The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 1 of 2

Mother and son went away to Nele’s cottage, next door to their own home, before which they saw one of the lansquenet troopers summoned from Bruges through fear of the troubles that might arise during the trial and during the execution. For the folk of Damme loved Claes greatly.

The trooper was sitting on the pavement, before the door, busy sucking the last drop of brandy out of a flask. Finding nothing more in it, he flung it some paces away, and drawing his dagger, he amused himself in digging up the paving stones.

Soetkin, all tears, entered Katheline’s house.

And Katheline shaking her head: “The fire! Make a hole, the soul would fain escape,” said she.

LXX

The bell that is called Borgstorm – the storm of the burg – having summoned the judges to the tribunal, they met in the Vierschare, at the stroke of four, about the linden tree of judgment.

Claes was brought before them and saw seated beneath the canopy the bailiff of Damme, and beside him and opposite him the mayor, the aldermen, and the clerk.

The people flocked up at the sound of the bell in great multitude. Many said:

“The judges are not there to do the works of justice, but of imperial serfdom.”

The clerk announced that the tribunal having first met in the Vierschare, around the linden tree, had decided that, considering the denunciations and testimonies before it, there had been good ground for seizing the body of Claes, coal vendor, native of Damme, husband of Soetkin, the daughter of Joostens. They would now, he added, proceed to the hearing of the witnesses.

Hans Barbier, a neighbour of Claes, was the first heard. Having taken the oath, he said: “Upon my soul’s salvation, I affirm and asseverate that Claes, present before this court, has been known to me for almost seventeen years, that he has always lived honestly and decently, and according to the laws and rules of our holy mother the Church, has never spoken opprobriously of her, nor to my knowledge harboured any heretic, nor hidden Luther’s book, nor spoken of the said book, nor done anything that could bring him into suspicion of having transgressed the laws and regulations of the empire. So help me God and all His saints.”

Jan Van Roosebekke was next heard, and said “that during the absence of Soetkin, Claes’s wife, he had often thought he heard in the accused man’s house the voices of two men, and that often at night, after the curfew, he had seen in a small chamber beneath the roof a light, and two men, one of them was Claes, conversing together. As for saying whether the other man was heretic or no, he could not, having only seen him at a distance. As for what concerns Claes,” he added, “I will say, speaking in all truth, that since I have known him, he always kept his Easter regularly, communicated on the principal feast days, went to mass every Sunday, except that of the Blessed Blood and those following. And I know nothing further but this. So help me God and all His saints.”

Questioned if he had not seen Claes in the tavern of the Blauwe Torre selling indulgences and mocking at purgatory, Jan Van Roosebekke replied that in fact Claes had sold indulgences, but without contempt or mockery, and that he, Jan Van Roosebekke, had bought even as also was fain to do Josse Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers, who was there present among the crowd.

Thereafter the bailiff said he would proclaim the actions and conduct for the which Claes was brought before the court of the Vierschare.

