The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus

by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen

  Inside the church, as we stood discussing the paintings and the priest was trying to engage my services to touch bits up here and there (while I was looking for all manner of excuses not to; my journey, etc.), the sexton or bell-ringer came up and said, ‘Hey, you! You’re no journeyman painter! You look more like a deserter from someone’s army, if you ask me.’ I was no longer used to such talk and almost belted him one, but I simply shook my head and replied, ‘Hey, yourself! Give me a brush and some paint and I’ll soon daub your stupid likeness!’ The priest made a joke of the whole thing and told us it was unseemly in so holy a place to bandy home truths like that. In other words, he believed us both. After giving me and my student friend another drink, he saw us on our way. I left my heart with those sausages, though – no word of a lie.

  We rejoined our companions before nightfall, and I donned my own clothes once again and recovered my weapon. Telling the captain of my plan, I chose six good fellows to help carry the bread back. We reached the village around midnight and silently removed the bread from the oven. We had someone with us, you see, who knew how to keep the dogs from barking. Passing the priest’s house, I couldn’t keep my mind off that bacon. Briefly, I halted, trying to work out how to sneak into the priest’s kitchen. I could see no other way in but the chimney. Well, that would have to be my door on this occasion. We stashed the bread and our guns in the charnel house behind the church, and borrowed a ladder and some rope from a nearby barn. I could shin up and down flues like a chimney sweep (a trick I’d learnt as a child, climbing hollow trees), so I heaved myself onto the roof. This was double-clad with half-round tiles and suited my purpose ideally. Binding my long hair in a bunch above my head, I took one end of the rope and climbed down the chimney to where the luscious meat awaited. I tied ham after ham and side after side of bacon to the rope, and the fellow on the roof neatly hoiked them up the chimney. He handed them down to the others, who then carried them to the charnel house. However (talk about bad luck!), just as I’d finished and was climbing back up the flue, a foothold gave way and down poor Simp tumbled; the Huntsman in person was caught like a mouse in a trap! My mates on the roof let the rope down again but it couldn’t take my weight, breaking before my feet left the floor. ‘Well, Huntsman,’ I thought, ‘now you’re the prey. Like Actaeon, you risk being hounded down and having your own hide ripped to bits.’ The priest, woken by my fall, had ordered his cook to light a lamp quickly, and she now came running into the kitchen in her undershirt with her dress slung over her shoulders, passing so close to me in the dark that I felt the garment brush against me. Reaching for an ember, she held the lamp to it and blew. Simultaneously, I blew far harder than the good woman herself, which frightened her horribly. Dropping both ember and lamp, she fled to her master. That gave me breathing space in which I might have planned my own escape, but my mind had gone blank. My comrades shouted down the chimney that they’d break into the house and rescue me by force. But I said not to. They should hang back, I told them, station young Springinsfeld (‘Tearaway’, we called him) by the chimney pot, and wait while I got myself out of a tight spot without raising a din and reducing our raid to a shambles. If all else failed, they should do what felt right. Meanwhile, the priest struck a light himself as the cook babbled that there was a hideous spectre in the kitchen with two heads – mistaking the hair bunched up on top of my head for an extra noddle, perhaps. Hearing all this, I quickly scooped up ash, soot and charcoal in my filthy hands and made my face so hideous that I bore no resemblance to the ‘angel’ the nuns of ‘Paradise’ had called me – and if the sexton had clapped eyes on me he’d no doubt have said what a speedy painter I was. I proceeded to kick up a storm in the kitchen, hurling pots and pans all over the place. I snatched up the kettle ring and hung it around my neck. However, the poker and tongs I kept hold of in case I needed weapons. The good cleric let none of this bother him as he and his cook advanced in procession, she holding two wax lights and with a holy-water pot dangling from one arm, he in his battledress of surplice and stole, clutching the sprinkler in one hand and a book in the other. He began the exorcism by reading from the latter: who was I, he asked, and what was I doing in this place? He obviously took me for the devil in person. I’d better act the part then, I thought, padding the truth with a few porkies. Glaring at the two of them, I roared back, ‘I am the devil, and I’m here to wring both of your necks!’ Continuing with his exorcism, the priest informed me that I had no business with either him or his cook and commanded me, in the name of God and all his saints, to go back to where I came from, to which I replied, in a voice like thunder, that I couldn’t, despite wanting to very much. Meanwhile Tearaway, an out-and-out scamp if ever there was one, was up to his usual tricks on the roof. Hearing what was going on in the kitchen below (where I was pretending to be the devil and the priest believed me), he proceeded to hoot like an owl, bark like a dog, neigh like a horse, bleat like a goat and scream like a donkey. He then, after a pause, made a noise down the flue like a mass caterwauling one February night, following this with his version of a hen straining to lay an egg. The fellow could mimic any animal noise. When he wanted to, he could do howling so spot-on, you’d have thought a pack of wolves was coming round the mountain. The din scared the parson and his cook witless. I felt bad, though, having posed as the devil and made this man of the cloth think I actually was the devil – perhaps because, according to something he’d read or heard, Old Nick likes to be seen wearing green.

