Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (10 page)

MASTER
: I hope…

Jacques’ horse did not allow his master to finish. He went off like a shot, and this time did not deviate to the left or the right but followed the road. Soon Jacques was lost from sight and his master, convinced that he would find another gallows at the end of the road, was splitting his sides laughing.

And since Jacques and his master are only good when they are together and are worth nothing when they are separated, any more than is Don Quixote without Sancho or Richardet without Ferragus, which is something that Cervantes’ continuator and Ariosto’s imitator, Forti Guerra, have not quite understood,
¹⁸
Reader, let us chat while waiting for them to meet up again.

You are going to take the story of Jacques’ Captain as a mere fiction, but you will be wrong. I assure you that, such as he told the story to his master, so did I hear it at the Invalides, in I’m not sure what year, but on the feast of Saint-Louis. I was dining with Monsieur de Saint-Etienne the adjutant of the Invalides.
¹⁹
The story-teller spoke in the presence of several other officers of the establishment who had knowledge of the facts and was a serious man who didn’t seem at all like a joker. This is a timely moment for me to give you a reminder for both the present and the future that you must be circumspect if you want to avoid taking the truth for lies and lies for the truth in Jacques’ conversation with his master. Now that I have warned you, I wash my hands of the matter.

They really are quite an extraordinary pair of men, you are saying to me.

Is that what makes you suspicious? Firstly, nature is so varied, especially when it comes to instinct and character, that there is nothing in a poet’s imagination, however bizarre, for which experience and observation might not find a model in nature. I, who speak to you now, I have met the real-life counterpart of the
Médecin malgré lui
whom I had thought until then to be the most mad and whimsical of inventions.
²⁰

– What! The real-life counterpart of the husband whose wife says to him: ‘I’ve three children on my hands’, and he tells her: ‘Put them on the ground.’

‘They are asking me for bread.’

‘Give them a beating.’

Exactly. This is an account of his conversation with my wife.

‘Is that you there, Monsieur Gousse?’

‘No, Madame, I am here.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘From where I’ve just been.’

‘What did you do there?’

‘I repaired a windmill which was working badly.’

‘To whom did this windmill belong?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t go there to mend the miller.’

‘You’re very well dressed today, contrary to your usual practice. But tell me, why are you wearing such a dirty shirt under such a clean suit?’

‘That’s because I’ve only got one.’

‘Why have you got only one?’

‘Because I’ve only got one body at a time.’

‘My husband’s not here at the moment, but I hope that won’t prevent you from having dinner with us.’

‘No, it won’t, since I have entrusted him with neither my stomach nor my appetite.’

‘How is your wife keeping?’

‘However she likes. That’s her business.’

‘And your children?’

‘Wonderful.’

‘And the one with the nice eyes, who looks so healthy and has such beautiful skin?’

‘Much better than the others – he’s dead.’

‘Are you teaching them anything?’

‘No, Madame.’

‘What, not even reading, writing or the catechism?’

‘No reading, no writing and no catechism.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because nobody taught me anything and I’m not any the more ignorant for it. If they’ve got brains they’ll do as I’ve done. If they’re stupid what I teach them will only make them more stupid.’

If ever you meet this eccentric, you don’t have to know him to strike up a conversation with him. Take him into the nearest inn, tell him your business, ask him to follow you twenty miles and he will follow you. After you’ve employed him send him away without a sou, and he’ll go away happy.

Have you ever heard of a certain Prémontval who used to give public lessons in mathematics in Paris? He was his friend… But perhaps Jacques and his master are back together again? Do you want to go back to them or stay with me?…

Gousse and Prémontval ran the school together. Among the pupils who used to flock there was a young girl called Mlle Pigeon, the daughter of that talented artist who made those beautiful relief maps of the world which used to be in the Royal Botanical Gardens and which were transported to the Academy of Sciences.
²¹
Mademoiselle Pigeon used to go there every morning with her briefcase under her arm and her box of mathematical instruments in her muff. One of her teachers – in fact it was Prémontval – fell in love with his student and somehow by way of the propositions concerning solids inscribed in spheres a child was begotten.