“The informer,” said he, “having, as it happened, remained at Damme, so as not to go to Bruges to spend his money in riot and revelry, as is too often done at these holy times, was soberly taking the air on his own doorstep. Being there he saw a man walking in the street of the Heron. Claes, perceiving this man, went to him and saluted him. The man was arrayed in black cloth. He went into Claes’s house, and the door of the cottage was left ajar. Curious to know what this man might be, the informer went into the porch, heard Claes speaking in the kitchen with the stranger, of a certain Josse, his brother, who having been taken prisoner among the reformed troops, had been for this put to death on the rack not far from Aix. The stranger said to Claes that the money he had received from his brother being money gained through the ignorance of poor folk, he was to employ it in bringing up his son in the reformed religion. He had enjoined Claes also to leave the bosom of our Mother Holy Church, and uttered other impious words to which Claes made answer only with these words: ‘Cruel murderers! my poor brother!’ And the accused thus blasphemed against our Holy Father the Pope and his Royal Majesty, accusing them of cruelty because they most justly punished heresy as a crime, being treason divine and human. When the man had made an end of eating, the informer heard Claes cry aloud: ‘Poor Josse, may God have thee in His glory, they were cruel to thee!’ Thus he even accused God of impiety, deeming that He may receive heretics into His heaven. And Claes ceased not to say ‘My poor brother!’ The stranger, then entering into frenzy like a preacher in his preaching, cried: ‘She shall fall, great Babylon the Romish whore, and she shall become the habitation of demons and the haunt of every obscene bird!’ Claes said: ‘Cruel murderers! My poor brother!’ The stranger, continuing his discourse, said: ‘For the angel will take up that stone which is as great as a millstone. And it shall be cast into the sea, and he will say: ‘Thus great Babylon shall be cast out, and she shall no more be found.’ ‘Messire,’ said Claes, ‘your mouth is filled with anger, but tell me when shall come the reign when they that are meek and lowly of heart shall be able to live in peace upon the earth?’ ‘Never,’ replied the stranger, ‘so long as Antichrist, which is the Pope and the enemy of truth, reigneth.’ ‘Ah,’ said Claes, ‘you speak of our Holy Father without respect. Assuredly he knoweth naught of the cruel torments with which the poor reformers are punished.’ The stranger made answer: ‘He is not ignorant of these, for it is he that issueth the edicts, hath them enforced by the Emperor, now by the king, who hath the profit of confiscations, inherits from the dead, and readily brings suit for heresy against the rich.’ Claes replied: ‘These things are told in the country of Flanders, I must needs believe them; man’s flesh is weak, even when it is royal flesh. My poor Josse!’ And Claes by this signified that it was through base desire of lucre that His Majesty punished heresiarchs. The stranger, wishing to harangue further, Claes replied: ‘Be so good, messire, as to hold no more such discourses with me, for if they were overheard, they would stir up some grievous suit against me.’

“Claes arose to go to the cellar and came up thence with a jug of beer. ‘I will shut the door,’ said he then, and the informer heard no more, for he must needs lightly leave the house. The door that had been shut was nevertheless opened again at nightfall. The stranger came out, but went back speedily and knocked at it saying: ‘Claes, I am cold, I have nowhere to lodge: give me shelter, no one has seen me come in, the town is deserted and empty.’ Claes received him in his house, lighted a lantern, and was seen preceding the heretic, mounting the stairs and bringing the stranger underneath the roof to a little chamber whose window looked towards the country…”

“Who, then,” cried Claes, “who can have recounted all if not thou, vile fishmonger, whom I saw on that Sunday upon thy threshold, stiff as a post, hypocritically watching the swallows flying through the air?”

And with his finger he pointed to Josse Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers, who showed his ugly face amid the crowd of the people.

The fishmonger smiled cruelly, seeing Claes betray himself in this fashion. All the people, men, women, and girls, said one to the other:

“The poor fellow, his words will past doubt cause his death.”

But the clerk continued his announcement:

“The heretic and Claes,” said he, “conversed together for long that night, and also during other nights, during which the stranger could be seen making many gestures of threatening or blessing, and lifting his arms to heaven as the manner is of his fellows in heresy. Claes seemed to approve of his words.

“Certes, during these days, evenings and nights, they talked opprobriously of the mass, of confession, of indulgences, and of His Royal Majesty…”

“No man hath heard it,” said Claes, “and I cannot be accused thus without proofs!”

The clerk continued:

“Another thing was heard. When the stranger came out from thy house, on the seventh day at the tenth hour, the night being fallen already, thou didst walk in the way with him as far as close to the boundary of the field of Katheline. There he asked what thou hadst done with the wicked idols” – and at that the bailiff crossed himself – “of Madame Virgin, Master Saint Nicholas, and Master Saint Martin. Thou didst answer that thou hadst broken them to pieces and cast them into the well. And they were in fact found in thy well last night, and the fragments are in the torture-chamber.”

At this word Claes appeared overwhelmed. The bailiff asked him if he had nothing to say in answer: Claes made a sign with his head to say no.

The bailiff asked him if he did not wish to retract the evil thought that had made him break up the images and the impious error that by reason whereof he had uttered words opprobrious to His Divine Majesty and His Royal Majesty.

Claes answered that his body was His Royal Majesty’s but that his conscience was Christ’s, whose law he meant to follow. The bailiff asked him if this law was that of our Mother Holy Church. Claes made answer:

“It is contained in the holy Gospel.”

Called upon to answer the question whether the Pope is the representative of God upon earth:

“No,” said he.

