II
Concerning the Merits and Virtues of a Good Bath at the Proper Season
And now, when I had luckily escaped from my goose-pen, I was then first aware of my sad plight. In my master’s quarters all was sound asleep: so dared I not address myself to the sentry that stood before the house: and at the Mainguard assuredly they would not entertain me: while to abide in the streets was too cold: so I knew not whither to betake myself. Long past midnight it was when it came into my head to seek refuge with the pastor so often spoken of before; and this thought I followed so far as to knock at his door: and therein was so importunate that at last the maid, with much ill will, admitted me. But forthwith she began to chide with me; and this her master, who had by this time well-nigh slept off his wine, heard. So he called us both to him as he lay in his chamber: and ordered his maid, to put me to bed: for he could well perceive that I was numbed with the cold. Yet was I hardly warm in my bed when day began to break and the good pastor stood by my bedside to hear how it had gone with me and how my business had fared, for I could not rise to go to him. So I told him all, and began with the tricks which my comrade the page had taught me, and how ill they had turned out. Thereafter I must tell him how the guests, after he, the pastor, had left the table, had lost their wits and (as my comrade had told me) determined to stamp down the floor of the house: item into what fearful terror I thereupon fell, and in what fashion I tried to save my life: how thereafter I was shut up in a goose-pen and what I had noted in words and works of those two which had delivered me, and in what manner I had locked them both up in my stead.
“Simplicissimus,” said the pastor, “thy case stands but lousily: thou hadst a good opportunity; but I fear, I fear thou hast fooled it away. Get thee quick out of bed and pack out of my house, lest I come with thee under my lord’s displeasure if thou be found here with me.” So I must away, with my wet clothes, and now for the first time must understand how well he stands with all and sundry who doth but possess his master’s favour: yet how askance he is looked upon when that favour halteth.
Away I went to my master’s lodging, wherein all were yet sound asleep save the cook and a maid or two: these last were ordering the room wherein the day before had been the carouse, and the first was preparing from the remains of the feast a breakfast, or rather a luncheon. So first I betook myself to the maids: they had to deal with all manner of drinking-glasses and window-glass strewn up and down. In some places all was foul with what the guests had voided both upwards and downwards: in other places were great pools of spilt wine and beer, so that the floor looked like a map wherein a man could trace separate seas, islands, and continents. And in that room was the smell far worse than in my goose-pen: and therefore I delayed not long there but betook myself to the kitchen, and there had my clothes dried on my body before the fire, expecting with fear and trembling what tricks fortune would further play with me when my lord should awake. Then did I reflect upon all the folly and senselessness of the world, and ran over in my mind all that happened to me in the past day and night and what I had seen and heard in that time. So when I thought thereon I did even deem the poor and miserable life which my old hermit led a happy one, and heartily I wished him and myself back in our old place.