The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the land of Flanders Part 16

In those days the country round Liege was in a disturbed and dangerous state by reason of the heresy hunts, and Lamme Goedzak came again to live in Damme. He was married now, and his wife followed him willingly because the people of Liege, who had a mocking nature, used to make fun of her husband's meekness.

Lamme often visited Claes, who, since coming into his fortune, was always to be found at the tavern of the Blauwe Torre, and had even appropriated one of the tables for himself and his boon companions. This table was next to the one where sat the Dean of the Fishmongers, Josse Grypstuiver by name, drinking sparingly from his half-pint tankard. For he was a miser, a stingy fellow who thought the world of himself, and lived for the most part on smoked herrings, and thought more of money than of the safety of his own soul. Now Claes carried in his pocket that piece of parchment whereon was inscribed the tale of his ten-thousand-year indulgence.

One evening Claes was drinking at the Blauwe Torre in the company of Lamme Goedzak, Jan van Roosebeke, and Matthys van a.s.sche, Josse Grypstuiver also being present. Claes had been imbibing freely, and Jan Roosebeke was remonstrating with him, saying that it was sin to drink so much. But Claes replied that a pint too much meant nothing more serious than an extra half-day in purgatory.

"Besides," said he, "I have a ten-thousand-year indulgence in my pocket! Is there any one here that would like a hundred years of them, I wonder, so that he may indulge his stomach without fear of the consequences?"

Every one shouted at once:

"How much are you selling them at?"

"For a pint of beer," Claes answered, "I will give you one hundred days, but for a muske conyn you shall have a hundred and fifty!"

Some of the revellers gave Claes a pint of beer, others a piece of ham, and for each and all Claes cut off a little strip of his parchment. It was not Claes, forsooth, who consumed the price of his indulgences, but Lamme Goedzak; and he gorged himself so that he began to swell visibly; and all the time Claes went on distributing his merchandise up and down the tavern.

The man Grypstuiver turned a sour face towards him, and asked if he had an indulgence for ten days.

"No," said Claes, "that's too small a piece to cut."

Every one laughed, and Grypstuiver ate his anger as best he could. Then Claes went home, followed by Lamme, walking as if his legs were made of wool.

x.x.xIII

Towards the end of the third year of her banishment, Katheline returned to her home in Damme. And continually she cried aloud in her madness: "Fire, fire! My head is on fire! My soul is knocking, make a hole, she wants to get out!" And if ever she saw an ox or a sheep she would run from it as if in terror. And she would sit on the bench at the back of her cottage, under the lime-trees, wagging her head and staring at the people of Damme as they pa.s.sed by. But she did not recognize them, and they called her "The mad-woman."

Meanwhile Ulenspiegel went wandering along the roads and pathways of the world, and one day he met a donkey on the highway, harnessed with leather and studs of bra.s.s, and its head ornamented with ta.s.sels and plumes of scarlet wool....

Some old women were standing round the donkey in a circle, all talking at once and telling each other how that no one could tame the donkey for that he was a terrible animal and had belonged to the Baron of Raix, who was a magician and had been burned alive for having sacrificed eight children to the devil. "And he ran away so fast,"

said the old women, "that none could catch him. And without a doubt he is under the protection of Satan. For a while ago he seemed tired, resting by the wayside, and the village constables came to seize him. But he suddenly kicked out with his hind legs and brayed in such fearful fashion that they durst not to go near him. And that was no bray of an a.s.s, but the bray of the devil himself. So the constables left him to browse among the thistles, and pa.s.sed no sentence upon him, nor did they burn him alive for a sorcerer as they should have done. Verily these men have no courage."

Notwithstanding this brave talk, the donkey had only to p.r.i.c.k up his ears or flick his sides with his tail, to send the women running away from him with cries of terror. Then back they would come, chattering and jabbering, but ever ready to be off again if the donkey showed the least sign of movement. Ulenspiegel could not help laughing at the sight,

"Ah!" said he, "talk and curiosity! They flow like an everlasting river from the mouths of women--and especially old women, for with the young the flow is less continuous by reason of their amorous occupations."

Then, considering the donkey:

"This sorcerer-beast," said he to himself, "is a sprightly a.s.s without a doubt, and a good goer. What if I were to take him for my own, to ride, or maybe sell him?"

Without another word Ulenspiegel went and got a feed of oats, and returning, offered them to the donkey. But while he was eating of those viands Ulenspiegel jumped nimbly upon his back, and taking the reins, turned him first to the north, then to the east, and lastly to the west. Then, when he had gone from them a little way, he raised his hand as if in blessing on those aged dames. But they, almost fainting with fear, fell upon their knees before him. And that evening when they met together again, the tale was told of how an angel with a felt hat trimmed with a pheasant's feather had come and blessed them, and had taken off the magician's donkey by special favour of G.o.d.

