“His ashes beat against my heart,” said Ulenspiegel.
XLV
During all the three and twenty days that followed, Katheline grew paler and paler, and thin and all dried up as though devoured not only by the madness that consumed her but by some interior fire that was even deadlier still. No more did she cry out as of old: “Fire! Fire! Dig a hole! My soul wants to get out!” But she was continually transported into a kind of ecstasy, in which she spake to Nele many strange words.
“A wife I am,” she said, “and a wife you also ought to be. My husband is a handsome man. A hairy man is he, hot with love. But his knees and his arms, they are cold!” And Soetkin looked at her sadly, wondering what new kind of madness this might be. But Katheline continued:
“Three times three are nine, the sacred number. He whose eyes glitter in the night like the eyes of a cat—he only it is that sees the mystery.”
One evening when Katheline was talking in this way, Soetkin made a gesture of misgiving. But Katheline said:
“Under Saturn, four and three mean misfortune. But under Venus, it is the marriage number. Cold arms! Cold knees! Heart of fire!”
Soetkin answered:
“It is wrong to talk in this way of these wicked pagan idols.”