Simplicissimus (42 page)

‘Brother’, replied Oliver, ‘I love you as I love myself, of that you can be assured. The disrespect I showed you this afternoon in attacking you hurts me more than this bruise on my forehead you gave me in defending yourself like man. How can I refuse you anything? If you like, you can stay with me and you’ll be looked after as well as I look after myself. But if you don’t want to be with me, I’ll give you a fat purse and accompany you wherever you want to go. Believe me, Simplicius, this offer comes from the bottom of my heart. You’ll understand why when I tell you why I have such high regard for you. You remember how accurate old Herzbruder’s prophecies were? Well, he made me a prophecy in the camp before Magdeburg which I have made sure I remembered ever since. “Oliver”, he said, “whatever you think of our fool, the day will come when his boldness will put the fear of God into you. He will give you the worst drubbing you have ever had and it will be your fault for provoking him at some time in the future when neither recognises the other. But he will not only spare your life when he has you at his mercy, a while afterwards he will come to the place where you will be killed, where he will be happy to avenge your death.” Because of this prophecy, Simplicius my friend, I am ready to share everything with you, even the heart in my breast. One part was fulfilled when I gave you cause to shoot me in the head, like a brave soldier, and take my sword from me, which no one has ever managed before. You also spared my life when you had me pinned to the ground, almost choking on my own blood. I have no doubt that the part dealing with my death will also come about. From your vengeance, Simplicius, I must conclude that you are my most faithful friend. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t take it upon yourself. And now I have revealed my heart to you, tell me what you intend to do.’

The devil might trust you, I thought, but I don’t. If I take money for my journey from you, then you’re quite likely to dispatch me before I set out; if, on the other hand, I stay with you I’m in danger of being hung, drawn and quartered along with you. Accordingly I decided to dupe him into thinking I was going to stay with him and then get away at the first opportunity. Therefore I told him that if he would put up with me I would stay with him a week or so and see if I got a taste for this kind of life. If I did, he would find me a good friend and accomplice, if not, we could always part friends. At that he started to ply me with drink, but I still didn’t trust him and pretended to be drunk before I was to see if he would attack me when I was incapable of defending myself.

Meanwhile the fleas starting pestering me terribly. I had brought a good supply with me from Breisach and in the warmth of the room they were not content to stay in my rags but started wandering round, enjoying themselves. Oliver noticed this and asked me if I had lice as well. ‘Yes’, I said, ‘more than I’ll ever see ducats in my whole live.’

‘Don’t say that’, said Oliver, ‘if you stay with me you’ll easily get more ducats than you have lice at the moment.’

‘That’s just as likely as getting rid of these lice’, I said.

‘That’s right’, he said, ‘we’ll do both’, and he told his landlord to go and get me a suit of clothes that was hidden in a hollow tree not far from the house. There was a grey hat, a jerkin of elkskin, a pair of scarlet breeches and a grey coat. He would find me some socks and shoes in the morning, he said. Such generosity gave me greater confidence in his good faith and I went happily to bed.

Next morning, as it was getting light, Oliver said, ‘Up you get, Simplicius. For God’s sake, let’s be on our way and see what there is to be had out there.’

‘Good God!’ I said to myself, ‘am I going to go out robbing for your holy name’s sake? To think that at first after I left the hermit I was horrified just to hear someone say, “Come on, let’s go and sink a few glasses of wine for God’s sake.” I thought that was a double sin, getting drunk for God’s sake. O Lord, what a transformation since then! Dear Father in heaven, what will become of me if I don’t change my ways? Turn me back from this road, Lord, or I will end up in hell if I do not repent.’

These were my thoughts as I followed Oliver to a village where there was not a living soul to be seen. To get a better view we went up the church tower, which was where he had hidden the stockings and shoes he had promised me the previous evening. Together with them were two loaves of bread, some pieces of dried meat and a half-full cask of wine, enough for him to survive on for a whole week. While I was putting on the things he had given me, he told me he used to lie in wait there when he was on the look-out for a good haul, which was why it was so well provisioned. He had several such hide-outs, he added, each with its store of food and drink, so that if he drew a blank in one place he could try another. I was full of admiration for his ingenuity, but made it clear I did not approve of such misuse of a holy place that was dedicated to the service of God.

‘What do you mean “misuse”?’ he said. ‘If churches could talk they would tell you that what I am doing here is nothing compared to all the other sins committed in them. How many men and women, do you suppose, have come into this church since it was built ostensibly to serve God but in fact only to show off their new clothes, their handsome figure, their high rank and suchlike? One comes to the church dressed like a peacock and yet kneels before the altar as if he would pray the very feet off the saints; another sighs like the publican in the temple, but his sighs are directed at his beloved, and he feasts his eyes on her face, which is the only reason why he has come; a third comes to the church (he may even go in) with a bundle of papers, like someone collecting fire insurance, more to remind those who owe him rent than to pray. If he hadn’t known his debtors would be at church he would have stayed at home with his ledgers. On occasions it even happens that when the authorities have something to announce to a village the crier does it on Sunday at church so that some country folk fear church more than a condemned man the judge who will pronounce sentence. Don’t you agree there are many people buried in church who deserved to die on the block, gallows, fire or wheel?

Some men would never manage to get anywhere with their adulterous affairs if the church wasn’t such a good place to pursue them; in places if anything is to be sold or rented a notice is put on the church door; usurers who have no time to spare during the week sit in church during service thinking up new ways of squeezing money out of their victims; people sit talking with each other during mass or the sermon as if that was what the church had been built for; matters are often arranged which they wouldn’t dream of discussing in private houses; some sit there and sleep as if they had hired the place for that; others spend all their time gossiping about people, saying, ‘Didn’t the pastor get this or that person to a T in his sermon.’ Some pay great attention to the sermon, not in order to learn from it but so that they can criticise their pastor and pull him to pieces if he makes the slightest mistake, as they see it.

