It was good to see also the devils of conceited men. These were fine great leathern bottles full of wind, finished off with a beak, at the end of which was a reed. These bottles had eagle’s feet and two good little arms, with fingers long enough to go round the widest part of the bottle. When the conceited man came into hell, saying: “I am great, I am grand, strong, beautiful, victorious, I will overcome Lucifer and marry his dam Astarte,” the leathern bottles would come up to him and say, with a deep reverence: “My lord, will you be pleased to let us speak a word to you in secret, touching your high designs?” “Yes,” he would say. Then two bottles would stuff their reeds into his ears in such a manner that he could not get them out again, and begin to press in their bellies with their long fingers, so as to force wind into his head, which thereupon swelled up, large and always larger, and Master Self-Conceit rose into the air and went off to wander throughout eternity, with his head bumping the ceiling of hell, and his legs waving in the air in the efforts to get down again; but all in vain.
Marvellous devils were certain apes of quicksilver, always running, tumbling, leaping, coming, and going. These devils bore down on the lazy fellows who were thrown to them, gave them a spade to dig earth with, a sword to polish, a tree to trim, or a book to con. The lazybones would look at the task set him, saying: “To-morrow,” and would stretch his arms, scratching and yawning. But as soon as he had his mouth wide open the ape would stuff into it a sponge soaked in quintessence of rhubarb. “This,” he would say mockingly, “is for to-day; work, slug, work.” Then, while the lazybones was retching, the devil would thump him, shake him a hundred different ways, giving him no more peace than a gadfly gives a horse, and so on throughout eternity.
Pleasing devils were pretty little children very wide-awake and mischievous, whose concern was to teach learned orators to think, speak, weep, and laugh according to common nature. And when they did otherwise the little devils would rap them sharply on the knuckles. But the poor pedants could no longer learn, being too heavy, old, and stupid; so they had a rap on the knuckles every day and a whipping on Sundays.
And all these devils cried out together: “Master, we are hungry; Master, give us to eat, pay somewhat for the good services we render thee.”
And suddenly the man in the chariot made a sign, and the good River Lys threw all these devils on the quay, as the sea splashes on the shore, and they hissed loud and terribly at landing.
And Smetse, his wife, and the workmen heard the doors of the cellars open with a loud noise, and all the casks of bruinbier came hissing up the stairs, and hissing across the floor of the forge, and still hissing described a curve in the air and fell among the crowd of all the devils. And so also did the bottles of wine, so also the hams, loaves, and cheeses, and so also the good crusats, angelots, philipdalers, and other moneys, which were all changed into meat and drink. And the devils fell over one another, fought, scrambled, wounded themselves, forming only one great mass of battling monsters, howling and hissing, and each trying to get more than the others. When there was left neither drop nor crumb, the man in the chariot made another sign, and all the devils melted into black water and flowed into the river, where they disappeared. And the man vanished from the sky.
And Smetse Smee was as poor as before, save for one little bag of golden royals, which his wife had by chance sprinkled with holy water, and which he kept, although it came from the devil. But this, as you shall see, did not profit him at all. And he lived with great content until he died suddenly one day in his smithy, at the great and blessed age of ninety-three years.
XVII. Of Hell, of Purgatory, of the long ladder, and finally of Paradise.
When he was dead his soul had to pass through Hell in the guise of a smith. Coming thither he saw, through the open windows, the devils which had so frightened him in the vision on the Lys, and who were now busy torturing and tormenting the poor damned souls as terribly as they could. And Smetse went to the doorkeeper; but the doorkeeper, on seeing him, howled out in a most awful fashion: “Smetse is here, Smetse Smee the traitor smith!” And he would not let him in. Hearing the hubbub, My Lord Lucifer, Madam Astarte, and all their court came to the windows, and all the other devils after them.