The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus Read online

  The hermit had to laugh (which was quite unlike him, I have to say). ‘Those people can’t speak, dear boy. What they’re up to and what they have in mind I can tell from these black lines here. It’s called reading. And when I read like that you think I’m talking to the figures, but that’s not what I’m doing in fact.’ ‘But I’m a human like you,’ I protested. ‘Why can’t I see from the black lines what you see? Tell me, father, what’s this all about?’ ‘All right, son,’ he replied. ‘I’ll teach you to read. Then you’ll be able to talk to the people in pictures the way I can. But it’ll take time – with plenty of patience on my part and hard work on yours.’ True to his promise, he wrote out an alphabet for me on birch bark, all in capitals. And once I knew my letters I learnt spelling, then reading, and finally writing – better writing than the hermit himself, actually; mine used only capitals.

  Eleven

  Deals with eating, household equipment and other essentials of this earthly existence

  For about two years (until the hermit died, in fact) and some six months or more after his death I remained in the forest. So I’d better tell the curious reader (who often wants the tiniest details) a bit about our everyday doings and what life was like for us.

  We ate mainly vegetables: turnips, cabbage, beans, peas and the like, although we weren’t above beech mast, wild apples, pears or cherries, and acorns often made feeling hungry almost a treat. Bread or rather our buns we baked in hot ash, using crushed maize. In winter we snared and noosed birds, but in spring and summer God blessed us with nestlings. Often we made do with snails and frogs, and we didn’t object to fish, which we caught in traps or with rod and line (a stream rich in fish and crayfish flowed past near where we lived, as it happened). All these things helped down our diet of plain veg. Once we caught a wild boar piglet, which we kept in a pen, fed on acorns and nuts, fattened up, and eventually had for dinner. As my hermit said, it couldn’t be a sin to enjoy anything that the good Lord had provided for men to eat. Salt we used rarely and spices never, not wishing to stimulate a desire for drink that we had no cellar to satisfy. When we really needed salt we were given it by a priest who lived some way off – more of whom later.

  As for household equipment, we were well supplied. We’d a shovel, a hoe, an axe, a chopper and an iron pot to cook in (not our own but on loan from said priest). We each had a worn-down, blunt knife that belonged to us personally – and nothing else. We needed neither bowls, plates, eating irons, basins, pans, grill, spit, salt-cellar, nor any other tableware or kitchen utensils. Our cooking pot was at the same time our feeding bowl, and our hands served as forks and spoons. If we wanted a drink we sipped through a straw in the spring or stuck our faces in the water like Gideon’s troops. As for fabrics (woollens and silks to wear, cottons and linens to line beds, drape tables, or hang on walls), we had what we could use – nothing more. We counted ourselves rich: we could keep off the rain and the frost. For the rest, we’d no particular house rules or habits except on Sundays and feast days, when we’d set out soon after midnight to be in time to slip into said priest’s church without being seen and wait for the service to begin (the church lay some way beyond the village, you see). Inside, we made ourselves comfortable on the dilapidated organ, from where we had a view of both altar and pulpit. The first time I saw the priest mount the pulpit steps I asked my hermit what the fellow was doing, climbing into that big washtub. After the service we’d steal away as secretly as we’d come, and when we reached home, thoroughly tired and footsore, our simple fare tasted twice as good as it usually did. The hermit spent the rest of the day at prayer and instructing me in all things holy.

  Weekdays we did whatever was most urgent, depending on how things stood and what the season and our circumstances required. We might work in the garden, for instance. Another day we’d go out gathering the rich compost that collects in shady places and hollow trees and use it to manure our plot, or we’d weave baskets or traps, or chop logs, or catch fish, or do anything else to keep idleness at bay. And even with all this to occupy him, the hermit never left off instructing me faithfully in all good things. Meanwhile, living this harsh life I learnt to tolerate hunger, thirst, heat, cold and constant, constant work. Above all I came to know God and how best to serve him. God came first. OK, there was plenty of stuff my trusty hermit preferred me not to know. As he saw it, all a Christian need do to fulfil his purpose and reach his goal was to pray hard and work hard. So although I was pretty well informed in spiritual matters (I knew my Christianity, you could say) and I spoke as if I’d swallowed a dictionary, I was still a drip. Let’s face it: when I left the forest I was a nobody. Even the dogs ignored me.

