The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 1 of 2. de Coster Charles

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      Among the court ladies there was a charming Flemish woman from Dudzeele hard by Damme, plump, a handsome ripe fruit and marvellously lovely, for she had green eyes and red crimped hair, shining like gold. Of a gay humour and ardent temperament, she never hid from any one her inclination for the lucky lord to whom she accorded the divine right of way of love over her goodly pleasaunce. There was one at this moment, handsome and high spirited, whom she loved. Every day at a certain hour she went to meet him, and this Philip discovered.

      Taking his seat upon a bench set close up against a window, he watched for her and when she was passing in front of him, her eye alight, her lips parted, amiable, fresh from the bath, and rustling about her all her array of yellow brocade, she caught sight of the Infante who said to her, without getting up from his seat:

      “Madame, could you not stay a moment?”

      Impatient as a filly held back in her career, at the moment when she is hurrying to the splendid stallion neighing in the meadow, she answered:

      “Highness, everyone here must obey your princely will.”

      “Sit down beside me,” said he.

      Then looking at her luxuriously, stonily, and warily, he said:

      “Repeat the Pater to me in Flemish; they have taught it to me, but I have forgotten it.”

      The poor lady then must begin to say a Pater and he must needs bid her say it slower.

      And in this way he forced the poor thing to say as many as ten Paters, she that thought the hour had come to go through other orisons.

      Then covering her with praises and flatteries, he spoke of her lovely hair, her bright colour, her shining eyes, but did not venture to say a word to her either of her plump shoulders or her smooth round breast or any other thing.

      When she thought she could get away and was already looking out into the court where her lord was waiting for her, he asked her if she knew truly what are the womanly virtues.

      As she made no answer for fear of saying the wrong thing, he spoke for her and preaching at her, he said:

      “The womanly virtues, these be chastity, watchfulness over honour, and sober living.”

      He counselled her also to array herself decently and to hide closely all that pertained to her.

      She made sign of assent with her head saying:

      That for His Hyperborean Highness she would much sooner cover herself with ten bearskins than with an ell of muslin.

      Having put him in ill humour with this retort, she fled away rejoicing.

      However, the fire of youth was lit up in the Infante’s bosom, but it was not that hot burning flame that incites strong souls to high deeds, but a dark, sinister flame come out of hell where Satan had without doubt kindled it. And it shone in his gray eyes like the wintry moon upon a charnel-house, and it burned him cruelly.

      XXVI

      The beautiful and sweet lady on a day left Valladolid to go to her Château of Dudzeele in Flanders.

      Passing through Damme attended by her fat seneschal, she saw sitting against the wall of a cottage a boy of fifteen blowing into a bagpipe. In front of him was a red dog that, not liking this music, howled in a melancholy fashion. The sun shone bright. Standing beside the lad there was a pretty girl laughing loudly at each fresh pitiful burst of howling from the dog.

      The beautiful dame and the fat seneschal, as they passed by the cottage, looked at Ulenspiegel blowing, Nele laughing, and Titus Bibulus Schnouffius howling.

      “Bad boy,” said the dame, addressing Ulenspiegel, “could you not cease from making that poor red beast howl in that way?”

      But Ulenspiegel, with his eyes on her, blew up his bagpipe more stoutly still. And Bibulus Schnouffius howled still more melancholily, and Nele laughed the more.

      The seneschal, growing angry, said to the dame, pointing to Ulenspiegel:

      “If I were to give this beggar’s spawn a dressing with my scabbard, he would stop making this impudent hubbub.”

      Ulenspiegel looked at the seneschal, called him Jan Papzak, because of his belly, and continued to blow his bagpipe. The seneschal went up to him with a threatening fist, but Bibulus Schnouffius threw himself on the man and bit him in the leg, and the seneschal tumbled down in affright crying out:

      “Help!”

      The dame said to Ulenspiegel, smiling:

      “Could you not tell me, bagpiper, if the road that runs from Damme to Dudzeele has not been changed?”

      Ulenspiegel, without stopping his playing, nodded his head and looked still at the dame.

      “Why do you look so steadily at me?” she asked.

      But he, still playing, stretched his eyes wide as though rapt in an ecstasy of admiration.

      She said to him:

      “Are you not ashamed, young as you are, to stare at ladies so?”

      Ulenspiegel reddened slightly, went on blowing, and stared harder.

      “I asked you,” she went on, “if the road that runs from Damme to Dudzeele has not altered?”

      “It is not green now since you deprived it of the joy of carrying you,” replied Ulenspiegel.

      “Wilt thou guide me?” said the dame.

      But Ulenspiegel remained seated, still never taking his eyes from her. And she, seeing him so roguish, and knowing that it was a mere trick of youth, forgave him easily. He got up, and turned to go into his home.

      “Where are you going?” she asked.

      “To put on my best clothes,” he replied.

      “Go then,” said the dame.

      She sat down then on the bench beside the doorstep; the seneschal did the same. She would have talked to Nele, but Nele did not answer her, for she was jealous.

      Ulenspiegel came back carefully washed and clad in fustian. He looked well in his Sunday garb, the little man.

      “Art thou verily going with this beautiful lady?” Nele asked him.

      “I shall be back soon,” replied Ulenspiegel.

      “If I were to go instead of you?” said Nele.

      “Nay,” he said, “the roads are full of mire.”

      “Why,” said the dame, angry and jealous together, “why, little girl, do you want to keep him from coming with me?”

      Nele made her no answer, but big tears welled up from her eyes and she gazed on the dame in sadness and in anger.

      They started on their way, four all told, the dame sitting like a queen on her white hackney caparisoned with black velvet; the seneschal whose belly СКАЧАТЬ