Simplicissimus (37 page)
Beside the praise I received from many people, this play not only brought me an excellent reward but also a new name. From now on the French insisted on calling me ‘Beau Alman’. As it was carnival time there were more such plays and ballets, in which I also performed, though eventually I found that I was making others jealous because I attracted all eyes, especially those of the women. I gave up appearing on stage after one particular time when I took some rather hard blows: dressed as Hercules in nothing but a lion skin, I was fighting with Achelous for Deianira, and he used rather more force than is normal in a play.
Through this I became known to a number of highly placed personages, and it looked as if luck was about to smile on me again. I was offered a position in the king’s service, a chance even some big fish never get. One day when I was working in the laboratory with Monsieur Canard – out of interest I had learnt to dissolve, resolve, sublimate, purgate, coagulate, calcinate, filtrate and all the other many alcomical processes which he used to prepare his medicines – a lackey came to see him and handed him a note. ‘Monsieur Beau Alman’, said the doctor, ‘this letter concerns you. A gentleman of rank requests that you go and see him straight away to discuss the possibility of your instructing his son on the lute. He asks me to do all I can to persuade you to go, and promises the he will remain for ever in your debt for your trouble.’
I replied that if I could do him (Monsieur Canard, that is) a service by being of service to anyone, then I would make every effort to do so. At that he said I should put on some other clothes and accompany the lackey; while I was changing he would have something to eat prepared for me since I had quite a long way to go and was unlikely to get there before evening. So I smartened myself up and hurriedly ate a little of the food. I noticed some of the tiny sausages seemed to have a rather strong medicinal taste. Then I went with the lackey. We followed a strangely roundabout way for over an hour until, towards evening, we came to a garden gate, which he unlocked and then closed behind me. He took me into a summer-house in the corner of the garden and down a fairly long corridor where he knocked on a door which was immediately opened by an old gentlewoman. She addressed me in German, bidding me a polite welcome and asking me to enter, at which the lackey, who spoke no German, bowed low and left.
The old woman took me by the hand and led me into the room, which was hung with the most magnificent tapestries and beautifully decorated. She told me to sit down so that I could take a rest and she would tell me why I had been brought to this place. I sat on the chair she placed beside the fire, which was lit, since it was quite chilly in the room, and she sat beside me. ‘Monsieur’, she said, ‘if you know anything of the power of love, if you know how it can overwhelm the bravest, strongest, cleverest of men, then you will not be at all surprised to hear that it can subjugate a weak woman. You have not been brought here by some gentleman for your lute-playing, that was just a pretence to persuade you and Monsieur Canard, but for the sake of your outstanding good looks by the most excellent lady in all Paris. She feels she will die if she does not soon have the pleasure of seeing your divine body and being revived by it. Since I am also German, she has commanded me to tell you this and to beg you, more urgently than Venus did Adonis, to go to her this evening and let her feast her eyes on your handsome figure. You will surely not refuse this request from a most noble lady?’
‘Madam’, I replied, ‘I don’t know what to think, far less what to say. I cannot believe I am worthy for a lady of such quality to desire me in this way. It also occurs to me that if this lady who wants to see me is of such high rank as you suggest, she could just as easily have sent for me during the daytime and not so late in the evening, nor in such a lonely place. Why did she not command me to go directly to her? What am I doing in this garden? As a fellow-countrywoman you will forgive me, being a foreigner stranded in this country, for feeling afraid I might be the object of some trick, especially since I was asked to come and meet a gentleman and now I am here I find myself in a quite different situation. I tell you, if through some treachery I were threatened with physical danger I would make good use of my sword before I was killed.’
