The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus

by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen

  Twenty-Nine

  How well a pious soldier did in Paradise while he lived, and how a huntsman took his place when he died

  Our landlady, who didn’t want me infesting her person and her entire house with my hordes, had to get rid of them for me. She wasted no time, in fact, shoving my old clouts in the bread oven and burning them as clean as an old tobacco pipe, which vermin-wise left me living in a rose garden. You can’t imagine how happy I was to be rid of that discomfort. I’d spent months sitting on that anthill. Now, though, I’d another cross to bear. My new master was one of those soldiers who firmly believe they’re going to heaven. He never moaned about his wages and wouldn’t hurt a fly. His entire wealth consisted of what he earned on guard duty and saved from his weekly earnings – a pittance he valued more highly than some do pearls from the Orient, carefully sewing each tiny coin into his clothes. To swell his own rations, I and his poor horse had to go short, of course. I chewed and chewed on dry pumpernickel and made do with water or, at high times, thin beer, which I couldn’t enjoy anyway, what with my throat being rubbed raw by the coarse bread and my whole body starting to look more like a stick. If I wanted to eat better, I must steal. But not too much, mind; he didn’t want to know. On his account there’d have been no need for gallows, rack, hangman, torturers, military policemen, sutlers, even drummers to beat the tattoo. Not for him any of your scoffing, boozing, gambling or duelling. Whenever he was ordered out on convoys, raiding parties, or suchlike military operations, he’d totter along like an old crone with a stick. I firmly believe that, had that excellent dragoon not possessed such heroic soldierly virtues, he’d have passed me up and tried for my lieutenant colonel instead. I couldn’t expect any hand-me-downs from him; his own clothes were a mass of patches, like my hermit’s. His saddle and tack were virtually worthless, and his horse was so frail from starvation that neither Swede nor Hessian need be afraid he’d pursue them for long.

  All of which persuaded his captain to find him a job as a bodyguard in Paradise (or rather: a nunnery of that name). Not that he’d be much use there; he simply wanted the man to put on some weight, build himself up a bit. But the main reason was that the nuns had asked for a pious, conscientious, quiet sort of bloke. So my new master rode over there, with me alongside – on foot, unfortunately; he’d only the one horse. ‘We’re in luck, Simbrecht!’ he said as we went (he never could remember my name). ‘We’re getting near Paradise. We’re going to eat well there.’ ‘The name bodes well,’ I replied. ‘Please God the place lives up to it.’ ‘You don’t say!’ (he said, mishearing). ‘With a few loads of their best beer on board each day we’ll be in heaven and no mistake! The first thing I’ll do is order up a fine new cloak. I know – you can use the old one! It’ll suit you a treat.’ He wasn’t wrong about ‘the old one’; it was weather-beaten enough and shabby enough to have seen the Battle of Pavia. Anyway, the promise didn’t thrill me.

  But ‘Paradise’ certainly lived up to its name. More than that: instead of angels it had beautiful young virgins who plied us with food and drink. In no time my belly was as tight as a drum, and myself tight into the bargain, being full of the richest beer as well as the finest Westphalian ham and sausage and the tenderest, tastiest beef, cooked in salt water and usually eaten cold. I got into the habit of spreading my black bread with salted butter in layers as thick as your finger, covered with cheese to help it down, and when my eyes fell on a shoulder of mutton, bristling with garlic and with a pitcher of beer standing beside it, both body and soul rejoiced and I put all my troubles behind me. All told, that ‘Paradise’ suited me so well, it might have been the real one. My only concern was that it wouldn’t last for ever; I’d have to return to my old existence, going around in rags.

  However, to make up for the bad luck that had been dumped on me by the bucketful every step of the way, there was going to be some good luck too, it seemed. When my master sent me into Soest to collect the rest of his baggage, on the way I came across an abandoned package containing sufficient scarlet material to make a cloak, plus some red felt for the lining. I took the fabric with me to Soest, found a cloth merchant, and swapped it for enough ordinary green cloth to make a complete suit of clothes. In return, he’d have the suit run up for me and throw in a new hat as well. And since I also needed new shoes and a shirt, I gave the shopkeeper the silver buttons and trimmings meant for the cloak. He saw to everything, turning me out like a new pin. I returned to ‘Paradise’ and to an earful from my master for not bringing the find back to him. He said it with blows, in fact, and was thinking of ordering me to strip and hand the outfit over, only he was shy and said it wasn’t his sort of thing anyway.

