Lamme Goedzak, in these days, came once more to live in Damme, the country of Liège being far from tranquil on account of heresy. His wife followed him with a good will, because the Liège 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, niggard, 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 Assche, 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 fashion: “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 passed by in front of her, “There is the madwife.”

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

Certain old women stood about the ass 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 ass 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 pricked 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 ass:

“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 ass 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 ass, by special favour of God.

And Ulenspiegel went off bestriding his ass 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 ass stopped and dined merrily on thistles. Sometimes he shivered 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.

“You would be full happy,” said he, “master ass, dining like this on fine fat thistles, if no one came to disturb you in your comfort and remind you that you are mortal, that is to say, born to endure every kind of hardship.”

“Even like thee,” he went on, gripping him with his legs, “even like thyself He of the Holy Slipper hath his gadfly, ’tis Master Luther; and his High Majesty King Charles hath his also, that is Messire François first of the name, the King with the long nose and the still longer sword. It is then permissible for me, a poor little fellow wandering like a Jew, to have my gadfly, too, master donkey. Alas, all my pockets have holes, and through the holes away go gadding all my lovely ducats, florins, and daelders, like a legion of mice scattering to flight before the jaws of a cat. I know not why money will have naught to do with me, me who so greatly desire money. Fortune is no woman, whatever they say, for she loveth but the scurvy miser loons that coffer her up, pouch her up, lock her up under twenty keys, and never allow her to show as much as the tip of her little golden nose at the window. That is the gadfly that devours me and stings me, and tickles me but not to make me laugh. You are not listening to me, master donkey, and you are thinking of nothing but your grazing. Ah! belly worshipper, filling thy belly, thy long ears are deaf to the cry of an empty stomach. Listen to me, I want you to.”

And he lashed him bitterly. The ass began to bray.

“Let us come away now that you have sung your song,” said Ulenspiegel.

But the donkey would not budge any more than a stone post, and seemed to have resolved to eat to the last one every thistle along the way. And there was no lack of them.

Ulenspiegel, perceiving this, he dismounted, cut a bunch of thistles, got up on his donkey again, held the bunch under his muzzle, and led him by the nose as far as the territories of the Landgrave of Hesse.

“Master donkey,” said he, as they went on their way, “you run nimbly behind my bunch of thistles, a thin diet and poor, and leave behind you the fine highway all thick beset with these dainty plants. Even so do men, smelling some after the bouquet of glory that Fortune holds under their noses, others after the nosegay of gain, others the nosegay of love. At the end of the road they perceive like you that they have pursued that which is but little, and have left behind them that which is somewhat, that is to say, health, work, rest, and comfort in their homes.”

So conversing with his ass, Ulenspiegel came before the landgrave’s palace.

Two captains of musketeers were playing dice on the stair.

One of them, red headed and of giant size, caught sight of Ulenspiegel modestly sitting upon Jef and watching their play.

“What do you want with us,” said he, “hungry pilgrim-face?”

“I am exceedingly hungry, in very deed,” said Ulenspiegel, “and am pilgrimaging against my will.”

“If you are hungry,” rejoined the captain, “eat with your neck the rope that swings from the nearest gallows destined for vagabonds.”

“Messire captain,” replied Ulenspiegel, “if you were to give me that fine gold cord you wear on your hat, I should go and hang myself with my teeth to that fat ham that swings yonder at the cook shop.”

“Where do you come from?” asked the captain.

“From Flanders,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“What would you?”

“Show His Highness the Landgrave a painting after my fashion.”

“If you are a painter and out of Flanders,” said the captain, “come within, and I will bring you to my master.”

Being come before the landgrave, Ulenspiegel saluted him three times and more.

“May Your Highness,” said he, “deign to excuse my impertinence in daring to come to lay at your noble feet a painting I made for you, wherein I had the honour to pourtray Madame the Virgin in imperial array.”

“This painting,” he went on, “may perhaps be to your liking, and in that case I vaunt myself sufficiently of my skill to hope to raise myself to that fine chair of crimson velvet wherein, during his life, the ever to be lamented painter of Your Magnanimity had place.”

