Read Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master Online
Authors: Denis Diderot
MASTER
: I am watching over you. You are my servant whether I am well or ill, but I am yours when you are ill.
JACQUES
: Well, it’s nice to know you’re human. That’s not a quality very often found by valets in their masters.
MASTER
: How’s your head?
JACQUES
: Almost as well as the beam it collided with.
MASTER
: Take this sheet between your teeth and give your head a good shake… What did you feel?
JACQUES
: Nothing. The jug seems not to have been cracked.
MASTER
: So much the better. I suppose you want to get up.
JACQUES
: And what would you have me do in bed?
MASTER
: I want you to rest.
JACQUES
: Well, I think we should have lunch and leave.
MASTER
: And what about the horse?
JACQUES
: I left him with his master, who being an honest and worthy fellow bought him back for what he sold him to us for.
MASTER
: And this honest, worthy fellow, do you know who he is?
JACQUES
: No.
MASTER
: I’ll tell you that when we’re on our way.
JACQUES
: Why not now? Why make a mystery out of it?
MASTER
: Mystery or not, is there any reason why I should tell you at this moment and not later?
JACQUES
: None.
MASTER
: But you need a horse.
JACQUES
: The keeper of this inn might be only too pleased to let us have one of his.
MASTER
: Sleep a while and I’ll go and see to it.
Jacques’ master went downstairs, ordered breakfast, bought a horse, went back upstairs and found Jacques dressed. They had lunch and left. Jacques, however, protested that it was impolite to go away without paying a courtesy visit to the citizen against whose door he had nearly brained himself, and who had so obligingly rescued him. His master quietened his scruples by assuring him that he had already well rewarded the servants who had brought Jacques to the inn. Jacques argued that the money given to the servants did not acquit him of his obligations to their master, that it was behaviour such as this which caused men to feel regret and disgust at doing good and that they were making themselves appear ungrateful: ‘Master, I can hear everything this man is saying about me by thinking what I would be saying about him if he were in my place and I were in his…’
They were just leaving the town when they met a tall well-built man wearing a braided hat and a suit with gold braiding on the seams. He was alone – unless you counted the two large hounds which preceded him. Jacques had no sooner set eyes on him than he was off his horse shouting, ‘It’s him!’, and was all over the man before anyone knew what was happening. The man with the dogs appeared to be very embarrassed by Jacques’ caresses and pushed him away gently, and said: ‘Monsieur, you do me too much honour.’
‘No, no. I owe you my life and I could never thank you enough.’
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
‘Are you not the helpful citizen who rescued me, bled and bandaged me when my horse…’
‘That is true.’
‘Are you not the honest citizen who bought back this horse for the same price he sold it to me for?’
‘I am.’
And Jacques began to kiss him again, first on one cheek, then on the other. His master smiled and the two dogs stood with their noses in the air, apparently filled with wonder at a scene which they had never seen the like of before. After Jacques had added several bows to his effusions which his benefactor did not return and many good wishes for the future which were received rather coldly, he got back on his horse, and said to his master: ‘I feel the greatest respect for that man and you must tell me who he is.’
MASTER
: And why, Jacques, in your opinion, is he so worthy of respect?
JACQUES
: Because he attaches no importance to the good works he performs and must therefore be of a naturally kindly disposition and have a long-standing habit of doing good.
MASTER
: And how do you reach that conclusion?
JACQUES
: From the cold and indifferent manner in which he received my thanks. He did not acknowledge me. He didn’t say a word. He seemed hardly to recognize me and, who knows, perhaps at this very moment he may be saying to himself with contempt: ‘Kindness must be a very strange thing to that traveller and just dealing a difficult thing for him since he is so touched by them.’
What have I said that is so absurd as to make you laugh so heartily? Whatever it is, tell me the man’s name so that I may make a note of it.
MASTER
: Willingly. Write.
JACQUES
: Tell me.
MASTER
: Write: The man for whom I hold the greatest respect…
JACQUES
:… the greatest respect…
MASTER
:… is…
JACQUES
:… is…
MASTER
: The hangman of *****.
JACQUES
: The hangman!
MASTER
: Yes, yes! The hangman.
JACQUES
: Perhaps you could tell me what the point of this joke is?
MASTER
: I am not joking. Just follow the links in your fob-chain. You need a horse. Fate directs you to a passer-by, and this passer-by happens to be a hangman. The horse takes you to a gallows twice. The third time he delivers you to a hangman’s home where you fall half dead. And from there, where are you taken? Into an inn, a resting-place, a common refuge. Jacques, do you know the story of the death of Socrates?
JACQUES
: No.
