have such a damnable wife as I have? I honestly think she's own
cousin to Lucifer. Folks in the village say that Jeppe drinks, but
they don't say why Jeppe drinks: I didn't get as many blows in all
the ten years I was in the militia as I get in one day from my
malicious wife. She beats me, the bailiff drives me to work as if I
were an animal, and the deacon makes a cuckold of me. Haven't I good
reason to drink? Don't I have to use the means nature gives us to
drive away our troubles? If I were a dolt, I shouldn't take it to
heart so, and I shouldn't drink so much, either; but it's a
well-known fact that I am an intelligent man; so I feel such things
more than others would, and that's why I have to drink. My neighbor
Moens Christoffersen often says to me, speaking as my good friend,
"May the devil gnaw your fat belly, Jeppe! You must hit back, if you
want your old woman to behave." But I can't do anything to protect
myself, for three reasons: in the the first place, because I haven't
any courage; in the second, because of that damned Master Eric
hanging behind the bed, which my back can't think of without
blubbering; and thirdly, because I am, if I do say it who shouldn't,
a meek soul and a good Christian, who never tries to revenge
himself, even on the deacon who puts one horn on me after another. I
put my mite in the plate for him on the three holy-days, although he
hasn't the decency to give me so much as one mug of ale all the year
round. Nothing ever wounded me more deeply than the cutting speech
he made me last year: I was telling how once a savage bull, that had
never been afraid of any man, took fright at the sight of me; and he
answered, "Don't you see how that happened, Jeppe? The bull saw that
you had bigger horns than he, so he didn't think it prudent to lock
horns with his superior." I call you to witness, good people, if
such words would not pierce an honorable man to the marrow of his
bones. Still, I am so gentle that I have never even wished my wife