Rameau's Nephew and First Satire (Oxford World's Classics) (18 page)

HIM:
What if the courtesan was busy, and his desire urgent?

ME:
He went back into his barrel, and did without.

HIM:
And you’re advising me to do as he did?

ME:
I’d stake my life that would be better than grovelling, licking boots, and prostituting yourself.

HIM:
But I need a good bed, a good table, a warm coat in winter and a cool one in summer, rest, money, and many other things for which I’d rather be indebted to benevolence than earn by toil.

ME:
The fact is that you’re an idle, greedy coward, with the soul of an earth-worm.

HIM:
I believe I already told you that.

ME:
The material things in life are certainly to be valued, but you’re not taking into account the sacrifice you’re making to obtain them. You are dancing, you’ve been dancing, and you’re going to go on dancing that vile pantomime.

HIM:
True. But it hasn’t cost me much and now it doesn’t cost me anything more. That’s why it would be a mistake for me to assume a different posture that would be difficult for me, and that I wouldn’t be able to maintain. But I see from what you’ve been telling me that my poor little wife was something of a philosopher. She was as brave as a lion. There were times when we had nothing to eat, and no money. We’d sold almost all our clothes. I’d fling myself down on the end of our bed, racking my brains to think of someone who’d lend me a few francs, which I didn’t intend to repay. But she, happy as a lark, would be sitting at her harpsichord, playing and singing. She had the voice of a nightingale; I’m sorry you never heard her. When I was engaged for a concert, I’d take her with me. On the way, I’d say to her: ‘Now, Madame, get yourself admired, show off your talent and your charms. Dazzle us with your
brio
, your inverted chords.’ We’d arrive; she’d sing, she’d dazzle with her
brio
, her inversions. Alas, I’ve lost her, the poor little thing. Apart from her talent, she had a mouth as tiny as the circumference of your little finger, teeth like a row of pearls, eyes, feet, skin, cheeks, breasts, gazelle-like legs, thighs, and buttocks to inspire a sculptor. Sooner or later she’d have had the chief tax collector, at the very least. Her walk, her behind! Ah, God, what a behind!

Whereupon he began imitating his wife’s walk—tiny mincing steps, nose in the air, plying his fan, swaying his behind; it was the most laughable, most ridiculous caricature of our little coquettes.

Then, picking up the thread of his discourse, he added: ‘I used to take her out everywhere, to the Tuileries, to the Palais Royal,
to the Boulevards. It was impossible to believe that I could keep her. If you’d seen her crossing the road in the morning, in her short jacket, bare-headed, you’d have stopped to look at her; you could have circled her waist with your thumbs and forefingers without having to squeeze. The men following her, as they watched her trot along on her tiny feet, tried to gauge the size of that ample behind whose contours were suggested by her flimsy petticoats, and would speed up their pace; she’d let them catch up with her, and then promptly turn her huge, brilliant black eyes upon them, stopping them in their tracks. For the right side of the medal did not mar the reverse. But, alas, I’ve lost her, and with her all my hopes of fortune. That was the only reason I’d taken her, as indeed I’d confided to her; and she was too wise not to grasp that my plan was assured of success, and too sound of judgement not to approve of it.’

Then, starting to sob and sigh, he said: ‘No, no, I’ll never get over it. Since it happened, I’ve taken to wearing clerical bands and cap.’

ME:
From grief?

HIM:
If you like, but actually so that I can carry my dinner-bowl on my head. But let’s see what the time is, because I’m going to the Opéra.

ME:
What’s on?

HIM:
Something of Dauvergne’s. There are plenty of lovely passages in his music; it’s a pity he wasn’t the first to compose them. A few among the dead invariably manage to upset the living. What can we do?
Quisque suos patimur manes
.
*
But it’s half-past five; I can hear the bell ringing vespers
*
for Abbé Cannaye, and for me. Farewell, Monsieur Philosopher; isn’t it true that I am always the same?

ME:
Alas yes, unfortunately.

HIM:
Here’s hoping that I continue to enjoy that particular misfortune for another forty or so years. He that laughs last, laughs best.