  In the middle of all this panic, which affected me as much as the other two, I noticed to my relief that the door leading to the churchyard hadn’t been barred for the night but only bolted. Drawing the bolt back quickly, I nipped out – to find my fellow soldiers standing there at the ready, guns primed. Anyway, this left the priest free to go on banishing the devil till the cows came home. Tearaway brought my hat down from the roof, we shouldered the victuals, and off we went. Nothing was keeping us in the village any longer (aside from returning the ladder and rope that we’d borrowed).

  The whole troop fell on the booty, and none of us even got hiccups from it, we were that lucky! Also, we had a good laugh over my little expedition. All except the student, that is, who objected to my having robbed the Holy Joe (who’d so generously swallowed his story, remember); in fact he swore up and down that he’d have been happy to pay the man for his bacon if he’d had the funds. Even so, he gobbled up his share, quite as if he’d earned it. Suitably reinvigorated, we stayed on another couple of days until the caravan we’d spent so long looking out for finally arrived. In the whole ambush we didn’t lose a single man, even though we took over thirty prisoners. The haul was a big one, and as the main player I received a double portion. In toto we came away with three fine Friesian stallions, loaded with as much merchandise as we’d been able to carry off in the rush. If there’d been time to go through the stuff properly and salvage everything, we’d have been wealthy men, each and every one of us. The fact was, we left behind more than we took. We had to make a quick getaway, you see, and we could only carry so much. It was more for safety’s sake that we withdrew to Rehnen, where the bulk of our army lay and where we ate and divvied the swag. But I kept on thinking about the man whose bacon I’d pinched. I don’t want the reader thinking: what a sassy, sinful, arrogant rogue I must have been if, not content with robbing a pious cleric and giving him a God-awful fright, I expected to be praised for it too. So I chose a sapphire set in a gold ring that I’d bagged in the ambush and, using a messenger I trusted, sent it back to the priest with the following note:

  Reverend father etc., If I’d had any food back in that forest recently I’d have had no reason to steal Reverend’s bacon, probably giving you a terrible fright in the process. I swear before God that you received that fright against my will, so I am asking for your swift forgiveness. As for the bacon itself, it is only right it should be paid for. Hence, by way of payment, enclosed ring, with the compliments of the men who were my motive in pilfering the stuff in
the first place. I beg that Reverend will kindly accept same in lieu and will further rest assured that Reverend has gained for all time a true and faithful servant in the person of one your sexton regards as no painter, alias

  The Huntsman

  To the villager whose oven they’d emptied, the members of the raiding party sent sixteen reichsthaler from their joint booty. I’d taught them myself the importance of keeping the peasantry onside, because peasants often help foragers out in emergencies – where they don’t betray them, ransom them, or deprive them of their heads. From Rehnen we went to Münster, on to Hamm, then home to Soest, where we were quartered. There, a few days later, I heard back from the priest, who wrote:

  Esteemed Huntsman etc., Had the person whose bacon you stole known that you would appear to him in the guise of the devil, he’d less frequently have wished he could meet the famous Huntsman. However, just as the stolen meat and bread have been paid for handsomely, any fright received is the more easily forgotten for having been bestowed (involuntarily, too) by a man of such renown. So you are indeed forgiven, and my own request is that you have no fear of calling once more on someone who is not afraid to exorcise the devil. Cheers.