The landgrave having contemplated the picture, which was a beautiful one:

“Thou shalt be our painter,” said he, “take thy seat in the chair.”

And gaily he kissed him on both cheeks. Ulenspiegel sat down.

“Thou art full ragged,” said the landgrave, scrutinizing him.

Ulenspiegel replied:

“In very truth, Monseigneur, Jef, the which is my ass, dined upon thistles, but I, for three days, I have lived only on want and fed only upon the savour of hope.”

“Thou shalt sup presently on better meat,” replied the landgrave, “but where is thy ass?”

Ulenspiegel answered:

“I left him on the Great Marketplace, over against the palace of Your Goodness; I should be glad indeed if Jef had shelter and litter and fodder for the night.”

The landgrave gave instant command to one of his pages to treat Ulenspiegel’s ass like one of his own.

Soon came the hour of the supper, that was as a revel and a feast. And the meats gave up a noble savour and the wines rained down their throats.

Ulenspiegel and the landgrave being both fire red like live coals, Ulenspiegel became gay, but the landgrave remained pensive.

“Our painter,” said he, suddenly, “thou must paint my portrait, for it is a great satisfaction to a mortal prince to bequeath to his descendants the memory of his countenance.”

“Sire Landgrave,” said Ulenspiegel, “your pleasure is my will, but it seems to my poor self that pourtrayed alone by yourself Your Lordship will have no great joy in ages to come. You must be accompanied by your noble wife, Madame the Landgravine, and your ladies and lords, your most warlike captains and officers, in the midst of whom Monseigneur and Madame will shine like two suns surrounded by lanterns.”

“True indeed, our painter,” replied the landgrave, “and what should I have to pay thee for this great work?”

“One hundred florins, in advance or otherwise,” answered Ulenspiegel.

“Here they are in advance,” said the landgrave.

“Kind and good lord,” replied Ulenspiegel, “you put oil in my lamp, it shall burn in your honour.”

The next day he asked the landgrave to cause to pass before him all those for whom he reserved the honour of figuring in the portraiture.

Came then the Duke of Lunebourg, the commander of the lansquenets in the landgrave’s service. This was a big heavy man, carrying with difficulty his paunch swollen with victuals. He drew near Ulenspiegel and whispered a word in his ear:

“If you do not, in making my portrait, take away half my fat, I shall have you hanged by my troopers.”

The duke passed on.

And then a noble lady, the which had a hump on her back and a bosom as flat as the blade of an executioner’s glaive:

“Messire painter,” said she, “if you do not give me two humps for the one that you shall take away, and do not put them in front, I shall have you quartered as a poisoner.”

The lady passed on.

Then came a young maid of honour, fair, fresh, and pretty, but who lacked three teeth under her upper lip.

“Messire painter,” she said, “if you do not make me laugh and show thirty-two teeth, I shall have you cut to pieces by my lover, who is over there.”

And pointing out the captain of musketeers who had before been playing dice on the palace stairway, she passed on.

The procession continued; Ulenspiegel remained alone with the landgrave.

“If thou hast the ill-luck,” said the landgrave, “to err in one feature the pourtraying all these countenances, I shall have thy head cut off like a chicken’s.”

“Bereft of my head,” thought Ulenspiegel, “quartered, chopped in pieces, or hanged at least, it will be much more comfortable to pourtray nothing at all. I will bethink me for it.”

“Where,” he asked the landgrave, “is the hall that I am to decorate with all these paintings?”

“Follow me,” said the landgrave.

And showing him a great room with spacious walls all bare and empty:

“This,” he said, “is the hall.”

“I should greatly like,” said Ulenspiegel, “that they should set great curtains on these walls, so as to assure my paintings against the insults of flies and against dust.”

“That shall be done,” said the landgrave.

The curtains being put in place, Ulenspiegel asked for three apprentices, as he said, to make them prepare his colours.

