The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2

“If messires the travellers desire a better supper, they will speak and say what they want.”

Lamme opened wide eyes and his mouth wider still and looked at Ulenspiegel with an anguished distress.

The latter replied:

“Wandering workmen are not rich men.”

“It nevertheless happens,” said the baes, “that they do not always know all their possessions.” And pointing to Lamme: “That good phiz is worth two. What would Your Lordships please to eat and to drink – an omelette with fat ham, choesels, we made some to-day, castrelins, a capon melting under the tooth, a fine grilled carbonado with a sauce of four spices, dobbel-knol of Antwerp, dobbel-cuyt of Bruges, wine of Louvain prepared after the manner of Burgundy? And nothing to pay.”

“Bring all,” said Lamme.

The table was soon laid, and Ulenspiegel took his delight to see poor Lamme who, more famished than ever, precipitated himself upon the omelette, the choesels, the capon, the ham, the carbonadoes, and poured down his throat in quarts the dobbel-knol, the dobbel-cuyt and the Louvain wine prepared after the manner of Burgundy.

When he could eat no more, he puffed with comfort like a whale, and looked about him over the table to see if there was nothing left to put under his tooth. And he ate the crumbs of the castrelins.

Neither he nor Ulenspiegel had seen the pretty face look smiling through the panes, pass and repass in the courtyard. The baes having brought some wine mulled with cinnamon and Madeira sugar, they continued to drink. And they sang.

At the curfew, he asked them if they would go upstairs each to his large and goodly bedchamber. Ulenspiegel replied that a small one would suffice for them both. The baes replied:

“I have none such; ye shall each have a lord’s chamber, and nothing to pay.”

And indeed and in verity he brought them into chambers richly adorned with furniture and carpets. In Lamme’s there was a great bed.

Ulenspiegel, who had well drunk and was falling with sleep, left him to go to bed and promptly did likewise.

The next day, at the hour of noon, he entered Lamme’s chamber and saw him sleeping and snoring. Beside him was a pretty little satchel full of money. He opened it and saw it was gold carolus and silver patards.

He shook Lamme to wake him. The other came out of his sleep, rubbed his eyes and, looking round him uneasily, said:

“My wife! where is my wife?”

And showing an empty place beside him in the bed.

“She was there but now,” said he.

Then leaping out of the bed, he looked everywhere again, searched in all the nooks and corners of the chamber, the alcove and the cupboards, and said, stamping his foot:

“My wife! Where is my wife?”

The baes came up at the noise.

“Rascal,” said Lamme, catching him by the throat, “where is my wife? What hast thou done with my wife?”

“Impatient tramper,” said the baes, “thy wife? What wife? Thou didst come alone. I know naught.”

“Ha! he knows naught,” said Lamme, ferreting once more in all the nooks and corners of the room. “Alas! she was there, last night, in my bed, as in the time of our good loves. Aye. Where art thou, my darling?”

And flinging the purse on the ground:

“’Tis not thy money I want, ’tis thou, thy sweet body, thy kind heart, O my beloved! O heavenly joys! Ye will come back no more. I had grown hardened not to see thee, to live without love, my sweet treasure. And lo, having come to me again, thou dost abandon me. But I will die. Ha! my wife? Where is my wife?”

And he wept with scalding tears on the ground where he had cast himself. Then all at once opening the door, he started to run throughout the whole of the inn, and into the street, in his shirt, crying:

“My wife? Where is my wife?”

But soon he came back, for the mischievous boys hooted him and threw stones at him.

And Ulenspiegel said to him, forcing him to clothe himself:

“Do not be so overwhelmed; you shall see her again, since you have seen her. She loves you still, since she came back to you, since it was doubtless she that paid for the supper and for the lordly chambers, and that put on your bed this full pouch. The ashes tell me that this is not the doing of a faithless wife. Weep no more, and let us march forth for the defence of the land of our fathers.”

“Let us still remain in Bruges,” said Lamme; “I would fain run through the whole town, and I will find her.”

“You will not find her, since she is hiding from you,” said Ulenspiegel.

Lamme asked for explanations from the baes, but the other would tell him nothing.

And they went away towards Damme.

While they went on their way, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“Why do you not tell me how you found her beside you, last night, and how she left you?”

