Thirteen
Contains a mixture of things. If you want to know what, you need only read it for yourself or have someone read it to you
At this, my master’s table companions passed a variety of judgements regarding me. The secretary was minded to deem me a fool on the grounds that I saw and presented myself as a rational creature, the way those who consider themselves clever while definitely having a screw loose make the best jesters, aiming the most accurate barbs. Others thought that, if I could be relieved of the delusion that I was a calf and convinced that I’d returned to the human state, I could be pronounced rational or at least be said to have possession of my wits. My master himself said, ‘What I think is, he’s a fool because he’s not afraid to tell people the truth. On the other hand, his words are so pertinent they can’t be the words of an idiot.’ This was all said in Latin, by the way, in case I understood. My master asked me if I’d studied when I was still a human. ‘I wouldn’t know, master,’ I replied. ‘What are these studs that people study? Anything like bowls – the things people bowl?’ At which the crazy ensign, spluttering, said, ‘Here, what’s up with the fellow? He’s possessed, I reckon. That’s the devil talking!’ Which prompted my master to ask whether, since being turned into a calf, I’d stuck to the habit of saying my prayers like other folk. Did I still believe I’d go to heaven? ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘I still have my immortal soul, don’t I? And that won’t want to go to hell, will it? I’ve been there once, and that was enough. I’ve been changed, that’s all, the way Nebuchadnezzar was, and eventually, one day, I’ll be changed back into a human being.’ ‘I hope you will,’ said my master – sighing in a way that suggested to me how deeply he regretted turning me into a fool in the first place. ‘But tell us,’ he went on, ‘how do you say your prayers as a rule?’ I knelt down, raised my eyes and hands to heaven as I’d seen the hermit do, and (my master’s remorse having really touched me) with tears running down my cheeks, I prayed with every appearance of the deepest reverence. Starting with the ‘Our Father’, I went on to intercede for the whole of Christendom, friend and foe, and to ask God to grant me, in this temporal age, the strength to live my life in a way that made me worthy to sing his praises in a state of everlasting bliss. Such a prayer, couched in just such pious words, my hermit had once taught me. It brought the more soft-hearted onlookers to the verge of tears. Even my master was welling up, I could tell.
After the meal, my master sent for the priest I mentioned earlier. He told the man what I’d said and done, clearly worried that all was not well with me. The devil might be involved, he suggested, because I’d previously behaved like a noodle but was now saying things that made one wonder! The priest, who knew me better than anyone, answered: that was something one should have considered before venturing to turn me into a fool. Folk were created in God’s image and should not be toyed with like wild beasts – certainly not a callow youth. Still, he refused to believe that the Evil One had in fact been invoked since I regularly placed myself in God’s hands by means of fervent prayer. However, if the devil had indeed been given a way in (heaven forbid!), someone had shouldered a huge burden of responsibility towards God. The fact was, there could be no greater sin than for one man to rob another of his reason, thus disqualifying him from praising and serving God – ‘which is the chief reason for man’s existence,’ the priest went on. ‘I’d satisfied myself he had sense enough, assuming that his inability to accept the way of the world was due to his having been raised in all simplicity by his dad, an uneducated farmer, and by your brother-in-law in the forest. If folk had been a little more patient with him from the start, I thought, in time he’d make a better fist of things. After all, here was a pious, simple-minded child with no knowledge of the wicked world as yet. However,’ the priest added confidently, ‘he’ll recover his wits once his imagination has been tamed and he stops believing he’s a calf. There’s a story about a man who believed so firmly he’d become a clay jug that he told his family to place him on a high shelf to keep him from being knocked over. Another even thought he’d turned into a cock and in his fevered state crowed day and night. Yet another was convinced he was dead already. He wandered about like a ghost, refusing to take any medicine and even his usual meals. Eventually, a clever medic got two fellows to pretend they were ghosts too but ones that tucked into their grub; they took the man aside and persuaded him that ghosts nowadays also ate and drank, which returned him to normality. I myself once had a sick farmer in my parish who, when I visited him, complained he had a quite massive amount of water in his body; if that could be got rid of, he’d recover. He asked me either to arrange for him to be cut open and let the water out or have him hung in the smoker and dried out. Addressing the man in authoritative tones, I said I’d thought of another way of extracting the water. I took a tap of the sort used in wine or beer barrels, attached a length of gut to it, and bound the other end to the outflow of a large tub – which I’d arranged to be filled with water. Next, I pretended to thrust the tap into his stomach, which he’d wound round and round with rags to stop it exploding. I then allowed the water to drain from the tub and out through the tap, so delighting the twit that, after the treatment, he stripped off the rags and in a couple of days was as right as rain. In a similar way, relief was bestowed on another deluded sufferer who imagined he had all sorts of horse tack inside him – bits and bridles and so on. His doctor gave him an enema and sprinkled such items among the motions, making the poor bloke think he’d passed them himself. There’s another story about a fantasist who thought his nose was so long it touched the ground. First hanging a sausage from it, they removed the sausage slice by slice until they reached the nose itself. When the man felt the knife touch his flesh he screamed out that the problem was solved. It’s possible that, like these folk, our good Simplicius can be cured too.’