Asked if he believed it was forbidden to worship the images of Madame the Virgin and Messieurs the Saints, he replied that it was idolatry. Questioned on the point as to whether auricular confession be a good and salutary thing, he replied:

“Christ said: ‘Confess yourselves one to another’.”

He was valiant and stout in his answers, though he seemed sorely troubled and affrighted at the bottom of his heart.

Eight o’clock having struck, and the night falling, the members of the court withdrew, deferring till the morrow their final judgment.

LXXI

In Katheline’s cottage Soetkin wept distraught with anguish. And she said over and over again:

“My husband! my poor husband!”

Ulenspiegel and Nele embraced her with utmost tenderness. Then taking them into her arms she wept in silence. And then she signed to them to leave her alone. Nele said to Ulenspiegel:

“Let us leave her there, it is her own wish: let us save the carolus.”

They went away together; Katheline kept moving round Soetkin, saying:

“Make a hole: the soul would fain escape!”

And Soetkin, with fixed eyes, looked at her without seeing her.

The cottages of Claes and Katheline touched, that of Claes set back with a little garden in front, Katheline’s had a patch of ground planted with beans giving upon the street. This patch was surrounded with a green hedge in which Ulenspiegel to get to Nele’s and Nele to get to Ulenspiegel’s, had made a big hole in their childish days.

Ulenspiegel and Nele came into this garden patch, and from there saw the trooper who with head wagging spat into the air, but the spittle fell back on his doublet. A wicker flask lay by his side:

“Nele,” said Ulenspiegel, in a whisper, “this drunken trooper has not drunk out his thirst; he must drink more still. We shall then be his master. Let us take his flask.”

At the sound of their voices, the lansquenet turned his heavy head in their direction, hunted for his flask, and not finding it, he went on spitting into the air and tried to see his spittle falling back in the moonlight.

“He is full of brandy to the teeth,” said Ulenspiegel; “do you hear how he can hardly spit?”

However, the trooper, having spit and stared in the air a long while, put out his arm again to get his hand on the flask. He found it, put his mouth to its neck, threw his head back, turned the flagon upside down, tapped on it to make it give up all its juice and sucked at it like a babe at its mother’s breast. Finding nothing in it, he resigned himself, put the flask down beside him, swore a little in high German, spat again, waggled his head to right and left, and went to sleep muttering inarticulate and unintelligible paternosters.

Ulenspiegel, knowing that this sleep would not last, and that it must be thickened further, slipped through the hole in the hedge, took the trooper’s flask, and gave it to Nele, who filled it with brandy.

The trooper did not cease to snore; Ulenspiegel passed again through the hole in the hedge and put the full flask between his legs, came back into Katheline’s bean patch and waited behind the hedge with Nele.

Because of the chill of the newly drawn liquor the trooper awoke a little, and with his first movement sought what was making him cold under the doublet.

Judging with drunken intuition that this might well be a full flask, he put his hand to it. Ulenspiegel and Nele saw him, in the light of the moon, shake the flask to hear the lap of the liquor, taste it, laugh, marvel that it should be so full, drink a mouthful, then a good gulp, put it down on the ground, take it up again and drink once more.

Then he sang:

When Seigneur Maan comes up the wayTo bid good e’en to lady Zee,

To high Germans, dame Zee, which is the sea, is the wife of Seigneur Maan, which is the moon and the master of women. And so he sang:

When Seigneur Maan comes up the wayTo bid good e’en to lady Zee,The lady Zee will straight purveyA cup of wine spiced daintily,When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.With him she then will sup that dayAnd give of kisses a relay:And when he’s cleared the supper trayWithin her bed to slumber layWhen Seigneur Maan comes up the way.Just so, my dear, provide for me,Good food and wine spiced daintilyJust so, my dear, provide for meWhen Seigneur Maan comes up the way.

Then drinking and singing a quatrain turn and turn about, he went to sleep. And he could not hear Nele saying: “They are in a pot behind the chimney-back”; nor see Ulenspiegel go through the stable into Claes’s kitchen, lift the slab of the chimney-back, find the pot and the carolus, come back into Katheline’s garden, hide the carolus there beside the well wall, knowing full well that if they were searched for it would be inside and not outside.