I won’t mention all the lecherous stories I have read where the church serves as a house of assignation. There is much more I could say on this whole subject than I can remember at the moment, but there is one more thing you should realise. People not only misuse the church for their vices during their life, but fill it with their vanity after their death. As soon as you enter a church you will see on gravestones and epitaphs the boasts of people who have long since been eaten up by worms. And if you look up you will see more shields and helmets, swords and daggers, banners, boots and spurs and the like than they have in some armories. It’s not surprising that during the present wars in some places the country folk used the churches as fortresses to defend their lives and possessions.

Given all this, why should I not be allowed as a soldier to carry on my trade in a church? You’ll remember the story of the Abbot of Fulda and the Bishop of Hildesheim who, during an argument over nothing more important than precedence, caused such a bloodbath in the church that it looked more like a slaughterhouse than a holy place. I am a layman and I would happily give up using the church for my business if others used it for divine worship alone; but those two, as ecclesiastics, did not respect the majesty of the Holy Roman Emperor. Why should I be forbidden to use the church to earn my living when so many others do just that? Is it right that rich people can pay for a tomb in the church, a monument to his pride and that of his family, while a poor person, who has no money but is just as much a Christian as the other, and may indeed have been more pious, is buried in some corner outside? It all depends on your point of view. If I’d known you’d have qualms about using the church as a look-out post, I’d have thought of somewhere more suitable to take you. However, since we’re here you’ll have to put up with it until I can persuade you to change your mind.’

What I would most like to have said was that I thought both he and the other people who defile the church were sinners who would get their just rewards, but since I still didn’t trust him and didn’t want to quarrel with him again, I let it be. Then he asked me to tell him everything that had happened to me since we had been separated at Wittstock. He also wanted to know how I came to be wearing a fool’s costume when I arrived at the camp outside Magdeburg. However, my throat was still so sore I didn’t feel up to it, so I asked him instead to tell me the story of his life, which probably, I said, contained some amusing episodes. He agreed and started to recount his infamous life.

‘My father’, said Oliver, ‘was born not far from the city of Aachen. His parents were poor so that even as a child he had to go out to work for a rich merchant who dealt in copper. He behaved so well that the man had him taught to read, write and do accounts, and put him in charge of his whole business, as Potiphar did Joseph. Both sides profited from this: through my father’s hard work and prudence the merchant became richer and richer; my father on the other hand grew prouder and prouder with his prosperous life and came to feel ashamed of his parents, even to despise them, which they often bemoaned, though to no avail.

When my father was twenty-five, the merchant died, leaving behind his old widow and their only daughter, who not long before had committed an indiscretion and let a young stallion father a bastard on her which, however, quickly followed his grandfather to the cemetery. Seeing that the daughter was now without father or child, but not without money, my father did not let himself be put off by the idea of taking spoilt goods. It was her wealth he had in mind when he began to court her, and her mother was happy to encourage him, not only to restore her daughter’s tarnished honour but because my father was the only one who knew about the business and was good at driving a hard bargain. The marriage instantly turned my father into a rich merchant and I was his son and heir. He lavished all the tender loving care on my upbringing that his wealth allowed; I was clothed like a gentleman, fed like a baron and waited on like a count. All of which I had copper and zinc to thank for rather than silver and gold.

Before I was fully seven years old I had already shown how I was going to turn out; nettles sting even when they’re young shoots. No piece of mischief was too much for me and if I could play a prank on someone I did so, since neither my father nor my mother punished me for it. I roamed the streets with other like-minded miscreants and had the guts to fight with boys bigger than myself. If I had the worst of it, my parents would say, “What’s this? A big lout like you fighting a child?” but if I came out on top (I could bite and scratch and throw stones), they would say, “Won’t our little Oliver grow up to be a big, brave fellow!” That made me even bolder. I was still too young to pray, but I could swear like a trooper, to which their response was that I didn’t know what I was saying. I became worse and worse until I was sent to school where I played all the tricks other naughty boys think up but daren’t actually carry out. If I blotted or tore my books my mother would buy me new ones to avoid a fit of temper from my skinflint father. I gave my schoolmaster a hard time since he couldn’t be too strict with me because of all the presents he received from my parents and he knew their little darling could do no wrong in their eyes. In the summer I caught crickets and hid them in the school where they entertained us with their merry chirping. In the winter I would steal some ground hellebore root and scatter it over the place where the boys were punished; whenever some obstinate young rascal struggled, my powder would fly all round the room, making everyone sneeze and me laugh. Eventually I thought myself above playing such ordinary tricks and concentrated on more ambitious things. I would often steal something and slip it into the bag of a boy I wanted to see get a thrashing. I became so crafty at this kind of thing that I was almost never caught. I don’t need to tell you about the wars we fought, in which I was usually our general, or the blows I received (my face was always covered in scratches, my head in bruises). Everyone knows the kind of thing boys get up to, but from these few stories you can tell how I spent my childhood.’

‘Since my father’s wealth was increasing daily, he was surrounded by more and more parasites and toadies. While they all praised my intelligence and insisted I must go to university, they said nothing about my bad habits, or at least excused them, knowing full well that anyone who didn’t do that would not get very far with my father or my mother. Consequently my parents felt prouder of their son than a reed warbler that raises a cuckoo. They hired a private tutor and sent me to Liege with him, more to learn French than to study, since they didn’t want to make a theologian out of me but a merchant. He had his orders not to be too strict with me so that I shouldn’t turn into a timorous, servile type; he was to let me join in with the other students and encourage me to be sociable, always remembering they didn’t want me to become a monk but a practical man of the world who knew what was what.