Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (9 page)

JACQUES
: That’s not easy. Has not everyone his own character, his own interests, his own tastes and passions according to which he either exaggerates or attenuates everything?

Tell the thing as it is, you say!… That might not even happen twice in one day in the whole of a large town. And is the person who listens any better qualified to listen than the person who speaks? No. Which is why in the whole of a large town it can hardly happen twice in one day that someone’s words are understood in the same way as they are spoken.

JACQUES
: Not among the poor, but practically all of the rich, without exception, looked on him as some kind of madman, and his relatives nearly had him declared incapable of managing his own affairs.

While we were taking refreshment at an inn, a crowd of idlers gathered round a sort of orator who was the local barber, and asked him: ‘You were there. Tell us how the thing happened.’

‘Certainly,’ replied the local soap-box orator, who liked nothing better than being asked to hold forth…

Monsieur Aubertot, one of my clients, whose house is opposite the Franciscan church, was standing on his doorstep and M. le Pelletier went up to him and said: ‘Monsieur Aubertot, will you give me nothing for my friends?’ – because that is, you know, how he refers to the poor.

‘Nothing today, Monsieur le Pelletier.’

Monsieur le Pelletier insisted: ‘If you only knew on whose behalf I was asking for your charity. It’s for a poor woman who’s just given birth and who hasn’t even a rag to wrap her baby in.’

‘I cannot.’

‘It’s for a beautiful young girl who has no food and no work, whom your generosity might save from ruin.’

‘I cannot.’

‘It is for a labourer who has only his hands to live by and who has just broken a leg falling from his scaffolding.’

‘I cannot, I tell you.’

‘Come on, Monsieur Aubertot, allow yourself to be touched. You can be sure that you’ll never have the chance of doing a more meritorious action.’

‘I cannot. I cannot.’

‘My dear merciful Monsieur Aubertot…’

‘Monsieur le Pelletier, leave me alone… When I want to give I don’t have to be asked.’

And at that M. Aubertot turned his back on him and went into his shop where M. le Pelletier followed him. He followed him from his shop and into his back room, from his back room into his living-quarters, and there, M. Aubertot, who had been driven to the end of his tether by M. le Pelletier’s insistence, slapped his face.

At this point my Captain got up suddenly and asked the orator: ‘Didn’t he kill him?’

‘No, Monsieur, does one kill for something like that?’

‘A slap in the face! My God, a slap in the face! What did he do then?’

‘What did he do after he was slapped in the face? He said to M. Aubertot in an amused tone of voice: “That’s for me, but for my friends?…” ’

On hearing this everyone who was listening cried out in admiration,
except my Captain, who said to them: ‘Your Monsieur le Pelletier, Messieurs, is nothing but a beggar, a wretch, an unspeakable coward who would for all that have been vindicated on the spot by this sword of mine if I had been there. And your Aubertot would have been extremely lucky if it had only cost him his nose and his two ears.’

The orator replied: ‘I can see, Monsieur, that you would not have left this insolent man the time to acknowledge the error of his ways and throw himself at the feet of M. le Pelletier and give him his purse.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘You are a soldier and M. le Pelletier is a Christian. You haven’t got quite the same ideas about a slap on the face.’

‘The cheek of every man of honour is the same.’

‘That’s not what the Gospel says.’

‘The Gospel is in my heart and in my scabbard, and I don’t know any other.’

‘Your Gospel, my Master, is I don’t know where, but mine is inscribed up above. Everyone understands the good and bad done to him in his own way and perhaps we never judge anything the same way twice in our lives.’

MASTER
: What happened next, you damned gossip? What happened next?

Whenever Jacques’ master became annoyed, Jacques used to shut up and lose himself in thoughts, often breaking his silence only by an occasional word which was linked in his thoughts, but as disconnected conversationally as the reading of a book when one has skipped a few pages. This is precisely what happened to him when he found himself saying the words: ‘My dear Master…’

MASTER
: Forget about your misunderstandings and try to understand that it is terribly rude to start moralizing when it’s a question of historical fact. Now, your Captain’s story?

Jacques was about to start his Captain’s story when, for the second time, his horse slewed violently off the road to the right, carried him a good quarter league across a long plain and then suddenly stopped dead between the forks of a gallows…

– Between the forks of a gallows? That’s really extraordinary behaviour for a horse, to lead its rider to the gibbet.

