OP今日路过De Wallen(也就是红灯区），想到了昆德拉书里曾这么写过阿姆斯特丹的Oude Kerk

A Short Dictionary of Misunderstood Words (concluded).THE OLD CHURCH IN AMSTERDAM.There are houses running along one side of the street, and behind the large ground-floor shop-front windows all the whores have little rooms and plushly pillowed armchairs in which they sit up close to the glass wearing bras and panties. They look like big bored cats.On the other side of the street is a gigantic Gothic cathedral dating from the fourteenth century.Between the whores’ world and God’s world, like a river dividing two empires, stretches an intense smell of urine.Inside the Old Church, all that is left of the Gothic style is the high, bare, white walls, the columns, the vaulting, and the windows. There is not a single image on the walls, not a single piece of statuary anywhere. The church is as empty as a gymnasium, except in the very center, where several rows of chairs have been arranged in a large square around a miniature podium for the minister. Behind the chairs are wooden booths, stalls for wealthy burghers.The chairs and stalls seem to have been placed there without the slightest concern for the shape of the walls or position of the columns, as if wishing to express their indifference to or disdain for Gothic architecture. Centuries ago Calvinist faith turned the cathedral into a hangar, its only function being to keep the prayers of the faithful safe from rain and snow.Franz was fascinated by it: the Grand March of History had passed through this gigantic hall!…“It’s the emptiness of it that fascinates me,” said Franz. “People collect altars, statues, paintings, chairs, carpets, and books, and then comes a time of joyful relief and they throw it all out like so much refuse from yesterday’s dinner table. Can’t you just picture Hercules’ broom sweeping out this cathedral?”…“This is the first time I’ve ever been fascinated by a church,” said Franz.It was neither Protestantism nor asceticism that made him so enthusiastic; it was something else, something highly personal, something he did not dare discuss with Sabina. He thought he heard a voice telling him to seize Hercules’ broom and sweep all of Marie-Claude’s previews, all of Marie-Anne’s singers, all lectures and symposia, all useless speeches and vain words—sweep them out of his life. The great empty space of Amsterdam’s Old Church had appeared to him in a sudden and mysterious revelation as the image of his own liberation.

literally：落入加尔文宗之手阿姆的Oude Kerk，在常年累月中已经被搬空，只留下了一个哥特式的建筑风格，因而呈现出极其诡异而朴素的特质（“It’s the emptiness of it that fascinates me,” said Franz)。

昆德拉对此教堂与红灯区只有一街之隔也感到难绷（实际上目前Oude Kerk可以说红灯区的一大景点……），显然，在昆德拉的眼中，彼时的阿姆是极度自由与世俗的一隅，充满着性爱、喧哗与享乐主义，红灯区橱窗间的资本与欲望裹挟着Oude Kerk仅存的那一丝神圣。

毕竟，在加缪的短篇小说《The Fall》里，他佬也认为这一片区就是欧洲大陆的洼地，主人公从上流的巴黎「堕落」至此，在Zeedijk（现阿姆唐人街）的一间叫「墨西哥城」（波拉尼奥狂喜）的酒吧中开始如《地下室手记》的笔者一般大发牢骚。

Oude Kerk的Emptiness让Franz着迷的地方不是新教加尔文主义倡导的节俭苦行（实际上，OP认为荷兰Randstad地区的整体民俗都受此影响），而是它目前的外在呈现就好像赫拉克勒斯的扫帚一举清扫掉了所有的污秽与腐败。在内心深处Franz想要摆脱的是空洞虚假的文化活动和重复徒劳的公众话语，空无让franz回想起的是 “The endless vanity of speeches and words, the vanity of culture, the vanity of art,” “all lectures and symposia, all useless speeches and vain words”。昆德拉说Oude Kerk这种巨大的空无造就了一种极短瞬间内的自我解放，从沉重的政治与公共生活中的解放，Franz不敢告诉Sabina的就是这种超脱于自己曾塑造的、沉迷于历史进程与宏大意义的形象的短暂渴望。Oude Kerk对Franz来说是被清空后的自由。

但是本小节最搞笑的就是小节名字：Misunderstood Words。Oude Kerk的空无是对渴望着崇高沉重的franz的形象的补完。franz迷恋的空无究竟是不是一种生命的轻盈呢？仔细想想，一个真正轻盈的世界，是偶然、无序、去中心、不确定的，而加尔文宗塑造的空无景观在OP看来只是一种形式上的空无，实际上它是空无的沉重，一种纯粹的世界终局，它需要堆砌更多沉重的社会力量来达成。franz迷恋oude kerk的空无，与他后来迷恋游行与牺牲，是同一个刻奇的内核，通过崇高的动作来获取终极的意义。

与之相反的Sabina则是真·轻盈，她就不觉得空无是一件美丽之事，不同于弗兰茨联想到浮华的公共文化生活、这种清空的行为让Sabina想到的是波西米亚的城堡变成牛棚：“how after the Communist coup all the castles in Bohemia were nationalized and turned into manual training centers, retirement homes, and also cow sheds.” 清空, more often than not, 是对美的践踏，而真正的美往往藏身于 a world betrayed . 只有当这些persecutor的注意力放到别的地方时，美才会显形。

翻译为人话就是sabina觉得franz也好、共匪也好，跟美是绝缘了。

所以在昆德拉的书里，位于阿姆斯特丹红灯区的Oude Kerk其实是一块万能投影板，不管是轻盈如Sabina与沉重如Franz的人都能把自己想象的价值投射进去，确认自己的叙事，变成一种自我解放与反抗的符号。