Smoking, crying and kissing in the Pierre Bayle Monument

With friends, Giselle philosophises about how they would use the best spot on campus for secret activities.

Some things you would rather not show at university. Studying, for instance, regularly makes me sad. When I have stared at a text for so long that words lose their meaning. But I would rather not cry in public. I’m also not the kind of student who kisses without embarrassment in full view of everyone. And if I did smoke, I certainly would not do so on the campus we are meant to keep clean for future student Rosa.

Fortunately, I have found the best place to secretly do these kinds of things after all. It is not a toilet or stairwell or any other dreary concrete place. But a bench overlooking trees and hidden from view on all sides. A work of art: the Pierre Bayle Monument.

In the north-easternmost corner of campus Woudestein, behind Theil, by that field with the mirrored droplet, which you pass when cycling from Kralingen. There stands a small structure, a pavilion, with a niche on each of its four sides containing a bench. The building is open on all sides. Yet it has been placed in such a way among the trees at the edge of campus that the rear bench cannot be seen. Between those trees and the walls of the monument, people can hardly find you.

Around the sheltered bench I find a large number of cigarette butts. I’m not the first to try to hide something here. The bench looks like wood but is actually made of cold copper. And on the bench and on panels around me are quotes from the work of philosopher Pierre Bayle, who lived in Rotterdam at the end of the seventeenth century and was best known for his religious tolerance. “The evil that one may expect from atheism is so small that God has not performed miracles to prevent it.” He was far ahead of his time. Three hundred years after his death, I choose to believe that today he would also look with a forward-thinking and forgiving gaze at our unauthorised activities.

With friends, I philosophise about the best use of the monument for Pierre Bayle. One says: first crying, then kissing, and finally smoking. With a second option of smoking, crying, smoking, kissing, smoking. Another friend would start with crying, then smoking and end on a positive note with a kiss. In what order would you kiss, smoke and cry? My order remains secret – that is between me and the monument.