  Rather than face the shame of having a boy who dressed better than he did, the old skinflint galloped off to Soest, borrowed money from his captain, and bought a splendid new outfit for himself. He promised to pay the money back out of his weekly wage as a bodyguard, which he did – very efficiently. He had enough put by, but he was far too cunning to draw on his savings. He’d have lost his cushy billet if he had, with some other cheeky sod replacing him. He counted on spending the winter in ‘Paradise’, you see, and now the captain, if he wanted his money back, had to let his debtor stay. From then on we took it really easy. Playing bowls was the hardest work we did. Once I’d brushed down and fed and watered my dragoon’s nag, the rest of the time was my own. So I went for walks. The nunnery was also under enemy guard, and a musketeer came out from Lippstadt (where the Hessians were based) to perform that duty. He was a furrier by trade, so not merely a mastersinger but also an excellent fencer, and to keep his hand in he began using me as a practice partner. We trained daily with a variety of weapons, always for hours on end, and I picked up the art fast. Nor was I afraid to give as good as I got – when he let me, that is. My dragoon preferred to play him at bowls rather than fence, the prize going to the one who could drink the other under the table next mealtime. That way the nunnery bore all the losses.

  The institution owned a hunting reserve, which meant it had its own game warden, too. And because I too wore green, I spent a lot of time with him that autumn and winter, learning all his skills, notably as regarded hunting small game. For these reasons and because the name ‘Simplicius’ is unusual and ordinary folk find it easy to forget or else hard to pronounce, everyone called me ‘Titch the Huntsman’. I soon knew that neck of the woods like the back of my hand, which came in useful later on. When the weather kept me indoors, the librarian lent me stacks of books to read. However, once the noble nuns found out that not only did I have a good singing voice but could also play the lute and some clavichord, they wondered what else I could do. And as I was fairly well proportioned and had a handsome face, they imagined that all my ways must be equally aristocratic. Suddenly, I was a much-loved member of the nobility – so what on Earth, they wanted to know, was I doing as boy to that miserable git?

  After I’d spent all winter living in said lap of luxury, my master was relieved of his post. The sudden drop in his standard of living hit him so badly, it made him ill. A bout of fever then laid him low, and all the old ailments he’d collected in a lifetime of war carried him off. The upshot was, three weeks later I had a corpse to bury. This was the epitaph I wrote on his gravestone:

  Here lies Johnny Tightfist, a soldier bold and strong,

  Who never shed a drop of blood his whole life long.

  According to law and custom, the captain should have inherited horse and weaponry while the officer below him took the rest. However, since I was then an adolescent shooting skywards who promised, in time, to be afraid of no man, everything was left to me on condition that I sign on in my late master’s place. This I willingly agreed to do, knowing that the deceased had a quantity of ducats (his entire life’s savings) sewn into his old trousers. And when the time came and I gave my name, i.e. ‘Simplicius Simplicissimus’, to the muster clerk (whose own name was ‘Cyriacus’), and the muster clerk, whose spelling wasn’t up to much, said, ‘There�
��s no devil in hell with a handle like that’, and when, quick as a flash, I asked whether there was anyone in hell called ‘Cyriacus’, leaving the clever clogs with no answer, the captain enjoyed the exchange so much that he thought well of me from day one.

  Thirty

  How the huntsman, now turned soldier, approached the soldier’s trade (pay attention, army recruits everywhere!)

