The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus

by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen

  And so she went on, my sister-in-law – all of it in much the same vein. I very soon realized how well she loved my child. I could almost picture the little fellow, toddling around by now in his first pair of trousers, and I found the image delightful. So I looked out the bits and pieces of jewellery that Herzbruder had asked me to give my wife on his behalf. Mr Simplicius had asked me to bring these along, I explained (as the courier, remember), and my suggestion was, his good wife being now dead, the proper thing would be to hand them on to her child. My brother-in-law and his wife were delighted to take them. Mr Simplicius, they concluded, must be a man of means and not at all the sort of individual they’d imagined. At this I begged to take my leave, and when permission was granted asked if I might, before leaving, kiss young Simplicius on his father’s behalf; then I’d be able, I assured them, to report same to the father as proof of our having met. When, my sister-in-law approving, the kiss ensued, the youngster and I both got nosebleeds. It was a sign, I thought: my heart had broken. I hid my emotions, however, and before anyone could start wondering (why this sympathetic reaction?) I did a runner. After fourteen days of strenuous effort and constant risk, I got back to the spa, dressed in rags again, having been well skinned on the way.

  Six

  Tells of a trick that Simplicius played at the spa

  Back at the spa, it occurred to me that Herzbruder, far from getting better, was going downhill. This was despite the fact that the doctors and apothecaries were plucking him more assiduously than a plump goose. Moreover, he seemed increasingly childlike in his behaviour as well as being barely able to walk properly. I cheered him up as much as I could, but it was hard going. I imagined that, from the way his strength was draining away, he was aware himself that he hadn’t long to live. His greatest concern was that I’d be with him when he eventually fell off the perch.

  I myself had a right old time, taking my pleasure wherever I could while of course seeing to it that my friend had all he needed care-wise. And in combination with the knowledge that I was now a widower, the warm spring weather and my relative youth very much perked me up in the love department. In this my appetite was enormous (the terrible fright I’d received back in Einsiedeln church being quite forgotten by now). Among the spa visitors was a very lovely lady whose figure, for all that its owner played the aristocrat, was more suggestive of nubility than nobility. I pretty much danced attendance on this mantrap, and speedily gained full access; I had only to ask, and my every wish was granted. However, such ready compliance soon became a bore, and I began to look around for a decent way to dump her. Anyway, I have an idea she was more after my money than me as a marriage partner. Plus every time we met she threw exaggeratedly hot loving glances in my direction and gave me other tokens of her burning affection, which made me feel embarrassed for us both.

  Also visiting the spa at that time was a wealthy Swiss gent. He had not only his money but also his wife’s jewellery (gold, silver, pearls, precious stones – the lot) nicked off him. Such stuff being as irritating to lose as it’s difficult to obtain, said Swiss tried everything he could think of to get it back. He even had the notorious exorcist of nearby Geisshaut cast such spells on the pickpocket that he returned all the goods he’d stolen to their rightful owners, with the sorcerer receiving a fat tip each time.

  I was keen to meet this master of the black arts and have a chat with him. However, I was afraid folk might think less of me as a result (I thought quite highly of myself at the time, you see). So, having heard that he was fond of his tipple, I asked my servant to have a drink with him one evening. I wanted to see if I could become acquainted with him that way. The fact was, I’d heard many strange tales about him – things I refused to believe unless I heard them from his own lips. Disguising myself as a door-to-door snake-oil salesman, I went along too and sat down at table with them both. Would he guess who I was, I wondered, or would the devil perhaps whisper in his ear? I couldn’t tell one way or the other from his manner. He simply went on drinking, taking me for the person my clothes suggested. He clinked glasses with me a couple of times but otherwise talked more to my servant than to me, confiding in him that if he himself had nicked that stuff off the Swiss gent he’d have needed only to toss a fraction of it into some running water (i.e. give the devil a portion) for the thief to be rendered unidentifiable and the goods placed beyond recovery.

