Kitabı oku: «The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2», sayfa 8
XXXIII
The next day Ulenspiegel went towards Courtray, going alongside the Lys, the clear river.
Lamme went pitifully along.
Ulenspiegel said to him:
“You whine, cowardly heart, regretting the wife that made you wear the horned crown of cuckoldom.”
“My son,” said Lamme, “she was always faithful, loving me enough as I loved her over well, sweet Jesus. One day, being gone to Bruges, she came back thence changed. From then, when I prayed her of love, she would say to me:
“‘I must live with you as a friend, and not otherwise.’
“Then, sad in my heart:
“‘Beloved darling,’ I would say, ‘we were married before God. Did I not for you everything you ever wished? Did not I many a time clothe myself with a doublet of black linen and a fustian cloak that I might see you clad in silk and brocade despite the royal ordinances? Darling, will you never love me again?’
“‘I love thee,’ she would say, ‘according to God and His laws, according to holy discipline and penance. Yet I shall be a virtuous companion to thee.’
“‘I care naught for thy virtue,’ I replied, ‘’tis thou I want, thou, my wife.’
“Nodding her head:
“‘I know thou art good,’ she said; ‘until to-day thou wast cook in the house to spare me the labour of fricassees; thou didst iron our blankets, ruffs, and shirts, the irons being too heavy for me; thou didst wash our linen, thou didst sweep the house and the street before the door, so as to spare me all fatigue. Now I desire to work instead of you, but nothing more, husband.’
“‘That is all one to me,’ I replied; ‘I will be, as in the past, thy tiring maid, thy laundress, thy cook, thy washwoman, thy slave, thy very own, submissive; but wife, sever not these two hearts and bodies that make but one; break not that soft bond of love that clasped us so tenderly together.’
“‘I must,’ she replied.
“‘Alas!’ I would say, ‘was it at Bruges that thou didst come to this harsh resolve?’
“She replied:
“‘I have sworn before God and His saints.’
“‘Who, then,’ I cried, ‘forced thee to take an oath not to fulfil your duties as a wife?’
“‘He that hath the spirit of God, and ranks me among the number of his penitents,’ said she.
“From that moment she ceased to be mine as much as if she had been the faithful wife of another man. I implored her, tormented her, threatened her, wept, begged, but in vain. One night, coming back from Blanckenberghe, where I had been to receive the rent of one of my farms, I found the house empty. Without doubt fatigued with my entreaties, grieved and sad at my distress, my wife had taken flight. Where is she now?”
And Lamme sat down on the bank of the Lys, hanging his head and looking at the water.
“Ah!” said he, “my dear, how plump, tender, and delicious thou wast! Shall I ever find a lass like thee? Daily bread of love, shall I never eat of thee again? Where are thy kisses, as full of fragrance as thyme; thy delicious mouth whence I gathered pleasure as the bee gathers the honey from the rose; thy white arms that wrapped me round caressing? Where is thy beating heart, thy round bosom, and the sweet shudder of thy fairy body all panting with love? But where are thy old waves, cool river that rollest so joyously thy new waves in the sunshine?”
XXXIV
Passing before the wood of Peteghem, Lamme said to Ulenspiegel:
“I am roasting hot; let us seek the shade.”
“Let us,” replied Ulenspiegel.
They sat down in the wood, upon the grass, and saw a herd of stags pass in front of them.
“Look well, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, priming his German musket. “There are the tall old stags that still have their dowcets, and carry proud and stately their nine-point antlers; lovely brockets, that are their squires, trot by their side, ready to do them service with their pointed horns. They are going to their lair. Turn the musket lock as I do. Fire! The old stag is wounded. A brocket is hit in the thigh; he is in flight. Let us follow him till he falls. Do as I do: run, jump, and fly.”
“There is my mad friend,” said Lamme, “following stags on foot. Fly not without wings; it is labour lost. You will never catch them. Oh! the cruel comrade! Do you imagine I am as agile as you? I sweat, my son; I sweat and I am going to fall. If the ranger catches you, you will be hanged. Stag is kings’ game; let them run, my son, you will never catch them.”