Then they returned to Soetkin and found the sad wife weeping and saying:

“My husband! My poor husband!”

Nele and Ulenspiegel watched by her until morning.

LXXII

On the morrow, the Borgstorm summoned with loud peals the judges to the court of the Vierschare.

When they were seated on the four benches, about the tree of justice, they interrogated Claes afresh and asked him if he wished to recant his errors.

Claes raised his hand towards heaven:

“Christ, my Lord, seeth me from on high,” said he, “I looked upon his sun when my boy Ulenspiegel was born. Where is he now, the runagate? Soetkin, my gentle goodwife, wilt thou be brave against ill fortune?”

Then looking at the linden tree, he said, cursing it:

“Storm winds and drought! make all the trees of the land of our father die as they stand rather than see freedom of conscience condemned to death under their shade. Where art thou, my son Ulenspiegel? I was hard to thee. Messieurs, have pity upon me and judge me as Our Compassionate Lord would judge me.”

All that heard him wept, save the judges.

Then he asked if there was no pardon for him, saying:

“I toiled all my days, earning but little; I was good to the poor and comfortable to all men. I left the Romish Church to obey the spirit of God that spoke to me. I ask for no other boon than to commute the penalty of the fire into that of perpetual banishment for life from the land of Flanders, a penalty already full grievous.”

All that were present cried aloud:

“Pity, sirs! Mercy!”

But Josse Grypstuiver did not cry with them.

The bailiff signed to the people there to be silent and said that the edicts contained an express prohibition against asking mercy for heretics; but that if Claes would abjure his error, he should be executed by the rope instead of by fire.

And among the people ran the word:

“Fire or rope, it is death.”

And the women wept, and the men growled sullen and low.

Then said Claes:

“I will not abjure. Do with my body as your mercy pleases.”

The dean of Renaix, Titelman, cried out:

“It is intolerable to see such heretic vermin lift up its head before its judges; to burn their bodies is but a fleeting pain; we must save their souls and force them by the torment to deny their errors, that they may not give the people the dangerous spectacle of heretics dying in final impenitence.”

At this word the women wept more and more and the men said:

“Where confession is made, there is penalty, but no torture.”

The court decided that, torture not being laid down in the Ordinances, there was no ground for making Claes undergo it. Once more called upon to abjure he replied:

“I cannot.”

He was, in accordance with the edicts, declared guilty of simony, because of the sale of the indulgences, a heretic, harbourer of heretics, and as such, condemned to be burned alive until death ensued before the doors of the Townhall.

His body would be left for two days’ space fastened to the stake to serve as an example and warning, and thereafter interred in that place where the bodies of executed criminals are wont to be buried.

The court awarded to the informer, Josse Grypstuiver, who was not named, fifty florins on the first hundred florins of the inheritance, and a tenth part of the remainder.

Having heard this sentence, Claes said to the dean of the fishmongers:

“Thou shalt come to an ill death and a bad end, thou man of evil, who for wretched pelf dost make a widow of a happy wife, and an unhappy orphan of a lighthearted son.”

The judges had allowed Claes to speak, for they also, all but Titelman, held in scorn and loathing the informing of the dean of the fishmongers.

The latter appeared all livid with shame and rage.

And Claes was taken back to gaol.

LXXIII

On the morrow, which was the day before Claes was to die, the sentence was made known to Nele, to Ulenspiegel, and to Soetkin.

They asked the judges for permission to enter the prison, which was granted, but not to Nele.

When they went in, they saw Claes fastened to the wall with a long chain. A little wood fire was burning in the fireplace because of the dampness. For it is ordained by law and justice, in Flanders, to be indulgent with those that are to die, and to give them bread, meat or cheese, and wine. But the greedy gaolers often violate the law, and many of them eat the greater part and the best of the poor prisoners’ food.

Claes embraced Ulenspiegel and Soetkin weeping, but he was the first to dry his eyes, because such was his will, being a man and head of a family.

Soetkin wept and Ulenspiegel said:

“I will break these cruel irons.”

Soetkin wept, saying:

“I will go to King Philip, he will grant pardon.”

Claes replied:

“The king inherits the goods of the martyrs.” Then he added: “Beloved wife and son, I am about to go sadly and dolorously out of this world. If I have some fear of suffering for my body, I am sore troubled also thinking that, when I am no more, ye will both be poor and in need, for the king will take all your goods.”

