The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 29

The hostess answered:

"I have nothing to do with your madness or your couch gra.s.s; pay and be off."

"To be off," said Ulenspiegel, "and never you see again! Far rather would I die on the spot. Baesine, gentle baesine, I am little used to eat for six florins, I, a poor young man wandering by hill and dale; I am stuffed and full, and presently my tongue will hang out like a dog's in the sun: be so good as to pay me, I have well and duly earned the six florins by my hard jaw work; give me them and I will caress you, kiss you, embrace you with so great heat of grat.i.tude that twenty-seven lovers could not all together suffice for such a task."

"You are talking for money," said she.

"Would you have me eat you for nothing?" said he.

"No," said she, defending herself from him.

"Ah!" he sighed, pursuing her, "your skin is like cream, your hair like pheasant roasted golden on the spit, your lips like cherries! Is there any woman more dainty than you?"

"It becomes you well, nasty ruffian," said she, smiling, "to come still demanding six florins from me. Be happy that I have fed you gratis and asked you for nothing."

"If you only knew," said Ulenspiegel, "how much s.p.a.ce there is still!"

"Go!" said the hostess, "before my husband comes."

"I will be a lenient creditor," replied Ulenspiegel; "give me just one florin for future thirst."

"Here," said she, "bad boy."

And she gave it to him.

"Will you kindly go away?" said she.

"To go kindly would be to go to you, my dear, but it is going unkindly to leave your beauteous eyes. If you would deign to keep me with you I should eat no more than but a florin every day."

"Must I take a yard stick?" said she.

"Take mine," replied Ulenspiegel.

She laughed, but he must needs be gone.

LVI

Lamme Goedzak, in these days, came once more to live in Damme, the country of Liege being far from tranquil on account of heresy. His wife followed him with a good will, because the Liege people, good mockers by nature, made game of her husband's easy meekness.

Lamme often visited Claes, who since he had his inheritance, haunted the tavern of the Blauwe Torre and had chosen out a table there for himself and his boon companions. At the next table there sat, meanly drinking his pint pot, Josse Grypstuiver, the miserly dean of the fishmongers, a scurvy fellow, n.i.g.g.ard, living on red herrings, loving money more than his soul's salvation. Claes had put in his pouch the piece of parchment on which were marked his ten thousand years of indulgence.

One night when he was at the Blauwe Torre in the company of Lamme Goedzak, Jan van Roosebekke, and Mathys van a.s.sche, Josse Grypstuiver being present, Claes made good play with the pot, and Jan Roosebekke said to him:

"'Tis a sin to drink so much!"

Claes replied:

"You only burn half a day for a quart too much. And I have ten thousand years of indulgence in my pouch. Who would like a hundred so as to be able to drown his belly without fear or favour?"

All cried out:

"What is your price for them?"

"A quart," replied Claes, "but I will give a hundred and fifty for a muske conyn."

Certain drinkers paid Claes, one a stoup, one a piece of ham, and he cut off a little strip of parchment for each of them. It was not Claes who ate and drank the price of the indulgence, but Lamme Goedzak, who ate until he was visibly a-swelling while Claes came and went through the tavern retailing his wares.

Grypstuiver, turning his sour face towards him:

"Have you a piece for ten days?" said he.

"No," said Claes, "it's too hard to cut."

And everyone laughed, and Grypstuiver swallowed his rage. Then Claes went off to his cottage, followed by Lamme, walking as if his legs were made of wool.

LVII

Towards the end of her third year of banishment Katheline came back to her own house at Damme. And she never ceased to say in witless fas.h.i.+on: "Fire on my head, the soul is knocking, make a hole, it would fain come out." And she still fled away at the sight of oxen and of sheep. And she sat on the bench under the lime trees, behind her cottage, wagging her head and looking, without knowing them, at the folk of Damme, who said as they pa.s.sed by in front of her, "There is the madwife."

At this time, strolling by highways and byways, Ulenspiegel saw on the high road an a.s.s harnessed with leather studded with copper nails, and its head adorned with tufts and ta.s.sels of red wool.

Certain old women stood about the a.s.s all talking at the same time and saying: "No one can take possession of it, it is the horrible mount of the great wizard the Baron de Raix, who was burned alive for having sacrificed eight children to the devil----" "Gossips, he ran away so quickly that they could not catch him. Satan is in him to protect him----" "For while being weary, he stayed on his way, the sergeants of the commune came to take him bodily, but he reared and brayed so terribly that they dared not come near him----" "And it was not the braying of an a.s.s but the roaring voice of a demon----"

"So they left him to browse on thistles without putting him on his trial or burning him alive as a wizard----" "These folk have no kind of courage----"

In spite of all this fine talk, as soon as the donkey p.r.i.c.ked up his ears or lashed his ribs with his tail, the women fled shrieking, to come in again chattering and jabbering, and to do the same thing again at the least movement of the donkey.

But Ulenspiegel, contemplating them and laughing:

"Ah," said he, "endless curiosity and everlasting babble flow like a river from the mouths of gossips and especially the old ones, for in the young, the flood is less common because of their amorous employments."

Considering next the a.s.s:

"This wizard beast," said he, "is nimble and without doubt no sloucher; I can either ride or sell him."

He went off without a word, to fetch a peck of oats, made the a.s.s eat them, leaped lightly on his back, and tightening up the rein, turned to the north, the east, and the west, and from afar blessed the old women. These, swooning for terror, knelt down, and that day at the evening hour in the village it was told how an angel with a pheasant plumed hat on his head had come, had blessed them all and taken away the wizard's a.s.s, by special favour of G.o.d.

And Ulenspiegel went off bestriding his a.s.s among rich fat meadows where the horses leaped in freedom, where cows and heifers grazed, lying idly in the sun. And he called him Jef.

The a.s.s stopped and dined merrily on thistles. Sometimes he s.h.i.+vered with all his skin the while, and lashed his ribs with his tail to drive off the greedy horse flies that would fain dine like himself, but on his flesh.

Ulenspiegel, whose stomach cried hunger, was melancholy.