  Overhearing talk of this asinine ruse, I was amazed that Old Nick, the arch-deceiver, should get his claws into wretched humanity by such trivial means. Obviously this trifling piece of by-play was part of the pact the exorcist had sealed with the devil, and I could well imagine that knowing the ruse would be of little use to the thief if a different sorcerer (one whose pact didn’t include this clause) was called in to uncover the crime. Accordingly, I told my servant (a niftier fingersmith than any in Bohemia) to drink the fellow under the table and pinch the cash he’d received, not forgetting to toss some of the small change into the River Rench afterwards. This my servant did to the letter. When early next morning the sorcerer found that his money had gone, he went out to the ‘Wild Rench’ (as it’s called) and a little way upriver to a thicket, most probably to discuss the matter with his familiar spirit. However, he was so viciously set upon that he came back with a black eye and a badly scratched face. The poor scoundrel kicked up such a fuss that I gave him back his money again and told him: now that he saw what a wicked, deceitful piece of work the devil was, perhaps he’d quit working for him and turn back to God. Not that tipping the fellow the wink did any good at all. From that day on my luck deserted me. My fine horses, falling ill immediately, snuffed it in short order. They’d been bewitched, of course. But what did I expect? My life was wholly godless; I lived for myself alone, totally failing to commend my loved ones to God’s protection; so why should that wizard not have taken it out on me?

  Seven

  Herzbruder dies, and Simplicius goes back to sleeping around

  The longer I stayed at the spa, the better I liked it. Not only did visitor numbers increase by the day; the place itself and the way life was lived there appealed to me immensely. I got to know the folk who were most fun, and I began to learn polite ways of conversing and how to pay compliments – things I’d not worried much about before. I was taken for a member of the nobility. People tended to address me as ‘Captain’, particularly since soldiers of fortune of the age I was then are seldom found in such places. So the wealthy fops formed not only acquaintanceships with me (and I with them) but actual friendships. As a result, all forms of entertainment such as gambling, scoffing and boozing took up most of my time and energy. They cost, of course, but I wasn’t unduly aware of those lovely ducats disappearing into thin air and remained confident that my purse was still fat with Olivier’s inheritance.

  Meanwhile Herzbruder became weaker and weaker until he finally had to pay nature’s debt, after which the various quacks and druggists made themselves scarce, having lived off his poor body for as long as they could. He confirmed his last will and testament, making me sole heir to what was left of his late father’s legacy. I gave him a splendid funeral and sent his servants on their way with suits of mourning and some money each.

  Saying goodbye to Herzbruder caused me enormous grief, particularly since he’d been the victim of a poisoning. I couldn’t change any of that, of course, but it did change me. I shunned all company, wishing only to pass my sad thoughts in solitary review. I went for long walks and crawled into the undergrowth, considering what a friend I’d lost and how unlikely I was ever to find his equal again. At the same time I made a range of conjectures as to the direction my life might take in future, though without reaching any definite conclusion. One minute I longed to be back among the fighting; then, all of a sudden, it came over me how in that neck of the woods the humblest peasant had it better than a colonel. Raiding parties never threatened, and even less could I imagine an entire army defacing a landscape where every farmhouse was in peak condition, as in time of pea
ce, and every cowshed bulging with cattle. Down in the flat, where the war raged, not so much as a dog or cat would ever show itself in the village square.

  And as I squatted in my thicket, delighting in the beautiful birdsong and imagining how, when darkness falls, the nightingale casts a spell of silence over the other birds, urging them to listen, either in shame or for fear of robbing his song of some of its wonder, over on the opposite bank a lovely young peasant girl came down to the water’s edge. In her simple dress, she moved me more than a stately demoiselle could ever have done. From her head she took down a basket containing a ball of fresh butter, which she was on her way to sell in the spa market. Standing the butter in the water to cool, anxious not to have it melt in the heat, she sat down in the grass, laid her veil and her hat beside her, and wiped the perspiration from her face – in the process giving me a better view of her and enabling me to feast my eyes on the sight. Never in my life, I thought, had I seen a more beautiful human being. Her physical proportions were perfection, it seemed to me, her arms and hands as white as snow, her features fresh and charming. Her dark eyes threw fiery, unwittingly inviting glances. As she was packing up her butter to go, I called to her across the water, ‘Dear girl, dear girl, your lovely hands may have cooled the butter in the stream but your clear, sharp eyes have pierced my heart and set it on fire!’ As soon as she saw me and heard my voice, she ran off without a word, leaving me with the daft fancies that haunt any young man whom love’s arrow has just struck.