‘Calm down, calm down Monsieur Beau Alman’, she replied, ‘and put these thoughts out of your mind. We women are strange and cautious in our plans so that at first you find it difficult to fall in with them. If the person who has fallen so completely in love with you had wanted you to know who and what she was, she would not have had you brought to her by this route but through the front door. There is a hood’, she went on, pointing to the table, ‘which you must wear while you are being taken to her. She does not want you to recognise the place, never mind the person you are visiting. And I must impress on you as strongly as I can to respect the lady’s high rank as much as the inexpressible love she has for you. Otherwise you will soon discover that she has the power to punish your arrogant disdain, even in a matter such as this. If, however, you show yourself to be suitably obliging towards the lady you can rest assured that the least exertion you make on her behalf will not go unrewarded.’
It gradually grew dark and I was filled with worries and fears, so that I sat there like a wooden statue. I could well imagine that I might not get out of this place as easily as I had come in. However, I eventually agreed to everything that was demanded of me and said to the old gentlewoman, ‘Well then, assuming things are as you have described them, I will entrust myself to your German honesty. You would not, I hope, allow an innocent fellow-countryman to be led into a trap. Go ahead then, do with me as you have been commanded; I presume the lady you told me about isn’t planning to kill me with her basilisk eyes.’
‘God forbid!’ she said. ‘It would be a pity if a body like yours, which our whole nation can be proud of, were to die so soon. Rather than dying you will find more pleasure than you ever imagined in your whole life.’
Now that I had agreed, she called for Jean and Pierre, who immediately appeared from behind a tapestry, each wearing a cuirass and armed from head to toe, with a halberd and a pistol in their hands. I went pale with shock at the sight. Noticing this, the old woman said, ‘There’s no need to be so frightened when you’re visiting a young lady’, and ordered the two men to take off their armour, just keeping their pistols, pick up the lantern and accompany us. Then she put the black velvet hood over my head and led me by the hand, carrying my hat under her arm. It was a very circuitous route; I could tell that we went through many doors and along a paved path. After what must have been a quarter of an hour I had to go up a short flight of stone steps, at the top of which a small door was opened which took me into a corridor with stone flags, up a spiral staircase, then down several steps again. After another six paces I heard a further door open. The old gentlewoman led me in, took off the mask, and I found myself in a charmingly decorated room. The walls were covered with beautiful pictures, the sideboard with silver dishes and the curtains round the bed with gold embroidery. In the middle was a table set with magnificent glass and cutlery, and in front of the fire a bath, which was very pretty in itself but, in my opinion, rather spoilt the effect of the room as a whole.
‘Welcome, Monsieur Beau Alman’, said the old gentlewoman, ‘would you still say you are being deceived and betrayed? You can forget all your fears and be as you were in the theatre when Pluto gave you back your Eurydice. I can assure you that you will find a more beautiful woman here than you lost there.’
From these words I deduced that I had not been brought here simply to be looked at but to do something quite different. Accordingly I said to the gentlewoman that it is not much use for a thirsty man if he finds he is sitting beside a forbidden well. She replied that in France they were not so mean as to begrudge a man water, especially when there was such a surfeit of it. ‘Yes, Madam’, I replied, ‘that would be all well and good if it were not for the fact that I am a married man.’
‘Poppycock!’, said the old sinner. ‘You won’t find anyone here who will believe that, married gentlemen don’t come to France very often. And even if you were, I can’t believe you would be so foolish as to die of thirst rather than drink from someone else’s well, especially when it’s more fun and has better water than your own.’
While we were chatting a maid of honour, whose task it was to look after the fire, was taking off my shoes and stockings, which had got filthy in the dark. Paris is a very muddy city anyway. Then came the order that I was to be bathed before dinner. The maid ran to and fro, gathering all the bath things together, and soon everything smelled of musk and fragrant soaps. The linen was finest cambric, edged with genuine Brussels lace. I was embarrassed and didn’t want the old gentlewoman to see me naked, but it was no use, I had to let her scrub me, though the young maid had to go out for a while. After the bath I was given a gossamer-thin shirt to wear and a sumptuous dressing gown of violet taffeta together with a pair of silk stockings of the same colour; my nightcap and slippers were embroidered with gold and pearls. The old woman dried and combed my hair for me, as if I were a prince, or a young child. Washed and dressed in my finery, I sat there looking like the King of Hearts.