“Come,” said Ulenspiegel, “do you hear the noise of his antlers in the foliage? It is a water spout passing. Do you see the young branches broken, the leaves strewing the ground? He has another bullet in his thigh this time; we will eat him.”
“He is not cooked yet,” said Lamme. “Let these poor beasts run. Ah! how hot it is! I am going to fall down there without doubt and I shall never rise again.”
Suddenly, on all sides, men clad in rags and armed filled the forest. Dogs bayed and dashed in pursuit of the stags. Four fierce fellows surrounded Lamme and Ulenspiegel and brought them into a clearing, in the middle of a brake, where they saw encamped there, among women and children, men in great numbers, armed diversely with swords, arbalests, arquebuses, lances, pikestaff, and reiter’s pistols.
Ulenspiegel, seeing them, said to them:
“Are ye the leafmen or Brothers of the Woods, that ye seem to live here in common to flee the persecution?”
“We are Brothers of the Woods,” replied an old man sitting beside the fire and frying some birds in a saucepan. “But who art thou?”
“I,” replied Ulenspiegel, “am of the goodly country of Flanders, a painter, a rustic, a noble, a sculptor, all together. And through the world in this wise I journey, praising things lovely and good and mocking loudly at all stupidity.”
“If thou hast seen so many countries,” said the ancient man, “thou canst pronounce: Schild ende Vriendt, buckler and friend, in the fashion of Ghent folk; if not, thou art a counterfeit Fleming and thou shalt die.”
Ulenspiegel pronounced: Schild ende Vriendt.
“And thou, big belly,” asked the ancient man, speaking to Lamme, “what is thy trade?”
Lamme replied:
“To eat and drink my lands, farms, fees, and revenues, to seek for my wife, and to follow in all places my friend Ulenspiegel.”
“If thou hast travelled so much,” said the old man, “thou art not without knowledge of how they call the folk of Weert in Limbourg.”
“I do not know it,” replied Lamme; “but would you not tell me the name of the scandalous vagabond who drove my wife from her home? Give it to me; I will go and slay him straightway.”
The ancient man made answer:
“There are two things in this world which never return once having taken flight: they are money spent and a woman grown tired and run away.”
Then speaking to Ulenspiegel:
“Dost thou know,” said he, “how they call the men of Weert in Limbourg?”
“De reakstekers, the exorcisers of skates,” replied Ulenspiegel, “for one day a live ray having fallen from a fishmonger’s cart, old women seeing it leap about took it for the devil. ‘Let us go fetch the curé to exorcise the skate,’ said they. The curé exorcised it, and carrying it off with him, made a noble fricassee in honour of the folk of Weert. Thus may God do with the bloody king.”
Meanwhile, the barking of the dogs reëchoed in the forest. The armed men, running in the wood, were shouting to frighten the beast.
“’Tis the stag and the brocket I put up,” said Ulenspiegel.
“We shall eat him,” said the old man. “But how do they call the folk of Eindhoven in Limbourg?”
“De pinnemakers, boltmakers,” replied Ulenspiegel. “One day the enemy was at the gate of their city; they bolted it with a carrot. The geese came and ate the carrot with great pecks of their greedy beaks, and the enemies came into Eindhoven. But it will be iron beaks that will eat the bolts of the prisons wherein they seek to lock up freedom of conscience.”
“If God be with us, who shall be against us?” replied the ancient man.
Ulenspiegel said:
“Dogs baying, men shouting, branches broken; ’tis a storm in the forest.”
“Is it good meat, stag meat?” asked Lamme, looking at the fricassees.
“The cries of the trackers come nearer,” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme; “the dogs are close at hand. What thunder! The stag! the stag! take care, my son. Fie! the foul beast; he has flung my big friend down to the earth in the midst of the pans, saucepans, cooking pots, boilers, and fricassees. There are the women and girls fleeing daft with fright. You are bleeding, my son?”
“You are laughing, scoundrel,” said Lamme. “Aye, I am bleeding; he hath landed his antlers in my seat. There, see my breeches torn, and my flesh, too, and all those lovely fricassees on the ground. There, I am losing all my blood down my hose.”