‘Yes, yes,’ my master answered, ‘I believe all you say. I worry only that, having once been so simple, he’s now able to speak with such elegance, such eloquence – well, one would be hard put to it to find his like among men far older, more experienced, much better read than him. He’s taught me a lot about the properties of animals, for instance, and described my own character with such skill and sensitivity as if he’d lived his whole life among us. He’s amazing, he really is. I feel almost obliged to take his words as an oracle or forewarning from God.’
‘Sir,’ the priest replied, ‘there may well be a natural explanation. I know for a fact he is well read since both he and his hermit got through most of my library – quite a large library, too. Moreover, since the lad has a good memory, although his reasoning powers are currently dormant and he’s even a stranger to himself, he’ll be able instantly to recall what his brain once took on board. I’m sure he’ll come good, given time.’ With these words the priest left the governor hovering between fear and hope. He’d also done full justice to myself and my affairs, secured a pleasant respite for me, and at the same gained greater access to our common master. Eventually, the two agreed to sit tight and see what became of me. Plus in doing all this the priest was acting as much in his own interests as in mine. Through his regular coming and going and his obvious concern for me, he got into the governor’s good books and was made garrison chaplain – not a bad job in those difficult times. Bully for him! was my reaction.
Fourteen
Tells how Simplicius continued to enjoy the good life, and how the Croats robbed him of it by stealing him away
From then on (though I say it myself), I basked in my master’s full favour and affection. I had everything I required to make me happy, except that the calfskin coat was rather more than I needed and my years too few, but these were things I wasn’t yet aware of myself. Nor did the priest have any desire for me to regain my wits quite so soon. Not in his interests, he thought. Around the same time, my master, spotting my fondness for music, decided it would be a good idea if I took lessons. He promptly engaged an excellent lutenist to teach me. I was a quick pupil
, soon outdoing my tutor in that I sang to my own accompaniment even better than he could. This increased my usefulness to my master, not only as a source of entertainment and distraction but as an object of delight and admiration. The officers all showed me goodwill, the wealthier townsfolk rewarded me with gratuities, and the servants and other ranks treated me more favourably as soon as they saw my master doing the same. Some slipped me a bit of this, some a bit of that – all in the knowledge that fools are often worth more to their masters than ordinary folk. To put it another way, their tips had an ulterior motive: they were either to prevent me from pulling the wool over their eyes or to encourage me to pull it over others’ eyes for them. Either way, I collected a fair amount of money – most of which I passed on to the priest because I still didn’t know what it was for. And just as no one had cause to look at me sideways, I feared no trouble or attack from any quarter. I thought only of music and of how I might subtly draw this or that person’s attention to his or her shortcomings. I grew stronger by the day (mentally and physically) and was a stranger to care. It soon became clear to everyone: gone were the days when I used to mortify the flesh in the forest, drinking water and munching acorns, beech nuts, roots and herbs; I was eating proper food washed down with Rhine wines and the strong local beer, which in such ugly times has to be seen as a fine example of God’s mercy. The fact was, all Germany at that time burned with the fires of war and was a prey to famine and pestilence. Hanau itself was under siege. None of which bothered me in the least. One day, the siege was lifted, and my master took it into his head to give me away, either to Cardinal Richelieu or to Duke Bernard of Weimar. Not that he hoped for any great thanks in return; as he said himself, he simply couldn’t bear having beside him day after day (dressed as a fool) the image of his departed sister, whom I was coming to resemble more and more. The priest, advising my master against the giveaway plan, thought it was time to stage another miracle. He suggested that the governor prepare a couple of calfskins, have two other lads put them on, and appoint a third person to pose as a doctor, prophet or itinerant entertainer. The latter would then ceremoniously strip me and said lads of our calfskins, spouting a load of mumbo-jumbo about being able to turn folk into animals and vice versa. This would no doubt do the trick, and I’d be obliged to agree that, as had happened to others before me, I was a human being again. The governor fell in with the suggestion, and the priest, when he told me what he’d arranged with my master, had no difficulty in persuading me to submit. However, jealous Fortune was not going to let me shrug off my fool’s costume quite so easily, nor did it want me luxuriating in the good life any longer. With the tanners and tailors already working on the props for this piece of mummery, I and some other lads were playing on the ice in front of the fortress when, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a troop of Croats rode up. Grabbing the lot of us, they pulled us up onto the backs of some horses they’d just plundered and carried us off. There’d been a moment of hesitation at first (should they include me or not?), until one said in his own language, ‘Let’s take the fool too. He can be for the colonel.’ Another replied, ‘Great idea! Stick him on a horse. The colonel knows German; he’ll have some fun with him.’ So up I went, conscious of how a moment’s bad luck can change everything, whisking your whole happiness away and putting it so far beyond reach that you regret it always.
