The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus

by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen

  However, when my colonel gave me my own lute (thinking I’d be his for ever), he put a stop to my wandering at will between the two camps. He appointed a tutor to keep an eye on me and command my obedience. Actually, the tutor was a man after my own heart. A quiet, sensible, learned type, he offered good conversation without talking all the time, and was above all a pious, widely read, knowledgeable individual possessing all kinds of skills. I slept in his tent at night, and by day I never left his side. He’d been counsellor to an important ruler as well as possessing enormous wealth. However, the Swedes had then bankrupted him, his wife had passed away, and his only son had been obliged to quit his studies for lack of funds. The son was currently serving as clerk with the Elector of Saxony’s army, while he himself was reduced to working as the colonel’s head groom. He was waiting for the dodgy military situation on the Elbe to improve and for the sun to come out again on his once glorious career.

  Twenty

  Is a rather long one about dice-playing and what it can lead to

  Being a man of some age, my tutor could no longer sleep the whole night through. That was partly why, in the first few weeks, he twigged my deception and found out I was not the fool I posed as. He’d suspected as much from the beginning. My face betrayed me, apparently, and of course physiognomy was one of his subjects. Anyway, on one occasion I woke around midnight and lay puzzling about my life, turning over and over in my mind all the curious things that had happened to me. Eventually I got out of bed, knelt down, and began to murmur a kind of litany of thanksgiving, listing all the things God had done for me and all the perils he had saved me from. When I’d finished I climbed back into bed, lay down with a sigh, and slept until sun-up.

  My tutor, while pretending to be fast asleep, heard everything. This happened several nights running, until he felt sure I had more sense than the many greybeards who tend to fancy themselves in that department. Still, he said nothing about it to me in the tent. The walls were of course flimsy and he didn’t, for the moment, want to let anyone else into the secret; he must first assure himself of my innocence. One day, when I slipped out for a stroll, he deliberately didn’t prevent me. Here was his excuse to come looking for his charge and his chance to talk to me alone. Catching me up in an isolated spot, where I stood muttering to myself, he addressed me as follows: ‘Please don’t worry, dear friend: I’ve your true interests at heart, and I welcome this opportunity to speak with you in private. I know now that you’re not the fool you pretend to be, and I’m sure you’ve no wish to remain in this sorry state. If you care what becomes of you and if you’ll confide in an upright man, you can tell me everything. I for my part will support you in every way possible and help you lay this jester’s costume aside.’

  I threw my arms around his neck in delight as if here was a magus come to free me of my burden. We found somewhere to sit down, and I told him my life story. He read my palms, showing amazement at what I’d already been through and what still lay in store for me. However, he was dead set against my shedding my fool’s costume anytime soon because, as chiromancy told him (his Latin got a bit much for me here; I’ll paraphrase): fate threatened me with prison plus various perils to life and limb. Thanking him for his friendship and advice, I asked God to reward the man’s loyalty. Turning back to the tutor, I asked him (no, begged him, given that yet again I had no one else) to become and always remain my trusted friend and father.

  Our pact sealed, we stood up and strolled on, soon coming to the gambling ground. This was where men competed at dice and all oaths were sworn in the name of God’s truth or Christ’s wounds or some pox or other. The place was about the size of the Old Market in Cologne. Cloaks were spread on the grass and a number of tables set up, each surrounded by a group of players entrusting their luck to three of those square ‘devil bones’ (as they called them). The game was about redistributing money, you see, with some handing it over and others taking it off them. Each cloak or table had a bloke acting as referee, whose job it was to see fair play. The same blokes hired out the cloaks, tables and dice. In fact, they were so adept at deducting their fees from players’ winnings that they took more money than anyone. Not that it did them any good, mind you. They usually gambled it all away again, and even what got put by went on booze or paid for the surgeon to patch up the wounds they often received in the line of duty.