“My son,” replied Lamme, “you know that we had feasted on meat, on beer, on wine, and that I could hardly breathe when we went off to bed. I held a wax candle in my hand, like a lord, to light me and had put down the candlestick on a chest to sleep; the door had remained ajar, the chest was close to it. Undressing, I looked on my bed with great love and desire for sleep; the wax candle suddenly went out. I heard as it were a breath and a sound of light feet in my chamber; but being more sleepy than afraid, I lay down heavily. As I was about to fall asleep, a voice – her voice, O my wife, my poor wife! – said to me: ‘Have you supped well, Lamme?’ and her voice was beside me, and her face, too, and her sweet body.”

XLI

On that day Philip the king, having eaten too much pastry, was more melancholy than usual. He had played upon his living harpsichord, which was a case containing cats whose heads came out through round openings above the keys. Every time the king struck a key, the key in turn struck a cat with a dart, and the beast mewed and complained by reason of the pain.

But Philip never laughed.

Unceasingly, he sought in his mind how he could conquer the great queen, Elizabeth, and set up Mary Stuart on the throne of England. With this object he had written to the Pope who was needy and full of debts; the Pope had replied that for this enterprise he would gladly sell the holy vessels of the temples and the treasures of the Vatican.

But Philip never laughed.

Ridolfi, Queen Mary’s favourite, who hoped, by delivering her, to marry her afterwards and become king of England, came to see Philip and with him plot the murder of Elizabeth. But he was so “parlanchin,” as the king wrote, so given to talking, that his designs were openly talked about in the Antwerp Bourse; and the murder was never committed.

And Philip never laughed.

Later, in accordance with the king’s orders, the bloody duke sent two couples of assassins into England. They succeeded in getting hanged.

And Philip never laughed.

And thus God brought to naught and thwarted the ambition of this vampire, who looked to remove her son from Mary Stuart and to reign in his stead, with the Pope, over England. And the murderer was irritated to see this noble country so great and powerful. He never ceased to turn his pale eyes towards it, seeking how he might crush it so as to reign thereafter over the whole world, exterminate the reformers, and especially the rich, and inherit the victim’s wealth.

But he never laughed.

And mice and field mice were brought to him in an iron box, with high sides, and open of one side; and he put the bottom of the box on a hot fire and took his pleasure in seeing and hearing the poor little beasts leaping, moaning, and dying.

But he never laughed.

Then pale and with trembling hand he went to the arms of Madame d’Eboli, to slake the fire of his lust lit by the torch of cruelty.

And he never laughed.

And Madame d’Eboli received him for fear and not for love.

XLII

The air was warm: from the quiet sea there came not a breath of wind. Scarce did the trees by the canal of Damme shiver, the grasshoppers dwelt in the meadows, while in the fields men from the churches and the abbeys came to fetch the thirteenth part of the harvest for the curés and the abbots. Out of the sky, blue, ardent, deep, the sun poured down warmth and Nature slept under his rays like a fair girl naked and swooning under her lover’s caresses. The carps were cutting capers above the surface of the canal to seize the flies that buzzed like a kettle; while the swallows, with their long bodies and great wings, disputed the prey with them. From the earth rose a warm vapour, wavering and shimmering in the light. The beadle of Damme announced from the top of the tower, by means of a cracked bell sounding like a pot, that it was noon and time for the country folk working at the haymaking to go to dinner. Women cried long and loud, holding their closed hands funnel-wise, calling in their men, brothers or husbands, by name: Hans, Pieter, Joos; and one might see their red hoods above the hedges.

Far off, in the eyes of Lamme and Ulenspiegel, rose lofty, square, and massive the tower of Notre Dame, and Lamme said:

“There, my son, are thy griefs and thy love.”

But Ulenspiegel made no answer.

“Soon,” said Lamme, “shall I see my ancient home and perchance my wife.”

But Ulenspiegel made no answer.

“Man of wood,” said Lamme, “heart of stone, nothing then can affect you, neither the nearness of the places in which you spent your boyhood, nor the dear shades of poor Claes and poor Soetkin, the two martyrs. What! you are neither sad nor glad; what then hath dried up your heart in this way? Look at me, anxious, uneasy, bounding in my belly; look at me…”

Lamme looked at Ulenspiegel and saw him with head livid, pale and hanging, his lips trembling, and weeping without saying a word.

And he held his tongue.

