Simplicissimus

by Johann Grimmelshausen

  Once the convoy had collected sufficient provisions, we returned to the centre of the earth via a different tunnel. En route I told some of them I had always thought of the centre of the earth as a kind of hollow cylinder, like the drive-wheel of a crane, with little pygmies running round inside to keep the earth moving, so that all parts would get their share of the sun which, according to Aristarchus and Copernicus stood motionless in the sky. They laughed out loud at my naïvety and told me to forget the idea, and the opinion of those two learned gentlemen, as the idle fancy it was. Instead I should be thinking, they said, of what I should ask their king to give me so that I didn’t go back up to the surface empty-handed. I told them my mind was so full of all the wonders I had seen I could not think of anything and I asked them to advise me. One idea I had was to ask him, since he controlled all the springs in the world, for a mineral spring on my farm, like the one that had recently appeared in Germany, though that just had ordinary water. The regent of the Pacific Ocean and its caverns told me that was not in the king’s power, and even if it were, such a spring would not last long. I asked him the reason and he replied, ‘Here and there in the earth there are empty spaces which gradually fill up with all kinds of metals, which are generated by a damp, thick, viscous exhalation. Sometimes, while this process is taking place, water from the centre filters in through the cracks in the ores and remains with the metals for many hundreds of years, absorbing their healthful qualities. If, with the passage of time, the pressure from the centre increases and the water finds an outlet through the ground, then it is the water that has been all that time with the metals that is forced out first and has those marvellous effects on the human body that you see in new medicinal springs. Once the water that has spent so long among the metals has all flowed out, ordinary water follows. It goes through the same passages but runs so fast it cannot absorb the properties of the metals and so does not have the same healing power.’

  If I was so concerned about my health, he went on, I should ask the king to recommend me to the king of the fire-spirits, with whom he was in close contact. He could treat a human body with a precious stone so that it would not burn in fire, like that special kind of linen we had on earth which we cleansed by putting it in fire when it was dirty. A person who had been treated in this way could be placed in the middle of a fire, like a stinking, goo-encrusted old pipe, and all the bad humours and harmful vapours would be burnt off so that the patient emerged from it as young, fresh, healthy and reinvigorated as if he had taken Paracelsus’s elixir. I didn’t know whether the fellow was joking or meant it seriously so I thanked him for his suggestion but said that being of a choleric nature I was afraid such a cure might be too hot for me. What I would like best, I went on, would be to take a rare, health-giving spring back up to the surface which would benefit my fellow humans, bring honour to the king and make my name go down in history. The prince replied that he would put in a good word for me, although as far as the king was concerned, honour and dishonour on earth were all the same to him. In the meantime we had arrived back at the middle of the earth again just as the king and his princes were about to dine. It was a cold collation with neither wine nor spirits, like the Greek nephalia. Instead, they drank the contents of pearls which had not yet hardened, like raw or soft-boiled eggs, and this fortified them immensely.

  While I was there I observed how the sun shone on each lake in turn and sent its rays down to these awesome depths, making it as bright in this abyss as on the surface and even casting shadows. The lakes were like windows for the Sylphs through which they received both light and warmth. Even if they didn’t always come directly, because the sides of some lakes were twisted, they were transmitted by reflection because nature had set whole slabs of crystal, diamonds and rubies where necessary in the angles of the cliffs.

  Chapter 17

  How Simplicius returned from the centre of the earth, indulged in strange fancies, built castles in the air, made plans and counted his chickens before they were hatched

  Now the time had come for me to go back home, and the king commanded me to tell him what favour I thought he might do me. I said the greatest service he could render me would be to make a genuine medicinal spring appear on my farm. ‘Is that all?’ said the king. ‘I would have thought you would have picked up some large emeralds from the bottom of the Atlantic and asked to be allowed to take them up to the surface with you. Now I see that greed is not a vice of you Christians.’ With that he handed me a stone with strange, iridescent colours and said, ‘Take this. Wherever you place it on the ground it will seek to return to the centre of the earth, passing through the most suitable minerals until it reaches us. Then we will send a magnificent mineral spring back to you which will do you the good and bring you the profit you deserve for revealing the truth to us.’ Then the prince of the Mummelsee accompanied me back up by the way we had come.