For thirty days, Ulenspiegel and the apprentices did nothing but hold feast and revel, sparing neither the choice viands nor the old wines. The landgrave watched over all.

However, on the thirty-first day he came and put in his nose at the door of the room which Ulenspiegel had enjoined on him not to enter.

“Well, Thyl, where are thy portraits?”

“Far away,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“Could not one see them?”

“Not yet.”

The thirty-sixth day, he put his nose in at the door again.

“Well, Thyl?” he asked.

“Ah! sire Landgrave, they are travelling towards the end.”

The sixtieth day, the landgrave became angry, and entering the room:

“Thou art immediately to show me the pictures,” said he.

“Yea, great lord,” replied Ulenspiegel, “but deign not to draw aside this curtain until you have summoned hither the lords and captains and ladies of your court.”

“I consent to this,” said the landgrave.

They all came at his command.

Ulenspiegel stood before the curtain closely drawn.

“Monseigneur Landgrave,” said he, “Madame Landgravine, and you, Monseigneur de Lunebourg, and you other beauteous dames and valiant captains, I have pourtrayed as best I could your pretty or warlike faces behind this curtain. It will be easy to recognize each one of you there. You are curious to see yourselves, it is natural, but pray have patience and permit me to say a word or two to you. Beauteous ladies and valiant captains, who are all of noble blood, you can see and admire my painting; but if among you there is one of low origin, he will see nothing save the blank wall. And now deign to open your noble eyes.”

Ulenspiegel pulled the curtain back.

“Noble men alone see aught, alone they see aught there, the noble ladies, so shall men say ere long: ‘blind in painting as a base fellow, clear seeing as a noble gentleman’!”

All opened their eyes to the widest, pretending to see, mutually pointing themselves out to one another, showing and recognizing each other, but seeing nothing in reality but the white wall, which made them grieved.

All at once the fool who was there bounded three feet into the air and shaking his bells:

“Let me be looked on as base,” said he, “a base fellow full of basest baseness, but I will say and cry and proclaim with trumpets and flourish of trumpets that I see there a bare wall, a blank wall, a naked wall. So help me God and all His saints!”

Ulenspiegel replied:

“When fools begin to talk it is time for wise men to be off.”

He was making to leave the palace when the landgrave staying him:

“Fool full of folly,” said he, “that goest about the world praising things fine and good and mocking at things stupid with wide mouth, thou that hast dared before so many noble dames and most high and mighty lords to make a vulgar mock of pride of blasonry and lordship, thou wilt be hanged one day for thy over-free speech.”

“If the rope be a golden rope,” replied Ulenspiegel, “it will break with terror to see me coming.”

“There,” said the landgrave, giving him fifteen florins, “there is the first piece of it.”

“All thanks, Monseigneur,” answered Ulenspiegel, “every inn by the way shall have a strand of it, a strand all of gold that maketh Crœsuses of all these thieving innkeepers.”

And away he went on his ass, his bonnet high, his plume streaming in the wind, merry and jolly.

LVIII

The leaves were yellowing on the trees and the autumn wind was beginning to blow. Katheline sometimes had her reason for an hour or two or three. And Claes then said that the spirit of God had visited her in His great compassion. At these moments she had power by passes and by words to cast a spell upon Nele, who saw more than a hundred leagues away all that happened in city places, in the streets, or within the houses.

On this day then, Katheline, being in her wits, was eating olie koekjes well washed down with dobbel-cuyt in company with Claes, Soetkin, and Nele.

Said Claes:

“To-day is the day of the abdication of His Sacred Majesty the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Nele, my dear, could you see as far as Brussels in Brabant?”

“I could, if Katheline is willing,” answered Nele.

Then Katheline made the girl sit upon a bench, and by her words and passes, acting like a spell, Nele sank down all deep in slumber.

Katheline said to her:

“Go into the little house in the Park, which is the favourite abode of the Emperor Charles the Fifth.”

