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by the soldiers of the watch who had brought me to him that this had already been done and that nothing had been found but a notebook, which they handed to him. He read a few lines and asked me who had given it to me. I answered that it had always belonged to me, since I had made it and written in it myself. ‘But why on birch-bark?’ he asked.
    ‘Because the bark of other trees is not suitable’, I replied.
    ‘Do not be impudent’, he said. ‘I am asking why did you not write on paper?’
    ‘Because’, I said, ‘we had no more left in the forest.’
    ‘Where? In which forest?’ the governor asked, at which I took up my old refrain of ‘I don’t know.’
    At that the governor turned to several of his officers who were in attendance and said, ‘Either he is an arch-rogue or he is a fool. But he cannot be a fool since he can write so well.’ As he spoke he leafed through the book, to show them my handwriting, and did it so vigorously that the hermit’s letter fell out. He got one of the men to pick it up, but I went pale because I considered it my greatest treasure and holy relic. The governor noticed this and it made him even more suspicious of treachery, especially after he had opened the letter and read it, for he said, ‘I know this hand. This has been written by some officer I know well, though I cannot at the moment think who it is.’ He must have found the contents strange and incomprehensible too, for he said, ‘Without doubt this must be some code which nobody can understand apart from the one with whom it has been agreed.’ He asked me what my name was, and when I answered ‘Simplicius’, he said, ‘A fine one we have here! Away with him, clap him in irons, hand and foot’. And so the two soldiers accompanied me to my new lodgings, namely the goal, and handed me over to the keeper who, in accordance with his orders, adorned my hands and feet with iron fetters and chains, as if I were not carrying enough already with those I had round my body.
    As if this were not enough for a welcome to the world, along came the torturer and his henchman with their cruel instruments which, notwithstanding the fact that I could comfort myself with my innocence, made my wretched situation truly terrifying. ‘Ah, God!’ I said to myself, ‘It serves you right Simplicius, for abandoning the service of God to go out into the world. Now you have received the just reward for your folly, you disgrace to the Christian faith. O unhappy Simplicius, see where your ingratitude has brought you. Scarcely has God revealed Himself to you and taken you into His service than you run away from His service and turn your back on Him. Could you not have gone on eating acorns and beans and thus served your Maker undisturbed? You knew very well, didn’t you, that your teacher, the faithful hermit, had fled the world and chosen the wilderness? And you abandoned it, you blind dolt, in the hope of satisfying your shameful lust to see the world!? Look where it has brought you. You thought to feast your eyes and now you are condemned to perish in this deadly labyrinth. You unthinking simpleton, was it not clear to you that your blessed mentor would not have exchanged the pleasures of the world for the hard life he led in the wilderness if he had not been certain he could never find rest, true peace and eternal bliss in the world? Poor Simplicius, off you go now and receive the reward for your vain thoughts and foolish presumption. You cannot complain of injustice, nor comfort yourself with your innocence. Of your own accord you rushed to meet this torture and the death that will surely follow.’
    Thus I accused myself, asked God for His forgiveness and commended my soul to Him. In the meantime we were approaching the Thieves’ Tower but, as the proverb says, God’s help is closest where need is greatest. As I was standing outside the prison, surrounded by guards, amid a large throng of people, waiting for the door to be opened so I