Read Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master Online
Authors: Denis Diderot
JACQUES
: Heaven which wants! We never know what Heaven wants or doesn’t want, and perhaps Heaven doesn’t even know itself. My poor Captain, who is no longer, told me that a hundred times, and the longer I’ve lived the more I’ve realized he was right… Over to you, Master…
MASTER
: I understand. You’d got up to the carriage and the valet whom the surgeon’s wife had told to open the curtain and speak to you.
JACQUES
: The valet came over to my bed and said to me: ‘Come along, friend. On your feet. Get dressed and then we’ll go.’
I replied to him from under the bedclothes which I had pulled over my head without seeing or being seen: ‘Friend, go away and let me sleep.’
The valet told me that he had his master’s orders which he had to carry out.
‘And tell me, has your master, who gives orders to a man he doesn’t know, given orders to pay what I owe here?’
‘That’s all taken care of. Hurry up. Everybody’s waiting for you in the château and I guarantee you’ll be better off there than you are here if the curiosity they all have about you is anything to go by.’
I let him persuade me. I got up and dressed and he took me by the arm. I had said goodbye to the surgeon’s wife and I was about to get into the carriage when she came up to me, pulled me by the sleeve, and asked me to go over into the corner of the room, because she had something she wanted to say to me.
‘Now, my friend,’ she said, ‘you haven’t got any complaints about us, have you? The surgeon saved your leg, and, as for me, I’ve served you well and I hope you won’t forget that in the château.’
‘What could I do for you there?’
‘Ask for my husband to come and bandage you. There are a lot of people there. It’s the best practice in the area. The lord of the château is a generous man and pays well. It’s simply a question of you doing that and we would make our fortune. My husband’s tried several times to get in there, but to no avail.’
‘But, Madame, is there not a surgeon at the château?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And if this other surgeon were your husband, would you be happy if someone was to do him a bad turn and get him thrown out?’
‘This surgeon is a man to whom you owe nothing and I think you owe something to my husband. If you are walking around on two legs now it’s only because of what he’s done.’
‘And because your husband’s done me some good, you want me to do harm to someone else! Now, if the position were vacant…’
Jacques was about to continue when their hostess came in carrying Nicole, who was wearing a coat, kissing her, pitying her and caressing and speaking to her as if she were a child: ‘My poor Nicole! She only cried once all night. And you, Messieurs, did you sleep well?’
MASTER
: Very well.
HOSTESS
: The weather’s closed in on all sides.
JACQUES
: We’re quite put out about that.
HOSTESS
: Are you gentlemen going far?
JACQUES
: We don’t know.
HOSTESS
: Are you gentlemen following someone?
JACQUES
: We’re not following anyone.
HOSTESS
: Perhaps you gentlemen stop and go according to the business you have along the way.
JACQUES
: We have none.
HOSTESS
: You are travelling for pleasure, perhaps?
JACQUES
: Or for our pains.
HOSTESS
: I hope it’s the former.
JACQUES
: Your hopes won’t make a scrap of difference. It will be however it is written up above.
HOSTESS
: Oh!… Is it a wedding?
JACQUES
: Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t.
HOSTESS
: Messieurs, be careful. That man downstairs who treated my poor Nicole so badly made the most ridiculous marriage. Come along, my poor little animal, come here and let me kiss you. I promise you it won’t happen again. Just look at the way she’s shaking all over.
MASTER
: And what was so unusual about the man’s marriage?
At this question of Jacques’ master the hostess said: ‘I hear noise downstairs. I must go and give my orders and then I’ll come back and tell you about it.’
Her husband, who was tired of calling out ‘Wife! wife!’, came up followed by a neighbour whom he hadn’t seen.
He said to his wife, ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ and then to his acquaintance, ‘Hello, old chap, have you brought me some money?’
‘No, my friend, you know well I haven’t got any.’
‘You haven’t got any? I’ll make some soon enough with your plough, your horses, your oxen and your bed. Hey, you scoundrel.’
‘I am not a scoundrel.’
‘What are you, then? You’re living in abject poverty. You don’t even know how you’re going to get the seed to sow your fields. Your landlord’s tired of
advancing you money and won’t lend any more. So you come to me, and this woman, this damned gossip who’s the cause of all of the follies of my life, persuades me to lend to you. I lend you money, you promise to pay me back and you fail me ten times. Oh! I promise you I won’t let you down! Get out of here! Get out!’
Jacques and his master were getting ready to intercede for the poor devil but the hostess put her finger on her lips and signalled them to keep quiet.
HOST
: Get out of here!
PEASANT
: Everything you say is true and it’s also true that the bailiffs are at my house and in a short time from now we’ll be reduced to begging, my daughter, my son and I.
HOST
: That’s what you deserve. What have you come here for this morning? I had to stop bottling my wine, come up out of the cellar, and you weren’t here when you should have been. Get out of here, I tell you.
PEASANT
: Friend, I did come, but I was afraid of the reception I’d get and now I’m off again.
HOST
: Good idea.
PEASANT
: And now my poor little Marguerite who’s so pretty and well behaved will have to go into service in Paris.
HOST
: In service in Paris! You want to ruin her, do you?
PEASANT
: It’s not me that wants it, it’s the hard-hearted man I’m speaking to.
HOST
: Me, hard-hearted? I’m nothing of the sort. I never was that, and you know it well.
PEASANT
: I no longer have enough money to feed my daughter or my son. My daughter will go into service. My son will join up.
