JACQUES THE FATALIST

DENIS DIDEROT was born at Langres in eastern France in 1713, the

son of a master-cutler. He was originally destined for the Church,
but rebelled and persuaded his father to allow him to complete his
education in Paris. For most of his twenties and early thirties,
Diderot remained nominally a law student, but in fact led a rather
precarious and Bohemian existence. He read extensively during this
period, and this is reflected in his early works such as the Pensées
philosophiques (1746) and the Lettre sur les aveugles (1749) which
show a keen interest in contemporary philosophical issues. During
the early 1740s Diderot met three contemporaries of great future
significance for himself and for the age: d’Alembert, Condillac and
J.-J. Rousseau. In 1747 Diderot embarked on the most important
task of his life, the editorship of the Encyclopédie, whose
publication he oversaw until its completion in 1773. Diderot’s
boldest philosophical and scientific speculations are brilliantly
summarized in a trilogy of dialogues collectively known as Le Rêve
de d’Alembert (1769). With Le Neveu de Rameau, begun in 1761, and
Jacques le Fataliste, written between approximately 1755 and 1784,
Diderot produced his greatest works of prose fiction, works which
are highly original and daring, both in their form and in their
content. Towards the end of his life, by now one of the most
famous French writers, Diderot visited Saint Petersburg at the
invitation of one of his most powerful admirers, the empress
Catherine the Great, to whom he had promised his extensive
library in return for her financial assistance. He died in 1784.

MARTIN HALL was born in 1946. He studied French and German at

Christ Church, Oxford, and is at present a lecturer in French at
King’s College, London.

MICHAEL HENRY was born in 1954 and read French at King’s College,
London, graduating in 1977. His radio adaptation of this
translation was produced by Radio 3, directed by John Theocharis.
He now makes a living as an entertainment lawyer.
DENIS DIDEROT
JACQUES THE FATALIST
AND HIS MASTER

Translated by Michael Henry

with an Introduction and Notes
by Martin Hall

PENGUIN BOOKS
 PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110
017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New
Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196 South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

This translation first published 1986

Copyright © Michael Henry, 1986

Introduction copyright © Martin Hall, 1986
All rights reserved

The publishers gratefully acknowledge permission to base this translation upon the text of
Jacques le Fataliste edited by S. Lecointre and J. Le Galliot, Editions Droz, Paris, 1977.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it
shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-196122-4
 CONTENTS

