* * *
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.