The devil might trust you, I thought, but I don’t. If I take money for my journey from you, then you’re quite likely to dispatch me before I set out; if, on the other hand, I stay with you I’m in danger of being hung, drawn and quartered along with you. Accordingly I decided to dupe him into thinking I was going to stay with him and then get away at the first opportunity. Therefore I told him that if he would put up with me I would stay with him a week or so and see if I got a taste for this kind of life. If I did, he would find me a good friend and accomplice, if not, we could always part friends. At that he started to ply me with drink, but I still didn’t trust him and pretended to be drunk before I was to see if he would attack me when I was incapable of defending myself.
Meanwhile the fleas starting pestering me terribly. I had brought a good supply with me from Breisach and in the warmth of the room they were not content to stay in my rags but started wandering round, enjoying themselves. Oliver noticed this and asked me if I had lice as well. ‘Yes’, I said, ‘more than I’ll ever see ducats in my whole live.’
‘Don’t say that’, said Oliver, ‘if you stay with me you’ll easily get more ducats than you have lice at the moment.’
‘That’s just as likely as getting rid of these lice’, I said.
‘That’s right’, he said, ‘we’ll do both’, and he told his landlord to go and get me a suit of clothes that was hidden in a hollow tree not far from the house. There was a grey hat, a jerkin of elkskin, a pair of scarlet breeches and a grey coat. He would find me some socks and shoes in the morning, he said. Such generosity gave me greater confidence in his good faith and I went happily to bed.
Chapter 17
Simplicius’s thoughts when engaged in robbery were more reverent that Oliver’s in church
Next morning, as it was getting light, Oliver said, ‘Up you get, Simplicius. For God’s sake, let’s be on our way and see what there is to be had out there.’
‘Good God!’ I said to myself, ‘am I going to go out robbing for your holy name’s sake? To think that at first after I left the hermit I was horrified just to hear someone say, “Come on, let’s go and sink a few glasses of wine for God’s sake.” I thought that was a double sin, getting drunk for God’s sake. O Lord, what a transformation since then! Dear Father in heaven, what will become of me if I don’t change my ways? Turn me back from this road, Lord, or I will end up in hell if I do not repent.’
These were my thoughts as I followed Oliver to a village where there was not a living soul to be seen. To get a better view we went up the church tower, which was where he had hidden the stockings and shoes he had promised me the previous evening. Together with them were two loaves of bread, some pieces of dried meat and a half-full cask of wine, enough for him to survive on for a whole week. While I was putting on the things he had given me, he told me he used to lie in wait there when he was on the look-out for a good haul, which was why it was so well provisioned. He had several such hide-outs, he added, each with its store of food and drink, so that if he drew a blank in one place he could try another. I was full of admiration for his ingenuity, but made it clear I did not approve of such misuse of a holy place that was dedicated to the service of God.
‘What do you mean “misuse”?’ he said. ‘If churches could talk they would tell you that what I am doing here is nothing compared to all the other sins committed in them. How many men and women, do you suppose, have come into this church since it was built ostensibly to serve God but in fact only to show off their new clothes, their handsome figure, their high rank and suchlike? One comes to the church dressed like a peacock and yet kneels before the altar as if he would pray the very feet off the saints; another sighs like the publican in the temple, but his sighs are directed at his beloved, and he feasts his eyes on her face, which is the only reason why he has come; a third comes to the church (he may even go in) with a bundle of papers, like someone collecting fire insurance, more to remind those who owe him rent than to pray. If he hadn’t known his debtors would be at church he would have stayed at home with his ledgers. On occasions it even happens that when the authorities have something to announce to a village the crier does it on Sunday at church so that some country folk fear church more than a condemned man the judge who will pronounce sentence. Don’t you agree there are many people buried in church who deserved to die on the block, gallows, fire or wheel?
Some men would never manage to get anywhere with their adulterous affairs if the church wasn’t such a good place to pursue them; in places if anything is to be sold or rented a notice is put on the church door; usurers who have no time to spare during the week sit in church during service thinking up new ways of squeezing money out of their victims; people sit talking with each other during mass or the sermon as if that was what the church had been built for; matters are often arranged which they wouldn’t dream of discussing in private houses; some sit there and sleep as if they had hired the place for that; others spend all their time gossiping about people, saying, ‘Didn’t the pastor get this or that person to a T in his sermon.’ Some pay great attention to the sermon, not in order to learn from it but so that they can criticise their pastor and pull him to pieces if he makes the slightest mistake, as they see it.
