The Adventurous Simplicissimus

all about, and at last from the servant’s broken German I understood that the huntsman had accused him to the man’s wife of not tending the horses well: all which the jealous knave, by reason of the man’s imperfect speech, understood wrongly and in a dishonourable way, and therefore told the Italian he need but wait, for the huntsman should presently be gone.” Since then, too, he had looked askance upon his wife and grumbled at her more than before, which I had myself remarked in the fool. Then said the doctor, “From whatever cause ’twas done, I am content that matters have so turned out that he must remain here. But be not dismayed; I will at the first good opportunity help you back to Germany. Only write ye to the man at Cologne to have a care of the money, or he will be called sharply to account. And this also doth raise suspicion in me that ’tis a plot⁠—namely, that he that gave himself out for the creditor is a very good friend both of your host and of his correspondent here, and I do believe the bond, on which he seized and sold the horses, was brought here by yourself.”

II

How Simplicissimus Found a Better Host Than Before

So Monsieur Canard (for so was my new master called) offered to help me in word and deed, that I might not lose my property at Cologne; for he saw how much it troubled me. So as soon as he had me to his house, he begged I would tell him exactly how my affairs stood, that he might understand and so devise how I might best be helped. Thereupon I thought ’twould avail me little if I revealed mine own poor birth, and so gave out I was a poor German nobleman that had neither father nor mother, but only some kinsfolk in a fortress wherein was a Swedish garrison; all which, said I, I had perforce concealed from my host at Cologne and my two noblemen, as being all of the emperor’s party, that they might not confiscate my money as the enemy’s property. My intention it was, said I, to write to the commandant of the said fortress, in whose regiment I had been promised an ensigncy, and not only inform him in what fashion I had been deluded hither but also to beg him to have the goodness to take possession of my property, and in the meantime, until I could find opportunity to return to my regiment, to put it at the disposition of my friends. This plan the good Canard thought good, and promised me to forward the letters to their proper place though it were in Mexico or even in China. Accordingly I prepared letters to my wife, to my father-in-law, and to the colonel S(aint) A(ndré), commandant in Lippstadt, to whom I addressed the whole packet, and enclosed the two others. The contents were: that I would present myself again as speedily as might be, if only I could get the means to perform so long a journey, and begged both my father-in-law and the colonel to do their best to endeavour to recover my property by military process before the grass was grown over it, and gave them a full list of the amounts in gold, silver, and jewels. All these letters I drew up in duplicate: and one copy Monsieur Canard took charge of: the other copy I did entrust to the post, that if one copy should go astray, the other at least might arrive safely.

So now was I at ease in my mind again, and was the more able to teach my master’s two sons, which were brought up like young princes: for because Monsieur Canard was rich, therefore was he beyond all measure proud, and must make a display; the which disease he had taken from the great men, with whom he daily had to do, and aped their ways. His house was like a prince’s court, of which it wanted nothing save that none ever called him “gracious sir,” and his conceit was so great that he would treat a marquis, when such came to visit him, as no better than himself. He was ready to help poor folk, and would take no small fees, but forgave them the money that his name might be more renowned. And because I was ever desirous of knowledge, and because I knew that he made much show of my person when I followed him with his other servants on a visit to some great man, I would help him in his laboratory in the preparation of his medicines. Thus was I become well acquainted with him, and that the more because it ever pleased him to speak the German tongue: so once on a time I said to him, why did he not write himself down as “of” his nobleman’s residence which he had newly bought near Paris for 20,000 crowns, and why he would make simple doctors of his sons and would have them to study so hard. Were it not better, since he himself had a title of nobility, to buy them offices, as did other chevaliers, and so bring them entirely into the class of nobles? “Nay,” he answered, “if I visit a prince, to me ’tis said, ‘Master doctor, be seated,’ but to a nobleman, ‘Wait thy turn!’ ” So said I, “But doth the doctor not know that a physician hath three faces⁠—the first, an angel’s, when the sick man sees him first; the second, God’s own, when he can help the sick; and the third, the devil’s own, when a man is healed and can be rid of him? And so this honour of which ye speak doth but last so long as the sick man is plagued in his belly: but when ’tis over and the grumbling past there hath the honour an end, and ‘Master Doctor,’ quoth’a,