The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Your stay here is no more. I know the Portugieser. They will be hard on
him, and he’ll whistle. And at night they’ll get you out of bed.
Take my advice, brother, you’ve always been faithful and it’s a
pity for you that we forced you into a drinking and
roughhousing Order:
In Thistlesbruck are recruiters of the King of Prussia,
who let trumpets and violins and wine flow, and gold foxes
patter on the table.”
“Soldier – you mean? -” I asked, trepidatiously.
“Do you want to be excavated tomorrow and lie in the
tower on the straw with the bed bugs? You know that there will
be no help from the principal and the senate, if someone has to
take the blame. If you still had your mother’s pennies – but like
this! There is no other way, comrade, than to run behind the
calfskin. There you are as safe as if you were in Abraham’s
bosom.”
I was frightened and bitterly remorseful about the years
of my youth, which I had so wickedly squandered.
“Don’t fool around,” urged Haymon.
“I mean it honestly. And if it hadn’t happened with the
Ansbacher, how long would you have been able to play with
your feathered cap and a racket? There is one thing called
ultima ratio, and this is it. No amount of twisting or intriguing
can change it. By day and dew you can be in Thistlesbruck. By
the bridge you can already hear the roar in the ‘Merry
Bombardier’. And now, old Swede, God protect you, and so
that life may bring us together once again.” He kissed me
quickly on both cheeks and turned.
“Here you can have my rapier, and here – cut off the four
silver buttons that still hang on my Gottfried,” I said.
But Haymon only shook his head mutely and disappeared
into the shadows.
Slowly I walked along the road to Distelsbruck.
I tore the crimson-yellow-blue feather from my hat and
threw it into the next stream.
And went on.
I was sick to death from the Hungarian wine, tobacco
smoke and noise for three days. Whenever the timpanist struck
the cymbals, it drove like a painful lightning through my
devastated brain.
“O my Bärbele -!” howled one of the caged birds, with
whom I was sitting at the table.
“Yes, and what will the Herr Father say?” jeered the
hussar who was guarding us, so that no one could escape who
had taken hand money and drank to Friderici’s health. The lad
bawled even louder. Then they held a glass of wine to his
mouth and tipped it. So he had to swallow, if he did not want to
completely suffocate. And then he became silent.
“And you?” the moustache turned to me. “Did you do
something wrong, that you got into the yarn of the recruiters?
You don’t seem to me to be one of the stupid ones.”
The sergeant came up to us, decorated with gold cords
and dressed up with braids and buttons, so that the poor
peasants would run more easily to him.
“That’s the best of them all,” he said to the cavalier and
pointed to me. “The only good ones are those who come of
their own accord. For the coat with the blood- splatters, fellow,
you get a new one from His Majesty!”
And in the rosy glow of the approaching day I saw with
horror that my right sleeve showed many dark stains, stains
from the blood of Heilsbronner’s death wound. For this I was
now cruelly sold. I looked around like one who is drowning in
wild waters and looks for rescue.
But there was no help.
All around were soldiers with a cold look and at the table
were the poor rogues who yesterday and before yesterday had
jumped in the dance with the prostitutes and had thrown thalers,
feasted and shouted and talked about the merry life of a soldier,
which would now begin. In the doorway and in front of the
window stood a hussar with a loaded carbine, and I had to
follow behind one of them in a red monkey uniform with a
saber and saddle pistol.
In the miserable room it smelled musty from spilled wine,
and from the puddles, of those who had let it trickle out of their
wells in the corners. A haze rose that bit into the eyes.
“Stop that doodling and whistling!” the sergeant suddenly
shouted. The music stopped and the tired musicians puffed out
their breaths; they went to divide the money that lay in heaps
on the table in front of them. The sergeant buttoned and
thoughtfully knotted the golden tassels and catch cords from
the dolman, carefully wrapped them in paper for another time
and then shouted into the hall:
“Up, lads, up! Everybody get going!”
“Where to?” shouted a cheeky one with a cheese-blowing
face.