  Twelve

  Records a fine way of dying happy and getting buried on the cheap

  After about two years, just as I was getting used to the harsh hermit life, my best friend in the world grasped the pick (giving me the shovel), took me by the hand, as he did every day, and led me to our garden, where we usually said our prayers. ‘Now Simp, dear boy, it’s time, praise God, for me to quit this life, pay nature’s debt, and leave you behind me upon Earth. And since I also see what lies ahead for you, realizing you won’t stay much longer in this bleak spot, I wish you strength on the path of virtue on which you have set out. Here are some lessons that, if lived by, will provide an infallible guiding thread bringing you to that state of everlasting bliss in which you and all the elect may gaze upon God’s countenance for ever.’

  His words brought tears to my eyes, flooding them the way an ingenious enemy once tried to drown the town of Villingen. What he said was unbearably painful. Still, up I spoke: ‘Oh, father, dearest father, is that it? Are you going to leave me all alone in this wild, wild forest? You mean—?’ But I couldn’t continue. My heart ached so with the weight of the love I felt for my dear father that I sank at his feet as if lifeless. However, he pulled me up, consoled me as much as he could in the circumstances, and gently pointed out my error in opposing (so it seemed) the will of the Almighty. ‘Don’t you know?’ he went on. ‘Neither heaven nor hell could ever do that? How shall my son? Why place such a burden on my weak body (itself so ripe for repose)? Would you have me stay longer in this vale of tears? No, no, son, let me go! Listen: you may not like the idea, but no shedding of tears and certainly no wish of mine to linger in this wretched world could make me stay, now that God’s express will demands my departure. Stop this useless fuss. Just obey my last words: know yourself, never neglect that aim, hold it in your heart constantly, even if you live to be as old as Methuselah. Why are most men damned, do you suppose? Because they knew neither what they had been in the past nor what they might or must become in future.’ He had other sound advice: I must always avoid bad company; it could do boundless harm. He gave the following instance: ‘Place one drop of Malmsey wine in a jugful of vinegar and shake the jug. The drop will itself become vinegar. But place the same amount of vinegar in some Malmsey and it will disappear behind the wine. Dear boy,’ he counselled, ‘stand firm. That is the main thing. The man who holds out till the end will be the happy one. But if (as I don’t think will happen) you fall victim to human weakness, do proper penance and get straight back up.’

  That was all this meticulous, godly man said to me, not because it was all he knew but for two reasons: (a) in my youth and confusion I couldn’t (he thought) have taken in more; and (b) a few words stick in the mind better than a long speech. Especially if pithy, they’ll do more good when mulled over than a rambling sermon, which, even absorbed to the letter, is quickly forgotten.

  These three things (knowing yourself, avoiding bad company and standing firm) this pious man certainly knew to be fine and needful since he practised them personally. Moreover, they’d stood him in good stead. Having got to know himself, he not only shunned bad company but turned his back on the whole world. And he stayed true to those principles to the end. That’s the secret of happiness, I’m sure. By the way, his end went like this.

  Having put t
he above points to me, he raised his pick and began digging his own grave. Doing as I was told, I helped as much as I could, but with no idea what he had in mind. As we worked, he said, ‘My very dear – indeed, my only son (for apart from you I’ve not raised a single creature to laud the Creator), do me this favour: when my soul has gone to its home, pay my body your last respects by shovelling in on top of me the earth we’re now digging from this pit.’ Then he took me in his arms, kissed me, and pressed me to his chest far harder than seemed possible for a man of his appearance. ‘Dear child,’ he said, ‘in commending you to God’s protection I die in better heart for the hope that he will indeed provide it.’ All I could do was blub, clinging to the chains he wore around his neck. I was desperate to keep him with me. He said only, ‘Let go, son, will you? I want to see whether the grave’s long enough for me.’ He then took off the chains, together with his cloak, and like someone going to bed stepped into the grave with the words, ‘Almighty God, take back the soul you gave me. Into thy hands I commend my spirit—’ etc. Then, calmly closing his lips and eyes, he lay down – while I just stood there like a fish, not realizing that his dear, dear soul had already left his body. I’d seen him in similar raptures plenty of times before.

