"Alas!" cried the fishmonger as he felt the hand of Ulenspiegel upon him. "Alas, I know you! You are his son! But have pity on me. Have pity! For I am weak and aged, and what I did to your father was not done out of malice, but in the service of His Majesty. Only deign to forgive me, and I will give you back again all the goods that I have bought, and you shall not pay me a penny. You shall have everything, and half a florin over and above, for I am not a rich man. No, you must not think that I am rich!" And he was about to kneel down in front of Ulenspiegel. But seeing him so ugly, so craven, and so base, Ulenspiegel took hold of him and threw him into the canal. And he went away. L And from many a funeral pyre there ascended to heaven the smoke from the flesh of the victims, and Ulenspiegel, thinking ever upon Claes and Soetkin, wept in his loneliness. At last, one evening, he went to find Katheline, thinking to inquire of her some way of remedy or revenge. She was alone with Nele, sewing by the light of the lamp. At the sound which Ulenspiegel made as he came in, Katheline raised her head slowly like one that is awakened from a heavy sleep. He said: "The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast, and I am fain to do somewhat to save this land of Flanders. But what can I do? I have entreated the great God of earth and heaven, but he has answered me nothing." Katheline said: "The great God cannot hear you. First of all you should have recourse to the spirits of the elemental world, for they, uniting in themselves two natures, both celestial and terrestrial, are enabled to receive the plaints of men and hand them on unto the angels, who themselves in their turn carry them up thereafter to the Throne." "Help me," he said, "only help me now, and I will repay you with my blood if need be." "I can help you," said Katheline, "on one condition only: that a girl who loves you is willing to take you with her to the Sabbath of the Spirits of Spring, which is the Easter of Fruitfulness." "I will take him," said Nele. Whereupon Katheline took a crystal goblet and poured into it a certain mixture of a greyish colour, and she gave it to them both to drink, and rubbed their temples with this mixture, and their nostrils likewise, and the palms of their hands, and their wrists, and she also caused them to eat a pinch of white powder, and then she told them to gaze the one at the other in such manner that their two souls might become one. Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and straightway the sweet eyes of the girl illumined in him a mighty flame, and because of the mixture he had taken he felt as it were a thousand crabs nipping his skin all over him.