Next morning, towards sunrise, Olivier roused me, saying, ‘Stir your stumps, Simplicius! Time we were out there, for God’s sake, seeing if there’s stuff to be had.’ ‘Oh, God,’ I reflected, ‘is it in your name that I’m to go out pillaging? I remember a time, just after I’d buried my hermit, when I was shocked to hear a man tell his friend, “How about it, brother, let’s hit the bottle together, for God’s sake!” To me, it meant sinning doubly: (a) getting sloshed, and (b) doing it in your name. Heavenly father, how I’ve changed! Dear God, what’s to become of me if I don’t change back? Bind, I beg of you, these steps that carry me straight to hell. Take away this need to do penance.’ With such pleas in my heart I followed Olivier into a village in which no living creature yet stirred. We climbed the church tower to spy out the lie of the land. It was up there that he’d hidden the shoes and socks he’d promised me the evening before as well as two loaves of bread, some lumps of boiled dried meat, and a half-full cask of wine – enough to keep him going for a week. As I pulled on my new footwear, he told me how he liked to use this place as a lookout on days when he thought there was a chance of making a good haul. Hence the larder he kept here. He added that he had several such places, all similarly stocked up, in case his prey approached from a different quarter. I had to admire his thinking, while at the same time leaving him in no doubt that to defile so holy a place (one consecrated to the Lord) didn’t look good. ‘What do you mean – “defile”?’ he scoffed. ‘If churches could talk, they’d admit soon enough that the things I get up to on their premises are scarcely worth mentioning in the same breath as the wrongs these walls will have witnessed. Tell me, since this church went up, how many menfolk and how many females do you suppose have entered it on pretence of serving God but in fact to flaunt their new clothes, their fine figures, their great eminence – whatever? One man will attend church looking like a peacock and stand before the altar as if trying to pray the very feet off the saints. Another will stand in a corner sighing like a tax collector in a temple, except all his sighs will be for the sweetheart whose face holds his gaze, she being the reason why he’s there. A third (someone collecting fire-insurance premiums, say) will stand outside or, if the coast is clear, step inside the building. He’ll have come more to show his face to those who owe him interest on arrears than to say his prayers. If he hadn’t known his debtors would be in church, he could have stayed at home, happily poring over his ledgers. Sometimes, when a local authority has an announcement to make, the crier must tour village churches on a Sunday for the purpose, which is why some peasants now dread churchgoing more than a poor sinner attending court. Surely you’ll admit: at least some of the folk buried in church actually deserved to die under the sword, on the gallows, at the stake, or by being broken on the wheel? Some would get nowhere with their “bit on the side” without the help of some churchgoing. If a thing needs peddling or hiring out, there are places where a notice will be nailed to the church door. Usurers who lack time during the week to dwell on their evil trade will attend church on Sunday to dream up new ways of swindling folk. You’ll see groups of them in the congregation at Mass or during the sermon, discussing how to put the boot in. Church might have been invented for the purpose. Suggestions will be made there that in private would be unthinkable. Some people sit and snooze, almost as if they’d rented the space. Others, not up to mischief themselves, simply buttonhole neighbours: “Notice how neatly reverend weaves so-and-so or such-and-such into his sermon!” they’ll whisper. Others again will note the priest’s words – not with a view to improving their own conduct but to be in a position to haul their spiritual adviser over the coals if (as they see it) he fails to practise what he preaches. That’s not to mention the tales I’ve read of how adulterous affairs have begun and reached consummation as a result of pimping in churches. But this much you’ll know anyway: not just in their lifetimes do folk defile churches; in their vanity and stupidity they do so even after death. The moment you enter a church you’ll see from the tombstones and epitaphs how folk go on bragging – long after the worms have scoffed their remains. Look up, and you’ll see more shields, helmets, guns, flags, boots, spurs and the like than some armouries contain. Small wonder, then, that in this present war folk in some areas have used churches as fortresses to defend themselves and their possessions. I’m a soldier, right, so tell me this: why should I be forbidden to practise my trade in church? Once, purely over a matter of precedence, two holy fathers caused such a massacre in a church that the place looked more like a slaughterhouse than a house of God. As a non-believer myself, I’d of course stay away – particularly if there was a service on. But these were ecclesiastical dignitaries, and even they had no respect for the majesty of the Emperor of Rome. So I repeat: why shouldn’t I enlist the Church’s help in storing my bit of food, when so many others live in clover at the Church’s expense? If it’s all right for rich folk to be buried on church premises in return for a wad of cash (incidentally, demonstrating the arrogance of their kin), why is your poor man (also a Christian, quite possibly a more pious one, but with empty pockets) – why does he get shovelled into the earth in a corner of the graveyard outside? It all depends on your point of view, doesn’t it? If I’d known you felt queasy about using a church as a lookout post, I’d have been careful to answer you differently. As it is, think about what I’ve said. That’ll give me time to think of other arguments to convince you.’
I nearly told Olivier that all such wretched folk were treating churches with disrespect. Not unlike him, in fact. They’d have their comeuppance in the end. However, I didn’t trust him anyway, and I certainly didn’t want to pick another fight with him. So I went along with what he said. He then asked me to tell him what I’d been up to before Wittstock, which was when we’d lost touch. Why had I been wearing a fool’s costume, for instance, when I entered that camp outside Magdeburg? I had a bit of a sore throat and didn’t feel in the mood, so I begged to be excused. Would he mind going first, I said, and telling his own life story, which promised to contain some amusing episodes? He agreed and began to recount some of the things he’d done in his rascally existence. This is what he said.