  My habit in such situations was to do nothing. I went on standing beside the grave for hours, saying my prayers. When my beloved hermit didn’t stir, I climbed down and shook him. I planted kisses on his face and stroked his body. But there was no glimmer of life. Grim, unforgiving death had robbed poor Simp of his hermit’s sweet presence. I then basted – no, embalmed the dead body with my tears. After pacing up and down for ages, weeping pitifully, I began to fill in the grave – doing a lot more sobbing than shovelwork. As soon as the face was covered I climbed down once more to wipe it clean, desperate to look on it again and give it more kisses. The job took me all day, and by the time I’d finished I’d taken care of the whole burial (exequies, gladiator games, and all) on my own, for the simple reason that no bier and no coffin, no shroud and no candles were available, and neither pallbearers nor mourners (no men of the cloth, even) were on hand to mark his passing.

  Thirteen

  Simplicius lets himself drift like a straw on the water

  Several days later I called on said priest, reported my master’s death, and incidentally asked him what, given the circumstances, I should do now. Disregarding his strong advice against staying on in the forest, I planted my feet firmly in the hermit’s footsteps and spent the autumn months doing what a pious monk should. However, time brings changes, and as my grief for the old man subsided, the sharp winter cold chilled the inner heat of my resolution. I began to wobble, and the more I wobbled the more all that God-bothering began to drag. The fact was, rather than keep my thoughts trained on matters holy, my desire to see the world got the better of me. And since staying put did nothing to serve that purpose, I was inclined to go back to the priest and ask him: would he still suggest I left the forest? So I started out for his village. I arrived to find it in flames. A raiding party had just sacked it and set it on fire. As well as killing a great many peasants, the raiders had driven lots away and taken the rest prisoner, including the priest himself. Great heavens, the trouble and misery human life holds! Hardly is one mishap over before we’re up to our eyes in another. No wonder the pagan philosopher Timon of Athens had gallows erected all over the place for people to string themselves up on, ending their wretched lives with a moment’s horror. The horsemen were ready to go, meaning to pull the priest along on a lead behind them. Some were shouting, ‘Gun the bugger down!’ Others wanted money off him. He, however, raising a hand in the air, begged in the name of the Last Judgement for forgiveness and Christian mercy. Evidently neither was available. One rider charged at him, striking him over the head as he passed and bringing the man to his knees, in which position he commended his soul to the Lord. The other captives fared no better.

  It was starting to look as if the raiders, driven crazy by their own tyrannical savagery, had lost their minds entirely when a huge swarm of armed men surged out of the trees. Now it was as if a wasps’ nest had been poked violently. The returning villagers, screaming and shooting, laid about them so furiously that my hair stood on end. Never before had I witnessed such a set-to. The Spessarters and Vogelsbergers no more enjoyed being shamed on their own dunghills than the men of Hesse, Sauerland and the Black Forest. The horsemen swiftly made themselves scarce, not only abandoning cattle they’d rustled but dumping whatever weighed them down. They literally threw their loot away in their anxiety not to be caught by the chasing rustics. Even then, some were.

  The sight almost robbed me of my desire to see the world. If that’s what goes on here, I thought, give me the wilderness. Still, I wanted to know the priest’s view. His beating had left him feeble and exhausted, so all he said was, he couldn’t help me and didn’t know how to advise me; he’d been reduced to beggary himself. I could see with my own eyes that his church and his house were both ablaze, and if I meant to stay on, clearly I’d have to do so without his assistance. It was much saddened (but a good deal more prayerful) that I returned to my forest home, determined never to leave it again. I was already wondering: could a man live without salt (as provided by the priest up to now) and without anyone?

  Fourteen

  Is a curious drama, featuring five peasants

  However, to keep my resolution and become a real forest monk, I pulled on the hair shirt my hermit had left behind and fastened his chain belt over it. Not that I needed them to mortify my rebellious flesh; I just wanted to imitate my hermit in dress as well as in life. Plus, wearing those, I’d be better protected against the harsh winter cold.

