LXXXI

LXXXIOn the morrow, while they were drinking hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:“Thou seest that sorrow is driving me already out of this world, wouldst thou drive me to flee from it through thy damned witchcrafts?”But Katheline kept saying:“Nele is bad. Come back, Hanske, my darling.”On the next Wednesday the devils came back together. Since the Saturday Nele slept at the house of the widow Van den Houte, saying that she could not stay at Katheline’s by reason of the presence of Ulenspiegel, a young bachelor.Katheline received her black lord and his friend in thekeet, which is the wash house and the bakery appurtenant to the main dwelling. And then they held feast and revel with old wines and smoked ox tongues, that were always there awaiting them. The black devil said to Katheline:“We have need,” said he, “for an important taskthat is to be done, of a heavy sum of money; give us what thou canst.”Katheline, being unwilling to give more than a florin, they threatened to kill her. But they let her off with two gold carolus and seven deniers.“Come no more on the Saturday,” she told them. “Ulenspiegel knows that day and will await you with weapons to kill you, and I should die after you.”“We shall come next Tuesday,” said they.On that day Ulenspiegel and Nele slept without fear of the devils, for they believed that they came only on Saturday.Katheline rose and went into thekeet, to see if her friends had come.She was sorely impatient, because since she had seen Hanske again, her madness had greatly lessened, for folk said it was love-madness.Not seeing them, she was brokenhearted; when she heard the sea eagle cry from the direction of Sluys, in the country, she went towards the cry. Going in the meadow at the foot of a dyke of faggots and green sod, she heard from the other side of the dyke the two devils talking together. One said:“I shall have the half of it.”The other replied:“Thou shalt have none of it; what is Katheline’s is mine.”Then they cursed and blasphemed like madmen, disputing between them who should have to himself alone the money and the loves of Katheline and Nele together. Transfixed with fear, daring neither to speak nor budge, Katheline presently heard them fighting, then one of them saying:“This steel is cold.” Then a rattling breath and the fall of a heavy body.Affrighted, she walked back to her cottage. At two o’clock in the night she heard again, but now in her garden, the cry of the sea eagle. She went to open and saw before the door her lover devil alone. She asked him:“What hast thou done with the other?”“He will not come again,” he answered.Then embracing her he caressed her. And he seemed to her colder than usual. And Katheline’s spirit was well awaked. When he went away, he asked her for twenty florins, all she had: she gave him seventeen.On the morrow, being curious, she went along by the dyke; but she saw nothing, save at a spot as big as a man’s coffin blood upon the turf that was less solid under foot. But that night rain washed away the blood.The next Wednesday she heard the cry of the sea eagle once more in her garden.LXXXIIEach time he needed money to pay their share of expenses at Katheline’s Ulenspiegel went by night to lift the stone from the hole dug beside the well, and took out a carolus.One night the three women were spinning; Ulenspiegel was carving with his knife a box that the bailiff had entrusted to him, and on which he was skilfully graving a goodly chase, with a pack of Hainaut dogs, mastiffs from Crete, the which are most savage beasts; Brabant dogs going in pairs and called ear biters, andother dogs, straight-legged, crook-legged, short-legged, and greyhounds.Katheline being present, Nele asked Soetkin if she had hidden her treasure well. The widow answered without any misgivings that it could not be better than in the side of the well wall.Towards the midnight, being Thursday, Soetkin was awakened by Bibulus Schnouffius, barking very sharply, but not for long. Deeming that it was some false alarm, she went to sleep again.Friday morning, early, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel, having risen, did not see Katheline as usual in the kitchen, nor the fire lit, nor the milk boiling on the fire. They were dumbfounded and looked to see if she was not perchance in the garden. They saw her there, though it was misty rain, dishevelled, in her body linen all soaked and chilled, but not daring to enter.Ulenspiegel, going to her, said:“What dost thou there, half naked, when it rains?”“Ah,” she said, “aye, aye, a great portent!”And she showed the dog with his throat cut and lying stiff.Ulenspiegel thought at once of the treasure; he ran to it. The hole was empty and the earth strewed far about.Leaping on Katheline and beating her:“Where are the carolus?” he said.“Aye, aye, a great portent!” replied Katheline.Nele, defending her mother, cried out:“Mercy and pity, Ulenspiegel!”He ceased to strike. Soetkin then showed herself and asked what was the matter.Ulenspiegel showed her the dog killed and the hole empty. Soetkin went white and said:“Thou dost smite me cruelly, Lord God. My poor feet!”And she said that because of the agony she had in them and the torment borne in vain for the gold carolus. Nele, seeing Soetkin so gentle, fell in despair and wept; Katheline, waving a piece of parchment, said:“Aye, a great portent. Last night he came, kindly and goodly. No longer was there on his face that livid glow that gave me so much affright. He spoke to me with a great tenderness. I was ravished with joy, my heart melted within me. He said to me, ‘Now I am rich, and will before long bring thee a thousand florins.’ ‘Aye,’ said I, ‘I am more glad for thy sake than for mine, Hanske, my darling.’ ‘But hast thou not here,’ he asked, ‘some other person thou lovest and whom I might make rich?’ ‘Nay,’ I replied, ‘those that be here have no need of thee.’ ‘Thou art proud,’ said he, ‘are then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel rich?’ ‘They live with no help from their neighbours,’ I replied. ‘In spite of the confiscation?’ said he. To which I answered that you had endured the torture rather than allow your money to be taken. ‘I was not without knowledge of that,’ said he. And he began, laughing quiet and low, to jeer at the bailiff and the sheriffs, for that they had not been able to make you confess. Then I laughed equally. ‘They had not been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to hide their treasure in their house.’ I laughed. ‘Nor in the cellar, here.’ ‘No, no,’ said I. ‘Nor in the garden?’ I made no reply. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘it would be too much of an imprudence.’ ‘Not much,’ said I, ‘for neither thewater nor the wall will speak.’ And he continued to laugh.“Last night he went away sooner than usual, after giving me a powder with which, said he, I could go to the finest of sabbaths. I brought him, in my linen, to the garden gate, and I was all overcome with sleep. I went, as he had said, to the sabbath, and came back only at daybreak, when I found myself here, and saw the dog dead and the hole empty. That is a very heavy blow for me, who loved him so tenderly and gave him my soul. But you shall have all I have, and I shall work with my feet and my hands to maintain you.”“I am the corn under the millstone: God and a robber devil strike me at the same time,” said Soetkin.“Robber, do not say so,” rejoined Katheline; “he is a devil, a devil. And for proof, I will show you the parchment he left in the yard; there is written upon it: ‘Never forget to do my service. In thrice two weeks and five days I shall return thee the twofold of the treasure. Have no doubt, else thou shalt die.’ And he will keep his word, I am convinced and sure.”“Poor witless one!” said Soetkin.And that was her last word of reproach.LXXXIIIThe two weeks having thrice passed by and the five days as well, the lover devil never came back. And still Katheline lived without despairing of it.Soetkin, never working now, remained continually in front of the fire, coughing and bent. Nele gave her the best and most fragrant herbs: but no remedy had power upon her. Ulenspiegel never left thecottage, fearing that Soetkin might die while he was abroad.Then it came that the widow could neither eat nor drink without vomiting. The barber surgeon came and bled her; the blood being taken from her, she was so weak that she could not leave her stool. At length, withered up with sorrow and pain, she said one evening:“Claes, my husband! Thyl, my son! I thank thee, God who takest me away!”And she died on a sigh.Katheline not daring to watch by her, Ulenspiegel and Nele did it together, and all night long they prayed for the dead woman.At dawn there entered by the open window a swallow.Nele said:“The bird of souls, ’tis a good omen: Soetkin is in heaven.”The swallow flew round the chamber thrice and went off with a cry.Then there entered a second swallow, bigger and blacker than the other. It circled around Ulenspiegel, and he said:“Father and Mother, the ashes beat against my breast, I shall do what ye ask.”And the second went away crying shrill like the first. The day showed brighter; Ulenspiegel saw thousands of swallows skimming the meadows, and the sun arose.And Soetkin was buried in the field of the poor.LXXXIVAfter Soetkin’s death, Ulenspiegel, dreamy, sorrowful, or angry, wandered about the kitchen, hearingnothing, taking what food or drink was given him, without choosing. And he often rose at night.In vain did Nele with her soft voice exhort him to hope. Vainly did Katheline tell him that she knew Soetkin was in paradise with Claes. To all Ulenspiegel replied:“The ashes are beating.”And he was as a man distraught, and Nele wept to see him in this plight.Meanwhile, the fishmonger remained in his house alone like a parricide, and dared not go forth save by night; for men and women, passing near him, hooted him and called him murderer, and children fled before him, for they had been told that he was the executioner. He wandered alone and solitary, not daring to go into any of the three taverns of Damme; for he was pointed at in them, and if he merely remained standing for a minute inside, the drinkers went away.Hence it came that thebaesenwished not to see him again, and if he presented himself, shut their door to him. Then the fishmonger would offer a humble remonstrance: they would reply that it was their right and not their obligation to sell.Tired of the struggle, the fishmonger used to go to drinkin ’t Roode Valck, at the Red Falcon, a little wine shop away from the town on the edge of the Sluys Canal. There they served him; for they were grubbing folk to whom any money was welcome. But thebaesof theRoode Valcknever spoke a word to him nor did his wife. There were two children and a dog in the house: when the fishmonger would have caressed the children, they ran away; and when he called the dog, the dog tried to bite him.One evening Ulenspiegel stood on the threshold: Mathyssens the cooper, seeing him so pensive and dreaming, said to him:“You should work with your hands and forget this sad blow.”Ulenspiegel answered:“The ashes of Claes beat against my breast.”“Ah,” said Mathyssens, “he leads a sadder life than thou, the wretched fishmonger. No man speaks to him, and everyone flees from him, so that he is driven to go among the poor ragamuffins at theRoode Valckto drink his quart ofbruinbierby himself. ’Tis a sore punishment.”“The ashes beat!” said Ulenspiegel again.That same evening, while the clock on Notre Dame was striking the ninth hour, Ulenspiegel went towards theRoode Valck, and seeing that the fishmonger was not there, he went wandering under the trees on the edge of the canal. The moon was shining bright and clear.He saw the murderer coming.As he passed before him, he could see him near at hand, and heard him say, speaking aloud like those who live alone:“Where have they hidden these carolus?”“Where the devil has found them,” answered Ulenspiegel striking him full in the face with his fist.“Alas!” said the fishmonger, “I know thee who thou art, thou art the son. Have pity, I am old and weak. What I did, it was not for hate, but to serve His Majesty. Deign to pardon me. I wilt give thee back the furniture I purchased, thou wilt not have to pay me one single patard for it. Is not that enough?I paid seven gold florins for them. Thou shalt have all and a demi-florin to boot, for I am not rich, it must not be imagined.”And he would have gone on his knees before him.Ulenspiegel, seeing him so ugly, so trembling, and so cowardly and mean, flung him into the canal.And he went away.LXXXVOn the doomfires smoked the fat of the victims. Ulenspiegel, thinking of Claes and Soetkin, wept in solitude.One night he went to find Katheline and ask her for a remedy and for vengeance.She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a heavy slumber.He said to her:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great God of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer.”Katheline said:“The Great God could not hear you: first you must address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world, which being of double nature, celestial and terrestrial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to the throne.”“Help me,” said he, “in my design; I will pay thee with my blood if need be.”Replied Katheline:“I will help thee, if a girl that loveth thee wouldbring thee with her to the sabbath of the Spirits of the Springtide, which is the Easter of the Sap.”“I will bring him,” said Nele.Katheline poured into a crystal goblet a grayish coloured mixture of which she gave them both to drink; with this mixture she rubbed their temples, their nostrils, palms of the hand and wrists, made them swallow a pinch of a white powder, and bade them look at the other, that their two souls might become as but one.Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and the kind soft eyes of the girl lit up a great fire within him; then by reason of the mixture he felt as it might have been a thousand crabs tearing at him.Then they took off their clothes, and they were beautiful thus in the lamplight, he in his proud strength, she in her delicious grace; but they could not see one another, for already they were as though in sleep. Then Katheline laid Nele’s neck upon Ulenspiegel’s arm, and taking his hand put it upon the maiden’s heart.And they remained thus naked and lying one beside the other.It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of roses.They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the window sill, launched themselves thence into void space, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears the ships.Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens where but now the clouds were rolling beneath theirfeet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star. Then from there they were cast upon the pole.There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant, the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoarse voice, he called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast. And all raged together at once in this deadly place.Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and also to put black coal in the place where shady forests were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire, he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil, in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skeleton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea, upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skeletons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by the gloomy water.And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurricanes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind howling in chimneys.“I am acold and am afeard,” said Ulenspiegel.“He hath no power against spirits,” answered Nele.Suddenly there was a great stir among the seals, which dashed in haste into the water, the bears, which laying their ears flat with fright, roared lamentably, and the ravens, which lost themselves in the clouds with agonized croakings.And lo, Nele and Ulenspiegel heard the dull thudding blows of a ram upon the wall of ice that served as a support to the Giant Winter. And the wall split and cracked and shook to and fro on its foundations.But the Giant Winter heard nothing, and he went on howling and shouting in glee, filling and draining his cup of oil; and he went on searching for the heart of the earth to freeze it, and not daring to lay hold of it.Meantime, the blows reëchoed louder and harder, and the wall cracked more and more, and the rain of icicles flying in splintered pieces ceased not to fall about him.And the bears roared lamentably and without ceasing, and the seals complained in the leaden gloomy water.The wall crumbled and fell, and it became light in the sky; a man descended therefrom, naked and beautiful, leaning one hand upon a golden axe. And this man was Lucifer, King Springtide.When the giant beheld him, he flung far away his cup of oil, and implored him not to slay him.And at the warm breath of King Springtide, the Giant Winter lost all strength. Then the king took chains of diamonds, bound him with these, and tied him to the pole.Then staying, he uttered a cry, but a tender, amorouscry. And from the sky came down a blonde woman, naked and beautiful. Placing herself beside the king, she said to him:“Thou art my vanquisher, mighty man.”He made answer:“If thou art an-hungered, eat; if thou art athirst, drink; if thou art afraid, come close to me: I am thy male and thy mate.”“I am,” said she, “hungry and athirst only for thee.”The king shouted yet again seven times terribly. And there was a mighty din of thunder and lightning, and behind him there took shape a canopy of suns and of stars. And the twain sat them down upon thrones.Then the king and the woman, without a movement of their noble faces, and without a gesture impairing their might and their calm majesty, cried aloud.At these cries there was an undulating movement in the earth, the hard stone and the ice floes. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a noise such as might be made by gigantic birds seeking to break the shell of enormous eggs with blows of their beak.And in this huge movement of the earth which rose and fell like the waves of the sea there were shapes like the shape of an egg.Suddenly from everywhere came forth trees with their dry branches dovetailed and interlocked together, while their boles moved, swaying like drunken men. Then they drew apart, leaving between them a huge void space. From the stirring soil came forth the genii of the earth; from the deeps of the forest the woodland spirits; from the sea near by the genii of the water.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw there the dwarfs that are the wardens of treasure, hunchbacked, hairy, clumsy-foot, ugly and grinning, princes of the stones, men of the woods living like trees, and, by way of mouth and stomach, having a tuft of roots at the lower part of their face, thus to suck up their food from the bosom of the earth; the emperors of mines, who cannot speak, have neither heart nor entrails, and move like bright automatons. There, too, were dwarfs of flesh and bone, with lizard tails, toads’ heads, and lantern for headgear, who leap by night upon the shoulders of drunken men afoot or timid travellers, leap down again and waving their lantern, lead into pools and bogholes the poor devils who imagine that this lantern is the candle burning in their homes.There, too, were the flower-maidens, flowers of feminine strength and haleness, naked and not blushing, proud of their beauty, having for their only cloak their hair.Their eyes shone with the wet lustre of mother of pearl in water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and gilded by the light; from their red mouths partly open came a breath more sweet and fragrant than jasmine.These are they that wander by eventide in parks and gardens, or in the deeps of the woods, in shady bridle ways, amorous and seeking some human soul to enjoy it. So soon as passeth before them a young man and a young maid, they seek to slay the maid, but when they cannot, they breathe into the sweetling, still reluctant, desires of love so that she may yield herself to the lover; for then the flower-maiden hath half of the kisses.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw also coming down from the high heavens the guardian spirits of the stars, the genii of the winds, of the breeze and the rain, winged young men that make the earth fertile.Then in every quarter of the sky appeared the birds of souls, the dear swallows. When they were come, the light appeared stronger. Flower-maids, princes of the stones, emperors of the mines, men of the woods, spirits of the water, of fire, and of the earth all cried out in unison: “Light! Sap! Glory to King Springtide!”Although the sound of their unanimous outcry was greater than that of the raging sea, the thunder, and the unleashed tempest, it sounded as solemn music in the ears of Nele and of Ulenspiegel, who, silent and motionless, remained huddled together behind the rugged trunk of an oak tree.But they were still more affrighted when the spirits, thousands upon thousands, took their places upon seats that were immense spiders, toads with elephants, trunks, interlacing serpents, crocodiles standing up on their tails and holding a band of spirits in their jaws, serpents carrying more than thirty dwarfs, both men and women, seated astraddle on their undulating bodies, and full a hundred thousand insects bigger than Goliaths, armed with swords, spears, jagged scythes, forks with seven tines, and every other kind of dreadful murdering implements. They fought together with tremendous din, the strong devouring the weak, growing fat upon them, and showing thus that Death is made from Life and that Life is made from Death.And from among this crowd of spirits, swarming, shifting, dense, confused, there arose a noise like lowthunder and a hundred weavers’ looms, fullers and locksmiths all working together.Suddenly appeared the spirits of the sap, short, squat, round about the loins as big as the great Heidelberg tun, with thighs as big as hogsheads, and muscles so marvellously strong and powerful that one would have said their bodies were made up of large eggs and small eggs joined to one another and covered with a red, oily skin, shining like their sparse beard and their red hair; and they carried enormous tankards filled with a strange liquor.When the other spirits beheld them coming, a great tremor of joy ran among them; trees and plants moved and shook, and the earth opened up in cracks to drink.And the spirits of the sap poured out the wine: and all things incontinently budded, were green, flourished; the sward was full of whispering insects, and the sky of birds and butterflies; the spirits poured on and on, and those below received the wine as best they might: the flower-maids, opening their mouths or leaping up upon their red cupbearers, and kissing them to have more; some, clasping their hands in sign of entreaty; others who, in ecstasy, let it rain over them; but all greedy or parched, flying, standing, running or motionless, seeking to have the wine, and more intensely alive with every drop they attained to receiving. And there were no oldsters there, but ugly or goodly, all were full of prime strength and keenest youth.And they laughed, shouted, sang, pursuing one another upon the trees like squirrels, in the air like birds, every male seeking his female and under the skies of God falling to the holy deed of kind.And the spirits of the sap brought to the king and thequeen the great cup full of their wine. And the king and the queen drank and embraced one another.Then the king, holding the queen in his arm, cast upon the trees, the flowers and the spirits, the dregs of his cup and cried aloud:“Glory to Life! Glory to the free Air! Glory to Force!”And all shouted:“Glory to Nature! Glory to Force!”And Ulenspiegel took Nele into his arms. Thus enlaced, a dance began: a round circling dance like a dance of leaves that a whirlwind swings together, where all was in motion, trees, plants, insects, butterflies, heaven and earth, king and queen, flower-maidens, emperors of mines, princes of stones, spirits of the waters, hunchback dwarfs, men of the woods, lantern bearers, guardian spirits of the stars, and the hundred thousand horrific insects mingling their spears, their saw-edged scythes, their seven-pronged forks; a giddy dance, swaying about in space and filling it, a dance in which the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the wind, the clouds, all took part.And the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were clinging rolled with the whirl, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:“Dear one, we are about to die.”A spirit heard them and saw that they were mortals:“Mankind,” he bawled, “mankind in this place!”And he wrenched them from the tree and flung them in the crowd.And Ulenspiegel and Nele fell soft and limp on the backs of the spirits, which bandied them about from one to another, saying:“Hail to mankind! Welcome be the earth worms! Who would have the lad and lass? They come to visit us, the puny things.”And Ulenspiegel and Nele flew from one to another, crying:“Mercy!”But the spirits paid no heed, and both went fluttering, legs in air, head down, turning and circling like feathers in the winter winds, while the spirits said:“Glory to the manlings male and female, let them dance like us!”The flower-maidens, wishing to sever Nele from Ulenspiegel, smote her and would have killed her, had not King Springtide, staying the dance with a gesture, cried out:“Let these two lice be brought before me!”And they were separated one from the other; and each flower-maiden said, endeavouring to take Ulenspiegel from her rivals:“Thyl, wouldst thou not die for me?”“I will do so in a moment,” said Ulenspiegel.And the dwarf wood sprites that were carrying Nele said:“Why art thou not a spirit like us, that we might take thee to us!”Nele answered:“Have patience.”Thus they arrived before the king’s throne; and they trembled sore seeing his golden axe and his iron crown.And he said to them:“What are ye come hither to do, ye puny things?”They made no answer.“I know thee, witches’ shoot,” added the King, “and thee too, sprout of the coalman; but having by the power of spells achieved the deed of penetrating to this laboratory of Nature, why have ye now your beaks locked like capons stuffed with crumb?”Nele trembled, looking at the terrible demon; but Ulenspiegel, recovering his manly hardihood, replied:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart. Divine Highness, death goeth throughout the land of Flanders, mowing down, in the Pope’s name, the strongest men, the sweetest women; her privileges are destroyed, her charters abolished, famine gnaweth her, her weavers and cloth merchants leave her to go to the foreigner seeking freedom for their work. She will die soon if no one comes to her help. Highness, I am but a poor mean fellow come into the world like any other, who have lived as I could, imperfect, limited, ignorant, not virtuous, in no wise chaste or deserving of any favour human or divine. But Soetkin died of the effects of the torture and her grief, but Claes burned in a terrible fire, and I was minded to avenge them, and did so once; I was minded also to see this poor soil happier, this poor soil in which their bones are sown, and I asked God for the death of the persecutors, but he did not hearken to me nor heed me. Weary and sick of complaints, I evoked thee by the potency of Katheline’s spell, and we come, I and my trembling she-comrade, to thy feet, to ask you, Divine Highnesses, to save this poor earth.”The king and his spouse replied together:“Through war and through fireThrough death, through the sword.Seek the Seven.“In death and bloodIn ruin and tears,Find the Seven.“Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,Mere Scourge of the poor earth.Burn the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”And all the spirits fell to chanting in unison:“In death and blood,In ruin and tearsFind the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”“But,” said Ulenspiegel, “Highness, and ye, spirits, I understand not your talk. Ye make a mock of me, sans doubt.”But without heeding him they said:“When the NorthShall kiss the WestRuin shall end;Find thou the SevenThe Girdle find!”And that with so tremendous a chorus and so terrifically loud, strong, and sonorous that the earth trembled and the heavens shivered. And the birds whistling, the owls bubbling, the sparrows twittering inaffright, the sea eagles complaining, all flew round aghast. And the beasts of the earth, lions, serpents, bears, stags, bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats roared, hissed, belled, howled, barked, and mewed terribly.And the spirits chanted:“Wait, hear and see,Love thou the SevenThe Girdle love.”And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished save one malicious emperor of mines who seizing Ulenspiegel and Nele each by an arm, hurled them brutally out into the void.They found themselves lying beside each other, as though for sleep, and they shivered in the keen wind of the morning.And Ulenspiegel saw the delicious body of Nele all gilded in the sun that was then rising.

