Simplicissimus (36 page)

So I set off for France, acting as postillion to the two young noblemen. Nothing special happened on the way, we arrived in Paris and went to see our Cologne landlord’s correspondent, who honoured the letters of credit. The next morning, however, I was arrested, along with the horses. Some man arrived claiming my landlord owed him a sum of money and, with the approval of the commissioner of the district, took the horses and sold them, ignoring all my protests.

So there I was, stuck in a foreign country with no idea what to do, nor how I was going to make such a long and, in those days, extremely dangerous journey back home. The two young noblemen were very sympathetic and even more generous with their tip than they would otherwise have been. They refused to let me go before I had found either a good position or a good opportunity of getting back to Germany. They rented lodgings and I stayed with them for several days, looking after one of them who, not being used to the long journey, had fallen ill. And since I did it so well, he gave me the clothes he was not wearing any more because he had had new ones made in the latest fashion. Their advice was to stay in Paris for a few years to learn the language, the valuables I had in Cologne would not, as they put it, run away.

While I was still wondering what to do and trying to make up my mind, the doctor who came every day to treat the sick nobleman heard me playing the lute and singing a German song, which he liked so well that he offered me a good salary with board and lodging if I would come and teach his two sons. He understood my situation better than I did myself and knew that I would not reject the offer of a good position. The two noblemen did all they could to persuade me and gave me an excellent reference, so that we soon came to an agreement, though I would only commit myself from one quarter to the next.

This doctor spoke German as well as I did and Italian like a native, which made me all the more willing to take service with him. He was invited to the farewell dinner I had with the two noblemen. I was brooding over black thoughts, thinking of my newly wed wife, my promised command, my treasure in Cologne, all of which I had foolishly allowed myself to be persuaded to abandon. And when the conversation came round to our former landlord’s parsimony an idea suddenly occurred to me and I said, ‘Who knows, perhaps our landlord deliberately got me stuck here so he can collect my treasure in Cologne and keep it?’ The doctor replied that might well be so, especially if he believed I was not from the nobility. ‘No’, replied one of the noblemen, ‘if he was sent here with the intention he should stay then it was done because he tormented our landlord so much for his penny-pinching ways.’

‘I think there’s another reason’, said the one who had been ill. ‘Recently I was in my room and I heard the landlord and his French servant having a loud conversation, so I listened to hear what it was about. I managed to make out from the servant’s mangled German that he was complaining the Huntsman had slandered him to his mistress, saying he didn’t look after the horses properly. Because his servant expressed himself in such a garbled way, however, the jealous fool misunderstood and took him to be suggesting something dishonourable and assured the Frenchman he would not have long to wait before the Huntsman was gone. After that he looked at his wife with a suspicious eye and vented his anger on her much more furiously than before, as I observed myself.’

‘Whatever the motive’, said the doctor, ‘I’m convinced it was done to keep you here. But don’t worry, I’ll find a way of getting you back to Germany. In the meantime, however, write and tell him he must look after your treasure well or he will be called strictly to account. I’m coming to suspect this was all a put-up job. The man who pretended to be the creditor is a good friend of your landlord and his correspondent here and I’m willing to wager it was you yourself who brought the IOU to Paris, on the basis of which he seized the horses and sold them.’

Seeing how concerned I was, Monsieur Canard, as my new master was called, offered to help me both in word and deed so that I shouldn’t lose the money and valuables I had in Cologne. As soon as I had moved into his house he asked me to tell him how my affairs stood. The better he understood my situation, he said, the better he could advise me. I felt I would not be held in very high esteem if I revealed the truth about my background, so I said I was an impoverished German nobleman who had neither father nor mother, only a few relatives in a fortress that was garrisoned by the Swedes. All this, I said, I had kept secret from my landlord and the two young noblemen in Cologne who, being of the imperial party, might confiscate my treasure as enemy property. My idea was to write to the commandant of the above-mentioned fortress, in whose regiment I was an ensign, tell him how it was I had been tricked into coming here and ask him to collect my property and give it to my friends to look after until I had the opportunity of getting back to the regiment. Canard approved of this plan and promised to make sure my letter reached its destination, even if it were in Mexico or China. Accordingly I wrote letters to my darling wife, my father-in-law and Colonel de Saint Andrée, the commandant of Lippstadt, to whom I addressed the envelope, putting the other two letters in with the one to him. I told them I would return as soon as I managed to get the money for such a long journey and asked both my father-in-law and the commandant to try to get my property back through military channels before it was too late. I also appended a list detailing how much it consisted of in gold, silver and jewels. I made duplicate copies of the letters, just in case one should get lost; Monsieur Canard took care of one set, while I entrusted the other to the post.

This cheered me up and put me in the right mood to start instructing his two sons, who were being brought up like young princes. As Monsieur Canard was very rich, he was also very proud and liked to make a show. He had caught this disease from the members of the aristocracy with whom he had dealings almost every day and whom he aped in everything. His household was run like a duke’s palace, and the only thing lacking was that he wasn’t addressed as ‘Your Grace’. His opinion of himself was so great that if a marquis should happen to visit him he treated him as no better than himself. He also gave poor people his remedies and did not charge the small sum due for them but let them have them free to boost his reputation.

Since I had an inquiring mind and knew that he used me to show off when I lined up with the other servants behind him during his sick calls, I got into the habit of helping him prepare his medicines in his laboratory. Through that, and because he liked to speak German, I became quite friendly with him and asked him why he did not use the name of the noble estate outside Paris he had recently bought for 20,000 crowns as a title. I also asked why he was determined his two sons should become doctors and made them study so hard. Given that he already had a title of nobility, would it not be better, I wondered, to do as other gentlemen did and buy them some office so that they would belong fully to the nobility.