  The day after said village had been sacked and burnt, as I sat praying in my hut (with a couple of carrots roasting on the fire to keep me going), I looked up to find myself surrounded by forty or fifty musketeers. They were shocked by my unusual appearance, but not enough to stop them from searching the hut roughly for what I could have told them they wouldn’t find there. I’d nothing but books. These they tossed about a bit for me, but books were not what they were after. Taking a closer look at me and seeing from my plumage that they’d caught a sparrow, they worked out that here was an unlikely source of loot. In fact, they showed some surprise at my harsh existence and sympathy for my tender years. Their commanding officer actually bowed as he asked – no, almost begged me to show him and his men the way out of the forest, in which they’d been lost for some time, evidently. I said I would – and led them towards the village where said priest had been so misused. Well, that was the only place I knew how to get to. However, before we reached the edge of the trees we came across a group of peasants, maybe ten or twelve, some armed, the rest hurriedly burying something. The musketeers dashed towards them, shouting, ‘Stop right there!’ The peasants unslung their guns. Then, seeing that the soldiers outnumbered them, they fled. The weary musketeers had no chance of catching even the stragglers. Instead, they decided to dig up what the peasants had been burying – a job made easier for them by the peasants’ having simply downed tools. But the moment they began digging a voice roared from below, ‘Unfeeling bastards! D’you suppose heaven will turn a blind eye on your pagan viciousness and leave your childish tricks unpunished? Never! No chance! Plenty of honest blokes will avenge such savagery. None of your fellow men will ever lick your arses again!’ The soldiers eyed one another in total amazement. ‘A ghost!’, some cried. It was all like a nightmare. ‘Keep digging!’, the officer barked. Before long they hit a barrel, and when they smashed it open they found a man whose nose and ears had been cut off, leaving him bloody but alive. After a moment, recognizing some of the soldiers, the victim recounted that a detail from his regiment had been out foraging the previous day and six had been caught. Not an hour since, they’d all had to stand in a row, one behind another, and been shot. Five had dropped dead, but the bullet had failed to reach him, he being the sixth and last in line and it having five bodies to trav
el through first. So they’d sliced off his nose and ears instead. That was after forcing him to (begging your pardon) lick the backsides of five of their own number. He’d then, after being so humiliated by these vile, godforsaken barbarians, just as they were preparing to set him free, selected the worst insults he could think of to hurl in their faces. In no uncertain terms he told them exactly what he thought of them, hoping that one of them would lose patience to the point of gifting him a bullet. It hadn’t worked, though. Because of the goading they’d stuffed him in ‘this ’ere barrel’ and buried him alive. He’d begged for a sudden, violent end, so as a joke (they said) they were denying him that pleasure.

  While this man was grousing about his ordeal, another party of soldiers arrived on foot. Coming across the above peasants, they’d taken five captive and shot the rest. Four of the prisoners were ones for whom the live-burial victim had so recently been forced to perform the humiliating service described. Discovering from their shouted exchange that they were fighting on the same side, the two groups gathered around to hear once again, from the sufferer’s own lips, what he and his comrades had been through. Well, you simply can’t imagine the going-over the villagers then received. Some of the soldiers were so livid they’d have shot everyone straight off. But others countered: ‘No, first let’s give the bastards a good duffing-up – a taste of their own medicine, that’s what we’ll treat them to!’ The villagers then took such a rib-tickling with musket butts as made them cough up blood. Eventually one soldier, stepping forward, said, ‘Men, it’s a stain on our profession that this poor sod (pointing to the man they’d dug up) should have been so scandalously treated by five peasants. It’s only right that we expunge the blot: let’s have these scoundrels return the favour one hundredfold.’ Another disagreed, saying, ‘The fellow doesn’t deserve such an honour. He’d have shown more spunk and not brought shame on every honest trooper if he’d refused to perform this disgusting task. “I’d sooner die a thousand deaths!” is what he should have said.’ In the end, it was resolved nem. con. that everyone who’d enjoyed such tongue-work should perform the same act on ten soldiers, each time reciting, ‘This wipes away the shame felt by the whole soldiery because one coward agreed to lick our arses.’ The villagers must first pay, it was felt; afterwards they could be dealt with. So they set said peasants to work. However, so stubborn did the villagers turn out to be that neither by promising to release them alive nor by inflicting a few martyrdoms could the soldiers persuade them to begin. One musketeer took the fifth peasant (who’d not been licked) out of the queue and said: ‘Deny God and all his saints and I’ll let you walk.’ To which the man replied: he’d never thought much of the saints and had had few dealings with God himself up to now. He swore solemnly, in fact, that he’d never met God and didn’t give a fig for his kingdom. The soldier promptly shot him. When this had no more effect than if the bullet had bounced off an iron mountain, he drew his blade and said, ‘One of those, are you? Right, I promised you could go, and since you’re not interested in going to heaven, have a ticket to hell!’ With these words, he laid the man’s head open to the teeth, and as the corpse fell added, ‘That’s how to deal with villains – speedy, permanent revenge!’