I want the reader to understand the sort of thing that went on there, so I’ll give an example from my own experience. Once, when I was working at the powder mills I was having built on the river outside Moscow, as I was telling a member of my staff what work needed to be done on that and the following day, the alarm sounded. A mere four miles off and still advancing, plundering the countryside as they went, were 100,000 Tatar horsemen. I and my people were required to return to court immediately, where the Tsar’s arsenal and stables kitted us out for battle. In place of a breastplate I was given a quilted silk jerkin (which might have stopped an arrow but certainly not a bullet), plus boots, spurs and a glorious headpiece sporting a bunch of heron feathers. I was also issued with a sabre you could have sliced ham with, part-gilt and encrusted with jewels, and one of HTM’s horses (as fine a beast as I’d ever set eyes on, never mind ridden). I and the tack sparkled with gold, silver, gemstones and pearls. A gleaming steel mace hung at my side, so soundly and heftily made that anyone I blipped with it was done for. I’m telling you: the Tsar himself couldn’t have been better equipped. Behind me came a huge flag, white with a double eagle, towards which mounted men flocked from all points of the compass – more and more of them, until before two hours had passed we numbered 40,000 and in four hours were as many as 60,000 horse strong, advancing together towards the Tatars. Every fifteen minutes I received fresh instructions from our Grand Prince, each time to the same effect: that this day I should show myself to be the soldier I’d always claimed to be, in order that the Tsar might see and acknowledge me as such. And our numbers increased by the second – some groups small and nippy, others large and solid, entire companies, individual combatants, swelling our ranks at such a rate that I couldn’t imagine one man commanding the whole throng and dictating its battle formation.
Well, I won’t give you the whole chronicle because in the context of my life story the battle scarcely mattered. All I’ll say is: we came on the Tatars very abruptly, their horses weary and loaded with booty, in a dip in the ground where the terrain was rough and they least expected to meet us. We fell upon them from all sides with such fury that they scattered from the outset. In the initial assault I turned to those behind me and shouted in Russian, ‘Go to it, lads. Follow me and do as I do!’ I was aware of them bellowing my instructions to one another as I galloped full tilt towards the enemy. I laid into the first man I came to (a prince’s son, no less) with a force that split his skull in two, leaving bits of brain dangling from the spikes of my mace. The Russians imitated my heroic example, and the Tatars, finding our first onslaught too much for them, turned and fled. Mad with fury, like someone desperately seeking death and failing to find it, I lashed out at anything that moved – Tatar or Russian, all targets were alike to me. And the men HTM had detailed to guard me stayed so close that my back was permanently covered. The air was thick with arrows, like bees swarming. One pierced my arm, where I’d pushed my sleeves up to leave me that much freer to slash with my sword and deliver death blows with my steel mace. Until the arrow hit I’d thrilled inwardly at all the blood-letting, though the instant I saw my own blood spurt the thrill turned to blind rage. However, with the much-feared enemy in massed flight, a group of princes ordered me on the Tsar’s behalf to bring their emperor news of how we’d beaten off the Tatar raiders. So back I rode at their command with an escort some 100 horsemen strong. I traversed the city to the imperial quarters flanked by general rejoicing and applause. Yet, having told the whole story of the encounter (to a Tsar who’d already been informed of our victory, in fact), I was asked to remove my splendid trappings. These were then hung back up in HTM’s uniform store, although they and the horse’s accoutrements were well blood-spattered and battle-soiled – useless, virtually. I’d quite expected them and the horse to be given to me as my reward for acquitting myself so bravely in the field. Presumably the reason was that, like the fine Russian outfit worn by my colonel, they were purely on loan; everything in Russia was the Tsar’s.
Twenty-Two
His short and pleasant trip back home to dad
Still, for as long as it took my wound to heal I was treated like a prince. I went around in a sable-lined gold dressing gown (although the injury was neither life-threatening nor particularly serious), and I’ve never eaten better than I did then. However, that was all the reward I had for my trouble – aside from the praise I received from the Tsar, made slightly bitter for me by the envy it inspired among certain grandees.
