Read Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master Online
Authors: Denis Diderot
JACQUES
: I agree.
SURGEON
: She’d be even happier if…
JACQUES
: If I paid for the quarter. I’ll pay for it.
Jacques added: The surgeon went off to find my hosts and tell them of our arrangement and the next moment the peasant, his wife and the children gathered around my bed all looking happy and relieved. There were endless questions on my state of health and about my knee, praise for the surgeon their friend and his wife, endless good wishes, the most friendly affability, and what solicitude and zeal to serve me. The surgeon had not, however, told them that I had a little money, but they knew the man. He was taking me into his house and they knew what that meant. I paid these people what I owed them and I gave the children small presents which their mother and father did not leave in their hands for long. It was morning. My host left for the fields, and my hostess took her basket on her shoulders and went off. The children, who were saddened and annoyed at being robbed, disappeared. When someone was needed to help me off my pallet, dress me and put me on my stretcher, there was nobody there but the surgeon, who started to shout his head off… not that anyone could hear.
MASTER
: And Jacques, who likes talking to himself so much, was probably saying: ‘Never pay in advance unless you want bad service.’
JACQUES
: No, no, Master, this was not the time to moralize, but more the time to get impatient and swear. So I got impatient and swore. I moralized afterwards. And while I was moralizing the surgeon, who had left me alone, came back with two peasants whom he had hired to carry me, at my expense,
as he didn’t hesitate to point out. These men helped me with the preliminaries prior to getting me to a sort of stretcher they had made for me out of a mattress stretched over two thin poles.
MASTER
: Praise be to God. There you are in the surgeon’s house, falling in love with the surgeon’s wife, or perhaps it’s his daughter.
JACQUES
: I think, Master, that you are wrong there.
MASTER
: Do you think I’m going to wait in the surgeon’s house for three months before hearing the first word of your loves? Ah, Jacques! That’s not possible. I beg you, spare me the description of the house, the description of the surgeon’s character, his wife’s temper, your recovery. Skip over all that. The facts – those are what matters. Your knee is almost cured. You’re quite well and you’re in love.
JACQUES
: I’m in love, then, since you’re in so much of a hurry.
MASTER
: And who are you in love with?
JACQUES
: A tall brunette aged eighteen, with a beautiful figure, large black eyes, delicate crimson mouth, nice arms, pretty hands… ah, Master… such pretty hands… It’s just that those hands…
MASTER
: You think you’re still holding them?
JACQUES
: It’s just that you have taken them and held them furtively yourself more than once, and if they had only let you you would have done whatever you wanted.
MASTER
: My God, Jacques, I didn’t expect that!
JACQUES
: Nor did I.
MASTER
: No matter how hard I try I cannot remember either the big brunette or the pretty hands. Try and explain yourself.
JACQUES
: All right, but on condition that we retrace our steps to the surgeon’s house.
MASTER
: Do you think that is what is written up above?
JACQUES
: That depends on you. But down here it is written:
Chi va piano va sano
.
MASTER
: And it is also written:
Chi va sano va lontano
.
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And I’d like to hear the end of this.
JACQUES
: All right, then, what have you decided?
MASTER
: Whatever you want.
JACQUES
: In that case here we are again at the surgeon’s – and it was written up above that we’d return there. The surgeon, along with his wife and children, made such concerted efforts to empty my purse by all sorts of little tricks that they soon succeeded. The recovery of my knee seemed well advanced without in fact being so. The wound had just about closed. I could go out with the aid of a crutch and I had eighteen francs left. There’s nobody who likes to speak more than a man with a stammer and nobody likes walking more than a man with a limp. One autumn day after lunch I planned a long trip because the weather was nice. The distance from the village where I was living to the next village was about two leagues.
MASTER
: And this village was called?
JACQUES
: If I told you that you’d know everything. Once I got there I went into an inn, rested awhile and took some refreshment. Night was beginning to fall and I was just about to start out on the journey back home when, from where I was sitting in the inn, I heard the piercing screams of a woman. I went out and a crowd had gathered around her. She was on the ground tearing out her hair, and pointing to the remains of a broken pitcher, saying: ‘I’m ruined. I shan’t have a sou for the next month, and who will feed my poor children then? That steward whose heart is harder than stone won’t let me off even a sou. How unlucky I am! I’m ruined! Ruined!’
