing out. I watched these giant boots standing in the gateway of the exquisite Hotel de Ville, fair monument of Belgium's genius for the Gothic! I could see nothing of the upper part of the Germans, only their legs, and it was forced upon my observation that those legs were of great strength and massive, yet with a curious flinging freedom of gait, that was the direct result of goose-stepping.

Then I saw two officers goose-stepping into the courtway. I saw their feet first! then their knees. The effect was curious. They appeared to kick out contemptuously at the world, then pranced in after the kick. The conceit of the performance defies all words.

Then Jean's card was taken into the acting Burgomaster, and next moment a Belgian Échevin said to us, "Entrez, s'il vous plaît," and we passed into the room habitually occupied by M. Max.

We found ourselves in a palatial chamber, the walls covered thickly with splendid tapestries and portraits. From the high gilded ceiling hung enormous chandeliers, glittering and pageantesque. Under one of these giant chandeliers stood an imposing desk covered with papers. An elderly gentleman with a grey wide beard was seated there. We advanced over the thick soft carpets.

M. le Meunier received us with great courtesy.

"Nous avons perdu notre tête!" he murmured sadly.--"Without M. Max we are lost!"

The air was full of agitation.

Here was a scene the like of which might well have been presented by the stage, so spectacular was it, so dramatic--the lofty chamber with its superb appointments and hangings, and these elderly, grey-bearded men of state who had just been dealt the bitterest blow that had yet fallen on their poor tortured shoulders.

But this was no stage scene. This was real. If ever anything on earth was alive and real it was this scene in the Burgomaster's room in Brussels, on the first day of Max's imprisonment. Throbbing and palpitating through it was human agony, human grief, human despair, as these grey-bearded Belgians stared with dull heavy eyes at the empty space where their heroic chief no longer was. Tragic beyond the words of any historian was that scene, which at last however, by sheer intensity of concentrated and concealed emotion, seemed to summon again into that chamber the imprisoned body, the blazing, dauntless personality of the absent one, until his prison bonds were broken, and he was here, seated at this desk, cool, fearless, imperturbable, directing the helm of his storm-tossed bark with his splendid sanity, and saying to all:

"Fear nothing, mes enfants! There is no such thing as fear!"