“This stag is a foresighted surgeon; he is saving you from an apoplexy,” replied Ulenspiegel.
“Fie! rascal without a heart,” said Lamme. “But I will follow you no more. I will stay here in the midst of these good fellows and these good women. Can you, without any shame, be so hardhearted to my woes, when I walk at your heels like a dog, through snow, frost, rain, hail, wind, and when it is hot weather, sweating my very soul out through my skin?”
“Your wound is nothing. Clap an olie-koekje on it; that will be both plaster and fry to it,” answered Ulenspiegel. “But do you know how they call the folk of Louvain? You do not know it, poor friend. Well, then, I am about to tell you to keep you from whimpering. They call them de koeye-schieters, cow shooters, for they were one day silly enough to fire on cows, which they took for enemy soldiers. As for us, we fire on Spanish goats; their flesh is stinking stuff, but their skin is good to make drums withal. And the folk of Tirlemont? Do you know it? Not that, either. They carry the proud nickname of kirekers. For in their town, in the great church, on Whit Sunday, a drake flies from the rood-loft altar, and that is the image of their Holy Ghost. Put a koeke-bakke on your wound. You pick up without a word the cooking pots and fricassees overturned by the stag. ’Tis kitchen courage. You relight the fire, and set up the soup pot again upon its three stakes; you are busying yourself very attentively with the cooking. Do you know why there are four wonders in Louvain? No. I will tell you why. In the first place, because the living there pass underneath the dead, for the church of Saint-Michel is built close to the gate of the town. Its graveyard is therefore above. Secondly, because the bells there are outside the towers, as is seen at the church of Saint-Jacques, where there is a great bell and a little bell; being unable to place the little one inside the bell tower, they placed it outside. Thirdly, because of the Tower-without-Nails, because the spire of the church of Saint-Gertrude is made of stone instead of being made of wood, and because men do not nail stones, except the bloody king’s heart which I would fain nail above the great gate of Brussels. But you are not listening to me. Is there no salt in the sauces? Do you know why the folk of Tirlemont call themselves warming pans, de vierpannen? Because a young prince being come in winter to sleep at the inn of the Arms of Flanders, the innkeeper did not know how to air the blankets, for he had no warming pan. He had the bed aired by his daughter, who, hearing the prince coming, made off running, and the prince asked why they had not left the warming pan in the bed. May God bring it about that Philip, shut in a box of red-hot iron, may serve as warming pan in the bed of Madame Astarte.”
“Leave me in peace,” said Lamme; “a fig for you, your vierpannen, the Tower-without-Nails, and the rest of your nonsense. Leave me to my sauces.”
“Beware,” said Ulenspiegel. “The barkings cease not to reëcho; they become louder; the dogs are roaring, the bugle is sounding. Beware of the stag. You are taking flight! The bugle sounds.”
“It is the death quarry,” said the old man, “come back, Lamme, to your fricassees, the stag is dead.”
“It will be a good meal for us,” said Lamme. “You will invite me to the feast, because of the trouble I am taking for you. The sauce for the birds will be good: it crunches a little, however. That is the sand on which they fell when that big devil of a stag tore my doublet and me all together. But are you not afraid of the foresters?”
“We are too numerous,” said the old man; “they are afraid and do not disturb us. It is even the same with the catchpolls and the judges. The inhabitants of the towns love us, for we do no harm to any man. We shall live some time longer in peace, unless the Spanish army surrounds us. If that happens, old men and young men, women, girls, lads, and lasses, we will sell our lives dear, and we will kill one another rather than endure a thousand martyrdoms at the hands of the bloody duke.”
Ulenspiegel said:
“It is now no longer the time to combat the murderer by land. It is on the sea that we must ruin his power. Go to the Zealand Islands, by way of Bruges, Heyst, and Knoeke.”
“We have no money,” said they.
Ulenspiegel replied:
“Here are a thousand carolus from the prince. Follow along the waterways, canals, rivers, and streams; when you see ships carrying the sign ‘J. H. S.,’ let one of you sing like a lark. The clarion of the cock will answer him. And you will be in friends’ country.”
