Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (5 page)

JACQUES
: Ah, if only I knew how to speak the way I think, but it was written up above that I would have things in my head and the words wouldn’t come to me.

Here Jacques threw himself into some very subtle philosophical ideas which might also be very true. He was trying to make his master conceive that the word pain does not refer to any real idea and only begins to signify anything at all at the moment when it recalls in our memory a sensation which we have already experienced. His master asked him if he had ever given birth.

‘No,’ replied Jacques.

‘Do you think that giving birth is a painful experience?’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Do you feel sorry for women in childbirth?’

‘Very much so.’

‘So you sometimes feel sorry for people other than yourself?’

‘I feel sorry for anyone who wrings their hands, tears out their hair and screams because I know from experience that one does not do that unless one is suffering. But as for the particular pain of a woman giving birth, I cannot sympathize with that because I don’t know what it is, thank God. But to come back to a pain with which we are both more familiar. The story of my knee which has now become yours as well because of your fall…’

JACQUES
: So there I was, bandaged up and feeling a little better. The surgeon had gone and my hosts had retired and gone to bed. All that separated their room from mine was a lattice-work partition covered with grey paper on which they had stuck a few coloured pictures. I couldn’t sleep and I could hear the wife saying to her husband: ‘Leave me alone, I don’t feel like it. That poor wretch dying at our door…’

‘Woman, you can tell me all that afterwards.’

‘No, I’m not going to. If you don’t stop it I’m getting up. Do you think I can enjoy that the way I’m feeling?’

‘Oh, if you’re making yourself hard to get, the more fool you.’

‘I’m not making myself hard to get, it’s just that you’re sometimes so hard… it’s just… it’s just…’

After quite a short pause the husband began to speak and said: ‘Wife, admit that at the moment, owing to your misplaced compassion, you have put us in an embarrassing situation which is almost impossible to get out of. It’s a bad year and we’ve only just got enough for ourselves and the children. Grain is so dear! There’s no wine! Even that wouldn’t be so bad if there were work to be found. But the rich are cutting back and the poor are idling. For every day’s work there are four without. Nobody pays what they owe. Creditors are so rapacious it makes one despair and this is the moment you choose to give shelter to someone we’ve never set eyes on before, a stranger who will stay here as long as it pleases God and the surgeon who will be in no hurry to cure him because these surgeons make illnesses last as long as they can. And a man who hasn’t got even a sou and who will double, triple our expenses. Now, woman, how are you going to get rid of this man? Well, speak, woman, give me an explanation.’

‘How can anyone talk to you?’

‘You say that I’m bad-tempered, that I scold you? Well, who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t scold? There was still a little wine left in the cellar. God knows the rate it’s going! Those surgeons drank more this evening than ourselves and the children would have done in a week. And who will pay the surgeon, who isn’t going to come for nothing as you might think?’

‘Oh, that is all nicely put. And because we’re in extreme poverty, you’re going to give me another child, as if we don’t have enough already.’

‘Oh no, I’m not.’

‘Oh yes, you are. I’m sure I’m going to become pregnant.’

‘That’s what you say every time.’

‘And I’ve never been wrong yet when my ear plays me up afterwards and I can feel it itching worse than ever.’

‘Your ear doesn’t know what it’s talking about.’

‘Don’t touch me! Leave my ear alone! Leave it, man, have you gone mad? You’ll regret it.’

‘No, no. I haven’t done it with you since midsummer day.’

‘And you’ll do it and the result will be that… and then in a month’s time you’ll be cross with me as if it were all my fault.’

‘No, no.’

‘And in nine months from now it’ll be even worse.’

‘No, no.’

‘Well you’ve asked for it.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘And you’ll remember this time. You won’t say the things you said all the other times.’

‘Yes, yes.’

And so he changed from ‘No, no’ to ‘Yes, yes’, this man furious with his wife for having given way to a feeling of humanity.

JACQUES
: One child more is nothing to them. It’s charity that feeds them. What’s more it’s the only pleasure which doesn’t cost anything. At night they console themselves without expense for the troubles of the day…

However, the man’s reflections were none the less true. While I was thinking this to myself I felt a violent pain in my knee and I cried out: ‘Ah! My knee!’

And the husband cried out: ‘Ah! My wife!’