They marched thus in silence as far as Damme, and came into it by the street of the Heron, and saw no one in it, because of the heat. The dogs, with their tongues hanging out, lying on their sides, were gaping before the thresholds of the doors. Lamme and Ulenspiegel passed directly in front of the Townhall, before which Claes had been burned; the lips of Ulenspiegel trembled more, and his tears dried up. Finding himself over against the house of Claes, occupied by a coalman, he said to him as he went within:

“Dost thou know me? I am fain to rest here.”

The master coalman said:

“I know thee; thou art the son of the victim. Go wherever thou wouldst in this house.”

Ulenspiegel went into the kitchen, then into the bedchamber of Claes and Soetkin, and there he wept.

When he had come down thence, the master coalman said to him:

“Here are bread, cheese, and beer. If thou art hungry, eat; if thou art thirsty, drink.”

Ulenspiegel signed with his hand that he was neither hungry nor thirsty.

He walked thus with Lamme, who stayed astraddle on his ass, while Ulenspiegel held his by the halter.

They arrived at Katheline’s cottage, tied up their asses, and went in. It was meal time. There were on the table haricots in their pods mixed with great white beans. Katheline was eating; Nele was standing and ready to pour into Katheline’s plate a vinegar sauce she had just taken from the fire.

When Ulenspiegel came in, she was so startled that she put the pot and all the sauce in Katheline’s plate, who, nodding her head, began to hunt for the beans around the saucepot with her spoon, and striking herself on the forehead, repeated like a madwoman:

“Take away the fire! My head is burning!”

The smell of the vinegar made Lamme hungry.

Ulenspiegel remained standing, looking at Nele, smiling with love through his great sadness.

And Nele, without a word, threw her arms about his neck. She, too, seemed bereft of her wits; she wept, laughed; and red with great and sweet joy, she said only: “Thyl! Thyl!” Ulenspiegel, happy, gazed at her; then she left him, went and stationed herself farther off, contemplated him with joy and from there once again sprang upon him, throwing her arms about his neck; and so several times over. He held her, very happy, unable to sever from her, until she fell upon a chair, wearied out and as though out of her senses; and she said without any shame:

“Thyl! Thyl! my beloved, and so there you are back again!”

Lamme was standing at the door; when Nele was calmed, she said, pointing to him:

“Where have I seen this big man?”

“This is my friend,” said Ulenspiegel. “He is seeking for his wife in my company.”

“I know thee,” said Nele, speaking to Lamme; “thou didst use to dwell in the street of the Heron. Thou art seeking thy wife; I saw her at Bruges, living in all piety and devoutness. Having asked her why she had so cruelly abandoned her husband, she answered me: ‘Such was the holy will of God and the order of the holy Penance, but I cannot live with him henceforth.’”

Lamme was sad at this word, and looked at the beans in vinegar. And the larks, singing, sprang aloft in the sky, and Nature in ecstasy allowed herself to be caressed by the sun. And Katheline with her spoon picked out all round the pot the white beans, the green pods, and the sauce.

XLIII

At this time a girl of fifteen went from Heyst to Knokke, alone, in broad daylight, through the dunes. No one had any fears for her, for it was well known that weer-wolves and evil spirits of the damned bite only by night. She was carrying in a pouch forty-eight sols in silver, of the value of four florins carolus, which her mother Toria Pieterson, who lived at Heyst, owed, out of the proceeds of a sale, to her uncle, Jan Rapen, who lived at Knokke. The girl, by name Betkin, having donned all her best finery, had gone off gaily.

That night her mother was uneasy not to see her come home; still, thinking she had slept at her uncle’s house, she reassured herself.

The next day certain fishermen, coming back from sea with a boat full of fish, hauled their boat up on the beach and unloaded their fish into carts, to sell it by auction, cart by cart, in Heyst. They climbed up the road, strewn with broken shells, and found among the dunes a young girl stripped quite naked, even of her chemise, and blood around her. Coming near, they saw in her poor broken neck the marks of long, sharp teeth. Lying on her back, her eyes were open, staring at the sky, and her mouth was open, too, as if to cry out on death!

Covering the girl’s body with an opperst-kleed, they brought it to Heyst, to the Townhall. Thither speedily assembled the aldermen and the barber-surgeon, who declared that those long teeth were never wolf’s teeth as they were made by Nature, but belonged to some wicked and evil and infernal weer-wolf, and that it behoved all men to pray to God to deliver the land of Flanders.

