The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the land of Flanders Part 23

"My soul wants to get out!"

Claes was dead. The fire burned itself away, smouldering at the foot of the stake whereon the poor body still hung by its neck.

And the bells of Notre Dame tolled for the dead.

XLIII

In Katheline's cottage Soetkin stood leaning against the wall, with her head hanging down and her hands clasped together. She held Ulenspiegel in her arms, speechless and without a tear. Neither did Ulenspiegel say anything. It made him afraid to feel the burning fever that raged in the body of his mother.

The neighbours, returning from the place of execution, came to the cottage and told how Claes had made an end of his sufferings.

"He is in glory," said the widow.

"Pray for him," said Nele, putting her rosary into the hands of Ulenspiegel. But he would make no use of it, giving as his reason that the beads had been blessed by the Pope.

At last night came, and Ulenspiegel urged his mother to go to bed, telling her that he himself would sit up and keep watch in the room. But Soetkin said that there was no need for him to do that. Let him sleep also, for the young have need of a good night's rest. So Nele prepared two beds for them in the kitchen, and after that she left them.

Mother and son stayed up together while what remained of the wood fire burned itself out in the grate. Then Soetkin retired to her bed, and Ulenspiegel did likewise, listening to his mother sobbing to herself under the bedclothes.

Outside in the silence of the night the wind made a murmuring sound in the trees by the ca.n.a.l. It was like the far-off sound of waves, and it meant that autumn was coming soon. Also, there were great eddies of dust that beat against the cottage windows.

Now it seemed to Ulenspiegel that he saw the figure of a man going to and fro in the room, and he thought he heard the sound of footsteps coming and going in the kitchen. But when he looked he no longer saw the man, and listening he no longer heard those footsteps, but only the sound of the wind as it whistled in the chimney and Soetkin crying under the bedclothes.

Then once again he heard those footsteps, and just behind him, near his head, a soft sigh.

"Who is it?" he said.

No one answered, but quite distinctly came the sound of three taps on the table. Ulenspiegel was afraid, and began to tremble. "Who is it?" he said again. No one answered, but once more there came the three taps upon the table, and after that he felt two arms hugging him round, and over him there leant a man's body with skin all wrinkled and a great hole in its breast that gave forth a smell of burning.

"Father," said Ulenspiegel, "is it you, and is this your poor body that weighs thus upon me?"

He received no answer to his question, and although the shadow seemed still quite close, it was from outside the cottage that he heard a voice crying out to him by name, "Tyl! Tyl!"

Suddenly Soetkin got out of bed and came over to where Ulenspiegel was lying.

"Do you hear something?" she said.

"Yes," he answered, "it is father calling to me."

"I too," said Soetkin, "I have felt a cold body beside me in my bed, and the mattress has moved, and the curtains. And I heard a voice that spoke my name: 'Soetkin!' it said, a voice soft as a whisper. And I heard a step near by, light as the sound of a gnat's wings." Then she addressed herself to the spirit of Claes: "If there is aught that you desire in that heaven where G.o.d guards you in his glory, you must tell me, my man, that we may know what you would have us do."

All of a sudden a mighty gust of wind came blowing upon the door, and it burst wide open and straightway the room was filled with dust; and from afar, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel could hear the sound of the cawing of many ravens.

They went out of the cottage, and came together to the place of torture....

It was a black night, save where the clouds--coursing in the sky like stags before the keen north wind--were parted here and there so as to disclose the glittering face of some star.

By the remnants of the pile strode a sergeant of the commune, up and down, keeping guard. Soetkin and Ulenspiegel heard his steps as they resounded on the hardened ground, and together with that sound there came the cry of a raven, calling his fellows, doubtless; for from far away there came the sound of other caws in answer.

As Soetkin and Ulenspiegel approached the pile the raven swooped down upon the shoulder of Claes, and they could hear its beak pecking upon the body. And soon the other ravens followed. Ulenspiegel would have thrown himself upon the pile and beaten them off had not the sergeant come up and prevented him.

"Are you a sorcerer," cried the man, "that comes. .h.i.ther for the hands of the dead as a talisman, and yet do you not know that the hands of a man that has been burnt to death possess no power of invisibility, but only hands of one who has been hanged--such as you yourself will be one of these days?"

"Sir," Ulenspiegel replied, "I am no sorcerer, but the orphaned son of the man tied to this stake here. And this woman is the dead man's widow. We only wish to kiss him once again, and to take away a few of his ashes in his memory. Give us leave, sir, pray, for you are certainly no foreign soldier, but a son of this land."

"Very well," said the sergeant.

So the orphan and the widow made their way over the charred wood and approached the body. Weeping, they both kissed the face of Claes.