And the wife cried out: ‘Ah! My husband! But what about that man who is here?’

‘Well? What about him?’

‘Perhaps he heard us.’

‘What if he has?’

‘Tomorrow I won’t be able to look at him.’

‘Well, why not? Aren’t you my wife? Am I not your husband? Does a husband have a wife or a wife have a husband for nothing?’

‘Ah! Ah!’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘My ear…’

‘What’s wrong with your ear?’

‘It’s worse than ever.’

‘Go to sleep. It’ll wear off.’

‘I can’t. Ah! My ear! Ah! My ear!’

‘Your ear, your ear, that’s easily said…’

I won’t tell you what happened between them next, but after the wife had repeated the words ‘My ear, my ear’ several times in a low hushed voice she finished up babbling in interrupted syllables ‘ee… ee… aaah’ and after ‘ee… ee… aah’, I don’t know what, which together with the silence which followed led me to believe that her earache had got better one way or another, it doesn’t matter how, and that gave me pleasure, and her too.

MASTER
: It could well be.

And there they were started off on an interminable quarrel about women. One claimed they were good, the other wicked, and they were both right; one said they were stupid, the other clever, and they were both right; one that they were unfaithful, the other faithful, and they were both right; one that they were mean, the other generous, and they were both right; one that they were beautiful, the other ugly, and they were both right; one talkative, the other discreet; one open, the other deceitful; one ignorant, the other enlightened; one moral, the other immoral; one foolish, the other wise; one big, the other small. And they were both right.

While engaged in this discussion – and they could have travelled around the entire world without either pausing or agreeing – they were caught up in a storm which forced them to seek shelter.

– Where? – Where?

Reader, your curiosity is extremely annoying. What the devil does it have to do with you? If I told you it was Pontoise or Saint-Germain or Loreto or Compostella, would you be any the wiser?
⁷

If you insist I will tell you that they made their way towards… yes, why not?… towards a huge château, on whose façade were inscribed the words:
‘I belong to nobody and I belong to everybody. You were here before you entered and you will still be here after you have left.’

– Did they go into this château?

No, because either the inscription was a lie, or they were there before they went in.

– Well, did they manage to leave, at least?

No, because either the inscription was a lie, or they were still there after they left.

– And what did they do there?

Jacques said whatever it was written up above that he would say and his master whatever he liked. And they were both right.

– What kind of people did they find there?

A mixture.

– What did they say?

A few truths and a lot of lies.

– Were there intelligent men there?

Where are there not some? And damned questioners whom they avoided like the plague. The thing that most shocked Jacques and his master while they were walking about…

– So they were walking, were they?

They did nothing but that except when they were sitting down or sleeping. The thing which shocked Jacques and his master most was to find about twenty scoundrels there who had taken over all the most luxurious rooms, where, it appears, they stayed almost all the time crowded together and pretended, in defiance of customary right and the true meaning of the château’s inscription, that the château had been bequeathed to them lock, stock and barrel, and with the help of a certain number of pricks in their pay they had brought round to this view a great number of other pricks, also in their pay, who were quite prepared for the smallest sum of money to hang or kill the first man who dared contradict them. Nevertheless, in the days of Jacques and his master people sometimes dared.

– With impunity?

That depended.

You are going to say that I am amusing myself and that because I do not know what to do with my two travellers any more, I am throwing myself into allegory, which is the usual recourse of sterile minds. For you I will sacrifice my allegory and all the riches I could draw from it and I will agree with whatever you want, but on condition that you don’t bother me any more about where Jacques and his master spent last night. They may have reached
a big town and spent the night with whores, or they may have stayed the night with an old friend who gave them the best he could, or they may have taken refuge in a Franciscan monastery where they were badly lodged and badly fed all for the love of God. They may have been welcomed into the house of a great man where they lacked everything that was necessary to them and were surrounded by everything that was superfluous, or the next morning they may have left a large inn where they paid dearly for a bad supper served on silver platters and a bad night spent in beds with damask curtains and damp creased sheets, or they may have received hospitality from some village priest on a meagre stipend who ran round his parishioners’ poultry yards requisitioning the wherewithal to make an omelette and a chicken fricassee, or they may have got drunk on excellent wine, eaten far too much and got the appropriate bout of indigestion in a rich Benedictine abbey. Although all of these might appear equally feasible to you, Jacques was not of this opinion. The only possibility was the one that was written up above. What is, however, true, is that when they had started out from whatever location you would have them start out from they had gone no further than twenty paces when the master said to Jacques, after, of course, having first, as was his habit, taken his pinch of snuff: ‘Well then, Jacques, the story of your loves?’

