IX
In What Manner the Pains of Childbirth Came Upon Him, and How He Became a Widower
Not long after this I did take my godfather with me, and ride into the Spessart to get certain news and certificate of my descent and noble birth; which I gat without difficulty from the book of baptisms and my godfather’s witness: and presently thereafter visited the priest that had dwelt at Hanau and had taken care of me: which gave me a writing to declare where my late father had died, and that I had abode with him to his death and thereafter for a long time with Master Ramsay, the commandant at Hanau, under the name of Simplicissimus: yea, I had an instrument containing my whole history drawn up by a notary out of the mouth of witnesses; for I thought, “Who knoweth when thou wilt have need of it?” And this journey did cost me 400 thalers, for on my return I was captured by a party, dismounted, and plundered so that I and my dad or godfather came off naked and hardly with our lives.
Meanwhile things went ill at home: for as soon as my wife knew her husband was a nobleman she not only did play the great lady, but did neglect all housekeeping; which I bore in silence because she was big with child: moreover, misfortune came on my cattle and robbed me of my chiefest and best: all which ’twould have been possible to endure, but O Gemini! misfortunes came not singly: for even then while my wife was delivered, the maid was brought to bed likewise: and the child she bore was indeed like to me, but that which my wife had was so like to the farm-servant as it had been cut on the pattern of his face. Nay, more! for the lady of whom I writ above did in the same night cause one to be laid at my door with notice in writing that I was the father: and so did I get a family of three at once, and could not but expect that others would creep out of every corner, which caused me not a few grey hairs. But so will it fare with whoever doth follow his own bestial lusts in such a godless and wicked way of life as I had led.
And now what to do! I must have the baptism and be soundly punished by the magistrate: and the government being then Swedish, and I an old soldier of the emperor, the score was the heavier to pay: all which was but the preface to my complete ruination the second time. And although all these manifold disasters did greatly trouble me, yet my wife contrariwise took all lightly; yea, did mock at me day and night about the fine treasure that had been laid at my door and for which I had paid so dearly: yet had she but known how ’twas with me and the maid she would have plagued me yet worse: but that good creature was so complacent as to let herself be persuaded with as much money as I should other ways have been fined for her sake, to swear her child to a fop that had at times visited me the year before and had been at the wedding, but whom otherwise she knew not. Yet must she go a-packing, for my wife did suspect what I thought of her and the farm-servant, yet dared not hint thereat: for else had I proved to her that I could not at once be with her and with the maid. Yet all the while I was tormented with the thought that I must rear a child for my servant, and mine own sons should not be my heirs, and yet must I hold my peace and be glad that none else knew of it: and with such thoughts did I daily torment myself, while my wife revelled every hour in wine; for since our marriage she had so used herself to the bottle that ’twas seldom away from her mouth, and she herself scarce went to bed any night but half-drunk: by which means she robbed her child of its nourishment and so inflamed her inward parts that soon after they fell out, and so made me a widower the second time, which went so my heart that I well-nigh laughed myself into a sickness.