Context
from Summer in Termuren
by Louis Paul Boon
Yes, you’ve got to the point in your
ondine-and-oscarke novel—that endless and endlessly accursed
novel—where a new hero has appeared in its pages. A strange hero. A
little fellow with large bewildered eyes, and a rather weak, rather
melancholy mouth. A mouth that will gradually change over the years . .
. that will become a little more sensuous, but also bitter. And eyes
that will become duller, with bags under them, as if they were
retreating into a fortress. But you’re getting bags under your eyes!
little louis boone’s wife would say later—much later, when this book
about ondine and oscarke comes to an end . . . if it ever comes to an
end. And little louis boone will nod his head in agreement and say that
she’s right, as an idiot usually does: nodding his head in agreement
and saying that everyone is right: you’re right! Yes, little louis
boone appears in these pages for the first time. And he looks at ondine
and oscarke, and he looks at you, and he looks at the whole wide world
with his large, bewildered eyes. I can still see it as if it happened
yesterday, says ondine . . . the war was on and little louis boone was
playing there, opposite my door, opposite the door of tinne from the
shop, and the germans with their spiked helmets were herding, into the
police station, the people who’d been drafted. Little louis boone was
standing there looking with his bewildered eyes. And suddenly he was
knocked over, 2 times, first by a draftee with a battered cap, who was
running away, then by a german with a spiked helmet who got down on one
knee and started shooting. Bang. And little louis boone heard that bang
and started running too, as children do: they do something and they
don’t know why. So I called out: watch out, little louis boone! And
right next to him the man with the battered cap fell down outside the
door of tinne from the shop. And a little puff of dust came out of the
coat of the man with the cap. A tiny puff of dust, nothing at all, like
someone had thrown a pebble at him. And the man with the cap lay down,
and doctor goethals came, and the priest too. The inevitable doctor and
the inevitable priest, the inevitable last people a man sees. No, the
last one was tinne who had to scrub her pavement clean afterwards,
since blood stains are so hard to get out. So little louis boone makes
his appearance in your book as a little bewildered person. He plays
with little polpoets and the even littler tippetotje . . . that is to
say, he stands watching their games . . . he watches their games and
asks: did you see it? It was a little puff of dust, that’s all. But
little polpoets didn’t see. There are children who see everything, and
children who see nothing. There are children with big, bewildered eyes
. . . and there are children who from birth smile and bare 2 bad teeth
. . . bad teeth that will be replaced by gold. Little louis boone tells
everyone in the street what he’s seen, but no one’s interested.
Everyone sees things, they say. Everyone sees something different. But
despite this, little louis boone tells everyone everything he sees:
it’s his vocation, telling them what he’s seen. And perhaps it’s the
vocation of the other people not to listen to what little louis boone
tells them. Over the years his mouth becomes a little bitter, and his
eyes a little dull: bags form beneath them. He’s told them almost
everything that he’s ever heard or seen. He’s made a lot of enemies and
very few friends. Sometimes he says to his wife: people who don’t see
much are lucky. Sometimes he also says: people who can hold their
tongues about all they’ve heard and seen are lucky too. He sits there
and sometimes feels the bags under his eyes, and wonders whether all
the things he’s seen and still hasn’t dared talk about aren’t what’s
hidden behind them. So little louis boone, this new character, will
come and play a part in your book. Ondine will make fun of him.
Sometimes she looks at him and says to his mother: he always looks so
sad, I think he’s got worms! Worms, oh dear . . . and big, bewildered eyes: it’s little louis boone.
