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Updated: May 23, 2025
Even to-day, within the beautiful city, the forests, with their grand old trees, still remain, and the fish-pond, called the Vijver, is there yet, with its swans. On the little island, the fluffy, downy cygnets are born and grow to be big birds, with long necks, bent like an arch.
Or, out of the bright waters, boys and men in the sunshine drew out the fish with shining scales, or lured the trout, with fly-bait, from their hiding places. In those days the fish-pond was called the Vijver, and the woods where the deer ran, Rensselaer, or the Deer's Lair.
In another part of the town, also, with their trees for nesting, and their pond for wading, are children of the same storks, whose fathers and mothers lived there before America was discovered. By and by, many people of rank and fortune came to The Hague, for its society. They built their grand houses at the slope of the hill, not far away from the Vijver, and in time a city grew up.
But neither Madame Bourmdernoot of Brussels, tall and fresh looking, nor the sisters Van Cruysen, milliners on the Vijver, nor Suzette Berger of the Folies-Marigny, then on tour through Northern Europe, had given him a sense of pleasure in its completeness. When in their company he had regretted Félicie, and had discovered that of all women, he desired her alone.
"Were you wretched, Robert, when you were away from me?" "So you are making your début at the Comédie? "Is The Hague a pretty place?" "Yes, a quiet little town. Red, grey, yellow houses, with stepped gables, green shutters, and geraniums at the windows." "What did you do there?" "Not much. I walked round the Vijver." "You did not go with women, I should hope?" "No, upon my word.
To me the most striking feature in the service was a very earnest prayer made by the clergyman for the conference. During the afternoon we also visited the old prison near the Vijver, where the De Witts and other eminent prisoners of state were confined, and in front of which the former were torn in pieces by the mob.
Among these, was a widow, whose twin babies were left without anything to eat for her husband and their father had been killed in the war. Having no money to buy a cradle, and her babies being too young to be left alone, she put the pair of little folks on her back and went out to beg. Now there was a fine lady, a Countess, who lived with her husband, the Count, near the Vijver.
That evening when driving back to the Hague by a devious route through the dense avenues of the Bosch he conversed with her again; also the next day when standing by the Vijver looking at the swans; and in each case she seemed to have at least got over her objection to being seen talking to him, apart from the remainder of the travelling party.
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