However, as soon as I was quite recovered I was shipped down the Volga to Astrakhan, where I was told to build a powder mill like the one in Moscow. You see, there was no way the Tsar could keep distant frontier posts constantly supplied with fresh and serviceable gunpowder when the cargo had to travel so far, risking so many dangers. I took on the job willingly, having been promised that, once I’d done it, the Tsar would be sending me home with a substantial sum of money that reflected his standing and my hard graft. But isn’t it always the same? Just as our hopes are highest and our plans seem rock-solid, a sudden gust of wind blows everything to bits – all the preparations we’ve worked on for so long. The governor had welcomed me to Astrakhan as he’d have greeted the Tsar himself, and I soon had things back in shape. His mildewed munitions were dubious in any case, if not incapable of being fired. However, I virtually recast them, the way a tinsmith makes new spoons from old – an unheard-of practice in Russia at the time. Together with my other skills, this made some look upon me as a magician, some as a modern-day saint or prophet, some again as a new Empedocles or Gorgias of Leontini. But when I was at the top of my game, one night as I was working in one of the powder mills outside the fortifications, I was set upon by a party of Tatars, stripped of my possessions and carried off, together with a number of others, deep into their territory. There I not only saw the legendary Vegetable Lamb of Tartary growing; I even ate some. My captors swapped me for some Chinese goods when they came across some Ninchi Tatars, and the Ninchis then presented me to the King of Korea. They’d just concluded a ceasefire with the king and wanted to thank him with a special gift. In Korea I was held in high regard because no one could beat me at fencing and because I taught the king how, with the gun over his shoulder and his back to the target, he could still hit the bull’s-eye. As a result, at my humble request he gave me back my freedom and allowed me travel via Japan to Portuguese Macao. The Portuguese, however, largely ignored me, which meant that I wandered around like a lost sheep until eventually, by some miracle, I was taken prisoner by Turkish or at least Mohammedan pirates. After I’d spent perhaps a year with the pirates, traipsing from one to another of the strange peoples who inhabit the East Indies, they handed me over to some merchants from Alexandria in Egypt, who then took me (along with the goods they’d traded) to Constantinople. And since the Turkish emperor was just then fitting out a fleet of galleys to attack Venice and seemed to be short of oars, many Turkish merchants were forced to hand over their Christian slaves (against cash, admittedly) – including me, who was a strapping young lad at the time. So I had to learn to row. It was a slog, too, but for a couple of months only, our galleys being overcome by the Venetians in the Levant and myself and my fellow oarsmen released from Turkish service. When said galleys returned to Venice loaded with booty and a quantity of captive Turkish high-ups, I was set free entirely. I was keen to make a pilgrimage to Rome and Loreto, both to visit the places and to thank God for my deliverance. I easily got hold of the relevant travel permit as well as, from several honest folk (including a number of Germans), some generous financial backing, which enabled me to buy a long pilgrim cloak and set out on my journey.
Accordingly, I made straight for Rome, where I really fell on my feet, managing to beg a great deal of money from donors both large and small. After spending some six weeks in that city, I proceeded, along with other pilgrims (who included some Germans and particularly a number of Swiss, in a hurry to get home), to Loreto. From Loreto I passed through Switzerland via th
e Gotthard and returned to the Black Forest, where dad had been looking after the farm in my absence. I brought nothing much back with me but a beard, which I’d been growing abroad.
I’d been away for three years and some months, during which time I’d crossed various seas and seen many different peoples – among most of whom I’d experienced more evil than good; a big book could be written about that. Meanwhile, Germany had signed a peace, which meant I could live quietly with my old dad, undisturbed. I left the day-to-day jobs to him, while I sat back down to my books, which constituted both my work and my delight.