LXXXIOn the morrow, while they were drinking hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:“Thou seest that sorrow is driving me already out of this world, wouldst thou drive me to flee from it through thy damned witchcrafts?”But Katheline kept saying:“Nele is bad. Come back, Hanske, my darling.”On the next Wednesday the devils came back together. Since the Saturday Nele slept at the house of the widow Van den Houte, saying that she could not stay at Katheline’s by reason of the presence of Ulenspiegel, a young bachelor.Katheline received her black lord and his friend in thekeet, which is the wash house and the bakery appurtenant to the main dwelling. And then they held feast and revel with old wines and smoked ox tongues, that were always there awaiting them. The black devil said to Katheline:“We have need,” said he, “for an important taskthat is to be done, of a heavy sum of money; give us what thou canst.”Katheline, being unwilling to give more than a florin, they threatened to kill her. But they let her off with two gold carolus and seven deniers.“Come no more on the Saturday,” she told them. “Ulenspiegel knows that day and will await you with weapons to kill you, and I should die after you.”“We shall come next Tuesday,” said they.On that day Ulenspiegel and Nele slept without fear of the devils, for they believed that they came only on Saturday.Katheline rose and went into thekeet, to see if her friends had come.She was sorely impatient, because since she had seen Hanske again, her madness had greatly lessened, for folk said it was love-madness.Not seeing them, she was brokenhearted; when she heard the sea eagle cry from the direction of Sluys, in the country, she went towards the cry. Going in the meadow at the foot of a dyke of faggots and green sod, she heard from the other side of the dyke the two devils talking together. One said:“I shall have the half of it.”The other replied:“Thou shalt have none of it; what is Katheline’s is mine.”Then they cursed and blasphemed like madmen, disputing between them who should have to himself alone the money and the loves of Katheline and Nele together. Transfixed with fear, daring neither to speak nor budge, Katheline presently heard them fighting, then one of them saying:“This steel is cold.” Then a rattling breath and the fall of a heavy body.Affrighted, she walked back to her cottage. At two o’clock in the night she heard again, but now in her garden, the cry of the sea eagle. She went to open and saw before the door her lover devil alone. She asked him:“What hast thou done with the other?”“He will not come again,” he answered.Then embracing her he caressed her. And he seemed to her colder than usual. And Katheline’s spirit was well awaked. When he went away, he asked her for twenty florins, all she had: she gave him seventeen.On the morrow, being curious, she went along by the dyke; but she saw nothing, save at a spot as big as a man’s coffin blood upon the turf that was less solid under foot. But that night rain washed away the blood.The next Wednesday she heard the cry of the sea eagle once more in her garden.LXXXIIEach time he needed money to pay their share of expenses at Katheline’s Ulenspiegel went by night to lift the stone from the hole dug beside the well, and took out a carolus.One night the three women were spinning; Ulenspiegel was carving with his knife a box that the bailiff had entrusted to him, and on which he was skilfully graving a goodly chase, with a pack of Hainaut dogs, mastiffs from Crete, the which are most savage beasts; Brabant dogs going in pairs and called ear biters, andother dogs, straight-legged, crook-legged, short-legged, and greyhounds.Katheline being present, Nele asked Soetkin if she had hidden her treasure well. The widow answered without any misgivings that it could not be better than in the side of the well wall.Towards the midnight, being Thursday, Soetkin was awakened by Bibulus Schnouffius, barking very sharply, but not for long. Deeming that it was some false alarm, she went to sleep again.Friday morning, early, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel, having risen, did not see Katheline as usual in the kitchen, nor the fire lit, nor the milk boiling on the fire. They were dumbfounded and looked to see if she was not perchance in the garden. They saw her there, though it was misty rain, dishevelled, in her body linen all soaked and chilled, but not daring to enter.Ulenspiegel, going to her, said:“What dost thou there, half naked, when it rains?”“Ah,” she said, “aye, aye, a great portent!”And she showed the dog with his throat cut and lying stiff.Ulenspiegel thought at once of the treasure; he ran to it. The hole was empty and the earth strewed far about.Leaping on Katheline and beating her:“Where are the carolus?” he said.“Aye, aye, a great portent!” replied Katheline.Nele, defending her mother, cried out:“Mercy and pity, Ulenspiegel!”He ceased to strike. Soetkin then showed herself and asked what was the matter.Ulenspiegel showed her the dog killed and the hole empty. Soetkin went white and said:“Thou dost smite me cruelly, Lord God. My poor feet!”And she said that because of the agony she had in them and the torment borne in vain for the gold carolus. Nele, seeing Soetkin so gentle, fell in despair and wept; Katheline, waving a piece of parchment, said:“Aye, a great portent. Last night he came, kindly and goodly. No longer was there on his face that livid glow that gave me so much affright. He spoke to me with a great tenderness. I was ravished with joy, my heart melted within me. He said to me, ‘Now I am rich, and will before long bring thee a thousand florins.’ ‘Aye,’ said I, ‘I am more glad for thy sake than for mine, Hanske, my darling.’ ‘But hast thou not here,’ he asked, ‘some other person thou lovest and whom I might make rich?’ ‘Nay,’ I replied, ‘those that be here have no need of thee.’ ‘Thou art proud,’ said he, ‘are then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel rich?’ ‘They live with no help from their neighbours,’ I replied. ‘In spite of the confiscation?’ said he. To which I answered that you had endured the torture rather than allow your money to be taken. ‘I was not without knowledge of that,’ said he. And he began, laughing quiet and low, to jeer at the bailiff and the sheriffs, for that they had not been able to make you confess. Then I laughed equally. ‘They had not been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to hide their treasure in their house.’ I laughed. ‘Nor in the cellar, here.’ ‘No, no,’ said I. ‘Nor in the garden?’ I made no reply. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘it would be too much of an imprudence.’ ‘Not much,’ said I, ‘for neither thewater nor the wall will speak.’ And he continued to laugh.“Last night he went away sooner than usual, after giving me a powder with which, said he, I could go to the finest of sabbaths. I brought him, in my linen, to the garden gate, and I was all overcome with sleep. I went, as he had said, to the sabbath, and came back only at daybreak, when I found myself here, and saw the dog dead and the hole empty. That is a very heavy blow for me, who loved him so tenderly and gave him my soul. But you shall have all I have, and I shall work with my feet and my hands to maintain you.”“I am the corn under the millstone: God and a robber devil strike me at the same time,” said Soetkin.“Robber, do not say so,” rejoined Katheline; “he is a devil, a devil. And for proof, I will show you the parchment he left in the yard; there is written upon it: ‘Never forget to do my service. In thrice two weeks and five days I shall return thee the twofold of the treasure. Have no doubt, else thou shalt die.’ And he will keep his word, I am convinced and sure.”“Poor witless one!” said Soetkin.And that was her last word of reproach.LXXXIIIThe two weeks having thrice passed by and the five days as well, the lover devil never came back. And still Katheline lived without despairing of it.Soetkin, never working now, remained continually in front of the fire, coughing and bent. Nele gave her the best and most fragrant herbs: but no remedy had power upon her. Ulenspiegel never left thecottage, fearing that Soetkin might die while he was abroad.Then it came that the widow could neither eat nor drink without vomiting. The barber surgeon came and bled her; the blood being taken from her, she was so weak that she could not leave her stool. At length, withered up with sorrow and pain, she said one evening:“Claes, my husband! Thyl, my son! I thank thee, God who takest me away!”And she died on a sigh.Katheline not daring to watch by her, Ulenspiegel and Nele did it together, and all night long they prayed for the dead woman.At dawn there entered by the open window a swallow.Nele said:“The bird of souls, ’tis a good omen: Soetkin is in heaven.”The swallow flew round the chamber thrice and went off with a cry.Then there entered a second swallow, bigger and blacker than the other. It circled around Ulenspiegel, and he said:“Father and Mother, the ashes beat against my breast, I shall do what ye ask.”And the second went away crying shrill like the first. The day showed brighter; Ulenspiegel saw thousands of swallows skimming the meadows, and the sun arose.And Soetkin was buried in the field of the poor.LXXXIVAfter Soetkin’s death, Ulenspiegel, dreamy, sorrowful, or angry, wandered about the kitchen, hearingnothing, taking what food or drink was given him, without choosing. And he often rose at night.In vain did Nele with her soft voice exhort him to hope. Vainly did Katheline tell him that she knew Soetkin was in paradise with Claes. To all Ulenspiegel replied:“The ashes are beating.”And he was as a man distraught, and Nele wept to see him in this plight.Meanwhile, the fishmonger remained in his house alone like a parricide, and dared not go forth save by night; for men and women, passing near him, hooted him and called him murderer, and children fled before him, for they had been told that he was the executioner. He wandered alone and solitary, not daring to go into any of the three taverns of Damme; for he was pointed at in them, and if he merely remained standing for a minute inside, the drinkers went away.Hence it came that thebaesenwished not to see him again, and if he presented himself, shut their door to him. Then the fishmonger would offer a humble remonstrance: they would reply that it was their right and not their obligation to sell.Tired of the struggle, the fishmonger used to go to drinkin ’t Roode Valck, at the Red Falcon, a little wine shop away from the town on the edge of the Sluys Canal. There they served him; for they were grubbing folk to whom any money was welcome. But thebaesof theRoode Valcknever spoke a word to him nor did his wife. There were two children and a dog in the house: when the fishmonger would have caressed the children, they ran away; and when he called the dog, the dog tried to bite him.One evening Ulenspiegel stood on the threshold: Mathyssens the cooper, seeing him so pensive and dreaming, said to him:“You should work with your hands and forget this sad blow.”Ulenspiegel answered:“The ashes of Claes beat against my breast.”“Ah,” said Mathyssens, “he leads a sadder life than thou, the wretched fishmonger. No man speaks to him, and everyone flees from him, so that he is driven to go among the poor ragamuffins at theRoode Valckto drink his quart ofbruinbierby himself. ’Tis a sore punishment.”“The ashes beat!” said Ulenspiegel again.That same evening, while the clock on Notre Dame was striking the ninth hour, Ulenspiegel went towards theRoode Valck, and seeing that the fishmonger was not there, he went wandering under the trees on the edge of the canal. The moon was shining bright and clear.He saw the murderer coming.As he passed before him, he could see him near at hand, and heard him say, speaking aloud like those who live alone:“Where have they hidden these carolus?”“Where the devil has found them,” answered Ulenspiegel striking him full in the face with his fist.“Alas!” said the fishmonger, “I know thee who thou art, thou art the son. Have pity, I am old and weak. What I did, it was not for hate, but to serve His Majesty. Deign to pardon me. I wilt give thee back the furniture I purchased, thou wilt not have to pay me one single patard for it. Is not that enough?I paid seven gold florins for them. Thou shalt have all and a demi-florin to boot, for I am not rich, it must not be imagined.”And he would have gone on his knees before him.Ulenspiegel, seeing him so ugly, so trembling, and so cowardly and mean, flung him into the canal.And he went away.LXXXVOn the doomfires smoked the fat of the victims. Ulenspiegel, thinking of Claes and Soetkin, wept in solitude.One night he went to find Katheline and ask her for a remedy and for vengeance.She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a heavy slumber.He said to her:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great God of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer.”Katheline said:“The Great God could not hear you: first you must address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world, which being of double nature, celestial and terrestrial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to the throne.”“Help me,” said he, “in my design; I will pay thee with my blood if need be.”Replied Katheline:“I will help thee, if a girl that loveth thee wouldbring thee with her to the sabbath of the Spirits of the Springtide, which is the Easter of the Sap.”“I will bring him,” said Nele.Katheline poured into a crystal goblet a grayish coloured mixture of which she gave them both to drink; with this mixture she rubbed their temples, their nostrils, palms of the hand and wrists, made them swallow a pinch of a white powder, and bade them look at the other, that their two souls might become as but one.Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and the kind soft eyes of the girl lit up a great fire within him; then by reason of the mixture he felt as it might have been a thousand crabs tearing at him.Then they took off their clothes, and they were beautiful thus in the lamplight, he in his proud strength, she in her delicious grace; but they could not see one another, for already they were as though in sleep. Then Katheline laid Nele’s neck upon Ulenspiegel’s arm, and taking his hand put it upon the maiden’s heart.And they remained thus naked and lying one beside the other.It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of roses.They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the window sill, launched themselves thence into void space, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears the ships.Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens where but now the clouds were rolling beneath theirfeet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star. Then from there they were cast upon the pole.There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant, the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoarse voice, he called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast. And all raged together at once in this deadly place.Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and also to put black coal in the place where shady forests were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire, he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil, in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skeleton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea, upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skeletons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by the gloomy water.And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurricanes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind howling in chimneys.“I am acold and am afeard,” said Ulenspiegel.“He hath no power against spirits,” answered Nele.Suddenly there was a great stir among the seals, which dashed in haste into the water, the bears, which laying their ears flat with fright, roared lamentably, and the ravens, which lost themselves in the clouds with agonized croakings.And lo, Nele and Ulenspiegel heard the dull thudding blows of a ram upon the wall of ice that served as a support to the Giant Winter. And the wall split and cracked and shook to and fro on its foundations.But the Giant Winter heard nothing, and he went on howling and shouting in glee, filling and draining his cup of oil; and he went on searching for the heart of the earth to freeze it, and not daring to lay hold of it.Meantime, the blows reëchoed louder and harder, and the wall cracked more and more, and the rain of icicles flying in splintered pieces ceased not to fall about him.And the bears roared lamentably and without ceasing, and the seals complained in the leaden gloomy water.The wall crumbled and fell, and it became light in the sky; a man descended therefrom, naked and beautiful, leaning one hand upon a golden axe. And this man was Lucifer, King Springtide.When the giant beheld him, he flung far away his cup of oil, and implored him not to slay him.And at the warm breath of King Springtide, the Giant Winter lost all strength. Then the king took chains of diamonds, bound him with these, and tied him to the pole.Then staying, he uttered a cry, but a tender, amorouscry. And from the sky came down a blonde woman, naked and beautiful. Placing herself beside the king, she said to him:“Thou art my vanquisher, mighty man.”He made answer:“If thou art an-hungered, eat; if thou art athirst, drink; if thou art afraid, come close to me: I am thy male and thy mate.”“I am,” said she, “hungry and athirst only for thee.”The king shouted yet again seven times terribly. And there was a mighty din of thunder and lightning, and behind him there took shape a canopy of suns and of stars. And the twain sat them down upon thrones.Then the king and the woman, without a movement of their noble faces, and without a gesture impairing their might and their calm majesty, cried aloud.At these cries there was an undulating movement in the earth, the hard stone and the ice floes. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a noise such as might be made by gigantic birds seeking to break the shell of enormous eggs with blows of their beak.And in this huge movement of the earth which rose and fell like the waves of the sea there were shapes like the shape of an egg.Suddenly from everywhere came forth trees with their dry branches dovetailed and interlocked together, while their boles moved, swaying like drunken men. Then they drew apart, leaving between them a huge void space. From the stirring soil came forth the genii of the earth; from the deeps of the forest the woodland spirits; from the sea near by the genii of the water.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw there the dwarfs that are the wardens of treasure, hunchbacked, hairy, clumsy-foot, ugly and grinning, princes of the stones, men of the woods living like trees, and, by way of mouth and stomach, having a tuft of roots at the lower part of their face, thus to suck up their food from the bosom of the earth; the emperors of mines, who cannot speak, have neither heart nor entrails, and move like bright automatons. There, too, were dwarfs of flesh and bone, with lizard tails, toads’ heads, and lantern for headgear, who leap by night upon the shoulders of drunken men afoot or timid travellers, leap down again and waving their lantern, lead into pools and bogholes the poor devils who imagine that this lantern is the candle burning in their homes.There, too, were the flower-maidens, flowers of feminine strength and haleness, naked and not blushing, proud of their beauty, having for their only cloak their hair.Their eyes shone with the wet lustre of mother of pearl in water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and gilded by the light; from their red mouths partly open came a breath more sweet and fragrant than jasmine.These are they that wander by eventide in parks and gardens, or in the deeps of the woods, in shady bridle ways, amorous and seeking some human soul to enjoy it. So soon as passeth before them a young man and a young maid, they seek to slay the maid, but when they cannot, they breathe into the sweetling, still reluctant, desires of love so that she may yield herself to the lover; for then the flower-maiden hath half of the kisses.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw also coming down from the high heavens the guardian spirits of the stars, the genii of the winds, of the breeze and the rain, winged young men that make the earth fertile.Then in every quarter of the sky appeared the birds of souls, the dear swallows. When they were come, the light appeared stronger. Flower-maids, princes of the stones, emperors of the mines, men of the woods, spirits of the water, of fire, and of the earth all cried out in unison: “Light! Sap! Glory to King Springtide!”Although the sound of their unanimous outcry was greater than that of the raging sea, the thunder, and the unleashed tempest, it sounded as solemn music in the ears of Nele and of Ulenspiegel, who, silent and motionless, remained huddled together behind the rugged trunk of an oak tree.But they were still more affrighted when the spirits, thousands upon thousands, took their places upon seats that were immense spiders, toads with elephants, trunks, interlacing serpents, crocodiles standing up on their tails and holding a band of spirits in their jaws, serpents carrying more than thirty dwarfs, both men and women, seated astraddle on their undulating bodies, and full a hundred thousand insects bigger than Goliaths, armed with swords, spears, jagged scythes, forks with seven tines, and every other kind of dreadful murdering implements. They fought together with tremendous din, the strong devouring the weak, growing fat upon them, and showing thus that Death is made from Life and that Life is made from Death.And from among this crowd of spirits, swarming, shifting, dense, confused, there arose a noise like lowthunder and a hundred weavers’ looms, fullers and locksmiths all working together.Suddenly appeared the spirits of the sap, short, squat, round about the loins as big as the great Heidelberg tun, with thighs as big as hogsheads, and muscles so marvellously strong and powerful that one would have said their bodies were made up of large eggs and small eggs joined to one another and covered with a red, oily skin, shining like their sparse beard and their red hair; and they carried enormous tankards filled with a strange liquor.When the other spirits beheld them coming, a great tremor of joy ran among them; trees and plants moved and shook, and the earth opened up in cracks to drink.And the spirits of the sap poured out the wine: and all things incontinently budded, were green, flourished; the sward was full of whispering insects, and the sky of birds and butterflies; the spirits poured on and on, and those below received the wine as best they might: the flower-maids, opening their mouths or leaping up upon their red cupbearers, and kissing them to have more; some, clasping their hands in sign of entreaty; others who, in ecstasy, let it rain over them; but all greedy or parched, flying, standing, running or motionless, seeking to have the wine, and more intensely alive with every drop they attained to receiving. And there were no oldsters there, but ugly or goodly, all were full of prime strength and keenest youth.And they laughed, shouted, sang, pursuing one another upon the trees like squirrels, in the air like birds, every male seeking his female and under the skies of God falling to the holy deed of kind.And the spirits of the sap brought to the king and thequeen the great cup full of their wine. And the king and the queen drank and embraced one another.Then the king, holding the queen in his arm, cast upon the trees, the flowers and the spirits, the dregs of his cup and cried aloud:“Glory to Life! Glory to the free Air! Glory to Force!”And all shouted:“Glory to Nature! Glory to Force!”And Ulenspiegel took Nele into his arms. Thus enlaced, a dance began: a round circling dance like a dance of leaves that a whirlwind swings together, where all was in motion, trees, plants, insects, butterflies, heaven and earth, king and queen, flower-maidens, emperors of mines, princes of stones, spirits of the waters, hunchback dwarfs, men of the woods, lantern bearers, guardian spirits of the stars, and the hundred thousand horrific insects mingling their spears, their saw-edged scythes, their seven-pronged forks; a giddy dance, swaying about in space and filling it, a dance in which the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the wind, the clouds, all took part.And the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were clinging rolled with the whirl, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:“Dear one, we are about to die.”A spirit heard them and saw that they were mortals:“Mankind,” he bawled, “mankind in this place!”And he wrenched them from the tree and flung them in the crowd.And Ulenspiegel and Nele fell soft and limp on the backs of the spirits, which bandied them about from one to another, saying:“Hail to mankind! Welcome be the earth worms! Who would have the lad and lass? They come to visit us, the puny things.”And Ulenspiegel and Nele flew from one to another, crying:“Mercy!”But the spirits paid no heed, and both went fluttering, legs in air, head down, turning and circling like feathers in the winter winds, while the spirits said:“Glory to the manlings male and female, let them dance like us!”The flower-maidens, wishing to sever Nele from Ulenspiegel, smote her and would have killed her, had not King Springtide, staying the dance with a gesture, cried out:“Let these two lice be brought before me!”And they were separated one from the other; and each flower-maiden said, endeavouring to take Ulenspiegel from her rivals:“Thyl, wouldst thou not die for me?”“I will do so in a moment,” said Ulenspiegel.And the dwarf wood sprites that were carrying Nele said:“Why art thou not a spirit like us, that we might take thee to us!”Nele answered:“Have patience.”Thus they arrived before the king’s throne; and they trembled sore seeing his golden axe and his iron crown.And he said to them:“What are ye come hither to do, ye puny things?”They made no answer.“I know thee, witches’ shoot,” added the King, “and thee too, sprout of the coalman; but having by the power of spells achieved the deed of penetrating to this laboratory of Nature, why have ye now your beaks locked like capons stuffed with crumb?”Nele trembled, looking at the terrible demon; but Ulenspiegel, recovering his manly hardihood, replied:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart. Divine Highness, death goeth throughout the land of Flanders, mowing down, in the Pope’s name, the strongest men, the sweetest women; her privileges are destroyed, her charters abolished, famine gnaweth her, her weavers and cloth merchants leave her to go to the foreigner seeking freedom for their work. She will die soon if no one comes to her help. Highness, I am but a poor mean fellow come into the world like any other, who have lived as I could, imperfect, limited, ignorant, not virtuous, in no wise chaste or deserving of any favour human or divine. But Soetkin died of the effects of the torture and her grief, but Claes burned in a terrible fire, and I was minded to avenge them, and did so once; I was minded also to see this poor soil happier, this poor soil in which their bones are sown, and I asked God for the death of the persecutors, but he did not hearken to me nor heed me. Weary and sick of complaints, I evoked thee by the potency of Katheline’s spell, and we come, I and my trembling she-comrade, to thy feet, to ask you, Divine Highnesses, to save this poor earth.”The king and his spouse replied together:“Through war and through fireThrough death, through the sword.Seek the Seven.“In death and bloodIn ruin and tears,Find the Seven.“Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,Mere Scourge of the poor earth.Burn the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”And all the spirits fell to chanting in unison:“In death and blood,In ruin and tearsFind the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”“But,” said Ulenspiegel, “Highness, and ye, spirits, I understand not your talk. Ye make a mock of me, sans doubt.”But without heeding him they said:“When the NorthShall kiss the WestRuin shall end;Find thou the SevenThe Girdle find!”And that with so tremendous a chorus and so terrifically loud, strong, and sonorous that the earth trembled and the heavens shivered. And the birds whistling, the owls bubbling, the sparrows twittering inaffright, the sea eagles complaining, all flew round aghast. And the beasts of the earth, lions, serpents, bears, stags, bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats roared, hissed, belled, howled, barked, and mewed terribly.And the spirits chanted:“Wait, hear and see,Love thou the SevenThe Girdle love.”And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished save one malicious emperor of mines who seizing Ulenspiegel and Nele each by an arm, hurled them brutally out into the void.They found themselves lying beside each other, as though for sleep, and they shivered in the keen wind of the morning.And Ulenspiegel saw the delicious body of Nele all gilded in the sun that was then rising.

