LXXXV
On the doomfires smoked the fat of the victims. Ulenspiegel, thinking of Claes and Soetkin, wept in solitude.
One night he went to find Katheline and ask her for a remedy and for vengeance.
She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a heavy slumber.
He said to her:
“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great God of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer.”
Katheline said:
“The Great God could not hear you: first you must address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world, which being of double nature, celestial and terrestrial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to the throne.”
“Help me,” said he, “in my design; I will pay thee with my blood if need be.”
Replied Katheline: