That was our conversation, during which the Hermit kept looking at me and sighing deeply; whether it was because he felt such pity at my simplicity and ignorance, or because of something I only learnt several years later, I do not know.
I started to eat and stopped chattering, which, however, only lasted until I had appeased my hunger and the old man told me to leave. Then I sought out whatever flattering words my rough peasant tongue could supply, all of which were aimed at getting the hermit to keep me with him. And even though he found my presence irksome and a burden, he decided to allow me to stay with him, more to instruct me in the Christian religion than to avail himself of my services, old though he was. His greatest worry was that a youth of my tender years would not put up with such a hard life for long.
My probationary year was a period of some three weeks. It was in the early spring, when gardeners have to prepare the soil and I had to show my aptitude for that profession. I came through it so well that the Hermit was particularly pleased with me, not just because of the work, which I was used to doing, but because he saw that I was as eager to hear his teaching as my heart, still soft and smooth as a wax tablet, proved quick to embrace it. For that reason he became even more zealous in leading me along the path of goodness. He began his instruction with the fall of Lucifer, then proceeded to the Garden of Eden, and when we had been cast out, along with our first parents, went through the laws of Moses and taught me, through God’s ten commandments and their interpretation (which commandments he said were a true guide to recognising the will of God and leading a holy life, pleasing to God), to distinguish virtue from vice, to do good and spurn evil. Then he came to the gospels and told me about Christ’s birth, suffering, death and resurrection, concluding with Judgment Day, painting a picture of heaven and hell.
All this he set out in sufficient detail without going on for too long, concerned rather to put it in a way I could best understand. He would finish one topic before starting on the next and was so skilful and patient in dealing with me and my questions that he could have found no better way of filling my mind with his knowledge and wisdom. Both his life and his conversation were a constant sermon for me which, with the help of God’s grace, bore fruit in my mind, that was not as stupid and wooden as might have seemed. The result was that in the aforementioned three weeks I not only learnt everything a Christian ought to know, but conceived such love for the teaching that at night I could not get to sleep for thinking about it.
Since then I have often reflected on this and come to the conclusion that Aristotle was correct when, in Book 3 of
On the Soul,
he compares man’s soul to a blank wax tablet on which all kinds of things can be noted down, and concludes that this was done by the supreme creator so that these smooth tablets should be diligently marked with impressions and exercises and thus brought to completion and perfection; Averroes, commenting on the passage in Book 2 of
On the Soul
where the philosopher says that the intellect is a potentiality which can only be activated through knowledge, i.e. that the human mind is capable of all things but that nothing can be put into it without diligent exercise, comes to the clear conclusion that this knowledge or exercise leads to the perfection of the soul which, of itself, contains nothing at all. This is confirmed by Cicero in Book 2 of his
Tusculan Disputations
, where he compares the soul of a person lacking instruction, knowledge and exercise to a field which is naturally fruitful but which, if it is not cultivated and sown, will bring forth no fruit.
All this I proved through my own example. The reason why I so quickly grasped everything the hermit told me was because he found the wax tablet of my soul quite smooth and empty, free of any previous images that would have made it difficult for something else to be impressed upon it. Despite all this, however, I still retained a pure simplicity compared with other men, so that the hermit, neither of us knowing my real name, called me Simplicius.
I also learnt to pray, and when he decided to give in to my determination to stay with him, we built a hut for me similar to his own, out of branches, brushwood and clay. It was like the tents the musketeers build for themselves when campaigning, or, to be more precise, like the clamps farmers make in some places for their turnips and so low I could hardly sit upright in it. My mattress was made of dry leaves and grass and as big as the hut itself, so that I do not know whether to call my abode a hut or a covered bed.
The first time I saw the hermit reading the Bible I could not imagine whom he could be having such a secret and, as it seemed to me, earnest conversation with. I could see his lips moving, but no one talking to him, and although I knew nothing about reading and writing, I could tell from his eyes that he was occupied with something in that book. I noted which book it was, and when he put it aside I went to get it and opened it. The first thing my eye lit upon was the opening chapter of the Book of Job with a fine woodcut, beautifully coloured in, at the head. I asked the figures in it strange questions and when I received no answer I said, just as the hermit crept up behind me, ‘You little wretches, have you lost your tongues? Haven’t you just been chatting to my father (that was what I called the hermit) for long enough? I can see you’re driving off that poor Da’s sheep and have set fire to his house. Stop, stop! I’ll put out the fire’, and I stood up to go and fetch some water, for I thought it was needed.
The hermit, whom I didn’t realise was behind me, said, ‘Where are you off to, Simplicius?’
‘Oh, father’, I replied, ‘there are soldiers who have taken some sheep and are going to drive them off. They’ve taken them away from that poor man you were talking to just now. His house is going up in flames as well and if I don’t put them out it will burn down to the ground’, pointing with my finger at what I could see as I spoke.
‘Stay where you are’, said the hermit, ‘there’s no danger.’
‘Are you blind?’ I answered in my rustic manner. ‘You stop them driving the sheep off and I’ll fetch the water.’
‘But’, said the hermit, ‘these pictures are not alive. They have been made to show us things that happened a long time ago.’
‘But how can they not be alive?’ I replied. ‘You were talking to them a moment ago.’
The hermit was forced to laugh, contrary to his habit, and said, ‘My dear child, these pictures cannot speak, but I can tell what they are and what they’re doing from these black lines. This is called reading, and while I was doing it you supposed I was talking to the pictures, but that was not the case.’
‘If I’m a human like you’, I replied, ‘then I ought to be able to tell the same things as you can from the black lines. I don’t follow what you’re saying. Dear father, teach me how to understand this matter.’