  The commanding officer in Soest, needing a stable lad and thinking I might fit the bill, wasn’t happy that I’d become a soldier. He still wanted me, so he told my new master I was too young, I’d never pass for a grown man. He sent for me and said, ‘Listen, Titch Huntsman, I want you as my servant.’ What would my duties be? I wanted to know. He replied, ‘You’ll help look after my horses.’ ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘we’re not suited. I’d rather have a master in whose service horses looked after me. However, since I can’t find one, I’ll stick with soldiering.’ He said, ‘But your beard scarcely shows!’ ‘No more does an eighty-year-old’s!’ I countered. ‘Besides, the beard’s not the man; otherwise goats would be better respected.’ He said, ‘If your courage matched your lip, I’d still not have you in any army of mine!’ ‘All right,’ I answered. ‘Next chance we have, we’ll put it to the test!’ No one was going to use me as a common stable lad, you see – and I mean, no one! So he left me as I was, muttering about the work revealing the master.

  That settled, I took out my dragoon’s old trousers, and after examining them minutely I exchanged their clinking contents for a proper war horse and the best weapon money could buy. I must have sparkled like a mirror. I had a new outfit made (green again; I liked being called ‘Huntsman’) and gave the old one, too small for me now, to my own boy. With him beside me I rode about like a young nobleman, no longer thinking I resembled a slob. I even made so bold as to trim my hat with a smart bunch of feathers, just like an officer. That soon earned me envy, though, particularly among the junior officers, and we began exchanging stronger and stronger words. Eventually, we came to blows. But by the time I’d shown two or three of them what I’d learnt from the furrier during my time at ‘Paradise’, not only did the rest leave me alone; some even tried to make friends with me. I also volunteered for sorties both on horseback and on foot, since I now had a good horse and was quicker on my feet than most. And when enemy contact was involved I was like the foam in the bathtub, always thrusting myself forwards to be in the thick of the scrap. I soon became a familiar sight among friend and foe alike, with both sides beginning to look up to me. Known for striking the most damaging blows, I was put in command of entire raiding parties. I gained the reputation of skirmishing like a Croat, and when I carried off a really big prize I gave my superior officers such a generous share in it that I was allowed to exercise my craft even in locations where it was usually banned. General Count von Götz had left three enemy garrisons in Westphalia, stationed at Dorsten, Lippstadt and Coesfeld. I harried them all mercilessly, hovering with small raiding parties outside the gates of one or another town almost daily and grabbing some good booty. And because I always came away unscathed, folk thought I could make myself invisible and was as hard as iron and steel. I was feared like the plague, and a thirty-strong party of enemy raiders was not ashamed to turn tail on hearing that I was in the vicinity with a mere fifteen. It got to the point where, whenever contributions needed to be levied from a town or village, I was given the job. My takings grew as fat as my fame was great. Officers and men alike took the ‘Huntsman’ to their hearts; the most aggressive enemy sorties dreaded running into me. The peasants I kept onside through a blend of terror and affection, duffing up all who opposed me and richly rewarding anyone who did me the least service. Nearly half my booty I either gave away or spent on informers. No sortie, no convoy, no reconnaissance expedition ever left an enemy camp without my hearing about it, working out where it was headed, and planning my approach accordingly. And because most of my attacks, given luck, came off, everyone (including many officers and courageous soldiers from enemy ranks) was keen to catch a glimpse of me, invariably expressing surprise at how young I was. Also, I treated my prisoners so well that they often cost me more than my takings were worth. In fact, every hostile combatant I captured (officers, especially), whether I knew the fellow or not, if there was a courtesy I could extend to him without infringing either my military duty or my social obligations, he received it.

  And in time I’d have received promotion. But this was always withheld ‘on grounds of youth’. The fact was, anyone my age who wanted an ensignship had to be a toff. My captain couldn’t promote me because he had no openings anyway, and he refused to let anyone else have me, because he’d be losing more than a plain milch cow. I was made a lance corporal, though. It wasn’t much of an honour, I grant you, being preferred above older men, but in combination with the praise heaped upon me it did act as a spur. I spent whole days scheming how to achieve even greater things, and the same foolish musings often kept me awake at night. Fearing that I lacked opportunity to display my courage in deeds, I worried about not being challenged daily to compete with the enemy in boldness. I often wished I was in the Trojan War or at something like the Siege of Ostend – stupidly forgetting that the jug keeps on journeying to the well until one day it shatters. It’s the same when a raw young recruit has money, luck and courage; pride and arrogance follow. And it was arrogance that made me keep not one humble boy but a brace of servants, whom I kitted out splendidly and mounted on horses, with the result that every officer envied me.

