“Bruges had the air of a ghost town. The high towers, the trees along the canals withdrew, absorbed by the same muslin: impenetrable fog with not a single rift. Even the carillon seemed to have to escape, to force its way out of a prison yard filled with cotton wool to be free in the air, to reach the gables over which, every quarter of an hour, the bells poured, like falling leaves, a melancholy autumn of music.”