Monsieur Pigeon was not the kind of man who would quietly accept the truth of this corollary. The lovers’ position was becoming embarrassing. They discussed the matter, but having nothing – and I mean nothing at all – what could be the outcome of their deliberations? They summoned their friend Gousse to their assistance and he, without saying a word, sold everything he possessed – linen, clothes, apparatus, furniture, books – got together a sum of money, and bundled the two lovers into a post-chaise and accompanied them at full gallop as far as the Alps. Once there, he emptied his purse of what little money remained, gave it to them and embraced them, wishing them good luck on their journey, and started back on foot as far as Lyons, begging alms all the way. There he painted the walls of a cloister of monks and earned enough money to return to Paris without begging.

– That’s very fine.

Certainly, but because of this heroic action, you now believe that Gousse was a deeply moral man, don’t you? Well, disillusion yourself, he had no more morals than you’ll find in the brain of a pike.

– That’s not possible.

Isn’t it? I employed him. I once gave him a mandate for eighty pounds to
my order. The amount was written in figures. What did he do? He added a zero and had himself paid eight hundred pounds.

– Ah! How awful!

He was no more dishonest when he took from me than he was being honest when he took the shirt off his back for a friend. He is an eccentric without principles. Those eighty francs weren’t enough for him, so with one stroke of the pen he got himself eight hundred francs which he needed. And what about the valuable books he gave me…

– What valuable books?

But what about Jacques and his master? What about… Jacques’ love life? The patience with which you listen to me shows what little interest you have in my protagonists. And I’m tempted to leave them wherever they are…

I needed a valuable book which he brought to me. A short while afterwards I needed another valuable book which he also brought to me. I wanted to pay him but he refused the money. Later, I needed another valuable book.

‘Ah, that one…’ he said. ‘I’m afraid you can’t have that. You’ve asked me too late. My Sorbonne Professor is dead.’

‘What has the death of your Sorbonne Professor got to do with the book I want? Did you take the other two from his library?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Without his consent?’

‘Why should I need that for an act of redistributive justice? All I did was find a better location for the books by transferring them from a place where they were useless to another where they would be put to good use.’

Now speculate on the ways of men if you dare! But it is the story about Gousse and his wife which is the best… I understand, you’ve had enough of this and you want to return to our two travellers. Reader, you’re treating me like an automaton. That’s not polite. ‘Tell the story of Jacques’ love life’, ‘Don’t tell the story of Jacques’ love life’, ‘I want you to tell me about Gousse’, ‘I’ve had enough…’

It is no doubt necessary that I follow your wishes, but it is also necessary that I sometimes follow my own. And that is without considering the fact that anyone who allows me to begin a story commits himself to hearing it through to the end.

I told you in the first place…

Now, when a person says: ‘In the first place…’ it is a way of announcing at least a second place…

So, in the second place… listen to me…

All right, then, don’t listen to me… I’ll speak to myself…

Jacques’ Captain and his friend could have been tormented by a violent and secret jealousy. It is a feeling which friendship does not always extinguish. Nothing is so difficult to forgive as someone else’s worth. Were they not perhaps afraid that one of them would be unfairly promoted, which would offend both of them equally? Without being conscious of doing so, each was trying pre-emptively to rid himself of a dangerous rival. They were sounding each other out for the opportunity. But how can one think such a thing of a man who so generously gave up his Commandant’s post to an impecunious friend?

