Simplicissimus (2 page)

But to return to my own flock, you must know that I was as little acquainted with wolves as I was with my own ignorance, for which reason my father took all the more pains with my instruction. ‘Kidder’, he said, ‘make sure the sheep divent gan too far from each other. An’ keep playin’ yer pipes, so the wolf won’t come an’ harm ‘em. Yon’s a fower-legged rogue and thief that’ll eat up man and beast. If ye divent keep yer eye open, Aw’ll gie ye a right skelpin’.’ To which I answered with similar courtesy, ‘Da, can ye no tell me what this wolf looks laike? Aw’ve nivver seen won yet.’ ‘Ach, ye great donkey’, he replied, ‘ye’ll be a fule all yer laife. I divent ken what’ll become ov ye. Such a big laddie and still ye divent ken what a fower-footed rogue the wolf is, ye great booby.’ He gave me even more instruction, but eventually grew angry and went away muttering to himself, thinking my dim wits could not take his subtle instructions.

Then I began to play my pipes so well you could have poisoned the toads in the herb garden with it, assuming I would be safe enough from the wolf, which was always uppermost in my mind. And remembering my Ma (which is what a mother is called in the Spessart and on the Vogelsberg), who often used to say she was worried some day the hens might die of my singing, I decided to sing, to make my defence against the wolf even stronger. And I sang a song I had learnt from my Ma herself:

That was as far I got with my song and no farther for in a flash, or so it seemed, I and my herd of sheep were surrounded by a troop of dragoons who had lost their way in the great forest and been put back on the right track by my singing and shepherd’s cries.

Aha, I thought, these must be the rogues, these must be those four-legged rascals and thieves your Da told you about! For at first I took rider and horse to be one single beast (just as the American indians did the Spanish cavalry) and assumed it must be the wolf. So I resolved to drive these terrible centaurs away, but hardly had I inflated my pipes to do this than one of them grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me so roughly onto a spare farm horse they had stolen in the course of their depredations that I fell off over the other side and landed on my dear bagpipes, which immediately gave out heart-rending squeals, as if trying to move the whole world to pity. But it was no use, even though they spent their last breath bewailing my fall I still had to climb back onto the horse, no matter what my bagpipes sang or said. But what annoyed me most of all was that the soldiers claimed that in falling I had hurt my pipes, and that was why they had set up such a heretical wailing.

My mare took me along at a steady trot, all the way to my Da’s farm. As I rode, bizarre fancies filled my mind, for I imagined that since I was riding on such a beast, the like of which I had never seen before, I too would be changed into one of these iron men. When the transformation did not happen, other foolish notions came into my head. I imagined these strange creatures had come just to help me drive my sheep home, since none of them ate any up, but hurried along together straight to my Da’s farm. Therefore I kept a good look-out for my Da, to see whether he and my Ma would come to meet us and bid us welcome. But I looked in vain, for he and my Ma, together with our Ursula, who was my Da’s only daughter, had slipped out of the back door without waiting for our guests.

I would prefer, peace-loving reader, not to take you with these troopers into my Da’s house and farm, since things will be pretty bad there. However, my story demands that I set down for posterity the cruel atrocities that were committed from time to time in our German wars since, as my own example demonstrates, all such evils are visited upon us by the Almighty out of His great love towards us and for our own good. How else would I have learnt that there is a God in Heaven if the soldiers had not destroyed my Da’s house, thus forcing me out into the world where I met other people from whom I learnt so many things? Until that happened I did not know, nor could I even imagine, that there was anyone else in the world apart from my Da, my Ma, myself and the servants, since I had never seen another person, nor any human habitation apart from the scene of my daily comings and goings. But soon afterwards I learnt how men come into this world, and that there will be a time when each of us must leave it again. In form I was human and by name a Christian, but in all other respects I was a brute beast. However, the Almighty took pity on my innocence, and determined to bring me to knowledge of both myself and Himself. And although He had a thousand means of achieving this, it was doubtless deliberate that the one He chose also punished my Da and my Ma, as a warning to others for the ungodly way they had brought me up.

The first thing the troopers did was to stable their horses. Then each went about his own particular task, though they all resulted in slaughter and destruction. Some set about a general butchering, boiling and roasting, so that it looked as if they were going to hold a banquet, while others went through the house from top to bottom like a devouring flame, as if the Golden Fleece were likely to be hidden there; even our secret room was not safe from them. Another group made huge bundles of sheets, clothes and other items, as if they intended to set up a flea market somewhere; anything they were not going to take with them they destroyed. Some stabbed at the hay and straw with their swords, as if they had not had enough sheep and pigs to slaughter already, some emptied the feathers out of the mattresses and eiderdowns and filled the cases with hams and other dried meat and provisions, as if that would make them more comfortable for sleeping on; some smashed the stove and windows, as if they were sure the summer would go on for ever. The plates, cups and jugs of copper and pewter they hammered flat and packed the crumpled pieces away, bedsteads, tables, chairs and benches they burnt, even though there was a good stack of dry wood in the yard, cups and bowls they broke, either because they preferred to eat roast meat straight from the spit, or because they had no intention of having another meal there.