  The deep desire to be warmed once again by the rays of that sun made me cancel my self-imposed exile and pay no more heed to the nightingale’s song than to a wolf’s howling. I too trotted off, back to the town, sending my servant on ahead to buttonhole the girl and keep bargaining with her until I turned up. He played his part and I, arriving on the scene, played mine. However, I encountered a stoniness of heart and iciness of manner that I’d never thought to find in a country lass – which of course made me want her even more. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in such a pickle, and I could see the girl wouldn’t be an easy lay.

  What I needed just then was either a sworn enemy or a wise friend – an enemy to direct my thoughts at, taking my mind off this crazy infatuation, or a friend who’d talk some sense into me and warn me off this stupid course. Unfortunately, I had neither. I had only money, which blinded me, my already blind lusts, which led me astray because I’d let them off the leash, and my boundless depravity, which invariably got me into trouble. What an idiot I was! I should have taken our outfits that day as boding no good: clearly, luck was not about to smile on us. When we’d first set eyes on each other, we’d both been wearing mourning – I because my Herzbruder had just died, she since she’d recently lost her parents. How could our courtship ever have turned out well? I’d been entangled in my own foolishness, blind as a bat and knowing no better (like the infant Cupid), and now, seeing no other way of satisfying my bestial lusts, I made up my mind to wed her. ‘Look,’ I thought, ‘you’re of simple farming stock yourself. You’re never going to live in a castle. And this is a fine part of the world; unlike other places, all through this horrible war it’s known only peace and prosperity. Plus you’ve got the money to buy the finest farm in the neighbourhood. And to cap it all you want to marry this honest peasant maid and settle down to a quiet life amid the easy bustle of peasant business. Where could you find a nicer place to live than right here, in this spa? With visitors to the town coming and going, your social setting will change every six weeks or so; you’ll be cushioned by a comforting image of the planet rolling from one century to the next.’ Many thousands of such thoughts passed through my head until at last I popped the question and (not without effort, mind you) received a ‘yes’.

  Eight

  Simplicius embarks on his second marriage, bumps into dad, and learns who his parents had been

  I laid on a first-class wedding feast, feeling as I did (and as you can well imagine, I’m sure) over the moon. Not only did I buy up the entire farm my bride had been born on; I began building a grand extension, making it clear to everyone I had ideas a long way above my station, and before I’d even consummated the marriage I had more than thirty head of cattle munching away contentedly, because that was how many the spread could accommodate – all year round, too. I wanted things tip-top, with bells and whistles included. Everything had to be the latest (and costliest) model. All my decisions were dictated by stupidity, I know. But then I had the wind in my sails; I was scudding along to where I wanted to be. I was way off course, though – I soon saw that. Another thing I saw (far too late) was why my bride had been slow to consent. However, what hurt most was not having anyone to complain to without showing myself up. The fault was mine and mine alone. All right – ‘easy come, easy go,’ as they say; I could see that now. But it didn’t make me any more patient, let alone God-fearing. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. Feeling so diddled, all I could think of was getting my own back. My eye took to wandering again, and that was something it was freer to do among my new friends in town than stuck at home. I let the household slide. So did my wife, actually. I’d arranged to have an ox slaughtered and butchered on the premises; she salted it away in baskets. One time, preparing a sucking pig for my dinner, she began plucking it like a fowl. She tried to cook crayfish on the grill and spit-roast trout. But those were just some of the things she did that annoyed me; I leave you to imagine what the rest of my life was like. Also, she started tippling and had friends round for wine. And that looked like making a hole in the housekeeping.

