Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (7 page)

MASTER
: Go as high as one hundred écus.

After having reminded his master not to fall asleep, Jacques went to meet the traveller, suggested to him the purchase of his horse, paid him and led the horse away.

‘Well,’ Jacques’ master said to him, ‘if you have your premonitions you can see I have mine too. He’s a nice horse, this one. I suppose the man swore there was nothing wrong with him, but when it comes to horses all men are sharp dealers.’

JACQUES
: All right…

And there they were, both on horseback, and Jacques added: ‘When I left home my father and mother and my godfather all gave me something, each of them what little they could afford, and I already had in reserve the five louis which Jean, my elder brother, had given me when he left on his unfortunate trip to Lisbon…’

Here Jacques started to cry and his master began to tell him that it must have been written up above.

JACQUES
: That’s true, Monsieur, and I’ve told myself that a hundred times. But in spite of all that I can’t stop myself from crying…

And there he was sobbing and crying even more while his master was taking his pinch of snuff and looking at his watch to see what time it was.

After he had put his horse’s reins between his teeth and wiped his eyes with both hands Jacques continued:

With brother Jean’s five louis, the money I was paid on joining up and the presents of my parents and friends I had a fund – of which I had not spent an obol. It was a lucky thing for me that I had it – don’t you think?

JACQUES
: Yes, Monsieur, and a barefoot Carmelite at that.
¹³
He was active, intelligent, a haggler, he was the village lawyer. He knew how to read and write, and even as a young man he used to spend his time deciphering and copying out old manuscripts. He worked his way through all the jobs in the order one after the other – porter, bellringer, gardener, assistant to the procurator and treasurer. At the rate he was going he would have made all of us our fortunes. He married off two of our sisters, and a few other girls in the village, and married them off well at that. He couldn’t walk down the streets without fathers, mothers and children all running up to him and shouting out: ‘Good day, Friar Jean! How are you, Friar Jean?’

It is certain that whenever he went into a house God’s blessing went with him and wherever there was a girl she’d be married two months after his visit! Poor Friar Jean. Ambition was his downfall.

The Procurator of the House where Jean was assistant was old. The monks said that it was Jean’s plan to succeed him after his death, and that, to this end, he turned the deed room upside down, burnt all the old registers and made up new ones in such a way that on the death of the old Procurator the devil himself would have been unable to make head or tail of the community’s papers. If ever anyone needed a document he’d have to spend a
month looking for it and then often it couldn’t be found at all. The monks worked out what Friar Jean was up to and what his aim was. They took the thing very seriously and Friar Jean, instead of being procurator, as he flattered himself he would be, was reduced to bread and water and disciplined to the point where he eventually gave up the secret of his registers to someone else. Monks are merciless. When they had got all the enlightenment they needed from Friar Jean they made him the coal carrier for the laboratory where they made Carmelite liqueur. Friar Jean, former treasurer of the order and deputy procurator, now a coal carrier! Friar Jean had a stout heart but he could not tolerate his fall from importance and splendour and he was only waiting for the opportunity to escape from this humiliation.

Now at about this time there arrived at the monastery a young monk who was accepted as the wonder of the order in the confessional and the pulpit. He was called Friar Angel. He had beautiful eyes, a handsome face, and the arms and hands of a sculptor’s model. There he was preaching sermons and more sermons, hearing confessions and more confessions and the old spiritual directors were abandoned by their female congregation who flocked to the young Friar Angel. The eve of every Sunday and feast day, Friar Angel’s confessional was surrounded by more and more penitents while the old fathers waited fruitlessly for business in their deserted confessionals which upset them a great deal… But, Monsieur, if perhaps I left the story of Friar Jean and carried on with the story of my loves, it might be more cheerful.

JACQUES
: All right, if that’s what you want…

But Jacques’ horse was of another opinion. All of a sudden it took the bit between its teeth and charged into a ditch. Jacques dug his knees into the beast’s side and pulled back hard on the reins but it was all to no avail and the stubborn animal hurled itself out of the bottom of the ditch and started climbing as fast as it could to the top of a hillock where it stopped dead and where Jacques, looking around, found himself to be between the forks of a gallows.

Anyone other than myself, Reader, would not miss the opportunity of dressing up the gallows with its prey and arranging a sad reunion for Jacques. And if I were to tell you something of this sort you might well believe it because there are stranger things in life but it wouldn’t be any the more true for that. The gallows was empty.

Jacques allowed his horse to get its breath back and then the animal, of its own accord, went back down the hillock, crossed over to the other side of the ditch and brought Jacques back alongside his master, who said to him: ‘Ah! My friend! What a fright you gave me! I thought you were going to be killed… But you’re dreaming! What are you thinking about?’

MASTER
: The devil you did! That’s a bad omen. But remember your doctrine. If it is written up above, then no matter what you do you’ll be hanged, my dear friend. And if it isn’t written up above, the horse is a liar. If that beast isn’t inspired he’s suffering from delusions. I should be careful if I were you.

After a moment’s silence Jacques rubbed his forehead and shook his head, as people do when they’re trying to stop themselves thinking about something nasty, and carried on abruptly:

The old monks held a conference amongst themselves and resolved that no matter what the cost and no matter what means they had to use they would get rid of this young upstart who was humiliating them. Do you know what they did?… Master, you’re not listening to me.

JACQUES
: They bribed the porter, who was an old rascal like them. This old rascal accused the young priest of having taken liberties with one of the ladies of the congregation in the visiting room and swore on oath that he’d seen it. Perhaps it was true, perhaps it wasn’t. Who knows? What is amusing is that the day after this accusation the Prior of the House received a summons from a surgeon seeking payment for medicines and treatment given to the old porter when the latter was suffering from an amatory ailment…

Master, you’re not listening and I know what’s distracting you. I bet it’s those gallows.

JACQUES
: As a result of this calumny or slander on the part of the porter, they thought themselves justified in doing a thousand wrongs and injuries to poor Friar Angel, who seemed to lose his wits. Then they called in a doctor whom they bribed and who certified that the priest was mad and needed to return to his home for a rest. If it had been simply a question of sending Friar Angel away or shutting him up the matter would have been quickly dealt with, but he was the darling of the female church-goers amongst whom there were a number of important ladies who had to be handled carefully. The ladies heard their spiritual director spoken of with hypocritical commiseration: ‘Alas! The poor father… It’s a terrible shame… He was the leading light of our community.’

‘What’s happened to him, then?’

The answer to this question was a deep sigh, accompanied by an upward movement of the eyes towards heaven. Further questions were met by a downward movement of the head and total silence. Occasionally they would add to this mummery: ‘Oh God! This mortal coil… He still has his surprising moments… flashes of genius… It will come back to him perhaps… But there’s little hope… What a loss for the Faith.’

Meanwhile they stepped up their nastiness. They tried everything to bring Friar Angel to the state they said he’d reached. And they would have succeeded had Friar Jean not taken pity on him. What more can I tell you? One evening when we were all asleep we heard a knocking at the door. We got up and opened to Friar Angel and my brother who were in disguise. They stayed in our house all the next day and at dawn the day after that they went off. They went away with their hands full of provisions and as he embraced me Jean’s parting words were: ‘I married off your sisters and if I had stayed in the monastery for two years longer, with the position I used to have, you
would have been one of the richest farmers of the district, but everything’s changed and that’s all I can do for you. Farewell, Jacques, if ever we meet good fortune, Friar Angel and I, you will know about it…’

Then he left in my hand the five louis I’ve told you about, with five more for the last of the girls of the village, whom he had married off and who had just given birth to a bouncing baby boy who looked as much like my brother Jean as two peas in a pod.