“That is true,” said she.
“Then,” said Ulenspiegel, “go fetch me good potter’s clay, a double quart of bruinbier, clear water, and a few slices of beef. All separate.”
“The beef will be for me, the bruinbier for the beef, the water for the clay, and the clay for the portrait.”
Eating and drinking Ulenspiegel kneaded the clay, and now and then swallowed a morsel of it, but heeded it little, and looked most attentively at Michielkin’s portrait. When the clay was kneaded, he made a mask out of it, with a nose, a mouth, eyes, ears so much like the portrait of the dead man, that Boelkin was astonied at it.
After that he put the mask in the oven, and when it was dry, he painted it the colour corpses are, showing the haggard eyes, the solemn face, and the various contractions of a man in the act of dying. Then the girl, ceasing to be astonied, looked at the mask, without being able to take her eyes off it, grew pale and livid, covered up her face, and said shuddering:
“It is he, my poor Michielkin!”
He made also two bloody feet.
Then having conquered her first fright:
“Blessed will he be,” said she, “that will slay the murderer.” Ulenspiegel, taking the mask and the feet, said:
“I must have an assistant.”