“Alas! you are a woman,” said Ulenspiegel.
“Poor lad,” said she, “I brought you into the world, and know how to suffer. But you, if I saw you....” Then growing pale: “I will pray Madame the Virgin, who saw her son upon the cross.”
And she wept, caressing Ulenspiegel.
And thus was made between them a pact of hate and force.
LXXVII
The fishmonger need pay only one half of the price of his purchase, the other half serving to pay him the reward of his informing, until they should have recovered the seven hundred carolus that had impelled him to his villainy.
Soetkin spent the nights in weeping and the day in the tasks of housekeeping. Often Ulenspiegel heard her talking all alone and saying:
“If he inherits, I shall kill myself.”
Knowing that she would indeed do as she said, Nele and he did all they could to get Soetkin to retire to Walcheren, where she had kinsfolk. Soetkin would by no means do this, saying she had no need to run away from the worms that would soon eat her widowed bones.