While he was speaking thus there came towards them, one after another, a baker carrying new-baked bread, a grocer carrying cheeses, and a butcher carrying hams.
Smetse knew well enough that they were devils, from their white faces, hollow eyes, scorched hair, twisted fingers, and also from the fact that they walked with so little sound.
His wife, amazed to see them coming into her house with all this food, would have stopped them, but they slipped between her hands like eels, and went into the kitchen, walking straight and silently.
There, without a word spoken, the baker arranged his loaves in the pan, while the butcher and grocer put their cheeses and hams in the cool-of the cellar. And they finished their work, taking no notice of the smith's wife, who kept crying: "'Tis not here you must bring these things; you have made a mistake, I tell you, my good men. Go elsewhither."
But they, notwithstanding her voice, arranged the loaves, meat, and cheeses quietly.
This made the good woman more than ever put out, and she grew angry: "I tell you," she exclaimed, "you have made a mistake; do you not hear me? You have made a mistake, 'tis not here you should be; I say here, with us, in this place, in the house of Smetse the beggar, who has not a farthing to his name, who will never pay you. Alas, they will not listen to me!"
And crying out at the top of her voice: "Masters, you are at Smetse's, do you not understand? Smetse the beggar! Do I not say it loud enough? Jesus, Lord, God! Smetse the needy! Smetse the ragged! Smetse the starved! Smetse who is rich in nothing but lice! Who will pay you nothing: do you hear me? Who will pay you nothing, nothing, nothing!"
"Wife," said the smith, "you are losing your head, my dear. 'Tis I who sent for these good men."
"Thou!" said his wife, "thou! but thou art mad, my man; yes, he is mad, my masters, altogether mad. Ah, 'tis thou who sent for them! 'Tis thou who sendest for loaves, hams, and cheeses in this profusion, like a rich man, when thou knowest well enough we cannot pay for them, and so showest thy bad faith!"
"Wife," answered Smetse quietly, "we are rich, and will pay for everything."
"We rich?" she said, "ah, poor beggar-man. Do I not know what is in our chest? Hast ever put thy nose in to see, any more than in the bread-pan? Art thou become the housewife? Alas, my man is mad, God help us!"