And in all the country and especially at Damme, Heyst, and Knokke, were ordained prayers and orisons.

And the people, groaning, remained in the churches.

In the church of Heyst, where the corpse of the young girl was laid out and exposed, men and women wept, seeing her neck all bloody and torn. And the mother said in the very church:

“I will go to the weer-wolf and kill him with my teeth.”

And the women, weeping, egged her on to do this. And some said:

“Thou wilt never come back.”

And she went, with her husband and her two brothers well armed, to hunt for the wolf by beach, dune, and valley, but never found him. And her husband was obliged to take her home, for she had caught fever by reason of the night cold; and they watched beside her, mending their nets for the next fishing day.

The bailiff of Damme, bethinking himself that the weer-wolf is a beast that lives on blood and does not strip the dead, said that this one was doubtless followed by robbers wandering about the dunes seeking their evil gain. Wherefore he summoned by the sound of the church bell all and sundry, directing them to fall well armed and furnished with cudgels upon all beggars and tramping ruffians, to apprehend their persons and search them to see if they might not have in their satchels gold carolus or any portion of the victim’s raiment. And after this the able-bodied beggars and tramps should be taken to the king’s galleys. And the aged and infirm should be allowed to go their ways.

But they found nothing.

Ulenspiegel went to the bailiff’s and said to him:

“I mean to slay the weer-wolf.”

“What gives thee this confidence?” asked the bailiff.

“The ashes beat upon my heart,” answered Ulenspiegel. “Grant me permission to work in the forge of the commune.”

“Thou mayst do so,” said the bailiff.

Ulenspiegel, without saying a word of his project to any man or woman in Damme, went off to the forge and there in secret he fashioned a fine and large-sized engine to trap wild beasts.

The next day, being Saturday, a day beloved of the weer-wolf, Ulenspiegel, carrying a letter from the bailiff for the curé of Heyst, and the engine under his cloak, armed also with a good crossbow and a well-sharpened cutlass, departed, saying to the folk in Damme:

“I am going to shoot sea-mews and I will make pillows for the bailiff’s wife with their down.”

Going towards Heyst, he came upon the beach, heard the boisterous sea curling and breaking in big waves, roaring like thunder, and the wind came from England whistling in the rigging of shipwrecked boats. A fisherman said to him:

“This is ruin to us, this ill wind. Last night the sea was still, but after sunrise it got up suddenly into fury. We shall not be able to go a-fishing.”

Ulenspiegel was glad, assured thus of having help during the night if there should be need.

At Heyst he went to the curé, and gave him the letter from the bailiff. The curé said to him:

“Thou art bold: yet know that no man passes alone at night, by the dunes, on Saturday without being bitten and left dead on the sand. The workmen on the dykes and others go there only in bands. Night is falling. Dost thou hear the weer-wolf howling in his valley? Will he come again as he did this last night, to cry terribly in the graveyard the whole night long? God be with thee, my son, but go not thither.”

And the curé crossed himself.

“The ashes beat upon my heart,” answered Ulenspiegel.

The curé said:

“Since thou hast so stout a mind, I will help thee.”

“Master curé,” said Ulenspiegel, “you would do a great boon to me and to the poor desolated country by going to the house of Toria, the mother of the slain girl, and to her two brothers likewise to tell them that the wolf is close at hand, and that I mean to await and kill him.”

The curé said:

“If thou dost not yet know on what path thou shouldst take up thy stand, stay in that one that leads to the graveyard. It is between two hedges of broom. Two men could not walk in it side by side.”

“I will take my stand there,” said Ulenspiegel. “And do you, valiant master curé, co-worker of deliverance, order and enjoin the girl’s mother, with her husband and her brothers, to be in the church, all armed, before the curfew. If they hear me whistling like the sea-mew, it will mean that I have seen the weer-wolf. They must then sound wacharm on the bell and come to my rescue. And if there are any other brave men?..”

“There are none, my son,” replied the curé. “The fishermen fear the weer-wolf more than the plague and death. But go not thither.”

Ulenspiegel replied:

“The ashes beat upon my heart.”

The curé said then:

“I shall do as thou wishest; be thou blessed. Art thou hungry or thirsty?”