  The journey back seemed much longer than the way there, so that I estimated it at a good sixteen thousand miles, but the reason was probably that time seemed to drag because I did not talk to my escort this time, except for them to tell me they lived for three, four or five hundred years and were never ill at all. My mind was so full of my mineral spring that all my thoughts were occupied with working out where to site it and how to exploit it. I was already planning the fine buildings I would have to erect, so that the people who came to take the waters would have comfortable lodgings and I a handsome profit. I worked out what bribes to give the doctors to persuade them to recommend my new miracle spa above all others, even Schwalbach, and send me crowds of rich patients. In my mind I was already levelling whole mountains, so that arriving and departing guests would not complain the journey was too wearying, hiring crafty servants, miserly cooks, cautious chambermaids, vigilant stable-boys, clean supervisors for the baths and spring. I selected a spot in the wild hills close to my farm which I would level and turn into a beautiful garden with all kinds of rare plants where my guests could walk, invalids take the air and healthy visitors amuse and refresh themselves with all kinds games and pastimes. I would get some doctors, for a fee of course, to write a brochure, which I would have printed with a fine engraving showing my farm in ground plan and elevation, so praising my spring and its excellent properties that it would fill any sick person with hope and bring him half way back to health just to read it. I would have my children brought from Lippstadt and get them to learn all kinds of skills that would be useful for my new spa. None of them, however, would train as a barber-surgeon; I only intended to bleed my patients financially, not medically.

  Full of these speculations and imaginary projects, I came back to the surface, and the prince even set me on land with dry clothes. But I had to return the jewel he had given me at the start immediately, otherwise I would have drowned in the air or had to put my head under water in order to breathe. Once that had been done we bade each other farewell as people who would never meet again. He submerged and went back down into the depths with his companions, while I set off for home clutching the stone the king had given me, as happy as if I were bearing the Golden Fleece from Colchis.

  But, oh dear, my happiness, which looked as if it promised to have a permanent basis, did not last long at all. Hardly had I left the miraculous lake than I got lost in the immense forest, for I had not paid attention to the route my Da had taken. I had gone quite some way before I became aware of this, as I was still preoccupied with my scheme to set up and develop the spring on my land as a profitable investment. The longer I walked, the farther away I went, without realising it, from the place I most wanted to be. Worst of all, by the time I realised what was happening, the sun was already setting and there was nothing I could do about it. There I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere without food or gun, both of which I really needed to see me through the night. But I comforted myself with the thought of the stone I had brought up from the bowels of the earth. ‘Patience, patience’, I said to myself, ‘this will make up for any hardship you have to su
ffer. All in good time, Rome wasn’t built in a day, otherwise if he wanted any fool could get a fine mineral spring such as you have in your pocket without even having to break sweat.’

  Encouraging myself thus seemed to give me new resolve and new strength so that I stepped out much more boldly than before, even though I was overtaken by darkness. The full moon was shining brightly, but the tall pines did not let as much light through to me as the depths of the sea had done earlier that day. However, I still made progress and around midnight saw a fire in the distance. I headed straight towards it and when I was still some way off I saw that there were some woodmen who had been gathering resin sitting round it. Although these folk are not always to be trusted, necessity and my own courage prompted me to speak to them. I crept up quietly and said, ‘Good night or good day, good morning or good evening gentlemen. Tell me what time it is so that I can greet you properly.’ At this all six stood or sat still, trembling with fright, and didn’t know what to say. I am pretty tall and this, with the black mourning clothes I was wearing because of my wife’s death, and the huge cudgel I was leaning on like a wild man of the woods made me a frightening figure to them. ‘What?’ I said. ‘Will no one answer?’ Their astonished silence continued for a while until one recovered and said, ‘Hoo be ye, zurr?’ From his dialect I could tell he was a Swabian, who are generally, though wrongly, considered to be simple-minded. I told them I was a wandering scholar who had just come from the Venusberg where I had learnt a whole heap of weird and wonderful skills. ‘Oho!” answered the oldest of them, ‘now I really do believe peace is coming, thank God, if the wandering scholars be on their travels again.’

  Chapter 18

  Simplicius wastes his mineral spring by putting it in the wrong place

  We started talking and they were kind enough to invite me to join them at the fire and share their black bread and curd cheese, both of which I accepted. Eventually we got on so well that they asked me, as a wandering scholar, to tell their fortunes. Since I knew something of physiognomy and palmistry, I started telling them, one after the other, things I thought they would like to hear in order to keep on the right side of them, for I still did not feel entirely at my ease with these wild wood-folk. They wanted me to teach them all kinds of clever tricks, but I fobbed them off with promises that I would do so in the morning because I needed to sleep a while now. Having thus played the gypsy for them, I went and lay down a little way off, more in order to eavesdrop and see what they intended to do than to sleep, not that I wouldn’t have dropped off straight away if I had had the chance. The more I snored, the more wide-awake they became and started arguing about who I might be. They didn’t take me for a soldier because of the black clothes I was wearing, but they didn’t think a respectable citizen would be wandering through the depths of the forest at this strange hour either. Finally they decided I must be an incompetent apprentice who had lost his way or, since I was so good at telling fortunes, the wandering scholar I had claimed to be. ‘But’, another one said, ‘he didn’t know everything, for all that. He could well be a soldier who’s disguised himself to spy out our cattle and the tracks through the forest. If we were sure of that we’d send him to such a sleep he’d never wake up from.’ Immediately another butted in who thought I was something quite different. All the while I lay there, listening with both ears. If these bumpkins set on me, I thought to myself, I’m going to take three or four with me before they finish me off.