Instead of replying Jacques cried out: ‘The devil with the story of my loves! I’ve gone and left…’

MASTER
: What have you left?

Instead of answering him Jacques turned out all of his pockets and then searched himself all over without success. He had left the purse for their journey under the head of his bed and he had no sooner admitted this to his master when he cried out: ‘To the devil with the story of your loves! I’ve gone and left my watch back there hanging on the chimney!’

Jacques needed no encouragement, but turned his horse about, and because he was never in a hurry started slowly back to…

– The huge château?

No, no. Out of all the different places, possible or impossible, which I have listed above, choose the one which best suits the present circumstances.

Meanwhile his master continued on his way. But now, with the master and the servant separated from each other, I don’t know which of the two I would rather follow. If you want to follow Jacques, take care. The search for the purse and the watch could become so long and so complicated that it might take him a long time before he meets up again with his master who is
the sole confidant of the story of his loves and then it would be goodbye to the story of Jacques’ loves. If, however, leaving Jacques to go alone in search of the purse and the watch, you choose to keep his master company, you are being polite but you will be very bored. You do not know that type of person yet. He has very few ideas in his head at all. If he happens to say something sensible, it is from memory or inspiration. He has got eyes like you and me but most of the time you cannot be sure he is actually seeing anything. He does not exactly sleep, but he is never really awake either. He just carries on existing simply because it is what he usually does. Our automaton carried straight on ahead, turning round from time to time, to see if Jacques was coming. He got down from his horse and walked for a while on foot. Then he remounted, went about a quarter of a league, got down again and sat on the ground with his horse’s reins looped under his arm and his head in his hands. When he got tired of that position, he got up and peered into the distance to see if he could see Jacques. No Jacques. Then he got impatient and without really knowing whether he was talking or not he said: ‘The wretch, the dog, the rascal, where is he? What is he doing? How could it take anyone so long to recover a watch and a purse? I’ll beat you black and blue. Oh! That’s for sure – I’ll beat you black and blue.’

Then he looked for his watch in his fob-pocket and it wasn’t there, and that was the last straw. Because, without his watch, without his snuff-box and without Jacques, he didn’t know what to do. They were the three mainstays of his life which was spent in taking snuff, looking at the time, and questioning Jacques, which he did in every possible combination. Deprived of his watch he was reduced to his snuff-box, which he kept opening and shutting every minute, like I do when I am bored. The amount of snuff left in my snuff-box at night is in direct proportion to the amusement or in indirect proportion to the boredom of my day. I beg you, Reader, to familiarize yourself with this manner of speaking which is taken from geometry, because I find it precise and shall use it often.

Well then, have you had enough of the master? As the valet is not coming to you, would you rather we went to him? Poor Jacques! At the very moment we were speaking of him Jacques was sorrowfully meditating: ‘So it was written up above that in the same day I’d be arrested as a highwayman, be on the point of being taken to prison and be accused of having seduced a girl.’

On his slow way back to… the château? No, the place where they had spent the previous night, he passed by one of those itinerant pedlars known as ‘porteballes’, who called out to him: ‘Monsieur le Chevalier, garters, belts, watch-straps, snuff-boxes in the utmost good taste, all genuine, rings,
fob-seals, a watch, Monsieur, a fine watch with engraving, double action, good as new.’

Jacques replied: ‘I’m looking for one but it’s not yours’, and carried on his way slowly. As he was going, he thought he could see that it was written up above that the watch this man had offered him was his master’s. He retraced his steps and said to the pedlar: ‘Friend, show me your gold watch, I have a fancy it might suit me.’

‘Indeed,’ said the pedlar, ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised. It’s a very beautiful watch, made by Julien Le Roi. I’ve only had it a moment. I bought it for next to nothing and will do a good price on it. I like little repeated profits, but these are hard times and I won’t have a bargain like this for the next three months. You seem a fine chap and I would rather see you profit than another…’

As he was speaking the pedlar had put his bundle on the ground, opened it up and pulled out the watch, which Jacques recognized immediately without any surprise, because, since he was never in a hurry, he was rarely surprised. He had a good look at the watch.