  I did the same every time, becoming very well known in consequence. And the more I gave away, the more booty came pouring in. To my mind, that ring (which must have been worth getting on for 100 reichsthaler) had been a good investment. But that’s the lot so far as Book Two is concerned.

  END OF BOOK TWO

  Book Three

  * * *

  One

  How the Huntsman lost track

  The attentive reader will have gathered from Book Two how ambitious I became in Soest, sniffing out and finding honour, fame and pleasure in actions that others would have called criminal. Now I want to tell how my stupidity led me even further astray, causing me to live in constant fear of life and limb. As I say above, so keen was I on chasing after honour and fame, some nights I’d lie awake, my head buzzing with new ruses and tricks. I came up with some marvellous ideas. For instance, I invented a kind of shoe that let the wearer advance backwards, i.e. with the heel under the toes, and had thirty different pairs made up at my own expense. I distributed them among my fellow soldiers, and when we went out raiding there was no way of tracking us, because we wore sometimes these, sometimes our proper shoes on our feet, each time sticking the other pair in our backpacks, and when somebody came to the place where we’d changed shoes, all he saw in the ground were the footprints of two parties who’d come together there and each disappeared again. However, if I kept the latter shoes on it looked as if I was just heading for where I’d been already, or as if I was just coming from the place where I’d been headed. Anyway, my footsteps, where I’d left a trail, were far more confused than in a maze. Anyone trying to spy on or even pursue me by means of my trail would never be able to catch me. It happened frequently that I was very close to enemy troops that were trying to run me down in the distance and even more frequently that I was miles from the patch of undergrowth they’d surrounded and were beating through with a view to taking me prisoner. And I played the same trick as I used during raiding parties on foot when we were mounted. It was not unusual for me to dismount abruptly at forks in the path or where two paths crossed and have the horses re-shod the other way around. As for the tricks employed when the troop is diminutive but wants any trackers to assume it’s numerous, or when a large body wants to be thought small – well, they’re so commonplace and so very much taken for granted that they’re scarcely worth mentioning. I also invented an instrument that enabled me, on a windless night, to hear a trumpet being blown three hours’ journey off, a horse neighing or dogs barking two hours off, and men conversing as much as one hour distant. I kept it very much under wraps, gaining a certain respect for a knack that everyone considered impossible. During the daytime, however, said instrument (which I’d secretly slip into a trouser pocket, along with a small telescope) wasn’t much use except in a very isolated, very quiet spot; it was important to hear everything in the vicinity that made the least movement or uttered the slightest sound – everything from horses and cattle down to the tiniest bird in the air or frog in a pond; otherwise, it was like being in a market, surrounded by people and animals, all vocalizing, with one man’s speech drowned out by another’s shouting.

  Yes, I know: there are still folk who refuse to believe this. Well, whether they do or not, it’s the truth nonetheless. The claim I make is that at night, when a man’s speaking normally, such an instrument will let me recognize him by his voice from as far away as, by day, using a good telescope, someone else could identify him by his clothes. Yet I cannot blame anyone for not believing what I’m writing now, because I was not believed by any of those who with their own eyes saw me using said instrument and heard me say to them, ‘I hear riders riding, because the horses are shod; I hear peasants coming, because the horses are barefoot; I hear carters, but they’re only peasants, I can tell by their speech. There are musketeers approaching, so and so many, give or take; I can tell from the rattle of their bandoliers. There’s a village over that way (or over this way); I can hear cocks crowing, dogs barking, etc. Over there is a herd of cattle; in that direction I can hear sheep bleating, cows mooing, pigs grunting’ – whatever it might be. At first, my own comrades thought I was bragging when I said this, but when they found out in practice that I was right every time, all the magic had to be explained minutely, with every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed. Well, the gentle reader will know what I mean, I’m sure. The fact remains, I did often escape miraculously (it seemed) when the enemy knew where I was and came to get me. In fact, if I had given the game away and the invention had become widely known, it would have come in handy for anyone fighting a war, particularly during sieges. But back to my story.

