Seeking therein shade and sweet fragrance, they went into it, without seeing anything but the long forest alleys going in every direction towards Bruges, Ghent, South Flanders, and North Flanders.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel jumped down from his ass.

“Dost thou see nothing yonder?”

Lamme said:

“Aye, I see.” And trembling: “My wife, my good wife! ’Tis she, my son. Ha! I cannot walk to her. To find her thus!”

“What are you complaining of?” said Ulenspiegel.

“She is beautiful thus half-naked, in this muslin tunic cut in open work that lets the fresh skin be seen. That one is too young; she is not your wife.”

“My son,” said Lamme, “it is she, my son; I know her. Carry me. I can go no more. Who would have thought it of her? To dance clad in this way like an Egyptian, shamelessly! Aye, it is she; see her shapely legs, her arms bare to the shoulder, her breasts round and golden half emerging from her muslin tunic. See how with that red flag she excites that great dog jumping up at it.”

“’Tis a dog of Egypt,” said Ulenspiegel; “the Low Countries give none of that kind.”

“Egypt … I do not know… But it is she. Ha! my son, I can see no more. She plucks up her breeches higher to show more of her round legs. She laughs to show her white teeth, and loudly to let the sound of her sweet voice be heard. She opens her tunic at the top and throws herself back. Ha! that swan neck amorous, those bare shoulders, those bright bold eyes! I run to her!”

And he leaped from his ass.

But Ulenspiegel, stopping him:

“This girl,” said he, “is not your wife. We are near a camp of Egyptians. Beware… See you the smoke behind the trees? Hear you the barking of the dogs? There, here are some looking at us, ready to bite perhaps. Let us hide deeper in the brake.”

“I will not hide,” said Lamme; “this woman is mine, as Flemish as ourselves.”

“Blind and madman,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Blind, nay! I see her well, dancing, half-naked, laughing and teasing this great dog. She feigns not to see us. But she does see us, I assure you. Thyl, Thyl! there is the dog hurling himself on her and throws her down to have the red flag. And she falls, uttering a plaintive cry.”

And Lamme suddenly dashed towards her, saying to her:

“My wife, my wife! where are you hurt, darling? Why do you laugh so loud? Your eyes are haggard.”

And he kissed her and caressed her and said:

“That beauty spot you had under the left breast, I see it not. Where is it? Thou art not my wife. Great God of Heaven!”

And she never stopped laughing.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel cried out:

“Guard thee, Lamme!”

And Lamme, turning about, saw before him a great blackamoor of an Egyptian, of a sour countenance, brown as peper-koek, which is ginger bread in the land of France.

Lamme picked up his pikestaff, and putting himself to his defence, he cried out:

“To the rescue, Ulenspiegel!”

Ulenspiegel was there with his good sword.

The Egyptian said to him in High German:

“Gibt mi ghelt, ein Richsthaler auf tsein.” (Give me money, a ricksdaelder or ten.)

“See,” said Ulenspiegel, “the girl goes away laughing loudly and even turning round to ask to be followed.”

“Gibt mi ghelt,” said the man. “Pay for your amours. We are poor folk and wish you no harm.”

Lamme gave him a carolus.

“What trade dost thou follow?” said Ulenspiegel.

“All trades,” replied the Egyptian: “being master of arts in suppleness, we do miraculous and magic tricks. We play on the tambourine and dance Hungarian dances. More than one among us make cages and gridirons to roast fine carbonadoes therewith. But all, Flemings and Walloons, are feared of us and drive us forth. As we cannot live by trade, we live by marauding, that is to say, on vegetables, meat, and poultry that we must needs take from the peasant, since he will neither give nor sell them to us.”

Lamme said to him:

“Whence comes this girl, who is so like to my wife?”

“She is our chief’s daughter,” said the blackamoor.