‘What does this signify?’ asked Jacques. ‘Is this a warning from Destiny?’

MASTER
: These misunderstandings of yours are painful. Let’s change the subject.

Jacques, who was feeling a little reassured by the diverse interpretations he had found for his horse’s prognostication, said:

When I joined the regiment there were two officers who were both of more or less the same age, same birth, same length of service, and both of equal merit. My Captain was one of them. The only difference between them was that one was rich and the other wasn’t. My Captain was the rich one. This similarity was bound to produce either the greatest sympathy or the most violent antipathy. In fact it produced both…

Here Jacques stopped, and this happened to him several more times during the course of his story, every time his horse moved his head to the left or the right. And to carry on he repeated his last phrase, as if he had the hiccups.

JACQUES
: In fact it produced both. There were days when they were the best of friends and others when they were mortal enemies. On their days of friendship they would seek each other out, make a great show of pleasure when they met, embrace each other and then tell each other all their problems, their pleasures and their needs. They would consult each other on the most intimate subjects, on their domestic affairs, their hopes, their fears, their ambitions. And then the next day they would pass each other by without looking, or they would glare fiercely at each other, call each other ‘Monsieur’, say harsh words to each other, draw their swords and fight. If it happened that one of the two was wounded, the other would rush up to his friend crying and lamenting, see him to his quarters and install himself at his friend’s bedside until he was better. Then, a week, or a fortnight, or a month later, it would begin again, and people would see from one moment to the next two gallant men… two gallant men, two sincere friends each facing
death at the other’s hands and the one who died would certainly not have been the one deserving the most pity.

People had often spoken to them about the strangeness of their conduct. I, myself– for my Captain allowed me to discuss things with him – used to ask him: ‘Monsieur, what if you killed him?’

At these words he would start to cry and bury his face in his hands. Then he would run round his apartment like a madman. Two hours later, either his friend would bring him back wounded or he would do the same for his friend.

Neither my protests… neither my protests nor those of anyone else did any good. The only solution was to separate them. The Minister of War was informed of their extraordinary persistence in these extremes of behaviour and my Captain was given command of a fortress with strict orders to present himself there immediately and an absolute prohibition on leaving it. For his part, my Captain’s friend was forbidden from leaving the regiment… I think this damned horse will drive me insane… Hardly had the orders of the Minister arrived than my Captain, under the pretext of going to present his thanks for the favour bestowed on him, left for Court, where he pointed out that he himself was rich, but his comrade had the same right to the King’s graces, that the command which he had been given would reward his friend’s services and add to his small fortune – and this would for his part make him very happy. Since the Minister only had it in mind to separate these two strange men and since generous behaviour always has an effect on people, it was decided… Damned beast, can’t you keep your head straight… it was decided that my Captain would stay in the regiment and his friend would be transferred to take command of the fortress.

Hardly had they been separated when they realized how much they needed each other and they both fell into the most profound melancholy. My Captain asked for six months’ leave to go back home for a rest. When he was two leagues away from the garrison, he sold his horse, disguised himself as a peasant and made his way towards the fortress his friend commanded. It appears that this had been arranged between them. He arrived… Oh, go where you like! Is there another gibbet you’d like to visit?… It’s all right for you to laugh, Monsieur! I don’t find it at all funny!… He arrived. But it was written up above that, despite the precautions they took to hide the satisfaction they felt at seeing each other again and the care they took to approach each other with the external appearance of deference that might be expected of a peasant in the presence of the commanding officer of a fortress, some soldiers and some officers, who were by chance present at their
meeting, and who happened to know of their past adventures, became suspicious and went to warn the adjutant of the fortress.

The adjutant, a careful man, was amused by the situation but did not fail to attach to it the importance it merited. He set spies around the Commandant. Their first report was that the Commandant hardly ever went out and the peasant not at all. It was impossible for these two men to live together for a week without their strange obsession taking hold of them and this did not fail to happen.

You can see, Reader, how obliging I am. If I had a mind to do it, I could whip on the horses pulling the black-draped carriage, I could assemble together at the door of the nearest cottage Jacques, his master, the excise men or the mounted constabulary and the rest of the cortège. I could interrupt the story of Jacques’ Captain and make you as impatient as I wanted to. But to do all that I would have to lie, and I don’t like lies unless they are necessary and useful. The fact is that Jacques and his master saw no more of the draped carriage and that Jacques, although he was still very worried about his horse’s behaviour, continued his story.