1936 On the Continent

blindly.”
    “Off we go then. This is going to be a wonderful trip.… Taxi! … Hotel Imperial, please.
    “If you don’t mind, we’ll stay at Ostend for a few days, we’ll visit the other seaside resorts, then we’ll travel inland. For the moment, just get settled down. You’ll see that your room is very comfortable; the bath is in working order and through the window you’ll see the Kursaal gardens and the sea. Your room is at about 200 yards from the sea. (If you should prefer a room directly in front of it, there are several excellent hotels along the front: the Osborne, the Wellington, the Hôtel des Thermes.)”
    “First of all,” said Muriel when they set out from the hotel again, “I want a drink. I’m dreadfully thirsty.”
    “This café, then.”
    “May I go into a café?”
    “Of course. Here in Belgium our cafés are open from the early hours of the morning till very late at night, and it is quite correct for ladies to go to them. In fact, the Belgian man takes his family to the café. You may drink anything in these establishments except spirits, that is to say, cognac or whisky or gin.”
    “What a curious rule.”
    “The law has its good points: in this way the working-class people are not tempted to spend their salaries on excessive drinking, and the men don’t go home inebriated and moneyless, which would be a double catastrophe for their wives.”
    “I see. But may I have a pale ale?”
    “Yes, anywhere, at any time, and all wines, champagnes, and many other things.”
    “There seems to be quite a choice.”
    “Let me add, to settle this alcohol question once and for all, and I must say it seems to baffle most visitors, that prohibition exists only as far as public establishments are concerned, such as cafés or restaurants. You may buy any quantity of alcohol in the shops if you want to, and you are perfectly free to drink it at home.”
    “Thanks for the information, Pierre. I’m not addicted to drink, you know, but it’s interesting to hear about the foreign outlook on these things.”
    “Well, I hope this satisfies you.”
A Little Practical History
    (Not to be read if you are in a hurry)
    “Muriel, my dear,” said Pierre when they were settled on the terrace of a café facing the sea, “this is your first visit to Belgium. I’m sure you’re impatient to visit the country, but don’t, I pray you, rush from monument to monument. It is far less interesting to ascertain whether a certain Rubens picture is to be found in Room No. 5 of a certain museum between the ninth and the tenth windows, as the Baedeker will tell you it is. I’m fond of Rubens. You probably appreciate him too, and certainly during our wanderings we shall see works of his. But let us be quite honest, it’s not for that you came to Belgium.For you it is much more important to spend a few pleasant days here and to return to your country with some understanding of the Belgian people; the richer by human experience rather than book learning.”
    “If you’ll give me five minutes I’d like to talk to you a little about this people, not like a politician who would tell you that it is the most intelligent on the Continent; not in the manner of generals, who would claim it to be the bravest on the Continent; certainly not like a business man who would describe it as ‘the most industrious on the Continent.’ No. I would like to talk about my people as a friend would talk about it, a friend knowing its faults and qualities, its pride and its shortcomings.”
Two Races
    “The Belgian people is heterogeneous. We needn’t go back to the Roman Conquest nor to Mr. Julius Caesar, who claimed that the Belgians were the bravest of the Gauls—which didn’t prevent them from submitting to his rule. No, we’ll leave on one side all those old wars—two thousand years old—and merely recall that, during these last five centuries, the Belgians have been respectively under French, Spanish, Austrian, and Dutch rule. This explains why we have such pretty, fair women of the northern type, provocative dark beauties whose ancestors came from Spain, and others in whom the blood of various races that have settled on our soil is mingled with the happiest results.
    “This makes our hyper-nationalists, who talk so eloquently about. ‘Belgian hearts beating as one,’ about the deeper reasons for our unity, and the glory of our ancestors, sound picturesque rather than convincing. Our ancestors! Why, they came from