  When I wasn’t detailed to head raiding parties, I went out thieving on my own, and for miles around no horse, cow, pig or sheep was soundly stabled when I came calling. I was careful to slip boots onto cattle or horses until I’d got them out to a well-trodden road where they couldn’t be tracked. Horses I shod back to front; if they were cows or oxen I gave them shoes I’d made myself and brought them to safety using those. For the fatter pigs, who were far too lazy to want to go anywhere at night, I worked out a clever way of getting them moving, though it did involve a certain amount of grunting. What I did, I made up a well-salted flour-and-water mash and soaked a bath sponge in it that I’d tied firmly to a length of strong string. Then, holding the other end in my hand, I let the sow I’d set my heart on have a good feed of the mash, at the same time pulling on the string. Without any further exchange of words the sow followed patiently, eventually paying for her porridge in bacon and sausages. When I brought something like that home and shared it loyally among officers and men, the former let me go out again and the latter lied readily for me. However, I considered myself above robbing the poor or nicking chickens and other small fry. Anyway, with all that scoffing and boozing I gradually adopted an epicurean lifestyle. What my hermit had taught me was forgotten, and I’d no one to govern my youthful instincts or for whom I was responsible. My officers colluded, you see, because they benefited. The very men who should have chided and warned me instead spurred me on to commit every sin. Eventually, I sank so low in terms of godlessness that no act of depravity was beneath me. Most of my fellow soldiers secretly envied me for being a surer hand at larceny than any of them. The officers, on the other hand, envied my dash, my luck on raiding parties, and the fact that I gained greater notoriety and esteem than they enjoyed themselves. Either fellows or superiors would, I’m sure, gladly have seen the back of me at times – had I been less generous.

  Two

  The Huntsman of Soest puts a stop to the Huntsman of Werl’s mischief

  I was still creating havoc in this way (I even had some devil masks made up as well as suitably hideous clothes with horse and ox hooves all over them to scare the enemy and enable me to pinch things
off friends without having them recognize me – an idea I’d got from the bacon-stealing business), when some disturbing news reached me. There was a bloke over in Werl, very good on raiding parties, who like me wore green and who went about the countryside plundering towns and villages (particularly ones that were already ‘contributors’). He also raped women and committed all kinds of mayhem in my name. I began getting appalling complaints. They’d have cost me dear, too, if I hadn’t expressly shown that, at the times when he was trying to pin this or that exploit on me, I’d been elsewhere. I wasn’t letting him get away with it any longer. I certainly wasn’t having him use my name and dressing as me to go raiding, dragging the name ‘Huntsman’ through the mud. With the knowledge of the Soest commandant, I challenged the imposter to meet me on neutral territory and duel with rapiers or pairs of pistols. When he didn’t dare appear, I let it be known that I’d have my revenge – even if it meant going to Werl, to the very residence of the Werl commandant, who refused to punish the man himself. I made no secret of the fact that, if I came across the fellow out raiding, I’d treat him as hostile and have his guts for garters. In consequence, I not only shelved the mask idea, for which I had great plans; I also cut up my entire green ensemble into little pieces and publicly burnt them outside my quarters in Soest, although the clothes alone, not counting the bells and whistles (the feathers and trimmings, I mean) were worth 100 ducats or more. I stormed about, swearing in my rage that the next man who called me ‘Huntsman’ would either have to murder me or die at my hands, even if it cost me my life! I also refused to lead any more raiding parties (I didn’t have to anyway, not being an officer yet) until I’d had my revenge on my counterpart in Werl. So I kept my head down, doing no army work apart from my sentry duty and what I was specifically ordered to do, and only that in a pretty slack fashion, like any common-or-garden squaddie. This news too spread fast, and enemy raiding parties became so cheekily confident that they hung around our roadblocks almost daily. In the end, I couldn’t stand it. But what really got my goat was that the so-called ‘Huntsman of Werl’ was still going out, posing as me and bagging lots of booty.