Introduction
Jacques the Fatalist
Notes
INTRODUCTION
 ABOUT DIDEROT

Denis Diderot was born in Langres in 1713, leaving the town in

1728 for Paris, where he lived until his death in 1784. What little
evidence there is of Diderot’s life and activities during his first
dozen years in the capital suggests that he led the Bohemian life of
an aspiring man of letters, often forced to resort to literary hack-
work, private coaching and translation to make ends meet. His
family helped him out for some years until Diderot quarrelled with
his father in 1743 over his marriage plans. In spite of all these
difficulties, these were the years in which Diderot developed his
literary and intellectual talents and became keenly interested in
contemporary developments in literature, philosophy and science.
In the late 1740s Diderot was approached by a consortium of
Parisian publishers and asked to take over joint editorial control
with the eminent mathematician d’Alembert of a project to
translate and furnish suitable additions to Chamber’s Cyclopaedia.
In October 1747 Diderot signed a contract with the publishers, and
so embarked on the single most important enterprise of his life.
What finally emerged over the next twenty-odd years was one of
the greatest and most representative monuments of the
Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des
sciences, des arts et des métiers. This work – the first modern
encyclopaedia – ran to seventeen folio volumes of text and eleven
of plates. After d’Alembert withdrew in 1758, Diderot was left in
sole editorial control. In addition to the normal tasks of an editor
he also took on a major role as researcher and contributor to the
Encyclopédie. His articles were among the best and most original
and covered topics ranging from the technological to the
metaphysical.
From its early days the Encyclopédie was at the centre of political
and ideological conflict. Far from being allowed to carry on his
work in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity, Diderot had to
cope with the hostility of the parlements, the greater part of the
Catholic Church, an important party at Court and various other
influential groups as well as with the threat of prosecution and
censorship.
His labours and difficulties were, however, justified by the
importance of what was achieved. The Encyclopédie brought
together the leading intellectual and scientific lights of the age.
More than any other eighteenth-century work it defined the
consensus of liberal and progressive ideas and values which was
the Enlightenment. The Encyclopédie made Diderot a figure of
European reputation and the acknowledged leader of the militant
younger group of philosophes. The Encyclopédie also gave Diderot
financial security and a large degree of independence besides
stimulating the development of an omnivorous intelligence which
made him the greatest polymath among the philosophes.
Nevertheless, the Encyclopédie never constituted Diderot’s
exclusive preoccupation, nor does it contain his most interesting
contribution to the literature and thought of the period. This lies in
writings that remained largely unknown to the general public
during his lifetime, and which were written both during and after
the publication of the Encyclopédie. Thus, Diderot’s masterpiece of
scientific speculation, D’Alembert’s Dream, was unknown until 1831.
Most of his prose fiction – novels, dialogues and short stories –
remained unpublished until after his death, and included such
major works as Rameau’s Nephew, The Nun and Jacques the Fatalist
and his Master. One reason why Diderot published so little during
his lifetime was that it was often dangerous for writers to do so
under a regime which exercised a fierce, if inefficient, censorship.
Diderot learnt this at first hand when, in 1749, he published
anonymously a brilliant exposition of atheist and materialist ideas
in a work entitled Letter Concerning the Blind. Diderot’s authorship
was soon known to the authorities, and he was arrested and
imprisoned for three months. There are, however, other reasons
which may explain why Diderot was reluctant to publish many of
his works. For example, the content of some of his work might
have offended friends, as was the case with D’Alembert’s Dream,
which Diderot suppressed at the request of D’Alembert and his
mistress, who felt they had been represented in an offensive
manner. Another reason may be Diderot’s preoccupation with the
usefulness of the intellectual to society. While this never came into
direct conflict with his commitment to stating the truth, it is fair to
say that Diderot sometimes felt that the public good would not be
best served by his broadcasting his more heterodox flights of fancy.
Finally – and here Jacques the Fatalist might be taken as an example
– it seems likely that Diderot believed his best and most original
work would not be properly understood and appreciated in his own
time and consciously accepted that, for him, true recognition had
to be posthumous.
Jacques the Fatalist was conceived and written over a long period
between the late 1760s and 1778 – a time of intense creative
activity for Diderot after the depression accompanying the
conclusion of work on the Encyclopédie. It was partially published
in the Correspondance littéraire between 1778 and 1780. An early
and enthusiastic reader was Goethe, but, for the most part, the
reception of the work tended to confirm Diderot’s suspicions about
the likely reaction to his most original work. Even after the novel
became more widely available after its publication in 1796,
reactions tended to vary from incomprehension to patronizing
indifference. At best it was deemed an amusing pot-pourri, at worst
obscene and unreadable. It is only recently, in the last few decades,
that both specialist and non-specialist readers have begun to catch
up with Diderot and discover the strange originality of Jacques the
Fatalist.
 FICTION AND REALITY
Jacques the Fatalist is a novel which refers insistently to other
novels, to story-telling and fiction. The reader soon becomes aware
that a powerful attack is being mounted against a particular sort of
novel, and will have little difficulty in recognizing what kind of
fiction is under fire – undemanding, escapist literature, full of
implausible plotting and stereotyped characterization, relying
heavily on a strong love-interest. In its refusal of the romanticizing
exaggeration of conventional fiction, Jacques belongs to a long and
important tradition in the European novel, a tradition which can be
defined by its rejection of the tawdry resources of ‘mere’ fiction
and its proclamation of its own adherence to the superior claims of
truth. Jacques repeatedly asserts not only that it is not an invented
story, but also that it is a true story referring to the real world.
Readers who come to Jacques anticipating a ‘true story’ might
find some initial reassurance in the Narrator’s repeated assurances
of fidelity to the truth. This might even be reinforced by the
presence in the text of some of the indicators readers have come to
expect as evidence of the authenticity of the story they are being
told. They are, for instance, given dates, places and proper names
belonging to people who really existed. They are given
explanations about the provenance of the story and its transmission
via the Narrator to themselves. However, it soon becomes clear
that the mere presence of these indicators does not mean that they
work very successfully. A simple example is the matter of historical
dates. One might imagine, on a first reading, that the presence of
references to major events such as battles and great natural
disasters secured the novel in a firm chronological framework.
Closer examination reveals that, far from offering the reader the
security of a stable historical context, dates are delusory. Jacques
was wounded in the knee in 1745 at the battle of Fontenoy, and
refers to himself as having limped for twenty years, thus locating
the time in which he is telling the story of his loves somewhere in
the mid-sixties. What then are we to make of the reference to
Mandrin’s gang in the final pages of the novel? Mandrin himself
died in 1755. The dates appear to be contradictory. A similar
situation arises when the reader pauses to consider the provenance
of Jacques’ life story. There seems to be a manuscript somewhere
which is the basis of the Narrator’s claim to be telling a true story.
At the same time, there appears to be direct contact between
Jacques and the Narrator (‘Jacques told me…’). In the final pages,
however, this apparatus is thrown into doubt by the sudden
intervention of an ‘Editor’ who inevitably reduces the Narrator
from being a powerful authenticatory voice to a mere fictional
device.
Once the readers’ suspicions are alerted they will notice more
and more instances in which the seemingly secure structures of the
narrative start to look shaky. Contradictions and logical
impossibilities begin to crop up with alarming frequency. A widow
is mourned by her husband. Jacques takes up a point made by the
Narrator. A character’s death is fixed by two incompatible time
sequences.
As a true story Jacques doesn’t work, it doesn’t fit together. Parts
of the novel may maintain an internal coherence, but even these
tend to look like exercises in style and rhetoric when replaced in
their context. The story of Madame de La Pommeraye and the
Marquis des Arcis is the most important instance of this. Taken by
itself (and it has frequently been published as an autonomous
novella), the story is convincing and moving. Replaced in the inn,
where it is told to Jacques and his master by the innkeeper’s wife,
its implausibility is easily demonstrated by two questions: Who is
this innkeeper’s wife who speaks so eloquently? How has she learnt
the story? What might, in one perspective, seem like a true story,
becomes, in another, a fictional construct.
It gradually becomes apparent that what could initially have
seemed mistakes – contradiction, incoherence, incompatibility –
are ‘deliberate mistakes’, part of a strategy of disruption and
subversion that seems designed to deny the reader any easy retreat
into fictional illusion. Jacques not only points the finger of scorn at
the inadequacies and artificialities of conventional fiction, but also
points to its own fictional nature. When, for the umpteenth time,
the Narrator asks us what is to prevent him from giving us
whatever fictional continuation he chooses, we may well cease to
take this as part of a rhetorical protestation of truthfulness, take the
question literally and answer ‘nothing’. The reference to truth is
finally self-defeating. We cannot read Jacques straightforwardly as
a chronicle of events, but must call into question our own
expectations in reading fiction.
 STORIES AND STORY-TELLING
‘When someone tells a tale, to a listener, and assuming that the tale
goes on for some length of time, it’s unusual for the teller not to be
interrupted by his listener.’ These lines, which open one of
Diderot’s short-stories, might serve as the epigraph to Jacques, a
novel that is remarkable not merely by the quantity of tales and
anecdotes that it contains but also by its dramatization of the
relationship between the teller of a story and the listener or reader.
As we read Jacques, we are constantly made aware that the tales
we are reading are being told by one person to another. Nor is this
a point which we can simply take note of and then ignore: the
circumstances surrounding the telling of a story almost always
serve as an intrusive reminder. The innkeeper’s wife, for example,
finds her attempts to begin her story repeatedly thwarted by the
interruptions of her husband, customers and staff. Jacques’ efforts
to continue the story of his loves are frustrated by the distressing
tendency of his horse to bolt. At another point, he is physically
prevented from continuing by a sore throat.
Stories are not received in silence, but interrupted, commented
upon, interpreted and judged. The Narrator wages a running battle
with the Reader over the stories he relates, provoking, teasing and
bullying him to the point where the convention of authorial
address to the reader ceases to be a mere convention and becomes
the means to explore the complex dynamics of the story-telling
relationship.
This exploration is most fully and subtly worked out in the
relationship of Jacques and his master. The underlying symbiosis of
the couple is expressed in the one’s need to talk and the other’s
need to listen. At the same time, the latant antagonism of master
and servant also finds expression in story-telling. Jacques is
irritated at his master’s interruptions and exasperated at his
demands to side-track to other issues. His master in turn seeks to
make of his servant an almost mechanical furnisher of tales for his
satisfaction. Jacques frets and worries over the difficulties and
ambiguities of story-telling, while his master, with characteristic
complacency, simply tells Jacques that the important thing is that
one should tell stories and the other listen.
The dramatization of the story-telling relationship fulfils another
important function: it highlights the quest for significance or
meaning which the stories are intended to provoke. For instance,
Jacques and his master are fascinated by the story that the
innkeeper’s wife tells them. They argue about the psychological
coherence of the characters and how to interpret their behaviour;
they argue about the morality of this behaviour and what
judgement to pass on it. The Narrator then intrudes to provoke the
Reader into discussion. The story has generated what might
become an endless series of debates and discussions. The world of
Jacques is not a fixed and settled one in which incidents and
behaviour are easily assessed and interpreted. On the contrary, it is
a world of dizzying variety and unpredictability, one which
beckons its readers to embark on their own search for meaning
rather than offering them ready-made answers.
 THEMATIC ORGANIZATION
Is there any ordering principle to be discerned in the welter of
anecdotes that make up such a large part of the novel? Certainly,
readers may initially be inclined to think that they are being
offered a representation of the sprawling untidiness and
inconclusiveness of life itself. However, it is fair to say that, besides
the major themes of master–servant relations and fatalism dealt
with below, there are four other important thematic areas which
can be discerned emerging from the confusion.
 1. Mutability and Change
Among the great writers of the Enlightenment Diderot is distinctive
by the importance which time and transformation play in his vision
of the world, a world whose working can only be understood in
terms of its perpetual change. This vision is evoked in one of the
rare passages of high-flown rhetoric in Jacques, an invocation to
the folly of two lovers swearing eternal constancy in a world whose
every feature is witness of change. This theme of mutability
emerges insistently in the motif of sexual inconstancy and infidelity
and is most fully developed in the story of Madame de La
Pommeraye and the Marquis des Arcis. This story also illustrates
the closely related motif of jealousy, the counterpart of
inconstancy, which might also be defined as the refusal of the
harsh rule of universal change.
 2. Rivalry
The second theme of rivalry, like that of jealousy, is frequently
illustrated in the context of sexual relations but throughout Jacques
there recurs a particularly bizarre figure of rivalry in the form of
the compulsive duellists. The rivalry motif involves a succession of
couples hardly distinguishable the one from the next and offers the
reader a haunting image of inexplicability – two men closely
attached to one another, unable to live apart and at the same time
impelled to fight bloody and dangerous duels.
 3. Bizarreness of Human Nature
The inexplicability of human nature, as illustrated by the duellists,
is a constant preoccupation in Jacques which clearly reflects
Diderot’s fascination with the ‘outsize’ human character in Madame
de La Pommeraye, Father Hudson and Jacques himself even. These
figures, whose counterparts can be found in other works of Diderot,
are distinguished by their unity of character, a hardness and
autonomy which separates them from their fellows. They are those
whose control over their fiery nature allows them to channel their
exceptional energy into far-reaching and ambitious designs. It is
not so much their contradictoriness that seems to fascinate Diderot
as their irreducibility to any easy moral judgement. Admirable in
certain respects they are also marked by a certain amoralism, often
made manifest in their ruthless destruction of those who cross or
oppose them. In the end, as in the case of the duellists, it is to the
acceptance of the diversity of human nature that the reader is led.
 4. Deceit and Duplicity
Hudson himself is the supreme deceiver, who manages not only to
sustain an image of industry, piety and austerity while leading a
life of debauchery but also manages to turn the tables on those sent
to establish his guilt, to such effect that they, and not he, end up
accused and punished. Hudson’s tale is only the most striking and
elaborate illustration of a theme which pervades the novel. The
deceiver may end up deceived, as in the case of the Steward who
sleeps with the pastry-cook’s wife and ends up suffering the fate he
had himself intended for the pastry-cook. Jacques’ love life and
that of his master offer other examples of complex permutations of
deceit. This group of themes is particularly recalcitrant to
explanation and interpretation. It offers recurrent images of
reversal, of artifice, of the opposition of appearance and reality. It
may also perhaps offer a loose symbol of the opposition of truth
and fiction so insistently referred to by the Narrator throughout the
novel.
 SERVANT AND MASTER
The importance of the central relationship of the novel is signalled
in the very title of the book, Jacques the Fatalist and his Master, as
are its subversive implications: Jacques takes precedence over his
master, Jacques has a name and his master has none. This reversal
of the usual social order relates Jacques to a long tradition
stretching back at least as far as Latin comedy, which explores the
dramatic possibilities offered by bringing together two individuals,
one the social superior, the other the intellectual superior. The
literature of the French eighteenth century explores this
relationship with particular zest and constitutes a veritable ‘Golden
Age’ of the clever servant, whose two outstanding figures are
Jacques and his first cousin and near contemporary, Beaumarchais’
Figaro. The similarities between the two are numerous and
significant. Like Beaumarchais’ hero, Jacques is conscious of his
worth and ready to assert his conviction that he is the equal, if not
the superior of his master. More importantly, Jacques and Figaro
both demand out of self-respect that this equality be recognized. It
is no coincidence that for both men the cause of outright conflict
with their master should be sexual rivalry. When Jacques’ master
expresses his disbelief at the idea that a woman could prefer
Jacques to himself, he formulates this in a particularly offensive
manner, referring to Jacques as ‘A Jacques’, a contemptuous and
dismissive term for a peasant. What he is saying is that Jacques is
not an individual and cannot be taken seriously even in something
as fundamental as his sexual aspirations. A servant, a peasant, is
not a man. Jacques’ response is to assert the contrary, to claim
equality and demand to be treated with appropriate respect. The
context may seem trivial but the issue is not, and the figure of the
servant asserts (as does Beaumarchais’ Figaro) a rejection of any
social order which defines an individual’s worth by his social
position.
This quarrel between Jacques and his master constitutes a high
point in the novel, where the fundamental rejection of the ancien
régime is most apparent. The subsequent patching up of the quarrel
(which as the Narrator points out has occurred a hundred times
before) is just as significant. The intervention of the innkeeper’s
wife restores the equality between Jacques and his master which
constitutes the de facto reality of their day-to-day existence. Indeed
equality is perhaps too mild a term since, as Jacques points out, he
exercises effective control in the relationship, while his master has
a merely titular authority. This pragmatic solution (by no means
the only one of its kind in Diderot’s works) leaves certain
fundamental contradictions unresolved, but it does have the virtue
of effectiveness; it works. It also underlines the fact that while the
master/servant relationship is, in some respects, a conflictual one,
it is also a profoundly symbiotic one. Much has been made by some
critics of the ineptness and stupidity of Jacques’ master, who
appears to them the embodiment of an effete and parasitic
aristocracy, while Jacques is the symbol of the valorous Third
Estate. This is an exaggeration and a simplification: Jacques’
master, for all his limitations, is presented as an amiable and good-
natured man, genuinely fond of his servant, and capable, for most
of the time, of recognizing Jacques’ peculiar gifts and accepting his
natural superiority. Indeed, as their relationship of story-teller and
listener illustrates, each man needs the other. What characterizes
Diderot’s treatment of the master/servant theme is the subtlety
with which he brings out both the inevitably exploitative side of
the relationship and its profoundly symbiotic nature.
Jacques is the hero of the novel not simply by virtue of his
dominant position in his relationship with his master, but also by
the fact that it is his past, the story of his loves, that provide the
principal element of continuity in the work. This means that a
considerable part of the novel focuses on a social setting that was
comparatively rare in the French novel of the eighteenth century,
the village and the countryside. Diderot had read extensively the
work of English novelists of the century and had been struck by the
relative broadness of scope the English novel allowed. Defoe,
Fielding and Richardson could paint on a wider canvas and
represent a greater variety of manners, customs and classes than
could their French counterparts, who were bound, Diderot felt, by
the rather restricted range of their public’s taste. In this respect
Jacques is one of the most adventurous French novels of the
century in its insistent reference to what might be termed scenes of
everyday life in the village and the countryside, the traditional
domain of the peasant, a social setting found only rarely in the
French novel of this time. Often the episodes recounted come from
an old stock of popular images and references – the farcical scene
with the little village priest, the bawdy episodes of sexual initiation
and the career of Brother Jean – which cannot be said to be of
Diderot’s invention. They belong to a popular tradition of tales,
fables and jokes which after a considerable period of absence come
back into the mainstream of prose fiction through Jacques. Indeed,
it is arguable that Jacques is truly Rabelaisian not in its rather
clumsy attempts at a literal reworking of Rabelais (as in the
reference to the sacred gourd) but in a much more fundamental
sense. With Jacques, Diderot reintroduces popular elements into the
serious novel with an effect that is as liberating as it was in
Rabelais’ time. The egalitarian message of Jacques lies as much in
its re-introduction of popular forms into the novel as in its
celebration of the clever servant.
 JACQUES THE FATALIST
The title tells us that Jacques is a fatalist, but what does this mean?
Many critics have assumed that Jacques is about fatalism, that it is
an exploration in fictional terms of philosophical issues raised by
Diderot’s materialist view of the world – a view which requires the
universe to be explained exclusively in terms of matter, its
properties and activity. Diderot was led from this position to a
commitment to determinism which propounded that if the universe
is explicable exclusively in terms of the organization and activity of
matter, then there is no room for any ‘play’ in the system. Nothing
is chance: all is determined.
At the same time, Diderot was intensely preoccupied by ethical
problems and concerns. Resolutely hostile to what he saw as the
unnatural and stultifying effects of Christian ethical teaching, he
remained equally resolute in seeking some alternative foundation
to ethics. But this was where Diderot’s problems began, because the
philosophical position he held seemed to deny any possibility of
establishing a secure basis for ethics except as a form of utilitarian
social engineering: if everything is determined, the argument will
run, free will is a nonsense and, if this is the case, although we may
attempt by means of an appropriate system of incentives and
deterrents to make man what is socially desirable, we cannot make
him a moral being.
Freedom or determinism? This becomes the starting-point for a
philosophical reading of Jacques. The fatalistic Jacques is
committed to a form of determinism, believing that all is
foreordained, ‘written up above’, in his own words, yet he
constantly contradicts his own viewpoint by actions and feelings
which are the behaviour of a moral being. The novel can then be
read as an elaboration in fictional form of the philosophical
dilemma in which Diderot found himself, committed to a
philosophical doctrine which denied his need for a universe in
which moral choice was meaningful.
An interpretation of Jacques along these lines is plausible, and
finds justification both in the text and in Diderot’s practice as a
writer (Jacques is not the only one of Diderot’s works to explore
dilemmas and unresolved tensions of his thought and personality).
However, there are dangers in this line of interpretation.
First, it would be wrong to explain this strange and complicated
novel simply in terms of its exposition of some philosophical
doctrine. Jacques’ fatalism is not really philosophical determinism
but is more closely related to certain popular ideas and expressions
(the idea of every bullet having its address on it, for instance, and
the notion of everything being ‘written up above’) than to any
philosophical doctrine. In so far as it relates to any philosophical
doctrine the link is a tenuous one whose fallibility is underlined.
Jacques’ ‘philosophical’ ideas are derived from his Captain, who in
turn derives them from Spinoza. From Spinoza to ‘It’s written up
above’ is not a route that is either obvious or direct.
Secondly, if the novel were straightforwardly ‘about’ fatalism
one might expect that there would be some developed argument,
even perhaps a conclusion reached. This is not the case. Jacques
may score points off his master – as when they become involved in
the question of free will – but nowhere is there any conventional
elaboration and exploration of issues. In pursuing this line, one
might ask whether, apart from in the amount of time and space
allocated to them, there is any difference between the discussion on
fatalism and that on the subject of women which the Narrator tells
us could go on interminably without getting anywhere. This is not
to deny the importance of the discussion, but to underline the fact
that the issue of fatalism is presented in Jacques as part of a work
of fiction.
 CONCLUSIONS
If there is no conclusion offered to the alternative of freedom or
determinism, it is because the novel as a whole tends towards the
representation of such alternatives as fundamentally irresoluble.
Indeed the figure of what might be called alternativity runs
throughout Jacques. Do the duellists love or hate each other? Is
Gousse good or bad? Is Jacques servant or master? In each case the
alternative does not allow a simple resolution. We cannot decide
but have to cope as best we can with the answer: ‘Both at once’.
Like the great comic works that it avows as its inspiration –
Rabelais’ novels, Molière’s comedies, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy –
Jacques is above all a celebratory work. It proclaims its delight in
diversity and difference, and a fascination with the quirkiness and
bizarreness of human life. Like these masterpieces it is irreducible
to any fixed and limiting scheme of interpretation. Jacques has
been interpreted as a novel of moral experience, as a critique of the
eighteenth-century novel, as an attack on the ancien régime, and as
a philosophical exploration. It is all of these things but none of
them exclusively. The worst misreading of Jacques would consist
precisely in thinking that one could offer an exhaustive
interpretation of it. With due regard to the Narrator’s strictures
concerning allegory, we might say that Jacques is like the ‘château’
where Jacques and his master spend (or don’t spend) a night. It
belongs to everybody and to nobody. Jacques calls to the intelligent
reader – not the doctrinaire one – and invites us all to write our
own conclusion.
How did they meet? By chance like everyone else. What were their
names? What’s that got to do with you? Where were they coming
from? From the nearest place. Where were they going to? Does
anyone ever really know where they are going to? What were they
saying? The master wasn’t saying anything and Jacques was saying
that his Captain used to say that everything which happens to us
on this earth, both good and bad, is written up above.