Shameful to report, they handed out such rough treatment to our maid in the stall that she was unable to come out. Our farmhand they gave a drink they called Swedish ale: they bound him and laid him on the ground with a stick holding open his mouth, into which they poured a milking pail full of slurry from the dung heap. By this means they forced him to lead a party to a place where they captured more men and beasts, which they brought back to our farm. Among them were my Da, my Ma and our Ursula.

Then they took the flints out of their pistols, replacing them with the peasants’ thumbs, which they screwed up tight, as if they were extracting confessions from witches before burning them; they put one of the peasants into the oven and lit a fire under him even before he had confessed to any crime; they placed a rope round the neck of another and twisted it tight with a piece of wood so that the blood came spurting out of his mouth, nose and ears. In short, each one of them had his own particular method of torturing the country folk, and each of the country folk his own particular torment to suffer. It seemed to me at the time that my Da was the most fortunate of them, since he laughed out loud as he confessed, while the others cried out in pain. This honour was doubtless due to the fact that he was the householder. They put him down beside a fire, bound him hand and foot, and smeared the soles of his feet with damp salt which our old billy goat licked off, tickling him so that he almost burst his sides laughing. It looked so funny I found myself laughing too, though whether it was to keep him company or because I knew no better I could not say today. Laughing thus, he confessed his guilt and revealed to them the whereabouts of his hidden treasure, which was far richer in gold, pearls and jewels than one would have expected of a simple farmer. What they did to the women, maidservants and girls they had captured I cannot say, as the soldiers did not let me watch them. What I do know is that I heard constant pitiful cries coming from all corners of the farmhouse and I guess that my Ma and our Ursula fared no better than all the rest. While all this suffering was going on I turned the spit and in the afternoon helped water the horses, during which I came across our maid in the stable. She was so tousled and tumbled that I did not recognise her, but in a weak voice she said to me, ‘Run away, lad, or the troopers will take you with them. Make sure you get away, you can see how bad … ’ More she did not manage to say.

Now my eyes were opened to my desperate situation, and I began to think of the best way to escape. But where could I go? That question was beyond my simple mind. However, towards evening I did at least succeed in getting away to the woods. But where should I head for now? The forest and its tracks were as little known to me as the route over the frozen Arctic seas from Novaya Zemlya to China. The pitch-dark night did give me some protection, but to my mind, full of dark thoughts as it was, it was still not dark enough, and I hid in a thick bush. There I could hear both the cries of the tortured peasants and the song of the nightingales. The birds ignored the peasants and continued their sweet singing, showing no compassion for them or their misfortunes, and therefore neither did I, but curled up in my bush and fell asleep as if I hadn’t a care in the world.

When the morning star appeared in the east, I could see my Da’s house in flames and no one trying to put them out. I left my hiding place, hoping I might find some of my Da’s servants, but was immediately spotted by five troopers, who shouted to me, ‘Hey, lad, over here or we’ll blast you to smithereens.’ However, I just stood there, rooted to the spot and gaping at the troopers like a cat at a new barn door, because I had no idea what they were on about. They couldn’t get at me because of the marsh between us, which so annoyed them that one of them fired at me with his musket. I had never seen or heard anything like the flames which suddenly shot out and the unexpected bang, which was made even more frightening by the repeated echo. I was struck with terror and immediately fell to the ground. The troopers rode on, presumably thinking I was dead, but I was so petrified with fear that I stayed there, not daring to move, for the rest of the day.

When I was once more shrouded in darkness, I got up and wandered through the forest until I saw a rotten tree-trunk glowing in the distance. This filled me with terror again, so that I turned round on the spot and set off in a different direction until I came across another rotten tree, from which I also ran away. Thus I spent the night running from one rotten tree to another until it was light and the trees lost their frightening look. But that didn’t solve my problems. My heart was still full of fear and dread, my legs full of tiredness, my empty stomach full of hunger, my throat full of thirst, my brain full of foolish fancies and my eyes full of sleep. Nevertheless, I carried on walking, even though I had no idea where I was going. All the while I was getting deeper into the forest and farther from human habitation. In the things I endured in that forest I sensed, though without realising it, the effects of a lack of understanding and knowledge. A brute beast, had it been in my place, would have known better what to do for survival. Yet when I was once again overtaken by darkness, I did at least have the wit to crawl into a hollow tree and spend the night there.