  But bewilderingly, everyone thought they’d win. That wasn’t possible, let’s face it, unless of course they all picked one another’s pockets. Also, you know the saying: the more heads, the more brain? Well, that’s not how it worked out. There were winners and losers. Hence the plentiful swearing as the latter complained they’d taken a hit (quite literally, sometimes). The winners rejoiced, of course, while the losers, grinding their teeth, had to sell a favourite garment or some other treasured object; not everybody won their money back, you see. There were cries for honest dice. Others wanted their own doctored ones, which they introduced clandestinely and which yet others threw out, bit to pieces, or stamped on – even trashing the rented cloak in the process. Doctored dice included so-called ‘Dutchmen’, which needed to be thrown with a sliding movement and had sharp ridges above the fives and the sixes like those skinny donkeys they make soldiers ride as punishment. ‘Highlanders’ were different; those you had to hold up in the air as you threw them. Some were made of staghorn (light above and heavy below); others were filled with mercury or lead; others again came stuffed with hair trimmings, mushrooms, chaff or coal dust. Some had pointed corners, while on others the corners were rubbed smooth. Some were elongated cobs; others resembled fat toads. All these varieties were manufactured expressly for cheating. And they did what they were designed to do; it was no good giving them a nudge, particularly those with two fives or two sixes or alternatively a pair of aces or a pair of deuces. ‘Devil bones’ they certainly were; the name said it all! These doctored versions were used to swindle, fiddle and filch money from one another that had probably been stolen in the first place or otherwise gained at great risk or by a man sweating his guts out at work.

  As I stood there, contemplating the gambling ground and the frantic activity of the dice-players, my tutor asked me what I thought. I replied, ‘I hate all the blaspheming, but otherwise I wouldn’t like to judge. It’s not something I’ve seen before, and I don’t yet understand it.’ At which my tutor said, ‘Well, let me judge for you. This is quite the vilest area of the whole camp. Why? Because here folk are simply out to get their hands on one another’s money and get rid of their own in the process. A person need only set foot in this place with the intention of taking part and he’s broken the tenth commandment, which says, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house—” etc. If you play and win, particularly if you cheat and use fixed dice, you break the seventh and eighth commandments. It may even be that you’ve murdered the person you took money off – I mean, if the loss is so great that it plunges him into poverty, penury, despair or some other terrible vice. And it’s no use you saying, “I placed my bet and won fair and square.” The fact is, you’re a scoundrel. You entered the gambling ground meaning to become rich at someone else’s expense. Had things gone otherwise, no penance could have atoned for your having to do without the money you’d flung away. Like the rich man, you’re responsible before God not to take the bounty he provides to support you and your family and fritter it away mindlessly. What’s more, anyone visiting the gambling ground to gamble risks losing not only cash but life and limb as well. He may even (yet more alarmingly) forfeit his soul’s salvation. This I tell you, dear Simplicius, because you profess to know nothing of gambling. I want you to avoid it your whole life long.’

