Simplicissimus (53 page)

We started talking and they were kind enough to invite me to join them at the fire and share their black bread and curd cheese, both of which I accepted. Eventually we got on so well that they asked me, as a wandering scholar, to tell their fortunes. Since I knew something of physiognomy and palmistry, I started telling them, one after the other, things I thought they would like to hear in order to keep on the right side of them, for I still did not feel entirely at my ease with these wild wood-folk. They wanted me to teach them all kinds of clever tricks, but I fobbed them off with promises that I would do so in the morning because I needed to sleep a while now. Having thus played the gypsy for them, I went and lay down a little way off, more in order to eavesdrop and see what they intended to do than to sleep, not that I wouldn’t have dropped off straight away if I had had the chance. The more I snored, the more wide-awake they became and started arguing about who I might be. They didn’t take me for a soldier because of the black clothes I was wearing, but they didn’t think a respectable citizen would be wandering through the depths of the forest at this strange hour either. Finally they decided I must be an incompetent apprentice who had lost his way or, since I was so good at telling fortunes, the wandering scholar I had claimed to be. ‘But’, another one said, ‘he didn’t know everything, for all that. He could well be a soldier who’s disguised himself to spy out our cattle and the tracks through the forest. If we were sure of that we’d send him to such a sleep he’d never wake up from.’ Immediately another butted in who thought I was something quite different. All the while I lay there, listening with both ears. If these bumpkins set on me, I thought to myself, I’m going to take three or four with me before they finish me off.

While they were talking among themselves and I was worrying about what they might do, I suddenly felt as if someone were lying beside me who had peed the bed, for I was completely soaked. Oh dear! Now I could kiss all my plans goodbye, for I knew at once from the smell that it was my mineral spring. I was so furious that I almost started a fight with the six woodmen. I jumped up with my huge cudgel and shouted, ‘You miserable sinners, this mineral spring welling up from where I was lying should tell you who I am. I would be quite justified in punishing you so severely, because of the evil thoughts you have in mind, that the devil himself would come to take away the remains.’ At the same time I made such threatening gestures that they all cowered in fear. However I very quickly came to my senses and realised how stupid I was being. Better lose the spring, I thought, than your life, which you might easily do if you start mixing it with these louts. So I changed my tone, before they started getting other ideas, and said, ‘Come and try this delicious spring that I have put here in this wilderness for you and all other resin-collecters to enjoy.’ They didn’t quite know what to make of all this and gawped at each other until they saw me calmly take a drink out of my hat. Then they each got up from their places round the fire and tried the water, but instead of thanking me they started to complain, saying they wished I’d put my spring somewhere else because if the lord of the manor should hear of it the whole district of Dornstetten would be forced to labour to make a road to it, which would be a great hardship for them.

‘But then’, I said, ‘you’ll all profit from it by finding a ready market for your chickens, eggs, butter, cattle etc.’

‘No, no’, they said, ‘the lord of the manor will put in an innkeeper and he’ll be the only one to make money out of it. We’ll be the fools who maintain all the roads and paths for him and don’t even get thanked for it.’ It ended in a disagreement. Two wanted to keep the spring and four told me to get rid of it which, had it been in my power, I would certainly have done whether they wanted me to or not.

By now it was light again and I had no reason to stay, indeed I was afraid that if I remained there much longer we would end up coming to blows. I told them that if they didn’t want all the cows in the valley of Baiersbronn to give red milk for as long as my spring continued to flow they should show me the way to Seebach. They were happy to do so, and two of them accompanied me, one alone being too frightened.

So I left that place and although it was poor land with nothing more than pine trees growing I would have liked to put a curse on it to make it even more barren, since all my hopes were buried there. However, I walked on in silence with my two guides until we came to the top of the ridge, from which I could recognise the lie of the land, where I turned to them and said, ‘You two can make something out of this new spring if you go and report it to the authorities. There’ll surely be a reward in it for you, because the prince will want to develop it for the good and profit of the whole country and advertise it abroad to promote his own interests.’

‘Oh yes’, they replied, ‘we’re stupid enough to make a stick to beat our own backsides. We wish the devil would come and take you and your mineral spring too! You’ve heard why we don’t want it.’

‘You hopeless clods!’ I said. ‘Or perhaps I should call you treacherous rogues since you depart from the pious ways of your forefathers, who were so loyal that their prince used to boast he could lay his head in the lap of any of his subjects and sleep safely. But you wretches, you’re so worried about a little bit of work, for which you’ll eventually be paid and your children and grandchildren will reap the benefit, you refuse to make this healing spring known, even though it would bring great benefit to your prince and health and well-being to many who are ill! What’s a few days forced labour compared to that?’

‘If you go on like this’, they said, ‘we’ll be forced to belabour you to death to keep your mineral spring secret.’

‘There’d have to be more of you to do that!’ I replied, brandished my cudgel and chased them away, after which I kept going downhill and to the south and west, reaching my farm towards evening after much toil and trouble. My Da had spoken the truth when he said all I would get from the journey was weary legs and a long journey back.

Once I was home again I lived a very retired life. My greatest pleasure was my books, of which I acquired a great number on all sorts of subjects, especially ones that made me think deeply. I had soon had enough of academic knowledge and just as quickly tired of arithmetic. Nor was it long before I came to hate music like the plague and smashed my lute to smithereens. Mathematics and geometry still had some appeal for me, but I soon dropped them for astronomy and astrology, which I studied with great enjoyment for a while before they too began to strike me as false and uncertain and not worth wasting more time on. I tried Ramon Lull’s
Ars Magna
but found it was much ado about nothing, just so much empty air, so I abandoned it and turned to the
Cabala
of the Hebrews and the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians.

