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diff --git a/41518-0.txt b/41518-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fae6e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/41518-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,277 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41518 *** + +The Battle of Sempach + +A Story +By +Robert Walser (1878-1956) + +Berlin. +The Future Press. +1908. + +One day, in the middle of high summer, a military expedition was +advancing slowly down the dusty country road that led towards a +district of Luzern. The bright, actually more than bright, sun +dazzled down over swaying armour serving to cover human bodies, +over prancing horses, over helmets and parts of faces, over equine +heads and tails, over ornaments and plumes and stirrups as big as +snowshoes. To the right and to the left of the shining military +expedition spread out meadows with thousands of fruit trees in them +up as far as hills that, looming up out of the blue-smelling, half-hazy +distance, beckoned and had the same effect as light and carefully +painted window dressing. It was before noon and the heat was already +oppressive. It was a meadowy heat, a heat contained in grass, hay +and dust, for thick clouds of dust were being thrown up that sometimes +descended like a veil over parts and sections of the army. Sluggishly, +ploddingly, carelessly the long cavalcade moved forward. Sometimes +it looked like a shimmering and elongated snake, sometimes like a +lizard of enormous girth, sometimes like a large piece of cloth, +richly embroidered with figures and colourful shapes and ceremoniously +trailed as with ladies, elderly and domineering ones as far as I'm +concerned, accustomed to dragging trains behind them. In all this +military might's method and way of doing things, in the stamping of +feet and the clinking of weapons, in this rough and ready clatter +lurked an "as far as I'm concerned" that was uniform, something +impudent, full of confidence, something upsetting, slowly pushing to +one side. All these knights were conversing, as far as their iron-clad +mouths would allow them, in joyful verbal banter with each other. +Peals of laughter rang out and this sound was admirably suited to +the bright tones emitted by weapons and chains and golden belts. The +morning sun still appeared to caress a good deal of brass and finer +metal. The sounds of tin whistles flew sunward. Now and again one +of the many footmen walking as if on stilts would tender to his +mounted lord a delicate titbit, stuck on a silver fork, right up to his +swaying saddle. Wine was drunk on the move, poultry consumed +and nothing edible spat out, with an easy-going, carefree amiability, +for this was no earnest war involving chivalry they were riding to, but +more of a punitive expedition, a statutory rape, bloody, scornful, +histrionic things. Everybody there thought so and everybody saw +already the heap of cut-off heads that would redden the meadow. +Among the leaders of the expedition was many a wonderful noble +young man splendidly attired, sitting on horseback like a male angel +flown down from a blue uncertain heaven. Many a one had taken +off his helmet to make things more comfortable for himself and given +it to an attendant to carry. By doing so he displayed to the air a +peculiarly finely drawn face that was a mixture of innocence and +exuberance. They were telling the latest jokes and discussing the +most up-to-date stories of courtly women. The serious ones in their +company they tolerated as best they could; it seemed today as if +a pensive expression was deemed to be improper and unchivalrous. +The hair of the young knights who had taken their helmets off, shone +and smelt of oil and unguents and sweet-smelling water that they had +poured on it as if it had been a matter of riding to visit a coquette to +sing her charming love songs. Their hands, from which the iron +gauntlets had been taken off, did not look like those of warriors, +but manicured and pampered, slender and white like the hands of +young girls. + +Only one person in the wild procession was serious. Already his +outward appearance, armour that was deep black broken up with +tender gold, indicated how the person it covered thought. He was the +noble Duke Leopold of Austria. This man did not speak a word and +seemed completely lost in anxious thoughts. His face looked like that +of a person who is being pestered by a fly that is impudently flying +round his eye. This fly may well have been a presentiment that +something bad was going to happen for a smile that was permanently +both contemptuous and sad played over his mouth. He kept his head +lowered. The whole world, however cheerful it looked, seemed to him +to roll and thunder angrily. Or was it just the thunder of the +trampling hooves of horses as the army was now passing over a wooden +bridge that spanned the river Reuss? Nevertheless something +foreshadowing misfortune hovered horribly around the duke's bodily +form. + +* * * + +The army stopped near the little town of Sempach. It was now about +two o'clock in the afternoon. It may have been three o'clock. It was +a matter of indifference to the knights what the time might be. As far +as they were concerned it could have been eight o'clock at night--they +would have found that quite in order. They were already terribly bored +and found even the slightest trace of military discipline laughable. It +was a dull moment. It was like a parade ground manoeuvre