At that he said, ‘Very well, my son, I will teach you so that you will be able to talk to these pictures, only it will take time. It will take patience on my part and hard work on yours.’ Then he printed the alphabet for me on pieces of birch bark and when I knew the letters I learnt to spell, then to read and eventually to write, even more clearly than the hermit himself, since I printed everything.
I spent about two years in that forest, that is up to the time the hermit died and something over half a year after that. Therefore it seems a good idea to tell the reader, who is often curious to know the least detail, about our way of life there.
For food we had all kinds of garden produce, turnips, cabbages, beans, peas and suchlike, nor did we despise beech nuts or wild apples, pears and cherries. Often we were so hungry we were happy to eat acorns. Our bread – cake might be a better word – we baked in hot ashes from maize we ground up. In the winter we caught birds with snares and gins; in the spring and summer God sent us fledglings from the nests; often we made do with snails and frogs, and we were not averse to fishing with nets and rods since not far from where we lived was a stream full of fish and crayfish, all of which made our diet of coarse vegetables more palatable. Once we caught a young wild pig, which we kept in a pen, fed on acorns and beech mast, fattened up and finally ate, since the hermit said it could be no sin to enjoy things God had created for all the human race for that very purpose. We did not need much salt, and no spices at all, for we did not want to arouse our thirst seeing that we had no cellar. The little salt we needed was given to us by a pastor who lived about fifteen miles away and of whom I shall have much to say later on.
As far as household goods were concerned, I can say that we had enough. We had a spade, a pick, an axe, a hatchet and an iron pot for cooking, which did not actually belong to us, but were borrowed from the pastor mentioned above, and each of us had a worn, blunt knife. These were our property, and that was all. We did not need bowls, plates, spoons, forks, cauldrons, frying pans, a grill, a spit, a salt cellar or other items of crockery and kitchenware, for our pot served as our bowl, and our hands were our forks and spoons. If we wanted to drink, we did it from the spring through a reed, or we dipped our mouths in, like Gideon’s warriors. As for all kinds of cloth – wool, silk, cotton and linen – for bedding, table-cloths and wall-hangings, we had nothing but what we stood up in, since we believed we had enough if we could protect ourselves from rain and frost.
There was no regular order or routine to our doings, apart from on Sundays and feast days, when we set off around midnight so that we could reach the church of the above-mentioned pastor, which lay some way out of the village, early enough to avoid being seen by anyone. While we were waiting for the service to start we sat on the broken organ, from where we could see both the altar and the pulpit. The first time I saw the pastor climb up into the latter, I asked my hermit what he was going to do in that huge tub? After the service we slipped away just as quietly as we had come. And when we reached our home, weary in body and legs, we ate our poor meal with a good appetite. The rest of the time the hermit spent praying or instructing me in holy matters.
On workdays we did whatever needed doing most, depending on the season and the time we had at our disposal. Sometimes we would work in the garden, at others we collected the rich compost from shady spots and out of hollow trees to use instead of dung to improve our garden; we would weave baskets or fish-nets, chop up firewood, fish or do anything to banish idleness. And while we went about all these tasks, the hermit never ceased instructing me in all good things. It was a tough life, and I learnt to endure hunger, thirst, heat, cold and hard work, but above all to know God and to serve Him honestly, which was the most important lesson. And that was all my faithful hermit wanted me to learn, for he thought it was enough for a Christian to reach his goal if he worked hard and prayed hard. And that was why, although I had been well enough taught in religious matters, and understood my Christian belief – and also could speak German as beautifully if it was the spelling book itself speaking – yet I remained a simpleton. When I left the woods I cut such a sorry figure in the world that even the dogs ignored me.
One day after about two years, when I was still scarcely accustomed to the hard life of a hermit, my best friend on earth took his pick, gave me the spade and, following his daily habit, led me by the hand into our garden where we used to say our prayers.
‘Now Simplicius, my dear child’, he said, ‘the time has come, praise be to God, for me to depart this life, to pay my debt to nature and leave you behind in the world. And since I can foresee some of the things that will befall you in your life and well know that you will not stay long in this wilderness, I have determined to give you some precepts to strengthen you on the path of virtue on which you have started out. These will be an infallible guide and will lead you, if you live your life according to them, to eternal bliss and you will be found worthy to join the elect, beholding the face of God for all eternity.’
These words flooded my eyes with tears, just as the dam the Swedes constructed flooded the town of Villingen. They were more than I could bear, but I said, ‘Dearest father, are you going to leave me alone in this wild forest? Then shall –’ More I could not say. My heart overflowed with love for my father and this made the torment so sharp I collapsed at his feet, as if dead. He helped me up and comforted me as well as time and the occasion allowed, at the same time reproaching me for my error, asking me if I thought I could oppose the divine order? ‘Do you not know’, he went on, ‘that that is something neither Heaven nor Hell can do? Would you burden this weak body of mine, which is longing for rest? Do you imagine you can force me to stay longer in this vale of tears? No, my son, let me go. All your wailing and sobbing cannot compel me to stay any longer in this place of misery, especially against my will now that God’s express will is calling me away. Instead of indulging in useless crying, follow my last words, which are these: the longer you live, the better you should seek to know yourself, and do not let your heart abandon this practice, even if you should live to be as old as Methuselah. The reason why most men are damned is that they never learn what they are, nor what they can and must be.’
He went on to advise me to avoid bad company, for the harm it could do was more than he could say. And he gave me an example, saying, ‘If you put one drop of Malmsey into a bowl of vinegar, it will immediately turn to vinegar; if, on the other hand, you put a drop of vinegar in Malmsey, it will mingle with the wine. My dearest son’, he said, ‘above all be steadfast, for those who persevere to the end will find eternal bliss. If, however, contrary to my hopes it should happen that human weakness makes you fall, then quickly rise again through sincere repentance.’