Then Ulenspiegel found the place where the heart had been, a great hole hollowed out by the flames, and therefrom he took a few ashes. Then Soetkin and he knelt down and said a prayer, and when the sky began to turn pale in the dawn they were still kneeling there together. But the sergeant drove them off, for he was afraid that he would be punished for his kindness.

When they were home again Soetkin took a piece of red silk, and a piece of black silk, and she made a little bag to contain the ashes. And on the little bag she sewed two ribbons so that Ulenspiegel could always carry it suspended round his neck. And she gave it to him with these words:

"These ashes are the heart of my husband. This red ribbon is his blood. This black one is our sorrow. Always upon your breast let them lie, and call down thereby the fire of vengeance upon his torturers."

"Amen," said Ulenspiegel.

And the widow embraced her orphan, and the sun rose.

XLIV

In that year, being the fifty-eighth year of the century, Katheline came into Soetkin's house and spake as follows:

"Last night, being anointed with balm, I was transported to the tower of Notre Dame, and I beheld the elemental spirits that carry the prayers of men to the angels, and they in their turn, flying up towards the highest heaven, bring them to the Throne of G.o.d. And everywhere the sky was strewn with glittering stars. Suddenly I saw the figure of a man that seemed all blackened and charred, rising from a funeral pile. Mounting up towards me, this figure took its place beside me on the tower. I saw that it was Claes, just as he was in life, dressed in his charcoal-burner's clothes. He asked me what I was doing there on the tower of Notre Dame. 'And you,' I asked in my turn, 'whither are you off to, flying in the air like a bird?' 'I am going,' he answered, 'to judgment. Hear you not the angel's trump that summons me?' I was quite close to him, and could feel the very substance of his spiritual body--not hard and resisting to the touch like the bodies of those that are alive, but so rarefied that to come up against it was like advancing into a kind of warm mist. And at my feet stretched out on every side the land of Flanders, with a few lights s.h.i.+ning here and there, and I said to myself: 'They that rise early and work late, surely they are the blessed of G.o.d!' And all the time I could hear the angel's trumpet calling through the night. And presently I saw another shade mounting up towards me from the land of Spain. This was an old man and decrepit, with a protruding chin, and quince jam all oozing from the corners of his lips.

"On its back it wore a cloak of crimson velvet lined with ermine, and on its head an imperial crown, and it kept nibbling a piece of anchovy which it carried in one hand, while in the other hand it clutched a tankard of beer. I could see that this spirit was tired out and had come to the tower of Notre Dame to rest itself. Kneeling down, I addressed it in these words: 'Most Imperial Majesty, of a truth I revere you, yet I know not who you are. Whence come you? And what was your position in the world?' 'I come,' answered the shade, 'from Saint Juste in the country of Estramadoure. I was the Emperor Charles the Fifth.' 'But,' said I, 'whither, pray, are you going on such a cold night as this, and over these clouds that are all heavy and charged with hail?' 'I go,' answered the shade, 'to judgment.'

"Just as the Emperor was about to finish his anchovy and drink up his tankard of beer, the angel's trumpet sounded, and straightway he had to betake himself to the air again, grumbling at this sudden interruption of his repast. High aloft he mounted through s.p.a.ce, I following close behind; and as he went he hiccuped with fatigue, and coughed asthmatically, even vomited now and again; for death had come upon him at a time when he was suffering from a fit of indigestion. Thus ceaselessly we soared aloft like arrows shot from a bow of cornel-wood. The stars glimmered all around us, and time and again we saw them detach themselves and fall headlong, tracing long strokes of fire upon the sky. Once more the angel's trump resounded, very shrill and powerful. Each fanfare seemed to cleave for itself a pathway through the cloudy air, scattering the mists asunder like a hurricane that has begun to blow from near at hand. And by this means our track was marked out clearly for us, till at length, when we had been carried up and up a thousand leagues and more, we beheld Christ Himself in His glory, seated upon a throne of stars. And at His right hand was the angel who records the deeds of men upon a register of bra.s.s, and at His left hand stood Mary His Mother, she that for ever implores mercy for poor sinners.

"Claes and the Emperor knelt down together before the throne. And the angel took off the crown from the head of the Emperor, and cast it away.

"'There is only one Emperor here,' he said. It is 'Christ!'

"His Sacred Majesty could not conceal his annoyance; yet managed to a.s.sume a humble tone of voice as he begged to be allowed to keep his anchovy and his tankard of beer, for that he had come a long way and was very hungry.

"'Hungry you have been all your life,' said the angel, 'nevertheless, you may go on with your eating and drinking if you want to.'