MASTER
: He was an Athenian sage. For a long time now the role of sage has been dangerous amongst madmen. His fellow citizens condemned him to drink hemlock. Well, Socrates did what you’ve just done and behaved as politely with his executioner who brought him the hemlock as you did. Jacques, you’re a sort of philosopher, admit it. And I know all too well that philosophers are a breed of men who are loathed by the mighty because they refuse to bend the knee to them. Magistrates hate them because they are by their calling protectors of the prejudices which philosophers attack, priests because they see them rarely at the foot of their altars. And poets, who are people without principles, hate them and are stupid enough to think of philosophy as the hatchet of the Arts not to mention the fact that those poets who have indulged in the hateful genre of satire have simply been flatterers. They are hated also by the peoples who have always been enslaved to the tyrants who oppress them, the rogues who trick them and the clowns who amuse them. So you can see that I am familiar with all of the perils of your profession and am fully aware of the importance of the admission I am asking you to make. But I will not betray your secret. Jacques, my friend, you are a philosopher, and I am sorry for you. If it is permitted to read the events of the future from those of the present and if what is written up above is ever revealed to men long before it happens, I predict that your death will be philosophical and that you will put your head in the noose with the same good grace as Socrates took his cup of hemlock.
JACQUES
: Master, a prophet couldn’t put it better. But fortunately…
MASTER
: You don’t really believe me. But that gives more weight to my premonition.
JACQUES
: And you, Monsieur, do you believe it?
MASTER
: I believe it, but even if I didn’t it wouldn’t make any difference.
JACQUES
: Why?
MASTER
: Because there is only danger for people who talk. And I keep quiet.
JACQUES
: What about premonitions?
MASTER
: I laugh at them but somewhat nervously, I must admit. Some of them are of such striking character and we have all been lulled with tales like that from an early age. If your dreams had come true five or six times and it happened that you should dream your friend were dead you would surely go to him the next morning to find out whether it was true or not. But the premonitions which are hardest to rebut are those which come to one at the moment an event is taking place far away from one and which appear symbolic.
JACQUES
: Sometimes you are so profound and sublime that I don’t understand you. Could you not enlighten me with some example?
MASTER
: Nothing simpler. There was once a woman who lived in the country with her eighty-year-old husband who suffered from gallstones. The husband left his wife and went into town to have an operation. On the eve of the operation he wrote to his wife: ‘At the time you read this letter I’ll be under the scalpel of Friar Cosmas.’
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Are you familiar with those wedding rings which are divided into two parts, one bearing the husband’s name, and the other the wife’s? Well, this woman had one on her finger when she opened her husband’s letter. At that moment the two halves of the ring fell apart. The half which bore her name stayed on her finger. That which had his name fell broken on to the letter which she was reading. Tell me, Jacques, do you think that there is anyone who is strong-minded or resolute enough not to be more of less shaken by a similar incident taking place in similar circumstances? So the woman nearly died. Her fright lasted until the day the next post arrived and she received a letter in which her husband wrote that the operation had gone well and he was completely out of danger and hoped to embrace her by the end of the month.
JACQUES
: And did he?
MASTER
: Yes.
JACQUES
: I asked you that question because I have noticed several times that there’s something sly about Destiny. The first time round you think
Destiny is a liar but later it turns out it has told the truth. So, you, Monsieur, think my case comes under the heading of symbolic premonitions and, in spite of yourself, you believe me to be threatened by a philosopher’s death.
MASTER
: It’s no good my trying to hide it from you… but, so as not to dwell on such a sad idea, could you not…
JACQUES
: Carry on with the story of my loves?
Jacques carried on with the story of his loves. We had left him, I believe, with the surgeon.
SURGEON
: I’m afraid it’ll take more than a day to mend your knee.
JACQUES
: It will take precisely the length of time that is written up above. What does it matter?
SURGEON
: At so much a day for accommodation, food and my services, that’ll make quite a sum.
JACQUES
: Doctor, it’s not a question of how much it will cost for all this time, but how much a day.
SURGEON
: Twenty-five sous. Is that too much?
JACQUES
: Far too much. Come along, doctor, I’m a poor devil so let’s say half of that and see how quickly you can have me taken to your house.
SURGEON
: Twelve and a half sous, that’s hardly anything. Shall we say thirteen sous?
JACQUES
: Twelve and a half sous, thirteen sous… done!
SURGEON
: And you’ll pay every day?
JACQUES
: That’s the condition.
SURGEON
: It’s just that I’ve got the devil of a wife who doesn’t like any funny business, you understand.
JACQUES
: Yes, doctor. Just arrange for me to be taken to your devil of a wife as quickly as you can.
SURGEON
: A month at thirteen sous a day, that’s nineteen pounds ten sous. You’ll make it twenty francs, won’t you?
JACQUES
: Twenty francs. Done.
SURGEON
: You want to be well fed, well looked after and quickly cured. Besides food, accommodation and attention there will perhaps be medicaments, linen. There will perhaps be…
JACQUES
: Well?
SURGEON
: Well, all that adds up to twenty-four francs easily.
JACQUES
: All right then, twenty-four francs, but no more.
SURGEON
: One month at twenty-four francs. Two months, that will be forty-eight. Three months will be seventy-two. Ah, how pleased Madame my wife would be if you could pay me half of those seventy-two pounds in advance.
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