Читать книгу The Legend of Ulenspiegel - Charles de Coster - Страница 13

Table of Contents

Claes having caught a big salmon, that salmon was eaten one Sunday by himself and by Soetkin, Katheline, and little Ulenspiegel, but Katheline ate no more than a bird.

“Gossip,” said Claes to her, “is Flanders air so solid to-day that it is enough for you to breathe it to be fed as with a dish of meat? When shall we live in this wise? Rain would be good soup, it would hail beans, and the snows, transformed to celestial fricassees, would restore and refresh poor travelling folk.”

Katheline, nodding her head, uttered not a word.

“Lo now,” said Claes, “our dolorous gossip. What is it grieves her then?”

But Katheline, in a voice that seemed but a low breathing:

“The wicked one,” said she, “night is falling black—I hear him announcing his coming—screaming like a sea hawk—shuddering, I beseech the Virgin—in vain. For him, neither walls nor hedges nor doors nor windows. Entereth anywhere like a spirit——Ladder creaking——He beside me in the garret where I sleep. Seizes me in his cold arms, hard like marble. Face frozen cold, kisses like damp snow——The cottage tossed upon the earth, moving like a bark on the stormy sea. …”

“You must go,” said Claes, “every morning to mass, that our Lord Jesu may give you strength to drive away this phantom come from hell.”

“He is so handsome!” said she.