Simplicissimus (19 page)

I soon became a familiar figure to most of the officers in the camps of both the Saxon and the Imperial regiments and I was especially popular with the women, who decorated my cap, sleeves and severed ears with silk ribbons of all sorts of colours. I think some of the fops must have copied the current fashion from me. The money the officers gave me I charitably put back into circulation down to the very last copper by getting drunk on Hamburg and Zerbst beer, which I found very much to my taste, with a group of like-minded companions. Beside that, there were plenty of chances of a free drink wherever I went.

But when my colonel bought me a lute of my own – he presumed he would have me with him for good – he appointed a kind of tutor to keep an eye on me and whom I was to obey, which meant that I could not roam round the camps at will any longer. This tutor was a man after my own heart, quiet, intelligent, learned, a good but not excessive conversationalist, and, what was most important, God-fearing, well-read and knowledgeable in all kinds of sciences and arts. I had to sleep in his tent with him at night and during the day I was not allowed out of his sight. He had been councillor and minister to a prince. He had also been very rich, but had been completely ruined by the Swedes; his wife was dead and his son so poor that he had to leave the university and join the army of the Elector of Saxony as a company clerk. My tutor had taken service with the colonel as equerry, waiting for the fortunes of war along the Elbe to change so that he could be restored to his former glory.

Since my tutor was getting on in years, he could not sleep right through the night, and this led to him discovering my secret within the first few weeks and hearing from my own lips that I wasn’t the fool I pretended to be. He already had his suspicions, since he was familiar with the science of physiognomy and had formed his own conclusion from his study of my face. The proof, however, came one night when I awoke at midnight. I got up and reflected on my life and strange adventures, thanking God out loud for all His blessings and all the dangers He had rescued me from. Then I went back to bed, sighing deeply, and slept until morning.

He heard everything, but pretended to be fast asleep. This happened for several nights running, until he was absolutely certain my wits were sharper than those of many an older man who thought much of himself. He said nothing of this to me in the tent because the walls were too thin and he had reason not to let anyone else in on the secret before he was convinced of my innocence. One day I went for a walk outside the camp and he allowed me to go because it gave him the chance to come to look for me and talk to me alone. He found me, as he wanted, in a lonely place, rehearsing my thoughts, and said, ‘My dear friend, I only want what is best for you, and for that reason I am glad to have the chance to speak to your here alone. I know you’re not the fool you pretend to be and would rather not have to continue in that wretched and despised situation. I am an honest man and if you will trust me and tell me how this came about, I will give you all the help and advice I can to try and get you out of that fool’s costume.’

I was so overjoyed at this that I embraced him as if he were a magician come to free me from my fool’s cap. We sat down on the ground and I told him the story of my life. He read my palm and expressed his astonishment at the strange things which had happened to me and at those which were still to come. However, he advised me not to lay aside my fool’s outfit too soon for, he said, by chiromancy he could see the threat of prison hanging over me, bringing danger to life and limb. I thanked him for his kindness towards me and his good advice, asking God to reward him for his honesty and him to be a true friend and father to me, since I was alone in the world.

Then we set off and came to the gaming yard where they joust with dice and every oath has blood, thunder or a pox on it. The yard was about as big as the Old Market in Cologne and was covered with tables or cloaks spread on the ground, all surrounded by gamblers. Each group had three of these rectangular devil’s bones to which they entrusted their fortune, for they had to share out their money, giving some to one, taking some from another. At every coat or table there was an umpire whose job it was to keep an eye on the game and see that no one was cheated. I almost wrote ‘vampire’, for these umpires hired out the cloaks, tables and dice and were so adept at taking their percentage from the winnings that they usually ended up with most of the money. However, they got very little out of it since they usually gambled it away again, or if they did spend it, it went on drink, or on the surgeon’s services as there were always a lot of cuts and bruises to be mended.

It was astonishing to see these foolish people, all of whom thought they were going to win, which was impossible unless they picked their stakes out of someone else’s pocket. Although they all hoped their luck would be in, some hit and others missed, some won and others lost, so that some roared and others cursed, some cheated and others were duped, the winners laughed and the losers gnashed their teeth. Some sold their clothes and any articles of value they had, and others won that money off them as well. Some demanded honest dice, while some wanted loaded ones and secretly slipped them into the game, but others threw them away, broke them, chewed them and tore the cloak on which the game was being played.

Among the doctored dice were so-called Netherlands dice which you had to roll along the ground, because the faces with the five and six on were as sharply pointed as the sawing horses they put soldiers on as punishment. Then there were the ‘Oberland dice’ which you had to cast with a high ‘Bavarian toss’. Some were of horn and made so that they were light on top, heavy at the bottom, being loaded with quicksilver or lead, with chopped-up hair, sponges, chaff or coal; some had sharp corners, on others they had been completely worn away; some were long, like clubs, others broad, like tortoises. However, all these different types had but one purpose, cheating, and they rolled the way they had been made to roll, no matter how you threw them, whether you flipped them up into the air or let them trickle gently onto the cloak. There was nothing you could do about these loaded dice, not to mention those that had two fives or sixes or, at the other end, two ones or twos. With these devil’s bones they cheated, tricked and stole the money off each other, which they had perhaps originally acquired by robbery, or at least at danger to life and limb or through hard work.

While I was standing there observing the gaming-yard together with the gamblers and their stupidity, my tutor asked me what I thought of it. ‘I don’t like the way they keep on blaspheming’, I answered, ‘but otherwise I have no opinion on it since I don’t know the game and don’t understand what is going on.’

