“You will not find her, since she is hiding from you,” said Ulenspiegel.
Lamme asked for explanations from the baes, but the other would tell him nothing.
And they went away towards Damme.
While they went on their way, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
“Why do you not tell me how you found her beside you, last night, and how she left you?”
“My son,” replied Lamme, “you know that we had feasted on meat, on beer, on wine, and that I could hardly breathe when we went off to bed. I held a wax candle in my hand, like a lord, to light me and had put down the candlestick on a chest to sleep; the door had remained ajar, the chest was close to it. Undressing, I looked on my bed with great love and desire for sleep; the wax candle suddenly went out. I heard as it were a breath and a sound of light feet in my chamber; but being more sleepy than afraid, I lay down heavily. As I was about to fall asleep, a voice—her voice, O my wife, my poor wife!—said to me: ‘Have you supped well, Lamme?’ and her voice was beside me, and her face, too, and her sweet body.”
XLI
On that day Philip the king, having eaten too much pastry, was more melancholy than usual. He had played upon his living harpsichord, which was a case containing cats whose heads came out through round openings above the keys. Every time the king struck a key, the key in turn struck a cat with a dart, and the beast mewed and complained by reason of the pain.