As soon as Herzbruder could get back on a horse we transferred our cash (because now we’d only one purse between us) to Basel, collected our mounts and our servants, and sailed back up the Danube to Ulm. From there we rode up to said spa. The month of May had come in and the weather was pleasant for travelling. On reaching our destination, we took rooms. I promptly rode on to Strasbourg, partly to collect some of our money (which we’d arranged to have forwarded from Basel) but also to look around for experienced medical men to prescribe drugs and a bathing schedule for Herzbruder. The doctors rode back with me and established that Herzbruder was suffering toxification. However, since the poison wasn’t strong enough to kill him instantly it had deposited itself in his limbs and would have to be removed by medicines, antidotes and sweat baths. Such a cure would take a week or so (eight, possibly). This immediately reminded Herzbruder of when and by whom he’d been poisoned – namely, by those who’d have hankered after his position in the army. And when he further gathered from the quacks that his condition didn’t require spa treatment, he became convinced that the same jealous rivals had bribed his field doctor to get him out of the way. Even so, he’d decided to stay on for the full cure. The air was good, he said, and his fellow spa visitors offered a variety of charms.
Not wishing to waste the time (I quite wanted to see my wife again, actually), and because Herzbruder had no particular need of me, I told my friend what I had in mind. He fell in with my plans enthusiastically, agreeing that I owed her a visit. In fact, he gave me many valuable items of jewellery to pass on to her with his apologies for having been one reason why I’d not come sooner. So off I rode to Strasbourg, where as well as seeing to certain money matters I made enquiries about how to arrange my journey in such a way as to make it as safe as possible. Travelling alone on horseback was out of the question, I was told. With so many garrisons attached to one side or the other, mutually hostile raiding parties made it anything but safe. I therefore obtained a Strasbourg courier’s pass and wrote a series of letters to my wife, her sister and her parents as if with a view to dispatching the courier with them to L. But then, pretending to have changed my mind, I persuaded the courier to hand over the pass, sent my horse and servant back, disguised myself in the appropriate red and white uniform, and sailed to Cologne, which at that time occupied a neutral position between the warring armies.
I called first on my Jupiter (who’d earlier decided that I was his Ganymede), keen to find out how matters stood with regard to the treasure I’d left there. However, Jupiter was in his usual foul mood – thoroughly pissed off with the whole human race. ‘Ah, Mercury!’ he said as soon as he saw me, ‘What’s new from Münster? Presumably folk are thinking about making peace without my say-so? Oh, no – I’m not having that again! Peace was theirs; why didn’t they keep it? Wasn’t every vice on Earth in full flower when they got me to send them war? What have they done since to deserve peace being restored? Have they seen the light in some way? Things are actually far worse for them now, surely? They strolled into war like folk going to the fair for a night’s fun. Maybe this inflation has given them second thoughts, with so many thousands starving. Or is it perhaps fear of a gruesome death (as suffered by millions) that’s made them change their minds? No, no, Mercury – those who’ve survived, seeing the misery and wretchedness with their own eyes, have not only refused to turn over a new leaf; they’re behaving worse than ever! If a hulking great cross (a burden of affliction if ever there was one) won’t make them mend their unholy ways, what will happen if I give them back the golden delights of peace? I ought to worry that, like the Titans of old, they’d storm heaven itself eventually. But I won’t. I’ll thwart such spite and let them stew in their own wicked juice.’
Knowing from experience how any such divinity needs delousing to put him in a good mood, I said, ‘Ah, Almighty One, but look: folk long for peace, and they promise to improve. Why keep them waiting?’ ‘Oh, they long all right; I hear them sighing. But not for my benefit – for their own. Not for the chance to praise God under their vines and under their fig trees but to be able to enjoy the good fruit of those shrubs undisturbed. I recently asked a grinch of a tailor whether he thought I should bestow peace. He didn’t much care, he replied; peace or war, he still had to fight for a living. I got a similar answer from a brass-founder: in peacetime he wondered where the next bell contract was coming from; in war his order books were full to bursting with muskets and cannon galore. A blacksmith told me, “I don’t get a lot of ploughs and farm carts when there’s a war on, but I do get plenty of farrier work and army wagons. You can keep your ceasefires.” No, Mercury, you look: why should I give them peace? OK, there are folk who prefer it, but only (like I said) for the sake of their bellies and for other pleasures. Others want to hang on to war, not because it’s my will but because it brings in money. Stonemasons and carpenters long for peace; then they can earn, putting up new buildings or restoring wartime ruins. Folk who worry about getting by, feeding themselves by the work of their hands, want war to continue. In war you can steal your grub.’
