Simplicissimus (5 page)

That was all the advice this conscientious and pious man gave me. Not because that was all he knew, but firstly because he felt I was too young to be able to take in more on an occasion like this, and secondly because a brief word is more easily remembered than a long speech; and if it is pithy and to the point it does more good by making you think than a long sermon which is easily understood and just as easily forgotten.

The reason this pious man thought these three points – to know yourself, avoid bad company and be steadfast – were essential was doubtless because he practised them himself and found they stood him in good stead. After he had come to know himself, he shunned not only bad company, but the whole world and remained true to that resolve, on which doubtless eternal bliss depends, until the very end, the manner of which I will describe now.

After he had given me this advice, he started to dig his own grave with the mattock. I helped as best I could, doing as he told me, but with no idea what he was aiming at. Then he said, ‘My dear, true and only son (for apart from you I have fathered no other creature to the glory of the Creator), when my soul has gone to its destined abode, it will be your duty to pay your last respects to my body and cover me with the soil we have dug out of this hole.’ At that he took me in his arms, kissed me and pressed me to his breast, much more strongly than would have seemed possible for a man in his condition.

‘Dear child’, he continued, ‘I commend you to God’s care and die happy because I trust He will look after you.’ I for my part could do nothing but weep and moan. I clung to the chains he wore round his neck, thinking I could hold on to him and stop him leaving me. But he said, ‘My son, let me see if the grave is long enough.’ Taking off his chains and his robe, he lay down in the grave, like someone going to bed, and said, ‘O almighty God, take back the soul You gave me. Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit’, after which he gently closed his lips and eyes. But I stood there like a jackass, not imagining his dear soul could have left his body, since I had often seem him in such a trance. As I usually did when that happened, I remained beside the grave for several hours in prayer. When, however, my beloved hermit still did not get up, I got down into the grave and started shaking, kissing and caressing him. But there was no life left in him, since cruel, pitiless death had robbed poor Simplicius of his faithful companion. I watered or, to put it better, embalmed his lifeless corpse with my tears, and after I had spent some time running to and fro, wailing miserably, I started to heap the earth over him, more with sighs than with the spade. Scarcely had I covered his face than I jumped down into the grave to uncover it again, to see him and kiss him once more. This went on for the whole day until I had finished. These were all his funeral rites, his exequies, his funeral games, since there was no bier, coffin, shroud, candles, pall-bearers or mourners, nor any clergy to sing his requiem.

A few days after the hermit had died I went to the pastor I mentioned before and told him of my master’s death. At the same time I asked his advice about what to do at this turn of events. Yet despite the fact that he advised against staying in the forest any longer, I boldly followed in my predecessor’s footsteps and spent the whole summer living the life of a devout monk. But time changes all things, and the grief I felt for my hermit gradually lessened; at the same time the sharp winter cold quenched the inner fire of my firm resolve. The more I started to waver, the lazier I became at my prayers since, instead of contemplating divine and heavenly thoughts, I allowed myself to be overcome with the desire to see the world. As I was thus no longer capable of living a good life in the forest I decided to go back to the pastor and ask him if he still advised me to leave the forest. So I set of for his village, but when I got there I found it in flames, for a party of troopers had just plundered it, killed some of the peasants and driven off the rest, apart from the few they had taken captive, among them the pastor himself. Ah God, how full of trouble and adversity is a man’s life! Scarcely has one misfortune ended than we find ourselves in the next. It does not surprise me at all that the heathen philosopher, Timon, set up many gallows in Athens for people to hang themselves and bring their wretched lives to an end by inflicting one brief moment of pain on themselves.

The troopers were ready to depart and were leading the pastor on a rope. Some of them were shouting, ‘Shoot the rogue!’ while others wanted money from him. He, however, raised his hands and begged them to remember the Last Judgment and spare him out of Christian compassion. But all in vain, for one of them rode him down and gave him such a blow to the head that he fell flat on the ground and commended his soul to God. The other villagers who had been captured fared no better.

Just when the soldiers seemed to be going mad with murderous cruelty, a swarm of armed peasants came pouring out of the wood. It was as if someone had disturbed a wasps’ nest. They started to yell so horribly, to swing their swords and fire their guns so furiously that my hair stood on end, for never before had I seen such a brawl. The men of the Spessart and the Vogelsberg will not lie down and let themselves be trampled over on their own dung heap, no more than those of Hessen, the Sauerland and the Black Forest. This sent the troopers packing and they not only left behind the cattle they had taken, they cast off bag and baggage, throwing away all their plunder so that they themselves should not fall prey to the villagers. Even then some were captured.

This entertainment almost took away my desire to see the world. If this is what goes on in it, I thought, then the wilderness is more pleasant by far. However, I still wanted to hear what the pastor would have to say about it. From the wounds and blows he had received, he was quite weak and feeble, and he told me he could neither help nor advise me, since he himself was in a situation where he would probably have to beg for his bread. If I were to continue to stay in the forest I could expect no assistance from him since, as I could see with my own eyes, both his church and parsonage were in flames.

At that I made my way sadly back to my hut in the woods. Since my journey to the village had brought me little comfort but had turned my mind once more to pious thoughts, I decided I would never leave the wilderness again. I was already wondering if it would be possible for me to live without salt (which until now the pastor had always brought) and so do without mankind altogether?

So that I could carry out my decision and become a true anchorite, I put on the hair shirt my hermit had left me and girded myself with his chain. It was not that I needed them to mortify my recalcitrant flesh. I put it on so that I would be like my predecessor both in my way of life and in my dress; also this garment provided better protection against the harsh winter cold.