I won’t mention all the lecherous stories I have read where the church serves as a house of assignation. There is much more I could say on this whole subject than I can remember at the moment, but there is one more thing you should realise. People not only misuse the church for their vices during their life, but fill it with their vanity after their death. As soon as you enter a church you will see on gravestones and epitaphs the boasts of people who have long since been eaten up by worms. And if you look up you will see more shields and helmets, swords and daggers, banners, boots and spurs and the like than they have in some armories. It’s not surprising that during the present wars in some places the country folk used the churches as fortresses to defend their lives and possessions.
Given all this, why should I not be allowed as a soldier to carry on my trade in a church? You’ll remember the story of the Abbot of Fulda and the Bishop of Hildesheim who, during an argument over nothing more important than precedence, caused such a bloodbath in the church that it looked more like a slaughterhouse than a holy place. I am a layman and I would happily give up using the church for my business if others used it for divine worship alone; but those two, as ecclesiastics, did not respect the majesty of the Holy Roman Emperor. Why should I be forbidden to use the church to earn my living when so many others do just that? Is it right that rich people can pay for a tomb in the church, a monument to his pride and that of his family, while a poor person, who has no money but is just as much a Christian as the other, and may indeed have been more pious, is buried in some corner outside? It all depends on your point of view. If I’d known you’d have qualms about using the church as a look-out post, I’d have thought of somewhere more suitable to take you. However, since we’re here you’ll have to put up with it until I can persuade you to change your mind.’
What I would most like to have said was that I thought both he and the other people who defile the church were sinners who would get their just rewards, but since I still didn’t trust him and didn’t want to quarrel with him again, I let it be. Then he asked me to tell him everything that had happened to me since we had been separated at Wittstock. He also wanted to know how I came to be wearing a fool’s costume when I arrived at the camp outside Magdeburg. However, my throat was still so sore I didn’t feel up to it, so I asked him instead to tell me the story of his life, which probably, I said, contained some amusing episodes. He agreed and started to recount his infamous life.
Chapter 18
Oliver tells about his family and how he spent his childhood, especially what he did in school
‘My father’, said Oliver, ‘was born not far from the city of Aachen. His parents were poor so that even as a child he had to go out to work for a rich merchant who dealt in copper. He behaved so well
that the man had him taught to read, write and do accounts, and put him in charge of his whole business, as Potiphar did Joseph. Both sides profited from this: through my father’s hard work and prudence the merchant became richer and richer; my father on the other hand grew prouder and prouder with his prosperous life and came to feel ashamed of his parents, even to despise them, which they often bemoaned, though to no avail.
When my father was twenty-five, the merchant died, leaving behind his old widow and their only daughter, who not long before had committed an indiscretion and let a young stallion father a bastard on her which, however, quickly followed his grandfather to the cemetery. Seeing that the daughter was now without father or child, but not without money, my father did not let himself be put off by the idea of taking spoilt goods. It was her wealth he had in mind when he began to court her, and her mother was happy to encourage him, not only to restore her daughter’s tarnished honour but because my father was the only one who knew about the business and was good at driving a hard bargain. The marriage instantly turned my father into a rich merchant and I was his son and heir. He lavished all the tender loving care on my upbringing that his wealth allowed; I was clothed like a gentleman, fed like a baron and waited on like a count. All of which I had copper and zinc to thank for rather than silver and gold.
Before I was fully seven years old I had already shown how I was going to turn out; nettles sting even when they’re young shoots. No piece of mischief was too much for me and if I could play a prank on someone I did so, since neither my father nor my mother punished me for it. I roamed the streets with other like-minded miscreants and had the guts to fight with boys bigger than myself. If I had the worst of it, my parents would say, “What’s this? A big lout like you fighting a child?” but if I came out on top (I could bite and scratch and throw stones), they would say, “Won’t our little Oliver grow up to be a big, brave fellow!” That made me even bolder. I was still too young to pray, but I could swear like a trooper, to which their response was that I didn’t know what I was saying. I became worse and worse until I was sent to school where I played all the tricks other naughty boys think up but daren’t actually carry out. If I blotted or tore my books my mother would buy me new ones to avoid a fit of temper from my skinflint father. I gave my schoolmaster a hard time since he couldn’t be too strict with me because of all the presents he received from my parents and he knew their little darling could do no wrong in their eyes. In the summer I caught crickets and hid them in the school where they entertained us with their merry chirping. In the winter I would steal some ground hellebore root and scatter it over the place where the boys were punished; whenever some obstinate young rascal struggled, my powder would fly all round the room, making everyone sneeze and me laugh. Eventually I thought myself above playing such ordinary tricks and concentrated on more ambitious things. I would often steal something and slip it into the bag of a boy I wanted to see get a thrashing. I became so crafty at this kind of thing that I was almost never caught. I don’t need to tell you about the wars we fought, in which I was usually our general, or the blows I received (my face was always covered in scratches, my head in bruises). Everyone knows the kind of thing boys get up to, but from these few stories you can tell how I spent my childhood.’