LXXXIOn the morrow, while they were drinking hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:“Thou seest that sorrow is driving me already out of this world, wouldst thou drive me to flee from it through thy damned witchcrafts?”But Katheline kept saying:“Nele is bad. Come back, Hanske, my darling.”On the next Wednesday the devils came back together. Since the Saturday Nele slept at the house of the widow Van den Houte, saying that she could not stay at Katheline’s by reason of the presence of Ulenspiegel, a young bachelor.Katheline received her black lord and his friend in thekeet, which is the wash house and the bakery appurtenant to the main dwelling. And then they held feast and revel with old wines and smoked ox tongues, that were always there awaiting them. The black devil said to Katheline:“We have need,” said he, “for an important taskthat is to be done, of a heavy sum of money; give us what thou canst.”Katheline, being unwilling to give more than a florin, they threatened to kill her. But they let her off with two gold carolus and seven deniers.“Come no more on the Saturday,” she told them. “Ulenspiegel knows that day and will await you with weapons to kill you, and I should die after you.”“We shall come next Tuesday,” said they.On that day Ulenspiegel and Nele slept without fear of the devils, for they believed that they came only on Saturday.Katheline rose and went into thekeet, to see if her friends had come.She was sorely impatient, because since she had seen Hanske again, her madness had greatly lessened, for folk said it was love-madness.Not seeing them, she was brokenhearted; when she heard the sea eagle cry from the direction of Sluys, in the country, she went towards the cry. Going in the meadow at the foot of a dyke of faggots and green sod, she heard from the other side of the dyke the two devils talking together. One said:“I shall have the half of it.”The other replied:“Thou shalt have none of it; what is Katheline’s is mine.”Then they cursed and blasphemed like madmen, disputing between them who should have to himself alone the money and the loves of Katheline and Nele together. Transfixed with fear, daring neither to speak nor budge, Katheline presently heard them fighting, then one of them saying:“This steel is cold.” Then a rattling breath and the fall of a heavy body.Affrighted, she walked back to her cottage. At two o’clock in the night she heard again, but now in her garden, the cry of the sea eagle. She went to open and saw before the door her lover devil alone. She asked him:“What hast thou done with the other?”“He will not come again,” he answered.Then embracing her he caressed her. And he seemed to her colder than usual. And Katheline’s spirit was well awaked. When he went away, he asked her for twenty florins, all she had: she gave him seventeen.On the morrow, being curious, she went along by the dyke; but she saw nothing, save at a spot as big as a man’s coffin blood upon the turf that was less solid under foot. But that night rain washed away the blood.The next Wednesday she heard the cry of the sea eagle once more in her garden.