MASTER: That’s very profound.

JACQUES:
My Captain used to add that every shot fired from a gun
had someone’s name on it.

MASTER: And he was right…

(After a short pause Jacques cried out:) May the devil take that
innkeeper and his inn!

MASTER: Why consign one’s neighbour to the devil? That’s not

Christian.

JACQUES: Because while I was getting drunk on his bad wine I

forgot to water our horses. My father noticed and got angry. I
shook my head at him and he took a stick and hit me rather hard
across the shoulders. There was a regiment passing through on its
way to camp at Fontenoy,1 and so out of pique I joined up. We
arrived. The battle started…

MASTER: And you stopped the bullet with your name on it?

JACQUES: You’ve guessed it. Shot in the knee. And God knows the
good and bad fortunes that were brought about by that shot. They
are linked together exactly like the links of a fob-chain. Were it not
for that shot, for example, I don’t think I would ever have fallen in
love, or had a limp.

MASTER: So you’ve been in love then?

JACQUES: Have I been in love!

MASTER: And all because of a shot?

JACQUES: Because of a shot.

MASTER: You never said a word of this to me before.

JACQUES: Very likely.

MASTER: And why is that?

JACQUES:
That is because it is something that could not be told a
moment sooner or a moment later.

MASTER: And has the moment come for hearing about these loves?

JACQUES: Who knows?

MASTER: Well, on the off-chance, begin anyway…

Jacques began the story of his loves. It was after lunch. The
weather was very close, and his master fell asleep. Nightfall
surprised them in the middle of nowhere. There they were, lost,
and there was the master in a terrible temper, raining huge blows
from his horsewhip on to his valet and at every blow the poor devil
cried out: ‘That must also have been written up above!’
So you can see, Reader, that I’m well away and it’s entirely
within my power to make you wait a year, or two, or even three
years for the story of Jacques’ loves, by separating him from his
master and exposing each of them to whatever perils I liked. What
is there to prevent me from marrying off the master and having
him cuckolded? Or sending Jacques off to the Indies? And leading
his master there? And bringing them both back to France on the
same vessel? How easy it is to make up stories! But I will let the
two of them off with a bad night’s sleep and you with this delay.
Dawn broke. There they were back on their horses carrying on
their way.
– And where were they going?
That is the second time you have asked me that question and for
the second time I ask you, what has that got to do with you? If I
begin the story of their journey then it’s goodbye to Jacques’
loves… They went on for a little while in silence. When they had
both recovered a little from their annoyance the master said to his
valet: ‘Well then, Jacques, where did we get to in your loves?’

JACQUES: We had, I believe, got to the rout of the enemy army.

Everyone was running away and being chased and it was every
man for himself. I was left on the battlefield, buried under the
prodigious number of dead and dying bodies. The next day I was
thrown onto a cart along with a dozen or so others to be taken to
one of our hospitals. Ah! Monsieur, I do not believe there is any
wound more painful than a wound in the knee.

MASTER: Come along, Jacques, you’re joking.

JACQUES: No, by God! Monsieur, I am not joking! There are I don’t

know how many bones, tendons and other bits called I don’t know
what…
Some sort of peasant who was following them with a girl he was
carrying on his saddle and who had overheard them interrupted
and said: ‘Monsieur is right…’
It was not clear to whom this ‘Monsieur’ was addressed but both
Jacques and his master took it badly and Jacques said to this
indiscreet interlocutor: ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’
‘I am minding my own business. I am a surgeon2 at your service
and I am going to give you a demonstration…’
The woman he was carrying on the crupper said to him:
‘Monsieur le Docteur, let us carry on our way and leave these
gentlemen who don’t want to be given a demonstration.’
‘No,’ replied the surgeon, ‘I want to demonstrate to them and I
am going to demonstrate to them…’
And as he was turning round to demonstrate he pushed his
companion, made her lose her balance and threw her to the
ground, with one foot caught in his coat tails and her petticoats
over her head. Jacques got down, freed the poor creature’s foot and
pulled her skirts back down. I don’t know whether he started by
pulling her skirts back down or freeing her foot, but, to judge the
state of this woman from her screams, she had hurt herself badly.
And Jacques’ master said to the surgeon: ‘That’s what comes of
demonstrating!…’
And the surgeon said: ‘That’s what comes of not wanting people
to demonstrate!…’
And Jacques said to the fallen or picked-up young woman: ‘Calm
yourself, my dear. It is neither your fault, nor the fault of Monsieur
le Docteur, nor mine, nor my master’s. It was written up above that
this day, on this road, at this very hour, Monsieur le Docteur would
talk too much, my master and I would both be unfriendly, and you
would receive a bump on the head and show us your bottom…’
What might this little incident not become in my hands if I took
it into my head to reduce you to despair. I could make this woman
somebody important. I could make all the peasants come running. I
could bring in stories of love and strife, because, after all,
underneath her petticoats this peasant girl had a nice little body, as
Jacques and his master had noticed. Love hasn’t always waited for
so seductive an opportunity. Why shouldn’t Jacques fall in love a
second time? Why shouldn’t he be, for a second time, his master’s
rival – even his preferred rival?
– Had that happened to him before?
Always questions! Do you not want Jacques to continue with the
story of his loves then? Once and for all, tell me: Would that give
you pleasure, or would it not give you pleasure?
If that would give you pleasure, then let us put the peasant girl
back up behind the surgeon, allow them to carry on their way, and
return to our two travellers.
 This time it was Jacques who spoke first, and he said to his
master:

That’s the way the world goes… You, a man who has never in
his life been wounded and who has no idea what it is like to be
shot in the knee, you tell me, a man who has had his knee
shattered and has had a limp for the last twenty years…

MASTER: You may be right. But that impertinent surgeon is to

blame for you still being on that cart with your companions, far
from the hospital, far from being cured and far from falling in love.

JACQUES: Whatever you might think, the pain in my knee was

extreme. It was becoming more so with the hard ride in the wagon
and the bumpy roads, and at every bump I screamed…

MASTER: Because it was written up above that you’d scream?

JACQUES: Undoubtedly! I was bleeding to death and I would have

been a dead man if our wagon, which was the last in the column,
hadn’t stopped in front of a cottage. There I asked to get down and
I was helped to the ground. A young woman who was standing at
the door of the cottage disappeared inside and came out again
almost immediately with a glass and a bottle of wine. I drank one
or two glasses quickly. The carts in front of ours moved off. They
were getting ready to throw me back into the wagon amongst my
companions, when grabbing hold of the woman’s clothes and
everything else within reach I protested that I would not get back
in and that, if I was going to die anyhow, I preferred to die on the
spot rather than two miles further on. As I finished these words I
fainted. When I came to I found myself undressed and lying in bed
in the corner of the cottage with a peasant – the master of the
house – his wife, the woman who had rescued me, and a few young
children gathered around me. The woman had soaked the corner of
her apron in vinegar and was rubbing my nose and temples with it.

MASTER: Ah! You villain! You rogue! You traitor! I can see what’s
coming.
 JACQUES: My master, I don’t think you see anything.

MASTER: Isn’t this the woman you’re going to fall in love with?

JACQUES: And if I were to have fallen in love with her, what could
you say about that? Is one free to fall in love or not to fall in love?
And if one is, is one free to act as if one wasn’t? If the thing had
been written up above, everything which you are about to say to
me now I would already have said to myself. I would have slapped
my own face, I would have beaten my head against the wall, I
would have torn out my hair, and it would have been no more or
less so, and my benefactor would have been cuckolded.

MASTER: But if one follows your reasoning there can be no

remorse for any crime.

JACQUES: That objection has bothered me more than once, but for
all that, however reluctantly, I always come back to what my
Captain used to say: ‘Everything which happens to us in this world,
good or bad, is written up above…’
Do you, Monsieur, know any way of erasing this writing?
Can I be anything other than myself, and being me, can I act
otherwise than I do?
Can I be myself and somebody else?
And ever since I have been in this world, has there ever been one
single moment when it has not been so?
You may preach as much as you wish. Your reasons may perhaps
be good, but if it is written within me or up above that I will find
them bad, what can I do about it?

MASTER: I am wondering about something… that is whether your

benefactor would have been cuckolded because it was written up
above or whether it was written up above because you cuckolded
your benefactor.

JACQUES: The two were written side by side. Everything was

written at the same time. It is like a great scroll which is unrolled
little by little.
You can imagine, Reader, to what lengths I might take this
conversation on a subject which has been talked about and written
about so much for the last two thousand years without getting one
step further forward. If you are not grateful to me for what I am
telling you, be very grateful for what I am not telling you.
While our two theologians were arguing without listening to
each other, as can happen in theology, nightfall was approaching.
They were coming to a part of the country which was unsafe at the
best of times, and even more unsafe when bad administration and
poverty had endlessly multiplied the number of malefactors. They
stopped at the most sordid of inns. Two camp-beds were made up
for them in a room made of partitions which were gaping on all
sides. They asked for something to eat. They were brought
pondwater, black bread and sour wine. The innkeeper, his wife,
their children and the valets all appeared rather sinister. They
could hear coming from the room next to them the immoderate
laughter and rowdy merriment of a dozen or so brigands who had
arrived there before them and requisitioned all the victuals.
Jacques was happy enough. This was not at all the case with his
master. He was walking his worries up and down, while his valet
consumed a few pieces of black bread and swallowed a few glasses
of the sour wine, grimacing. At this point they heard a knocking on
their door. It was a valet who had been persuaded by their insolent
and dangerous neighbours to bring our two travellers all the bones
of a fowl they had eaten on one of their plates. Jacques, indignant,
took his master’s pistols.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘Where are you going, I’m asking you?’
‘To sort out those scum.’
‘Do you know there are a dozen of them?’
‘Were there one hundred, the number doesn’t matter if it is
written up above that there are not enough of them.’
‘May the devil take you and your impertinent speech!…’
Jacques dodged his master and went into the cut-throats’ room,
a cocked pistol in each hand.
‘Quickly, lie down,’ he said. ‘The first one who moves gets his
brains blown out…’
Jacques’ appearance and tone were so convincing that these
rascals, who valued their lives just as much as honest people, got
up from table without saying a word, got undressed and went to
bed. His master, uncertain of how this little adventure would end,
was waiting for him, trembling. Jacques returned, loaded up with
these people’s clothes. He had taken possession of them in case
they were tempted to get up again. He had put out their light and
double-locked their door, the key of which he was carrying on one
of his pistols.
‘Now, Monsieur,’ he said to his master, ‘all we have to do is to
barricade ourselves in by pushing our beds against the door and
then we can sleep peacefully.’ And he set about moving the beds,
coolly and succinctly recounting to his master the details of his
expedition.