  While they were talking among themselves and I was worrying about what they might do, I suddenly felt as if someone were lying beside me who had peed the bed, for I was completely soaked. Oh dear! Now I could kiss all my plans goodbye, for I knew at once from the smell that it was my mineral spring. I was so furious that I almost started a fight with the six woodmen. I jumped up with my huge cudgel and shouted, ‘You miserable sinners, this mineral spring welling up from where I was lying should tell you who I am. I would be quite justified in punishing you so severely, because of the evil thoughts you have in mind, that the devil himself would come to take away the remains.’ At the same time I made such threatening gestures that they all cowered in fear. However I very quickly came to my senses and realised how stupid I was being. Better lose the spring, I thought, than your life, which you might easily do if you start mixing it with these louts. So I changed my tone, before they started getting other ideas, and said, ‘Come and try this delicious spring that I have put here in this wilderness for you and all other resin-collecters to enjoy.’ They didn’t quite know what to make of all this and gawped at each other until they saw me calmly take a drink out of my hat. Then they each got up from their places round the fire and tried the water, but instead of thanking me they started to complain, saying they wished I’d put my spring somewhere else because if the lord of the manor should hear of it the whole district of Dornstetten would be forced to labour to make a road to it, which would be a great hardship for them.

  ‘But then’, I said, ‘you’ll all profit from it by finding a ready market for your chickens, eggs, butter, cattle etc.’

  ‘No, no’, they said, ‘the lord of the manor will put in an innkeeper and he’ll be the only one to make money out of it. We’ll be the fools who maintain all the roads and paths for him and don’t even get thanked for it.’ It ended in a disagreement. Two wanted to keep the spring and four told me to get rid of it which, had it been in my power, I would certainly have done whether they wanted me to or not.

  By now it was light again and I had no reason to stay, indeed I was afraid that if I remained there much longer we would end up coming to blows. I told them that if they didn’t want all the cows in the valley of Baiersbronn to give red milk for as long as my spring continued to flow they should show me the way to Seebach. They were happy to do so, and two of them accompanied me, one alone being too frightened.

  So I left that place and although it was poor land with nothing more than pine trees growing I would have liked to put a curse on it to make it even more barren, since all my hopes were buried there. However, I walked on in silence with my two guides until we came to the top of the ridge, from which I could recognise the lie of the land, where I turned to them and said, ‘You two can make something out of this new spring if you go and report it to the authorities. There’ll surely be a reward in it for you, because the prince will want to develop it for the good and profit of the whole country and advertise it abroad to promote his own interests.’

  ‘Oh yes’, they replied, ‘we’re stupid enough to make a stick to beat our own backsides. We wish the devil would come and take you and your mineral spring too! You’ve heard why we don’t want it.’

  ‘You hopeless clods!’ I said. ‘Or perhaps I should call you treacherous rogues since you depart from the pious ways of your forefathers, who were so loyal that their prince used to boast he could lay his head in the lap of any of his subjects and sleep safely. But you wretches, you’re so worried about a little bit of work, for which you’ll eventually be paid and your children and grandchildren will reap the benefit, you refuse to make this healing spring known, even though it would bring great benefit to your prince and health and well-being to many who are ill! What’s a few days forced labour compared to that?’

  ‘If you go on like this’, they said, ‘we’ll be forced to belabour you to death to keep your mineral spring secret.’

  ‘There’d have to be more of you to do that!’ I replied, brandished my cudgel and chased them away, after which I kept going downhill and to the south and west, reaching my farm towards evening after much toil and trouble. My Da had spoken the truth when he said all I would get from the journey was weary legs and a long journey back.

  Chapter 19

  A little about the Hungarian Anabaptists and their way of life

  Once I was home again I lived a very retired life. My greatest pleasure was my books, of which I acquired a great number on all sorts of subjects, especially ones that made me think deeply. I had soon had enough of academic knowl
edge and just as quickly tired of arithmetic. Nor was it long before I came to hate music like the plague and smashed my lute to smithereens. Mathematics and geometry still had some appeal for me, but I soon dropped them for astronomy and astrology, which I studied with great enjoyment for a while before they too began to strike me as false and uncertain and not worth wasting more time on. I tried Ramon Lull’s Ars Magna but found it was much ado about nothing, just so much empty air, so I abandoned it and turned to the Cabala of the Hebrews and the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians.