“Impatient tramper,” said the baes, “thy wife? What wife? Thou didst come alone. I know naught.”
“Ha! he knows naught,” said Lamme, ferreting once more in all the nooks and corners of the room. “Alas! she was there, last night, in my bed, as in the time of our good loves. Aye. Where art thou, my darling?”
And flinging the purse on the ground:
“’Tis not thy money I want, ’tis thou, thy sweet body, thy kind heart, O my beloved! O heavenly joys! Ye will come back no more. I had grown hardened not to see thee, to live without love, my sweet treasure. And lo, having come to me again, thou dost abandon me. But I will die. Ha! my wife? Where is my wife?”
And he wept with scalding tears on the ground where he had cast himself. Then all at once opening the door, he started to run throughout the whole of the inn, and into the street, in his shirt, crying:
“My wife? Where is my wife?”
But soon he came back, for the mischievous boys hooted him and threw stones at him.
And Ulenspiegel said to him, forcing him to clothe himself:
“Do not be so overwhelmed; you shall see her again, since you have seen her. She loves you still, since she came back to you, since it was doubtless she that paid for the supper and for the lordly chambers, and that put on your bed this full pouch. The ashes tell me that this is not the doing of a faithless wife. Weep no more, and let us march forth for the defence of the land of our fathers.”
“Let us still remain in Bruges,” said Lamme; “I would fain run through the whole town, and I will find her.”