Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (33 page)

MASTER
: A fortnight went by during which time I heard nothing except through the Chevalier who kept me faithfully informed of the effects of my absence on the family and who encouraged me to remain steadfast.

He said to me: ‘They are beginning to be surprised and starting to look at each other and talk. They are asking themselves what reasons you might have for being displeased with them. The young girl is trying to be dignified and she is affecting an air of indifference which cannot conceal her pique, saying: “If we no longer see this gentleman it is apparently because he no longer wishes us to see him. Fine. That’s his business.” Then she does a pirouette, starts humming, goes over to the window and comes back again. But her eyes are red and everyone sees that she’s been crying.’

‘She’s been crying!’

‘Then she sits down, takes up her needlework, tries to carry on with it but can’t. They make conversation, she remains quiet. They try to cheer her up, she goes into a temper. They suggest a game, a walk, the theatre, she wants to do something else and then the next moment she doesn’t… Now what? You’re getting upset! I won’t tell you anything more.’

‘But, Chevalier, do you think then that if I reappeared…’

‘I think that you would be a fool. You must hold fast, you must have courage. If you come back without being called, you are lost. You’ve got to teach that lot some manners.’

‘But what if I am not called back?’

‘You’ll be called back.’

‘What if there’s a long delay?’

‘You’ll be called back soon. Damn it, a man like you is not easily replaced. If you come back of your own accord, you’ll get the cold shoulder, you’ll be made to pay for your outburst and you’ll be forced to accept whatever terms are imposed on you. You would have to submit to them, you would have to bend the knee. Do you want to be master or slave, and the most ill-treated slave at that? Choose. To tell the truth, your conduct has been a little cavalier and hardly seems the behaviour of a man who is head over heels in love. But what is done is done and you must make certain that you secure any possible advantage.

‘She’s been crying!’

‘Well! So, she’s been crying. It’s better for her to cry than you.’

‘But what if I am not called back?’

‘You will be called back, I tell you. When I arrive I do not speak about you any more, as if you no longer existed. They turn the conversation and I allow them to turn it. Eventually they ask me if I’ve seen you. My reply is indifferent, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Then they talk about something else but do not take long to come back to your disappearance. The first word comes from the father or the mother or the aunt or Agathe herself: “After all the respect we showed for him!…” “The interest which we all took in that business he was recently involved in!…” “The friendship my niece showed for him!…” “The politeness I lavished on him!…” “All those protestations of affection which he made to us!…” “Who would ever trust men after that!…” “Who would ever open their house to visitors or put their trust in friends after a thing like that?” ’

‘What about Agathe?’

‘Full of dismay, I assure you, all of them.’

‘And Agathe?’

‘Agathe took me aside and asked me: “Chevalier, do you understand anything of your friend’s behaviour? You have assured me so many times that he loved me. You believed him without doubt, and why would you not have believed him – I believed him too…” Then she stopped, her voice changed and tears came into her eyes… Well! Now you’re doing the same! I won’t tell you any more, that’s for sure. I can see what you want, but there’s absolutely nothing doing. Since you were stupid enough to stay away without rhyme or reason I do not want you to compound it all by going back and throwing yourself on them. You must turn this incident to your advantage if you want to make progress with Agathe. She must be made to see that she does not hold you so securely that she might not lose you unless
she makes more effort to keep you. After all that you have done, and still to be only on hand-kissing terms! Come now, Chevalier, put your hand on your heart, we are friends and you can, without being indiscreet, reveal yourself to me. Is it true that she’s never granted you anything?’

‘No.’

‘You’re lying, you’re being discreet.’

‘I would be, perhaps, if I had reason to, but I swear to you that I am not fortunate enough to be in such a position.’

‘That is inconceivable, because, after all, you’re not clumsy. What! Has she never had even the least little moment of weakness?’

‘No.’

‘Then it must have come without your noticing and you missed it. I fear that you may have been a little simple. Honest, delicate, tender people like you are prone to that.’

‘But, what about you, Chevalier? Where do you stand?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘Have you never had any pretensions?’

‘Quite the contrary, I assure you. They even lasted a long time, but you came, you saw, and you conquered. I noticed that she looked at you a lot and at me hardly at all, and took it as read. We have remained good friends and she confides her little thoughts in me and sometimes follows my advice, but for want of anything better I have accepted the role of subaltern to which you have reduced me.’

MASTER
: To interrupt their valets, interrupt as much as they want and not be interrupted.

Reader, are you not afraid of seeing here a repetition of the scene in the inn where one of them was shouting: ‘Go downstairs!’, and the other: ‘I will not go downstairs!’?

Why should I not cause you to hear: ‘I will interrupt!’ ‘You will not interrupt!’

