Simplicissimus (21 page)

‘Of course’, said old Herzbruder. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I was hoping, sir’, said the lieutenant, ‘you would be so kind as to see your way to drawing up my horoscope.’

‘I hope you will forgive me’, replied Herzbruder, ‘but I really cannot, because of my illness. That kind of work demands a lot of calculations and my head is not up to it just now. If you can come back tomorrow I hope I shall be able to oblige you then.’

‘Very well’, said the lieutenant, ‘but would you read my hand in the meantime?’

‘Sir’, replied Herzbruder, ‘that art is very uncertain and can be deceptive so I would ask you to excuse me for the moment. I will do everything you want tomorrow.’

But the lieutenant refused to be put off. He went right up to my father’s bed, stretched out his hand and said, ‘Just a few words about the way my life will end, sir. I assure you that if what you say contains bad news I will regard it as a warning from God to take better care of myself. For God’s sake, do not keep the truth from me.’

The honest old man’s reply was brief and to the point. ‘Then, sir, you had better take care not to be hanged this very hour.’

‘What, you old rascal’, cried the lieutenant, who was drunk as a fiddler’s bitch, ‘is that how you address a gentleman?’ drew his sword and stabbed my dear friend to death in his bed. The orderly and I immediately set up a cry of ‘Murder’ so that the whole camp ran to arms. The lieutenant did not wait but made a swift exit on his horse and would doubtless have escaped had not the Elector of Saxony arrived at that very moment with a large contingent of cavalry, some of whom he sent to catch him. When the Elector heard what had happened he said to Hatzfeld, our general, ‘It says little for discipline in an Imperial camp if a man is not safe from murderers on his sick-bed.’ It was a severe verdict, enough to cost the lieutenant his life, for the general had him strung up straight away by his precious neck.

This true story shows that not every prophecy should be rejected out of hand, as some people do whose minds are so closed they cannot believe anything at all. It shows how well-nigh impossible it is for any man to live beyond his predestined end, even if he has been been forewarned of it a short or long time before. To those who ask whether it is a good idea for people to have their horoscope drawn up and their future foretold I will just say that old Herzbruder told me so many things that I often wished, and still do wish, he had said nothing at all. I have been unable to avoid any of the misfortunes he predicted and the sleep I lose over those which have still not happened is to no avail; whether I make preparation for them or not, they are going to come about, just as the others did. And as for the pieces of good fortune that are predicted, I think they are very often a disappointment, or at least people find they do not live up to the expectations the wretched prophecies raise. What good was it to me that Herzbruder swore by all that was holy that I had been born and bred of noble parents when the only ones I knew of were my Da and my Ma and they were common peasants in the Spessart? Similarly, what good was it to Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, that it was prophesied he would be crowned king to the sound of viols? Do we not all know the violent end he met at Eger? However, I will let others rack their brains over this question and get back to my story.

Once I had lost my two Herzbruders there was nothing left for me in the camp outside Magdeburg, which, anyway, had been so battered during previous sieges that it was no more than a collection of canvas tents and straw huts surrounded by earthworks. I was so completely fed up with my role as fool you would have thought I had been eating jokes and quips by the ladleful. I decided I would get rid of my jester’s outfit, whatever the cost, and stop being an object of ridicule. However, as I will now relate, I went about it in a rather careless fashion, since no better opportunity came my way.

Oliver, the secretary, had been appointed my tutor after old Herzbruder’s death, and he often allowed me to ride out foraging with the servants. One day, when we were in a village where some of the cavalry baggage was stored and everyone kept going in and out of the houses, looking for anything they could take, I slipped away to see if I could find some old peasants’ clothes to put on in place of my fool’s costume. However, I couldn’t find what I was looking for and had to make do with a woman’s dress. As soon as I was alone I put it on and dropped my calfskin outfit down the lavatory, imagining my troubles were now over. Dressed like this I set off across the street to where some officers’ wives were standing, taking little mincing steps such as Achilles might have done when his mother sent him disguised as a girl to stay with Lycomedes. Hardly had I left the house, however, than some of the foragers saw me and soon had me legging it as fast as I could. ‘Hey, stop!’ they shouted, which only made me run all the quicker. I reached the officers’ wives before they caught me, fell down on my knees and begged them, in the name of women’s honour and virtue, to protect my virginity from being ravished by this lecherous crew. Not only was my request granted, the wife of a cavalry captain took me on as her maid and I stayed with her until our forces had taken Magdeburg, the ramparts at Werben, Havelberg and Perleberg.

This captain’s wife, although still young, was no innocent babe. She became so infatuated with my smooth cheeks and slim figure that, after making great efforts with veiled hints and insinuations, she finally told me only too clearly how I could be of service to her. In those days, however, I was much too strait-laced and pretended I had not understood and did nothing to suggest I was anything other than a pious young virgin. The captain and his servant were both suffering from the same disease, and the former ordered his wife to find me some better clothes so that, he said, she would not be shown up by my peasant smock. She did more than that and decked me out like a French doll, which only served to add fuel to the fires all three of them were consumed with. Eventually they were all so hot with desire that the master and his servant were both begging for what I could not give them, while I also refused it, most politely, to the lady.

Finally the captain decided to set up an opportunity to take by force what it was impossible for him to have from me. His wife realised this and since she was still hoping to overcome my resistance herself, she put obstacles in his path at every turn and frustrated all his ploys so he began to think he was going out of his mind. One night, when his master and mistress were asleep, the servant appeared beside the carriage where I had to sleep, poured out his passion for me with tears running down his cheeks and solemnly begged me to have pity on his distress. But I stayed as hard as stone and gave him to understand I intended to remain chaste until I was married, at which he immediately offered a thousand times to marry me. When I told him it was impossible for me to wed him, he became desperate, or at least pretended to, drew his dagger and placed the point on his breast, the hilt against the carriage, as if he were about to run himself through. Perhaps he really does intend to kill himself, I thought, so I put him off with a promise that I would give him a final decision the next morning.

