Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (15 page)

MASTER
: It’s just that valets…

Well now, Reader! What is there to stop me from starting a violent quarrel between these three characters, from having the innkeeper’s wife taken by the shoulders and thrown out of the room by Jacques, from having Jacques taken by the shoulders and thrown outside by his master, from sending one
off in one direction and the other in a different one so that you wouldn’t hear either the innkeeper’s wife’s story or the rest of the story of Jacques’ love life? But don’t worry, I will do no such thing. And so the innkeeper’s wife continued: ‘It must be admitted that if there are a lot of very wicked men there are also a lot of very wicked women.’

MASTER
: Jacques, shut up and let Madame speak.

The innkeeper’s wife, encouraged by Jacques’ master’s words, squared up to Jacques, put her hands on her hips, forgot that she was holding Nicole, let go and there was Nicole on the floor, bruised and struggling in her blanket, barking her head off, and their hostess adding her cries to Nicole’s barking and Jacques adding his peals of laughter to the barking of Nicole and the cries of their hostess and Jacques’ master opening his snuff-box, taking his pinch of snuff, and unable to suppress a smile. The whole inn was now in tumult.

‘Nanon, Nanon, quickly, quickly, bring me the spirit bottle. My poor Nicole’s dead! Undress her… Oh, you’re so clumsy.’

‘I’m doing my best.’

‘How she’s crying. Get out of the way. Let me do it. She’s dead. That’s right, laugh, you big booby, I suppose you think it’s a laughing matter. My poor Nicole is dead!’

‘No, Madame. I think she’ll come out of it. Look, she’s moving…’

And Nanon rubbed brandy into the dog’s nose and made her swallow some and the hostess was wailing and storming about impertinent valets and Nanon was saying: ‘Look, Madame, she’s opening her eyes. There she is, looking at you.’

‘Poor beast. How expressive she is. Who could fail to be moved by her?’

‘Madame, stroke her a little, say something to her.’

‘Come here, my poor Nicole. Cry, my baby. Cry if it makes you feel better. There’s a Destiny for animals just the same as for people. It sends happiness
to idlers, unpleasant people, brawlers and gluttons and misery to the best creature in the world.’

‘Madame is perfectly right. There’s no justice in the world.’

‘Be quiet. Put her clothes back on and put her under my pillow. And remember, if she makes the slightest cry you’ll answer to me for it. Come here, my poor creature, and let me kiss you before she takes you away. Bring her here, then, you silly girl. Ah, dogs, they’re so good, they’re worth more…’

JACQUES
: One might also ask, where is the woman as worthy of this treatment as your Nicole?

The innkeeper’s wife’s passion for animals was not, however, her dominant passion. As you might imagine, her dominant passion was talking. The more that people found pleasure and were patient in listening to her, the more worthy they were in her eyes. Consequently she didn’t have to be asked to carry on with the interrupted story of the strange marriage. The only condition she imposed was that Jacques shut up. His master promised silence on behalf of Jacques. Jacques stretched himself out nonchalantly in the corner, his eyes shut, hat pulled down over his ears and his back half-turned to their hostess.

His master coughed, spat, blew his nose, took out his watch, looked at the time, took out his snuff-box, tapped its lid and took a pinch of snuff while their hostess prepared to indulge in the delicious pleasure of holding forth.

She was about to start when she heard her dog cry: ‘Nanon, go and see to the poor animal… That disturbed me. I don’t know where I’d got to.’

HOSTESS
: I’m not going to call you Jacques or Monsieur Jacques. I’m not speaking to you.

‘Madame! The bill for number five!’

‘Have a look on the chimney breast.’

These two men are worthy gentlemen. They’ve come from Paris and are going to the elder’s land.

JACQUES
: Fine explanation.

His master made a sign to the innkeeper’s wife which led her to understand that Jacques’ brain was a little scrambled. She replied to the master’s sign with a sympathetic movement of the shoulders and added: ‘At his age. What a terrible shame.’

