Read Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master Online
Authors: Denis Diderot
MASTER
(shrugging his shoulders): In the neighbourhood of Desglands, there was a charming widow who had several qualities in common with a well-known courtesan of the last century. She was discreet by reason but libertine by temperament and regretted the next day the follies of the day before. She spent her whole life going from pleasure to remorse and remorse to pleasure, without the habit of pleasure lessening her remorse and without the habit of remorse lessening her taste for pleasure. I knew her towards the end of her life, when she used to say that at long last she had escaped from two great enemies. Her husband, who was lenient about the only fault which he could reproach her for, complained about her while she was alive and missed her for a long time after her death. He claimed that it would have been as ridiculous for him to prevent his wife from taking lovers as to prevent her from drinking. He forgave her the multitude of her conquests because of the discrimination she showed in her choice. She never allowed a stupid or wicked man to pay her court; her favours were always the reward of talent or
probity. To say of a man that he was or had been her lover was to certify that he was a man of worth. Because she was aware of her inconstant nature she never pledged fidelity. She used to say: ‘I have only made one false oath in my life, and that was the first.’
After the decline of those feelings she inspired or felt, friendship remained. Never was there a more striking example of the difference between probity and morality. One could not say that she had morals, but at the same time one had to admit that it was difficult to find a more honest person. Her parish priest saw her but rarely at the foot of his altar but he found her purse open at all times to help the poor. She used to say jokingly of religion and the law that they were a pair of crutches which were not to be taken away from those who had weak limbs. Women who feared their husbands being in her company desired their children to be so.
After Jacques had muttered from between clenched teeth: ‘You will pay for that damned portrait’, he added: ‘Were you in love with this woman?’
MASTER
: I would certainly have become so had not Desglands got there first. Desglands fell in love with her.
JACQUES
: Monsieur, could it be that the story of his spot and that of his loves are so closely linked the one to the other that one cannot separate them?
MASTER
: They can be separated. The spot is an incident. The story is the account of everything which happened while they were in love.
JACQUES
: And did a lot of things happen?
MASTER
: A lot.
JACQUES
: In that case, if you are going to give each one the same length as you have given to the portrait of the heroine we won’t get to the end of this much before Whitsun, and that will be the end of the story of your loves and mine.
MASTER
: Well, Jacques, why did you sidetrack me then?…
Did you ever notice a little child at Desglands’ château?
JACQUES
: A wicked, stubborn insolent little valetudinarian? Yes, I saw him.
MASTER
: He is the natural son of Desglands and the beautiful widow.
JACQUES
: That child will cause him a lot of sorrow. He was an only child, which is good enough reason to be a scoundrel. He knew he was going to be rich, which is another good reason to be just a scoundrel.
MASTER
: And since he is a valetudinarian, no one can teach him anything or dares to annoy him or contradict him on anything, which is a third good reason to be just a scoundrel.
JACQUES
: One night the little lunatic started uttering the most awful cries. The whole house was in uproar. Everybody ran to him. He wanted his father to get up.
‘Your father’s sleeping.’
‘It doesn’t matter. He must get up. I want it. I want it.’
‘He is ill.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I want him to get up. I want it. I want it.’
They woke up Desglands. He threw his dressing-gown over his shoulders and arrived.
‘Well, my little man, here I am. What do you want?’
‘I want you to make them come.’
‘Who?’
‘Everyone in the château.’
He made them come, masters, valets, guests, all the other habitués of the place, Jeanne, Denise, me with my bad knee, everybody except for one old crippled concierge who had been given a place of retirement in a cottage about a half a mile from the château. He wanted her to be fetched.
‘But, my child, it is midnight.’
‘I want it, I want it.’
‘You know that she lives a long way away.’
‘I want it. I want it.’
‘And that she’s very old and hardly able to walk.’
‘I want it. I want it.’
JACQUES
: The poor concierge had to come. She was carried, because she would as soon have eaten the road there as walked it. When we were all assembled he wanted to be got up and dressed. Then when he was up and dressed he wanted us all to go into the great drawing-room and he wanted to be put in the middle of us in his papa’s great armchair. When that was done he wanted us all to take each other by the hand, which we did, and then we had to dance around him, and so we all started to dance around him. But it is the rest which is incredible…
MASTER
: I hope you’ll spare me the rest.
JACQUES
: No, Monsieur, you will listen to the rest. If he thinks he can paint me a portrait four yards long with impunity…
MASTER
: Jacques, I spoil you.
JACQUES
: Too bad for you.
MASTER
: You are cross about that long boring portrait of the widow, but I think you have paid me back sufficiently with the long boring story of the child’s whims.
JACQUES
: If that’s your opinion carry on with his father’s story, but no more portraits, Master. I hate portraits to death.
MASTER
: Why do you hate portraits?
JACQUES
: Because they are so unlifelike that if, by chance, one happens to meet the subjects, one does not recognize them. Tell me facts, repeat words to me faithfully, and then I will know what kind of man I am dealing with. One word, one gesture, has sometimes taught me more than the gossip of an entire town.
MASTER
: One day Desglands…
JACQUES
: When you are away I sometimes go into your library and take down a book, which is normally a history book.
