From time to time I pass through the Belle Étoile as I cycle through the forest, occasionally to the Taverne de l’Homme Bleu. What a junction, a relais, it must’ve been with Cornelius, Ramée, Meute and Sapinière intersecting there! How many encounters, chance or otherwise?!
Recent tree felling sees trunks lying on the ground, ordered. One of them is nearly as old as modern-day Belgium. It had seen the halcyon days of forest travel, of hunts, of commerce, the birth of tourism. It likely benefited from earlier thinning, opening the canopy and letting it push on. Then came the Chaussée de Mont-Saint-Jean. Later, the widening of the Ring. You may just see it in the wood, disturbances written into the growth rings. Finally, it saw its own demise.
The place carries a sense of woe, of loss. It is more than unsettled, it looks, frankly, devastated. People do not linger, perhaps unnerved by the scene but I pause. I pause to remember, to reflect.
Stevens will be turning in his grave.