LXXXI

On the morrow, while they were drinking hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:“Thou seest that sorrow is driving me already out of this world, wouldst thou drive me to flee from it through thy damned witchcrafts?”But Katheline kept saying:“Nele is bad. Come back, Hanske, my darling.”On the next Wednesday the devils came back together. Since the Saturday Nele slept at the house of the widow Van den Houte, saying that she could not stay at Katheline’s by reason of the presence of Ulenspiegel, a young bachelor.Katheline received her black lord and his friend in thekeet, which is the wash house and the bakery appurtenant to the main dwelling. And then they held feast and revel with old wines and smoked ox tongues, that were always there awaiting them. The black devil said to Katheline:“We have need,” said he, “for an important taskthat is to be done, of a heavy sum of money; give us what thou canst.”Katheline, being unwilling to give more than a florin, they threatened to kill her. But they let her off with two gold carolus and seven deniers.“Come no more on the Saturday,” she told them. “Ulenspiegel knows that day and will await you with weapons to kill you, and I should die after you.”“We shall come next Tuesday,” said they.On that day Ulenspiegel and Nele slept without fear of the devils, for they believed that they came only on Saturday.Katheline rose and went into thekeet, to see if her friends had come.She was sorely impatient, because since she had seen Hanske again, her madness had greatly lessened, for folk said it was love-madness.Not seeing them, she was brokenhearted; when she heard the sea eagle cry from the direction of Sluys, in the country, she went towards the cry. Going in the meadow at the foot of a dyke of faggots and green sod, she heard from the other side of the dyke the two devils talking together. One said:“I shall have the half of it.”The other replied:“Thou shalt have none of it; what is Katheline’s is mine.”Then they cursed and blasphemed like madmen, disputing between them who should have to himself alone the money and the loves of Katheline and Nele together. Transfixed with fear, daring neither to speak nor budge, Katheline presently heard them fighting, then one of them saying:“This steel is cold.” Then a rattling breath and the fall of a heavy body.Affrighted, she walked back to her cottage. At two o’clock in the night she heard again, but now in her garden, the cry of the sea eagle. She went to open and saw before the door her lover devil alone. She asked him:“What hast thou done with the other?”“He will not come again,” he answered.Then embracing her he caressed her. And he seemed to her colder than usual. And Katheline’s spirit was well awaked. When he went away, he asked her for twenty florins, all she had: she gave him seventeen.On the morrow, being curious, she went along by the dyke; but she saw nothing, save at a spot as big as a man’s coffin blood upon the turf that was less solid under foot. But that night rain washed away the blood.The next Wednesday she heard the cry of the sea eagle once more in her garden.

On the morrow, while they were drinking hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:

“Thou seest that sorrow is driving me already out of this world, wouldst thou drive me to flee from it through thy damned witchcrafts?”

But Katheline kept saying:

“Nele is bad. Come back, Hanske, my darling.”

On the next Wednesday the devils came back together. Since the Saturday Nele slept at the house of the widow Van den Houte, saying that she could not stay at Katheline’s by reason of the presence of Ulenspiegel, a young bachelor.

Katheline received her black lord and his friend in thekeet, which is the wash house and the bakery appurtenant to the main dwelling. And then they held feast and revel with old wines and smoked ox tongues, that were always there awaiting them. The black devil said to Katheline:

“We have need,” said he, “for an important taskthat is to be done, of a heavy sum of money; give us what thou canst.”

Katheline, being unwilling to give more than a florin, they threatened to kill her. But they let her off with two gold carolus and seven deniers.

“Come no more on the Saturday,” she told them. “Ulenspiegel knows that day and will await you with weapons to kill you, and I should die after you.”

“We shall come next Tuesday,” said they.

On that day Ulenspiegel and Nele slept without fear of the devils, for they believed that they came only on Saturday.

Katheline rose and went into thekeet, to see if her friends had come.

She was sorely impatient, because since she had seen Hanske again, her madness had greatly lessened, for folk said it was love-madness.

Not seeing them, she was brokenhearted; when she heard the sea eagle cry from the direction of Sluys, in the country, she went towards the cry. Going in the meadow at the foot of a dyke of faggots and green sod, she heard from the other side of the dyke the two devils talking together. One said:

“I shall have the half of it.”

The other replied:

“Thou shalt have none of it; what is Katheline’s is mine.”

Then they cursed and blasphemed like madmen, disputing between them who should have to himself alone the money and the loves of Katheline and Nele together. Transfixed with fear, daring neither to speak nor budge, Katheline presently heard them fighting, then one of them saying:

“This steel is cold.” Then a rattling breath and the fall of a heavy body.

Affrighted, she walked back to her cottage. At two o’clock in the night she heard again, but now in her garden, the cry of the sea eagle. She went to open and saw before the door her lover devil alone. She asked him:

“What hast thou done with the other?”

“He will not come again,” he answered.

Then embracing her he caressed her. And he seemed to her colder than usual. And Katheline’s spirit was well awaked. When he went away, he asked her for twenty florins, all she had: she gave him seventeen.

On the morrow, being curious, she went along by the dyke; but she saw nothing, save at a spot as big as a man’s coffin blood upon the turf that was less solid under foot. But that night rain washed away the blood.

The next Wednesday she heard the cry of the sea eagle once more in her garden.

LXXXIIEach time he needed money to pay their share of expenses at Katheline’s Ulenspiegel went by night to lift the stone from the hole dug beside the well, and took out a carolus.One night the three women were spinning; Ulenspiegel was carving with his knife a box that the bailiff had entrusted to him, and on which he was skilfully graving a goodly chase, with a pack of Hainaut dogs, mastiffs from Crete, the which are most savage beasts; Brabant dogs going in pairs and called ear biters, andother dogs, straight-legged, crook-legged, short-legged, and greyhounds.Katheline being present, Nele asked Soetkin if she had hidden her treasure well. The widow answered without any misgivings that it could not be better than in the side of the well wall.Towards the midnight, being Thursday, Soetkin was awakened by Bibulus Schnouffius, barking very sharply, but not for long. Deeming that it was some false alarm, she went to sleep again.Friday morning, early, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel, having risen, did not see Katheline as usual in the kitchen, nor the fire lit, nor the milk boiling on the fire. They were dumbfounded and looked to see if she was not perchance in the garden. They saw her there, though it was misty rain, dishevelled, in her body linen all soaked and chilled, but not daring to enter.Ulenspiegel, going to her, said:“What dost thou there, half naked, when it rains?”“Ah,” she said, “aye, aye, a great portent!”And she showed the dog with his throat cut and lying stiff.Ulenspiegel thought at once of the treasure; he ran to it. The hole was empty and the earth strewed far about.Leaping on Katheline and beating her:“Where are the carolus?” he said.“Aye, aye, a great portent!” replied Katheline.Nele, defending her mother, cried out:“Mercy and pity, Ulenspiegel!”He ceased to strike. Soetkin then showed herself and asked what was the matter.Ulenspiegel showed her the dog killed and the hole empty. Soetkin went white and said:“Thou dost smite me cruelly, Lord God. My poor feet!”And she said that because of the agony she had in them and the torment borne in vain for the gold carolus. Nele, seeing Soetkin so gentle, fell in despair and wept; Katheline, waving a piece of parchment, said:“Aye, a great portent. Last night he came, kindly and goodly. No longer was there on his face that livid glow that gave me so much affright. He spoke to me with a great tenderness. I was ravished with joy, my heart melted within me. He said to me, ‘Now I am rich, and will before long bring thee a thousand florins.’ ‘Aye,’ said I, ‘I am more glad for thy sake than for mine, Hanske, my darling.’ ‘But hast thou not here,’ he asked, ‘some other person thou lovest and whom I might make rich?’ ‘Nay,’ I replied, ‘those that be here have no need of thee.’ ‘Thou art proud,’ said he, ‘are then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel rich?’ ‘They live with no help from their neighbours,’ I replied. ‘In spite of the confiscation?’ said he. To which I answered that you had endured the torture rather than allow your money to be taken. ‘I was not without knowledge of that,’ said he. And he began, laughing quiet and low, to jeer at the bailiff and the sheriffs, for that they had not been able to make you confess. Then I laughed equally. ‘They had not been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to hide their treasure in their house.’ I laughed. ‘Nor in the cellar, here.’ ‘No, no,’ said I. ‘Nor in the garden?’ I made no reply. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘it would be too much of an imprudence.’ ‘Not much,’ said I, ‘for neither thewater nor the wall will speak.’ And he continued to laugh.“Last night he went away sooner than usual, after giving me a powder with which, said he, I could go to the finest of sabbaths. I brought him, in my linen, to the garden gate, and I was all overcome with sleep. I went, as he had said, to the sabbath, and came back only at daybreak, when I found myself here, and saw the dog dead and the hole empty. That is a very heavy blow for me, who loved him so tenderly and gave him my soul. But you shall have all I have, and I shall work with my feet and my hands to maintain you.”“I am the corn under the millstone: God and a robber devil strike me at the same time,” said Soetkin.“Robber, do not say so,” rejoined Katheline; “he is a devil, a devil. And for proof, I will show you the parchment he left in the yard; there is written upon it: ‘Never forget to do my service. In thrice two weeks and five days I shall return thee the twofold of the treasure. Have no doubt, else thou shalt die.’ And he will keep his word, I am convinced and sure.”“Poor witless one!” said Soetkin.And that was her last word of reproach.