“I am,” said Nele, speaking low and as though she was being stifled, “I am in a little chamber painted green with oil colours. There there is a man bordering upon four and fifty years, bald and gray, with a fair beard on a jutting chin, with an evil look in his gray eyes, full of cunning, of cruelty, and feigned good nature. And this man he is called Sacred Majesty. He is in catarrh and coughs sorely. Beside him is another, young, with an ugly mask like an ape hydrocephalous; that one I saw at Antwerp, it is King Philip. His Sacred Majesty at this moment is reproaching him for having slept abroad last night; doubtless, he saith, to go and find some vile creature in a filthy den in the low quarters of the city. He says his hair stinks of the tavern, which is no pleasure for a king that hath only to choose sweet bodies, skins of satin refreshed in baths of perfumes, and hands of great ladies amorous, which is far better, saith he, than a wild sow, come hardly washed from the arms of a drunken trooper. There is, saith he, never a maiden, wife, or widow who would resist him, among the most noble and beauteous, that illumine their loves with perfumed tapers, not by the greasy glimmer of stinking tallow-dips.

“The king replied that he will obey His Sacred Majesty in all things.

“Then His Sacred Majesty coughs and drinks some mouthfuls of hypocras.

“‘You will presently,’ says he, addressing Philip, ‘see the States General, prelates, nobles, and burgesses: Orange the Silent, Egmont the Vain, de Hornes the Unpopular, Brederode the Lion; and also all those of the Fleece of Gold of whom I make you sovereign. You will see there a hundred wearers of baubles, who would all cut their noses off to have the privilege of hanging them from a gold chain on their breasts, in token of higher nobility.’

“Then, changing his tone and full of sadness, His Sacred Majesty saith to King Philip:

“‘Thou knowest, my son, that I am about to abdicate in thy favour, to give the world a great spectacle and to speak in front of a huge crowd, though hiccupping and coughing – for all my life I have eaten over much, my son – and thy heart must be hard indeed, if having heard me, thou dost not shed a few tears.’

“‘I shall weep, father,’ answers King Philip.

“Then His Sacred Majesty speaks to a valet called Dubois:

“‘Dubois,’ says he, ‘give me a piece of Madeira sugar, I have a hiccup. If only it will not seize me when I shall be speaking to all these people. Will that goose I had yesterday never be done with! Should I drink a tankard of Orleans wine? No, it is too harsh! Should I eat a few anchovies? They are very oily. Dubois, give me some Romagna wine.’

“Dubois gives His Majesty what he asketh, then puts upon him a gown of crimson velvet, wraps him in a gold cloak, girds on his sword, puts into his hands the sceptre and the globe, and the crown upon his head.

“Then His Sacred Majesty leaves the house in the Park, riding on a low mule and followed by King Philip and many high personages. In this fashion they go into a great building that they call a palace, and there they find in a chamber a tall slender man, richly clad, whom they call Orange.

“His Sacred Majesty speaks to this man and says to him: ‘Do I look well, cousin William?’

“But the man makes no answer, not a word.

“His Sacred Majesty then says to him, half laughing, half angry:

“‘You will be dumb always, then, cousin, even to tell the truth to old broken-down things? Ought I to reign still or to abdicate, Silent One?’

“‘Sacred Majesty,’ replied the slender man, ‘when winter cometh the most vigorous oaks let their leaves fall.’

“Three of the clock strikes.

“‘Silent One,’ says he, ‘lend me thy shoulder, that I may lean on it.’

“And he enters with him and with his retinue into a great hall, takes his seat under a canopy and on a dais covered with silk or crimson carpets. There are three seats on it: His Sacred Majesty takes the middle one, more ornate than the others, and surmounted with an imperial crown; King Philip sits on the second, and the third is for a woman, who is doubtless a queen. To the right and to the left, seated upon tapestried benches and cushioned, are men clad in red and wearing a little gold sheep on their necks. Behind them are placed many persons who are doubtless princes and lords. Over against them and at the foot of the dais are seated, upon benches that have no cushions, men clad in cloth. I hear them say that they are thus modestly seated and clad only because they are themselves paying all their proper charges. All rose up when His Sacred Majesty came in, but he soon sate him down and signed to all to sit down likewise.

