When the devil had gone Smetse was almost off his head with joy, and ran to his wife, who had come to the door of the kitchen, and thumped her for joy, seized her, kissed her, hugged the good woman, shook her, pressed her to him, ran back to his men, shook them all by the hand, crying: “By Artevelde! I am quits, Smetse is quits!” And he seemed to have a tongue for nothing else but that he was quits! And he blew in his wife’s ear, into his workmen’s faces, and under the nose of a bald and wheezing old cat who sat up in one corner and got quit with him by a scratch in the face.
“The rascal,” said Smetse, “does not seem glad enough at my deliverance. Is he another devil, think you? They say they disguise themselves in every kind of shape. Ho,” said he to the cat, who was arching her back in annoyance, “hast heard, listened, and understood, devil cat? I am quit and free, quit and franked, quit and happy, quit and rich! And I have made fools of all the devils. And from now on I will live gaily as becomes a quit smith. Wife, I will send this very day a hundred philipdalers to Slimbroek, so that that poor sinner may also rejoice at Smetse’s quittance.”
But his wife said nothing, and when Smetse went to look for her he found her on the stair with a great bowl of holy water in her hands, in which she was dipping a fair sprig of palm branch.
Coming into the smithy she began to sprinkle with the palm her man and the workmen, and also the hammers, anvils, bellows, and other tools.
“Wife,” said Smetse, trying to escape the wetting, “what art thou at?”
“I am saving thee,” said she, “presumptuous smith. Dost verily think that, being freed of devils, thou hast for thine own the chattels that come from them? Dost think that though they have lost the soul which was to be their payment they will leave thee thy riches. Ho, the good fool! They will come back again, yes; and if I do not sprinkle thee with this holy water, and myself likewise, and all these good men, who knows with what evils they may not torment us, alas!”
And the good wife was working away with her palm-branch when suddenly a great thunder rumbled under the earth, shaking the quay, and the stones cracked, the panes shivered in the windows, all the doors and casements in the smithy opened of themselves, and a hot wind blew.
“Ah,” said she, “they are coming; pray, my man!”
And suddenly there appeared in the sky the figure of a man, naked and of marvellous beauty. He was standing in a chariot of diamond, drawn by four flaming horses. And he held in his right hand a banner, whereon was written: “More beautiful than God.” And from the body of this man, whereof the flesh shone brightly, came golden rays which lit up the Lys, the quay and the trees like sunlight. And the trees began to sway and swing their stems and branches, and all the quay seemed to roll like a ship upon the sea, and thousands of voices called out together: “Lord, we cry hunger and thirst; Lord, feed us; Lord, give us to drink.”
“Ah,” said the good wife, “here is my Lord Lucifer and all his devils!”