LXXXII

Each time he needed money to pay their share of expenses at Katheline’s Ulenspiegel went by night to lift the stone from the hole dug beside the well, and took out a carolus.One night the three women were spinning; Ulenspiegel was carving with his knife a box that the bailiff had entrusted to him, and on which he was skilfully graving a goodly chase, with a pack of Hainaut dogs, mastiffs from Crete, the which are most savage beasts; Brabant dogs going in pairs and called ear biters, andother dogs, straight-legged, crook-legged, short-legged, and greyhounds.Katheline being present, Nele asked Soetkin if she had hidden her treasure well. The widow answered without any misgivings that it could not be better than in the side of the well wall.Towards the midnight, being Thursday, Soetkin was awakened by Bibulus Schnouffius, barking very sharply, but not for long. Deeming that it was some false alarm, she went to sleep again.Friday morning, early, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel, having risen, did not see Katheline as usual in the kitchen, nor the fire lit, nor the milk boiling on the fire. They were dumbfounded and looked to see if she was not perchance in the garden. They saw her there, though it was misty rain, dishevelled, in her body linen all soaked and chilled, but not daring to enter.Ulenspiegel, going to her, said:“What dost thou there, half naked, when it rains?”“Ah,” she said, “aye, aye, a great portent!”And she showed the dog with his throat cut and lying stiff.Ulenspiegel thought at once of the treasure; he ran to it. The hole was empty and the earth strewed far about.Leaping on Katheline and beating her:“Where are the carolus?” he said.“Aye, aye, a great portent!” replied Katheline.Nele, defending her mother, cried out:“Mercy and pity, Ulenspiegel!”He ceased to strike. Soetkin then showed herself and asked what was the matter.Ulenspiegel showed her the dog killed and the hole empty. Soetkin went white and said:“Thou dost smite me cruelly, Lord God. My poor feet!”And she said that because of the agony she had in them and the torment borne in vain for the gold carolus. Nele, seeing Soetkin so gentle, fell in despair and wept; Katheline, waving a piece of parchment, said:“Aye, a great portent. Last night he came, kindly and goodly. No longer was there on his face that livid glow that gave me so much affright. He spoke to me with a great tenderness. I was ravished with joy, my heart melted within me. He said to me, ‘Now I am rich, and will before long bring thee a thousand florins.’ ‘Aye,’ said I, ‘I am more glad for thy sake than for mine, Hanske, my darling.’ ‘But hast thou not here,’ he asked, ‘some other person thou lovest and whom I might make rich?’ ‘Nay,’ I replied, ‘those that be here have no need of thee.’ ‘Thou art proud,’ said he, ‘are then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel rich?’ ‘They live with no help from their neighbours,’ I replied. ‘In spite of the confiscation?’ said he. To which I answered that you had endured the torture rather than allow your money to be taken. ‘I was not without knowledge of that,’ said he. And he began, laughing quiet and low, to jeer at the bailiff and the sheriffs, for that they had not been able to make you confess. Then I laughed equally. ‘They had not been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to hide their treasure in their house.’ I laughed. ‘Nor in the cellar, here.’ ‘No, no,’ said I. ‘Nor in the garden?’ I made no reply. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘it would be too much of an imprudence.’ ‘Not much,’ said I, ‘for neither thewater nor the wall will speak.’ And he continued to laugh.“Last night he went away sooner than usual, after giving me a powder with which, said he, I could go to the finest of sabbaths. I brought him, in my linen, to the garden gate, and I was all overcome with sleep. I went, as he had said, to the sabbath, and came back only at daybreak, when I found myself here, and saw the dog dead and the hole empty. That is a very heavy blow for me, who loved him so tenderly and gave him my soul. But you shall have all I have, and I shall work with my feet and my hands to maintain you.”“I am the corn under the millstone: God and a robber devil strike me at the same time,” said Soetkin.“Robber, do not say so,” rejoined Katheline; “he is a devil, a devil. And for proof, I will show you the parchment he left in the yard; there is written upon it: ‘Never forget to do my service. In thrice two weeks and five days I shall return thee the twofold of the treasure. Have no doubt, else thou shalt die.’ And he will keep his word, I am convinced and sure.”“Poor witless one!” said Soetkin.And that was her last word of reproach.

Each time he needed money to pay their share of expenses at Katheline’s Ulenspiegel went by night to lift the stone from the hole dug beside the well, and took out a carolus.

One night the three women were spinning; Ulenspiegel was carving with his knife a box that the bailiff had entrusted to him, and on which he was skilfully graving a goodly chase, with a pack of Hainaut dogs, mastiffs from Crete, the which are most savage beasts; Brabant dogs going in pairs and called ear biters, andother dogs, straight-legged, crook-legged, short-legged, and greyhounds.

Katheline being present, Nele asked Soetkin if she had hidden her treasure well. The widow answered without any misgivings that it could not be better than in the side of the well wall.

Towards the midnight, being Thursday, Soetkin was awakened by Bibulus Schnouffius, barking very sharply, but not for long. Deeming that it was some false alarm, she went to sleep again.

Friday morning, early, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel, having risen, did not see Katheline as usual in the kitchen, nor the fire lit, nor the milk boiling on the fire. They were dumbfounded and looked to see if she was not perchance in the garden. They saw her there, though it was misty rain, dishevelled, in her body linen all soaked and chilled, but not daring to enter.

Ulenspiegel, going to her, said:

“What dost thou there, half naked, when it rains?”

“Ah,” she said, “aye, aye, a great portent!”

And she showed the dog with his throat cut and lying stiff.

Ulenspiegel thought at once of the treasure; he ran to it. The hole was empty and the earth strewed far about.

Leaping on Katheline and beating her:

“Where are the carolus?” he said.

“Aye, aye, a great portent!” replied Katheline.

Nele, defending her mother, cried out:

“Mercy and pity, Ulenspiegel!”

He ceased to strike. Soetkin then showed herself and asked what was the matter.

Ulenspiegel showed her the dog killed and the hole empty. Soetkin went white and said:

“Thou dost smite me cruelly, Lord God. My poor feet!”

And she said that because of the agony she had in them and the torment borne in vain for the gold carolus. Nele, seeing Soetkin so gentle, fell in despair and wept; Katheline, waving a piece of parchment, said:

“Aye, a great portent. Last night he came, kindly and goodly. No longer was there on his face that livid glow that gave me so much affright. He spoke to me with a great tenderness. I was ravished with joy, my heart melted within me. He said to me, ‘Now I am rich, and will before long bring thee a thousand florins.’ ‘Aye,’ said I, ‘I am more glad for thy sake than for mine, Hanske, my darling.’ ‘But hast thou not here,’ he asked, ‘some other person thou lovest and whom I might make rich?’ ‘Nay,’ I replied, ‘those that be here have no need of thee.’ ‘Thou art proud,’ said he, ‘are then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel rich?’ ‘They live with no help from their neighbours,’ I replied. ‘In spite of the confiscation?’ said he. To which I answered that you had endured the torture rather than allow your money to be taken. ‘I was not without knowledge of that,’ said he. And he began, laughing quiet and low, to jeer at the bailiff and the sheriffs, for that they had not been able to make you confess. Then I laughed equally. ‘They had not been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to hide their treasure in their house.’ I laughed. ‘Nor in the cellar, here.’ ‘No, no,’ said I. ‘Nor in the garden?’ I made no reply. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘it would be too much of an imprudence.’ ‘Not much,’ said I, ‘for neither thewater nor the wall will speak.’ And he continued to laugh.

“Last night he went away sooner than usual, after giving me a powder with which, said he, I could go to the finest of sabbaths. I brought him, in my linen, to the garden gate, and I was all overcome with sleep. I went, as he had said, to the sabbath, and came back only at daybreak, when I found myself here, and saw the dog dead and the hole empty. That is a very heavy blow for me, who loved him so tenderly and gave him my soul. But you shall have all I have, and I shall work with my feet and my hands to maintain you.”

“I am the corn under the millstone: God and a robber devil strike me at the same time,” said Soetkin.

“Robber, do not say so,” rejoined Katheline; “he is a devil, a devil. And for proof, I will show you the parchment he left in the yard; there is written upon it: ‘Never forget to do my service. In thrice two weeks and five days I shall return thee the twofold of the treasure. Have no doubt, else thou shalt die.’ And he will keep his word, I am convinced and sure.”

“Poor witless one!” said Soetkin.

And that was her last word of reproach.

LXXXIIIThe two weeks having thrice passed by and the five days as well, the lover devil never came back. And still Katheline lived without despairing of it.Soetkin, never working now, remained continually in front of the fire, coughing and bent. Nele gave her the best and most fragrant herbs: but no remedy had power upon her. Ulenspiegel never left thecottage, fearing that Soetkin might die while he was abroad.Then it came that the widow could neither eat nor drink without vomiting. The barber surgeon came and bled her; the blood being taken from her, she was so weak that she could not leave her stool. At length, withered up with sorrow and pain, she said one evening:“Claes, my husband! Thyl, my son! I thank thee, God who takest me away!”And she died on a sigh.Katheline not daring to watch by her, Ulenspiegel and Nele did it together, and all night long they prayed for the dead woman.At dawn there entered by the open window a swallow.Nele said:“The bird of souls, ’tis a good omen: Soetkin is in heaven.”The swallow flew round the chamber thrice and went off with a cry.Then there entered a second swallow, bigger and blacker than the other. It circled around Ulenspiegel, and he said:“Father and Mother, the ashes beat against my breast, I shall do what ye ask.”And the second went away crying shrill like the first. The day showed brighter; Ulenspiegel saw thousands of swallows skimming the meadows, and the sun arose.And Soetkin was buried in the field of the poor.

LXXXIII

The two weeks having thrice passed by and the five days as well, the lover devil never came back. And still Katheline lived without despairing of it.Soetkin, never working now, remained continually in front of the fire, coughing and bent. Nele gave her the best and most fragrant herbs: but no remedy had power upon her. Ulenspiegel never left thecottage, fearing that Soetkin might die while he was abroad.Then it came that the widow could neither eat nor drink without vomiting. The barber surgeon came and bled her; the blood being taken from her, she was so weak that she could not leave her stool. At length, withered up with sorrow and pain, she said one evening:“Claes, my husband! Thyl, my son! I thank thee, God who takest me away!”And she died on a sigh.Katheline not daring to watch by her, Ulenspiegel and Nele did it together, and all night long they prayed for the dead woman.At dawn there entered by the open window a swallow.Nele said:“The bird of souls, ’tis a good omen: Soetkin is in heaven.”The swallow flew round the chamber thrice and went off with a cry.Then there entered a second swallow, bigger and blacker than the other. It circled around Ulenspiegel, and he said:“Father and Mother, the ashes beat against my breast, I shall do what ye ask.”And the second went away crying shrill like the first. The day showed brighter; Ulenspiegel saw thousands of swallows skimming the meadows, and the sun arose.And Soetkin was buried in the field of the poor.

The two weeks having thrice passed by and the five days as well, the lover devil never came back. And still Katheline lived without despairing of it.

Soetkin, never working now, remained continually in front of the fire, coughing and bent. Nele gave her the best and most fragrant herbs: but no remedy had power upon her. Ulenspiegel never left thecottage, fearing that Soetkin might die while he was abroad.

Then it came that the widow could neither eat nor drink without vomiting. The barber surgeon came and bled her; the blood being taken from her, she was so weak that she could not leave her stool. At length, withered up with sorrow and pain, she said one evening:

“Claes, my husband! Thyl, my son! I thank thee, God who takest me away!”

And she died on a sigh.

Katheline not daring to watch by her, Ulenspiegel and Nele did it together, and all night long they prayed for the dead woman.

At dawn there entered by the open window a swallow.

Nele said:

“The bird of souls, ’tis a good omen: Soetkin is in heaven.”

The swallow flew round the chamber thrice and went off with a cry.

Then there entered a second swallow, bigger and blacker than the other. It circled around Ulenspiegel, and he said:

“Father and Mother, the ashes beat against my breast, I shall do what ye ask.”

And the second went away crying shrill like the first. The day showed brighter; Ulenspiegel saw thousands of swallows skimming the meadows, and the sun arose.

And Soetkin was buried in the field of the poor.

LXXXIVAfter Soetkin’s death, Ulenspiegel, dreamy, sorrowful, or angry, wandered about the kitchen, hearingnothing, taking what food or drink was given him, without choosing. And he often rose at night.In vain did Nele with her soft voice exhort him to hope. Vainly did Katheline tell him that she knew Soetkin was in paradise with Claes. To all Ulenspiegel replied:“The ashes are beating.”And he was as a man distraught, and Nele wept to see him in this plight.Meanwhile, the fishmonger remained in his house alone like a parricide, and dared not go forth save by night; for men and women, passing near him, hooted him and called him murderer, and children fled before him, for they had been told that he was the executioner. He wandered alone and solitary, not daring to go into any of the three taverns of Damme; for he was pointed at in them, and if he merely remained standing for a minute inside, the drinkers went away.Hence it came that thebaesenwished not to see him again, and if he presented himself, shut their door to him. Then the fishmonger would offer a humble remonstrance: they would reply that it was their right and not their obligation to sell.Tired of the struggle, the fishmonger used to go to drinkin ’t Roode Valck, at the Red Falcon, a little wine shop away from the town on the edge of the Sluys Canal. There they served him; for they were grubbing folk to whom any money was welcome. But thebaesof theRoode Valcknever spoke a word to him nor did his wife. There were two children and a dog in the house: when the fishmonger would have caressed the children, they ran away; and when he called the dog, the dog tried to bite him.One evening Ulenspiegel stood on the threshold: Mathyssens the cooper, seeing him so pensive and dreaming, said to him:“You should work with your hands and forget this sad blow.”Ulenspiegel answered:“The ashes of Claes beat against my breast.”“Ah,” said Mathyssens, “he leads a sadder life than thou, the wretched fishmonger. No man speaks to him, and everyone flees from him, so that he is driven to go among the poor ragamuffins at theRoode Valckto drink his quart ofbruinbierby himself. ’Tis a sore punishment.”“The ashes beat!” said Ulenspiegel again.That same evening, while the clock on Notre Dame was striking the ninth hour, Ulenspiegel went towards theRoode Valck, and seeing that the fishmonger was not there, he went wandering under the trees on the edge of the canal. The moon was shining bright and clear.He saw the murderer coming.As he passed before him, he could see him near at hand, and heard him say, speaking aloud like those who live alone:“Where have they hidden these carolus?”“Where the devil has found them,” answered Ulenspiegel striking him full in the face with his fist.“Alas!” said the fishmonger, “I know thee who thou art, thou art the son. Have pity, I am old and weak. What I did, it was not for hate, but to serve His Majesty. Deign to pardon me. I wilt give thee back the furniture I purchased, thou wilt not have to pay me one single patard for it. Is not that enough?I paid seven gold florins for them. Thou shalt have all and a demi-florin to boot, for I am not rich, it must not be imagined.”And he would have gone on his knees before him.Ulenspiegel, seeing him so ugly, so trembling, and so cowardly and mean, flung him into the canal.And he went away.

