The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 1 of 2

“No!” said he.

“A ducat?”

“No!”

“A carolus?”

“No,” said Ulenspiegel again. “And yet,” he added, sighing, “I should like it in my mother’s purse better than a mussel-shell.”

The dame smiled, then cried out suddenly:

“I have lost my fine rare purse, made of silken cloth and broidered with rich pearls! At Damme it was still hanging at my girdle.”

Ulenspiegel budged not, but the seneschal came forward to the dame.

“Madame,” he said, “send not this young thief to look for it, for you would never see it again.”

“And who will go then?” asked the dame.

“Myself,” he answered, “despite my great age.”

And he went off.

Noon struck, the heat was great, the solitude profound; Ulenspiegel said no word, but he doffed his new doublet that the dame might sit down in the shade beneath a lime, without fearing the cool of the grass. He remained standing close by her, sighing.

She looked at him and felt pity rising up in her for this timid little fellow, and asked him if he was not weary with standing so on his tender young legs. He answered not a word, and as he let himself drop down beside her, she tried to catch him, and pulled him on to her bared bosom, where he remained with such good will that she would have thought herself guilty of the sin of cruelty if she had bidden him seek another pillow.

However, the seneschal came back and said he had not found the purse.

“I found it myself,” replied the dame, “when I dismounted from my horse, for it had unfastened its broochpin and got caught up on the stirrup. Now,” she said to Ulenspiegel, “take us the direct way to Dudzeele and tell me how thou art called.”

“My patron,” he answered, “is Master Saint Thylbert, a name which signifies light of foot to run after good matters; my name is Claes and my to-name Ulenspiegel. If you would look at yourself in my mirror, you will see that there is not upon all this land of Flanders a flower of beauty so dazzling as your fragrant loveliness.”

The dame blushed with pleasure and was in no wise wroth with Ulenspiegel.

And Soetkin and Nele wept during this long absence.

XXVII

When Ulenspiegel came back from Dudzeele, he saw Nele at the entrance to the town, leaning up against a barrier. She was eating a bunch of grapes, crunching them one by one, and was doubtless refreshed and rejoiced by the fruit, but allowed none of her pleasure to be seen. She appeared, on the contrary, to be angry, and plucked the grapes from off the bunch with a choleric air. She was so dolorous and showed a face so marred, so sad and so sweet, that Ulenspiegel was overcome with loving pity, and going up behind her, gave her a kiss on the nape of her neck.

But she returned it with a great box on the ear.

“I can’t fathom that!” exclaimed Ulenspiegel.

She wept with heavy sobs.

“Nele,” said he, “are you going to set up fountains at the entrance to the villages?”

“Begone!” she said.

“But I cannot be gone, if you weep like this, my dear.”

“I am not your dear,” said Nele, “and I do not weep!”

“No, you do not weep, but none the less water comes from your eyes.”

“Will you go away?” said she.

“No,” said he.

She was holding her apron the while with her little trembling hands, and she was pulling the stuff jerkily and tears fell on it, wetting it.

“Nele,” asked Ulenspiegel, “will it be fine presently?” And he looked on her, smiling lovingly.

“Why do you ask me that?” said she.

“Because, when it is fine, it does not weep,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“Go,” said she, “go to your beautiful lady in the brocade dress; you made her laugh well enough,” said she.

Then sang Ulenspiegel:

“When my darling’s tears I see
My heart is torn atwain,
’Tis honey when she laughs for me,
When she weeps, a pearl.
Always I love my dearest girl,
And I’ll buy good wine for us,
Good wine of Louvain,
I’ll buy good wine for us to drink,
When Nele smiles again.”

“Low man!” said she, “you are still flouting me.”

“Nele,” said Ulenspiegel, “a man I am, but not low, for our noble family, an aldermanish family, bears three silver quarts on a ground of bruinbier. Nele, is it so that in Flanders when a man sows kisses he reaps boxes on the ear?”

“I do not wish to speak to you,” said she.

“Then why do you open your mouth to tell me so?”

“I am angry,” said she.

Ulenspiegel very lightly gave her a blow with his fist in the back, and said:

“Kiss a mean thing, she’ll punch you; punch a mean thing and she’ll anoint you. Anoint me then, darling, since I have punched you.”

Nele turned about. He opened his arms, she cast herself in them still weeping, and said: