The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 27

Claes said to him:

"Since it is your pleasure thus to go away without being made much of, give my brother Josse the kiss of peace and watch over him in the battle."

"I will do so," said the man.

And he went away, while Soetkin went to bring wherewithal to feast propitious fortune. The stork that day had for supper two gudgeons and a cod's head.

The news spread swiftly through Damme that Claes the poor had become Claes the rich through the act of his brother Josse, and the dean said that Katheline had doubtless cast a spell on Josse, since Claes had received from him a sum of money, a very great sum, beyond a doubt, and had not given the poorest robe to Our Lady.

Claes and Soetkin were happy, Claes working in the fields or selling his coal, and Soetkin showing herself a brave housekeeper at home.

But Soetkin, always sad, sought unceasingly with her eyes for Ulenspiegel along the highway.

LII

That day the Emperor Charles received from England a letter in which his son said to him:

Sir and Father:

It displeases me to have to live in this land where the accursed heretics breed like fleas and caterpillars and locusts. Fire and sword would not be amiss to lop them from off the trunk of the life-giving tree our mother Holy Church. As if this grief were not enough for me, still it must needs be that they will not look on me as their king, but as their queen's husband, and having no authority apart from her. They make game of me, saying in malicious pamphlets, whose authors and printers none can discover, that the Pope pays me to trouble and harm the realm with impious hangings and burnings, and when I would raise some urgent levy from them, for oftentimes they leave me without money, out of mere malice, they reply in evil lampoons that I have but to ask money from Satan whose work I do. The men of the Parliament make excuses and hunch up their backs in fear lest I should bite, but they grant nothing.

All the while the walls of London are covered with lampoons representing me as a parricide ready to strike down Your Majesty to have your inheritance.

But you know, my lord and father, that in spite of all my legitimate ambition and pride, I wish Your Majesty a long and glorious reign.

They scatter also throughout the town a drawing all too cleverly engraved on copper, in which I am seen making cats play upon a harpsichord with their paws, shut up inside the instruments, with their tails protruding through round holes into which they are fastened with iron pins. A man, who is myself, is burning their tails with a red-hot iron, and so making them strike on the keys with their paws and yowl desperately. I am depicted as so ugly that I cannot even bear to look at myself in it. And they show me laughing. Now you must know, dear sir and father, if I happened to take this profane pleasure at any time, I doubtless endeavoured to amuse myself by making these cats mew, but I never laughed. They make it a crime in me, in their rebel's talk, what they call the newfangledness and cruelty of this harpsichord, although the beasts have no souls, and though men and especially all royal personages may use them even unto death for their diversion. But in this land of England they are so well mated with beasts that they treat them better than their servants; stables and kennels here are palaces, and there are lords even that sleep with their horses on the same litter.

Furthermore, my n.o.ble wife and queen is barren; they declare by way of brutal insult that I am the reason, and not she who is also jealous, sullen, and gluttonous of love beyond degree. Dear sir and father, every day I implore our Lord G.o.d to have me in his grace, hoping for another throne, were it among the Turks, while awaiting that to which I am called by the honour of being the son of your most glorious and greatly victorious Majesty.

(Signed) Philip.

To this letter the Emperor made answer:

Sir and Son:

Your enemies are strong, I do not contest the fact, but endeavour to endure with patience the waiting for a more ill.u.s.trious crown. I have already announced to divers the intention I have conceived of withdrawing from the Low Countries and my other dominions, for I am well aware that old and gouty as I now become, I cannot well make head against Henry of France, second of the name, for Fortune loveth the young. Think also that as the master of England you wound by your power our enemy France.

I was foully beaten before Metz, and lost forty thousand men there. I was forced to flee before him of Saxony. If G.o.d doth not restore me by a touch of his good and divine will unto my full strength and vigour, I am minded, dear sir and son, to quit my realms and leave them to you.

Have therefore patience and meanwhile do your duty fully against the heretics, sparing none of them, men, women, girls, nor babes, for word has come to me, to my great grief, that madame the queen would fain ofttimes have shown them grace.

Your affectionate father, (Signed) Charles.

LIII

Having tramped a long time, Ulenspiegel's feet were bleeding, and in the bishopric of Mayence he met with a pilgrims' cart that brought him to Rome.

When he came into the city and got down from his cart, he descried upon the threshold of an inn a pretty goodwife who smiled, seeing him look at her.

Auguring well from this good humour:

"Hostess," said he, "will you give a sanctuary to a pilgrim on pilgrimage, for I have come to my time and must be brought to bed with the remission of my sins."

"We grant sanctuary to all that pay us."

"I have a hundred ducats in my wallet," said Ulenspiegel, who had but one, "and I would be pleased to spend the first one with you in drinking a bottle of old wine of Rome."

"Wine is not dear in these holy places," answered she. "Come in and drink for a soldo."

They drank together so long and emptied so many flagons with small talk that the hostess was forced to bid her servant give the customers their drink, while she and Ulenspiegel withdrew into a back parlour all of marble and as cold as winter.

Leaning her head on his shoulder she asked him who he was. Ulenspiegel replied:

"I am Sire of Geeland, Count of Gavergeeten, Baron of Tuchtendell, and at Damme, which is my birthplace, I have five and twenty bonniers of moonshine."

"What land is that?" asked the hostess, drinking out of Ulenspiegel's tankard.

"It is," said he, "a soil wherein are sown the seeds of illusion, of wild hopes and airy promises. But thou wast not born in the moonlight land, sweet hostess of the amber skin, and eyes shining like pearls. 'Tis the sun's colour the embrowned gold of thy hair; it was Venus that without jealousy bestowed on thee thy plump shoulders, thy full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, thy round arms, thy dainty hands. Shall we sup together to-night?"

"Handsome pilgrim of Flanders," said she, "why do you come hither?"

"To talk with the Pope," said Ulenspiegel.

"Alas!" said she, joining her hands, "talk with the Pope! I that am of this land, I have never been able to do that."

"I shall do it," said Ulenspiegel.

"But," said she, "know you where he goes, what manner of man he is, what are his habits and his ways of living?"

"They told me on my way," said Ulenspiegel, "that he has to name Julius the Third, that he is wanton, gay, and dissolute, a good talker and quick in repartee. They told me, too, that he had conceived an extraordinary friendship for a little beggar fellow, black, dirty, and forbidding, who begged for alms with a monkey, and that on his arriving at the pontifical throne, he made him cardinal of the Mount, and that he is ill whenever a day goes by without seeing him."

"Drink," said she, "and do not speak so loud."