‘This’, he replied, ‘is the worst, most abominable place in the whole camp. They are all trying to take the others’ money and losing their own in the process. A man just has to set foot in here with the intention of gambling to break the tenth commandment, which says
Thou shalt not covet any thing which is thy neighbour’s
. If you gamble and win, especially by cheating with loaded dice, you break the seventh and eighth commandments. It can even make you into a murderer if the man whose money you have won has lost so much that he is plunged into poverty, misery and despair or falls into some other foul vice. It is no use trying to excuse yourself by saying, ‘I risked my own money and won honestly’, for you came to the gaming-yard with the express intention of getting rich through another man’s loss. And even if you then lose and gamble your own money away, that is not sufficient penance. Like the rich man, you will have to answer to God for squandering what He gave you to support yourself and your family. Any man who goes to the gaming-yard with the intention of gambling is in danger of losing not only his money, but life and limb and, what is worse by far, his own soul. I am telling you this, Simplicius, since you say you know nothing of gambling, in the hope that you will never become better acquainted with it.’

‘But if gambling is such a terrible and dangerous thing’, I replied, ‘why do the authorities permit it?’

‘I won’t say it is because some of the officers gamble themselves’, my tutor answered, ‘but the soldiers themselves refuse to give it up. Indeed, they are unable to give it up. Anyone who has taken up gambling, who has been bitten by the gambling bug, as they say, will eventually, win or lose, become so addicted to it that he can more easily go without sleep than without gambling, as you can see from those who spend the whole night rattling the dice, preferring it to the best food and drink, even if they end up losing their shirt.

They have banned gambling several times, on pain of corporal, even capital punishment. The generals ordered the provost-marshal and his underlings to stop it by force if necessary, but it made no difference, the gamblers just moved their games to secret corners or behind hedges and went on taking each others’ money, quarrelling and breaking each others’ necks over it. It was in order to prevent these killings, and because some men gambled away their muskets and horses, even their rations, that they not only allowed gambling in public again, but provided this yard for it so that the guard would be on hand if any trouble breaks out. Even then they cannot prevent the occasional man being killed here in the yard.

Since gambling is an invention of the devil and very profitable for him, he has appointed a special swarm of demons to go round the world with no other task than to encourage people to gamble. They bind various dissolute characters to them through pacts and agreements which guarantee they will win. Despite this, among ten thousand gamblers you will rarely find one who is rich. On the contrary, they are usually poor and needy since they do not value their winnings and therefore usually gamble them away again or squander them on riotous living. This is the origin of the saying that the devil never leaves a gambler but he leaves him sucked dry. He robs them of their wealth, courage and honour and does not leave them until he has robbed them (unless God in His boundless mercy prevents it) of their souls. If a gambler is of such a cheerful, light-hearted disposition that no loss or run of bad luck can bring him to melancholy, despair or any of the other sins they usually lead to, then Satan is cunning enough to let him keep on winning and ensnare him through dissipation, arrogance, gluttony, drunkenness, whoring and sodomy.’

I crossed myself at the thought that such an invention of the devil should be allowed in a Christian army, especially considering the evident material and spiritual damage it caused. My tutor, however, said what he had told me about was nothing. It would be impossible to describe all the harm caused by gambling. There was a saying that once the dice has left the hand the devil takes over. I should think of it, he went on, as if a tiny demon were running alongside the dice on the cloak or table, guiding it and making it come to rest showing the number that was to his master’s advantage. And I should remember it was not for nothing that the devil took such an interest in gambling, but that he profited greatly from it.

‘And just look’, he added, ‘at the haggling dealers and Jews hanging round the gaming-yard. They will buy up cheaply rings, clothes and jewels that have been won, or articles the players want to turn into cash so they can go on gambling. Here, too, the demons are on the alert for players who have finished, putting other thoughts in their minds, whether they have won or lost, that are harmful to their souls. For the winners he builds castles in the air; the losers, who are already distraught and therefore more open to his suggestions, he doubtless gives thoughts aimed at making them take their own lives.

I tell you, Simplicius, as soon as I am settled in my old circumstances again I intend to write a whole book on this subject. I will describe the waste of precious time spent on gambling, the violent oaths with which gamblers curse God and the abuse they hurl at each other, recounting many horrifying examples and stories which happened at, on and around the gaming tables, not forgetting the duels and murders that were caused by gambling. In my book the greed, rage, envy, falseness, deceit, cheating and thieving, in short, all the follies of those who play at dice or cards, will be described in such vivid colours that men will only have to read it once to be filled with a horror of gambling as if they had drunk sow’s milk, which they give to gambling addicts, without their knowledge, to cure them of the disease. I will demonstrate to all Christian men that God is blasphemed more by a company of gamblers than by a whole army.’

I praised his intention and expressed the hope that he would have the opportunity to carry it out.

The longer we were together, the fonder my tutor became of me, and I of him, though we kept our friendship a closely guarded secret. I played the fool still, but did not make dirty jokes or play vulgar pranks. My conversation and behaviour were simple enough, but tended to make people think rather than laugh.

One day the colonel, who was very keen on hunting, took me with him when he went out to catch partridges with a clap-net, an invention which impressed me very much. However, his pointer was so excitable that most of the time it went for the bird before we could snap the net shut, so that we caught very little. I advised the colonel to mate his bitch with a hawk or a golden eagle, just as they did with horses and asses when they wanted a mule, so that the puppies would have wings and thus be able to catch the partridges in the air. Since the siege of Magdeburg was going so slowly I also proposed to him that we should make a long rope as thick as a half hogshead, drag it round the city and get all the people and animals in the two camps to pull on either end and raze the city to the ground in a single day. I thought up an abundance of these silly jokes and stories every day; that was my trade and my store was never empty.