  Thirty-One

  How the devil steals the priest’s bacon and the Huntsman nabs himself

  Here I must tell a few stories about things that happened to me at odd times before I left the dragoons. They’re not particularly important, but they’re quite fun. I didn’t just do great deeds, you see; I did little ones too – where I reckoned they’d be good for my image. The captain was once ordered to take fifty-plus foot soldiers to Recklinghausen to mount an assault there, and because we thought that, before actually attacking, it might be a good idea to spend a few days reconnoitring (i.e. skulking in the surrounding bushes), each man took rations for a week. However, since the substantial caravan we were looking out for failed to turn up when it was supposed to we ran short of victuals. We couldn’t steal any because that would have given our presence away and ruined the whole plan, so hunger began to gnaw. I had no clients in the town (as I did elsewhere) who might have brought us something to eat, so if we didn’t want to march home on empty stomachs we had to devise some other way of getting hold of food. A friend of mine, who’d only recently dropped out of college and had to scrape a living somehow, now badly missed his old barley broth. That had been the finest dish his parents could put on the table at home, but at the time he’d often spurned it and left it uneaten. Thinking about childhood and food also put him in mind of the stuff he’d nicked and taken to school in his satchel to enjoy there. ‘Jesus, mate!’ he said to me. ‘Why didn’t I learn skills like yours that might have put food in my belly! I know for a fact that if I called on the priest in that village over there I’d find a right feast on his table!’ I pondered his words in the context of our predicament – where folk who knew the area couldn’t venture out without being recognized, while a stranger had no chance of getting in and either stealing food or buying it clandestinely. Eventually, I put a plan to the captain, based on what my student friend had said. It was risky, but the officer had such faith in me and we were in such a hole that he gave the OK.

  I swapped clothes with someone else, and the student and I strolled into said village, taking a roundabout route although the place was only half an hour off. Once there, we reckoned the house nearest the church must be where the priest lived; it was built in the urban style and backed onto a wall surrounding the churchyard. I’d already told my friend what to say, because he was wearing his shabby student outfit, while I intended to pose as a journeyman painter, thinking I’d not be asked to practise my trade in this village since few peasa
nts live in painted houses. The reverend greeted us politely and, when my companion had finished giving him a deep, student-type bow and a tall story about how some squaddies had jumped him on the road and stolen his food, we were invited in for a slice of bread and butter and a mug of beer. Pretending to have nothing to do with the student, I said I’d eat at the inn and call for him later; then we could walk on together and put a bit more road behind us before dark. So off I went to the inn, more to spy out what I could come back and steal that night than to still my hunger immediately. My luck was in, because on the way I came across a fellow sealing up a bread oven full of plump pumpernickel loaves that were going to sit in it and bake overnight. I didn’t spend long at the inn, knowing already where bread was to be had; I just bought a few rolls (‘white bread’, they called it) to take back to the captain. Returning to the clergy house to tell my mate it was time to go, I found he’d finished scoffing and had been telling the priest I was a painter on my way to Holland to perfect my art in that country. The rev. bid me very welcome and asked me to come with him into the church; he wanted to show me some paintings that needed restoring. I had to follow if I wanted to avoid giving the game away. He took us through the kitchen, and as he unbolted the heavy oak door that led out into the churchyard I noticed (wonder of wonders!) that the darkness above our heads came from a heavy cloud of lutes, flutes and bass fiddles – by which of course I mean hams, strings of sausages and sides of bacon hung from the rafters to smoke. I looked up at them longingly (while they, it seemed, looked down at me teasingly) and wished I could take them back to my mates in the forest. But there was no obvious way of doing so, not with them hanging there in that stubborn style, almost cocking a snook at my fanciful devising. I scratched my head. How could I nab them as I planned to nab said ovenful of bread? It wouldn’t be easy. Like I said, the churchyard had a wall around it and all the windows were well defended with iron gratings. Plus there were two huge dogs lying outside that I was afraid wouldn’t be asleep come nightfall – not if someone was trying to steal what in return for their faithful guardianship they might get to gnaw on.