Eventually, however, I came to the conclusion that there was no better subject than theology if you make use of it to love and serve God. Following its guidelines I worked out a way of life which could bring men closer to the angels: if, namely, you brought together a group of men and women, both married and single, who, under the direction of a wise leader, were willing like the Anabaptists to produce everything they needed by the work of their own hands and spend the rest of their time praising God and seeking salvation. I had previously seen people living this kind of life on the Anabaptist farms in Hungary, and if these good people had not been committed to other false and heretical doctrines abhorrent to the Christian church I would willingly have joined them, or at least praised their way of life as the most pleasing to God in the whole world.

They reminded me very much of the way Josephus describes the Jewish sect of the Essenes. They had great riches and a surplus of food, but they did not squander them; there was no swearing, muttering or impatience, not a single non-essential word was heard. I saw their craftsmen busy in the workshops as if their lives depended on it, their schoolmaster was teaching the young people as if they were his own children, and nowhere were the sexes mixed, men and women had their own places and their own tasks to perform. I found rooms kept for women in confinement who were cared for by other women without any help from their husbands, and there were other separate rooms that contained nothing but cradles with babies that were looked after by women whose job it was to clean and feed them so that all their mothers had to do was come at three set times a day to breast-feed them. The business of looking after the women in confinement and the babies was reserved to the widows; other women I saw doing nothing but spinning in a room with a over hundred spindles. Of the rest, each had her own responsibility: one washed clothes, another made the beds, a third kept the cattle, a fourth washed pots, a fifth waited at table, a sixth looked after the linen and so on. It was the same for the men, each had his own appointed occupation. If anyone should fall ill they had a male or female nurse to look after them, both of whom were were trained in general medicine and pharmacy. In fact, however, their diet was so healthy and their lives so well-ordered that I saw many more who were still hale and hearty at a ripe old age than you find elsewhere.

They had set times for eating and sleeping, but not a single minute for playing or going for walks, apart from the young people, who went out for an hour after lunch with their tutor for the sake of their health, but had to pray and sing hymns while they were doing so. Anger, envy, revenge, jealousy, enmity were unknown, there was no concern for worldly goods, no pride and no remorse! In short, it was a world of content and harmony, the sole purpose of which seemed to be to contribute honourably to the increase of the human race and the kingdom of God. The only time a husband saw his wife was at the set time when they were in their bedroom, which contained nothing but a bed and bedclothes, a chamber pot, a jug of water and a white towel so they could go to bed and to work in the morning with clean hands. They all called each other brother and sister and lived together in such virtuous companionship it never led to unchastity.

I would have dearly loved to be able to achieve such a blessed life as these Anabaptist heretics; to me it even seemed superior to a monastic existence. ‘If you could manage to lead such an honest, Christian life under your church’, I said to myself, ‘you would be another St. Dominic or St. Francis, and if you could only convert the Anabaptists so they would teach your own people their way of life, what bliss that would be! Or, failing that, if you could persuade your fellow Christians to lead such honest, Christian lives as these Anabaptists, would that not be a great achievement?’ Then I thought, ‘You fool, what concern of yours are other people? You might as well become a Capuchin friar, since you can’t stand women any more.’ But I soon changed my mind again and told myself, ‘You might feel differently tomorrow. Who knows what paths you might tread in future to follow Christ’s teaching? Today your inclination is toward chastity, tomorrow you could well be burning with desire.’

I spent a long time musing over such thoughts. I would gladly have devoted my farm and my whole wealth to a united Christian community, but my Da told me straight out that I would never succeed in getting such a group together.

That autumn French, Swedish and Hessian troops approached, to recover their strength and at the same time blockade the nearby imperial city of Offenburg, reputedly founded by and named after an ancient English king. Everyone fled to the high woods, taking their cattle and most valuable possessions with them; I did the same as my neighbours and left the house fairly empty. A Swedish colonel on half pay was quartered in it and found some books still in the cupboard, as I had not had time to take them all with me. Among them were a few mathematical and geometrical treatises and some on fortifications which were mainly used by engineers. The colonel concluded from this that his lodgings did not belong to an ordinary farmer and so began to make enquiries about me and tried to contact me. Through a mixture of polite invitations and threats he got me to go to my farm to see him. He was very civil towards me, ordering his servants not to break or damage anything unnecessarily, and this persuaded me to tell him about myself, especially my family background. At this he expressed his surprise that I should prefer to live among peasants while there was a war going on and watch someone else tie his horse up in my stable when I could be stabling my own in another’s and enjoying a more honourable position at the same time. I should buckle on my sword again, he said, and use the talents God had given me instead of letting them waste away by the fireside or behind the plough. He was certain that if I were to enter the Swedish service my talents and knowledge of warfare would soon take me to high rank.

My response to all this was cool. Promotion, I said, was a distant prospect if one had no friend at court to put in a word for one. To this he replied that my abilities would soon bring me both friends and promotion. In addition he had no doubt I would find relatives in the main Swedish main army who counted for something, for there were many Scottish noblemen there. He himself, he went on, had been promised a regiment by Torstenson and if the promise was kept, which he had no reason to doubt, he would make me his lieutenant-colonel. I allowed myself to be tempted by these fine words. Since peace looked very unlikely, I was faced with the prospect of further billeting and complete ruin, so I resolved to take up arms again and promised the colonel I would join him if he kept his promise about the position of lieutenant-colonel in his regiment.