  One day, as I and some mates were strolling down the valley to attend a party in town, we met an old peasant leading a goat on a string in a way that suggested he wanted to sell it. I thought I’d seen the man before somewhere, so I stopped and asked him where he hailed from with his goat. He doffed his cap and replied, ‘Sir, that I really can’t say.’ I asked further, ‘You wouldn’t have stolen it, by any chance?’ ‘No, no, sir,’ the man answered. ‘But I come from a little place farther down the valley that I can’t tell the gentleman the name of in front of the goat here.’ This got a laugh out of the group I was with – until they noticed that the blood had drained from my face. My mates thought I’d taken offence in some way or been embarrassed by the old fellow pulling my leg with his smart answer. It was neither of those things. The large wart sticking out of the peasant’s forehead, making him resemble a unicorn, had persuaded me this was my dad from the Spessart. However, I decided to pose briefly as a mind-reader before revealing my identity; confident his eyes would widen in pride at seeing what a fine son he had (as at that point in my life my clothes suggested). So I said, ‘You’re from the Spessart, aren’t you, old boy?’ ‘I am, sir,’ he replied. I went on: ‘And didn’t you, some eighteen years back, have your house and farm buildings plundered and burnt to the ground by a raiding party?’ ‘I did, sir, God save us,’ he answered, ‘only it wasn’t as long ago as that.’ ‘And didn’t you have two children at the time,’ I asked further, ‘a grown-up girl and a small boy who tended your sheep?’ ‘Sir,’ dad answered, ‘the girl was mine but not the boy, though I meant to rear him as my son.’ From which I gathered that I was not the scrote’s own sprog. This pleased me at first, but on second thoughts the implication that I was a bastard or some kind of foundling rather bothered me. So I asked dad straight out: where had he come across said lad and what had persuaded him to raise me as his own? ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘it was a strange thing, that – a mighty strange thing. War brought him to me, and it was war took him away again.’ That bothered me even more. The way the story was going suggested something less than flattering with regard to my birth. So, steering the conversation back to the goat, I asked whether he’d sold it to the landlady at the inn for her to serve up to her guests. I’d be surprised, I added; spa visitors weren’t used to eating old goat. ‘Oh no, sir,’ the peasant answered. ‘The landlady has goats of her own; she wouldn’t pay for one. No, this is for the countess who’s come here
for the waters. Her quack has written out a long list of herbs that the goat has to eat. Then they milk the goat and the quack takes the milk away and comes back with a medicine that will perk her ladyship up. She needs oomph, apparently, and if the goat does the trick she’ll have more than the doc and the appomithackeries together.’ As the old man chuntered on, I wondered how I could manage a quiet word with him on his own. What I did, I offered him one thaler more for the goat than either doctor or countess were prepared to pay. This he promptly accepted (the thought of a bonus will soon change minds, I’ve found) – on one condition: I must let him notify the countess that he’d had a better offer. If she then upped her own offer by the same amount or more, the animal would be hers; if not, he’d sell the goat to me. He’d tell me one way or the other by evening, he said.

  So off dad sloped, while I and my mates continued on our way. However, having lost all taste for their company, I soon turned on my heel and marched back to rejoin dad. He still had the goat with him, no one having topped my offer – which rather surprised me, with so many wealthy folk around, but didn’t make me lower it. I took him to my newly purchased farm, paid him for the goat, and sat him in front of a drink. When I’d got him well tipsy, I asked him where the lad had come from that we’d been talking about earlier. ‘Thir,’ he replied, ‘the Mansfeld campaign brung ’im, Battle of Nördlingen snatched him back.’ ‘That sounds interesting,’ I said. ‘Tell me the whole thing. And take all the time you like; I adore a good yarn.’ So he obliged. And this (I paraphrase) was his story: ‘When Mansfeld lost the Battle of Höchst, his fleeing armies scattered far and wide. Not everyone knew where to seek refuge. Many came into the Spessart, looking for forest cover in which to hide. However, having escaped death on the flat, they found it in the mountains. Fact was, both sides saw fit to prey on and slaughter each other up there, on our patch, and we locals were caught up in it. It wasn’t often a farmer ventured into the forest unarmed. You could hardly expect us to stay home with our mattocks and our ploughs when the raiding parties were out. One chaotic day, having heard shooting in a particularly wild part of the forest not far from my farm, I came across a beautiful young noblewoman on a fine-looking horse. She sat astride, so I’d taken her for a bloke at first. However, when I saw the figure raise both arms skyward and cry out to God in a pathetic voice (addressing him in French), I lowered the musket I’d put to my shoulder and uncocked it. I knew right away, from the way the voice sounded and the way the body moved, that here was a damsel in distress. I approached, and when she became aware of my presence she said, “You, sir, please, if you’re a honest Christian soul, I beg of you, in the name of God and of his mercy – in the name, too, of the Last Judgement, before which we must all stand in fear and trembling, giving true account of ourselves, take me straight to some pious womenfolk who with God’s aid will deliver me of the fruit of my womb!” The urgency of her plea, reminding me of God’s greatness, coupled with the pious invocations in which it was couched, plus the fact that her troubled but nonetheless lovely and alluring aspect really got to me, together made me seize her horse’s bridle and lead the beast and its precious burden through the undergrowth to the densest part of the forest, where I’d stowed away wife, child, staff and livestock. In less than half an hour she’d dropped the little lad we were talking about before.’