“Where to? Where they dig a hole in the sand for you and
put three shots over it, snotty nose!” laughed the sergeant.
“Whoever still has wine in his glass, throw it down. The
wagon will be harnessed, my little birds!”
He drove us out. There were eight of us on the ladder
wagon. On the trestle sat a hussar and two behind us. The
others trotted alongside. The Moravians pulled up. People
came out of the houses and talked quietly with each other. One
wept bitterly when she saw the soul-seller driving away with
his people.
“Oh, dear Lord!” one of them wailed. “O Mother, mother!
Let me go free -“
Then the sergeant trotted up and shouted:
“Shut up, damned fellow!”
“Mercy, Herr!” cried the poor wretch.
“Let me, for the blood of Christ, just this time go free and
single! I am so sorry!”
“Have you already wet the seat, peasant girl?” he sneered
from the horse. “Look at the student there next to you; he’s not
twisting like a maiden the first time. Now let up with your
snotting and blubbering!”
The boy raised his hands and whimpered:
“Have mercy! I can now and never live the hard life of a
soldier -“
Then the non-commissioned officer drove the horse so
close that the white foam from the bit flew onto our coats, and
roared in a horrible voice:
“Peasant sow, dirty one! Should I leave you right here on
a slab, or should I wait until we get there, where we will soon
be, and have you flailed, so that you can’t pull your pants off
the open flesh, you bastard, you recruit’s ass!”
Then the lad hung his head and kept silent.
We went out of the village, and the children followed us
for a while. But they didn’t scream, as children usually do at
every spectacle. They stopped by the two linden trees at the
wayside shrine and looked behind us with wide eyes.
But there was one that sat by the lime trees and looked at
me, with the same eyes – full of compassion and pure kindness.
It was a man in a reddish-brown robe, with a string of yellow
beads around his neck and chest. Under the black turban
around his head was a face of indescribable mildness and
beauty.
It was the man who had approached me in the church
when they sang the lament for Jerusalem.
Ewli, the man from the east.
I jumped up from my seat and spread my arms out to him.
But suddenly I did not see him any longer. Only the gray
weathered stone of the Wayside Shrine was between the old
trees.
“What are you up to, recruit? Do you want to run away
from us?” shouted the sergeant.
I sat down on the shaking and bumping board, and in
spite of all the misery I suddenly felt light and joyful, as if
nothing serious could happen to me for all eternity.
It was a thousand times and a thousand times worse than
I had ever imagined, and now I knew, how to deal with the
common man. Of course, there were some bad fellows among
my comrades -.
I was the musketeer Melchior Dronte. I concealed my
nobility, so that I would not get more scorn like pepper added
to a bitter meal.
My shoulders ached from the rough blows of the
corporal’s baton, which danced on all of us during the exercises,
my left eye was swollen from the lieutenant’s beating me with
the riding whip, my hands were chapped and torn from the rifle
lock, and pus oozed from under the nail of my right thumb
when I attacked something. Vermin itched and ate all over my
entire body. My body was tired to death.
So that morning, when the drums were going, I could
hardly get up. Twice I tried to lift myself up, and twice I fell
back. The barracks elder poured a bucket of ice-cold dirty
water over my body and pulled me out of bed by my legs.
The old soldiers were a thousand times rougher than all
the officers and non-commissioned officers.
To one who remained in a deep sleep, they stuck pitch on
the big toe and set it on fire. There was a great laughter, when
the poor devil, half mad with fright, howling and screaming ran
around in the sleeping quarters.
Quickly we washed ourselves at the well, crunched up
lice, which got between our scratching fingers, and drank our
half nösel of brandy, which the camp followers poured out,
with the black bread. The braids were twisted together so that
the back of the head ached, the gaiters were buttoned.
When we were standing in the yard, the hazel sticks were
distributed from man to man. They had lain in the well water
all night and whistled venomously when they cut through the
air.
The battalion stood in two ranks.
“First rank – two steps forward! March!
Halt! -About face!”
Two long, endless lines stood face to face.
The provost brought the deserter. He was from my unit.
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