In the meantime, the maid of honour had brought in the food, and when the table was laid, three sublime young ladies entered the room. Their alabaster breasts were almost completely exposed, their faces, on the other hand, almost completely masked. They all seemed extremely beautiful to me, but one even more so than the others. I gave them a low but silent bow to which they replied in kind. It looked as if it was a gathering of the deaf and dumb. All three sat down at the same time, so that I could not tell which was the highest born, much less which was the one I was there to serve. The first question was, could I speak French? No, replied the old gentlewoman, at which the other told her to ask me to sit down. When I had done so, the third ordered my interpreter to sit down as well. Again there was nothing to tell me which was the noblest of the three. I was sitting opposite them, next to the old woman, and doubtless the proximity of the old skeleton only served to emphasise my own beauty. They all three gazed at me adoringly and I could have sworn I heard a thousand sighs, though because of the masks they were wearing I could not see the sparkle in their eyes.
The old gentlewoman asked me which I thought was the most beautiful of the three. I replied that it was impossible to choose, at which she laughed, showing all the four teeth she had left in her mouth, and asked me why. Because I couldn’t see them properly, I answered, though I could certainly tell that none of them was ugly. The three ladies wanted to know what this was about and the old gentlewoman translated, adding a fabrication of her own, namely that I had said each pair of lips deserved a thousand kisses, for I could see their lips below the masks, especially those of the one sitting directly opposite me. Through this piece of flattery the old woman made me think the one directly opposite me was the highest ranking and so I observed her all the more keenly. I kept up the pretence that I could not understand a single word of French and that was the sum total of our conversation at table. Since we were so silent we finished our meal all the more quickly and the ladies wished me good night and left. I accompanied them to the door but that was all, as the old gentlewoman locked it behind them. When I saw that, I asked where I was going to sleep. She replied that I would have to stay with her and make do with the bed in that room. I said the bed would be fine if only one of the three were in it. ‘I’m afraid’, said the old woman, ‘that you’re not going to get any of them tonight.’
While we were talking, the curtain round the bed was drawn aside a little by a beautiful lady who told the old woman to stop her chatter and get to her room. At once I took the candle from her to see who was in the bed, but she put it out and said, ‘Sir, if you value your life, don’t do it! You can rest assured that if you try to see who this lady is against her will, you will not leave this place alive.’ With that she went, locking the door behind her. The maid of honour who had been tending the fire doused it and left by a hidden door behind one of the tapestries.
‘Allez, Monsieur Beau Alman’, said the lady lying in the bed, ‘curme to ze bed, my ’eart, curme to me.’ At least the old woman had taught her some German! I went over to the bed to see what was to be done, and as soon as I got there she threw her arms round my neck and welcomed me with many kisses. So hot was her desire that she bit into my lower lip, started to unbutton my dressing gown and tore the shirt from my body, dragging me down to her and behaving as if she were more crazy with love than I can say. The only German she could say was, ‘Curme to me, my ’eart’, the rest she indicated by gestures. I thought of my darling back home, but what was the use? Unfortunately I was a human being and faced with such a well-proportioned creature, and a charming one at that, I would have had to be made of wood to get away with my virtue unblemished.
I spent eight days and as many nights in that place, and I think the other three must have lain with me too since they didn’t all speak like the first one, nor behave in such an extravagant way. Although I spent eight full days with these four ladies I was never allowed to see their faces except through a gauze veil, or when it was dark. At the end of the eight days I was led, blindfold, down into the courtyard and put into a coach with the blinds lowered which took me back to the doctor’s house and then disappeared immediately. The old gentlewoman accompanied me and took off the blindfold en route. I was given two hundred pistoles and when I asked the old woman whether I should give someone a tip she replied, ‘Certainly not! The ladies would be very annoyed if you did that. They would think you imagined you had been in a whorehouse, where everyone expects a tip.’