On the second day after the village had been burnt and pillaged, as I was sitting in my hut praying and at the same time roasting carrots over the fire for my sustenance, I was surrounded by forty or fifty musketeers. Although astonished at my strange appearance, they ransacked my hut, looking for things that were not to be found there, for all I had was books, which they threw into a jumble since they had no use for them. At last, when they had a better look at me and could tell from my plumage what a poor fowl they had caught, they could easily work out what meagre pickings were to be had here. Then they expressed their astonishment at my hard life and greatly pitied my tender youth, especially the officer who commanded them. He bowed respectfully to me, at the same time asking me to show him and his men the way out of the forest, for they had been lost in it for some time now. I did not refuse, and led them to the nearest path to the village, since that was the only way I knew.

Before we were out of the forest, however, we saw about ten peasants, some armed with firelocks, others busy burying something. The musketeers ran at them crying, ‘Stop! Stop!’ to which the peasants replied with their muskets. But when they saw they were outnumbered by the soldiers, they ran off quickly so that none of the tired musketeers could catch them. They therefore decided to dig up what the peasants had just buried, which was all the easier since the peasants had left their picks and shovels behind. Hardly had they started digging, however, than they heard a voice from below crying out, ‘You wanton rogues! You arch-villains! Do you think Heaven will leave your unchristian cruelty and knavery unpunished. No! There are still honest men enough alive who will take such vengeance on you for your brutality that none of your fellow men will ever lick your arses ever again.’ At this the soldiers looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Some thought they were hearing a ghost, I thought I was dreaming, but their officer told them not to be afraid and keep on digging. They soon uncovered a barrel and, breaking it open, found a fellow inside who had neither ears nor nose left, but was still alive despite that.

As soon as he had recovered a little, and recognised some of the soldiers, he told them how, the previous day when men from his regiment were out foraging, the peasants had captured six of them. Only an hour ago they had made them stand one behind another and shot five of them dead. However, as he was at the back and the bullet had not reached him after going through the five bodies, they had cut off his nose and ears, though not before forcing him to lick – if the reader will forgive me for mentioning it – the arses of five of them. When he found himself thus mocked by these despicable, God-forsaken wretches, he heaped on them the foulest abuse he could think of. Even though they were going to spare his life, he told them exactly what he thought of them in the hope that one would lose patience and put an end to his suffering with a bullet. It was all in vain however. He annoyed them so much they put him in the barrel in which the musketeers had found him and buried him alive. As he was so keen to die, they said, they had decided not to grant his wish, just to spite him.

While he was bemoaning the agony he had been through, another party of foot-soldiers appeared from one side. They had met the peasants, captured five of them and killed the rest. Among the captives were four of those for whom the mutilated trooper had been forced to perform the shameful service only a short time ago. When the two parties realised, from their shouts, that they were on the same side, they came together and once more the trooper told what had happened to him and his comrades. Then you would have been astonished to see how the peasants were maltreated. Some of the soldiers were so furious they wanted to shoot them straight away, but others said, ‘No. First of all we must subject them to torture, but thoroughly, to pay them back for what they did to this trooper.’ While this was going on the peasants received such blows to the ribs with muskets that I was surprised they did not start to spit blood. Finally a soldier stepped forward and said, ‘Gentlemen, the abominable way these five peasants treated this rascal (pointing to the trooper) brings shame on all soldiers, so it is quite right for us to wash out this blot on our honour by making these rogues lick the trooper one hundred times.’ Another, however, said, ‘This fellow is not worth the honour we do him. If he had not been such an idle coward, he would surely have died a thousand deaths rather than perform this shameful service, to the dishonour of all soldiers.’ Finally all were agreed that each of the peasants who had been thus cleansed should perform the same service to ten soldiers; and each time they must say, ‘Herewith I wash away and erase the shame the soldiers imagine they suffered when a coward licked our backsides.’ They put off a decision as to what they would do with the peasants afterwards until the latter had carried out their cleansing task. But the peasants were obstinate, and neither promises to let them go free, nor torture could make them comply.

Meanwhile one of the soldiers took aside the fifth peasant, who had not had his arse licked, and said to him, ‘If you will deny God and his saints, I will let you go wherever you like.’ To this the peasant answered that he had never thought anything of the saints and had had little to do with God, and swore a solemn oath that he did not know God and had no desire to enter His kingdom. At that the soldier fired a bullet at his forehead, which, however, had no more effect than if he had fired at a mountain of steel. Then he drew his sword and said, ‘Oho, so that’s who we’re dealing with, is it? I promised to let you go where you liked, so now I’m sending you down to hell, since you don’t want to go to heaven’, and split his head right down to the teeth. As the peasant fell, the soldier said, ‘That’s the way to avenge yourself, punishing these rogues in this world and the next.’

At the same time the other soldiers were dealing with the four peasants who had had their arses licked. They bound their hands and feet together round a fallen tree in such a way that their backsides (if you will forgive me again) were sticking up nicely in the air. Then they pulled down their trousers, took several yards of fuse, tied knots in it and ran it up and down in their arses to such effect that the blood came pouring out. The peasants screamed pitifully, but the soldiers were enjoying it and did not stop their sawing until they were through the skin and flesh and down to the bone.

However, they allowed me to return to my hut, since the party which had just arrived knew the way, so I never saw what they finally did to the peasants.

When I arrived home I found that my tinder-box and all my household possessions were gone, together with the meagre store of food I had grown during the summer in my garden and saved for the coming winter. What should I do now? I wondered. I quickly learnt the truth of the saying that necessity soon teaches you to pray. I gathered all my wits together to try and work out what I could do. Since, however, I was almost completely lacking in experience nothing that looked likely to succeed occurred to me. The best I could think of was to commend myself to God and put my trust in Him alone. Otherwise I would doubtless have fallen into despair and perished.