Twenty-Three
A nice short one, concerning Simplicius only
I once read how the Apollonian oracle, when the Roman envoys asked what they should do if their subjects were to be governed in peace, answered: nosce te ipsum, ‘Each of you, know your own mind.’ That made me think. I wanted to give an account of the life I’d led. I had nothing else to do anyway, so I said to myself, ‘Your life has been no life at all; it’s been a death. Your days have been deep shadow, your years a bad dream, your pleasures all sins, your youth mere illusion, and your well-being an alchemist’s resource, vanishing up the chimney before you’ve so much as set eyes on it. You’ve followed war through many dangers, and it’s brought you lots of good luck and lots of bad luck. You’ve had your ups and downs: rich one minute, poor the next; happy one minute, miserable the next; loved one minute, hated the next; praised one minute, scorned the next. But look at the wider picture, you poor wretch: what have you got from the trip? Here’s what you’ve got: one or two possessions and a heart bowed down with worry; you’re too idle, too lethargic, too depraved for anything on the plus side (I’m still talking about myself, right?). Worse: my conscience is leaden with dread; my soul massively burdened with sin and repulsively stained. My body is weary, my mind all over the place, my innocence totally wrecked, my best years an unreachable memory. The noble gift of time I’ve squandered unspeakably, I take no joy in anything any more – above all, I’m my own worst enemy. After my blessed father’s passing I came into this world simple and pure, honest and straightforward, truthful, humble, thoughtful, moderate, modest, chaste, pious and prayerful; I quickly became spiteful, false, mendacious, proud, edgy and utterly godless, learning all these sinful tricks without a teacher, hoarding my honour not for its own sake but with a view to gaining promotion. Time I saw not as a gift to be invested in my soul’s salvation but as a commodity to be spent on satisfying immediate physical urges. Often I placed my life at risk; I made no effort to improve it with a view to meeting my death in confident peace. Eyes glued to the here and now, I never looked to the future – let alone the fact that I must one day stand face to face with God and render account.’ With such thoughts as these I tormented myself daily. It was at this time that I came across the work of Antonio de Guevara, whom I simply must quote here (his writings played such a part in putting me off the world entirely). Here goes, then:
Twenty-Four
The last of all, showing why and in what way Simplicius once again quit the world
‘Farewell, world, for you’re not to be relied on, you hold out no hope; in your house, the past has gone already, the present flashes before our eyes, and the future has yet to turn up. The most solid things collapse, the strongest of us stumble, and the everlasting comes to an end. You’re a corpse among corpses, is what I’m saying, and in a century you’ll not let us live a single hour.
‘Farewell, world, because you take us prisoner and refuse to release us; you bind us and will not let us go. You bring trouble and offer no relief, rob and give nothing back, charge us without cause, pass judgement before you’ve heard either party; you kill us unsentenced and bury us undead. Within your precincts there is no joy without care, no peace without disunity, no love without suspicion, no calm without fear, no fullness without lack, no honour without stain, no good with a clear conscience, no rank without envy, and no friendship without falsehood.
‘Farewell, world; in your palace, promises are made with no intention of delivering, service provided but no pay received, caresses bestowed that do nothing but kill; folk are raised up to be brought low, extolled, then defamed; they borrow, never meaning to return, inflict punishment with no accompanying forgiveness.
‘God be with you, world, for in your house great men and favourites are toppled, the unworthy preferred, traitors graced, the trusted overlooked, the wicked set free, the innocent condemned; the wise and skilful are dismissed, the incompetent paid lavishly, the crafty given credit, the upright and honest disbelieved; everyone does what he wants, none what he should.
‘Farewell, world, where no spade is ever called a spade. The cautious are termed bold, the despairing wary, the impetuous industrious, the slipshod relaxed; your wastrel is labelled munificent, your miser economical; the man of many words, all aimed to deceive, acquires a name for eloquence, while he who stays silent becomes a fool or a fantasist. An adulterer or ravisher of virgins gains a reputation as a lady’s man; a brown-nose is deemed a courtier, one driven by spite a man of resolve, a dimwit a dreamer; put otherwise, your truth is falsehood and your every falsehood truth.
‘Farewell, world, for you tempt us all; to the ambitious you promise rank, to the restless change, to high-flyers honour among princes, to the idle office, to each miser a hoard, to gluttons and pleasure-seekers the delights of indulgence and lust, to enemies vengeance, to thieves invisibility, to the young long life, to favourites lasting princely favour.
‘Farewell, world, for in your palace neither truth nor loyalty has its home; all who speak to you will be shouted down, all faithful to you betrayed, all who follow you duped; all who fear you will be treated as dirt, all who love you will be ill rewarded, and those who rely on you most will be let down hardest; no gift anyone gives you, no service anyone performs for you, no kind word spoken to you or loyalty or comradeship shown you will be anywhere near adequate; instead, you will anger that person, belittle or betray that person, chide, defraud or embroil that person, or forget him or her entirely; all, in consequence, weep, sigh, moan, gripe, and turn up their toes. In your environs, folk learn only how to hate to the point of throttling the other; all conversations lead to lies, loving to losing heart, commerce to theft, pleading to eventual deception, and sinning to dying as a result.
‘God be with you, world, for so long as we follow your ways we turn time into oblivion, we squander our youth in running, hurrying, vaulting fences and stiles, scurrying over hill and dale, through woodland and wasteland, across rivers and lakes, braving rain and snow, heat and cold, wind and all kinds of weather; men use up their manhood on mining and smelting ore, quarrying and carving stone, sawing and cleaving timber, planting and hoeing the earth, thinking, writing and striving, perusing, worrying and complaining, buying and selling, arguing, quarrelling, fighting, lying, cheating; our older years we fritter away in misery and wretchedness, wits stumbling, breath stinking, face wrinkling, back stooping, eyes streaming, limbs trembling, nose dripping, head balding, hearing failing, senses of smell and taste fading, sniffing and wheezing, increasingly idle and feeble – in other words, trouble and toil speeding downhill to death.
