III
THE RIET-DIJK
Among the many quarters on the point of disappearing was the Riet-Dijk: a narrow alley throttling itself behind the curb of the houses on the quai de l'Escaut, meeting at one end a canal, a wet-dock and storing place for boats, at the other, a wider and longer artery, the Fossé-du-Bourg.
In the Riet-Dijk and the Fossé-du-Bourg, agglomerated the houses of ill-fame. It was the "corner of joy," the Blijden-Hoek of ancient chronicles. In the alley were high-priced houses; in the main street less costly ones for modest purses. There were, in this district, brothels consistent with every class and caste of customers; rich men, naval officers, sailors, soldiers.
In the evening, harps, accordions and violins vied with each other, scraping and screeching in this supreme beguinage of hospitalers, and intrigued and allured from a distance the stray passerby or traveller. Hurried melodies, rhythms of the rabble, in which were blended, like strokes of the lash or the rope's-end, the crash of brass bands and fifes: street-walkers' music.
On the street, the whole length of illuminated ground-floor windows, there was a kermesse-like oscillation; street-walkers slouching along, loungers loitering about.
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