MASTER: Jacques, what kind of devil of a man are you? Do you

really believe?…

JACQUES: I neither believe nor disbelieve.

MASTER: What if they had refused to go to bed?

JACQUES: That was impossible.

MASTER: Why?

JACQUES: Because they didn’t do it.

MASTER: What if they get up again?

JACQUES: So much the worse or so much the better.

MASTER: If… if… if… and…

 JACQUES: If… if the sea was boiling, there would be, as the saying
goes, an awful lot of fish cooked. What the devil, Monsieur, just
now you believed that I was running a great risk and nothing could
have been more wrong. Now you believe yourself to be in great
danger and nothing, perhaps, could be more wrong again.
Everyone in this house is afraid of everyone else, which proves we
are all idiots…

And while speaking thus, there he was, undressed, in bed, and

fast asleep. His master, eating in his turn a piece of black bread,
and drinking a glass of bad wine, was listening all around him and
looking at Jacques, who was snoring, saying: ‘What kind of devil of
a man is that?’
Following his valet’s example, the master also stretched himself
out on his camp-bed but didn’t sleep quite the same. As soon as day
broke Jacques felt a hand pushing him. It was the hand of his
master, who was calling him softly.

MASTER: Jacques? Jacques?

JACQUES: What is it?

MASTER: It’s daylight.

JACQUES: Very likely.

MASTER: Get up then.

JACQUES: Why?

MASTER: So we can get out of here as quickly as possible.

JACQUES: Why?

MASTER: Because we’re not safe here.

JACQUES: Who knows? And who knows if we’ll be better off

anywhere else?

MASTER: Jacques?

JACQUES: Well, Jacques, Jacques. You’re the devil of a man.

MASTER: What kind of devil of a man are you? Jacques, my friend,

I beg you.

Jacques rubbed his eyes, yawned several times, stretched out his
arms, got up, dressed without hurrying, pushed back the beds,
went out of the bedroom, went downstairs, went to the stable,
saddled and bridled the horses, woke up the innkeeper, who was
still asleep, paid the bill, kept the keys to the two bedrooms, and
there they were, gone.
The master wanted to get away at a fast trot. Jacques wanted to
go at walking pace, still following his system. When they were
quite a good way from their miserable resting-place the master,
hearing something jangling in Jacques’ pocket, asked him what it
was. Jacques told him it was the two keys to the bedrooms.

MASTER: Why didn’t you give them back?

JACQUES: Because they’ll have to break down two doors – our

neighbours’ to release them from captivity, and ours to get back
their clothes, and that will give us some time.

MASTER: Very good, Jacques, but why gain time?

JACQUES: Why? My God, I don’t know.

MASTER: And if you want to gain time, why go as slowly as you

are going?

JACQUES: Because, without knowing what is written up above,

none of us knows what we want or what we are doing, and we
follow our whims which we call reason, or our reason which is
often nothing but a dangerous whim which sometimes turns out
well, sometimes badly.
My Captain used to believe that prudence is a supposition in
which experience justifies us interpreting the circumstances in
which we find ourselves as the cause of certain effects which are to
be desired or feared in the future.

MASTER: And did you understand any of that?

JACQUES: Of course. I had little by little grown used to his way of

speaking. But who, he used to ask, can ever boast of having enough
experience? Has even he who flatters himself on being the most
experienced of men never been fooled? And then, what man is
there who is capable of correctly assessing the circumstances in
which he finds himself? The calculation which we make in our
heads and the one recorded on the register up above are two very
different calculations. Is it we who control Destiny or Destiny
which controls us? How many wisely conceived projects have
failed and will fail in the future! How many insane projects have
succeeded and will succeed! That is what my Captain kept
repeating to me after the capture of Berg-op-Zoom and Port-
Mahon.3 And he added that prudence in no way assured us of
success but consoled us and excused us in failure. And so on the
eve of any action he would sleep as well in his tent as in barracks
and he would go into battle as if to a ball. And you might well have
said of him: ‘What kind of devil of a man!…’

MASTER:Could you tell me what is a foolish man, and what is a

wise man?

JACQUES:
Why not?… A foolish man… wait a moment… is an
unhappy man. And consequently a happy man is a wise man.

MASTER: And what is a happy man or an unhappy man?

JACQUES: Well, that one’s easy. A happy man is someone whose

happiness is written up above, and consequently someone whose
unhappiness is written up above is an unhappy man.

MASTER: And who is it up there who wrote out this good and bad
fortune up above?

JACQUES: And who created the great scroll on which it is all

written? A captain friend of my own Captain would have given a
pretty penny to know that. But my Captain wouldn’t have paid an
obol, nor would I, for what good would it do me? Would I manage
to avoid the hole where I am destined to break my neck?

MASTER: I think so.

JACQUES: Well, I think not because there would have to be an

incorrect line on the great scroll which contains the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth. In that case it would have to
be written on the scroll that Jacques would break his neck on such
a day and Jacques would not break his neck. Can you imagine for
one moment that that could happen, whoever made the great
scroll?

MASTER: There are a number of things one could say about that…

At this point they heard a lot of noise and shouting coming from
some distance behind them. They looked round and saw a band of
men armed with sticks and forks coming towards them as fast as
they could run. You are going to believe that it was the people
from the inn and their servants and the brigands we have spoken
of. You are going to believe that in the morning they broke down
their doors since they didn’t have the keys and that these brigands
thought that our travellers had decamped with their possessions.
That is what Jacques thought and he said between his teeth: ‘Damn
the keys and damn the fantasy or reason which made me take
them. Damn prudence, etc. etc.!’
You are going to believe that this little army will fall upon
Jacques and his master, that there will be a bloody fight, blows
with sticks and pistol shots, and if I wanted to I could make all of
these things happen, but then it would be goodbye to the truth of
the story and goodbye to the story of Jacques’ loves.
Our two travellers were not followed. I do not know what
happened in the inn after they left. They carried on their way still
going without knowing where they were going although they knew
more or less where they wanted to go, relieving their boredom and
fatigue by silence and conversation, as is the custom of those who
walk, and sometimes of those who are sitting down.
It is quite obvious that I am not writing a novel since I am
neglecting those things which a novelist would not fail to use. The
person who takes what I write for the truth might perhaps be less
wrong than the person who takes it for a fiction.
This time it was the master who spoke first, and he started with
the usual refrain: ‘Well now, Jacques, the story of your loves?’

JACQUES: I don’t remember where I had got to. I’ve been

interrupted so many times that I would do just as well to start all
over again.

MASTER: No, no. When you had come round after fainting at the
door of the cottage you found yourself in bed surrounded by the
people who lived there.

JACQUES: Very good. The most pressing thing was to get hold of a
surgeon and there wasn’t one within less than a league. The
peasant put one of his children on a horse and sent him off to the
nearest one. Meanwhile the peasant’s wife had heated up some
table wine, torn up one of her husband’s old shirts and my knee
was cleaned, covered with compresses and wrapped in linen. They
put a few pieces of sugar they had saved from the ants into part of
the wine which had been used for the bandage and I drank it
down. Next they told me to be patient. It was late. The family sat
down to table and had supper. Supper was finished and the child
had still not come back and there was no surgeon. The father
became angry. He was a naturally ill-tempered man. He sulked at
his wife and found nothing to his liking. In a temper he sent the
other children to bed. His wife sat down on a wooden seat and took
up her distaff. He paced up and down and as he was pacing up and
down he tried to pick an argument on any pretext.
‘If you’d gone to the mill like I told you to…’, and he finished the
sentence shaking his head in the direction of my bed.
‘I’ll go tomorrow.’
‘It’s today that you should have gone like I told you to… And
what about those bits of straw left on the floor of the barn? What
are you waiting for to pick them up?’
‘It will be done tomorrow.’
‘But what we’ve got left is almost finished and you’d have done
much better to pick them up today like I told you to… And that
heap of barley that’s rotting in the loft? I’ll wager you didn’t think
to turn it?’
‘The children did it.’
‘You should have done it yourself. If you had been up in your
loft you wouldn’t have been at the door…’
At that moment a surgeon arrived, and then a second surgeon
and then a third with the little boy from the cottage.

MASTER: And there you were with as many surgeons as there are
hats on Saint Roch.4

JACQUES: The first was away when the little boy arrived at his
house, but his wife had passed word to the second and the third
had come back with the little boy.
‘Good evening, friends, what are you doing here?’ said the first
to the others.
They had come as quickly as they could and were hot and
thirsty. They sat down around the table which still had the table-
cloth on it. The wife went down to the cellar and came up again
with a bottle. The husband was muttering under his breath: ‘What
the devil was she doing at the door?’
They drank, chatted about the illnesses of the neighbourhood,
and started listing all the people they were treating. I started
complaining. They said: ‘We’ll be with you in a moment.’
After the first bottle they asked for a second, on account, for my
treatment, then a third, then a fourth, still on account, for my
treatment. And with every bottle, the husband came back to his
first cry: ‘What the devil was she doing at the door?’

What a scene anybody else would have made of these three

surgeons, of their conversation on the fourth bottle, of the
multitude of their marvellous cures, of the impatience of Jacques
and the bad temper of their host, of what our country
Aesculapiuses had to say as they clustered round Jacques’ knee, of
their different opinions, one claiming that Jacques would be dead
unless they made haste and amputated the leg, the other that they
should remove the bullet and the piece of cloth that went in with it
to save the poor devil’s leg. In the meantime, you might have seen
Jacques sitting up in bed and looking at his leg pitifully, bidding it
a last farewell like one of our generals being treated by Dufouart
and Louis was recently seen doing.5 The third surgeon would have
sat around gawping up to the point where a quarrel broke out
between them and words then led to blows.
I will spare you all of these things which you can find in novels,
the comedies of antiquity and in society. When I heard the host
exclaim about his wife, ‘What the devil was she doing at the door?’
I was reminded of Molière’s Harpagon when he says, referring to
his son: ‘What was he doing in that galley?’6 And I admit that it is
not enough for a thing simply to be true, it must be amusing as
well. And that is why people will always say: ‘What was he doing
in that galley?’ while my peasant’s phrase, ‘What was she doing at
the door?’, will never pass into proverb.
Jacques did not show the same reserve towards his master as I
am showing to you. He did not omit the smallest detail even
though he risked sending him to sleep for a second time. If it was
not the cleverest it was at least the most sturdy of the three
surgeons who remained in control of the patient.
Are you not going to take out lancets in front of our eyes, I hear
you ask me, start cutting his flesh, make his blood run and show us
a surgical operation? Would that be in good taste in your
opinion?…
Come, let us pass over the operation. But you must at least allow
Jacques to say to his master, as he did: ‘Ah, Monsieur, it’s a terrible
job to put a shattered knee back together again.’
And allow his master to reply as before: ‘Come, come, Jacques,
you’re joking.’
But the one thing I would not keep from you for all the gold in
the world is that hardly had Jacques’ master made this impertinent
reply when his horse stumbled and fell and his knee came into
violent contact with a pointed stone and there he was shouting at
the top of his voice: ‘I’m dying! My knee is shattered!’
Although Jacques, who was the nicest chap you could imagine,
was very fond of his master, I would very much like to know what
was going on at the bottom of his heart, if not in the first moment,
at least when he had assured himself that his master’s fall would
not have any serious consequences, and whether he was able to
resist a slight feeling of secret joy at an accident that would teach
his master what it was to have an injury to the knee. And, Reader,
there is another thing which I would like you to tell me. That is
whether his master would not have preferred to have been injured
even a little more seriously any place other than the knee or in
other words whether he was not more sensitive to shame than to
pain?
When the master had recovered a little from his fall and his pain
he got back into his saddle and spurred his horse five or six times,
which made him go off like greased lightning. Jacques’ mount
followed suit because there existed between the two animals the
same intimacy as between their riders. They were two pairs of
friends.
When the two panting horses had gone back to their normal
pace Jacques said to his master: ‘Well, Monsieur, what do you
think, then?’