Fifteen
Simp’s life as a trooper, and what he saw and experienced among the Croats
The Hanau garrison sounded the alarm immediately, leapt on their horses, and gave chase. They even managed the odd skirmish with the enemy, slowing them down and harrying them somewhat, but they failed to get any of the booty off them. They were a light squad, the Croats, very swift and mobile, and they made good progress – to Büdingen first, where they stopped to eat, handing over part of their prize (the captive sons of wealthy Hanau families) for the local citizens to ransom, trading the horses and other goods they’d stolen, then saddling up again, leaving Büdingen before dark (let alone before dawn), riding fast through the forest in the direction of Fulda, snatching what they could carry, never allowing looting and plundering to slow their rapid progress. They could match the devil, apparently – i.e. scarper and (begging your pardon) shit simultaneously, not missing a trick as they went. We reached Hirschfeld Abbey (where they were quartered) that same evening, bringing a substantial haul of booty. This was all shared out, with me going to Colonel Corpes.
Under my new master, I found everything strange and repellent. Gone were the delights of the Hanau table; we dined instead on coarse black bread and stringy beef or at best a scrap of stolen bacon. There was neither wine nor beer, only water. And rather than give me a bed they made me sleep with the horses, among the straw. Instead of strumming the lute, which normally everyone enjoyed, I and the other lads sometimes had to go crawling under the tables to howl like dogs as we took kicks from spurred boots, which for us was no fun at all. Back in Hanau I’d gone for walks; here all I got to go on was raiding parties, after which I had the pleasure of rubbing down and mucking out their sweaty horses. Anyway, raiding parties only meant putting a lot of time and effort, often at risk to life and limb, into giving the surrounding villages a good going over, bagging whatever one could, torturing and killing the menfolk and raping their wives, daughters and maids. And if the poor peasants were having none of it or made so bold as to give the odd forager a tap over the knuckles for his misdeeds (and such uninvited guests were common in Hesse at that time), they’d be cut down if caught or at least have their houses burnt to the ground. My master was unmarried (anyway, most soldiers of his rank never took their womenfolk along) and had no pageboys, no valet, and no cook. On the other hand, he did have a whole lot of grooms and young men to attend to both him and the horses, and he was not above saddling or foddering a steed with his own hands. He himself invariably kipped down in the straw or on the bare earth, pulling his fur cloak around him, so that you often saw fleas crawling over his clothes. Not that he was at all shamefaced about that; he’d even laugh when somebody picked one off. He had his hair cut short and wore a broad Swiss beard, which he found convenient because he liked to disguise himself in peasant garb for reconnaissance purposes. He kept a far from splendid table, as I say, but his men and others who knew him respected, loved and feared him nonetheless. We were constantly on the move, galloping this way and that, making sorties, coming under attack ourselves. It was all go. We never stopped trying to inflict damage on the Hessian forces; nor did Melander spare us, capturing many of our troopers and packing them off to Kassel.
This restless life certainly didn’t suit me, and I often (vainly, though) wished myself back in Hanau. My heaviest cross was not being able to speak to the fellows and having myself pushed around with nudges and thumps – by everyone, it seemed. The most fun I gave my colonel was by singing to him in German. Sometimes I and the other lads would puff out our cheeks and let him slap them to make farting noises. All right, that didn’t happen often, but the slapping tended to make the red stuff flow and I soon grew tired of that particular diversion. I did a bit of cooking from time to time – oh, and keeping my master’s gun clean; he was very keen on his gun. I was useless at raiding parties anyway, and offering these other services was a good move on my part. Little by little, I got into the colonel’s good books. In fact, he had a new fool’s costume made for me, again out of calfskin but with longer donkey’s ears than before. My master’s taste buds were never that sensitive, so cooking for him required no great skill. However, I was always running out of salt, dripping, herbs, one thing or another, and I began to find cooking a bore, too. More and more, day and night, my thoughts turned to a plan of escape – particularly with spring in the air. When it came to putting my plan into operation, I decided to start by shovelling up the remains of sheep and cattle that lay in such quantity around our quarters and getting rid of the awful stink. The colonel liked that, and little by little, going about my work, I stayed out longer and longer, until on
e night, as darkness fell, I didn’t go back at all but slipped away into the nearby forest.
The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus Page 15