‘Farewell, world, for none of your number seek the good; every day sees murderers executed, traitors quartered, thieves, footpads and freebooters hanged, killers topped, sorcerers burnt, perjurers punished, rabble-rousers banished.
‘God be with you, world, for your servants have nothing to do, no way of passing the time, other than lazing about, issuing orders, getting in one another’s hair, pitching woo to virgins, flirting with beauties and exchanging suggestive glances with same, playing cards and dicing, negotiating with procurers, baiting Jews, waging war on neighbours, circulating rumours, devising new fashions, inventing new tricks and launching new vices.
‘Farewell, world, for no one is happy with you: have-nots would be haves, while the haves put on airs; the scorned seek to rise, while the injured seek revenge; those in favour will
beat their chests, while those in disgrace try to face the music.
‘Farewell, world, for nothing about you lasts: tall towers attract lightning strikes; water mills tend to be washed away when the stream floods; timber is under threat from worm, corn from mice, fruit from maggots, garments from moth; cattle die of age, while the poor among us fall sick: one will fear scabies, another cancer, a third lupus, a fourth syphilis, a fifth podagra, a sixth gout, a seventh dropsy; an eighth will dread stones, a ninth gravel, a tenth phthisis, an eleventh fever, a twelfth leprosy, a thirteenth epilepsy, a fourteenth dementia. In you, world, no two individuals do the same: when one sheds tears, another laughs; when one sighs, another smiles; when one fasts, another tucks in; when one feasts, another goes hungry; when one rides, another goes on foot; when one talks, another stays silent; when one plays, another goes to work; and when one is born, another dies. Nobody, do you see, lives like another: one rules while another serves; one caters to men while another herds pigs; one follows the court while another follows the plough; one sails the high seas while another walks the long road to market, be it yearly or weekly; one works in sweltering heat while another slaves underground; one fishes in water while another traps the birds of the air; one is industrious while another simply exploits and steals from the land.
‘World, God be with you, for in your house none lives a pious life or meets death with equanimity: one dies in the cradle, the next (while still a child) in bed, the third hanged by the neck, the fourth beheaded, the fifth on the wheel, the sixth at the stake, the seventh in his cups; the eighth falls into the river or lake, the ninth chokes while troughing, the tenth suffers poisoning, the eleventh croaks unexpectedly, the twelfth dies in battle, the thirteenth is hexed, the fourteenth drowns his poor soul as he dips the pen in the inkwell. ‘God be with you, world, because everything I have to do with you irks me; the life you offer is a miserable pilgrimage, an uncertain, up-and-down, harsh, raw, fleeting existence full of impurity and error – more like a death than a life, actually. As a life, we meet death in it at every turn; inconstancy is its sole constant, and there are so many ways by which a person can expire. Not content with the bitterness that surrounds you and runs through you, you lead most men astray with your subtle lures and phoney promises. From the gilded chalice in your hands you offer them bitterness and falsity to sip, striking them blind, deaf, crazed, legless and numb. Happy indeed those who decline your hospitality, scorn your fleeting joys, shun your company and refuse to let so cunning a betrayer lead them to their doom! You turn us, one by one, into a yawning sink-hole, a wasteland, a stinking scrap of carrion, a filthy pail in a dung-pit, a bucket of muck oozing stench and awfulness. For, having toyed with us at length, tormenting us with your flattery and fondling, your threats, blows, ordeals, tortures and plagues, you consign our mangled bodies to the grave and our souls to a see-sawing balance. Nothing is more certain than death, yet man has no forewarning of how, when or where he will die and (more agonizingly still) which route his soul will follow and what will become of it when it arrives. Ah, spare a thought, indifferent world, for the poor soul that has loyally waited on you hand and foot, indulging your every whim and extravagance, because when that sin-laden, unregenerate soul is with a swift shock severed from its wretched body it will not, like the body in life, be surrounded by servants and well-wishers; it will find itself being led by a horde of its most hideous foes before Christ’s especial seat of judgement. That is my reason for saying, “God be with you”, world. I know full well that one day you’ll abandon me – the day when not only does my poor soul come face to face with that awesome judge but also the most dreadful sentence of all (“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,” etc.) is uttered and pronounced.
The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus Page 46