MASTER: About what?

JACQUES: An injury to the knee.

MASTER: I agree with you. It is one of the most painful injuries.

JACQUES: When it’s your knee?

 MASTER: No, no, yours, mine, all the knees in the world.

JACQUES: Master, master, you obviously haven’t thought about

this at all. We only ever feel sorry for ourselves, believe me.

MASTER: What nonsense.

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…’

MASTER:No, Jacques, the story of your loves which have become

mine as well through my own past sorrows.

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.

MASTER: That’s what I was thinking.

JACQUES: It is certain that the husband wasn’t very logical but he

was young and his wife was pretty. People never make so many
children as when times are hard.

MASTER: Nothing breeds like paupers.

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: Jacques, put your hand on your conscience and swear to

me that it wasn’t this woman you fell in love with.

JACQUES: I swear it.

MASTER: So much the worse for you.

JACQUES: So much the worse or so much the better. Could it be

that you believe that women with ears like hers are willing
listeners?

MASTER: I think that is written up above.

JACQUES: I think that it is written lower down that they never

listen for long to one man and that they are all more or less
inclined occasionally to lend an ear to someone else.

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.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Well, I’ll take you up behind me, or, if you would rather, we can
take off our boots, tie them on to my horse’s saddle and carry on
our way on foot.’
‘My horse! My poor horse!’
They chose to continue on foot, the master crying out from time
to time: ‘My horse! My poor horse!’ and Jacques elaborating on the
account of his adventures. When he had got to the girl’s accusation
his master said to him: ‘Is it true, Jacques, that you didn’t sleep
with the girl?’

JACQUES: No, Monsieur.

 MASTER: And yet you paid for her?

JACQUES: Of course.

MASTER: Well, I was once even unluckier than you.

JACQUES: You mean you paid for it after you slept with her?

MASTER: You’ve said it.

JACQUES: Won’t you tell me about it?

MASTER: I think that before we start on the story of my loves we

had better get to the end of yours. Well, Jacques, tell me more of
your loves, which I shall take as the first and only loves of your life
notwithstanding your little adventure with the servant girl of the
Lieutenant-Governor of Conches, because although you may have
slept with her that doesn’t mean you were in love with her. Every
day people sleep with women they don’t love and every day they
don’t sleep with women they love. But…

JACQUES: But what? Well, what’s wrong?

MASTER: My horse!… Jacques, my friend, don’t get angry with

me. Put yourself in my horse’s shoes. Suppose that I’d lost you, and
tell me if you wouldn’t have thought the better of me if you heard
me saying: ‘Jacques! My poor Jacques!’

Jacques smiled and said:

I think I had got to the dialogue between my host and his wife
during the night after my wound had first been dressed. I rested a
little. My host and his wife both got up the next day a little later
than they usually did.

MASTER: I can believe that.

 JACQUES: When I woke up I quietly drew back the curtains around
my bed and I saw my host, his wife and the surgeon in secret
conference over by the window. After what I had heard during the
night it wasn’t difficult to guess what was being discussed. I
coughed. The surgeon said to the husband: ‘He’s woken up. Friend,
go down to the wine cellar. We’ll have a drink to steady our hands.
Then I’ll change the bandage and after that we’ll see about the
rest.’
After the bottle had arrived and been emptied, because ‘to have
a drink’ is a term of art and means to empty at least one bottle, the
surgeon came to my bed and said to me: ‘What sort of night did
you have?’
‘Not bad.’
‘Your arm… good, good, your pulse isn’t bad, there’s hardly any
more fever. Now let’s see about this knee. Come on, mistress,’ he
said to my host’s wife, who was standing at the foot of my bed on
the other side of the curtain, ‘and help us…’
The hostess called one of her children.
‘It’s not a child we need here, it’s you. One false move will give
us work for the next month. Come here…’
The woman drew near, her eyes lowered.
‘Take hold of his leg, the good one, I’ll take care of the other
one. Gently, gently. Towards me, a little bit more. And you, my
friend, a half turn to the right, to the right, I said, and there we
are…’
I was holding the mattress with both hands, grinding my teeth,
sweat running down my face.
‘My friend, this isn’t going to be easy.’
‘I can see that.’
‘There you are. Now, dear, let go of the leg and take hold of the
pillow. Bring up the chair and put the pillow on top. Too close… a
bit further away . . Friend, give me your hand and hold me tight.
You, dear, go between the bed and the wall and hold him under
the arms. Marvellous. Neighbour, is there anything left in that
bottle?’
‘No.’
 ‘Come here and take your wife’s place so she can get another
one… Good, good, fill it up… Woman, leave your man where he is
and come round next to me.’
The woman again called one of her children.
‘Damnation, I’ve already told you, a child is not what we need.
Kneel down and put your hand under the calf. You’re trembling,
my dear, as if you’d been up to no good. Courage! Left hand under
the bottom of the thigh, there above the bandage… very good…’
And then the seams were cut, the bandages unrolled, the
dressing taken off and my wound uncovered. The surgeon felt
above it, below it and all round it and every time he touched me he
said: ‘The ignorant fool! The ass! The lout! And he thinks he’s a
surgeon! A leg like this, cut it off? It’ll last as long as the other,
take my word for it.’
‘I’ll get better?’
‘I’ve cured worse than you.’
‘I’ll walk?’
‘You’ll walk.’
‘Without a limp?’
‘That’s another matter. Devil take it, my friend, what does it
matter how you walk, isn’t it enough for you that I’ve saved your
leg? Anyway if you limp it won’t be much. Do you like dancing?’
‘A lot.’
‘If you walk a little less well, you’ll dance all the better. My dear,
the warmed wine… no, I’ll have the other one first. Just one more
little glass and our bandage will be the better for it.’
He drank and they brought over the warmed wine, cleansed and
dressed my wound, bandaged me up, laid me out on the bed again
and told me to sleep if I could. They drew the curtains around my
bed, finished off the bottle they had started, brought up another
and the conference between my host and hostess and the surgeon
started again.

PEASANT: Friend, will it be for long?

SURGEON: Very long… Here’s to you, friend.

 PEASANT: But how long? A month?

SURGEON: A month! Let’s say two, three, four, who knows? The
kneecap is damaged, the femur, the tibia… Here’s to you, my dear.

PEASANT:Four months! Saints preserve us! Why take him in here?

What the devil was she doing at the door?

WIFE: My friend, you’re off again. That’s not what you promised
me last night. But just wait. You’ll see.

PEASANT:But tell me, what are we going to do with this man? It

wouldn’t be so serious if it weren’t such a bad year.

WIFE: If you wanted I could go to the parish priest.

PEASANT: If you set foot in there I’ll beat you black and blue.

SURGEON: Why not, my friend? My wife goes there.

PEASANT: Well, that’s your business.

SURGEON: Here’s to my god-daughter. How’s she keeping?

WIFE: Fine.

SURGEON:Come along, my friend. Here’s to our wives, they’re

both good women.

PEASANT: Yours is more prudent. She would never have been

stupid enough to…

WIFE: But there are always the Sisters of Charity.

SURGEON: Ah! My dear! A man, a man go to the Sisters of Charity!

There’s just one little problem about that, and it’s not all that much
longer than a finger… Let’s drink to the sisters, they’re good girls.
 WIFE: What little problem?

SURGEON: Your husband doesn’t want you to go to the parish

priest and my wife won’t allow me anywhere near the sisters…
well, my friend, another drink, perhaps that will give us the
answer. Have you questioned this man? He is perhaps not without
means himself?

PEASANT: A soldier?

SURGEON: Well, a soldier’s always got a father and mother,

brothers, sisters, relations, friends, someone in the world… Let’s
have another drink. Leave me with him and let me see what I can
sort out.

And that was word for word the conversation between the
surgeon and Jacques’ host and hostess. But what a different
complexion could I not have put on the matter by introducing a
villain among all these good people. Jacques would have been
seen, or rather you would have seen Jacques, on the point of being
pulled out of his bed, thrown into the highroad or even a ditch.
– Why not killed?
Killed, no. I would easily have been able to call someone to his
assistance. That someone could have been a soldier from his
company but that would have stunk to high heaven of Cleveland.9
Truth, truth.
– Truth, you tell me, is often cold, ordinary and dull. For
example, your last description of Jacques’ bandaging is true, but
what’s interesting about it? Nothing.
Agreed.
– If it is necessary to be truthful, then let it be like Molière,
Regnard, Richardson or Sedaine.10 Truth has its interesting sides
which one brings out if one’s a genius.
Yes, when one is a genius, but what if one isn’t?
– When one isn’t one shouldn’t write.
But what if one has the misfortune to resemble a certain poet I
sent to Pondicherry?
– Who is this poet?
This poet… But if you keep on interrupting me, Reader, and if I
interrupt myself all the time, what will become of Jacques’ loves?
Take my word for it, let us leave our poet there… Jacques’ host
and hostess moved away…
– No, no, the story of the poet of Pondicherry…11
The surgeon went over to Jacques’ bed…
– The story of the poet of Pondicherry, the story of the poet of
Pondicherry.
One day a young poet came to me, as they do every day… But,
Reader, what has that got to do with the journey of Jacques the
Fatalist and his master?
– The story of the poet of Pondicherry.
After the usual social niceties about my wit, my genius, my good
taste, my benevolence and other things I didn’t believe a word of
even though people have been repeatedly telling me them, and
perhaps in all sincerity, for the last twenty years, the young poet
took a sheet of paper out of his pocket.
‘Here are some verses.’
‘Verses?’
‘Yes, Monsieur, some verses on which I hope you will have the
kindness to give me your opinion.’
‘Do you like truth?’
‘Yes, Monsieur, and I’m asking you to tell me it.’
‘Well, you’ll have it.’
‘What! Are you really stupid enough to think that a poet seeks
the truth from you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And stupid enough to tell him it?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Without attenuation?’
‘Of course. Any attenuation, however artful, would be the most
offensive of all insults. Faithfully interpreted it would mean:
“You’re a bad poet and, since I don’t believe you are man enough
to hear the truth, you’re a worthless man as well.” ’
‘And has honesty always worked for you?’
‘Almost always…’
I read my young poet’s odes and told him: ‘Not only is your
poetry bad but it is evident that you’ll never write any good
poetry.’
‘Then I must write bad poetry because I can’t stop myself from
writing.’
‘That’s a terrible affliction. Can you not see, Monsieur, what
abjection you will fall into? Neither the gods, your fellow men, nor
the reviews have ever forgiven mediocrity in a poet. It’s Horace
who said that.’12
‘I know.’
‘Are you rich?’
‘No.’
‘Are you poor?’
‘Very poor.’
‘And you are going to add to your poverty the ridicule of being a
bad poet. You will have wasted your entire life and before you
know it you’ll be old. Old, poor, and a bad poet. Ah! Monsieur,
what a combination!’
‘I can see that but there’s nothing I can do to stop myself.’
(Here Jacques would have said: ‘It was written up above.’)
‘Have you got parents?’
‘I have.’
‘What is their position in life?’
‘They are jewellers.’
‘Would they help you financially?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Well, go and see your parents and ask them to lend you a small
bag of jewels. Embark for Pondicherry and on the way you’ll write
terrible poetry but when you get there you’ll make your fortune.
When you’ve made your fortune you can come back here and write
as much bad poetry as you want to, provided you don’t have any of
it printed because you mustn’t ruin anyone else…’
 It was around twelve years after I gave this advice to the young
man that he reappeared. I didn’t recognize him.
‘It’s me, Monsieur,’ he said to me, ‘the man you sent to
Pondicherry. I went there and I made a hundred thousand francs. I
have come back and started to write poetry again and here is some
which I’ve brought you. Is it still bad?’
‘It’s still bad, but at least your future is taken care of and I don’t
mind if you carry on writing bad poetry.’
‘That is just what I intend to do…’
And when the surgeon had got to Jacques’ bed, Jacques didn’t
give him the chance to speak: ‘I heard everything,’ he told him.
Then, turning to his master, he added… that is, he was about to
add something when his master stopped him. He was tired of
walking and sat himself down by the side of the road, his head
turned in the direction of another traveller who was coming
towards them on foot, with the reins of his horse, which was
following him, over his arm.
You are going to believe, Reader, that this horse was the one
that was stolen from Jacques’ master, and you are going to be
wrong. That is what would happen in a novel, a little bit sooner or
a little bit later, one way or another. But this is not a novel. I’ve
already told you that, I believe, and I repeat it again.
The master said to Jacques: ‘Do you see that man coming
towards us?’