HOSTESS
: The Marquis managed, however, to find one woman peculiar
enough to resist his advances. Her name was Mme de La Pommeraye. She was a widow of high moral character, high birth, good breeding, wealth and haughtiness. Monsieur des Arcis broke off with all his other acquaintances and devoted himself exclusively to Mme de La Pommeraye. He courted her with the greatest possible assiduity, attempted by every sacrifice imaginable to show her that he loved her and even proposed to her. But this woman had been so unhappy with a first husband that she…

‘Madame!’

‘What is it?’

‘The key to the oat bin?’

‘See if it’s on the nail. If it’s not there look in the lock.’

… that she would rather expose herself to any kind of misery than the danger of a second marriage.

HOSTESS
: The lady led a very quiet life. The Marquis was an old friend of her husband’s. He had been a visitor to the house and she continued to receive him. If one could overlook in him his unrestrained passion for love affairs he was what one would call a man of honour. The Marquis’ unremitting pursuit backed up by his personal qualities, his youth, good looks, what seemed to be the truest of passions, her solitude, her longing for affection, in a word everything that makes us women yield to the wishes of men…

‘Madame!’

‘What is it?’

‘The mail.’

‘Put it in the green room and distribute it as usual.’

… had its effect, and Mme de La Pommeraye, after having resisted both the Marquis and herself for several months and having exacted from him the most solemn of vows, as is customary, finally made him the happiest of men, whose destiny would have been most sweet had he only been able to retain for the Marquise those feelings which he had sworn he had felt for her and which she felt for him. I tell you, Monsieur, it is only women who know how to love. Men don’t know the first thing…

‘Madame?’

‘What is it?’

‘The friar almoner.’

‘Give him twelve sous for these gentlemen here, six sous for me, and let him go round the other rooms…’

… after a few years the Marquis began to find Mme de La Pommeraye’s life too uneventful. He suggested that she venture out into society. She did so. Then he suggested that she receive a few ladies and a few gentlemen. She did so. He suggested that she give a dinner party and she did so. Little by little he went one day, two days, without seeing her. He would miss the dinner parties he had arranged. Gradually he shortened his visits. He had other business which needed seeing to. When he arrived he would say one word, stretch himself out in an armchair, pick up a pamphlet, and throw it down again, talk to her dog, or go to sleep. In the evenings his health, which was becoming wretched, apparently required that he retire early. This was the advice of Tronchin.
³¹

‘He’s a great man, that Tronchin,’ he would say, ‘and by God I haven’t the slightest doubt he will save our friend’s life which the other doctors have despaired of.’

And as he was speaking he would take his hat and his cane and go away, sometimes forgetting to kiss her. Madame de La Pommeraye…

‘Madame!’

‘What is it?’

‘The cooper.’

‘Send him down to the cellar and have him check the two barrels in the corner…’

… Madame de La Pommeraye suspected that she was no longer loved. She had to find out for certain, and this is how she went…

‘Madame!’

‘Coming, coming!’

Tired of these interruptions the hostess went back downstairs and apparently found a way to put an end to them.

One day after lunch she said to the Marquis: ‘My friend, you’re dreaming.’

‘You are dreaming too, Marquise.’

‘Yes, and sad dreams at that.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘That’s not the truth. Come along, Marquise,’ he said yawning, ‘tell me about it. It will relieve your boredom and mine.’

‘Are you bored?’

‘No, it’s just that there are some days…’

‘When you get bored.’

‘You’re wrong, my friend. I swear to you you’re wrong. It’s just that there are some days… Well, I don’t exactly know what causes it.’

‘My friend, I have been tempted to tell you something for a long time now, but I am afraid to hurt you.’

‘You hurt me?’

‘Perhaps, but as heaven is witness to my innocence…’

‘Madame! Madame! Madame!’

‘Whoever or whatever it is I’ve absolutely forbidden you to call me. Call my husband.’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Excuse me, Messieurs, I’ll be with you again in a moment.’

And now the hostess has gone downstairs, come back up, and is well into her story.

HOSTESS
: ‘It happened without my willing it, or even being aware of it, by a curse that the whole human race must be subject to since I myself am not free from it.’

‘Ah! It’s that you… I was afraid… What is it?’

‘Marquis, it’s… I’m heartbroken and I will break your heart and all things considered it would be better if I kept quiet.’

