The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 23

Ulenspiegel made answer:

"The fat hare wants me to renounce good wine, cervoise ale, and the fresh skin of women."

The girl looked at him with an ugly eye.

"Your breath is short; you must rest," said she.

"Rest myself? I see no shelter," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Your virtue," said the girl, "will serve for a quilt."

"I like your petticoat better," said he.

"My petticoat," said the girl, "would not be worthy to cover a saint such as you would fain be. Take yourself off that I may run alone."

"Do you not know," replied Ulenspiegel, "that a dog goes swifter with four feet than a man with two? And so, having four feet, we shall run better."

"You have a lively tongue for a virtuous man."

"Aye," said he.

"But," said she, "I have always observed that virtue is a quiet, sleepy, thick, and chilly quality. It is a mask to hide grumbling faces, a velvet cloak on a man of stone. I like men that have in their breast a stove well lighted with the fire of virility, which exciteth to valiant and gay enterprises."

"It was ever thus," replied Ulenspiegel, "that the lovely she-devil spake to the glorious Saint Anthony."

There was an inn a score of paces from the road.

"You have spoken well," said Ulenspiegel, "now you must drink well."

"My tongue is still cool and fresh," said the girl.

They went in. On a chest there slumbered a big jug nicknamed "belly,"

because of its wide paunch.

Ulenspiegel said to the baes:

"Dost thou see this florin?"

"I see it," said the baes.

"How many patards would thou extract from it to fill up that belly there with dobbel-clauwert?"

The baes said to him:

"With negen mannekens (nine little men), you will be clear."

"That," said Ulenspiegel, "is six Flanders mites, and overmuch by two mites. But fill it, anyhow."

Ulenspiegel poured out a goblet for the woman, then rising up proudly and applying the beak of the belly to his mouth, he emptied it all every drop into his throat. And it was as the noise of a cataract.

The girl, dumbfounded, said to him:

"How did you manage to put so big a belly into your lean stomach?"

Without replying, Ulenspiegel said to the baes:

"Bring a knuckle of ham and some bread, and another full belly, that we may eat and drink."

Which they did.

While the girl was munching a piece of the rind he took her so subtly, that she was startled, charmed, and compliant all at once.

Then questioning him:

"Whence," she said, "have they come to your virtue, this thirst like a sponge, this wolf's hunger, and these amorous audacities?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"Having sinned a hundred ways, I swore, as you know, to do penance. That lasted a whole long hour. Thinking during that hour upon my life that was to come, I saw myself fed meagrely on bread, dully refreshed with water; sadly fleeing from love; daring neither to move nor sneeze, for fear to commit wickedness; esteemed by all, feared by each; alone like a leper; sad as a dog orphaned of his master, and after fifty years of martyrdom, ending by undergoing my death in melancholy fas.h.i.+on on a pallet. The penance was long enough: so kiss me, my darling, and let us go out from purgatory together."

"Ah!" said she, obeying cheerfully, "what a good sign virtue is to put on the end of a pole!"

Time pa.s.sed in these amorous doings; nevertheless they must needs rise and go, for the girl feared to see in the midst of their pleasure the provost Spelle suddenly appear with his catchpolls.

"Truss up thy petticoat then," said Ulenspiegel.

And they ran like stags towards Destelberg, where they found Lamme eating at the Star of the Three Wise Men.

x.x.xI

Ulenspiegel often saw at Ghent, Jacob Scoelap, Lieven Smet, and Jan de Wulfschaeger, who gave him news of the good or bad fortune of the Silent.

And every time that Ulenspiegel came back to Destelberg, Lamme said to him:

"What do you bring? Good luck or bad luck?"

"Alas!" said Ulenspiegel, "the Silent, his brother Ludwig, the other chiefs and the Frenchmen were determined to go farther into France and join with the Prince of Conde. Thus they would save the poor Belgian fatherland and freedom of conscience. G.o.d willed it otherwise; the German reiters and landsknechts refused to go farther, and said their oath was to go against the Duke of Alba and not against France. Having vainly entreated them to do their duty, the Silent was forced to take them through Champagne and Lorraine as far as Strasbourg, whence they went back into Germany. All has gone awry through this sudden and obstinate departure: the King of France, despite his contract with the prince, refuses to give over the money he promised; the Queen of England would have sent him money to get back the town and the district of Calais; her letters were intercepted and despatched to the Cardinal at Lorraine, who forged an answer in the contrary sense.

"Thus we see melt away, like ghosts at the crowing of the c.o.c.k, that goodly army, our hope; but G.o.d is with us, and if the earth fail us, the water will do its work. Long live the Beggar!"