The gold rang like an angelus, a message from Providence, for the abominable reaper abandoned this meager rake-full of human grain, and the wailing subsided.
And suddenly, like a madman, the man threw his arms around Paridaers neck, and hid his good plebian head on the shoulder of the declassed man. And Paridael, bruised against that great and sobbing breast, bedewed with the warm tears of gratitude, no less mad than the workingman himself, swooned in the bosom of infinite beatitudes and thought the hour of the assumption promised to the elect of the Saviour had already arrived! And never had he lived with a more intense life, nor found himself nearer death!
That did not prevent him, upon leaving this pathetic meeting, from consecrating a part of his money, that very evening, to his debauchery, and from throwing himself body and soul into bestiality.
He particularly distinguished himself during the carnival of that same calamitous winter. Never in the memory of Antwerp had Shrovetide unloosed so much license nor been celebrated with such gusto. The general misery and distress were taken as a pretext to multiply the celebrations for the benefit of the poor. The people themselves were swept by giddiness, took a double holiday, sought in a fleeting drunkenness and brutishness a refuge from the sinister reality, celebrated like a ragged Decameron this exceptional carnival which, instead of preceding Lent, fell in a season of absolute abstinence unforeseen by the Church, which the Curia would have never dared impose even in its severest mandates.
Not being any longer able to procure food, the poor devils found means to get enough to drink. Besides