LXXXIV

After Soetkin’s death, Ulenspiegel, dreamy, sorrowful, or angry, wandered about the kitchen, hearingnothing, taking what food or drink was given him, without choosing. And he often rose at night.In vain did Nele with her soft voice exhort him to hope. Vainly did Katheline tell him that she knew Soetkin was in paradise with Claes. To all Ulenspiegel replied:“The ashes are beating.”And he was as a man distraught, and Nele wept to see him in this plight.Meanwhile, the fishmonger remained in his house alone like a parricide, and dared not go forth save by night; for men and women, passing near him, hooted him and called him murderer, and children fled before him, for they had been told that he was the executioner. He wandered alone and solitary, not daring to go into any of the three taverns of Damme; for he was pointed at in them, and if he merely remained standing for a minute inside, the drinkers went away.Hence it came that thebaesenwished not to see him again, and if he presented himself, shut their door to him. Then the fishmonger would offer a humble remonstrance: they would reply that it was their right and not their obligation to sell.Tired of the struggle, the fishmonger used to go to drinkin ’t Roode Valck, at the Red Falcon, a little wine shop away from the town on the edge of the Sluys Canal. There they served him; for they were grubbing folk to whom any money was welcome. But thebaesof theRoode Valcknever spoke a word to him nor did his wife. There were two children and a dog in the house: when the fishmonger would have caressed the children, they ran away; and when he called the dog, the dog tried to bite him.One evening Ulenspiegel stood on the threshold: Mathyssens the cooper, seeing him so pensive and dreaming, said to him:“You should work with your hands and forget this sad blow.”Ulenspiegel answered:“The ashes of Claes beat against my breast.”“Ah,” said Mathyssens, “he leads a sadder life than thou, the wretched fishmonger. No man speaks to him, and everyone flees from him, so that he is driven to go among the poor ragamuffins at theRoode Valckto drink his quart ofbruinbierby himself. ’Tis a sore punishment.”“The ashes beat!” said Ulenspiegel again.That same evening, while the clock on Notre Dame was striking the ninth hour, Ulenspiegel went towards theRoode Valck, and seeing that the fishmonger was not there, he went wandering under the trees on the edge of the canal. The moon was shining bright and clear.He saw the murderer coming.As he passed before him, he could see him near at hand, and heard him say, speaking aloud like those who live alone:“Where have they hidden these carolus?”“Where the devil has found them,” answered Ulenspiegel striking him full in the face with his fist.“Alas!” said the fishmonger, “I know thee who thou art, thou art the son. Have pity, I am old and weak. What I did, it was not for hate, but to serve His Majesty. Deign to pardon me. I wilt give thee back the furniture I purchased, thou wilt not have to pay me one single patard for it. Is not that enough?I paid seven gold florins for them. Thou shalt have all and a demi-florin to boot, for I am not rich, it must not be imagined.”And he would have gone on his knees before him.Ulenspiegel, seeing him so ugly, so trembling, and so cowardly and mean, flung him into the canal.And he went away.

After Soetkin’s death, Ulenspiegel, dreamy, sorrowful, or angry, wandered about the kitchen, hearingnothing, taking what food or drink was given him, without choosing. And he often rose at night.

In vain did Nele with her soft voice exhort him to hope. Vainly did Katheline tell him that she knew Soetkin was in paradise with Claes. To all Ulenspiegel replied:

“The ashes are beating.”

And he was as a man distraught, and Nele wept to see him in this plight.

Meanwhile, the fishmonger remained in his house alone like a parricide, and dared not go forth save by night; for men and women, passing near him, hooted him and called him murderer, and children fled before him, for they had been told that he was the executioner. He wandered alone and solitary, not daring to go into any of the three taverns of Damme; for he was pointed at in them, and if he merely remained standing for a minute inside, the drinkers went away.

Hence it came that thebaesenwished not to see him again, and if he presented himself, shut their door to him. Then the fishmonger would offer a humble remonstrance: they would reply that it was their right and not their obligation to sell.

Tired of the struggle, the fishmonger used to go to drinkin ’t Roode Valck, at the Red Falcon, a little wine shop away from the town on the edge of the Sluys Canal. There they served him; for they were grubbing folk to whom any money was welcome. But thebaesof theRoode Valcknever spoke a word to him nor did his wife. There were two children and a dog in the house: when the fishmonger would have caressed the children, they ran away; and when he called the dog, the dog tried to bite him.

One evening Ulenspiegel stood on the threshold: Mathyssens the cooper, seeing him so pensive and dreaming, said to him:

“You should work with your hands and forget this sad blow.”

Ulenspiegel answered:

“The ashes of Claes beat against my breast.”

“Ah,” said Mathyssens, “he leads a sadder life than thou, the wretched fishmonger. No man speaks to him, and everyone flees from him, so that he is driven to go among the poor ragamuffins at theRoode Valckto drink his quart ofbruinbierby himself. ’Tis a sore punishment.”

“The ashes beat!” said Ulenspiegel again.

That same evening, while the clock on Notre Dame was striking the ninth hour, Ulenspiegel went towards theRoode Valck, and seeing that the fishmonger was not there, he went wandering under the trees on the edge of the canal. The moon was shining bright and clear.

He saw the murderer coming.

As he passed before him, he could see him near at hand, and heard him say, speaking aloud like those who live alone:

“Where have they hidden these carolus?”

“Where the devil has found them,” answered Ulenspiegel striking him full in the face with his fist.

“Alas!” said the fishmonger, “I know thee who thou art, thou art the son. Have pity, I am old and weak. What I did, it was not for hate, but to serve His Majesty. Deign to pardon me. I wilt give thee back the furniture I purchased, thou wilt not have to pay me one single patard for it. Is not that enough?I paid seven gold florins for them. Thou shalt have all and a demi-florin to boot, for I am not rich, it must not be imagined.”

And he would have gone on his knees before him.

Ulenspiegel, seeing him so ugly, so trembling, and so cowardly and mean, flung him into the canal.

And he went away.

LXXXVOn the doomfires smoked the fat of the victims. Ulenspiegel, thinking of Claes and Soetkin, wept in solitude.One night he went to find Katheline and ask her for a remedy and for vengeance.She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a heavy slumber.He said to her:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great God of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer.”Katheline said:“The Great God could not hear you: first you must address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world, which being of double nature, celestial and terrestrial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to the throne.”“Help me,” said he, “in my design; I will pay thee with my blood if need be.”Replied Katheline:“I will help thee, if a girl that loveth thee wouldbring thee with her to the sabbath of the Spirits of the Springtide, which is the Easter of the Sap.”“I will bring him,” said Nele.Katheline poured into a crystal goblet a grayish coloured mixture of which she gave them both to drink; with this mixture she rubbed their temples, their nostrils, palms of the hand and wrists, made them swallow a pinch of a white powder, and bade them look at the other, that their two souls might become as but one.Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and the kind soft eyes of the girl lit up a great fire within him; then by reason of the mixture he felt as it might have been a thousand crabs tearing at him.Then they took off their clothes, and they were beautiful thus in the lamplight, he in his proud strength, she in her delicious grace; but they could not see one another, for already they were as though in sleep. Then Katheline laid Nele’s neck upon Ulenspiegel’s arm, and taking his hand put it upon the maiden’s heart.And they remained thus naked and lying one beside the other.It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of roses.They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the window sill, launched themselves thence into void space, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears the ships.Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens where but now the clouds were rolling beneath theirfeet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star. Then from there they were cast upon the pole.There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant, the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoarse voice, he called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast. And all raged together at once in this deadly place.Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and also to put black coal in the place where shady forests were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire, he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil, in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skeleton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea, upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skeletons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by the gloomy water.And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurricanes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind howling in chimneys.“I am acold and am afeard,” said Ulenspiegel.“He hath no power against spirits,” answered Nele.Suddenly there was a great stir among the seals, which dashed in haste into the water, the bears, which laying their ears flat with fright, roared lamentably, and the ravens, which lost themselves in the clouds with agonized croakings.And lo, Nele and Ulenspiegel heard the dull thudding blows of a ram upon the wall of ice that served as a support to the Giant Winter. And the wall split and cracked and shook to and fro on its foundations.But the Giant Winter heard nothing, and he went on howling and shouting in glee, filling and draining his cup of oil; and he went on searching for the heart of the earth to freeze it, and not daring to lay hold of it.Meantime, the blows reëchoed louder and harder, and the wall cracked more and more, and the rain of icicles flying in splintered pieces ceased not to fall about him.And the bears roared lamentably and without ceasing, and the seals complained in the leaden gloomy water.The wall crumbled and fell, and it became light in the sky; a man descended therefrom, naked and beautiful, leaning one hand upon a golden axe. And this man was Lucifer, King Springtide.When the giant beheld him, he flung far away his cup of oil, and implored him not to slay him.And at the warm breath of King Springtide, the Giant Winter lost all strength. Then the king took chains of diamonds, bound him with these, and tied him to the pole.Then staying, he uttered a cry, but a tender, amorouscry. And from the sky came down a blonde woman, naked and beautiful. Placing herself beside the king, she said to him:“Thou art my vanquisher, mighty man.”He made answer:“If thou art an-hungered, eat; if thou art athirst, drink; if thou art afraid, come close to me: I am thy male and thy mate.”“I am,” said she, “hungry and athirst only for thee.”The king shouted yet again seven times terribly. And there was a mighty din of thunder and lightning, and behind him there took shape a canopy of suns and of stars. And the twain sat them down upon thrones.Then the king and the woman, without a movement of their noble faces, and without a gesture impairing their might and their calm majesty, cried aloud.At these cries there was an undulating movement in the earth, the hard stone and the ice floes. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a noise such as might be made by gigantic birds seeking to break the shell of enormous eggs with blows of their beak.And in this huge movement of the earth which rose and fell like the waves of the sea there were shapes like the shape of an egg.Suddenly from everywhere came forth trees with their dry branches dovetailed and interlocked together, while their boles moved, swaying like drunken men. Then they drew apart, leaving between them a huge void space. From the stirring soil came forth the genii of the earth; from the deeps of the forest the woodland spirits; from the sea near by the genii of the water.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw there the dwarfs that are the wardens of treasure, hunchbacked, hairy, clumsy-foot, ugly and grinning, princes of the stones, men of the woods living like trees, and, by way of mouth and stomach, having a tuft of roots at the lower part of their face, thus to suck up their food from the bosom of the earth; the emperors of mines, who cannot speak, have neither heart nor entrails, and move like bright automatons. There, too, were dwarfs of flesh and bone, with lizard tails, toads’ heads, and lantern for headgear, who leap by night upon the shoulders of drunken men afoot or timid travellers, leap down again and waving their lantern, lead into pools and bogholes the poor devils who imagine that this lantern is the candle burning in their homes.There, too, were the flower-maidens, flowers of feminine strength and haleness, naked and not blushing, proud of their beauty, having for their only cloak their hair.Their eyes shone with the wet lustre of mother of pearl in water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and gilded by the light; from their red mouths partly open came a breath more sweet and fragrant than jasmine.These are they that wander by eventide in parks and gardens, or in the deeps of the woods, in shady bridle ways, amorous and seeking some human soul to enjoy it. So soon as passeth before them a young man and a young maid, they seek to slay the maid, but when they cannot, they breathe into the sweetling, still reluctant, desires of love so that she may yield herself to the lover; for then the flower-maiden hath half of the kisses.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw also coming down from the high heavens the guardian spirits of the stars, the genii of the winds, of the breeze and the rain, winged young men that make the earth fertile.Then in every quarter of the sky appeared the birds of souls, the dear swallows. When they were come, the light appeared stronger. Flower-maids, princes of the stones, emperors of the mines, men of the woods, spirits of the water, of fire, and of the earth all cried out in unison: “Light! Sap! Glory to King Springtide!”Although the sound of their unanimous outcry was greater than that of the raging sea, the thunder, and the unleashed tempest, it sounded as solemn music in the ears of Nele and of Ulenspiegel, who, silent and motionless, remained huddled together behind the rugged trunk of an oak tree.But they were still more affrighted when the spirits, thousands upon thousands, took their places upon seats that were immense spiders, toads with elephants, trunks, interlacing serpents, crocodiles standing up on their tails and holding a band of spirits in their jaws, serpents carrying more than thirty dwarfs, both men and women, seated astraddle on their undulating bodies, and full a hundred thousand insects bigger than Goliaths, armed with swords, spears, jagged scythes, forks with seven tines, and every other kind of dreadful murdering implements. They fought together with tremendous din, the strong devouring the weak, growing fat upon them, and showing thus that Death is made from Life and that Life is made from Death.And from among this crowd of spirits, swarming, shifting, dense, confused, there arose a noise like lowthunder and a hundred weavers’ looms, fullers and locksmiths all working together.Suddenly appeared the spirits of the sap, short, squat, round about the loins as big as the great Heidelberg tun, with thighs as big as hogsheads, and muscles so marvellously strong and powerful that one would have said their bodies were made up of large eggs and small eggs joined to one another and covered with a red, oily skin, shining like their sparse beard and their red hair; and they carried enormous tankards filled with a strange liquor.When the other spirits beheld them coming, a great tremor of joy ran among them; trees and plants moved and shook, and the earth opened up in cracks to drink.And the spirits of the sap poured out the wine: and all things incontinently budded, were green, flourished; the sward was full of whispering insects, and the sky of birds and butterflies; the spirits poured on and on, and those below received the wine as best they might: the flower-maids, opening their mouths or leaping up upon their red cupbearers, and kissing them to have more; some, clasping their hands in sign of entreaty; others who, in ecstasy, let it rain over them; but all greedy or parched, flying, standing, running or motionless, seeking to have the wine, and more intensely alive with every drop they attained to receiving. And there were no oldsters there, but ugly or goodly, all were full of prime strength and keenest youth.And they laughed, shouted, sang, pursuing one another upon the trees like squirrels, in the air like birds, every male seeking his female and under the skies of God falling to the holy deed of kind.And the spirits of the sap brought to the king and thequeen the great cup full of their wine. And the king and the queen drank and embraced one another.Then the king, holding the queen in his arm, cast upon the trees, the flowers and the spirits, the dregs of his cup and cried aloud:“Glory to Life! Glory to the free Air! Glory to Force!”And all shouted:“Glory to Nature! Glory to Force!”And Ulenspiegel took Nele into his arms. Thus enlaced, a dance began: a round circling dance like a dance of leaves that a whirlwind swings together, where all was in motion, trees, plants, insects, butterflies, heaven and earth, king and queen, flower-maidens, emperors of mines, princes of stones, spirits of the waters, hunchback dwarfs, men of the woods, lantern bearers, guardian spirits of the stars, and the hundred thousand horrific insects mingling their spears, their saw-edged scythes, their seven-pronged forks; a giddy dance, swaying about in space and filling it, a dance in which the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the wind, the clouds, all took part.And the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were clinging rolled with the whirl, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:“Dear one, we are about to die.”A spirit heard them and saw that they were mortals:“Mankind,” he bawled, “mankind in this place!”And he wrenched them from the tree and flung them in the crowd.And Ulenspiegel and Nele fell soft and limp on the backs of the spirits, which bandied them about from one to another, saying:“Hail to mankind! Welcome be the earth worms! Who would have the lad and lass? They come to visit us, the puny things.”And Ulenspiegel and Nele flew from one to another, crying:“Mercy!”But the spirits paid no heed, and both went fluttering, legs in air, head down, turning and circling like feathers in the winter winds, while the spirits said:“Glory to the manlings male and female, let them dance like us!”The flower-maidens, wishing to sever Nele from Ulenspiegel, smote her and would have killed her, had not King Springtide, staying the dance with a gesture, cried out:“Let these two lice be brought before me!”And they were separated one from the other; and each flower-maiden said, endeavouring to take Ulenspiegel from her rivals:“Thyl, wouldst thou not die for me?”“I will do so in a moment,” said Ulenspiegel.And the dwarf wood sprites that were carrying Nele said:“Why art thou not a spirit like us, that we might take thee to us!”Nele answered:“Have patience.”Thus they arrived before the king’s throne; and they trembled sore seeing his golden axe and his iron crown.And he said to them:“What are ye come hither to do, ye puny things?”They made no answer.“I know thee, witches’ shoot,” added the King, “and thee too, sprout of the coalman; but having by the power of spells achieved the deed of penetrating to this laboratory of Nature, why have ye now your beaks locked like capons stuffed with crumb?”Nele trembled, looking at the terrible demon; but Ulenspiegel, recovering his manly hardihood, replied:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart. Divine Highness, death goeth throughout the land of Flanders, mowing down, in the Pope’s name, the strongest men, the sweetest women; her privileges are destroyed, her charters abolished, famine gnaweth her, her weavers and cloth merchants leave her to go to the foreigner seeking freedom for their work. She will die soon if no one comes to her help. Highness, I am but a poor mean fellow come into the world like any other, who have lived as I could, imperfect, limited, ignorant, not virtuous, in no wise chaste or deserving of any favour human or divine. But Soetkin died of the effects of the torture and her grief, but Claes burned in a terrible fire, and I was minded to avenge them, and did so once; I was minded also to see this poor soil happier, this poor soil in which their bones are sown, and I asked God for the death of the persecutors, but he did not hearken to me nor heed me. Weary and sick of complaints, I evoked thee by the potency of Katheline’s spell, and we come, I and my trembling she-comrade, to thy feet, to ask you, Divine Highnesses, to save this poor earth.”The king and his spouse replied together:“Through war and through fireThrough death, through the sword.Seek the Seven.“In death and bloodIn ruin and tears,Find the Seven.“Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,Mere Scourge of the poor earth.Burn the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”And all the spirits fell to chanting in unison:“In death and blood,In ruin and tearsFind the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”“But,” said Ulenspiegel, “Highness, and ye, spirits, I understand not your talk. Ye make a mock of me, sans doubt.”But without heeding him they said:“When the NorthShall kiss the WestRuin shall end;Find thou the SevenThe Girdle find!”And that with so tremendous a chorus and so terrifically loud, strong, and sonorous that the earth trembled and the heavens shivered. And the birds whistling, the owls bubbling, the sparrows twittering inaffright, the sea eagles complaining, all flew round aghast. And the beasts of the earth, lions, serpents, bears, stags, bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats roared, hissed, belled, howled, barked, and mewed terribly.And the spirits chanted:“Wait, hear and see,Love thou the SevenThe Girdle love.”And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished save one malicious emperor of mines who seizing Ulenspiegel and Nele each by an arm, hurled them brutally out into the void.They found themselves lying beside each other, as though for sleep, and they shivered in the keen wind of the morning.And Ulenspiegel saw the delicious body of Nele all gilded in the sun that was then rising.