Quot capitum vivunt, totidem capitum milia
                  (H
ORACE
,
Satires
, II. i)
*

T
O MY FRIEND
, M
ONSIEUR
N
AIGEON
O
N A PASSAGE FROM THE
F
IRST
S
ATIRE OF
H
ORACE’S
S
ECOND
B
OOK:

Sunt quibus in Satyra videor nimis acer et ultra
Legem tendere opus
.
*

M
Y
friend, have you not observed that reason, the prerogative peculiar to us humans, takes such a range of forms that within it alone we find parallels to every variation of instinct in animals? Consequently, there is no animal, whether benign or harmful, anywhere in the sky, the forest, or the waters of the earth, which you cannot recognize in the biped figure of man. There’s the man wolf, the man tiger, the man fox, the man mole, the man hog, the man sheep—and this last is the commonest. There’s the man eel—grasp him as firmly as you can, he will escape you; the man pike, who devours everything; the man snake, who twists himself into a hundred different shapes; the man bear, whom I find not unpleasing; the man eagle, soaring high in the skies above us; the man crow; the man sparrow-hawk; the man, and the bird, of prey. Nothing is rarer than a man who is wholly a man; there’s not one of us without a trace of his animal counterpart.

Therefore, for every man, there’s a different cry.

There’s nature’s cry, which I hear in what Sara says of the sacrifice of her son:
God would never have asked it of his mother
.
*
And when Fontenelle, witness to the advance of unbelief, declared:
I’d very much like to be here sixty years from now, to see what comes of this
,
*
Of course he wanted to be here. We do not want to die, and the end always comes a day too soon. In one more day we’d have discovered the squaring of the circle.

Why should this cry of nature, which is peculiar to us, be so rare in the imitative arts? Why is it that the poet who captures it amazes and transports us? Might it be because he thereby reveals to us the secret of our hearts?

There’s the cry of passion, which I hear when Hermione asks Oreste:
Who told you so
? and when Phèdre, responding to:
They’ll never meet again
, says:
They’ll love one another forever
,
*
I hear it as I depart after an eloquent sermon on almsgiving, in the mutterings of the miser at my side:
That makes one wish one were a beggar;
or again, when the faithless mistress, surprised by her lover
in flagrante delicto
, reproaches him:
Ah, you no longer love me, for you’d rather believe what you’ve seen than what I tell you;
and yet again, in the remark of the dying usurer to the priest who exhorts him to repent:
This crucifix, I couldn’t in good conscience lend more than a hundred écus on it, and then only with a note of hand
.

There was a time when I loved the theatre, particularly the opera. I was at the Opéra one evening, seated between the Abbé de Canaye, whom you know, and a certain Montbron, author of some pamphlets which are lavish with acid and sparing, very sparing, with talent. I had just listened to a poignant piece whose words and music had filled me with rapture. At that period we had never heard Pergolesi, and we thought Lully sublime. In my ecstasy I seized my neighbour Montbron by the arm and asked: ‘That was beautiful, do you not agree, Monsieur?’ He had a yellowed complexion, black, bushy eyebrows, and hooded, ferocious eyes; he replied: ‘No, I don’t feel that.’ ‘You don’t feel that?’ ‘No, I am insensible to such things.’ I shiver, and move away from the two-legged tiger; I go up to the Abbé de Canaye and ask him: ‘Monsieur l’Abbé, what did you think of that piece they’ve just sung?’ The Abbé answers me in accents of cold disdain: ‘Good enough, I suppose, not bad.’ ‘And you know of something better?’ ‘Far, far better.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Some lines written about that poor Abbé Pellegrin:

His ragged breeches, string-girt, a virtual net,
Let us behold a bum that’s blacker yet.

Now that’s what I call beautiful!’

How many different bird-songs, how many discordant cries just within the forest we call society! ‘Come, drink this rice water.’ ‘What did it cost?’ ‘A mere nothing.’ ‘But how much?’ ‘Perhaps five or six sous.’ ‘What does it matter whether I die of my malady, or of theft and pillage?’ ‘You who are so fond of talking, how can you listen so long to that man?’ ‘I’m waiting; if he coughs or expectorates, he’s done for.’
*
‘Who is that man sitting on your right?’ ‘He’s a man of great ability who is an exceptionally
good listener.’ The latter says to the priest who tells him that the Lord is approaching:
I recognize him by his mount. That’s how he entered into Jerusalem
… The former, less caustic, spares himself, on his deathbed, the annoyance of being preached to by the priest who administered the last rites, by asking him: ‘Monsieur, can I be of no further service to you?’ There we hear the cry that reveals character.

