The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim Part 25

END

APPENDIX B

Attached to chap. xxiii. is the "Relation of Jean Cornelissen of Harlem, a Dutch sea-captain, to his good friend German Schleifheim von Sulsfort concerning Simplicissimus."

Its contents are as follows:

On a voyage from the Moluccas to the Cape of Good Hope Cornelissen is separated by stress of weather from the fleet with which he had sailed.

Having many of his crew sick, and no fresh water, he is delighted to discover Simplicissimus' isle. His men go ash.o.r.e and find the hermit's dwelling, which, as the captain only afterwards learn they plunder, and generally behave brutally. Cornelissen finds the crosses and many pious inscriptions on trees, which prove to him that the unknown is a good Christian though probably a Papist. The crew track Simplicissimus to a vast cavern, on entering which their lights are miraculously extinguished. There is an earthquake, and the seamen who had taken part in the plundering of the hermit's dwelling are smitten with madness.

Cornelissen, with the chaplain and officers, determines to find Simplicissimus at any cost. They penetrate the cave, but their lights also go out, and Simplicissimus addresses them from the darkness and remonstrates with them for their interference. The chaplain apologises, and asks how the madmen may be cured: he is told that they are to swallow the kernels of certain plums they had eaten. They offer to take him back to Europe, but he refuses. After making a bargain with them to secure his being left in peace, Simplicissimus shews himself surrounded with his glow-worms. He leads them out of the cave and shews them his ruined hut, and tells how his ducats and his book had been stolen. The madmen are brought to their senses again. Simplicissimus recovers his book, which he entrusts to Cornelissen, but again refuses to return to sinful Europe. They rebuild his hut for him, provide him with plenty of tools, a burning-gla.s.s, cotton clothing, and a pair of rabbits for breeding purposes: and so, their sick being all recovered, sail away and leave him there.

[A reference to the "Introduction" will show that this island adventure could have had no place in the Simplician cycle of romances; unless we suppose, which is highly improbable, that the author meant it to be subsequent to the inn episode, in which Simplicissimus' family and friends all meet. Most likely we have here the latest addition, in point of composition, to the legend.]

[The following is given as a specimen of the nonsense of which the various continuations are made up.]

APPENDIX C

"Continuatio," _chap. xiii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS IN RETURN FOR A NIGHT'S LODGING, TAUGHT HIS HOST A CURIOUS ART

Now the evening before this I had lost a certain catalogue of those special arts which I had aforetime practised and written down that I might not forget them so easily: yet I depended not on this to remember how to perform them and with what helps. For example I do here set down the beginning of this list:

So to prepare matches or fuses that they shall give out no smell, seeing that by such smell musqueteers be often betrayed and their plans defeated.

To prepare match so that it will burn though it be wet.

To prepare powder so that it will not burn though red-hot steel be thrust therein: very useful for fortresses that must harbour much of so dangerous a guest.

To shoot men or birds with powder alone so that they shall lie as dead for a while and yet rise up again without harm.

To give a man double strength without the use of carbine-thistle or other such forbidden means.

If a sally from a fortress be checked, so to spike the enemy's guns in a moment that they must burst.

To spoil a man's gun so that it will scare all game to cover till it be again cleansed with a certain other substance.

To hit the bull's-eye in a target more quickly by laying the gun on the shoulder and firing backward, than if a man should take aim and fire in the accustomed way.

A special art to provide that no bullet may hit thee.

To prepare an instrument by means of which, specially on a still night, a man can in wondrous wise hear all that sounds or is spoken at an incredible distance (otherwise clean impossible and supernatural); very profitable for sentries and specially in sieges, etc. (bk. iii., chap.

1.).