‘Yes,’ he said to himself, ‘that’s it.’

To the pedlar: ‘You’re right. It is beautiful, very beautiful, and I know it’s a good watch…’

Then, putting it in his fob-pocket, he said to the pedlar: ‘Thank you very much, my friend.’

‘What do you mean, thank you very much?’

‘Yes, it’s my master’s watch.’

‘I don’t know your master. That watch is mine. I bought it and paid for it fair and square…’, and grabbing Jacques by the collar, he tried to take the watch back. Jacques went to his horse, took one of his pistols and held it against the pedlar’s chest: ‘Get back,’ he said to him, ‘or you’re a dead man…’

The frightened pedlar let go. Jacques got back on his horse and started slowly back towards the town, saying to himself: ‘That’s the watch back. Now let’s see about our purse…’

The pedlar hurriedly shut up his pack, put it on his shoulders and followed Jacques, shouting: ‘Thief! Thief! Murderer! Help! Help me! Help me!’

It was harvest time and the fields were full of workers. They all left their sickles and crowded around the man, asking him: ‘Where is the thief?’ ‘Where is the murderer?’

‘There he is, there he is, over there.’

‘What! That man riding slowly towards the town gate?’

‘That’s him.’

‘Come on, you’re crazy. That’s not the way a thief behaves.’

‘He’s one, he’s a thief, I tell you. He took a gold watch from me by force.’

These people did not know what to believe, the cries of the pedlar or the calm pace of Jacques.

But the pedlar added: ‘My friends, I will be ruined if you don’t help me. It’s worth thirty louis if it’s worth a brass farthing. Help me. He’s carrying off my watch and he’s only got to spur his horse and my watch will be lost…’

Even if Jacques was out of earshot of the shouting he could easily see the crowd, but still he went no faster. The pedlar had persuaded the peasants to run after Jacques in the hope of a reward. There was a crowd of men, women and children running after him shouting: ‘Thief! Thief! Murderer!’ with the pedlar following as closely as his burden would permit shouting: ‘Thief! Thief! Murderer!’

They entered the town, because it was in a town that Jacques and his master had spent the previous night, I remember it now. The townspeople left their dwellings and joined the peasants and the pedlar, all going along shouting in unison ‘Thief! Thief! Murderer!’ and they all caught up with Jacques at the same moment. The pedlar threw himself on to Jacques, who lashed out at him with a kick which knocked him to the ground but did not stop him shouting: ‘Rogue, rascal, scoundrel, give me back my watch! You’ll give it back to me and you’ll still be hanged for it…’

Jacques retained his composure, addressed the crowd, which was growing larger every moment, and said: ‘There is a magistrate here. Take me to him. When we get there I’ll show you that I’m not a thief, but this man might be one. I am not unknown in this town. The day before yesterday evening my master and I arrived here and we stayed with the Lieutenant-Governor,
⁸
my master’s old friend…’

If I did not say sooner that Jacques and his master had passed through Conches and that they had stayed with the Lieutenant-Governor of this place, then that is because it didn’t come back to me any earlier.

‘Take me to the Lieutenant-Governor,’ said Jacques, and dismounted. Jacques, his horse and the pedlar were in the middle of the procession. They set off and arrived at the gate of the Lieutenant-Governor’s house. Jacques, his horse and the pedlar went in, Jacques and the pedlar holding each other by the lapels. The crowd stayed outside.

Meanwhile, what was Jacques’ master doing? He was sleeping by the side of the road, the reins of his horse looped round his arm, and the animal
grazing the grass around the sleeping figure as far as the length of the reins allowed.

As soon as the Lieutenant-Governor saw Jacques he shouted out: ‘Ah! Is that you, my poor Jacques? What’s brought you back here all alone?’

‘My master’s watch. He left it hanging on the corner of the chimney and I’ve just discovered it in this man’s pack. Our purse, which I left under the head of my bed, will doubtless also be found if you order it.’

‘If it is written up above,’ added the magistrate…

He called his people straight away and the pedlar immediately pointed out a large rascal with a shifty manner who had recently arrived at the house and said: ‘There’s the man who sold me the watch.’