Beware of the man monkey. He has no character, but he has many different cries.

‘Doing this will bring no harm to you, but it will spell disaster for your friend.’ ‘Oh, what do I care, as long as it saves me?’ ‘But your friend …’ ‘Think of my friend as much as you wish, but of me first.’ ‘Do you believe, Monsieur l’Abbé, that it gives Madame Geoffrin great pleasure to receive you in her home?’ ‘Why should that trouble me, as long as I enjoy being there?’ Watch that man when he enters a room; he lets his head drop down onto his chest, he embraces himself, he hugs himself tightly so as to be closer to himself. You’ve just seen the posture and heard the cry of the selfish man, a cry that echoes on all sides. It is one of nature’s cries.

‘It’s true that I entered into this agreement with you, but I’m declaring now that I don’t intend to abide by it.’ ‘You don’t intend to abide by it, Monsieur le Comte! And why is that, may I ask?’ ‘Because I’m more powerful than you …’ The cry of power is yet another of nature’s cries. ‘You’ll think me infamous, but I don’t give a damn …’ That’s the cry of shamelessness.

‘But I do believe these are Toulouse goose livers?’ ‘Superb! Delicious!’ ‘Ah! Why am I not afflicted with an ailment for which these would be the remedy!’ Such is the lament of a glutton who suffers from his digestion.

In masticating them, my lord, you paid them a signal honour
,
*
There goes the cry of the flatterer, of the despicable courtier. But there are many others.

The cries of man assume an infinite variety of forms according to the profession he follows. Frequently, they disguise the natural tone of character.

When Ferrein said: ‘My friend fell sick, I treated him, he died, I dissected him;’ was Ferrein a callous man? I do not know.

‘Doctor, you’re very late.’ ‘True. That poor Mademoiselle de Thé
*
has passed on.’ ‘She’s dead!’ ‘Yes. My presence was required at the opening of the body; I don’t know when anything has ever given me greater pleasure …’ When the Doctor spoke like that, was he a callous man? I do not know. My friend, you know what enthusiasm for one’s calling is like. The satisfaction of having guessed the hidden cause of Mademoiselle de Thé’s death made the Doctor forget that he was speaking of his dear friend. Once his enthusiasm had evaporated, did the Doctor weep for his friend? If you ask me that, I’ll admit that I don’t believe he did.

Take it away, take it away, it’s badly made
. The man who says this about a poor-quality crucifix he’s given to kiss is not ungodly. His words spring from his profession: they’re the words of a dying sculptor.

That amusing Abbé de Canaye, whom I’ve mentioned to you, wrote a very sour, funny satire of the little
Dialogues
that his friend Rémond de Saint-Mard had composed.
*
One day the latter, unaware that the Abbé had written the satire, was complaining to a lady—a mutual friend—about this spiteful work. While the thin-skinned Saint-Mard continued his exaggerated moaning over a pinprick, the Abbé, who was standing behind him facing the lady, admitted his authorship and made fun of his friend by sticking out his tongue. Some declared that the Abbé’s behaviour was ungentlemanly, others saw it simply as a mischievous prank. This ethical issue was tried before the court of the erudite Abbé Fénel; the only opinion anyone could ever extract from him was that sticking the tongue out had been a custom of the ancient Gauls … What do you conclude from that? That the Abbé de Canaye was a malicious man? That’s my opinion. That the other Abbé was a fool? No, that I deny. He was a man who’d used up his eyes, and his life, on scholarly research, and who saw nothing in this world of any importance compared with the restitution of a missing passage or the discovery of an ancient custom. It’s the counterpart of the geometer who, tired of the praises with which
all Paris rang when Racine gave his
Iphigénie
, decided to read this highly acclaimed
Iphigénie
. He picks up the play and retires to a corner; he reads a scene, then a second; at the third he tosses the book away, saying: ‘What does that prove?’ It’s the judgement and the language of a man accustomed from his early youth to write at the bottom of every page:
QED
.