With my Jupiter so preoccupied I could well imagine that, given the tangled nature of the situation, he wouldn’t be able to tell me much about my stuff. So without reminding him who I was I took matters into my own hands. Keeping to the back roads I knew so well, I made my way to L. When I got there, I asked about my father-in-law – covertly, though, still posing as a perfectly ordinary courier. My enquiries revealed that both my parents-in-law had passed on some six months earlier, and that my better half, immediately after dropping a son (who now lived with her sister), had also quit the temporal realm. I then delivered to my brother-in-law the letters I’d personally written to my father-in-law, to my darling wife, and to himself. He insisted that I lodge with him, wishing to learn (from me as a courier) how things were with Mr Simplicius. For the same reason my sister-in-law interrogated me (as a courier), enquiring how I (as Simplicius) was getting on, to which I (speaking as the courier, of course) replied in the most flattering terms. You see, the pox had so ruined my once handsome phiz as to make me unrecognizable – except by von Schönstein, who as a loyal friend kept it buttoned.
I gave my sister-in-law a detailed account of how Mr Simplicius kept many fine horses and a servant to look after them; he also wore a black velvet cloak liberally decorated with gold braid. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I always thought his background was better than he claimed. The commandant insisted to my late parents that they’d most advantageously saddled him with my late sister, an indubitably pious virgin for whom I’d never been able to predict a good end. Still, he submitted willingly enough and made up his mind to join the Swedish or should I say Hessian forces garrisoned in this town, accordingly travelling to Cologne to fetch the hoard he’d stashed there. Things dragged on a bit in Cologne, and during that time he was most wickedly tricked into going to France, leaving my sister (who’d had him less than a month) behind pregnant, along with half a dozen other girls of good family in L. These then dropped sons one after another (my sister coming last), and when father and mother passed away subsequently, my husband and I having found we couldn’t have children of our own accepted my sister’s child as our sole heir. With the assistance of the commandant we brought the child’s father’s hoard from Cologne. Altogether the estate is worth some 3,000 florins, which means that, when the lad comes of age, he won’t have to be classed as poor. Also, my husband and I love the child so much, we wouldn’t give him up to the father even if he came in person to take him away. Added to which, he’s far better-looking than his half-brothers – his father’s spitting image, in fact. And if the father ever found out what a perfectly lovely son he has in this place, he’d not be able to prevent himself from coming here in person (even if he shunned all his bastard sprogs) just for one glimpse of the little darling.’
And so she went on, my sister-in-law – all of it in much the same vein. I very soon realized how well she loved my child. I could almost picture the little fellow, toddling around by now in his first pair of trousers, and I found the image delightful. So I looked out the bits and pieces of jewellery that Herzbruder had asked me to give my wife on his behalf. Mr Simplicius had asked me to bring these along, I explained (as the courier, remember), and my suggestion was, his good wife being now dead, the proper thing would be to hand them on to her child. My brother-in-law and his wife were delighted to take them. Mr Simplicius, they concluded, must be a man of means and not at all the sort of individual they’d imagined. At this I begged to take my leave, and when permission was granted asked if I might, before leaving, kiss young Simplicius on his father’s behalf; then I’d be able, I assured them, to report same to the father as proof of our having met. When, my sister-in-law approving, the kiss ensued, the youngster and I both got nosebleeds. It was a sign, I thought: my heart had broken. I hid my emotions, however, and before anyone could start wondering (why this sympathetic reaction?) I did a runner. After fourteen days of strenuous effort and constant risk, I got back to the spa, dressed in rags again, having been well skinned on the way.