The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 1 of 2. de Coster Charles

blind men, proudly, “give us to eat and drink of your best.”

      The host, who had heard a mention of the nine florins, believed them to be in their pouches, and asked what they wished to have.

      Then all of them, speaking at once, cried out:

      “Peas with bacon, a hotchpotch of beef, veal, mutton, and fowl.” – “Are sausages meant for dogs?” – “Who ever smelled the passing of black puddings and white, without seizing them by the collar? I used to see them, alas! when my poor eyes were candles to me.” – “Where are the koekebakken au beurre of Anderlecht? They sing in the pan, succulent and crisp, mother of quart draughts.” – “Who will bring under my nose ham and eggs or eggs and ham, those tender brothers and close friends in the mouth?” – “Where are ye, divine choesels, swimming, proud viands that you are, in the midst of kidneys, of cockscombs, of riz de veau, of oxtails, sheep’s trotters, and abundant onions, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, all in the stew and three quarts of white wine for sauce?” – “Who will bring you to me, divine andouilles, so good that ye say no word when ye are swallowed? Ye came ever straight from Luy-leckerland, the rich country of the happy do-naughts, the lickers up of never-ending sauces. But where are ye, withered leaves of bygone autumns!” – “I want a leg of mutton with beans.” – “I want pigs’ plumes, their ears.” – “For me a rosary of ortolans, with woodcocks for the Paters on it and a fat capon for the Credo.”

      The host answered sedately:

      “You shall have an omelette of sixty eggs, and for guiding posts for you spoons, fifty black puddings, planted smoking hot on this mountain of nourishment, and dobbel peterman to wash all down with: that will be the river.”

      The water came into the mouths of the poor blind men and they said:

      “Serve us the mountain, the guideposts, and the river.”

      And the Brothers of the Good Red Nose and their goodwives already at table with Ulenspiegel said that this day was for the blind the day of invisible junketing, and that the poor men thus lost the half of their pleasure.

      When the omelette arrived, all decked with parsley and nasturtium, and borne by the host and four cooks, the blind men would fain have thrown themselves upon it and already were haggling in it, but the host served them separately, not without difficulty, to each his share in his own dish.

      The archer women were touched to see them eating and heaving sighs of content, for they were mightily hungered and swallowed down the black puddings like oysters. The dobbel peterman flowed down into their bellies like cascades falling from mountain tops.

      When they had cleaned their dishes, they asked again for koekebakken, for ortolans and fresh fricassees. The host only served them a great dish of bones of beef and veal and mutton swimming in a good sauce. He did not give each his portion.

      When they had dipped their bread and their hands up to the elbows in the sauce, and only brought up bones of every kind, even some ox jaw bones, everyone thought his neighbour had all the meat, and they beat each other’s faces furiously with the bones.

      The Brothers of the Good Red Nose, having laughed their fill, charitably conveyed part of their own feast into the poor fellows’ dish, and he who groped in the plate for a bone for a weapon would set his hand on a thrush, a chicken, a lark or two, while the goodwives, pulling their heads back, would pour Brussels wine down their throats in a flood, and when they groped about blindly to feel whence these streams of ambrosia were coming to them, they caught nothing but a petticoat, and would fain have held it, but it would whisk away from them suddenly.

      And so they laughed, drank, ate, and sang. Some scenting out the pretty goodwives, ran all about the hall beside themselves, bewitched by love, but teasing girls would mislead them, and hiding behind a Good Red Nose would say “kiss me.” And they would, but instead of a woman, they kissed the bearded face of a man, and not without rebuffs.

      The Good Red Noses sang, the blind men, too. And the jolly goodwives smiled kindly seeing their glee.

      When these rich and sappy hours were over, the baes said to them:

      “You have eaten well and drunk well, I want seven florins.”

      Each one swore he had no purse, and accused his neighbour. Hence arose yet another fray in which they sought to strike one another with foot and fist and head, but they could not, and struck out wildly, for the Good Red Noses, seeing the play, kept man away from man. And blows hailed upon the empty air, save one that by ill chance fell upon the face of the baes, who, in a rage, searched them all and found on them nothing but an old scapular, seven liards, three breeches buttons, and their paternosters.

      He wanted to fling them into the swinehouse and leave them there on bread and water until someone should pay what they owed for them.

      “Do you,” said Ulenspiegel, “want me to go surety for them?”

      “Ay,” replied the baes, “if someone will be surety for you.”

      The Good Red Noses were about to do it, but Ulenspiegel stopped them, saying:

      “The dean will be surety, I am going to find him.”

      Thinking of the masses for the dead, he went to the deanery and told him how that the baes of the Trumpet, being possessed of the devil, spoke of nothing but pigs and blind men, the pigs devouring the blind and the blind eating the pigs under divers unholy guises of roasts and fricassees. During these fits, said he, the baes broke everything in the house, and he begged the dean to come and deliver the poor man from this wicked fiend.