JACQUES: I see him.

MASTER: His horse seems good, don’t you think?

JACQUES: I served in the infantry, I wouldn’t know about that.

MASTER: Well, I commanded in the cavalry and I do.

JACQUES: Well?

MASTER: I would like you to go and ask that man to let us have
the horse. We’ll pay him for it, of course.

JACQUES: What a foolish idea, but I’ll go. How much do you want
to pay?

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: When aren’t they?

MASTER: You can ride this one and I’ll have yours.

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?

MASTER: It was impossible for you to stay any longer in the

cottage.

JACQUES: Even if I paid.

MASTER: But why did your brother Jean go to Lisbon?

JACQUES:It seems to me that you are trying your best to make me

lose my way. With all your questions we’ll have gone round the
world before we’ve finished the story of my loves.

MASTER: What does that matter so long as you are speaking and I
am listening to you? Aren’t those the two important things? You
are scolding me when you should thank me.

JACQUES: My brother went to Lisbon in search of peace. Jean, my

brother, was a smart lad – it was that which brought him
misfortune. It would have been better for him if he had been an
idiot like me – but then that was written up above. It was also
written that the friar almoner from the Carmelites who used to
come to our village to ask for eggs, wool, straw, fruit and wine all
the year round would stay at my father’s house, and would corrupt
Jean, my brother, and that Jean, my brother, would take a monk’s
habit.

MASTER: Jean, your brother, was a Carmelite?

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.

MASTER: No, no. Let’s take a pinch of snuff, see what time it is and
carry on.

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?’

JACQUES: About what I found up there.

MASTER: And what did you find up there?

 JACQUES: A gallows. A gibbet.

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.

MASTER: I’m listening. I’m listening. Carry on.

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.

MASTER: I can’t deny it.

JACQUES: I caught you looking at me. Do you find something

sinister about me?

MASTER: No, no.

 JACQUES:You mean ‘Yes, yes’. Well, if I frighten you we can
always go our own ways.

MASTER:Come on, Jacques, you’re losing your wits. Are you

becoming insecure?

JACQUES: No, Monsieur. Who is ever secure anyway?

MASTER: Every good man. Could it be that Jacques, honest

Jacques, feels revulsion for some crime he’s committed?… Come
on, Jacques. Let’s finish this argument and carry on with your
story.

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.

MASTER(his snuff-box open and his watch back in his pocket):

And what were they going to Lisbon for?

JACQUES: For an earthquake which couldn’t happen without them,

to be crushed, swallowed up and burnt, as it was written up
above.14

MASTER: Ah! Those monks!

JACQUES: Even the best of them isn’t worth much.

MASTER: I know that better than you.

JACQUES: Have you fallen into their hands as well?

MASTER: I’ll tell you about that another time.

JACQUES: But why is it they are so wicked?

MASTER: I think it’s because they’re monks. But let’s get back to
your loves.
 JACQUES: No, Monsieur, let’s not.

MASTER: Don’t you want me to know about them any more?

JACQUES: Of course I still want you to, but Destiny doesn’t. Can’t
you see that as soon as I open my mouth on the subject the devil
interferes and something always happens which cuts me off? I’ll
never finish it, I tell you. That is written up above.

MASTER: Try, my friend.

JACQUES: Perhaps if you were to tell me the story of your love life,
that would break the spell and mine would go better afterwards.
There’s something in the back of my mind that tells me that’s what
we need to do. Monsieur, I tell you, it seems to me sometimes that
Destiny speaks to me.

MASTER: And do you always find it to your advantage to listen?

JACQUES: Of course. Witness the day when it told me the pedlar

had your watch…
The master started to yawn and as he was yawning he tapped his
snuff-box with his hand and as he tapped on his snuff-box he
looked into the distance, and as he looked into the distance he said
to Jacques: ‘Can you see something over there on your left?’

JACQUES: Yes, and I bet it’s something else which doesn’t want me
to continue the story, or you to start yours for that matter…

Jacques was right. Since the thing they could see was coming
towards them and they were going towards it, this convergence
quickly shortened the distance between them and before long they
could see a carriage draped in black, drawn by four black horses, in
black drapes which covered their heads and hung down to their
hooves. Behind them were two servants dressed in black and after
them were two more servants dressed in black riding two black
horses which were caparisoned in black. On the driving-seat of the
carriage sat a coachman in black wearing a floppy brimmed hat
with a long black ribbon which hung down his left shoulder. This
coachman had his head bent forward and was letting the reins
hang loose so that the horses appeared to be driving him rather
than him driving them. Before long our two travellers found
themselves alongside the funeral carriage. At that moment Jacques
cried out and fell rather than got off his horse, tore out his hair and
started rolling around on the ground, shouting: ‘My Captain! My
poor Captain! It is him, there’s no mistaking it. Those are his
arms…’
In the carriage there was, indeed, a long coffin under a funeral
shroud. On top of this shroud was a sword with a cordon. Next to
the coffin sat a priest intoning the office from an open breviary in
his hand. Jacques followed behind, still lamenting. His master
followed Jacques, swearing, and the servants assured Jacques that
the cortège was that of his Captain, who had died in a
neighbouring town whence he was being transported to the tomb
of his ancestors. Ever since he had, by the death of his friend, a
captain in the same regiment, been deprived of the satisfaction of
fighting at least once a week, he had fallen into a profound
melancholy which, after a few months, had eventually killed him.
Jacques, having paid his Captain the tribute of praise, regret and
tears which he owed him, begged his master’s forgiveness, got back
on his horse and then they carried on their way in silence.
But you are asking me, Reader, where in God’s name were they
going? And I reply, Reader, in God’s name, does anybody ever
really know where they are going? What about you? Where are you
going? Do I have to remind you of the story of Aesop?
His master, Xanthippus,15 said to him one summer’s evening, or
it may have been a winter’s evening for that matter because the
Greeks used to have baths whatever the season: ‘Aesop, go to the
baths. If there are not too many people there we’ll take a bath.’
Aesop set off. On the way he met the town guard of Athens.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Where am I going?’ replied Aesop. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? Then you’re coming with us to prison.’
 ‘There you are,’ said Aesop, ‘Didn’t I tell you I didn’t know
where I was going? I wanted to go to the baths, and here I am
going to prison.’
Jacques followed his master like you follow yours. His master
followed his as Jacques followed him.
– But who was the master of Jacques’ master?
All right. Is anyone ever short of a master in this world? Jacques’
master, like you, had a hundred masters if he had one. But among
all the many masters of Jacques’ master, it seems that there wasn’t
one satisfactory one since from one day to the next he used to
change master.
– He was a man.
A passionate man like you, Reader. A curious man like you,
Reader. A questioning man like you, Reader. A nuisance like you,
Reader.
– And why did he ask questions?
What a question! He asked questions so that he could learn and
quibble like you, Reader. The master said to Jacques: ‘You don’t
seem to be in the mood to carry on with the story of your loves.’

JACQUES: My poor Captain! He’s going where we are all going,

and the only extraordinary thing is that he hasn’t gone there
sooner. Ahi!… Ahi!…

MASTER: But Jacques! I do believe you’re crying!

Cry without restraint because you may cry without shame. His
death has set you free from the scrupulous propriety which
oppressed you during his life. You no longer have the same reasons
to hide your grief as you had to hide your happiness. The same
conclusion will not be drawn from your tears as from your joy.
People forgive misfortune. And then in this moment one must show
either feeling or ingratitude, and all things considered it is better to
reveal a weakness than to allow oneself to be suspected of a vice. I
would wish your grief to be unrestrained so that it might be less
painful. I would wish it to be violent so that it might be less long.
Remember him as he was and exaggerate even. Remember his
acuity in getting to the bottom of the most profound matters, his
subtlety in speaking of the most delicate, his sound good taste
which made him value the most important, the fertility which he
would bring to the most sterile matters. Remember the skill with
which he would defend the accused. His indulgence gave him one
thousand times more intelligence than interest or egoism gave to
the guilty. He was severe only when it came to himself. Far from
looking for excuses for the inconsequential faults which he might
inadvertently commit he used to exaggerate them with all the
hostility of an enemy, and he would debase the value of his virtues
with all the venom of one who was envious of them by rigorous
examination of the motives which had perhaps inspired them
unbeknownst to him. Do not limit your grief to any period except
the time it will take to heal. When we lose our friends let us submit
ourselves to the order of the universe as we ourselves will submit
to it when it sees fit to dispose of us. Let us accept without despair
the decree of Fate which condemns them in the same way that we
ourselves will accept it without resistance when it is pronounced
against us. The duties of burial are not the final duties of friends.
The earth that has been disturbed will settle over your lover’s ashes
but your soul will retain all his sensibility.

JACQUES: Master, that’s all very nice, but what the devil do you
mean by it? I have lost my Captain and I am grief-stricken. And
you rattle off to me like a parrot a fragment of a speech made by a
man or a woman to another woman who has lost her lover.

MASTER: I think it’s a woman’s speech.

JACQUES:I think it’s a man’s. But whether it’s a man’s or a

woman’s I ask you again, what the devil do you mean by it? Do
you take me for my Captain’s mistress? My Captain, Monsieur, was
a worthy man, and I’ve always been a decent lad.

MASTER: Is anyone disputing that, Jacques?

JACQUES:
What the devil does your speech from a man or a
woman to a woman who’s lost her lover mean, then? Perhaps if I
ask you enough times, you’ll tell me?

MASTER: No, Jacques, you must find that out all by yourself.

JACQUES: I’ll spend the rest of my life pondering on that and I still
won’t find out. It’s enough to keep me wondering till Judgement
Day.

MASTER: Jacques, it seemed to me that you were paying great

attention when I was speaking.

JACQUES: How could I not pay attention to such absurdities?

MASTER: Well done, Jacques!

JACQUES: I almost exploded at the bit about rigorous propriety

which restrained me during my Captain’s life and from which I was
freed by his death.

MASTER: Well done, Jacques. Then I have done what I set out to
do. Tell me if it was possible to find a better way of consoling you?
You were crying, and if I had talked about the object of your
sorrow, what would have happened? You would have cried even
more and I would have only added to your grief. But I fooled you
by the absurdity of my funeral speech and by the little quarrel
which followed it. Admit that at this moment your thoughts about
your Captain are as remote as the funeral cortège which is taking
him to his last resting-place. Consequently I think that you can
come back to the story of your loves.

JACQUES: I think so too.

‘Doctor,’ I said to the surgeon, ‘do you live far from here?’
‘A good quarter of a mile at least.’
‘Are you comfortably lodged?’
‘Reasonably comfortably.’
‘Do you think you could make a bed available?’
 ‘No.’
‘What? Even if I pay you, and pay well?’
‘Oh, if you pay, and pay well, that’s a different matter… But, my
friend, you don’t seem to be in any position to pay, let alone pay
well.’
‘That’s my business. Would I be cared for a little at your house?’
‘Very well. My wife has been looking after sick people all her
life, and my eldest daughter’s prepared to shave all comers, and is
as handy with dressings as I am.’
‘How much would you charge for accommodation, food and
being looked after?’
The surgeon said, scratching his ear: ‘Accommodation… food…
attention… But who will be responsible for paying?’
‘I’ll pay every day.’
‘Now that’s what I call talking, that.’
But Monsieur, I don’t think you’re listening to me.

MASTER: No, Jacques. It was written up above that you would

speak this time and perhaps not for the last time wouldn’t be
listened to.

JACQUES: When a person doesn’t listen to someone who is

speaking it’s either because they are thinking about nothing or
thinking about something else other than what the speaker is
saying. Which were you doing?

