Entering a beguinage for the first time is a bizarre, almost spiritual experience. It's the feather-light quietness that washes over you and sticks to your body like cobwebs.
Gent | Tekst & Photos: Geert Huysman
INSIDE THE GHENT GREAT BEGUINAGE
SILENT SANCTUARY
I find it quite disorienting to be plunged from one moment to the next into a pool of hush in the middle of the city. Just beneath the entrance gate of the Ghent Great Beguinage of Saint Elizabeth, the transition hits me like a punch in the gut.
I look back in surprise as a moped sputters past, its otherwise shrill noise now dull and distant, as if I've entered another world through a membrane. I involuntarily start to walk slower. Any form of speed, however modest, suddenly seems indecent. I breathe in deeply and exhale. Does the city air taste purer here?
ATTRACTION
It's a radiant day, still early in the morning. A bench. I sit down and try to absorb my surroundings, but my senses are overwhelmed by the relentless silence. I hear only my own breathing and, in the distance, the chirping of an early sparrow. I've only been here a few minutes, but already the astonishing lack of ambient sound is affecting my mood. Somewhere deep inside, I'm slowly deflating like a balloon. In my mind, I try to craft a sentence, something lofty about how silence can also be an emotion.
A clumsy attempt, doomed to fail. I stand up and continue walking along narrow alleys. The entire area is shrouded in monochromatic reddish-brown, the color of the bricks from which it was built.
The Great Beguinage is not beautiful. Those seeking romantic aesthetics should head to Ghent's Lange Violettestraat, to (indeed) the Small Beguinage. Neatly painted red houses, whitewashed walls — an idyllic spot, relentlessly photographed by throngs of cooing Japanese tourists. But it leaves me cold. Too neat. Too much an attraction.
SYRINGE
COFFEE POT
Ah well, in my younger years, I spent countless hours immersed in the Jommeke comic books, where I encountered beguines aplenty. Somewhere in the house still lies that well-thumbed copy of The Stork of Begonia.