how they +jumped from their saddles to take up a position. No-one wanted to +laugh any more. They had already laughed so much. Yawning and +exhaustion had set in. Even the horses seemed to understand that +all one could do now was yawn. The servants on foot tucked into +the remnants of the food and wine, quaffed and scoffed what there +was still left to scoff and quaff. How ridiculous this whole +expedition appeared to all concerned! This shabby little town that +was still holding out: how stupid it all was! + +The call of a horn rang out suddenly through the frightful heat and +boredom. It left one or two more attentive ears particularly inquisitive +as to what it might be. Listen: there it is again. It really did +sound out again and it could generally have been believed that it +was now ringing out from not so far away. "All good things come +in threes," lisped a facetious fop. "Sound one more time, horn!" +And time marched on. People had become somewhat pensive--and +now, in addition, frightened, as if the thing had grown wings and was +riding on fiery monsters in that direction, consumed by flames and +shouting, setting up a long cry: We're coming! It was in truth as +if a subterranean world had suddenly received a breath of fresh air, +breaking in through the hard earth above. The sound was like the +opening up of a dark precipice and it seemed as if the sun were +shining down now out of a darkened sky even more glowingly, even +more harshly, but a light coming down out of hell and not out of +heaven. People laughed again--there are moments when man thinks +he ought to smile when really what he feels is the icy grip of terror. +The mood of a military expedition made up of many men is, at the +end of the day, not very different from the mood of a single and +solitary individual. The whole of the landscape in its stifling white +heat now seemed to be still making a hooting noise. It had turned +into the sounds of horns and now there entered without any more +ado into the range of horns being blown, as if from an opening, the +crowd of men from whom the sound had gone out. Now the landscape +was featureless. The sky and the earth in summer came together as +something solid. The season disappeared. A geographical location, +a tilting yard, a bellicose play area had become a battlefield. +Nature plays no part in a battle. Everything depends on luck, the +calibre of the weaponry, one crowd of people and another crowd +of people. + +The rushing forward, to all appearances heated, crowd drew nearer. +And the crowd of knights stood firm seeming for once to have knit +together. Lads of iron held their lances out in front of them so that +you could have driven a coach and four over the resulting bridge so +densely packed were the knights and so unsurprisingly lance after +lance stuck out, immobile, unmovable, just the thing one might have +thought for one of the pushing, pressing, human chests opposite to be +spitted by. Here a stupid wall of sharp points, there men in shirts, only +half dressed. Here the art of war practised in the most narrow-minded +of ways, there men in the grip of inarticulate anger. One after another +they ran forward boldly just to put an end to this despicable lack of +enthusiasm and threw themselves onto the tip of a lance, crazy, mad, +driven by rage and fury. They ended up, of course, falling over one +another on the ground without having been able even to inflict a wound +with their hand-held weapons on the plumed and helmeted louts +of iron opposite. They fell face down into the dusty horse dung left +behind on the ground by noble mounts. And so it befell nearly all +these men in a state of undress while the lances, already reddened +by their blood, seemed to smile at them disdainfully. + +* * * + +No. That was nothing. One saw oneself compelled to make use of +a trick in order to be on the side of humanity. Confronted by art, +either art or some lofty thought was called for and that lofty thought, +in the shape of a man of lofty face, immediately stepped forward as if +pushed there by a supernatural power and addressed his countrymen: +"Look after my wife and my children. I'll make a path through for you." +And he threw himself forthwith so as not to let cool his desire for +self-sacrifice onto four or five lances and pulled down several more, +as many as he could force to his chest in the act of dying. It was as +if he could not embrace these iron points enough and drag them into +himself to be able to die with unlimited resources and to lie on the +ground and turn into a bridge for men who then trampled over his +body, on the lofty thought that wanted to be trampled on. Nothing +will ever again compare with such a thrashing and the way in which +those lightly-clad valley and mountain folk smashed that clumsy, +despicable wall and tore it and beat it to bits like tigers ripping to +pieces a defenceless herd of cows. The knights had become almost +totally defenceless since, being hemmed in, they could hardly move +to the side. Mounted knights were popped from their horses like +paper bags filled with air pop when you clap your hands on them. +The herdsmen's weapons now proved frightful and their light summer +clothing just right. Armour to the knights was that much more +burdensome. Heads were stroked by side-swipes, only stroked +apparently, and turned out to have been severed. More and more +knights were being struck down, horses overturned and the power +and rage of the onslaught kept increasing. The duke was