The magistrate, taking on a solemn tone, said to the pedlar and his valet: ‘The pair of you deserve to go to the galleys, you for having sold the watch, and you for having bought it.’

To his valet: ‘Give this man back his money and take off your livery immediately…’

To the pedlar: ‘Hurry up and get out of these parts, unless you want to stay here hanging from a gibbet. The way you two earn your living always leads to a bad end… Now, Jacques, let’s see about your purse.’

The person who had taken it appeared without being called for. She was a full-grown shapely girl.

‘Monsieur, I have the purse,’ she said to her master, ‘but I didn’t steal it. He gave it to me.’

‘I gave you my purse?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose it’s possible, but the devil take me if I can remember.’

The magistrate said to Jacques: ‘All right, Jacques, we won’t go any further into that.’

‘Monsieur…’

‘She’s pretty and obliging from what I can see.’

‘Monsieur, I swear…’

‘How much was there in the purse?’

‘Around nine hundred and seventeen pounds.’

‘Ah! Javotte! Nine hundred and seventeen pounds for one night. That’s far too much for you, and for him. Give me the purse.’

The girl gave the purse to her master who took out a six-franc piece: ‘There you are,’ he said, throwing her the coin, ‘that is the price of your services. You deserve better, but from someone other than Jacques. I wish you twice as much as that every day, but not in my house, do you hear? And
as for you, Jacques, hurry up and get back on your horse and return to your master.’

Jacques bowed to the magistrate and went off without answering, but saying to himself: ‘The brazen hussy! So it was written up above that someone else would sleep with her and that Jacques would pay for it, was it? Come along Jacques, cheer up; aren’t you pleased that you got the purse and your master’s watch back and that it cost you so little?’

Jacques got back on to his horse and pushed his way through the crowd which had gathered round the entrance to the magistrate’s house, but because he took it rather badly that so many people should take him for a thief he affected to take the watch out of his pocket to look at the time. Then he spurred his horse, which was not used to this and took off faster than it had ever done before. It was Jacques’ habit to let the horse do whatever it wanted because he found it just as inconvenient to stop it when it was galloping as it was to make it go faster when it was going slowly. We believe that it is we who control Destiny but it is always Destiny which controls us. And Destiny for Jacques was everything which touched him or came near him – his horse, his master, a monk, a dog, a woman, a mule, a crow. And so his horse took him as fast as it could go towards his master, who was sound asleep by the side of the road with his horse’s reins tied around his arm, as I have told you. On that occasion, however, the horse was on the end of the reins but when Jacques arrived the reins were still there and the horse was not. It would appear that a thief had come up to the sleeping figure, quietly cut the reins and led the animal away. On hearing the noise of Jacques’ horse his master woke up and his first words were: ‘Come here, come here, you scoundrel. I’m going to…’

Then he started to yawn his head off.

‘Have a good yawn, Monsieur, as much as you like,’ said Jacques, ‘but where is your horse?’

‘My horse?’

‘Yes, your horse.’

The master, noticing straight away that somebody had stolen his horse, was about to belabour Jacques with the reins when Jacques said to him: ‘Gently, Monsieur, I’m in no mood today to let myself be beaten senseless. I’ll take the first blow, but, I swear to you, on the second I’ll set spur to my horse and leave you here.’

This threat of Jacques’ had the sudden effect of calming the wrath of his master, who asked him in a gentler manner: ‘And my watch?’

‘Here it is.’

‘What about the purse?’

‘Here.’

‘You’ve been a long time.’

‘Not too long for all that I’ve done. Listen carefully. I went there. I got into a fight. I stirred up all the peasants in the fields. I caused a riot amongst the townsfolk. I was taken for a highwayman and I was brought before the judge. I underwent two cross-examinations. I very nearly caused two men to be hanged. I made a valet lose his job and had a maidservant lose hers. I’ve been convicted of spending the night with a creature I’ve never seen in my life, whom I nevertheless paid. And I came back.’

‘And as for me, while I was waiting for you…’

‘While you were waiting for me it was written up above that you would fall asleep and that someone would steal your horse. Monsieur, think no more of it. It’s one lost horse, and perhaps it is written up above that it’ll be found again.’

‘My horse! My poor horse!’

‘And if you cry from now till tomorrow it won’t be any the more or the less so.’