That satisfied him and he went off to his bed. I, however, lay awake thinking about the strange situation I was in. It was clear that no good could come of it in the long run. The lady’s caresses were becoming more and more importunate, the captain’s suggestions more and more brazen and the servant’s protestations of love more and more desperate. I felt I was in a labyrinth from which there was no escape. The lady often made me catch fleas in broad daylight just to let me see her alabaster breasts and touch her delicate body which, since I was only flesh and blood too, I found more and more difficult to bear, and if his wife left me in peace the captain tormented me. And at night, when the two of them left me alone and I ought to be getting some rest, the servant came pestering me.

All in all, I was much worse off in my woman’s clothes than I had ever been in my fool’s costume. It was at this point – far too late – that I remembered old Herzbruder’s prophecy and imagined I must be in the prison he had warned me of. I was imprisoned in my women’s dress and could not escape without danger to life and limb, for if the captain realised who I was and caught me catching fleas with his beautiful wife I would have been in for a terrible thrashing. What should I do? Finally I decided to tell the servant the truth when he came in the morning, thinking, ‘That will soon cool his ardour and if you slip him a few ducats he’ll surely get you some man’s clothes and that should solve all your problems.’ It would have been a well thought-out plan if luck had been with me, but it wasn’t.

For Hans the next morning began immediately after midnight, and he came to get his answer, shaking the carriage just as I was falling into my deepest sleep. He called out, a bit too loudly, ‘Sabina, Sabina, oh darling, get up and keep your promise’, so that he woke the captain, whose tent was next to the carriage, before he woke me. As the latter was already consumed with jealousy, this sent him into a fury. However, he didn’t come out and interrupt but just got up to see how things would turn out.

Eventually the servant managed to wake me with his importunate rattling and demanded I either come out and join him or let him into the carriage. I told him off for this. Did he think I was a whore? Any promise I had made yesterday was on condition of marriage and that was the only way he was going to possess me. He replied that I should get up anyway as it was already starting to get light. He would go and get water and wood and light the fire for me.

‘If you’re going to do that’, I answered, ‘then I can sleep a bit longer. You go, I’ll come soon.’

However, the fool would not leave off so I got up, more to do my work than to please him, especially since the desperation he had shown the previous evening seemed to have gone. In the camp I managed to pass pretty well for a maidservant as I had learnt to cook, bake and wash when I was with the Czech arquebusiers. The soldiers’ women do not spin when they are in the field anyway, and the captain’s wife was happy to overlook the other woman’s work I could not do, such as brushing and braiding her hair, since she knew very well that I had not been trained.

When I climbed out of the carriage with my sleeves rolled up Hans was so aroused by the sight of my white arm that he could not stop himself kissing me. And since I did not put up any great resistance the captain, before whose very eyes it was happening, leapt out of his tent, sword drawn, to run my poor lover through who, however, ran off and forgot to come back. To me the captain said, ‘I’ll teach you, you damned whore.’ He was in such a fury he was incapable of saying any more, but struck out at me as if he had gone out of his mind. I started to scream and he had to stop for fear of raising the alarm, since both armies, the Saxon and the Imperial, were stationed close together because the Swedes under Banér were approaching.

When it was light and both armies were striking their tents, my master handed me over to the stable-boys. They were the scum of the earth, which meant the treatment I was going to have to endure would be all the more terrible. As was the custom of these fiends when a woman was handed over to them like this, they hurried off to a thicket with me, where they could more easily satisfy their bestial lusts, and a lot of other men followed to watch the fun.

Among these was my Hans, who had not let me out of his sight. When he realised what was about to happen he determined to rescue me by force, even if it meant risking his life. He said I was his promised bride-to-be and found some supporters who felt sorry for both of us and were willing to help him. That, of course, the stable-boys would not have. They thought they had a better right to me and refused to hand over such a prize, meeting force with force so that the two sides started to exchange blows. The longer the fight went on the more people joined in and the greater the tumult became until eventually it was almost like a tournament in which each was doing his best for the sake of one fair lady.

The screaming and shouting attracted the attention of the provost-marshal, who arrived just as they had torn the clothes from my body and seen that I wasn’t a woman. When they saw him, everyone froze; they were more afraid of the provost-marshal than of the devil himself. All those who a moment ago had been at each others’ throats quickly separated. He briefly inquired into the matter and, contrary to my hope that he would save me, in fact arrested me. That a man should be found in a military camp dressed as a woman was unusual, not to say downright suspicious. Accordingly he and his men set off with me, passing all the regiments, which were drawn up in marching order, to hand me over to the judge-advocate-general or the provost-general. As we were passing my colonel’s regiment, however, he recognised me and addressed me. As a result he found me some rags to put on and I was handed over to our old provost-sergeant who clapped me in irons, hand and foot.

It was hard work marching in chains and fetters and I would also have been tortured by hunger if Oliver, the secretary, had not paid for my meals. I had managed to keep hold of my ducats, but I couldn’t afford to let them be seen or I would have lost the lot and put myself in even greater danger into the bargain. That same evening Oliver told me why I was kept in such close custody and the regimental intelligence officer was ordered to question me immediately so that my statement could be sent to the judge-advocate-general as soon as possible. They not only thought I was a spy but also that I was involved in witchcraft. Shortly after I had left my colonel they had burnt a number of witches who, before they died, confessed that they had seen me when they gathered together to try and dry up the Elbe so that Magdeburg would be captured more quickly. I was required to answer the following points: