Finally he drew his knife and stabbed himself in the breast. It was astonishing: the blade disappeared in his flesh, a red cloth rolled out of his collar like a stream of blood, and he let out a death rattle, twitched, lay still. Was dead. Twitched once again, sat up, sank back down. Twitched again, lay still again, and this time forever. We waited. So it was. Forever.
Seconds later, the woman woke up and saw the body lying beside her. First she was stunned, then she shook him, then she comprehended and was stunned again, and then she wept as if the world could hold no consolation. Then she took his knife and killed herself in turn, and again we admired the clever device and how deep in her breast the blade disappeared. Now only the old woman remained and spoke a few more verses, which we hardly understood because of the dialect. Then the play was over, and many of us were still weeping long after the dead had stood up and bowed.
But that wasn’t all. The cows would have to keep waiting, because after the tragedy came the comedy. The old woman beat a drum, and Tyll Ulenspiegel piped on a flute and danced with the young woman, who now no longer looked especially beautiful at all, to the right and to the left and forward and back again. The two of them threw their arms up, and their movements were in such harmony that they seemed to be not two people but mirror images of each other. We could dance fairly well, we celebrated often, but none of us could dance like them; watching them, you felt as if a human body had no weight and life were not sad and hard. We too could no longer keep still, and we began to bob, jump, hop, and spin.
But suddenly the dance was over. Gasping for breath, we looked up at the wagon, on which Tyll Ulenspiegel was now standing alone; the two women were nowhere to be seen. He sang a mocking ballad about the poor, stupid Winter King, the Elector Palatine, who had thought he could defeat the Kaiser and accept Prague’s crown from the Protestants, yet his kingship had melted away even before the snow. He sang about the Kaiser too, who was always cold from praying, the little man trembling before the Swedes in the imperial palace in Vienna, and then he sang about the King of Sweden, the Lion of Midnight, strong as a bear, but of what use had it been to him against the bullets in Lützen that took his life like that of any mere soldier, and out was your light, and gone the little royal soul, gone the lion! Tyll Ulenspiegel laughed, and we laughed too, because you couldn’t resist him and because it did us good to remember that these great men were dead and we were still alive, and then he sang about the King of Spain with his bulging lower lip, who believed he ruled the world even though he was broke as a chicken.
In all our laughter we realized only after a while that the music had changed, that it had suddenly lost its mocking tone. He was now singing a ballad of war, of riding together and the clanking of the weapons and the friendship of the men and standing the test of danger and the jubilation of the whistling bullets. He sang of the soldier’s life and the beauty of dying in battle, he sang of the whooping joy of each and every man who rode against the enemy on horseback, and we all felt our hearts beat faster. The men among us smiled, the women swayed their heads, the fathers lifted their children onto their shoulders, the mothers looked down at their sons with pride.
Only old Luise hissed and jerked her head and muttered so loudly that those standing near her told her to go home, which, however, only prompted her to raise her voice further and shout: Didn’t anyone understand what he was doing here? He was invoking it, he was summoning it!
But as we were hissing and waving dismissively and threatening her, she waddled off, thank God, and by then he was playing the flute again, and the woman was standing next to him and she now looked majestic like a person of rank. She sang with a clear voice of love, which was stronger than death. She sang of the love of parents and the love of God and the love between man and woman, and here something changed again, the beat became faster, the notes sharper and sharper, and suddenly the song was about carnal love, warm bodies, rolling in the grass, the scent of your nakedness, and your big behind. The men among us laughed, and then the women joined in the laughter, and the children laughed loudest of all. Little Martha was laughing too. She had pushed her way forward, and she understood the song very well, for she had often heard her mother and father in bed and the farmhands in the straw and her sister with the carpenter’s son the previous year—in the night the two of them had stolen away, but Martha had crept after them and had seen everything.
A broad lewd grin appeared on the face of the famous man. A strong power now stretched between him and the woman. He was impelled toward her and she toward him, so forcefully were their bodies drawn together, and it was hardly bearable that they had not yet touched. Yet the music he played seemed to prevent it, for as if by accident it had changed, and the moment had passed, the notes no longer permitted it. It was the Agnus Dei. The woman folded her hands piously, qui tollis peccata mundi, he backed away, and the two of them seemed startled themselves by the wildness that had almost seized them, just as we were startled and crossed ourselves because we remembered that God saw all and condoned little. The two of them sank to their knees. We did the same. He put down the flute, stood up, spread his arms, and asked for payment and food. Because now there would be a pause. And the best would come, if we slipped him good money, thereafter.
In a daze, we reached into our pockets. The two women went around with cups. The coins jingled and jumped. We all gave: Karl Schönknecht gave, and Malte Schopf gave, and his lisping sister gave, and the miller’s family, who were usually so stingy, gave too, and toothless Heinrich Matter and Matthias Wohlsegen gave an especially large amount, even though they were craftsmen and thought they were better than everyone else.
Martha walked slowly around the covered wagon.
There sat Tyll Ulenspiegel, leaning his back against the wagon wheel and drinking from a large stein. Next to him stood the donkey.
“Come here,” he said.
Her heart pounding, she stepped closer.
He held out the stein to her. “Drink,” he said.
She took the stein. The beer tasted bitter and heavy.
“The people here. Are they good people?”
She nodded.
“Peaceful people, help each other, understand each other, like each other, is that the sort of people they are?”
She took another sip. “Yes.”
“Well, then,” he said.
“We’ll see,” said the donkey.
In her fright Martha dropped the stein.
“The precious beer,” said the donkey. “You damned stupid child.”
“It’s called ventriloquism,” said Tyll Ulenspiegel. “You can learn it too, if you’d like.”
“You can learn it too,” said the donkey.
Martha picked up the stein and took a step back. The puddle of beer grew and then shrank again, the dry ground soaking up the wetness.
“Seriously,” he said. “Come with us. You know me now. I’m Tyll. My sister over there is Nele. She’s not my sister. The name of the old woman I don’t know. The donkey is the donkey.”
Martha stared at him.
“We’ll teach you everything,” said the donkey. “Nele and the old woman and Tyll and I. And you’ll get away from here. The world is big. You can see it. I’m not just called donkey, I have a name too, I’m Origenes.”