MASTER
: One day Desglands…
JACQUES
: I skip all the portraits.
MASTER
: One day Desglands…
JACQUES
: Forgive me, Master. The mechanism was wound up and had to carry on until it had run down.
MASTER
: Has it?
JACQUES
: It has.
MASTER
: One day Desglands invited the beautiful widow to dinner, together with a few neighbouring gentlemen. The reign of Desglands was in its decline and among his guests there was one towards whom the inconstant widow was beginning to be attracted. At table, Desglands and his rival were sitting next to each other opposite the beautiful widow. Desglands used all
his wit to enliven the conversation. He addressed the most gallant remarks to the widow but she was distracted, paid no attention to him and continued to stare at his rival. Desglands was holding a fresh egg in his hand when he was overcome by a convulsive movement occasioned by jealousy. He clenched his fist and the next moment there was the egg squeezed from its shell and plastered all over the face of his neighbour, who made a movement with his hand. Desglands grabbed his wrist, stopped him and said in his ear: ‘Monsieur, I consider the blow to have been struck.’
Then there was a profound silence. The beautiful widow felt ill. The meal was sad and brief. On leaving table the widow called Desglands and his rival into a separate room. She did everything which a woman could decently do to reconcile them. She begged, she cried, she fainted, quite genuinely. She clasped Desglands’ hands, she turned to his rival with tears in her eyes.
To him she said: ‘You love me.’
To the other she said: ‘And you have loved me.’
To both of them: ‘And you want to ruin me, to make me the scandal of the whole province, hated and despised by all! Whichever of the two of you takes the life of his enemy, I will never see him again. He can be neither my friend nor my lover and I vow that I will hate him until my dying day.’
Then she swooned again and as she swooned she said: ‘Cruel men. Draw your swords and plunge them into my breast. If I see your arms around each other when I die, I will die without regret.’
Desglands and his rival stood motionless or helped her and a few tears fell from their eyes. The time finally came to part and the beautiful widow was taken back to her house more dead than alive.
JACQUES
: Well, Monsieur! Why did I need the portrait you painted of this woman? Don’t I now know everything mentioned in the portrait?
MASTER
: The next day Desglands went to visit his fickle charmer and found his rival there. Mistress and rival were both surprised when they saw Desglands’ entire right cheek covered with a large circle of black taffeta.
‘What’s that?’ asked the widow.
DESGLANDS
: Nothing.
HIS RIVAL
: A gumboil.
DESGLANDS
: It will go away.
After a moment’s conversation, Desglands went, and on his way out he gave his rival a sign which was clearly understood. The latter followed him
downstairs and they each went a different way down the street. They met behind the gardens of the beautiful widow where they fought. Desglands’ rival was left lying on the field seriously, but not mortally, wounded. While he was being carried back to his house, Desglands returned to the widow’s house. He sat down and they spoke again of the incident the day before. She asked him the significance of the enormous and ridiculous patch covering his cheek. He got up and looked at himself in the mirror. Indeed, he said to her, he did find it a little too big. Then he took a pair of scissors from the lady and took off the spot, made it a stitch or two smaller all round, put it back on again, and said to the widow: ‘How do you find me now?’
‘A stitch or two less ridiculous than before.’
‘Well, that’s something anyway.’
Desglands’ rival got better. There was a second duel, victory again falling to Desglands; this happened again five or six times in a row. After every combat, Desglands reduced the size of his taffeta spot a little by trimming the edge down and put the rest back on his cheek.
JACQUES
: And how did this little adventure end? When they carried me into Desglands’ château my recollection is that he no longer had his black spot.
MASTER
: No. The end of this adventure was the end of the beautiful widow. The long sorrow which it caused her completed the ruin of her weak and delicate health.
JACQUES
: And Desglands?
MASTER
: One day while we were out walking together he received a note which he opened and said: ‘He was a very brave man, but I am unable to feel upset at his death…’, and at that moment he tore from his cheek the remainder of the black circle which his frequent trimmings had almost reduced to the size of an ordinary patch. That is the story of Desglands. Is Jacques happy now? Might I now hope that he will either listen to the story of my loves or carry on again with the story of his own?
JACQUES
: Neither.
MASTER
: And why not?
JACQUES
: Because it is hot, I am tired, this place is charming, and we will be shaded under these trees, where we will be able to rest in the cool air at the side of the stream.
MASTER
: I agree, but what about your cold?
JACQUES
: It is a hot cold and doctors do say that things are cured by their opposites.
MASTER
: Which is true in matters moral as well as physical. I have noticed something quite peculiar. It is that there are hardly any moral maxims which could not be turned into medical aphorisms, and reciprocally hardly any medical aphorisms which could not be turned into moral maxims.
JACQUES
: That has to be so.
They got down from their horses and stretched out on the grass. Jacques said to his master: ‘Are you watching? Or are you sleeping? If you watch I will sleep. If you sleep I will watch.’
His master said to him: ‘Sleep, sleep.’
‘Can I count on it that you will watch, because this time we could have two horses stolen?’
His master took out his watch and snuff-box. Jacques prepared himself to sleep but every other second he kept waking up with a start, beating his two hands against each other in the air.
His master asked him: ‘What the devil are you doing?’