“We will do this,” said they.
Soon the hunters, followed by the dogs, appeared, pulling after them the dead stag with ropes.
Then all sate down round about the fire. There were full sixty, men, women, and children. Bread was pulled out from satchels, knives from their sheaths; the stag, cut up, stripped, disembowelled, was put on the spit with small game. And at the end of the meal Lamme was seen snoring with his head drooped on his breast and sleeping propped against a tree.
At nightfall, the Brothers of the Wood went back into huts constructed underground to sleep, and Lamme and Ulenspiegel did the same.
Armed men kept watch, guarding the camp. And Ulenspiegel heard the dry leaves protest under their feet.
The next day he departed with Lamme, while the men of the camp said:
“Blessed be thou; we will make towards the sea.”
XXXV
At Harlebek, Lamme renewed his stock of olie-koekjes, ate twenty-seven and put thirty in his basket. Ulenspiegel carried his cages in his hand. Towards evening they arrived in Courtray and stopped at the inn of in de Bie, the Bee, with Gilis van den Ende, who came to his door as soon as he heard someone sing like the lark.
There it was all sugar and honey with them. The host having seen the prince’s letters, handed fifty carolus to Ulenspiegel for the prince, and would take no payment for the turkey he served them, nor for the dobbel-clauwert with which he washed it down. He warned them, too, that there were at Courtray spies of the Court of Blood, for which cause he ought to well keep his tongue as well as his companion’s.
“We shall reconnoitre then,” said Ulenspiegel and Lamme.
And they went out from the inn.
The sun was setting, gilding the gables of the houses; the birds were singing under the lime trees; the goodwives gossiped on the thresholds of their doors; the children rolled and tumbled about in the dust, and Ulenspiegel and Lamme wandered haphazard through the streets.
Suddenly Lamme said:
“Martin van den Ende, asked by me if he had seen a woman like my wife – I drew him my pretty portrait, – told me that there were at the house of the woman Stevenyne, on the Bruges road, at the Rainbow, outside the town, a great number of women who gather there every evening. I am going there straightway.”
“I shall find you again presently,” said Ulenspiegel. “I wish to pay the town a visit; if I meet your wife I will presently send her to you. You know that the baes has enjoined on you to be silent, if you have any regard for your skin.”
As Ulenspiegel wandered at his will, the sun went down, and the day falling swiftly, he arrived in the Pierpot-Straetje, which is the lane of the Stone Pot. There he heard the viol played upon melodiously; drawing near he saw from afar a white shape calling him, gliding away from him and playing on the viol. And it sang like a seraph a sweet slow song, stopping, turning back, still calling him and fleeing from him.
But Ulenspiegel ran swiftly; he overtook her and was about to speak to her when she laid on his mouth a hand perfumed with benjamin.
“Art thou a rustic or a nobleman?” said she.
“I am Ulenspiegel.”
“Art thou rich?”
“Enough to pay for a great pleasure, not enough to ransom my soul.”
“Hast thou no horses, that thou goest afoot?”
“I had an ass,” said Ulenspiegel, “but I left him in the stable.”
“How is it thou art alone, without a friend, in a strange city?”
“Because my friend is wandering on his own side, as I am on mine, my curious darling.”
“I am not curious,” said she. “Is he rich, your friend?”
“In fat,” said Ulenspiegel. “Will you soon have finished questioning me?”
“I have done,” said she, “now leave me.”
“Leave you?” he said; “as well bid Lamme, when he is hungry, leave a dish of ortolans. I want to eat you.”
“You have not seen me,” she said. And she opened a lantern which shone out suddenly, lighting up her face.
“You are beautiful,” said Ulenspiegel. “Ho! the golden skin, the sweet eyes, the red mouth, the darling body! All will be for me.”
“All,” she said.
She brought him to the woman Stevenyne’s, on the Bruges road, at the Rainbow (in den Reghen-boogh). Ulenspiegel saw there a great number of girls wearing on their arms armlets of a colour different from that of their fustian dress.
This one had an armlet of silver cloth on a robe of cloth of gold. And all the girls looked at her jealously. Coming in she made a sign to the baesine, but Ulenspiegel never saw it. They sat down together and drank.