MASTER: The latter. I was thinking about what one of those

servants following the cortège said to you about your Captain
having been deprived through the death of his friend of the
pleasure of fighting at least once a week. Did that make any sense
to you?

JACQUES: Certainly.

MASTER:Well, it’s an enigma to me and I’d be obliged if you

would explain it to me.
 JACQUES: What the devil has it got to do with you?

MASTER: Not much, but when you speak you apparently like to be
listened to, don’t you?

JACQUES: Of course.

MASTER: Then in all conscience, I don’t think I’ll be able to satisfy

your requirements for as long as that inexplicable remark continues
to vex my brain. Don’t leave me in this state, I beg you.

JACQUES: Willingly. But swear to me at least that you won’t

interrupt me any more.

MASTER: Come what may, I swear it.

JACQUES: It is simply that my Captain, a good man, a gallant man,

a very worthy man, and one of the best officers in the corps, was
something of an eccentric. He had met and made friends with
another officer in the same regiment, who was also a good man, a
gallant man, a very worthy man, just as good an officer as my
Captain, and also just as much of an eccentric.

Jacques was on the point of beginning his Captain’s story when

they heard a large number of men and horses coming up behind
them. It was the same lugubrious carriage coming back,
surrounded by…
– The excise men?16
No.
– The mounted constabulary?
Perhaps…
Whatever they were, the cortège was preceded by the priest in
surplice and cassock, hands tied behind his back and the coachman
in black, his hands tied behind his back and the two valets in black
whose hands were also tied behind their backs. And who was in for
a surprise? Why, Jacques, of course, who cried out: ‘My Captain,
my poor Captain isn’t dead! God be praised!’
 Jacques turned his horse around, spurred him and went as fast as
he could towards the supposed cortège. He was not quite thirty feet
from it when the excise men or the mounted constabulary took aim
at him and shouted: ‘Stop! Go back or you’re a dead man!’
Jacques stopped, quite dead, and consulted for a moment with
the voice of Destiny in his head. It seemed to him that Destiny was
telling him: ‘Go back…’, so he did.
His master asked him: ‘Well then, Jacques, what’s it all about?’

JACQUES: My God, I don’t know.

MASTER: Why not?

JACQUES: I don’t know that either.

MASTER: You’ll see. It’ll turn out that these men are smugglers
who have doubtless filled the coffin with contraband and been
betrayed to the excise by the same ruffians they bought the goods
from.

JACQUES: But why the carriage with my Captain’s arms?

MASTER: Or it’s a kidnapping. They have hidden who knows what,

a woman, a girl, a nun even in the coffin. It takes more than a
shroud to make a dead man.

JACQUES: But why the carriage with my Captain’s arms?

MASTER: For whatever reason you like, but finish your Captain’s
story for me.

JACQUES: You still want to hear it? But perhaps my Captain is still
alive?

MASTER: What’s that got to do with it?

JACQUES: I don’t like to speak about the living because from time
to time one is ashamed of the good and the bad things one says of
them – of the good things because they go and spoil them and the
bad because they make amends.

MASTER: Be neither the reluctant panegyrist nor the embittered

censor. Just tell the thing as it is.

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.

MASTER: What the devil, Jacques, those principles are enough to

outlaw speaking and listening altogether. Say nothing, hear
nothing, believe nothing… Just tell the thing as you will. I will
listen as I can and believe as I am able.

JACQUES: And it’s not just that one’s words are hardly ever
understood in the same way as they are spoken. Even worse than
that is that one’s actions are hardly ever judged in the way they are
performed.

MASTER: I doubt that there can be anywhere under God’s heaven

another head which contains as many paradoxes as yours.

JACQUES: What harm is there in that? A paradox isn’t always a lie.

MASTER: That is true.

JACQUES: We were passing through Orléans, my Captain and

myself. The only talk in the town was of an incident which had
recently happened to a citizen called M. le Pelletier, who was a
man who was filled with such profound commiseration for the poor
that after having reduced his own quite considerable fortune to a
bare subsistence through excessive alms-giving he was himself
reduced to going from door to door seeking from the purses of
others the help which he was no longer able to give from his
own.17

MASTER:And you think there were two different views of this

man’s behaviour?

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: Ah! I see that you’ve recovered your powers of speech at

long last. I’m pleased for both of us because I was beginning to get
bored not hearing you speak, and I suppose you were bored too
since you weren’t speaking. So, speak.

JACQUES: My dear Master. Life is a series of misunderstandings.

There are the misunderstandings of love, the misunderstandings of
friendship, the misunderstandings of politics, finance, the church,
law, commerce, women, husbands…

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: My friend, do not doubt it. That horse of yours is

inspired and the only worrying thing is that all of these
prognostications, inspirations and warnings by dreams or by
apparitions which come from on high are useless. Whatever it is
will happen all the same. My dear friend, I advise you to put your
conscience in order, to sort out your little affairs, and to tell me
your Captain’s story and the story of your loves as quickly as you
can because I would be very annoyed to lose you without hearing
them. If you were to worry about it any more than you are
worrying already, what good would it do you? None. The decree of
your Destiny, pronounced twice by your horse, will be fulfilled.
Tell me, do you have nothing which you ought to give back to
anybody? Confide your last wishes in me and you may be sure they
will be faithfully carried out. If you have taken anything from me, I
give it to you. Ask only for pardon from God, and during the long
or the short time which remains to us together don’t steal any more
from me.

JACQUES: No matter how much I go back over the past, I can’t see
that I have any score to settle with the justice of men. I haven’t
killed or stolen or raped.

MASTER: Too bad. All things considered I’d prefer it if the crime
had already been committed than remained to be, and for good
reason.

JACQUES: But, Monsieur, perhaps I won’t be hanged on my

account, but on account of someone else’s actions.

MASTER: That’s possible.

JACQUES: Perhaps I’ll only be hanged after my death?

MASTER: That’s possible too.

 JACQUES: Perhaps I won’t be hanged at all.

MASTER: I doubt that.

JACQUES:Perhaps it is written up above that I will merely assist at

the hanging of another person. And as for that other person, who
knows who he is? Whether he is near by or far away from me?

MASTER: Monsieur Jacques, be hanged, since Fate wills it and

your horse says it, but do not be insolent. Stop your impertinent
conjecture and tell me your Captain’s story quickly.

JACQUES:Monsieur, don’t get angry. Sometimes perfectly honest

people have been hanged. It’s one of the misunderstandings of
justice.

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.

JACQUES: One day the spies reported to the adjutant that there
had been a violent argument between the Commandant and the
peasant and that after this they had gone off, the peasant leading
the way with the Commandant following him reluctantly, to the
house of a banker in the town and that they were still there.
Afterwards it transpired that in despair of ever seeing each other
again, they had resolved to fight to the end. Ever conscious of the
duties imposed by the most tender of friendships, even while in the
throes of the most incredible ferocity, my Captain, who was rich, as
I’ve told you… I hope, Monsieur, that you’re not going to condemn
me to finish our journey on this bizarre animal… my Captain, who
was rich, had insisted on his comrade agreeing to accept a bill of
exchange for twenty-four thousand pounds which would provide
him with enough means to live abroad in the event of my Captain’s
death. He insisted that unless this condition was satisfied he would
not fight. His friend’s reply to this offer was: ‘Do you believe, my
friend, that I would survive you for long if I killed you?’
They left the banker’s and started off towards the gates of the
town where they were suddenly surrounded by the adjutant and
some other officers. Although this encounter appeared to be just a
coincidence, our two friends, or two enemies, whichever you please
to call them, were not taken in. The peasant admitted his real
identity. They went off to spend the night in an isolated house. The
next day, at dawn, my Captain, after embracing his comrade
several times, left him for good. Hardly had he arrived at his
birthplace when he died.

MASTER: And who told you he was dead?

JACQUES:What about the coffin? And the carriage with his arms?
My poor Captain is dead, I’m sure of it.

MASTER: And what about the priest whose hands were tied behind
his back? And the servants whose hands were tied behind their
backs? And the excise men or the mounted constabulary and the
cortège heading back to town? Your Captain is alive, I’ve no doubt
of it. Do you know nothing of his friend?

JACQUES: The story of his friend is quite a long line on the scroll
of Destiny, or whatever is written up above.
 MASTER: I hope…