Everyone felt sorry for her, and all I could hear around her were cries of ‘Poor woman,’ but nobody put their hands in their pockets.
I went up to her suddenly and asked: ‘My good woman, what has happened to you?’
‘What’s happened to me! Can’t you see? I was sent to buy a pitcher of oil. I stumbled and fell. The pitcher broke and there is the oil that was in it.’
At this moment the woman’s little children arrived. They were practically naked and the bad clothing of their mother showed the full extent of the poverty of this family. The children and their mother all started to cry. As I am standing here now, Master, it needs ten times less than that to move me. I was deeply moved with compassion and tears came to my eyes. I asked her in a broken voice how much the oil in the pitcher was worth.
‘How much?’ she answered, lifting her hands up to heaven. ‘Nine francs’ worth! More than I could earn in a month!’
I untied my purse straight away and tossed her two six-franc pieces,
saying: ‘Here you are, my good woman. There are twelve…’ and without waiting for thanks I started on my way back to the village.
MASTER
: Jacques, you did a beautiful thing there.
JACQUES
: I did a very foolish thing, if you please. I wasn’t a hundred yards from the village when I said as much. And half-way home I said a lot more. On my arrival at the surgeon’s house with an empty purse I felt quite differently.
MASTER
: You could well be right and my praise could be as inappropriate as your commiseration… No, no, Jacques, I come back to my first judgement. The principal merit in your action lies in the disregard for your own need. I can see the consequences: you will be exposed to the inhumanity of your surgeon and his wife. They will throw you out of their house but, when you find yourself dying on the dungheap outside their door, you will lie dying on that dungheap satisfied with yourself.
JACQUES
: Master, I am not made of such stern stuff as that. I went limping on my way and I am afraid that I must admit that I missed my two écus, which didn’t bring them back and spoiled the good deed I had done with my regrets.
I was about half-way between the two villages and it was quite dark when three bandits came out from the undergrowth at the side of the road, leapt on me, knocked me to the ground, searched me and were astonished to find me with so little money. They had counted on a better prey. Having witnessed my alms-giving in the village they had imagined that somebody who could divest himself of half a louis so easily must have twenty or more. In their fury at seeing their hopes dashed and exposing themselves to having their bones broken on a scaffold for the fistful of sous I had on me if I should denounce them and they were caught and identified by me, they debated for a while whether or not they ought to kill me. Fortunately they heard a noise and fled and I escaped with a few bruises from my fall and a few more which I received when they were taking my money. When the bandits had gone I withdrew and got back to the village as best I was able, arriving at two o’clock in the morning, pale and exhausted. The pain in my knee was by now extremely intense and I was suffering from pains in various parts of my body caused by the blows I had received. The surgeon… Master, what’s wrong with you? You’re clenching your teeth and getting all agitated as if you were in the presence of some enemy.
MASTER
: That’s exactly what I am. I’ve got my sword in my hand, I’m descending on your robbers and I’m avenging you. Tell me how it is that whoever wrote out the great scroll could have decreed that such would be the reward of a noble act? Why should I, who am merely a miserable compound of faults, take your defence while He calmly watched you being attacked, knocked down, manhandled and trampled underfoot, He who is supposed to be the embodiment of all perfection?…
JACQUES
: Master, be quiet, be quiet. What you are saying stinks to high heaven of heresy.
MASTER
: What are you looking at?
JACQUES
: I am looking to see if there is anybody near us who could have heard you…
The surgeon took my pulse and found I was feverish. I went to bed without speaking of my adventure and lay dreaming on my pallet, faced with the prospect of dealing with two people… and what people, my God! I didn’t have a sou and not the slightest doubt that when I woke up the next morning I’d be asked for the agreed daily price.
At this point the master threw his arms round the neck of his valet crying: ‘My poor Jacques. What are you going to do? What will become of you? Your situation frightens me.’
JACQUES
: Master, reassure yourself. Here I am.
MASTER
: I wasn’t thinking. I was on to tomorrow, beside you at the surgeon’s house at the moment you woke up and they came to ask you for money.
JACQUES
: Master, in life one never knows what to rejoice about or what to feel sorry about. Good brings bad after it and bad brings good. We travel in darkness underneath whatever it is that is written up above, all of us equally unreasonable in our hopes, our joys and our afflictions. When I cry I often think that I’m a fool.