Then speaking low like a man in fear:

“She was smitten by God with the malady of love and knows naught of woman’s modesty. As soon as she seeth a man, she entereth on gaiety and wildness, and laughs without ceasing. She saith little; she was long thought to be dumb. By night, in sadness, she stays before the fire, weeping at whiles or laughing without reason, and pointing to her belly, where, she saith, she hath a hurt. At the hour of noon, in summer, after the meal, her sharpest madness cometh upon her. Then she goeth to dance near naked on the outskirts of the camp. She will wear naught but raiment of tulle or muslin, and in winter we have great trouble to cover her with a cloak of cloth of goat’s hair.”

“But,” said Lamme, “hath she not some man friend to prevent her from abandoning herself thus to all comers?”

“She hath none,” said the man, “for travellers, coming near her and beholding her eyes distraught, have more of fear than desire for her. This big man was a bold one,” said he, pointing to Lamme.

“Let him talk, my son,” said Ulenspiegel; “it is the stockvisch slandering the whale. Which of the two is the one that gives most oil?”

“You have a sharp tongue this morning,” said Lamme.

But Ulenspiegel, without listening to him, said to the Egyptian:

“What doth she when others are as bold as my friend Lamme?”

The Egyptian answered sadly:

“Then she hath pleasure and gain. Those who win her pay for their delight, and the money serves to clothe her and also for the necessities of the old men and the women.”

“She obeyeth none then?” said Lamme.

The Egyptian answered:

“Let us allow those whom God hath smitten to do as they wish. Thus he marks his will. And such is our law.”

Ulenspiegel and Lamme went away. And the Egyptian returned thence to his camp, grave and proud. And the girl, laughing wildly, danced in the clearing.

XL

Going on their way to Bruges, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“We have disbursed a heavy sum of money in the enlisting of soldiers, in payment to the catchpolls, the gift to the Egyptian girl, and those innumerable olie-koekjes that it pleased you to eat without ceasing rather than to sell a single one. Now notwithstanding your belly-will, it is time to live more circumspectly. Give me your money. I will keep the common purse.”

“I am willing,” said Lamme. And giving it to him: “All the same, do not leave me to die of hunger,” said he, “for think on it, big and strong as I am, I must have substantial and abundant nourishment. It is well for you, a thin and wretched fellow, to live from hand to mouth, eating or not eating what you pick up, like planks that live on air and rain on the quays. But for me, whom air hollows and rain hungers, I must needs have other feasts.”

“You shall have them,” said Ulenspiegel, “feasts of virtuous Lents. The best filled paunches cannot resist them; deflating little by little, they make the heaviest light. And presently will Lamme my darling be seen sufficiently thinned down, running like a stag.”

“Alas!” said Lamme. “What henceforth will be my starveling fate? I am hungry, my son, and would fain have supper.”

Night was falling. They arrived in Bruges by the Ghent gate. They showed their passes. Having had to pay one demi-sol for themselves and two for their asses, they entered into the town; Lamme, thinking of Ulenspiegel’s word, seemed brokenhearted.

“Shall we have supper, soon?” said he.

“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel.

They alighted in de Meermin, at the Siren, a weathercock which is fixed all in gold above the gable of the inn.

They put their asses in the stable, and Ulenspiegel ordered, for his supper and Lamme’s, bread, beer, and cheese.

The host grinned when serving this lean meal: Lamme ate with hungry teeth, looking in despair at Ulenspiegel labouring with his jaws upon the too-old bread and the too-young cheese, as if they had been ortolans. And Lamme drank his small beer with no pleasure. Ulenspiegel laughed to see him so miserable. And there was also someone that laughed in the courtyard of the inn and came at whiles to show her face at the window. Ulenspiegel saw that it was a woman that hid her face. Thinking it was some sly servant he thought no more of it, and seeing Lamme pale, sad, and livid because of his thwarted belly loves, he had pity and thought of ordering for his companion an omelette of black puddings, a dish of beef and beans, or any other hot dish, when the baes came in and said, doffing his headgear:

“If messires the travellers desire a better supper, they will speak and say what they want.”