In like manner were many arts described in the said catalogue which mine host had found and read: so he came to me himself into my chamber, shewed me the list, and asked whether 'twas possible that these things could be done by natural means; for that could he scarce believe; yet must confess that in his youth, when he served as a page in Italy with Field-marshal von Schauenburg, it was given out by some that the princes of Savoy were proof against bullets: which the said Field-marshal desired to make proof of in the person of Prince Thomas, whom he then kept besieged in a fortress; for when on a time both sides had agreed on a truce for an hour to bury the dead and to confer together, he had commanded a corporal of his regiment, that was held to be the best marksman in the whole army, to take aim at the said prince while he should be standing on the parapet of the wall for a parley, and so soon as the hour agreed upon should end, to fire at him with his piece, with which he could put a lighted candle out at fifty paces: that this corporal had taken careful note of the time and kept the said prince under observation the whole time of the truce, and at the very moment when it ended with the first stroke of the hour, fired at him: yet had his piece, contrary to all belief, missed fire, and before the corporal could make ready again the prince was gone behind the parapet; whereupon the corporal pointed out to the Field-marshal, who had likewise come to him on the trenches, a Switzer of the prince's guard, at whom he aimed and hit him in such fas.h.i.+on that he rolled over and over; wherefrom it plainly appeared that there was something in the story that no prince of the house of Savoy could be hit or harmed. Yet whether this was brought about by such arts, or whether perchance the said princely house enjoyed a special grace from G.o.d, being, as 'twas said, sprung from the race of the royal prophet David, he knew not.

I answered, "I know not either, but this I do know of a surety, that the arts here specified be natural and no witchcraft." Which if he would not believe, let him but say which he held to be the most wonderful and impossible and I would at once to satisfy him (provided only that 'twas one that asked not long time but only such means as I had then at hand), make trial of it, for I must presently be a-foot and pursue my journey. At that he said this seemed to him the most impossible, that gunpowder should not burn if fire were put to it, unless one should first pour the powder into water; which if I could by natural means effect he would believe concerning all the other arts, though there were over sixty of them, what he might not see and before such trial could not believe. I answered, let him bring me quickly a charge of powder and also a certain substance which I had need of, and fire also, and presently he should see that the trick would hold. This being done, I caused him to follow my process and then set light to the powder: yet could he do no more than burn here and there a grain though he worked at it for a quarter of an hour, and accomplished no more than that he cooled a red-hot iron and quenched matches and lighted coals in the very powder itself. "Aha!" says he, "the powder is bad." But I answered him in act, and without much ado, before he could count a score, so worked it that the powder blew up when he had scarce touched it with the fire.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Lit._, "Bohemian Villages," _i.e._, with unp.r.o.nounceable names.]

[Footnote 2: William, Duke of Aquitaine, and afterwards a Saint noted for the acerbity of his penances.]

[Footnote 3: A proverb: on Saint Gertrude's day spinning ceases and garden-work begins.]

[Footnote 4: Viz. "ihnen den Hintern zu lecken."]

[Footnote 5: The commandments are here numbered according to the Roman arrangement, but the meaning is obscure.]

[Footnote 6: The hermit.]

[Footnote 7: _i.e._ full of innocence.]

[Footnote 8: Given as an example of a Roman of luxurious tastes.]

[Footnote 9: Refers to an episode omitted in this translation.]

[Footnote 10: Allusion to a cruel practice in use in falconry.]

[Footnote 11: Proverbial: an allusion to a popular story.]

[Footnote 12: Lit. there are folk dwelling beyond the mountains too.]

[Footnote 13: I.e., he was bewitched.]

[Footnote 14: Hessian General.]

[Footnote 15: It is difficult to translate the German expression.

Probably this word, meaning a maritime trader in illicit wares, represents it best.]

[Footnote 16: Obscure lines: many of the expressions in this chapter are now inexplicable.]

[Footnote 17: He wrote the words down as he was told as if they meant the _judge's_ mother.]

[Footnote 18: The cuira.s.s would be well lined to prevent chafing.]

[Footnote 19: Some 120 years before.]

[Footnote 20: Besieged by the Spaniards from 1601 to 1604.]