killed +outright. It would have been a miracle had he not been killed. +Those who were raining down blows shouted as they did so, +as if it were appropriate, as if just killing were too slight an +annihilation, only a half measure. + +Heat, steam, the smell of blood, dirt and dust and the shouting and +yelling merged in a wild, diabolical turmoil. The dying hardly even +felt the onset of their death, they died so quickly. They suffocated +in droves in their showy iron armour, those threshing flails. What +further comment need be made? Each of them would gladly have +given a damn, had they still been able to. Fine noblemen drowned +in their hundreds; no, they were drownded in the nearby Lake of +Sempach; they were drownded because they were pushed into the +water like cats and dogs. They overbalanced and fell over one +another in their elegant pointed shoes--it was a real shame. The +most splendid armour plating could only vouchsafe to its wearer +oblivion and the realisation of this frightening presentiment was not +contradicted. What did it matter now that at home, in the Aargau +or in Swabia, knights owned land and people, had a beautiful +wife, servants, maidservants, fruit trees, fields and woods and +collected taxes and enjoyed the finest privileges? That only made +dying in these pools of water between the pressing down knee of +a crazy herdsman and a piece of earth more bitter and more wretched. +The warhorses in their uncontrolled flight naturally stamped on their +own masters. Many knights, in the abruptness of their desire to +dismount, got caught up in the stirrups with their silly but fashionable +footwear and were left hanging from them so that they bumped +themselves over the grass bleeding from the backs of their heads. +Their shocked eyes in the meantime, before they closed for good, +saw the sky burn above them like an angry flame. Herdsmen also +died, of course, but for every one bare-breasted and bare-armed +combatant who died there were always ten armour-plated and +wrapped up ones. The battle of Sempach teaches us, in fact, how +dreadfully stupid it is to wrap up well. If only those puppets had +been able to move, yes, they would have done. Some did manage +to do so, so that they were finally able to free themselves from that +totally unbearable thing they were carrying on their body. "I am +fighting with slaves. How disgusting!" cried a handsome youth with +yellowish hair falling down to his shoulders and sank to the ground, +hit full in his fair face by a vicious blow, where he, fatally wounded, +bit the grass with his half-smashed teeth. A few herdsmen, whose +deadly weapons had gone missing from their hands, pulled +down like wrestlers in a wrestling ring their opponents from below by +the scruff of the neck and head or threw themselves, avoiding counter +blows, at the throat of a knight and throttled him, strangling him to +death. + +* * * + +Meanwhile it had started to go dark. The dying light still glowed in +trees and bushes while the sun went down among the dusky foothills +of the Alps like a dead, sad and handsome man. The grim battle was +over. The snow-white, pallid Alps let their fine, cold brows hang down +and in the background was the world. Burial details gathered up the +dead, went around quietly doing this, lifted up the fallen who were +lying on the ground and took them to the mass grave that other men +had dug. Standards and armour were piled up together till they formed +an imposing heap. Money and treasure together. Everything was set +down in a certain place. Most of these strong and simple men had +grown silent and well-behaved. They were observing the captured +valuables not without a melancholic contempt, walking up and down +the meadows, looking at the faces of the slain and washing off the +blood when it pleased them to see what the sullied facial features +looked like. Two youths were found at the foot of some shrubs with +young, bright faces, lips still smiling even in death and with their arms +around each other as they lay on the ground. One of them had suffered +a blow to the chest while the other had had his body ripped open. +There was work for them to do till late at night. After that torches +were used to find corpses. They came across the body of Arnold +von Winkelried and beheld him with reverence. When the men buried +him, they sang with deep voices one of their simple songs. There was +no more pomp under the circumstances. There were no priests there. +What would one have done with priests? Praying and thanking God +for the hard-fought victory had to happen quietly without church +candles. Then they went home. And after a few days they were +scattered back again in their high valleys. They were working, +serving, saving, looking after businesses, doing what needed to be +done and still spoke occasionally of the battle they had lived +through, though not much. They were not hailed as heroes (well, +perhaps a little in Luzern on their triumphal entry to that town). No +matter. The days glided over it, for the days, with their multiplicity +of cares, were harsh and raw even then, in 1386. A great deed +does not strike from the calendar the arduous sequence of days. +Life does not stand still for long on the day of a battle. History +just pauses a short while until it too, forced on by life's imperious +demands, has to hasten forward. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Battle of Sempach, by Robert Walser + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41518 *** |