‘No’, he replied. ‘When I go to see a prince, he says, “Ah, doctor, do sit down”, but to some noble he will say, “Wait on me there”.’

‘But don’t you know’, I said, ‘that a doctor has three faces: the face of an angel when the patient sees him, the face of a god when he treats him, and the face of a demon when he’s well again and wants to get rid of him. The respect you get only lasts as long as the wind in his belly. Once it’s gone and the rumbling’s stopped, your respect’s gone with it. Then it’s, “Doctor, there’s the door.” There’s more honour in a nobleman’s standing than in a doctor’s sitting. A nobleman waits on his prince all the time and has the honour of always being at his side. Didn’t you recently have to take some of a prince’s excrement in your mouth to see what it tasted of? I’d rather spend ten years standing in attendance than taste someone else’s shit, even if he made my life a bed of roses.’

‘I didn’t
have
to eat it’, he replied, ‘I did it so the prince would see what great pains I went to in order to diagnose his condition and increase my honorarium accordingly. Why shouldn’t I eat someone’s shit if they reward me with a few hundred pistoles, while I make them eat much worse filth and don’t pay them a sou? You’re talking like a German; if you came from another nation I’d say you were talking like a fool.’

I left it at that, since I could see he was getting angry. To get him back in a good mood, I begged him to put it down to my simplicity and turned the conversation to more pleasant matters.

Monsieur Canard had more game to throw away than some people with their own hunting grounds have to eat; on top of that he was made presents of more flesh and fowl than he and his household could consume. The result was that every day he had so many parasites at his table that it looked as if he were keeping open house. On one occasion the Lord Chamberlain and other eminent personages from the court came to visit him and he gave them a princely dinner, since he knew how important it was for him to keep in with those who were always in the king’s presence or were in favour with him.

As a token of his esteem, and for their pleasure and delight, he asked me to do him and his distinguished guests the honour of playing them a German song on my lute. I was happy to oblige, being in the mood at the moment – we musicians are a very temperamental lot – and gave of my best. The company was so pleased with my playing and singing that the Lord Chamberlain remarked that it was a pity I could not speak French, otherwise he would recommend me strongly to the king and queen. The doctor, afraid of losing my services, quickly replied that, being of noble birth, I would hardly want to take employment as a musician and anyway I did not intend to stay long in France. At that the Lord Chamberlain said that he had never seen such a handsome figure, a clear voice and a skilled lutenist all in the one person. There was a play to be performed soon before the king in the Louvre, he went on, and if he could get me to take part he was sure it would bring great honour. Monsieur Canard put this to me and I answered that if someone were to tell me what character I was to play and what songs I was to sing, I could learn both the tunes and the songs off by heart and sing them to my lute, even if they were in French. My brain was surely at least as good as that of the schoolboys they usually employed for these parts, and they too had to learn both words and gestures by heart.

When the Lord Chamberlain saw how keen I was I had to promise to go to the Louvre the very next day for an audition to see if I was suitable. I appeared at the appointed time and played the tunes of the various songs perfectly at sight from the tablature. Then I was given the French songs to learn by heart, including the correct pronunciation; they came accompanied with a German translation to help me find the gestures to fit. I did not find it difficult at all and had everything ready sooner than they expected. In fact I did it so well that when I sang anyone would have sworn I was a born Frenchman, or so Monsieur Canard said. The part I had was Orpheus mourning for his Eurydice and the first time we came together to rehearse I did all my gestures, songs and tunes so plaintively that everyone believed I must have played the role several times before.

I have never had such a pleasant day in all my life as the one when we performed the play. Monsieur Canard gave me something to make my voice sound clearer than ever, but when he tried to improve my complexion with talcum oil and powder my shining black curly hair he decided he was just spoiling the effect. I was crowned with a laurel wreath and dressed in a sea-green robe which left my neck, the upper part of my chest, my arms up to the elbows and my legs up to the thighs bare for all to see. Around it I flung a flesh-coloured taffeta cloak, more like a banner than a cloak. In this costume I languished for Eurydice, sang a pretty song begging Venus to help me and finally carried off my love. I acted out the whole scene excellently, gazing at my love with sighs and yearning looks. After I had lost my Eurydice I put on a black costume, cut in the same fashion so that my white skin shone out like snow. As I mourned my lost wife I became so stricken with grief that in the middle of my sad arias and melodies the tears came and threatened to stop me singing. However, I managed to get through by turning it into a nice trill. Then I went down to hell, where I sang a very moving aria in which I reminded Pluto and Proserpina of their love for each other, from which they could imagine the pain Eurydice and I felt at being separated. Assuming a most reverent posture and accompanying everything on my harp, I begged them to allow her to return to me, and when they agreed I thanked them with a joyful song, so transforming my expression, gestures and voice that the audience were amazed. But when I suddenly lost her again I imagined the greatest danger a man could face and turned as pale as if I were about to faint. Since by that time I was alone on the stage and everyone in the audience was watching me, I made a special effort and was praised for having acted best of all.

Then I sat on a rock, bewailing the loss of my love with plaintive words and a sad melody and calling on all creatures to have pity on me. At that all kinds of tame and wild animals came up to me, mountains, trees and other such things, so that it looked as if it had been done by magic. I made only one mistake, and that was at the end, after I had renounced all women, been torn apart by the Bacchantes and thrown into the water. It was so arranged that only my head was visible, the rest of my body being safely hidden under the stage. The dragon was supposed to devour me, but the man who was inside the dragon operating it could not see my head and so made the creature nibble the grass beside my head. This looked so ridiculous that I could not stop a smile from flitting across my face which was noted by the ladies, who never took their eyes off me.