The Fountain of Brussels

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7241, 22 August 1933, Page 2

The Fountain of Brussels

It lies almost hidden among the bewildering variety of flower-beds which stretch ,liike 60mc goTgeous Brussels carpet, right up to the groat park of Belgium’s copital—it is a small bronze figure of a child whoso outstretched hands are extended lovingly toward the water lilies growing in the pool around it (states an exchange). In the mornings, nursomaids bring their charges to play about the fountain, since there is a seat suitably placed and- sheltered from the sun, where they may sit and gossip while the children play around. Prim children, overdressed and consequential, gaze with silent disapproval at the figure, then glance admiringly at their own stiffly starched organdie frocks, their elaborately frilled silk coats with littlo capes. Other children bend towards it when their nurses aren’t looking, to shriek and fly as the bright sparkling drops of water which jet upwards from its palms fall on their frocks- or send an icy trickle down their neat socks.

At mid-day little office girls meet littlo office boys for a quiet talk. The girls run towards the rendezvous, the sun glinting on the marcel waves exposed by the saucy tilt of their new hats. If someone else has taken possession of the scat, they givo little "Oh’s” of disappointment, and go off to find some oth-cr place, for there's not room for more than two —as well as the bronze child who is too busy watching the water lilies to heed wlrnt goes on about her.

By the middle of the afternoon, when the office girls are still working hard, society’s butterflies come out and wander up and down, waiting until it is time to partake of "lo fiv’ o’clock” at one or other of the outdoor cafes in the Bois. They linger hero and there, and greet each other. But no young woman of social position permits herself to bo seen, sitting with a 'young man in such a very confidential corner as that which surrounds the fountain. Maybe two smartly dressed young women who have something, to say to each other may sit down for a moment. Or. two young men will smoko their cigarettes and drop the ashes on the broad green leaves covering the little pool. And so the sun sinks, and finally a man slouches up «vith a turncock and turns oil: the fountain (since cities must economise). The eternal patter of raindrops upon tho petals is stilled and tho bronze child crouches, more naked still without her veil, of water, with empty, blackened hands upturned against a coloured sky.