Lamme opened wide eyes and his mouth wider still and looked at Ulenspiegel with an anguished distress.

The latter replied:

“Wandering workmen are not rich men.”

“It nevertheless happens,” said the baes, “that they do not always know all their possessions.” And pointing to Lamme: “That good phiz is worth two. What would Your Lordships please to eat and to drink – an omelette with fat ham, choesels, we made some to-day, castrelins, a capon melting under the tooth, a fine grilled carbonado with a sauce of four spices, dobbel-knol of Antwerp, dobbel-cuyt of Bruges, wine of Louvain prepared after the manner of Burgundy? And nothing to pay.”

“Bring all,” said Lamme.

The table was soon laid, and Ulenspiegel took his delight to see poor Lamme who, more famished than ever, precipitated himself upon the omelette, the choesels, the capon, the ham, the carbonadoes, and poured down his throat in quarts the dobbel-knol, the dobbel-cuyt and the Louvain wine prepared after the manner of Burgundy.

When he could eat no more, he puffed with comfort like a whale, and looked about him over the table to see if there was nothing left to put under his tooth. And he ate the crumbs of the castrelins.

Neither he nor Ulenspiegel had seen the pretty face look smiling through the panes, pass and repass in the courtyard. The baes having brought some wine mulled with cinnamon and Madeira sugar, they continued to drink. And they sang.

At the curfew, he asked them if they would go upstairs each to his large and goodly bedchamber. Ulenspiegel replied that a small one would suffice for them both. The baes replied:

“I have none such; ye shall each have a lord’s chamber, and nothing to pay.”

And indeed and in verity he brought them into chambers richly adorned with furniture and carpets. In Lamme’s there was a great bed.

Ulenspiegel, who had well drunk and was falling with sleep, left him to go to bed and promptly did likewise.

The next day, at the hour of noon, he entered Lamme’s chamber and saw him sleeping and snoring. Beside him was a pretty little satchel full of money. He opened it and saw it was gold carolus and silver patards.

He shook Lamme to wake him. The other came out of his sleep, rubbed his eyes and, looking round him uneasily, said:

“My wife! where is my wife?”

And showing an empty place beside him in the bed.

“She was there but now,” said he.

Then leaping out of the bed, he looked everywhere again, searched in all the nooks and corners of the chamber, the alcove and the cupboards, and said, stamping his foot:

“My wife! Where is my wife?”

The baes came up at the noise.

“Rascal,” said Lamme, catching him by the throat, “where is my wife? What hast thou done with my wife?”

“Impatient tramper,” said the baes, “thy wife? What wife? Thou didst come alone. I know naught.”

“Ha! he knows naught,” said Lamme, ferreting once more in all the nooks and corners of the room. “Alas! she was there, last night, in my bed, as in the time of our good loves. Aye. Where art thou, my darling?”

And flinging the purse on the ground:

“’Tis not thy money I want, ’tis thou, thy sweet body, thy kind heart, O my beloved! O heavenly joys! Ye will come back no more. I had grown hardened not to see thee, to live without love, my sweet treasure. And lo, having come to me again, thou dost abandon me. But I will die. Ha! my wife? Where is my wife?”

And he wept with scalding tears on the ground where he had cast himself. Then all at once opening the door, he started to run throughout the whole of the inn, and into the street, in his shirt, crying:

“My wife? Where is my wife?”

But soon he came back, for the mischievous boys hooted him and threw stones at him.

And Ulenspiegel said to him, forcing him to clothe himself:

“Do not be so overwhelmed; you shall see her again, since you have seen her. She loves you still, since she came back to you, since it was doubtless she that paid for the supper and for the lordly chambers, and that put on your bed this full pouch. The ashes tell me that this is not the doing of a faithless wife. Weep no more, and let us march forth for the defence of the land of our fathers.”