‘No, my friend, speak. Do you have a secret for me in the bottom of your heart? Wasn’t it the first thing we agreed that we would open up our souls to each other without reserve?’

‘That is true, and that is what is worrying me. That is a reproach which is greater than the one I have to make myself. Can you not see that I am no longer so happy? I have lost my appetite. I only eat and drink because I make myself. I cannot sleep. Our most intimate gatherings displease me. At night I question myself and ask: Is he any the less kind? No. Have you anything to complain about? No. Do you have to reproach him for suspect liaisons? No. Has his love for you diminished? No. How is it that if your friend is the same your heart has changed? For it has and you can’t hide the fact. You no longer await him with the same impatience. You no longer feel the same pleasure in seeing him, or experience the same anxiety when he is late. That tender
pleasure, to hear the noise of his carriage, to hear his name announced, to see him finally appear – you no longer feel any of it.’

‘What! Madame!’

Then the Marquise de La Pommeraye covered her eyes, lowered her head and was quiet for a moment, after which she added: ‘Marquis, I expected the full scale of your astonishment and the bitter words that you are going to say to me. Marquis! Spare me… No, do not spare me. Say them to me. I will resign myself to listening because I deserve them. Yes, my dear Marquis, it is true… yes, I am… But is it not bad enough that the thing should have happened at all without my adding to it the shame and the scorn of being false and hiding it from you? You are the same but your friend has changed. She reveres you and respects you as much as and more than ever but… but a woman as accustomed as she is to examine carefully everything that happens even in the most secret parts of her heart, and to avoid all self-deception, such a woman cannot hide the fact that there is no love in her heart. The discovery is horrifying but is not any the less real. Me, the Marquise de La Pommeraye, inconstant, fickle… Marquis, fly into a rage, look for the most odious of names. I’ve called myself them all already. Call me them. I will accept them, all of them, except that of false woman, which you will spare me, I hope, because, in all truth, I am not that.’

‘Wife?’

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There’s never a moment’s rest in this house… even on days when there’s hardly anyone here and you would think there was nothing to do. Oh, a woman in my position is not to be envied, especially with a fool of a husband like that…’

When she had finished Mme de La Pommeraye threw herself into her armchair and started crying. The Marquis rushed to her knees.

‘You are a charming woman, an adorable woman, a woman unlike any other. Your candour and your honesty confound me and ought to make me die of shame. Ah, how vastly superior you are to me at this moment. How noble I find you and how mean I perceive myself. You have spoken first and yet it is I who was guilty first. My friend, your sincerity inspires me, and I would be a monster if it did not, and I admit that what you have said of your feelings applies word for word to mine. Everything that you have said to yourself I have said to myself, but I have kept quiet and suffered in silence. I don’t know when I would have had the courage to speak.’

‘Is that true, my friend?’

‘Nothing is truer. It only remains for us to congratulate ourselves on having both at the same time lost that fragile illusory emotion which united us.’

‘Indeed. What misfortune if my love had lasted when yours was dead.’

‘Or if it were in me that it died first.’

‘You are right, I can feel it.’

‘Never have you seemed to me so kind, so beautiful, as in this moment, and if past experience did not make me more cautious I would believe I loved you more than ever.’

As he spoke the Marquis took her hands and kissed them.

‘Wife!’

‘What is it?’

‘The straw chandler.’

‘Look in the register.’

‘Where is it?… It’s all right, I’ve got it.’

Madame de La Pommeraye concealed the fierce displeasure which burned inside her, spoke again and said to the Marquis: ‘Marquis, what is to become of us?’

‘We haven’t deluded ourselves. You deserve the right to all my esteem and I do not think that I have lost every right to yours. We shall continue to see each other and enjoy the intimacy of the most tender friendship. We will have spared ourselves all those minor irritations, all those petty betrayals, all those reproaches, all that bad temper, all those things that normally mark a dying love affair and we would be quite unique. You will recover all your freedom and give me back mine. We will go out in society. You will tell me all about your conquests, and I will hide nothing of mine from you – if I make any, which I doubt very much, because you have made me difficult to please. It will be delightful! You will help me with your advice, and I will not refuse you mine in difficult circumstances, or when you believe you need it. Who knows what might happen?’