Chapter 19
How he was a student in Liege und how he behaved there
‘Since my father’s wealth was increasing daily, he was surrounded by more and more parasites and toadies. While they all praised my intelligence and insisted I must go to university, they said nothing about my bad habits, or at least excused them, knowing full well that anyone who didn’t do that would not get very far with my father or my mother. Consequently my parents felt prouder of their son than a reed warbler that raises a cuckoo. They hired a private tutor and sent me to Liege with him, more to learn French than to study, since they didn’t want to make a theologian out of me but a merchant. He had his orders not to be too strict with me so that I shouldn’t turn into a timorous, servile type; he was to let me join in with the other students and encourage me to be sociable, always remembering they didn’t want me to become a monk but a practical man of the world who knew what was what.
These instructions were completely unnecessary, however, since my tutor himself was given to a dissolute life. How could he forbid me what he did himself? How could he take me to task for my minor misdemeanours when he committed much worse? By nature he was most inclined to boozing and whoring, I to fighting and brawling, so that I was soon roving the streets at night with him and his cronies and learnt more lechery from him than Latin. As far as my studies were concerned, I could rely on my good memory and quick mind, which made me even more casual in my approach to them; for the rest I was already deep in all kinds of mischief, vice and villainy. My conscience was already so accommodating a hay-cart could have driven through it. I didn’t care as long as I could read stories by Aretino, Berni or Burchiello during the sermon, and the part of the mass I looked forward to most was ite missa est.
At the same time I thought no end of my appearance and dressed in all the latest fashions. Every day was a feast day or carnival to me, and since I behaved as a man of substance and spent both the generous allowance my father sent me and the lavish pocket-money from my mother as if the supply were inexhaustible, the young ladies began to take an interest in us, especially my tutor. From those little minxes I learnt to woo, wench and gamble; quarrelling, fighting and brawling I could do already and my tutor did not stop me boozing and guzzling either, since he liked to join in himself. This glorious life lasted for eighteen months, until it was reported to my father by his agent in Liege, with whom we had boarded at first. He received orders to get rid of the tutor and keep a closer eye and a tighter rein on both me and my money. This annoyed both of us and although my tutor was dismissed we still kept company together, day and night. Since, however, we no longer had as much money to throw around as we had before, we joined a gang that snatched people’s coats from them at night, sometimes even throwing the owners into the Meuse. The money we got from these highly dangerous operations we squandered with our whores and let our studies go hang.
Then one night when, as was our habit, we were prowling round trying to filch students’ coats, we were overpowered, my tutor stabbed to death and I, along with five others who were real rogues, caught and locked up. When we were questioned the next day I named my father’s agent, who was a well-respected man, to vouch for me. They sent for him, asked him about me and released me on his security and on condition I stayed in his house under arrest until further notice. In the meantime my tutor was buried, the other five convicted of theft, robbery and murder and sentenced, and my father informed of my situation. He came straight to Liege, sorted out my problem with money, gave me a good talking to and told me how much worry and unhappiness I had caused him and my mother, who was close to despair at my terrible behaviour. He threatened that if I did not mend my ways he would disinherit me and send me packing. I promised to be good from now on and rode home with him. Thus ended my student days.’
Chapter 20
The ex-student returns home then says farewell, seeking preferment in the wars
‘When my father got me back home he decided I was depraved through and through. I had not become the respectable scholar he had presumably hoped for, but a squabbler and a braggart who imagined he knew everything. I had scarcely warmed my hands at the fire when he said, “Listen Oliver, I can see your asses’ ears growing even as I look at them. You’re no use to anyone, a dead weight, a scoundrel who’s good for nothing! You’re too old to learn a trade, too ill-mannered to serve a master, and completely unfit to learn my business and carry it on. What have I achieved with all the money I spent on you? I hoped you’d be my pride and joy. I wanted to make a real man of you and what is the result? I’ve had to pay to save you from the hangman! Oh the shame of it! The best thing would be to put you in a treadmill until you’ve atoned for your wicked behaviour and sweated it out
of your system.”
I had to listen to sermons like this almost every day until my patience ran out and I told my father it wasn’t my fault, but his own and my tutor’s, who had led me astray. It served him right if he had no joy of me; his parents had none of him, who left them in penury to starve. At that he grabbed a stick to pay me out for telling him the truth, swearing by all that was holy he would send me to the goal in Amsterdam. I ran off and that same night I went to the farm he had just bought, took the best stallion in the stable when no one was looking and set out for Cologne.
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