“Do you know,” said she, “that whoever has loved me is mine forever?”
“Lovely fragrant girl,” said Ulenspiegel, “’twould be a delicious feast to me to eat always of this meat.”
Suddenly he perceived Lamme in a corner, with a little table before him, a candle, a ham, a pot of beer, and not knowing how to rescue his ham from the two girls, who wanted perforce to eat and drink with him.
When Lamme perceived Ulenspiegel, he stood up and leaped three feet into the air, crying:
“Blessed be God, that restoreth my friend Ulenspiegel to me! Something to drink, baesine!”
Ulenspiegel, pulling out his purse, said:
“Bring to drink till this is at an end.”
And he made the carolus clink.
“Glory to God!” said Lamme, craftily taking the purse in his hands; “it is I that pay and not you; this purse is mine.”
Ulenspiegel wished to get back his purse from him by force, but Lamme held on tenaciously. As they were fighting, the one to keep it, the other to get it back, Lamme speaking disjointedly, said in low tones to Ulenspiegel:
“Listen: … catchpolls within … four … little room with three girls … two outside for you, for me … would have gone out … prevented… The brocade girl a spy … a spy, Stevenyne!”
While they were struggling, Ulenspiegel, listening with all his ears, cried out:
“Give back my purse, rascal!”
“You shall never get it,” said Lamme.
And they seized each other by the neck and the shoulders, rolling on the ground while Lamme gave his good advice to Ulenspiegel.
Suddenly the baes of the Bee came in followed by seven men, whom he seemed not to know. He crowed like a cock and Ulenspiegel whistled like a lark. Seeing Ulenspiegel and Lamme fighting, the baes spoke:
“Who are these two fellows?” he asked the Stevenyne.
The Stevenyne answered:
“Rogues that it would be better to separate rather than leave them here to make such an uproar before going to the gallows.”
“Let him dare to separate us,” said Ulenspiegel, “and we will make him eat the tiled floor.”
“The baes to the rescue,” said Ulenspiegel in Lamme’s ear.
Hereupon the baes, scenting some mystery, rushed into their battle, head down. Lamme threw these words into his ear.
“You the rescuer? How?”
The baes pretended to shake Ulenspiegel by the ears and said to him in a whisper:
“Seven for thee … strong fellows, butchers … I’m going away … too well known in town… When I am gone, ’tis van te beven de klinkaert … smash everything …”
“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, getting up and fetching him a kick.
The baes struck him in his turn. And Ulenspiegel said to him:
“You hit thick and fast, my belly boy.”
“As hail,” said the baes, seizing Lamme’s purse lightly and giving it to Ulenspiegel.
“Rogue,” said he, “pay for me to drink now that you have been restored to your property.”
“Thou shalt drink, scandalous rascal,” replied Ulenspiegel.
“See how impudent he is,” said the Stevenyne.
“As insolent as thou art lovely, darling,” answered Ulenspiegel.
Now the Stevenyne was full sixty years old, and had a face like a medlar, but all yellowed with bile and anger. In the middle of it was a nose like an owl’s beak. Her eyes were the eyes of a flinty-hearted miser. Two long dog-tusks jutted from her fleshless mouth. And she had a great port-wine stain on her left cheek.
The girls laughed, mocking her and saying:
“Darling, darling, give him somewhat to drink” – “He will kiss you” – “Is it long since you had your first spree?” – “Take care, Ulenspiegel, she will eat you up” – “Look at her eyes; they are shining not with hate but with love” – “You might say she will bite you to death” – “Don’t be afraid” – “All amorous women are like that” – “She only wants your money” – “See what a good laughing humour she is in.”
And indeed the Stevenyne was laughing and winking at Gilline, the girl in the brocade dress.
The baes drank, paid, and went. The seven butchers made faces of intelligence at the catchpolls and the Stevenyne.
One of them indicated by a gesture that he held Ulenspiegel for a ninny and that he was about to fool him to the top of his bent. He said in his ear, putting out his tongue derisively on the side of the Stevenyne who was laughing and showing her fangs:
“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert” (’tis time to make the glasses clink).
