IV
How Simplicissimus Departed Secretly and How He Believed He Had the Neapolitan Disease
By this my occupation I gathered together so many gratifications both in money and in things of worth that I was troubled for their safety, and I wondered no longer that women do betake themselves to the stews and do make a trade of this same beastly and lewd pursuit; since it is so profitable. But now I did begin to take this matter to heart, not indeed for any fear of God or prick of conscience, but because I dreaded that I might be caught in some such trick and paid according to my deserts. So now I planned to come back to Germany, and that the more so because the commandant at Lippstadt had written to me he had caught certain merchants of Cologne, whom he would not let go out of his hands till my goods were first delivered to him: item, that he still kept for me the ensigncy he had promised, and would expect me to take it up before the spring: for if I came not then he must bestow it upon another. And with his letter my wife sent me one also full of all loving assurances of her hope to have me back. (Had she but known how I had lived she had surely sent me a greeting of another sort.)
Now could I well conceive ’twould be hard to have my congé from Monsieur Canard, and so did I determine to depart secretly so soon as I could find opportunity: which (to my great misfortune) I found. For as I met on a time certain officers of the Duke of Weimar’s army, I gave them to understand I was an ensign of the regiment of colonel S(aint) A(ndré) and had been a long time in Paris on mine own affairs, yet now was resolved to return to my regiment, and so begged they would take me as their travelling-companion on their journey back. So they told me the day of their departure and were right willing to take me with them: thereupon I bought me a nag and made my provision for the journey as secretly as I could, got together my money (which was in all some 500 doubloons, all which I had earned from those shameless women), and without asking leave of Monsieur Canard went off with them; yet did I write to him, and did date the letter from Maestricht; so as he might think I was gone to Cologne: in this I took leave of him, with the excuse that I could stay no longer when my business at home required my presence.
But two nights out from Paris ’twas with me as with one that hath the erysipelas, and my head did so ache that next morning I could not rise: and that in a poor village where I could have no doctor and, what was worse, none to wait upon me: for the officers rode on their way next morning and left me there, sick to death, as one that concerned them not: yet did they commend me and my horse to the host at their departure and left a message for the mayor of the place that he should have respect to me as an officer that served the king. So there I lay for a couple of days and knew naught of myself, but babbled like a fool. Then they fetched the priest to me: but he could get nothing reasonable from me: and since he saw he could not heal my soul he thought on means to help my body as far as might be, to which end he had me bled and a sudorific given me, and had me put into a warm bed to sweat. This served me so well that the same night I did know where I was and whence I had come and that I was sick. Next morning came the said priest to me again and found me desperate: for not only had my money all been stolen, but I did believe I had (saving your presence) the French disease: for I had deserved this more than my pistoles, and I was spotted over my whole body like a leopard: nor could I either walk or stand, or sit or lie: and now was my patience at an end: for though I could not well believe ’twas God had given me the gold I had lost, yet was I now so reckless that I saw ’twas the devil had stolen it from me! Yea, and I behaved as if I were quite desperate, so that the good priest had much ado to comfort me, seeing that the shoe pinched me in two places.
“My friend,” says he, “behave yourself like a reasonable man, even if ye cannot embrace your cross like a good Christian. What do ye? Will ye with your money also lose your life and, what is more, your hopes of eternal salvation?” So I answered I cared not for the money; if I could but be rid of this accursed sickness or were at least in a place where I could be cured. “Ye must have patience,” answered the priest, “as must the poor children of whom there lie in this place over fifty sick of this disease.” So when I heard that children also were sick of it, I was straightway cheered, for I could not well suppose that such would catch that filthy disease: so I reached for my valise to see what might still be there: but save my linen there was naught there but a casket with a lady’s portrait, set round with rubies, that one at Paris had presented to me. The portrait I took out and gave the rest to the priest with the request he would turn it into money in the next town, so that I might have somewhat to live upon. Of which the end was that I got scarce the third part of its worth, and since that lasted not long my nag must go too: all which barely kept me till the pock-holes began to dry and I to get better.