I sat for a
long time in a cafe overlooking the great square, feeding a very greedy
and impertinent terrier, and alternately watching an endless game of
billiards and the changing hue of the sky as day turned to night and
the clean white stars came out. In Holland one can sit very long in
cafes: I had dined and left a table of forty Dutchmen just settling
down to their wine, at six o'clock, with the whole evening before me.
Groningen takes very good care of itself. It has trams, excellent
shops and buildings, a crowded inland harbour, and a spreading park
where once were its fortifications. The mounds in this park were the
first hills I had seen since Laren. The church in the market square is
immense, with a high tower of bells that kept me awake, but had none of
the soothing charm of Long John at Middelburg, whose praises it will
soon be my privilege to sound. The only rich thing in the whitewashed
vastnesses of the church is the organ, built more than four hundred
years ago by Rudolph Agricola of this province. I did not hear it.
At Groningen Roman Catholic priests become noticeable--so different
in their stylish coats, square hats and canes, from the blue-chinned
kindly slovens that one meets in the Latin countries. (In the train
near Nymwegen, however, where the priests wear beavers, I travelled
with a humorous old voluptuary who took snuff at every station and was
as threadbare as one likes a priest to be.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340