Then aloud, and pointing to the catchpolls:
“Gentle reformer, we are all with thee; pay for us to drink and to eat.”
And the Stevenyne laughed with pleasure and also put out her tongue at Ulenspiegel when he turned his back to her. And Gilline of the brocade dress put out her tongue likewise.
And the girls said, whispering:
“Look at the spy who by her beauty brought to cruel torture and more cruel death more than twenty-seven of the Reformed faith; Gilline is in ecstasy thinking of the reward for her informing – the first hundred florins carolus of the victim’s estate. But she does not laugh when she thinks that she must share them with the Stevenyne.”
And all, catchpolls, butchers, and girls, put out their tongues to mock at Ulenspiegel. And Lamme sweated great drops of sweat, and he was red with anger like a cock’s comb, but he would not speak a word.
“Pay for us to drink and to eat,” said the butchers and the catchpolls.
“Well, then,” said Ulenspiegel, rattling his carolus again, “give us to drink and to eat, O darling Stevenyne, to drink in ringing glasses.”
Thereupon the girls began to laugh anew and the Stevenyne to stick out her tusks.
Nevertheless, she went to the kitchens and to the cellar; she brought back ham, sausages, omelettes of black puddings, and ringing glasses, so called because they were mounted on felt and rang like a chime when they were knocked.
Then Ulenspiegel said:
“Let him that is hungry eat; let him that is thirsty drink!”
The catchpolls, the girls, the butchers, Gilline, and the Stevenyne applauded this speech with feet and hands. Then they all ranged themselves as well as they could, Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and the seven butchers at the principal table, the great table of honour, the catchpolls and the girls at two small tables. And they drank and ate with a great noise of jaws, even the two catchpolls that were outside, and whom their comrades made come in to share the feast. And ropes and chains could be seen sticking out from their satchels.
The Stevenyne then putting out her tongue and grinning said:
“No one can go without paying me.”
And she went and shut all the doors, the keys of which she put in the pockets.
Gilline, lifting her glass, said:
“The bird is in the cage, let us drink.”
Thereupon two girls called Gena and Margot said to her:
“Is this another one that you are going to have put to death, wicked woman?”
“I do not know,” said Gilline, “let us drink.”
But the three girls would not drink with her.
And Gilline took her viol and sang, in French:
“To viol’s tone I sing
’Neath night or noonday skies,
A gay, mad, wanton thing
Who sell Love’s merchandise.
“Astarte traced aright
My hips in lines of flame:
Were shoulders ne’er so white
And God’s my lovely frame.
“Oh tear each purse’s sheath
And let its money glow:
Set tawny gold beneath
My milk-white feet aflow.
“Of Eve the child I seem,
Of Satan too a part;
As fine as is your dream,
Come seek it in my heart.
“My mood is cold or burning,
Or fond with careless ease,
Mad, mild, or melting turning,
My man, your whim to please.
“See every charm that cheers,
Soul, eyes of blue, for hire;
Delights and smiles and tears,
And Death, if you desire.
“To viol’s tone I sing
’Neath night or noonday skies,
A gay, mad, wanton thing
Who sell Love’s merchandise.”
As she sang her song, Gilline was so beautiful, so sweet, and so pretty that all the men, catchpolls, butchers, Lamme, and Ulenspiegel were there, speechless, moved, smiling, captivated by the spell.
All at once, bursting into laughter, Gilline said, looking at Ulenspiegel:
“That is the way birds are put in the cage.”
And the spell was broken.
Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and the butchers looked at one another.
“Now, then, will you pay me?” said the Stevenyne, “will you pay me, Messire Ulenspiegel, you that grow so fat on the flesh of preachers?”
Lamme would have spoken, but Ulenspiegel made him hold his tongue, and speaking to the Stevenyne:
“We shall not pay in advance,” said he.
“I will pay myself afterwards then out of your estate,” said the Stevenyne.
“Ghouls feed on corpses,” replied Ulenspiegel.