And Ulenspiegel, astride of his a.s.s, went his way through the green fields, where the horse pranced about at liberty, where the cows and heifers grazed at their ease or lay resting in the sunshine. And he called the a.s.s Jef.

At last Jef came to a stop, and began, as happy as could be, to make his dinner off the thistles which grew in that place in great abundance. But anon he shivered all over, and flicked his sides with his tail in the hope of ridding himself of the greedy horse-flies who, like himself, were trying to get their dinner, not off the thistles, but off his own flesh.

Ulenspiegel, who himself began to feel the pangs of hunger, grew very melancholy.

"Happy indeed would you be, friend donkey, with your good dinner of fine thistles if there was no one to disturb you in your pleasures, and to remind you that you also are mortal, born, that is to say, to the endurance of all kinds of villainies."

Thus did Ulenspiegel address his steed, and thus continued:

"For even as you have this gadfly of yours to worry you, so also hath His Holiness the Pope a gadfly of his own, even master Martin Luther; and His Sacred Majesty the Emperor, hath he not my Lord of France for his tormentor--Francis, first of that name, the King with the very long nose and a sword that is longer still? And forsooth, donkey mine, it is certainly permitted that I also, poor little man wandering all alone, may have my gadfly too.

"Alas! Woe is me! All my pockets have holes in them, and by the said apertures do all my fine ducats and florins and daelders ramble away, flying like a crowd of mice before the mouth of the cat that would devour them. I wonder why it is that money will have nothing to do with me--me that am so fond of money? Verily Fortune is no woman, whatever they may say, for she loves none but greedy misers that shut her up in their coffers, tie her up in sacks, close her down under twenty keys and never let her show herself at the window by so much as the little tip of her gilded nose! This, then, is the gadfly that preys upon me and makes me itch, and tickles me without ever so much as raising a laugh. But there, you are not listening to me at all, friend donkey! And you think of nothing but your food. You gobbling gobbler, your long ears are deaf to the cry of an empty stomach! But you shall listen to me. I insist!"

And he belaboured the a.s.s as hard as he could, till the brute began to bray.

"Come, come, now that you have given us a song!" cried Ulenspiegel. But the donkey would not advance by more than a single step, and seemed determined to go on eating thistles until he had consumed all that grew by the roadside. And of these there was an abundance.

When Ulenspiegel saw what was happening he dismounted and cut off a bunch of thistles; then, mounting the a.s.s again, he placed the bunch of thistles just in front of the animal's nose. And in this way, leading the donkey by the nose, he arrived before long in the land of the Landgrave of Hesse.

"Friend donkey," he said as they went along, "you, verily, go running after a bunch of thistles, the meagre fare with which I have provided you; but you leave behind the lovely road that is filled with all kinds of most delicate herbs. And thus do all men, scenting out, some of them, the bouquet called Fame which Fortune puts under their nose, others the bouquet of Gain, and yet others the bouquet that is called Love. But at the end of the journey they discover, like you, that they have been pursuing things that are of little account, and that they have left behind all that is worth anything--health, and work, repose, happiness, and home."

In such discourse with his donkey Ulenspiegel came at last to the palace of the Landgrave.

There two Captains of Artillery were playing dice upon the steps of the palace, and one of them, a red-haired man of gigantic stature, soon noticed Ulenspiegel as he approached modestly upon his a.s.s, gazing down upon them and their game.

"What do you want," said the Captain, "you, fellow, with your starved pilgrim's face?"

"I am extremely hungry," answered Ulenspiegel, "and if I am a pilgrim, it is against my will."

"And you are hungry," replied the Captain, "go, eat the next gallows cord you come to, for such cords are prepared for vagabonds like you."

"Sir Captain," answered Ulenspiegel, "only give me the fine golden cord you wear on your hat, and I will go straightway and hang myself by the teeth from that fat ham which I see hanging over there at the cook-shop."

The Captain asked him where he came from. Ulenspiegel told him, "From Flanders."

"What do you want?"

"To show His Highness the Landgrave one of my pictures. For I am a painter."

"If it is a painter that you are," said the Captain, "and from Flanders, come in, and I will lead you to my master."

When he had been brought before the Landgrave, Ulenspiegel saluted thrice and again.

"May your Highness deign," said he, "to excuse my presumption in daring to come and lay before these n.o.ble feet a picture I have made for your Highness, wherein I have had the honour to portray Our Lady the Virgin in her royal attire."

And then after a moment's pause:

"It may be that my picture may please your Highness," he continued, "and in that case I am sufficiently presumptuous to hope that I might aspire even unto this fine chair of velvet, where sat in his lifetime the painter that is lately deceased and ever to be regretted by your Magnanimity."

Now the picture which Ulenspiegel showed him was very beautiful, and when the Landgrave had inspected it, he told Ulenspiegel to sit down upon the chair, for that he would certainly make him his Court Painter. And the Landgrave kissed him on both cheeks, most joyously, and Ulenspiegel sat down on the chair.