  I replied, ‘Master, if gambling is so dreadful and dangerous, why do high-ups permit it?’ My tutor answered, ‘Partly, I’m afraid, because certain officers enjoy it. The fact is, gambling goes on because soldiers just will not stop – indeed, cannot stop. Anyone who’s ever gambled or had the devil plant the gambling bug inside him will gradual
ly (whether he wins or loses) become hooked. He can no longer quit any more than he can leave off sleeping. You’ll see folk rattling dice all night, even missing out on gorgeous food and drink, sometimes coming away without their shirts. Gambling has been banned repeatedly on pain of corporal punishment or the rope. The generals even ordered such penalties to be carried out in public, using armed force if necessary. It made no difference, though. Gamblers got together elsewhere. In secret locations, sometimes just hiding behind hedges, they went on taking money off one another, dividing into pairs, breaking each other’s heads when all else failed. In fact, it was because of all the murder and bloodshed and in particular because some soldiers gambled away their weapons and horses (even staking their wretched army rations at times) that not only was gambling in public permitted again but this special area was set aside for the purpose. The idea was that, if fighting did break out (as it regularly did), the military police would be on hand to make sure no one actually got killed. And since gambling is the invention of the devil himself (and a profitable one at that), the devil details special gambling sprites to go about the world with the sole task of tempting folk to gamble. Some reckless fellows make deals with such sprites, whereby the devil lets them win occasionally. Yet if you take ten thousand gamblers you’ll almost never find a rich one. Most are poor, needy folk, and their rare winnings have so little value in their eyes that they either gamble them away immediately or spend them in other ways, all entirely wasteful. Hence the saying (all too true but still pathetic): “Satan leaves a gambler in peace only when he’s cleaned him out.” He’ll have his goods, his courage, his self-esteem – till he’s stripped the man bare (at which point God’s fathomless mercy will come to his aid, bringing his soul to everlasting bliss). However, if a gambler is so bouncy by nature that no loss or setback can plunge him into melancholy, despair, or any of the deadly sins to which such states lead, the Evil One will in his cunning allow him a brief winning streak – getting him eventually through extravagance, pride, gluttony, drunkenness or fornication.’

  I crossed myself and invoked God’s blessing, hearing that such inventions of the devil were allowed to flourish within a Christian army – particularly since apparently (no: obviously) so many mishaps and lasting disasters resulted. However, my tutor assured me that I’d heard nothing yet. Any attempt to describe the full extent of the mischief that flowed from gambling was doomed to failure. There was a saying, he told me: every throw was the devil’s, once the dice were airborne. I should picture the scene like this: alongside each die as it left the player’s palm to land and roll on the outspread cloak or tabletop was a tiny sprite who, by steering its course, made sure that the score eventually shown was one the boss wanted. I should also bear in mind that it isn’t for nothing that the devil takes such a keen interest in gambling; he can bank on winning either way. ‘Notice too,’ my tutor went on, ‘how around every gambling ground you’ll find a few pawnbrokers and Jews, ready to do crafty deals with the gamblers regarding any rings, garments or items of jewellery that they’ve either won or want to turn into cash in order to go on losing. And don’t forget the devil is constantly on the lookout for gamblers who, whether winners or losers, want the occasional day off, but might in their idleness be open to other soul-destroying thoughts. For winners, of course, he builds those tempting castles in the air; and in people who’ve lost (who’ll be distraught in any case, ergo more susceptible to harmful ideas), he’s bound to plant the seed of eventual despair and hence damnation. Honestly, Simplicius, once this war is over and I’m back home with my family I’m going to write a book about all this. I want to draw attention to the waste of precious time that gambling involves. I’m determined to tell people about the dreadful blaspheming that goes on whenever gamblers assemble, the curses men hurl back and forth before, during and after dice games, with many hair-raising instances and anecdotes, not forgetting the duelling and killing that sometimes ensues. I aim to paint in vivid colours all the greed, rage, envy, fanaticism, falsehood, betrayal, unholy striving, theft – oh, all the mindless stupidities not only of dicers but also of card-players. I’ll shine such a merciless light on them that after a single reading of my book people will regard gambling with the kind of disgust they feel at drinking sow’s milk – which in point of fact is what they give gambling addicts, without their knowledge, to cure them of the disease. I’m going to show all Christendom that God takes more blaspheming from a huddle of gamblers than a whole army hands out in a normal day.’ I could only praise his intention, saying how much I hoped he’d get the opportunity to put all that in his book.