“Aye,” said one of the catchpolls, “those two have taken the preachers’ money; more than three hundred florins carolus. That makes a fine tithe for Gilline.”
Gilline sang:
“Seek such in other spheres
Take all, my loving squire,
Pleasures, kisses, and tears,
And Death, if you desire.”
Then, laughing, she said:
“Let’s drink!”
“Let’s drink!” said the catchpolls.
“In God’s name,” said the Stevenyne, “let us drink! The doors are locked, the windows have stout bars, the birds are in the cage, let us drink!”
“Let’s drink,” said Ulenspiegel.
“Let’s drink,” said Lamme.
“Let’s drink,” said the seven.
“Let’s drink,” said the catchpolls.
“Let’s drink,” said Gilline, making her viols sing. “I am beautiful; let us drink. I could take the Archangel Gabriel in the nets of my singing.”
“Bring us to drink then,” said Ulenspiegel, “wine to crown the feast, wine of the best; I would have a drop of liquid fire at every hair of our thirsty bodies.”
“Let us drink!” said Gilline; “twenty gudgeons more like you, and the pikes will sing no more.”
The Stevenyne brought wine. All were sitting, drinking and eating, the catchpolls and the girls together. The seven, seated at the table of Ulenspiegel and Lamme, threw, from their table to the girls, hams, sausages, omelettes, and bottles, which they caught in the air like carps snatching flies on the surface of a pond. And the Stevenyne laughed, sticking out her tusks and showing packets of candles, five to the pound, that hung above the bar. These were the girls’ candles. Then she said to Ulenspiegel:
“When men go to the stake, they carry a tallow candle on the way thither; would you like to have one now?”
“Drink up!” said Ulenspiegel.
“Drink up,” said the seven.
Said Gilline:
“Ulenspiegel has eyes shining like a swan about to die.”
“Suppose they were given to the pigs to eat?” said the Stevenyne.
“That would be a feast of lanterns; drink up!” said Ulenspiegel.
“Would you like,” said the Stevenyne, “when you are on the scaffold, to have your tongue thrust through with a red-hot iron?”
“It would be the better of that for whistling; drink up,” answered Ulenspiegel.
“You would talk less if you were hanged,” said the Stevenyne, “and your darling might come to look at you.”
“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “but I should weigh heavier, and would fall on your lovely muzzle: drink up!”
“What would you say if you were beaten with cudgels, branded on the forehead and on the shoulder?”
“I would say they had made a mistake in the meat,” replied Ulenspiegel, “and that instead of roasting the sow Stevenyne, they had scalded the young porker Ulenspiegel: drink up!”
“Since you do not like any of these,” said the Stevenyne, “you shall be taken on to the king’s ships, and there condemned to be torn asunder by four galleys.”
“Then,” said Ulenspiegel, “the sharks will have my four quarters, and you shall eat what they reject: drink up!”
“Why do you not eat one of these candles,” said she, “they would serve you in hell to light your eternal damnation.”
“I see clear enough to behold your shiny snout, O ill-scalded sow, drink up!” said Ulenspiegel.
Suddenly he struck the foot of the glass on the table, imitating with his hands the noise an upholsterer makes beating rhythmically the wool of a mattress upon a frame of sticks, but very gently, and saying:
“’Tis (tydt) van te beven de klinkaert” (it is time to make the clinker shiver – the glass that rings).
This is in Flanders the signal for the angry outbreak of drinkers and for the sacking of houses with the red lantern.
Ulenspiegel drank, then made the glass quiver on the table, saying:
“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
And the seven imitated him.
All kept very still. Gilline grew pale, the Stevenyne appeared astonished. The catchpolls said:
“Are the seven on their side?”
But the butchers, winking, reassured them, at the same time continually repeating in louder and louder tones with Ulenspiegel:
“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert; ’tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
The Stevenyne drank to give herself courage.
Ulenspiegel then struck the table with his fist, with the rhythm and measure of upholsterers beating mattresses; the seven did as he did; glasses, jugs, bowls, quart pots, and goblets came slowly into the dance, overturning, breaking, rising on one side to fall on the other; and still there rang out more threatening, sombre, warlike, and in monotone: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
