“Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “do not eat so fast and without a thought of compassion for the poor pilgrim.”
Lamme, still weeping, gave him four slices and Ulenspiegel eating them was moved and softened by their delicious flavour.
But Lamme, weeping and eating without ceasing, said:
“My wife, my good, dear wife! How sweet and shapely she was of her body, light as a butterfly, bright and swift as lightning, singing like a lark! Too well, however, loved she to clothe herself with fine adornments. Alas! they became her so well! But the flowers themselves have also a rich array. If you had seen, my son, her little hands so light for caressing, never would you have allowed them to touch pan or pot. The kitchen fire would have blackened their colour that was clear and bright as the day itself. And what eyes! I melted with love merely to look at them.—Take a draught of wine. I shall drink after you. Ah! if only she be not dead! Thyl, I kept all the work of my house for myself, so as to spare her the smallest task; I swept the house, I made the nuptial bed on which she lay down at night weary with idleness and comfort; I washed the dishes and the linen which I ironed myself.—Eat, Thyl, it is from Ghent, this sausage.—Often having gone out a walking she came back late for dinner, but it was so great a joy for me to see her that I never ventured to scold her, happy when, pouting, she did not turn her back to me at night. I have lost all.—Drink of this wine, it is a Brussels vintage, made in the same way as Burgundy.”
“Why did she go away?” asked Ulenspiegel.
“Do I know that, I?” went on Lamme Goedzak. “Where are the days when I used to go to her home, hoping to marry her, and she fled from me for love or fear? If she had her arms bare, lovely round white arms, and saw me looking at them, all at once she would pull down her sleeves over them. At other times she would give herself to my caresses, and I could kiss her lovely eyes, which she shut for me, and the wide firm nape of her neck; then she would shiver, utter little cries, and throwing her head back, hit my nose with it. And she would laugh when I said ‘oh!’ and I would beat her in lover fashion, and there was nothing between us but games and laughter.—Thyl, is there any wine still left in the flask?”
“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel.
Lamme drank and went on with his discourse:
“At other times, more loving, she would fling both arms about my neck and say to me, ‘How handsome you are!’ and she would kiss me gamesomely and a hundred times together, on my cheek or my forehead but never on the mouth, and when I asked her whence came this great reserve in so extended a license, she went running to take from a tankard on a chest a doll clad in silk and pearls, and said, shaking and dandling it: ‘I don’t want this.’ Doubtless her mother, to keep her virtue safe, had told her that babies are made by the mouth. Ah! sweet moments! tender caresses! Thyl, see if you cannot find a little ham in the pouch of this bag.”
“Half of one,” replied Ulenspiegel, giving it to Lamme, who ate it all every bit.