He gave it up, that is true, but if he had not been awarded it in the first place, he might perhaps have claimed it at swordpoint. In the army an unjustified promotion, even if it does not bring honour to the person who profits from it, dishonours his rival. But let us leave all that. Let us just say that it was their particular kind of madness. And which of us does not have his own? The folly of our two officers was for several centuries that of the whole of Europe and used to be called the spirit of chivalry. That brilliant multitude, armed from head to toe, decked out in the favours of their various ladies, on their prancing chargers, lances in hand, visors raised, visors lowered, looking at each other proudly, sizing each other up, threatening each other, casting each other down in the dust, strewing vast tournament-fields with splinters of their broken arms, were all just friends, striving jealously for the particular type of merit which happened then to be in vogue.

At the moment when, at opposite ends of the arena, they raised their lances to the ready, at the moment when they pressed their spurs into the flanks of their chargers, these friends became the most terrible enemies. They would descend on each other with the same fury they would have displayed on a battlefield. And so our two officers were nothing more than two knights errant who were born in our time with the mores of former times. Every human virtue and every vice has been fashionable for a while and then unfashionable. Physical strength had its moment. So did martial skills. Bravery is sometimes more and sometimes less well thought of. The more a thing is common the less it is valued and the less it is praised. Examine the proclivities of men and you will note some who appear to have come into the world too late. They belong to another century. But what is to prevent us from believing that our two soldiers engaged in their perilous daily conflicts purely out of a desire to find their rival’s weak spot and gain superiority over him? Duels recur in many forms in our society – between priests, between magistrates, between men of letters, between philosophers. Every
occupation has its knights and its lances. Even our most serious or amusing assemblies are no more than miniature tournaments into which people sometimes carry the colours of their ladies, if not on their shoulders, at least in their hearts. The more people there are present, the more lively the contest. The presence of women makes the contest extremely intense and hard fought. The shame of having been beaten in front of women is hardly ever forgotten.

And Jacques? Jacques had gone through the gates of the town and through the streets cheered on by children until he reached the edge of the opposite quarter of the town where his horse threw itself through a small low archway. There took place between the lintel of this archway and Jacques’ head a terrible collision, the result of which could only be that the lintel was thrown out of alignment or Jacques knocked over backwards. It was, as you might well imagine, the latter which happened. Jacques fell, his head split open and unconscious. He was picked up and brought back to life with spirits. I think he may even have been bled by the master of the house.

– Was he a surgeon, then?

No… Meanwhile Jacques’ master had by now arrived and was asking for news from everybody he met.

‘Have you by any chance seen a tall thin man on a piebald horse?’

‘He’s just gone by. He was going like the devil himself was after him. He must have arrived at his master’s by now.’

‘And who is his master?’

‘The hangman.’

‘The hangman!’

‘Yes, the horse is his.’

‘Where does the hangman live?’

‘Quite far. But don’t bother going there. Here are his servants and it would appear that they are bringing the thin man you were asking for, whom we had taken for one of his valets.’

And who was it who spoke to Jacques’ master in this manner? It was an innkeeper, outside whose door he had stopped. There could be no doubt about what he was. He was as round and fat as a barrel and wore a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a white cotton hat on his head, a kitchen apron round his waist and a large knife at his side.

‘Quickly, quickly, a bed for this poor man,’ Jacques’ master said to him, ‘and a surgeon, a doctor and an apothecary…’

Meanwhile the people who had been carrying Jacques had set him down
at his master’s feet, his forehead covered with an enormous thick compress and his eyes tightly shut.

‘Jacques? Jacques!’

‘Is that you, Master?’

‘Yes, it’s me. Look at me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘What on earth happened to you?’

‘Ahh! The horse. The damned horse!… I’ll tell you about it tomorrow if I don’t die during the night…’

And while they carried him up the stairs his master supervised the operation, shouting: ‘Take care! Easy does it! Easy does it! Dammit! You’re going to hurt him! You, yes, the one holding his feet, turn to the right. And you… with his head, go to the left.’

And Jacques said quietly: ‘So it must have been written up above…’

Hardly had Jacques gone to bed than he fell into a deep sleep. His master spent the night at his bedside, the whole time taking his pulse and wetting his compress with lotion. When Jacques woke up he caught him doing this and said: ‘What are you up to?’