LXXXV

On the doomfires smoked the fat of the victims. Ulenspiegel, thinking of Claes and Soetkin, wept in solitude.One night he went to find Katheline and ask her for a remedy and for vengeance.She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a heavy slumber.He said to her:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great God of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer.”Katheline said:“The Great God could not hear you: first you must address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world, which being of double nature, celestial and terrestrial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to the throne.”“Help me,” said he, “in my design; I will pay thee with my blood if need be.”Replied Katheline:“I will help thee, if a girl that loveth thee wouldbring thee with her to the sabbath of the Spirits of the Springtide, which is the Easter of the Sap.”“I will bring him,” said Nele.Katheline poured into a crystal goblet a grayish coloured mixture of which she gave them both to drink; with this mixture she rubbed their temples, their nostrils, palms of the hand and wrists, made them swallow a pinch of a white powder, and bade them look at the other, that their two souls might become as but one.Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and the kind soft eyes of the girl lit up a great fire within him; then by reason of the mixture he felt as it might have been a thousand crabs tearing at him.Then they took off their clothes, and they were beautiful thus in the lamplight, he in his proud strength, she in her delicious grace; but they could not see one another, for already they were as though in sleep. Then Katheline laid Nele’s neck upon Ulenspiegel’s arm, and taking his hand put it upon the maiden’s heart.And they remained thus naked and lying one beside the other.It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of roses.They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the window sill, launched themselves thence into void space, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears the ships.Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens where but now the clouds were rolling beneath theirfeet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star. Then from there they were cast upon the pole.There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant, the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoarse voice, he called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast. And all raged together at once in this deadly place.Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and also to put black coal in the place where shady forests were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire, he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil, in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skeleton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea, upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skeletons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by the gloomy water.And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurricanes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind howling in chimneys.“I am acold and am afeard,” said Ulenspiegel.“He hath no power against spirits,” answered Nele.Suddenly there was a great stir among the seals, which dashed in haste into the water, the bears, which laying their ears flat with fright, roared lamentably, and the ravens, which lost themselves in the clouds with agonized croakings.And lo, Nele and Ulenspiegel heard the dull thudding blows of a ram upon the wall of ice that served as a support to the Giant Winter. And the wall split and cracked and shook to and fro on its foundations.But the Giant Winter heard nothing, and he went on howling and shouting in glee, filling and draining his cup of oil; and he went on searching for the heart of the earth to freeze it, and not daring to lay hold of it.Meantime, the blows reëchoed louder and harder, and the wall cracked more and more, and the rain of icicles flying in splintered pieces ceased not to fall about him.And the bears roared lamentably and without ceasing, and the seals complained in the leaden gloomy water.The wall crumbled and fell, and it became light in the sky; a man descended therefrom, naked and beautiful, leaning one hand upon a golden axe. And this man was Lucifer, King Springtide.When the giant beheld him, he flung far away his cup of oil, and implored him not to slay him.And at the warm breath of King Springtide, the Giant Winter lost all strength. Then the king took chains of diamonds, bound him with these, and tied him to the pole.Then staying, he uttered a cry, but a tender, amorouscry. And from the sky came down a blonde woman, naked and beautiful. Placing herself beside the king, she said to him:“Thou art my vanquisher, mighty man.”He made answer:“If thou art an-hungered, eat; if thou art athirst, drink; if thou art afraid, come close to me: I am thy male and thy mate.”“I am,” said she, “hungry and athirst only for thee.”The king shouted yet again seven times terribly. And there was a mighty din of thunder and lightning, and behind him there took shape a canopy of suns and of stars. And the twain sat them down upon thrones.Then the king and the woman, without a movement of their noble faces, and without a gesture impairing their might and their calm majesty, cried aloud.At these cries there was an undulating movement in the earth, the hard stone and the ice floes. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a noise such as might be made by gigantic birds seeking to break the shell of enormous eggs with blows of their beak.And in this huge movement of the earth which rose and fell like the waves of the sea there were shapes like the shape of an egg.Suddenly from everywhere came forth trees with their dry branches dovetailed and interlocked together, while their boles moved, swaying like drunken men. Then they drew apart, leaving between them a huge void space. From the stirring soil came forth the genii of the earth; from the deeps of the forest the woodland spirits; from the sea near by the genii of the water.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw there the dwarfs that are the wardens of treasure, hunchbacked, hairy, clumsy-foot, ugly and grinning, princes of the stones, men of the woods living like trees, and, by way of mouth and stomach, having a tuft of roots at the lower part of their face, thus to suck up their food from the bosom of the earth; the emperors of mines, who cannot speak, have neither heart nor entrails, and move like bright automatons. There, too, were dwarfs of flesh and bone, with lizard tails, toads’ heads, and lantern for headgear, who leap by night upon the shoulders of drunken men afoot or timid travellers, leap down again and waving their lantern, lead into pools and bogholes the poor devils who imagine that this lantern is the candle burning in their homes.There, too, were the flower-maidens, flowers of feminine strength and haleness, naked and not blushing, proud of their beauty, having for their only cloak their hair.Their eyes shone with the wet lustre of mother of pearl in water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and gilded by the light; from their red mouths partly open came a breath more sweet and fragrant than jasmine.These are they that wander by eventide in parks and gardens, or in the deeps of the woods, in shady bridle ways, amorous and seeking some human soul to enjoy it. So soon as passeth before them a young man and a young maid, they seek to slay the maid, but when they cannot, they breathe into the sweetling, still reluctant, desires of love so that she may yield herself to the lover; for then the flower-maiden hath half of the kisses.Ulenspiegel and Nele saw also coming down from the high heavens the guardian spirits of the stars, the genii of the winds, of the breeze and the rain, winged young men that make the earth fertile.Then in every quarter of the sky appeared the birds of souls, the dear swallows. When they were come, the light appeared stronger. Flower-maids, princes of the stones, emperors of the mines, men of the woods, spirits of the water, of fire, and of the earth all cried out in unison: “Light! Sap! Glory to King Springtide!”Although the sound of their unanimous outcry was greater than that of the raging sea, the thunder, and the unleashed tempest, it sounded as solemn music in the ears of Nele and of Ulenspiegel, who, silent and motionless, remained huddled together behind the rugged trunk of an oak tree.But they were still more affrighted when the spirits, thousands upon thousands, took their places upon seats that were immense spiders, toads with elephants, trunks, interlacing serpents, crocodiles standing up on their tails and holding a band of spirits in their jaws, serpents carrying more than thirty dwarfs, both men and women, seated astraddle on their undulating bodies, and full a hundred thousand insects bigger than Goliaths, armed with swords, spears, jagged scythes, forks with seven tines, and every other kind of dreadful murdering implements. They fought together with tremendous din, the strong devouring the weak, growing fat upon them, and showing thus that Death is made from Life and that Life is made from Death.And from among this crowd of spirits, swarming, shifting, dense, confused, there arose a noise like lowthunder and a hundred weavers’ looms, fullers and locksmiths all working together.Suddenly appeared the spirits of the sap, short, squat, round about the loins as big as the great Heidelberg tun, with thighs as big as hogsheads, and muscles so marvellously strong and powerful that one would have said their bodies were made up of large eggs and small eggs joined to one another and covered with a red, oily skin, shining like their sparse beard and their red hair; and they carried enormous tankards filled with a strange liquor.When the other spirits beheld them coming, a great tremor of joy ran among them; trees and plants moved and shook, and the earth opened up in cracks to drink.And the spirits of the sap poured out the wine: and all things incontinently budded, were green, flourished; the sward was full of whispering insects, and the sky of birds and butterflies; the spirits poured on and on, and those below received the wine as best they might: the flower-maids, opening their mouths or leaping up upon their red cupbearers, and kissing them to have more; some, clasping their hands in sign of entreaty; others who, in ecstasy, let it rain over them; but all greedy or parched, flying, standing, running or motionless, seeking to have the wine, and more intensely alive with every drop they attained to receiving. And there were no oldsters there, but ugly or goodly, all were full of prime strength and keenest youth.And they laughed, shouted, sang, pursuing one another upon the trees like squirrels, in the air like birds, every male seeking his female and under the skies of God falling to the holy deed of kind.And the spirits of the sap brought to the king and thequeen the great cup full of their wine. And the king and the queen drank and embraced one another.Then the king, holding the queen in his arm, cast upon the trees, the flowers and the spirits, the dregs of his cup and cried aloud:“Glory to Life! Glory to the free Air! Glory to Force!”And all shouted:“Glory to Nature! Glory to Force!”And Ulenspiegel took Nele into his arms. Thus enlaced, a dance began: a round circling dance like a dance of leaves that a whirlwind swings together, where all was in motion, trees, plants, insects, butterflies, heaven and earth, king and queen, flower-maidens, emperors of mines, princes of stones, spirits of the waters, hunchback dwarfs, men of the woods, lantern bearers, guardian spirits of the stars, and the hundred thousand horrific insects mingling their spears, their saw-edged scythes, their seven-pronged forks; a giddy dance, swaying about in space and filling it, a dance in which the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the wind, the clouds, all took part.And the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were clinging rolled with the whirl, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:“Dear one, we are about to die.”A spirit heard them and saw that they were mortals:“Mankind,” he bawled, “mankind in this place!”And he wrenched them from the tree and flung them in the crowd.And Ulenspiegel and Nele fell soft and limp on the backs of the spirits, which bandied them about from one to another, saying:“Hail to mankind! Welcome be the earth worms! Who would have the lad and lass? They come to visit us, the puny things.”And Ulenspiegel and Nele flew from one to another, crying:“Mercy!”But the spirits paid no heed, and both went fluttering, legs in air, head down, turning and circling like feathers in the winter winds, while the spirits said:“Glory to the manlings male and female, let them dance like us!”The flower-maidens, wishing to sever Nele from Ulenspiegel, smote her and would have killed her, had not King Springtide, staying the dance with a gesture, cried out:“Let these two lice be brought before me!”And they were separated one from the other; and each flower-maiden said, endeavouring to take Ulenspiegel from her rivals:“Thyl, wouldst thou not die for me?”“I will do so in a moment,” said Ulenspiegel.And the dwarf wood sprites that were carrying Nele said:“Why art thou not a spirit like us, that we might take thee to us!”Nele answered:“Have patience.”Thus they arrived before the king’s throne; and they trembled sore seeing his golden axe and his iron crown.And he said to them:“What are ye come hither to do, ye puny things?”They made no answer.“I know thee, witches’ shoot,” added the King, “and thee too, sprout of the coalman; but having by the power of spells achieved the deed of penetrating to this laboratory of Nature, why have ye now your beaks locked like capons stuffed with crumb?”Nele trembled, looking at the terrible demon; but Ulenspiegel, recovering his manly hardihood, replied:“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart. Divine Highness, death goeth throughout the land of Flanders, mowing down, in the Pope’s name, the strongest men, the sweetest women; her privileges are destroyed, her charters abolished, famine gnaweth her, her weavers and cloth merchants leave her to go to the foreigner seeking freedom for their work. She will die soon if no one comes to her help. Highness, I am but a poor mean fellow come into the world like any other, who have lived as I could, imperfect, limited, ignorant, not virtuous, in no wise chaste or deserving of any favour human or divine. But Soetkin died of the effects of the torture and her grief, but Claes burned in a terrible fire, and I was minded to avenge them, and did so once; I was minded also to see this poor soil happier, this poor soil in which their bones are sown, and I asked God for the death of the persecutors, but he did not hearken to me nor heed me. Weary and sick of complaints, I evoked thee by the potency of Katheline’s spell, and we come, I and my trembling she-comrade, to thy feet, to ask you, Divine Highnesses, to save this poor earth.”The king and his spouse replied together:“Through war and through fireThrough death, through the sword.Seek the Seven.“In death and bloodIn ruin and tears,Find the Seven.“Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,Mere Scourge of the poor earth.Burn the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”And all the spirits fell to chanting in unison:“In death and blood,In ruin and tearsFind the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”“But,” said Ulenspiegel, “Highness, and ye, spirits, I understand not your talk. Ye make a mock of me, sans doubt.”But without heeding him they said:“When the NorthShall kiss the WestRuin shall end;Find thou the SevenThe Girdle find!”And that with so tremendous a chorus and so terrifically loud, strong, and sonorous that the earth trembled and the heavens shivered. And the birds whistling, the owls bubbling, the sparrows twittering inaffright, the sea eagles complaining, all flew round aghast. And the beasts of the earth, lions, serpents, bears, stags, bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats roared, hissed, belled, howled, barked, and mewed terribly.And the spirits chanted:“Wait, hear and see,Love thou the SevenThe Girdle love.”And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished save one malicious emperor of mines who seizing Ulenspiegel and Nele each by an arm, hurled them brutally out into the void.They found themselves lying beside each other, as though for sleep, and they shivered in the keen wind of the morning.And Ulenspiegel saw the delicious body of Nele all gilded in the sun that was then rising.