MASTER
: And what about when you laugh?
JACQUES
: I still think that I’m a fool. However, I can’t stop myself from crying or from laughing. And that’s what makes me angry. I’ve tried a hundred times… I didn’t sleep a wink that night.
MASTER
: No, no, tell me what it is you’ve tried.
JACQUES
: Not to give a damn about anything. Ah, if only I could have succeeded!
MASTER
: What would that have done?
JACQUES
: It would have made me free from worry, made me no longer need anything, made me completely master of myself, made me find myself just as well off with my head against a milestone on the side of the road as on a good pillow. I am like that sometimes, but the devil of it is that it doesn’t last, and, however hard and rock-steady I am on important occasions, a little contradiction, a mere trifle, will often throw me. It’s enough to make me kick myself. I’ve given up and decided to be as I am and I’ve realized through thinking about it a little that that is almost the same thing if one adds: ‘What does it matter how I am?’ It’s another kind of resignation, easier to achieve and more convenient to live with.
MASTER
: Oh, it’s certainly more convenient.
JACQUES
: In the morning the surgeon pulled back the curtains around my bed, and said: ‘Come along, my friend, I’ve got a long way to go today, so let’s be looking at your knee.’
I replied sorrowfully: ‘Surgeon… I’m sleepy…’
‘So much the better. That’s a good sign.’
‘Leave me to sleep. I don’t want to be bandaged.’
‘Well, that’s no problem. Go back to sleep.’
At that, he shut the curtains, but I didn’t sleep. One hour afterwards the surgeon’s wife came, drew back my curtains and said: ‘Come along, friend, I’ve brought your sugared toast.’
‘Madame,’ I replied sorrowfully, ‘I don’t feel very hungry.’
‘Go on, eat it, eat it. It’s not going to cost any extra and you won’t pay any the less.’
‘I don’t want to eat.’
‘So much the better. The children and I will have it,’ and at that she shut my curtains, called her children and they all sat about polishing off my sugared toast.
Reader, if I were to stop for a while here and come back to the story of the man who had only one shirt because he had only one body at a time, I would very much like to know what you would think. Would you think that I had got myself into what Voltaire would call an impasse or more vulgarly a cul-de-sac,
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and that I didn’t know how to get out of it? That I had thrown
myself into a tale dreamed up so that I might gain time to look for some way of getting out of the story I’ve already started?
Well, Reader, you are wrong. I know very well how Jacques got out of these straits, and what I am about to tell you of Gousse – the man with only one shirt at a time because he had only one body at a time – is not made up at all.
One Whitsun, I received a note from Gousse in which he begged me to visit him in a prison where he was being held. While getting dressed I was thinking about his predicament and I supposed that his tailor, his baker, his wine merchant or his landlord, had obtained and executed against him an order of imprisonment.
I arrived there and found him sharing a cell with some rather ominous-looking people. I asked him who they were.
‘The old boy over there is a very able man who is extremely knowledgeable in arithmetic and who is trying to make the ledgers which he is copying out tally with his accounts. This is difficult and we’ve discussed it but I have no doubt that he will succeed.’
‘And the other one?’
‘He’s a fool.’
‘How so?’
‘A fool who invented a machine for counterfeiting bills. It was a pretty bad machine, a dreadful machine with twenty or more faults.’
‘And the third? The one wearing livery and playing the double-bass?’
‘He’s only here waiting. Tonight or tomorrow morning perhaps – because really his case is nothing – he’ll be transferred to Bicêtre.’
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‘And you?’
‘Me? My case is even less important.’
After this reply he got up and put his bonnet on his bed, and his three cell-mates disappeared instantly.
When I had entered I had found Gousse in his dressing-gown seated at a little table plotting geometric figures and working just as happily as he would have done at home. Now we were alone.
‘And you, what are you doing here?’
‘I’m working, as you can see.’
‘But who got you put in here?’
‘Me.’
‘What do you mean, you?’
‘Yes, me, Monsieur.’
‘And how did you go about that?’
‘The same way I would have gone about having anyone else put in here. I sued myself. I won, and as a result of the sentence I obtained against myself and the warrant which followed I was apprehended and taken here.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘No, Monsieur. I will tell you the thing as it is.’
‘Could you not sue yourself again, win, and by means of another sentence and another warrant get yourself released?’