“Both,” replied Ulenspiegel.

The curé gave him beer, bread, and cheese.

Ulenspiegel drank, ate, and went away.

Going along and raising his eyes, he saw his father Claes in glory, by the side of God, in the sky where the clear moon was shining, and looked at the sea and the clouds and he heard the tempestuous wind blowing out of England.

“Alas!” said he, “black clouds that pass so swift, be ye like Vengeance upon the heels of Murder. Roaring sea, sky that dost make thee black as the mouth of hell, waves with the fire foam running along the sombre water, shaking impatient, wrathful, ye animals innumerable of fire, oxen, sheep, horses, serpents that wallow upon the sea or rise up into the air, belching out a flaming rain, O sea all black, sky black with mourning, come with me to fight against the weer-wolf, the foul murderer of little girls. And thou, wind that wailest plaintively in the bents on the dunes and in the cordage of the ships, thou art the voice of the victims crying out for vengeance to God; may He be my helper in this enterprise.”

And he went down into the valley, tottering on his two natural posts as if he had had the drunkard’s wine-lees in his head and a cabbage-indigestion on his stomach.

And he sang hiccuping, zigzagging, yawning, spitting, and stopping, playing at a pretence of vomiting, but in reality opening his eyes wide to study closely everything about him, when suddenly he heard a shrill howling; he stopped short, vomiting like a dog, and saw in the light of the strong shining moon the long shape of a wolf walking towards the cemetery.

Tottering again he entered on the path marked out among the broom. There, feigning to fall, he set the engine on the side whence the wolf was coming, made ready his crossbow, and moved away ten paces, standing in a drunken attitude, continually pretending to stagger about, to hiccup and vomit, but in verity stringing up his wits like a bow and keeping eyes and ears wide open.

And he saw nothing, nothing but the black clouds running like mad things over the sky and a large thick and short shape coming towards him; and he heard nothing but the wind wailing plaintively, the sea roaring like thunder, and the shell-strewn road crackling under a heavy, stumbling tread.

Feigning to want to sit down, he fell on the road like a drunkard, heavily. And he spat.

Then he heard as it were iron clicking two paces from his ear, then the noise of his engine shutting up and a man’s cry.

“The weer-wolf,” he said, “has his front paws taken in the trap. He gets up howling, shaking the engine, trying to run. But he will never escape.”

And he sped a crossbow dart into his legs.

“And now he falls, wounded,” said he.

And he whistled like a sea-mew.

Suddenly the church bell rang out the wacharm, a shrill lad’s voice cried through the village:

“Awake, ye sleeping folk, the weer-wolf is caught.”

“Praise be to God!” said Ulenspiegel.

Toria, Betkin’s mother, Lansaem her husband, Josse and Michiel her brothers, came the first with their lanterns.

“He is taken?” said they.

“See him on the roadway,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“Praise be to God!” said they.

And they made the sign of the cross.

“Who is that ringing?” asked Ulenspiegel.

Lansaem replied:

“My eldest boy; the youngest is running through the village knocking at the doors and crying that the wolf is taken. Praise be to thee!”

“The ashes beat upon my heart,” replied Ulenspiegel.

Suddenly the weer-wolf spake and said:

“Have pity upon me, pity, Ulenspiegel.”

“The wolf talks,” said they, crossing themselves. “He is a devil and he knows Ulenspiegel’s name already.”

“Have pity, pity,” said the voice, “bid the bell be quiet; it is ringing for the dead; pity, I am no wolf. My wrists are pierced by the engine; I am old and I bleed; pity! What is this shrill boy’s voice awaking the village? Pity!”

“I heard thy voice of old,” said Ulenspiegel, vehemently. “Thou art the fishmonger, the murderer of Claes, the vampire of the poor little young girls. Men and women, have no fear. ’Tis the demon, he through whom Soetkin died for grief and pain.”

And holding him by the neck beneath the chin with one hand, with the other he drew his cutlass.

But Toria, Betkin’s mother, stayed him in this movement.

“Take him alive,” she cried.

And she plucked out his white hairs by handfuls, and tore his face with her nails.

And she howled with grief and fury.

The weer-wolf, his hands fast in the engine and stumbling about the roadway, through his keen sufferings:

“Pity,” said he, “pity! take this woman away. I will give two carolus. Break those bells! Where are those children that are calling?”