On the doomfires smoked the fat of the victims. Ulenspiegel, thinking of Claes and Soetkin, wept in solitude.

One night he went to find Katheline and ask her for a remedy and for vengeance.

She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a heavy slumber.

He said to her:

“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great God of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer.”

Katheline said:

“The Great God could not hear you: first you must address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world, which being of double nature, celestial and terrestrial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to the throne.”

“Help me,” said he, “in my design; I will pay thee with my blood if need be.”

Replied Katheline:

“I will help thee, if a girl that loveth thee wouldbring thee with her to the sabbath of the Spirits of the Springtide, which is the Easter of the Sap.”

“I will bring him,” said Nele.

Katheline poured into a crystal goblet a grayish coloured mixture of which she gave them both to drink; with this mixture she rubbed their temples, their nostrils, palms of the hand and wrists, made them swallow a pinch of a white powder, and bade them look at the other, that their two souls might become as but one.

Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and the kind soft eyes of the girl lit up a great fire within him; then by reason of the mixture he felt as it might have been a thousand crabs tearing at him.

Then they took off their clothes, and they were beautiful thus in the lamplight, he in his proud strength, she in her delicious grace; but they could not see one another, for already they were as though in sleep. Then Katheline laid Nele’s neck upon Ulenspiegel’s arm, and taking his hand put it upon the maiden’s heart.

And they remained thus naked and lying one beside the other.

It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of roses.

They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the window sill, launched themselves thence into void space, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears the ships.

Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens where but now the clouds were rolling beneath theirfeet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star. Then from there they were cast upon the pole.

There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant, the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoarse voice, he called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast. And all raged together at once in this deadly place.

Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and also to put black coal in the place where shady forests were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire, he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.

He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil, in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skeleton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea, upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skeletons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by the gloomy water.

And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurricanes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind howling in chimneys.

“I am acold and am afeard,” said Ulenspiegel.

“He hath no power against spirits,” answered Nele.

Suddenly there was a great stir among the seals, which dashed in haste into the water, the bears, which laying their ears flat with fright, roared lamentably, and the ravens, which lost themselves in the clouds with agonized croakings.

And lo, Nele and Ulenspiegel heard the dull thudding blows of a ram upon the wall of ice that served as a support to the Giant Winter. And the wall split and cracked and shook to and fro on its foundations.

But the Giant Winter heard nothing, and he went on howling and shouting in glee, filling and draining his cup of oil; and he went on searching for the heart of the earth to freeze it, and not daring to lay hold of it.

Meantime, the blows reëchoed louder and harder, and the wall cracked more and more, and the rain of icicles flying in splintered pieces ceased not to fall about him.

And the bears roared lamentably and without ceasing, and the seals complained in the leaden gloomy water.

The wall crumbled and fell, and it became light in the sky; a man descended therefrom, naked and beautiful, leaning one hand upon a golden axe. And this man was Lucifer, King Springtide.

When the giant beheld him, he flung far away his cup of oil, and implored him not to slay him.

And at the warm breath of King Springtide, the Giant Winter lost all strength. Then the king took chains of diamonds, bound him with these, and tied him to the pole.

Then staying, he uttered a cry, but a tender, amorouscry. And from the sky came down a blonde woman, naked and beautiful. Placing herself beside the king, she said to him:

“Thou art my vanquisher, mighty man.”

He made answer:

“If thou art an-hungered, eat; if thou art athirst, drink; if thou art afraid, come close to me: I am thy male and thy mate.”

“I am,” said she, “hungry and athirst only for thee.”

The king shouted yet again seven times terribly. And there was a mighty din of thunder and lightning, and behind him there took shape a canopy of suns and of stars. And the twain sat them down upon thrones.

Then the king and the woman, without a movement of their noble faces, and without a gesture impairing their might and their calm majesty, cried aloud.

At these cries there was an undulating movement in the earth, the hard stone and the ice floes. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a noise such as might be made by gigantic birds seeking to break the shell of enormous eggs with blows of their beak.

And in this huge movement of the earth which rose and fell like the waves of the sea there were shapes like the shape of an egg.

Suddenly from everywhere came forth trees with their dry branches dovetailed and interlocked together, while their boles moved, swaying like drunken men. Then they drew apart, leaving between them a huge void space. From the stirring soil came forth the genii of the earth; from the deeps of the forest the woodland spirits; from the sea near by the genii of the water.

Ulenspiegel and Nele saw there the dwarfs that are the wardens of treasure, hunchbacked, hairy, clumsy-foot, ugly and grinning, princes of the stones, men of the woods living like trees, and, by way of mouth and stomach, having a tuft of roots at the lower part of their face, thus to suck up their food from the bosom of the earth; the emperors of mines, who cannot speak, have neither heart nor entrails, and move like bright automatons. There, too, were dwarfs of flesh and bone, with lizard tails, toads’ heads, and lantern for headgear, who leap by night upon the shoulders of drunken men afoot or timid travellers, leap down again and waving their lantern, lead into pools and bogholes the poor devils who imagine that this lantern is the candle burning in their homes.

There, too, were the flower-maidens, flowers of feminine strength and haleness, naked and not blushing, proud of their beauty, having for their only cloak their hair.

Their eyes shone with the wet lustre of mother of pearl in water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and gilded by the light; from their red mouths partly open came a breath more sweet and fragrant than jasmine.

These are they that wander by eventide in parks and gardens, or in the deeps of the woods, in shady bridle ways, amorous and seeking some human soul to enjoy it. So soon as passeth before them a young man and a young maid, they seek to slay the maid, but when they cannot, they breathe into the sweetling, still reluctant, desires of love so that she may yield herself to the lover; for then the flower-maiden hath half of the kisses.

Ulenspiegel and Nele saw also coming down from the high heavens the guardian spirits of the stars, the genii of the winds, of the breeze and the rain, winged young men that make the earth fertile.

Then in every quarter of the sky appeared the birds of souls, the dear swallows. When they were come, the light appeared stronger. Flower-maids, princes of the stones, emperors of the mines, men of the woods, spirits of the water, of fire, and of the earth all cried out in unison: “Light! Sap! Glory to King Springtide!”

Although the sound of their unanimous outcry was greater than that of the raging sea, the thunder, and the unleashed tempest, it sounded as solemn music in the ears of Nele and of Ulenspiegel, who, silent and motionless, remained huddled together behind the rugged trunk of an oak tree.

But they were still more affrighted when the spirits, thousands upon thousands, took their places upon seats that were immense spiders, toads with elephants, trunks, interlacing serpents, crocodiles standing up on their tails and holding a band of spirits in their jaws, serpents carrying more than thirty dwarfs, both men and women, seated astraddle on their undulating bodies, and full a hundred thousand insects bigger than Goliaths, armed with swords, spears, jagged scythes, forks with seven tines, and every other kind of dreadful murdering implements. They fought together with tremendous din, the strong devouring the weak, growing fat upon them, and showing thus that Death is made from Life and that Life is made from Death.

And from among this crowd of spirits, swarming, shifting, dense, confused, there arose a noise like lowthunder and a hundred weavers’ looms, fullers and locksmiths all working together.

Suddenly appeared the spirits of the sap, short, squat, round about the loins as big as the great Heidelberg tun, with thighs as big as hogsheads, and muscles so marvellously strong and powerful that one would have said their bodies were made up of large eggs and small eggs joined to one another and covered with a red, oily skin, shining like their sparse beard and their red hair; and they carried enormous tankards filled with a strange liquor.

When the other spirits beheld them coming, a great tremor of joy ran among them; trees and plants moved and shook, and the earth opened up in cracks to drink.

And the spirits of the sap poured out the wine: and all things incontinently budded, were green, flourished; the sward was full of whispering insects, and the sky of birds and butterflies; the spirits poured on and on, and those below received the wine as best they might: the flower-maids, opening their mouths or leaping up upon their red cupbearers, and kissing them to have more; some, clasping their hands in sign of entreaty; others who, in ecstasy, let it rain over them; but all greedy or parched, flying, standing, running or motionless, seeking to have the wine, and more intensely alive with every drop they attained to receiving. And there were no oldsters there, but ugly or goodly, all were full of prime strength and keenest youth.

And they laughed, shouted, sang, pursuing one another upon the trees like squirrels, in the air like birds, every male seeking his female and under the skies of God falling to the holy deed of kind.

And the spirits of the sap brought to the king and thequeen the great cup full of their wine. And the king and the queen drank and embraced one another.

Then the king, holding the queen in his arm, cast upon the trees, the flowers and the spirits, the dregs of his cup and cried aloud:

“Glory to Life! Glory to the free Air! Glory to Force!”

And all shouted:

“Glory to Nature! Glory to Force!”

And Ulenspiegel took Nele into his arms. Thus enlaced, a dance began: a round circling dance like a dance of leaves that a whirlwind swings together, where all was in motion, trees, plants, insects, butterflies, heaven and earth, king and queen, flower-maidens, emperors of mines, princes of stones, spirits of the waters, hunchback dwarfs, men of the woods, lantern bearers, guardian spirits of the stars, and the hundred thousand horrific insects mingling their spears, their saw-edged scythes, their seven-pronged forks; a giddy dance, swaying about in space and filling it, a dance in which the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the wind, the clouds, all took part.

And the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were clinging rolled with the whirl, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:

“Dear one, we are about to die.”

A spirit heard them and saw that they were mortals:

“Mankind,” he bawled, “mankind in this place!”

And he wrenched them from the tree and flung them in the crowd.

And Ulenspiegel and Nele fell soft and limp on the backs of the spirits, which bandied them about from one to another, saying:

“Hail to mankind! Welcome be the earth worms! Who would have the lad and lass? They come to visit us, the puny things.”

And Ulenspiegel and Nele flew from one to another, crying:

“Mercy!”

But the spirits paid no heed, and both went fluttering, legs in air, head down, turning and circling like feathers in the winter winds, while the spirits said:

“Glory to the manlings male and female, let them dance like us!”

The flower-maidens, wishing to sever Nele from Ulenspiegel, smote her and would have killed her, had not King Springtide, staying the dance with a gesture, cried out:

“Let these two lice be brought before me!”

And they were separated one from the other; and each flower-maiden said, endeavouring to take Ulenspiegel from her rivals:

“Thyl, wouldst thou not die for me?”

“I will do so in a moment,” said Ulenspiegel.

And the dwarf wood sprites that were carrying Nele said:

“Why art thou not a spirit like us, that we might take thee to us!”

Nele answered:

“Have patience.”

Thus they arrived before the king’s throne; and they trembled sore seeing his golden axe and his iron crown.

And he said to them:

“What are ye come hither to do, ye puny things?”

They made no answer.

“I know thee, witches’ shoot,” added the King, “and thee too, sprout of the coalman; but having by the power of spells achieved the deed of penetrating to this laboratory of Nature, why have ye now your beaks locked like capons stuffed with crumb?”

Nele trembled, looking at the terrible demon; but Ulenspiegel, recovering his manly hardihood, replied:

“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart. Divine Highness, death goeth throughout the land of Flanders, mowing down, in the Pope’s name, the strongest men, the sweetest women; her privileges are destroyed, her charters abolished, famine gnaweth her, her weavers and cloth merchants leave her to go to the foreigner seeking freedom for their work. She will die soon if no one comes to her help. Highness, I am but a poor mean fellow come into the world like any other, who have lived as I could, imperfect, limited, ignorant, not virtuous, in no wise chaste or deserving of any favour human or divine. But Soetkin died of the effects of the torture and her grief, but Claes burned in a terrible fire, and I was minded to avenge them, and did so once; I was minded also to see this poor soil happier, this poor soil in which their bones are sown, and I asked God for the death of the persecutors, but he did not hearken to me nor heed me. Weary and sick of complaints, I evoked thee by the potency of Katheline’s spell, and we come, I and my trembling she-comrade, to thy feet, to ask you, Divine Highnesses, to save this poor earth.”

The king and his spouse replied together:

“Through war and through fireThrough death, through the sword.Seek the Seven.“In death and bloodIn ruin and tears,Find the Seven.“Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,Mere Scourge of the poor earth.Burn the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”

“Through war and through fireThrough death, through the sword.Seek the Seven.

“Through war and through fire

Through death, through the sword.

Seek the Seven.

“In death and bloodIn ruin and tears,Find the Seven.

“In death and blood

In ruin and tears,

Find the Seven.

“Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,Mere Scourge of the poor earth.Burn the Seven.

“Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,

Mere Scourge of the poor earth.

Burn the Seven.

“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”

“Wait, hear and see!

Say, wretch, art thou not glad?

Find the Seven.”

And all the spirits fell to chanting in unison:

“In death and blood,In ruin and tearsFind the Seven.“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”

“In death and blood,In ruin and tearsFind the Seven.

“In death and blood,

In ruin and tears

Find the Seven.

“Wait, hear and see!Say, wretch, art thou not glad?Find the Seven.”

“Wait, hear and see!

Say, wretch, art thou not glad?

Find the Seven.”

“But,” said Ulenspiegel, “Highness, and ye, spirits, I understand not your talk. Ye make a mock of me, sans doubt.”

But without heeding him they said:

“When the NorthShall kiss the WestRuin shall end;Find thou the SevenThe Girdle find!”

“When the North

Shall kiss the West

Ruin shall end;

Find thou the Seven

The Girdle find!”

And that with so tremendous a chorus and so terrifically loud, strong, and sonorous that the earth trembled and the heavens shivered. And the birds whistling, the owls bubbling, the sparrows twittering inaffright, the sea eagles complaining, all flew round aghast. And the beasts of the earth, lions, serpents, bears, stags, bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats roared, hissed, belled, howled, barked, and mewed terribly.

And the spirits chanted:

“Wait, hear and see,Love thou the SevenThe Girdle love.”

“Wait, hear and see,

Love thou the Seven

The Girdle love.”

And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished save one malicious emperor of mines who seizing Ulenspiegel and Nele each by an arm, hurled them brutally out into the void.

They found themselves lying beside each other, as though for sleep, and they shivered in the keen wind of the morning.

And Ulenspiegel saw the delicious body of Nele all gilded in the sun that was then rising.

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