“An old man next speaks long about the gout, then the woman, who seemeth to be a queen, hands His Sacred Majesty a roll of parchment in which are written things which His Sacred Majesty reads out, coughing, and in a voice low and indistinct, and speaking of himself says:

“‘I have made many voyages in Spain, in Italy, in the Low Countries, in England and in Africa, all for the glory of God, the lustre of my arms, and the welfare of my peoples.’

“Then having spoken long, he says that he is broken and weary, and fain to deliver the crown of Spain, the counties, duchies, marquisates of these lands into his son’s hands.

“Then he weeps, and all weep with him.

“King Philip now rises, and falling upon his knees:

“‘Sacred Majesty,’ he says, ‘is it for me to accept this crown at your hands when you are so capable of wearing it still!’

“Then His Sacred Majesty whispered in his ear to speak comfortably to the men seated upon the cushioned benches.

“King Philip, turning towards them, says to them in a harsh tone and without rising:

“‘I understand French passing well, but not sufficiently to speak to you in that tongue. Ye will hear what the Bishop of Arras, Master Grandvelle, shall say to you on my behalf.’

“‘Thou sayest ill, my son,’ says His Sacred Majesty.

“And indeed the assembly murmurs, seeing the young king so arrogant and so haughty. The woman, who is the queen, speaks also to make her eulogy, then comes the turn of an aged man of learning who, when he has made an end, receives a sign from the hand of His Sacred Majesty by way of thanks. These ceremonies and harangues being over, His Sacred Majesty declares his subjects released from their oath of fidelity, signs the acts drawn up to that end, and rising up from his throne, sets his son therein. And everyone in the hall weeps. Then they go back to the house in the Park.

“There, being once more in the green chamber, alone and all doors fast shut, His Sacred Majesty laughs loud and long, and speaking to King Philip who laughs not:

“‘Did you see,’ he says, speaking, hiccuping, and laughing all together, ‘how little is needed to move these good souls? What a deluge of tears! And that fat Maes who, when he finished his long discourse, wept like a calf. You yourself seemed touched, but not enough. These are the true spectacles the common folk must have. My son, we men love our mistresses the more the more they cost us. It is the same with peoples. The more we make them pay, the more they love us. In Germany I tolerated the reformed faith that I punished severely in the Low Countries. If the princes of Germany had been catholic, I would have been Lutheran and confiscated their goods. They believe in the reality of my zeal for the Roman faith and regret to see me leave them. There have perished at my hands, in the Low Countries and for heresy, fifty thousand of their most hardy men and prettiest maids. I am departing, they lament. Without counting confiscations, I have made them pay more than the Indies and Peru: they are heartbroken at losing me. I have torn up the peace of Cadzand, broken Ghent, suppressed everything that could come in my way; liberties, franchises, privileges, everything is at the discretion of the prince’s officers: these good souls think they are still free because I allow them to shoot with the cross bow and carry the banners of their guilds in procession. They felt my hand as master: put in a cage, they find themselves comfortable there, they sing in it and weep for me. My son, be to them as I have been: benign in words, harsh in deeds; lick as long as there is no need to bite. Swear, swear always to their liberties, franchises, and privileges, but if there be any peril to yourself, destroy them all. They are iron if one touch them with a faltering hand, glass if you brush them with a strong arm. Smite heresy not because of its divergence from the Roman religion, but because in these Low Countries it would destroy our authority; those that attack the Pope, who weareth a triple crown, have speedily done with princes that have but one. Make it treason, as I did liberty of conscience, entailing the confiscation of goods, and you will inherit them as I did all my life, and when you depart, to abdicate or to die, they will say: – ’Oh! the good prince!’ and they will weep.

“And I hear nothing more,” went on Nele, “for His Sacred Majesty has lain down on a bed and is asleep, and King Philip, arrogant and proud, looks upon him with no love.”

Having said so much, Nele was awakened by Katheline. And Claes, pensive, looked at the flame on the hearth lightening up the chimney place.