‘No, Monsieur.’
Gousse had a pretty servant girl who served him as other half more often than his own did. This unequal division had somewhat disturbed the domestic peace. Even though there was nothing that was harder to do than unsettle this man, who of all men was least afraid of gossip, he decided to leave his wife and go and live with his servant girl. But his entire fortune consisted of furniture, machines, drawings, tools and other moveable effects. And he preferred leaving his wife naked to going away empty-handed. Consequently this is the project he conceived.
It was to give credit notes to his servant who would pursue him for payment and so obtain the distraint and sale of his goods which would then be transferred from his home in Pont Saint-Michel to the lodgings he proposed to occupy with her.
He was enchanted with the idea, wrote out the notes, had a writ issued against himself and engaged two lawyers. There he was, running from one to the other, prosecuting himself with the utmost vivacity, attacking himself well and defending himself badly. And then he was condemned to pay the penalty prescribed by the law. In his mind’s eye he was taking possession of everything there was in the house, but it wasn’t quite like that. He was dealing with a very crafty hussy who, instead of obtaining execution on his effects, obtained it on his person, had him arrested and put in prison to such effect that, however bizarre were his enigmatic replies to my questions, they were none the less true.
While I have been telling you these facts – which you have dismissed as a mere tale…
– What about the man in livery playing the double-bass?
Reader, I promise you on my word of honour that you won’t lose that story… but allow me to come back to Jacques and his master.
Jacques and his master had arrived at the place where they were to spend the night. It was late. The gates of the town were closed and they were obliged to stop in the suburb. There I heard an uproar…
– You heard? You weren’t there… It’s got nothing to do with you at all.
You’re quite right. Well, Jacques… His master… there was a terrible uproar… I saw two men.
– You saw nothing. We’re not speaking about you. You weren’t even there.
That’s true. There were two men at table, talking quite quietly. At the door of the room they were in there stood a woman, hands on hips, pouring out a stream of abuse at them.
Jacques tried to calm the woman down but she paid no more attention to his pacifying remonstrations than the two people she was addressing were paying to her invective.
‘Come along, my dear,’ said Jacques, ‘be patient. Calm down. What’s it all about? These gentlemen seem to be decent enough to me.’
‘Decent! Them! They’re brutes, people without pity, humanity or any feeling. Ah! And what harm did poor Nicole do to them for them to treat her so badly? She’ll probably be crippled for the rest of her life.’
‘Perhaps the injury is not as bad as you believe.’
‘It was a frightful blow, I tell you. She’ll be crippled.’
‘You’ll have to wait and see. Someone must get the doctor.’
‘Someone’s already gone.’
‘Put her to bed.’
‘She’s already in bed. And she’s crying enough to break anyone’s heart… My poor Nicole!’
In the midst of these lamentations a bell rang somewhere else and a voice called: ‘Hostess, some wine.’
‘Coming,’ she replied.
‘Hostess, bring some sheets.’
‘Coming.’
‘What about the cutlets and the duck?’
‘Coming.’
‘Bring me something to drink. Bring me a chamber-pot.’
‘Coming, coming.’
And from another corner of the inn a frantic man was shouting: ‘Damn you, you demented chatterbox, what are you interfering for? Have you decided to make me wait till tomorrow? Jacques? Jacques?’
The hostess, who had recovered a little from her sorrow and her anger, said to Jacques: ‘Monsieur, you may leave me now. You’ve been too kind.’
‘Jacques? Jacques?’
‘Go to him quickly. Ah, if you only knew the misfortunes of that poor creature.’
‘Jacques? Jacques?’
‘Go on. I think that’s your master calling you.’
‘Jacques? Jacques?’
Jacques’ master was indeed shouting for him. He had undressed all by himself. He was dying of hunger and getting extremely impatient at not being served. Jacques went on up followed a moment afterwards by the innkeeper’s wife, who looked really miserable.
‘A thousand pardons, Monsieur,’ she said to Jacques’ master, ‘but it is just that there are sometimes things in life which are hard to swallow. What do you want? I have chickens, pigeons, excellent saddle of hare, rabbits – this is a very good area for rabbits – perhaps you’d prefer a river fowl?’
Jacques ordered his master’s supper as if it were for him, as he normally did. It was served and, while he was eating, his master asked Jacques: ‘What the devil were you doing down there?’