A second time we seated ourselves at our little round table in the restaurant on the boulevard Anspach—the director of the art museum and I. A mug of light Belgian beer was before each of us, and a copy of La Belgique telling of the Somme battles. The director’s hands shook as he reached for the newspaper and his half-finished beer. His breath came in short, apoplectic gasps. He was wildly angry. A couple of minutes before a Flemish newsboy had rushed into the restaurant and shouted, “Aeroplane! The Germans are shooting it!” And the restaurant had emptied like a hive, filling the boulevard, where every one gazed at the dull gray dragonfly droning at an immense height over the city, pursued with soft white smoke-flowers which thudded as they bloomed in the upper air. While we watched, an old peasant in wooden shoes and padded black petticoats dropped her market basket on the director’s toes. He forgot aeroplane and anti-aircraft guns, war, the crowds, and me, his guest. He howled, he cursed, he danced; and now that we were safe again at our table in the restaurant, anathema and malediction still tumbled from his full red lips.

“Ces sales paysants, ils sont des brutes! ImbÉciles! Idiots! Cochons!” he stuttered, his feet prancing under the table. “They are beasts truly, monsieur: not men, but beasts, these peasants. What a temper I am in. But these beasts of peasants. Ah!...” he smiled suddenly and went on, “I will tell you a story of them.

“You have heard, monsieur, of Van de Werve, the artist? He was of the school of Rubens; he died in Italy, very young. He had only twenty-three years when he died. He was not rich; he was very poor. But he had the spirit, the genius, the flair, and Rubens loved him. The Master said one day, ‘You must go to Italy to study. Here is a purse of gold. Here are letters of introduction to my friends. Here is a horse. Go to Italy.’ And the young man started. Months went by and no word of him came to Rubens or the other friends he had in Antwerp. He did not arrive in Italy. The purse of gold, the letters of introduction, the horse, the pupil of Rubens—all were completely lost to sight. After a year some friends set out to search for him, and behold! in the village of Tinarloo in Brabant they found him, painting an altar piece for the chapel of that place, and kissing and clipping the daughter of the burgomaster, who sat on his knee! He was always gallant, was Van de Werve, and as he rode into Tinarloo on his way to Italy, he had seen and fallen in love with the burgomaster’s daughter and sat at her feet for a year.

“But the altar piece, monsieur! You have never seen it? Ah, that was magnificent—‘The Virgin of the Stair’—gold, green, ravishing! What atmosphere! What feeling! What soul!

“I saw it only once before the war. I tried to buy it for the museum, but those dirty peasants of Tinarloo would not give it up. Ugh—a village of fat farmers smelling of dungheaps and cattle pens and garlic! Their chapel was bastard Gothic—no fit place for such an altar piece. I urged the curÉ to sell, but he would not. He was ignorant as his peasants, but he was crafty, too. He said the picture was the glory of Tinarloo, the chief joy of the peasants. I offered him twice as much as I first intended, thinking he meant to bargain with me; three times, four times as much. He refused two thousand francs, monsieur!

“Afterward came the war. I am a brave man, monsieur. I am not afraid of the Germans. When they advanced near to Tinarloo I thought of the ‘Virgin of the Stair.’ ‘It must be saved,’ I said to myself. ‘Those peasants, that curÉ will be glad to give it up now.’ I hurried there in a cart. Eastward, near Namur, the great guns roared. There stood sentries along the roads. Peasants were running away before the Germans with farmcarts piled with goods. They blocked the road, and I had even to beat them out of my way with my whip.

“So I reached Tinarloo. Every one was terrified. I went to the chapel. The curÉ was there, and the burgomaster, a toothless old man with a dirty beard. ‘Give me the picture, quick,’ I exclaimed. ‘I will save it from the Germans. Quick!’ ‘No, monsieur,’ said the curÉ. ‘The picture will stay here. It is the glory of Tinarloo; it is the chief joy of our peasants.’

“There came a scream and a roar from the street, monsieur, like the sound of a great storm, and I knew the Germans were shelling the village. The old burgomaster bellowed something. I do not understand Flemish, but I knew he said something of the church and the picture; maybe it was that the Germans always destroy churches and pictures. He hobbled out ‘The picture, the picture, give me the picture!’ I roared at the curÉ. ‘Give it to me or I will take it. Fool! the Germans will take it if I do not. Give it to me. Quick!’ ‘It is the glory of Tinarloo; the chief joy of our peasants. I will not give it.’ ‘Then I will take it,’ I shouted, for I was stronger than he, monsieur. He clutched me, but I threw him off and grasped the picture by the corner. There came another roar, terrible, and a part of the church tower fell through the roof. The curÉ screamed and dropped to his knees, praying. I worked to get the picture from the frame.

“Suddenly, monsieur, I was grasped and thrown down. Those brutes of peasants had come into the church; twelve, fifteen of them, following the burgomaster with the dirty beard. They held me fast with their stinking hands. One of them tried to strangle me, and my neck bears the marks to this day. Bang—a shell fell in the churchyard and bits of shrapnel ripped the windows. The church was choked with dust and roared with noise. The curÉ stood up before the picture. He yelled to the animals who held me down. They loosed me, and I stood upright, gasping. One of them had a great club in his hand, another a dung-fork, another a flail. They gathered close to the curÉ, close to the picture, and talked; the fools talked while shells flew, knowing the Germans always aim at churches; yet they talked.

“Then the curÉ came down to me where I was standing. ‘They say to give you the picture, monsieur,’ he said. ‘But you must swear by this cross to bring it back when all is safe. It is the glory of Tinarloo; it is the chief joy——’

“Monsieur, there was a scream like devils in torment and a shock like earthquake. I was knocked from my feet. Bricks, timbers fell. Dust covered me, and I lost consciousness. Long afterward I found myself lying in the grass of the churchyard, among the black crosses, and the curÉ kneeling over me; only the curÉ! ‘Go,’ he said. His mouth was bleeding from a deep cut and his gown was slashed to ribbon. ‘Go, go,’ he said. I heard him as if in a dream. ‘Go! There is no longer any picture. Go! before the Germans come.’

“So I came away, monsieur.... They are strange beasts, these Belgian peasants.”