Ulenspiegel answered, speaking in a whisper:

“Nele saved all yesterday with me.”

“I am full glad of it,” replied Claes; “the informer will not laugh over my spoils.”

“Rather let him die first,” said Soetkin, her eye full of hate and without weeping.

But Claes, thinking of the carolus, said:

“Thou wast cunning, Thylken my dear boy; she will not be hungry then in her old age, Soetkin my widow.”

And Claes embraced her, pressing her body tightly to his breast, and she wept more, thinking that soon she must lose his sweet protection.

Claes looked at Ulenspiegel and said:

“Son, thou didst often sin as thou didst run upon the highways, as do wicked lads; thou must do so no more, my child, nor leave the afflicted widow alone in her house, for thou owest her protection and defence, thou the male.”

“Father, this I shall do,” said Ulenspiegel.

“O my poor husband!” said Soetkin, embracing him. “What great crime have we committed? We lived by us two peaceably, an honest simple life, loving one another well, Lord God, thou knowest it. We arose betimes to labour, and at night, giving thee thanks, we ate our daily bread. I will go to the king and rend him with my nails. Lord God, we were not guilty folk!”

But the gaoler came in and they must needs depart.

Soetkin begged to remain. Claes felt her poor face burn his own, and Soetkin’s tears, falling in floods, wetting his cheeks, and all her poor body shivering and trembling in his arms. He begged that she might stay with him.

The gaoler said again that they must go, and took Soetkin from out of Claes’s arms.

Claes said to Ulenspiegel:

“Watch over her.”

Ulenspiegel said he would do this. Then he went away with Soetkin, the son supporting the mother.

LXXIV

On the morrow, which was the day of execution, the neighbours came and in pity shut up Ulenspiegel, Soetkin, and Nele, in Katheline’s house.

But they had not thought that they could hear from afar the cries of the victim, and through the windows see the flame of the fire.

Katheline went roaming about the town, nodding her head and saying:

“Make a hole, the soul would fain come forth!”

At nine o’clock Claes was brought out from the prison, in his shirt, his hands bound behind his back. In accordance with the sentence, the pyre was prepared in the street of Notre Dame around a stake set up before the doors of the Townhall. The executioner and his assistants had not yet made an end of piling up the wood.

Claes, in the midst of his gaolers, waited patiently till this task was finished, while the provost, on horseback, and the liveried men of the bailiwick, and the nine lansquenets summoned from Bruges, could barely keep within bounds of respect the people growling and unruly.

All said, it was sheer cruelty to murder thus in his old age, unjustly, a poor fellow so kind hearted, compassionate, and stout hearted in toil.

Suddenly they all knelt down and prayed. The bells of Notre Dame were tolling for the dead.

Katheline also was in the crowd of the common people, in the first row, and all beside herself. Looking at Claes and the pyre, she said, nodding her head:

“The fire! the fire! Make a hole; the soul would fain escape!”

Soetkin and Nele, hearing the bells tolling, both crossed themselves. But Ulenspiegel did not, saying that he would no longer worship God after the fashion of murderers. And he ran about the cottage, seeking to break down doors and to leap out through windows; but all were guarded.

Suddenly Soetkin cried out, hiding her face in her apron:

“The smoke!”

The three afflicted ones saw indeed in the sky a great whirl of smoke, all black. It was the smoke of the pyre on which was Claes bound to a stake, and which the executioner had just set fire to in three places in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Claes looked about him, and not perceiving Soetkin and Ulenspiegel in the crowd, he was glad, thinking they would not behold him suffering.

No other sound was to be heard but the voice of Claes praying, the wood crackling, men growling, women weeping, Katheline saying: – “Take away the fire, make a hole: the soul would fain escape.” – and the bells of Notre Dame tolling for the dead.

Suddenly Soetkin became white as snow, shuddered in all her body without weeping, and pointed with her finger to the sky. A long narrow flame had just spouted up from the pyre and rose at moments above the roofs of the low houses. It was cruelly tormenting to Claes, for according to the whims of the wind it gnawed at his legs, touched his beard and made it frizzle and smoke, licked at his hair and burned it.