The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume 4 by James D. Jenkins

Author:James D. Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2020-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Felix Timmermans

The Coffin Procession

Felix Timmermans (1886-1947) was extremely popular in his day – not just in his native Belgium, but also worldwide – for his often light-hearted, rural-themed fiction, including Pallieter (1916), an uplifting book that was seen as an antidote to the grim misery of the World War One years. Curiously, though, at the beginning of his career, his outlook rendered rather pessimistic by a near-death battle with a serious illness, he penned a number of highly gloomy and macabre tales reminiscent of Poe. Several of these were featured in his collection Intimations of Death (1910) (published in English for the first time by Valancourt in 2019). ‘The Coffin Procession’ appeared in a 1924 collection by Timmermans and revisits the morbid themes of his earliest work. This is its first English-language appearance.

That winter, when he was living in Borgerhout (he lived now in the Sint-Andries neighborhood), Piet Lawijd had promised that if his little Rose might be cured of her scarlet fever, he would make a pilgrimage on foot to Scherpenheuvel and there would make an offering of his dead wife’s gold earrings and ten francs to the miracle-working statue of the Madonna.

The child was cured. Piet was firmly convinced that it was his promise that had brought about the miracle. And soon the little girl was playing once again in the street, in the clamor of the fertile, noisy neighborhood.

May, the month of Our Lady, came with its long days and blue skies, and the pilgrims went to the holy places, like Averbode, Scherpenheuvel, Edeghem, Lisp, and anywhere where there was a well-known statue of the Madonna to worship and call upon.

Piet Lawijd had forgotten his promise.

He toiled all day long at making shoes in his back room, behind the red geraniums and purple fuchsias that stood before the open window. He had to work hard to bring up his four children. He had no desire to remarry. His wife had been constantly sick for two years; he’d had his fill, he’d had enough.

Now and then he took a short break to watch his fancy pigeons or to look at his flowers by the little window, and on Sundays and Mondays he played cards from morning till night at the inn or on the doorstep of his house. You couldn’t find a better player at klaberjass. He loved his children too much to let them want for anything, and only seldom was he able to eat until his own belly was good and full. But if the opportunity presented itself, like on Saint Crispin’s day, he would stand aside for no man and would shovel down his rabbit with four pounds of potatoes like it was nothing.

But Piet Lawijd had forgotten his promise.

Yet one Monday evening his young daughter came dancing in, carrying a little pennant from Scherpen­heuvel.

Piet was really shaken up by it.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘We practiced the music for the procession to Scherpen­heuvel, and I got the little flag from the Pastor.’

Piet thought about his promise.

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