“Let us still remain in Bruges,” said Lamme; “I would fain run through the whole town, and I will find her.”

“You will not find her, since she is hiding from you,” said Ulenspiegel.

Lamme asked for explanations from the baes, but the other would tell him nothing.

And they went away towards Damme.

While they went on their way, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“Why do you not tell me how you found her beside you, last night, and how she left you?”

“My son,” replied Lamme, “you know that we had feasted on meat, on beer, on wine, and that I could hardly breathe when we went off to bed. I held a wax candle in my hand, like a lord, to light me and had put down the candlestick on a chest to sleep; the door had remained ajar, the chest was close to it. Undressing, I looked on my bed with great love and desire for sleep; the wax candle suddenly went out. I heard as it were a breath and a sound of light feet in my chamber; but being more sleepy than afraid, I lay down heavily. As I was about to fall asleep, a voice – her voice, O my wife, my poor wife! – said to me: ‘Have you supped well, Lamme?’ and her voice was beside me, and her face, too, and her sweet body.”

XLI

On that day Philip the king, having eaten too much pastry, was more melancholy than usual. He had played upon his living harpsichord, which was a case containing cats whose heads came out through round openings above the keys. Every time the king struck a key, the key in turn struck a cat with a dart, and the beast mewed and complained by reason of the pain.

But Philip never laughed.

Unceasingly, he sought in his mind how he could conquer the great queen, Elizabeth, and set up Mary Stuart on the throne of England. With this object he had written to the Pope who was needy and full of debts; the Pope had replied that for this enterprise he would gladly sell the holy vessels of the temples and the treasures of the Vatican.

But Philip never laughed.

Ridolfi, Queen Mary’s favourite, who hoped, by delivering her, to marry her afterwards and become king of England, came to see Philip and with him plot the murder of Elizabeth. But he was so “parlanchin,” as the king wrote, so given to talking, that his designs were openly talked about in the Antwerp Bourse; and the murder was never committed.

And Philip never laughed.

Later, in accordance with the king’s orders, the bloody duke sent two couples of assassins into England. They succeeded in getting hanged.

And Philip never laughed.

And thus God brought to naught and thwarted the ambition of this vampire, who looked to remove her son from Mary Stuart and to reign in his stead, with the Pope, over England. And the murderer was irritated to see this noble country so great and powerful. He never ceased to turn his pale eyes towards it, seeking how he might crush it so as to reign thereafter over the whole world, exterminate the reformers, and especially the rich, and inherit the victim’s wealth.

But he never laughed.

And mice and field mice were brought to him in an iron box, with high sides, and open of one side; and he put the bottom of the box on a hot fire and took his pleasure in seeing and hearing the poor little beasts leaping, moaning, and dying.

But he never laughed.

Then pale and with trembling hand he went to the arms of Madame d’Eboli, to slake the fire of his lust lit by the torch of cruelty.

And he never laughed.

And Madame d’Eboli received him for fear and not for love.

XLII

The air was warm: from the quiet sea there came not a breath of wind. Scarce did the trees by the canal of Damme shiver, the grasshoppers dwelt in the meadows, while in the fields men from the churches and the abbeys came to fetch the thirteenth part of the harvest for the curés and the abbots. Out of the sky, blue, ardent, deep, the sun poured down warmth and Nature slept under his rays like a fair girl naked and swooning under her lover’s caresses. The carps were cutting capers above the surface of the canal to seize the flies that buzzed like a kettle; while the swallows, with their long bodies and great wings, disputed the prey with them. From the earth rose a warm vapour, wavering and shimmering in the light. The beadle of Damme announced from the top of the tower, by means of a cracked bell sounding like a pot, that it was noon and time for the country folk working at the haymaking to go to dinner. Women cried long and loud, holding their closed hands funnel-wise, calling in their men, brothers or husbands, by name: Hans, Pieter, Joos; and one might see their red hoods above the hedges.