HOST
: And it’s me who will be the cause of that? Well, it’s not going to happen. You’re a cruel man. As long as I live, you’ll be my cross. Now let’s see what we can do for you.
PEASANT
: You can do nothing for me. I’m heartbroken that I owe you anything, and I’ll never again owe you anything. You do more harm with your insults than you do good with your deeds. If I had the money I’d throw it in your face, but I haven’t got it so my daughter will become whatever God
pleases and my son will get himself killed if necessary. As for me I’ll go begging but it won’t be at your door. I’ll not incur any more obligations towards such a wicked man as you. Make sure you get yourself paid out of my oxen and horses and implements – and much good may it do you. You were born to make people ungrateful and I don’t want to be ungrateful. Goodbye for ever.
HOST
: Wife! He’s going away. Stop him!
HOSTESS
: Come here, friend, let’s try and find a way to help you.
PEASANT
: I don’t want any of his help. It costs too much.
The host kept muttering to his wife: ‘Don’t let him go, stop him. His daughter in Paris! His son in the army! Him at the door of the parish! I won’t have it.’
However, his wife’s efforts were useless. The peasant had integrity and didn’t want to take anything, and it took four people to stop him from leaving. The innkeeper, tears in his eyes, turned towards Jacques and his master and said: ‘Messieurs, try to make him change his mind.’
Jacques and his master intervened and everybody was beseeching the peasant at the same time. If ever I saw…
– If ever you saw? But you weren’t there. You mean if ever anyone saw…
Oh well, all right. If ever anybody saw a man become put out by a refusal and then become enraptured that somebody would take his money, it was this innkeeper. He kissed his wife, kissed Jacques and his master, and shouted: ‘Come on, quickly, let’s get those damned bailiffs out of his house.’
PEASANT
: But you must agree that…
HOST
: I agree that I spoil everything, but what do you want, my friend? You see me as I am. Nature made me the hardest-hearted man and the softest-hearted man. I don’t know either how to give or how to refuse.
PEASANT
: Could you not be different?
HOST
: I am at the age when hardly anyone corrects themselves, but if the very first people who came to me for help had snubbed me as you have just done, perhaps I would have been a better man. Friend, I thank you for your lesson. Perhaps I will benefit from it… Wife, go quickly, go down and give him whatever he needs… Devil take it, hurry up, will you, damn it, hurry up, you’re so… Woman, I beseech you to hurry up a bit and not keep him waiting. And after that, you can come straight back to these gentlemen with whom you seem to get on so well.
The wife and the peasant went down. Their host stayed for a moment and when he had gone away Jacques said to his master: ‘What a peculiar man! And what does our Destiny, which sent bad weather to delay us here so that you could hear about my love life, hold in store for us now, I wonder?’
His master, who was stretched out in his armchair yawning and tapping his snuff-box, replied: ‘Jacques, we have more than one day to live together, unless…’
JACQUES
: What you are saying is that today our Destiny is for me to keep my mouth shut, or, to put it another way, for our hostess to speak. She’s a chatterbox and that will obviously suit her. Let her speak, then!
MASTER
: You’re getting cross.
JACQUES
: Well, I like to talk too.
MASTER
: Your turn will come.
JACQUES
: Or not come.
I know what you are thinking, Reader, you are thinking that this is the real denouement of the
Rough Diamond
.
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I believe it is. If I had been the author I would have introduced into this little work a character whom one would have taken as being episodic, but who would, in fact, not have been. This character would have appeared a few times, and some motive would have been given for his appearances. The first time he would have come to ask for grace, but the fear of a hostile welcome would have made him leave before the arrival of Géronte. Pressed by the bailiffs breaking into his house, the second time he would have had the courage to wait for Géronte, but Géronte would have refused to see him. Eventually I would have brought him on at the denouement, where he would have played the same role the peasant did with the innkeeper. Like the peasant he would have had a daughter whom he was going to place with a dressmaker, a son whom he was going to withdraw from school and send into service, and as for him, he would have decided to beg until he became tired of living. We would have seen the Rough Diamond at the feet of this man. We would have heard the Rough Diamond rebuked because he merited it. He would have been obliged to appeal to his whole family around him in order to move his debtor to pity to persuade him to accept fresh help. The Rough Diamond would have been punished. He would have promised to correct himself but at this very moment he would revert to his true character and, losing patience with the characters on stage, who would, by now, be exchanging civilities in order to go back into the
house, he would have said brusquely: ‘May the devil take these damned…’ but he would have stopped dead in the middle of the word, and in a softer tone he would have said to his nieces: ‘Come along, girls, take my hand and we’ll go…’
– And in order that this character should be better integrated into the play, you would have made this character a protégé of Géronte’s nephew?
Very good.
– And it would have been at the nephew’s request that the uncle lent him money?
Perfect.
– And this loan would have been a bone of contention between uncle and nephew?
Exactly that.
– And the denouement of this agreeable play, would it not have been a repeat with the whole family in chorus of what he had previously said with each of them individually?
You’re right.
– Well then, if ever I meet Monsieur Goldoni I will repeat the scene in the inn to him.
You would do well there. He’s got more than enough talent to make something of it.
The hostess came back, still carrying Nicole in her arms, and said: ‘I hope to give you a good dinner. The poacher’s just come, which means the squire’s gamekeeper will not be far behind’, and as she was speaking she took a chair, ‘One should always be suspicious of servants. Masters do not have a worse enemy.’