  Twenty-One

  A bit shorter than the last and rather more fun

  I became daily more fond of my tutor, as he did of me. However, we kept our understanding secret. I might act the fool but I didn’t crack dirty jokes or play coarse pranks – i.e. my behaviour and get-up remained simple enough while giving a more spirited than foolish impression. Here are some examples: my colonel was an avid huntsman and took me with him one day when he went out netting partridges. The bird net I found very neat, but our skittish pointer tended to pounce before we could cast it, so we didn’t take many birds. I suggested the colonel have the bitch covered by a falcon or golden eagle, the way folk do with horses and donkeys when they want mules. That would give her pups wings, and using the wings they’d be able to catch the birds in the air. Another suggestion I came up with was that, since the siege of Magdeburg was taking such an age, they should weave a really long rope, as thick as a medium-sized barrel, pass it around the city, hitch up all the people and animals in both camps, and draw the rope tight. That way they could pull the place down in a jiffy. I had heaps of such foolish ideas every day; it was my trade, you see, and my workshop never stood empty. The colonel’s clerk, who was a pain in the arse as well as a dyed-in-the-wool rogue, gave me plenty of material to muck around with, the way fools do. The fact is, whatever the fellow convinced me of I not only believed myself but told others about too whenever I could slip the matter into a conversation.

  Once, when I asked what kind of bloke our regimental chaplain was, dressing differently from everyone else, he replied, ‘Why, he’s Mr Dicis et non Facis, which in plain language means he’s someone who gives other men wives but doesn’t take one himself. Thieves he dislikes particularly because they keep quiet about what they do, whereas he makes no secret of what he doesn’t do. They aren’t exactly fond of him either, because it tends to be on the gallows that thieves have most contact with his sort.’ When I later referred to the good, honest priest accordingly it got a laugh, I’ll admit, but I was scolded as a wicked, mischievous rascal and thrashed soundly. Another thing the clerk persuaded me of was that the brothels under the Prague city wall had been pulled down and burnt and that sparks and ash from the fire had blown all over the world like weed seeds. Similarly, so far as soldiers are concerned, he convinced me that it’s not the bold heroes and hearty back-slappers who go to heaven – only the duffers and stick-in-the-muds who think of nothing but their pay. Nor is it the political elite of fashionable swashbucklers and elegant ladies but only folk with the patience of Job, henpecked husbands, boring old monks, gloomy clerics, holier-than-thou God-botherers, bottom-of-the barrel whores, and hopeless rejects of all kinds – not to mention toddlers who shit on the seats. Another lie he sold me was that the reason why pub landlords are called ‘innkeepers’ is that in their ceaseless flip-flopping they try so zealously to keep in with either God or the devil, depending. On the subject of war, he persuaded me that sometimes they shoot people with gold bullets; the more expensive the bullets, the greater the damage they do. He told me that formerly whole armies (men, artillery, weapons and baggage) had been bound in and dragged around by chains of purest gold! Finally, when the talk turned to womenfolk, he got me to believe that half were wearing the trousers, although it didn’t show, and that many, despite being unable to work magic and not being goddesses like Diana, set bigger horns on their husbands’ he
ads than even Actaeon wore. All of which I swallowed whole, I was that big a fool!

  My tutor, on the other hand, when alone with me, spoke quite differently. Plus he introduced me to his son, who as I said was a company clerk with the Elector of Saxony’s army and a very different sort from ours. In fact, my colonel not only thought highly of him; he talked about making the young man’s current boss an offer for his services and appointing him secretary to his own regiment – a job our clerk also had his eye on.

  I became firm friends with the tutor’s son (Ulrich Herzbruder by name – like his father). We swore eternal brotherhood, pledging to stick by each other come what might, never letting the other down. The fact that this occurred with his father’s full knowledge made our bond even more solid. Our first concern was how we might decently rid me of my fool’s costume and meet on an equal footing. The elder Herzbruder, however, whom I looked up to as a father and spent all my time with, was very much against this. He said expressly that if I altered my situation in the near future I risked a heavy prison sentence as well as great physical danger. Also, he foresaw great shame descending on himself and his son in the near future, which made him even less inclined to become involved in the affairs of someone he knew to be facing such peril. What made him fear sharing my misfortune if I revealed my true nature was the fact that he’d been in on the secret for some time. He knew me inside out, so to say, but had kept my deceit from the colonel.