Far off, in the eyes of Lamme and Ulenspiegel, rose lofty, square, and massive the tower of Notre Dame, and Lamme said:

“There, my son, are thy griefs and thy love.”

But Ulenspiegel made no answer.

“Soon,” said Lamme, “shall I see my ancient home and perchance my wife.”

But Ulenspiegel made no answer.

“Man of wood,” said Lamme, “heart of stone, nothing then can affect you, neither the nearness of the places in which you spent your boyhood, nor the dear shades of poor Claes and poor Soetkin, the two martyrs. What! you are neither sad nor glad; what then hath dried up your heart in this way? Look at me, anxious, uneasy, bounding in my belly; look at me…”

Lamme looked at Ulenspiegel and saw him with head livid, pale and hanging, his lips trembling, and weeping without saying a word.

And he held his tongue.

They marched thus in silence as far as Damme, and came into it by the street of the Heron, and saw no one in it, because of the heat. The dogs, with their tongues hanging out, lying on their sides, were gaping before the thresholds of the doors. Lamme and Ulenspiegel passed directly in front of the Townhall, before which Claes had been burned; the lips of Ulenspiegel trembled more, and his tears dried up. Finding himself over against the house of Claes, occupied by a coalman, he said to him as he went within:

“Dost thou know me? I am fain to rest here.”

The master coalman said:

“I know thee; thou art the son of the victim. Go wherever thou wouldst in this house.”

Ulenspiegel went into the kitchen, then into the bedchamber of Claes and Soetkin, and there he wept.

When he had come down thence, the master coalman said to him:

“Here are bread, cheese, and beer. If thou art hungry, eat; if thou art thirsty, drink.”

Ulenspiegel signed with his hand that he was neither hungry nor thirsty.

He walked thus with Lamme, who stayed astraddle on his ass, while Ulenspiegel held his by the halter.

They arrived at Katheline’s cottage, tied up their asses, and went in. It was meal time. There were on the table haricots in their pods mixed with great white beans. Katheline was eating; Nele was standing and ready to pour into Katheline’s plate a vinegar sauce she had just taken from the fire.

When Ulenspiegel came in, she was so startled that she put the pot and all the sauce in Katheline’s plate, who, nodding her head, began to hunt for the beans around the saucepot with her spoon, and striking herself on the forehead, repeated like a madwoman:

“Take away the fire! My head is burning!”

The smell of the vinegar made Lamme hungry.

Ulenspiegel remained standing, looking at Nele, smiling with love through his great sadness.

And Nele, without a word, threw her arms about his neck. She, too, seemed bereft of her wits; she wept, laughed; and red with great and sweet joy, she said only: “Thyl! Thyl!” Ulenspiegel, happy, gazed at her; then she left him, went and stationed herself farther off, contemplated him with joy and from there once again sprang upon him, throwing her arms about his neck; and so several times over. He held her, very happy, unable to sever from her, until she fell upon a chair, wearied out and as though out of her senses; and she said without any shame:

“Thyl! Thyl! my beloved, and so there you are back again!”

Lamme was standing at the door; when Nele was calmed, she said, pointing to him:

“Where have I seen this big man?”

“This is my friend,” said Ulenspiegel. “He is seeking for his wife in my company.”

“I know thee,” said Nele, speaking to Lamme; “thou didst use to dwell in the street of the Heron. Thou art seeking thy wife; I saw her at Bruges, living in all piety and devoutness. Having asked her why she had so cruelly abandoned her husband, she answered me: ‘Such was the holy will of God and the order of the holy Penance, but I cannot live with him henceforth.’”

Lamme was sad at this word, and looked at the beans in vinegar. And the larks, singing, sprang aloft in the sky, and Nature in ecstasy allowed herself to be caressed by the sun. And Katheline with her spoon picked out all round the pot the white beans, the green pods, and the sauce.