The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 19

"What a haughty mien," murmured he, "hath the Emperor Charles upon the obverse, cuira.s.sed and helmeted, holding a sword in one hand and in the other the globe of this poor earthly world! He is by the grace of G.o.d Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, and so forth, and he is most gracious towards these our countries, this emperor in the cuira.s.s. And here on the reverse is a s.h.i.+eld on which are graven and displayed the arms of a duke, count, etc., pertaining to his divers possessions, with this goodly device: Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos: 'Give me strength against thy enemies.' He was valiant indeed against those of the reformed that have goods to confiscate, and he inheriteth them. Ah! were I the Emperor Charles, I would have florins minted for everybody, and each man being rich, no one should work more."

But Ulenspiegel looked in vain at the lovely money; it was gone towards the land of ruin to the clinking of quart pots and the chiming of bottles.

XL

While he displayed himself on the gutter all clad in crimson silk, Ulenspiegel had not seen Nele who from the crowd was looking on him smiling. She was living at this time at Borgerhout near Antwerp, and thought that if some fool was to fly before King Philip, it could only be her friend Ulenspiegel.

As he marched along the way, plunged in reverie, he did not hear a sound of hastening steps behind him, but felt two hands that were laid flat upon his eyes. Guessing Nele instinctively:

"Are you there?" said he.

"Aye," she said, "I have been running behind you ever since you came out of the city. Come with me."

"But where," said he, "where is Katheline?"

"Thou dost not know it," said she, "that she was tortured unjustly for a witch, then banished out of Damme for three years, and that they burned her feet and burned tow upon her head. I tell thee this that thou mayest have no fear of her, for she is out of her wits because of the cruel torment. Often she spends whole hours looking at her feet and saying: 'Hanske, my sweet devil, see what they did to thy dear. And her poor feet are like two wounds.' Then she weeps, saying: 'Other women have a husband or a lover, but I live at this moment as a widow.' I tell her then that Hanske will hate her if she speaks of him before other folk than me. And she obeys me like a child save when she sees a cow or an ox, the cause of her torture; then she flees running without stay, and nothing can stop her, fences, streams, or ditches, till she falls for weariness in some corner of the wayside or against the wall of a farm, whither I go and take her up and dress her poor feet that are by then all bleeding. And I deem that in burning the hank of tow they burned also her brain in her head."

And both were grieved thinking upon Katheline.

They came to her and saw her sitting upon a bench in the sun against the wall of a house. Ulenspiegel said to her:

"Do you know me?"

"Four times three," quoth she, "it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is Thereb. Who art thou, child of this wicked world?"

"I am Ulenspiegel," he answered, "the son of Soetkin and of Claes."

She shook her head and knew him; then beckoning him close with her finger and bending to his ear:

"If thou see him whose kisses are as snow, tell him to come back to me, Ulenspiegel."

Then showing her burned hair:

"I am ill," she said; "they have taken my wits, but when he comes he will fill my head again, which now is all empty. Hearest thou? it sounds like a bell; it is my soul knocking at the door to depart, because it burns. If Hanske comes and has no mind to fill me my head again, I will tell him to make a hole in it with a knife: the soul that is there, ever knocking to come out, grieveth me cruelly, and I shall die, yea. And now I never sleep, and I look for him always, and he must fill me my head again, yea."

And sinking down again, she groaned.

And the peasants that were coming back from the fields to go to dinner, while the church bell called them to it, pa.s.sed before Katheline saying:

"There is the madwife."

And they made the sign of the cross.

And Nele and Ulenspiegel wept, and Ulenspiegel must needs go on upon his pilgrimage.

XLI

At this time as he pilgrimaged he entered into the service of one Josse, surnamed the Kwaebakker, the cross baker, because of his vinegar face. The Kwaebakker gave him three stale loaves every week for his food, and for lodging a sloping garret under the roof, where the rain rained and the wind blew marvellously.

Seeing himself so evilly entreated, Ulenspiegel played him different tricks and this among them. When they bake in the early morning, the flour must be bolted over night. One night, then, when the moon was s.h.i.+ning, Ulenspiegel asked for a candle to see to work and had this answer from his master:

"Bolt the flour in the light of the moon."

Ulenspiegel, obeying him, bolted the flour upon the earth, where the moonlight was s.h.i.+ning.

In the morning the Kwaebakker, coming to see how much work Ulenspiegel had done, found him still bolting and said to him:

"Does flour now cost nothing at all that it should be bolted on the ground like this?"

"I bolted the flour in the moonlight as you had bidden me," answered Ulenspiegel.

The baker replied:

"Pack-donkey, it was in a sieve you should have done it."

"I thought the moon was a new-fangled kind of sieve," replied Ulenspiegel. "But there will be no great loss, I will sc.r.a.pe up the flour."

"It is too late," answered the Kwaebakker, "to get ready the dough and to bake it."

Ulenspiegel rejoined:

"Baes, our neighbour's dough is ready in the mill; shall I go and take that?"

"Go to the gallows," replied the Kwaebakker, "and fetch what is on that."

"I go, baes," answered Ulenspiegel.

He ran to the gallows field, found there the dried hand of a robber, brought it to the Kwaebakker, and said:

"Here is a hand of glory that maketh invisible all those that carry it. Wilt thou henceforward conceal thy evil disposition?"

"I shall inform the commune against you," replied the Kwaebakker, "and you will see that you have infringed upon the rights of the overlord."

When they were both before the burgomaster, the Kwaebakker, wis.h.i.+ng to tell the whole rosary of Ulenspiegel's misdeeds and delinquencies, saw that he was opening his eyes to their widest. He became so angry at this that interrupting his deposition he said to him:

"What do you want?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"You told me you would accuse me in such wise that I 'would see.' I am trying to see, that is why I look."