What is certain though is that it only needs me to provoke Jacques or his master for the quarrel to be started and once that’s happened who knows how it might end?

‘Monsieur, I am not interrupting you, but I am conversing with you since you have given me permission.’

MASTER
: The rascal can make me do whatever he wants… A few days after this conversation with the Chevalier, he came back to my house. He seemed triumphant.

‘Well, my friend! Next time will you believe in my predictions? I told you so, we are the stronger and here is a letter from the little lady, yes, a letter, a letter from her.’

This letter was very touching, full of reproaches, pleadings
et cetera
. And so there I was, reinstated in their house.

Reader, you’ve stopped reading! What’s wrong? Ah! I think I know. You want to see the letter. Madame Riccoboni would not have failed to show it to you.
⁶⁹
And as for the letter which Mme de La Pommeraye dictated to her two saintly ladies, I am sure you regretted that. Although that letter was a lot more difficult to write than Agathe’s, and although I don’t have unlimited confidence in my talents, I believe I could have managed it, but it wouldn’t have been original. It would have been like one of those sublime harangues of Livy in his ‘History of Rome’, or of Cardinal Bentivoglio in his ‘Wars of Flanders’.
⁷⁰
One reads them with pleasure but they destroy the illusion. A historian who imputes to his characters speeches they have not made can also supply them with actions they have not performed. I beg you, therefore, to do without these two letters, and carry on reading.

MASTER
: I am pleased that you are profiting from my lessons… One day
the Chevalier suggested to me that we should go for a walk alone together. We went to spend the day in the country. We left early. We lunched at an inn and we had supper there. The wine was excellent and we drank a lot of it, chatting about government, religion and love affairs. Never had the Chevalier shown me so much trust, so much friendship. He told me the story of his whole life with the most incredible frankness, without hiding from me either the good or the bad. He drank. He embraced me. He cried with tenderness. I drank. I embraced him. And I cried in my turn. In all his past conduct there was only one single action with which he reproached himself, the remorse for which he would carry to his grave.

‘Chevalier, confess your sin to your friend since that will give you comfort. Well, what was it then? Some peccadillo whose importance you are exaggerating through your own scrupulousness?’

‘No, no,’ cried the Chevalier, burying his head in his hands and hiding his face in shame. ‘It is a foul deed. An unpardonable foul deed. Would you believe it that I, the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin, once deceived, yes, deceived, his friend?’

‘And how did that happen?’

‘Alas! Both of us used to frequent the same house, as you and I do. There was a young girl there, like Mlle Agathe. He was in love with her, but I was the one she loved. He ruined himself in expense for her, and it was I who enjoyed her favours. I have never had the courage to admit it to him but if we found ourselves together again I would tell him everything. This frightful secret which I carry at the bottom of my heart overwhelms me. It is a burden from which I absolutely must deliver myself.’

‘Chevalier, you would do well to do so.’

‘Do you advise me to do so?’

‘Of course I advise you to.’

‘And how do you think my friend would take it?’

‘If he is your friend, if he is fair, he will find your forgiveness in his own heart. He will be touched by your honesty and your repentance. He will throw his arms around your neck. He would do what I would do if I were in his place.’

‘Do you believe so?’

‘I am sure of it.’

‘And is that what you would do?’

‘I have no doubt of it.’

At that moment the Chevalier got up and came towards me, tears in his eyes, arms open: ‘My friend, embrace me, then.’

‘What! Chevalier,’ I said, ‘is it you? Is it me? And that hussy Agathe?’

‘Yes, my friend. I release you from your promise. You are free to do with me as you wish. If you think, as I do, that my offence is inexcusable, do not excuse me. Get up from here, leave me and never see me again without scorning me, and abandon me to my sorrow and my shame. Ah! My friend, if only you knew how much power the little minx had over my heart. I was born honest. Imagine how much I have had to suffer in the unworthy role to which I have lowered myself. How many times have I turned my eyes away from her to look at you, inwardly groaning at my betrayal and hers. It is extraordinary that you never noticed…’

Meanwhile I was completely petrified. I had hardly heard the Chevalier’s speech. I cried out: ‘Ah! Unworthy man! Ah! Chevalier! You, you, my friend!’

‘Yes, I was, and I am still, since, in order to free you from the snares of this creature, I am revealing a secret which is more hers than mine. But what makes me really sorry is that you have received from her nothing to compensate you for all that you have done for her.’

Here Jacques started to laugh and whistle.

– But this is just like Collé’s
Vérité dans le vin
…
⁷¹

Reader, you don’t know what you are talking about. You are so concerned with showing how intelligent you are that you end up being stupid. It is so little a case of
in vino veritas
that it is in fact the opposite – it is untruth in the wine. I have been rude to you. I am sorry and I beg your pardon.