Jacques’ horse did not allow his master to finish. He went off
like a shot, and this time did not deviate to the left or the right but
followed the road. Soon Jacques was lost from sight and his master,
convinced that he would find another gallows at the end of the
road, was splitting his sides laughing.
And since Jacques and his master are only good when they are
together and are worth nothing when they are separated, any more
than is Don Quixote without Sancho or Richardet without Ferragus,
which is something that Cervantes’ continuator and Ariosto’s
imitator, Forti Guerra, have not quite understood,18 Reader, let us
chat while waiting for them to meet up again.
You are going to take the story of Jacques’ Captain as a mere
fiction, but you will be wrong. I assure you that, such as he told the
story to his master, so did I hear it at the Invalides, in I’m not sure
what year, but on the feast of Saint-Louis. I was dining with
Monsieur de Saint-Etienne the adjutant of the Invalides.19 The
story-teller spoke in the presence of several other officers of the
establishment who had knowledge of the facts and was a serious
man who didn’t seem at all like a joker. This is a timely moment
for me to give you a reminder for both the present and the future
that you must be circumspect if you want to avoid taking the truth
for lies and lies for the truth in Jacques’ conversation with his
master. Now that I have warned you, I wash my hands of the
matter.
They really are quite an extraordinary pair of men, you are
saying to me.
Is that what makes you suspicious? Firstly, nature is so varied,
especially when it comes to instinct and character, that there is
nothing in a poet’s imagination, however bizarre, for which
experience and observation might not find a model in nature. I,
who speak to you now, I have met the real-life counterpart of the
Médecin malgré lui whom I had thought until then to be the most
mad and whimsical of inventions.20
– What! The real-life counterpart of the husband whose wife says
to him: ‘I’ve three children on my hands’, and he tells her: ‘Put
them on the ground.’
‘They are asking me for bread.’
‘Give them a beating.’
Exactly. This is an account of his conversation with my wife.
‘Is that you there, Monsieur Gousse?’
‘No, Madame, I am here.’
‘Where have you come from?’
‘From where I’ve just been.’
‘What did you do there?’
‘I repaired a windmill which was working badly.’
‘To whom did this windmill belong?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t go there to mend the miller.’
‘You’re very well dressed today, contrary to your usual practice.
But tell me, why are you wearing such a dirty shirt under such a
clean suit?’
‘That’s because I’ve only got one.’
‘Why have you got only one?’
‘Because I’ve only got one body at a time.’
‘My husband’s not here at the moment, but I hope that won’t
prevent you from having dinner with us.’
‘No, it won’t, since I have entrusted him with neither my
stomach nor my appetite.’
‘How is your wife keeping?’
‘However she likes. That’s her business.’
‘And your children?’
‘Wonderful.’
‘And the one with the nice eyes, who looks so healthy and has
such beautiful skin?’
‘Much better than the others – he’s dead.’
‘Are you teaching them anything?’
‘No, Madame.’
‘What, not even reading, writing or the catechism?’
 ‘No reading, no writing and no catechism.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Because nobody taught me anything and I’m not any the more
ignorant for it. If they’ve got brains they’ll do as I’ve done. If
they’re stupid what I teach them will only make them more stupid.’
If ever you meet this eccentric, you don’t have to know him to
strike up a conversation with him. Take him into the nearest inn,
tell him your business, ask him to follow you twenty miles and he
will follow you. After you’ve employed him send him away without
a sou, and he’ll go away happy.
Have you ever heard of a certain Prémontval who used to give
public lessons in mathematics in Paris? He was his friend… But
perhaps Jacques and his master are back together again? Do you
want to go back to them or stay with me?…
Gousse and Prémontval ran the school together. Among the
pupils who used to flock there was a young girl called Mlle Pigeon,
the daughter of that talented artist who made those beautiful relief
maps of the world which used to be in the Royal Botanical Gardens
and which were transported to the Academy of Sciences.21
Mademoiselle Pigeon used to go there every morning with her
briefcase under her arm and her box of mathematical instruments
in her muff. One of her teachers – in fact it was Prémontval – fell in
love with his student and somehow by way of the propositions
concerning solids inscribed in spheres a child was begotten.
Monsieur Pigeon was not the kind of man who would quietly
accept the truth of this corollary. The lovers’ position was
becoming embarrassing. They discussed the matter, but having
nothing – and I mean nothing at all – what could be the outcome of
their deliberations? They summoned their friend Gousse to their
assistance and he, without saying a word, sold everything he
possessed – linen, clothes, apparatus, furniture, books – got
together a sum of money, and bundled the two lovers into a post-
chaise and accompanied them at full gallop as far as the Alps. Once
there, he emptied his purse of what little money remained, gave it
to them and embraced them, wishing them good luck on their
journey, and started back on foot as far as Lyons, begging alms all
the way. There he painted the walls of a cloister of monks and
earned enough money to return to Paris without begging.
– That’s very fine.
Certainly, but because of this heroic action, you now believe that
Gousse was a deeply moral man, don’t you? Well, disillusion
yourself, he had no more morals than you’ll find in the brain of a
pike.
– That’s not possible.
Isn’t it? I employed him. I once gave him a mandate for eighty
pounds to my order. The amount was written in figures. What did
he do? He added a zero and had himself paid eight hundred
pounds.
– Ah! How awful!
He was no more dishonest when he took from me than he was
being honest when he took the shirt off his back for a friend. He is
an eccentric without principles. Those eighty francs weren’t enough
for him, so with one stroke of the pen he got himself eight hundred
francs which he needed. And what about the valuable books he
gave me…
– What valuable books?
But what about Jacques and his master? What about… Jacques’
love life? The patience with which you listen to me shows what
little interest you have in my protagonists. And I’m tempted to
leave them wherever they are…
I needed a valuable book which he brought to me. A short while
afterwards I needed another valuable book which he also brought
to me. I wanted to pay him but he refused the money. Later, I
needed another valuable book.
‘Ah, that one…’ he said. ‘I’m afraid you can’t have that. You’ve
asked me too late. My Sorbonne Professor is dead.’
‘What has the death of your Sorbonne Professor got to do with
the book I want? Did you take the other two from his library?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Without his consent?’
‘Why should I need that for an act of redistributive justice? All I
did was find a better location for the books by transferring them
from a place where they were useless to another where they would
be put to good use.’
Now speculate on the ways of men if you dare! But it is the story
about Gousse and his wife which is the best… I understand, you’ve
had enough of this and you want to return to our two travellers.
Reader, you’re treating me like an automaton. That’s not polite.
‘Tell the story of Jacques’ love life’, ‘Don’t tell the story of Jacques’
love life’, ‘I want you to tell me about Gousse’, ‘I’ve had enough…’
It is no doubt necessary that I follow your wishes, but it is also
necessary that I sometimes follow my own. And that is without
considering the fact that anyone who allows me to begin a story
commits himself to hearing it through to the end.
I told you in the first place…
Now, when a person says: ‘In the first place…’ it is a way of
announcing at least a second place…
So, in the second place… listen to me…
All right, then, don’t listen to me… I’ll speak to myself…
Jacques’ Captain and his friend could have been tormented by a
violent and secret jealousy. It is a feeling which friendship does not
always extinguish. Nothing is so difficult to forgive as someone
else’s worth. Were they not perhaps afraid that one of them would
be unfairly promoted, which would offend both of them equally?
Without being conscious of doing so, each was trying pre-emptively
to rid himself of a dangerous rival. They were sounding each other
out for the opportunity. But how can one think such a thing of a
man who so generously gave up his Commandant’s post to an
impecunious friend?
He gave it up, that is true, but if he had not been awarded it in
the first place, he might perhaps have claimed it at swordpoint. In
the army an unjustified promotion, even if it does not bring honour
to the person who profits from it, dishonours his rival. But let us
leave all that. Let us just say that it was their particular kind of
madness. And which of us does not have his own? The folly of our
two officers was for several centuries that of the whole of Europe
and used to be called the spirit of chivalry. That brilliant multitude,
armed from head to toe, decked out in the favours of their various
ladies, on their prancing chargers, lances in hand, visors raised,
visors lowered, looking at each other proudly, sizing each other up,
threatening each other, casting each other down in the dust,
strewing vast tournament-fields with splinters of their broken arms,
were all just friends, striving jealously for the particular type of
merit which happened then to be in vogue.
At the moment when, at opposite ends of the arena, they raised
their lances to the ready, at the moment when they pressed their
spurs into the flanks of their chargers, these friends became the
most terrible enemies. They would descend on each other with the
same fury they would have displayed on a battlefield. And so our
two officers were nothing more than two knights errant who were
born in our time with the mores of former times. Every human
virtue and every vice has been fashionable for a while and then
unfashionable. Physical strength had its moment. So did martial
skills. Bravery is sometimes more and sometimes less well thought
of. The more a thing is common the less it is valued and the less it
is praised. Examine the proclivities of men and you will note some
who appear to have come into the world too late. They belong to
another century. But what is to prevent us from believing that our
two soldiers engaged in their perilous daily conflicts purely out of a
desire to find their rival’s weak spot and gain superiority over him?
Duels recur in many forms in our society – between priests,
between magistrates, between men of letters, between
philosophers. Every occupation has its knights and its lances. Even
our most serious or amusing assemblies are no more than miniature
tournaments into which people sometimes carry the colours of
their ladies, if not on their shoulders, at least in their hearts. The
more people there are present, the more lively the contest. The
presence of women makes the contest extremely intense and hard
fought. The shame of having been beaten in front of women is
hardly ever forgotten.
And Jacques? Jacques had gone through the gates of the town
and through the streets cheered on by children until he reached the
edge of the opposite quarter of the town where his horse threw
itself through a small low archway. There took place between the
lintel of this archway and Jacques’ head a terrible collision, the
result of which could only be that the lintel was thrown out of
alignment or Jacques knocked over backwards. It was, as you
might well imagine, the latter which happened. Jacques fell, his
head split open and unconscious. He was picked up and brought
back to life with spirits. I think he may even have been bled by the
master of the house.
– Was he a surgeon, then?
No… Meanwhile Jacques’ master had by now arrived and was
asking for news from everybody he met.
‘Have you by any chance seen a tall thin man on a piebald
horse?’
‘He’s just gone by. He was going like the devil himself was after
him. He must have arrived at his master’s by now.’
‘And who is his master?’
‘The hangman.’
‘The hangman!’
‘Yes, the horse is his.’
‘Where does the hangman live?’
‘Quite far. But don’t bother going there. Here are his servants
and it would appear that they are bringing the thin man you were
asking for, whom we had taken for one of his valets.’
And who was it who spoke to Jacques’ master in this manner? It
was an innkeeper, outside whose door he had stopped. There could
be no doubt about what he was. He was as round and fat as a
barrel and wore a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a
white cotton hat on his head, a kitchen apron round his waist and a
large knife at his side.
‘Quickly, quickly, a bed for this poor man,’ Jacques’ master said
to him, ‘and a surgeon, a doctor and an apothecary…’
Meanwhile the people who had been carrying Jacques had set
him down at his master’s feet, his forehead covered with an
enormous thick compress and his eyes tightly shut.
‘Jacques? Jacques!’
‘Is that you, Master?’
‘Yes, it’s me. Look at me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘What on earth happened to you?’
‘Ahh! The horse. The damned horse!… I’ll tell you about it
tomorrow if I don’t die during the night…’
And while they carried him up the stairs his master supervised
the operation, shouting: ‘Take care! Easy does it! Easy does it!
Dammit! You’re going to hurt him! You, yes, the one holding his
feet, turn to the right. And you… with his head, go to the left.’
And Jacques said quietly: ‘So it must have been written up
above…’
Hardly had Jacques gone to bed than he fell into a deep sleep.
His master spent the night at his bedside, the whole time taking his
pulse and wetting his compress with lotion. When Jacques woke up
he caught him doing this and said: ‘What are you up to?’

MASTER: I am watching over you. You are my servant whether I

am well or ill, but I am yours when you are ill.

JACQUES: Well, it’s nice to know you’re human. That’s not a

quality very often found by valets in their masters.

MASTER: How’s your head?

JACQUES: Almost as well as the beam it collided with.

MASTER:Take this sheet between your teeth and give your head a
good shake… What did you feel?

JACQUES: Nothing. The jug seems not to have been cracked.

MASTER: So much the better. I suppose you want to get up.

JACQUES: And what would you have me do in bed?

MASTER: I want you to rest.

JACQUES: Well, I think we should have lunch and leave.

MASTER: And what about the horse?

 JACQUES: I left him with his master, who being an honest and
worthy fellow bought him back for what he sold him to us for.

MASTER: And this honest, worthy fellow, do you know who he is?

JACQUES: No.

MASTER: I’ll tell you that when we’re on our way.

JACQUES: Why not now? Why make a mystery out of it?

MASTER: Mystery or not, is there any reason why I should tell you
at this moment and not later?

JACQUES: None.

MASTER: But you need a horse.

JACQUES:The keeper of this inn might be only too pleased to let

us have one of his.

MASTER: Sleep a while and I’ll go and see to it.

Jacques’ master went downstairs, ordered breakfast, bought a

horse, went back upstairs and found Jacques dressed. They had
lunch and left. Jacques, however, protested that it was impolite to
go away without paying a courtesy visit to the citizen against
whose door he had nearly brained himself, and who had so
obligingly rescued him. His master quietened his scruples by
assuring him that he had already well rewarded the servants who
had brought Jacques to the inn. Jacques argued that the money
given to the servants did not acquit him of his obligations to their
master, that it was behaviour such as this which caused men to feel
regret and disgust at doing good and that they were making
themselves appear ungrateful: ‘Master, I can hear everything this
man is saying about me by thinking what I would be saying about
him if he were in my place and I were in his…’
 They were just leaving the town when they met a tall well-built
man wearing a braided hat and a suit with gold braiding on the
seams. He was alone – unless you counted the two large hounds
which preceded him. Jacques had no sooner set eyes on him than
he was off his horse shouting, ‘It’s him!’, and was all over the man
before anyone knew what was happening. The man with the dogs
appeared to be very embarrassed by Jacques’ caresses and pushed
him away gently, and said: ‘Monsieur, you do me too much
honour.’
‘No, no. I owe you my life and I could never thank you enough.’
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
‘Are you not the helpful citizen who rescued me, bled and
bandaged me when my horse…’
‘That is true.’
‘Are you not the honest citizen who bought back this horse for
the same price he sold it to me for?’
‘I am.’
And Jacques began to kiss him again, first on one cheek, then on
the other. His master smiled and the two dogs stood with their
noses in the air, apparently filled with wonder at a scene which
they had never seen the like of before. After Jacques had added
several bows to his effusions which his benefactor did not return
and many good wishes for the future which were received rather
coldly, he got back on his horse, and said to his master: ‘I feel the
greatest respect for that man and you must tell me who he is.’

MASTER: And why, Jacques, in your opinion, is he so worthy of

respect?

JACQUES:Because he attaches no importance to the good works he

performs and must therefore be of a naturally kindly disposition
and have a long-standing habit of doing good.

MASTER: And how do you reach that conclusion?

JACQUES: From the cold and indifferent manner in which he

received my thanks. He did not acknowledge me. He didn’t say a
word. He seemed hardly to recognize me and, who knows, perhaps
at this very moment he may be saying to himself with contempt:
‘Kindness must be a very strange thing to that traveller and just
dealing a difficult thing for him since he is so touched by them.’
What have I said that is so absurd as to make you laugh so
heartily? Whatever it is, tell me the man’s name so that I may make
a note of it.

MASTER: Willingly. Write.

JACQUES: Tell me.

MASTER: Write: The man for whom I hold the greatest respect…

JACQUES:… the greatest respect…

MASTER:… is…

JACQUES:… is…

MASTER: The hangman of *****.

JACQUES: The hangman!

MASTER: Yes, yes! The hangman.

JACQUES: Perhaps you could tell me what the point of this joke is?

MASTER: I am not joking. Just follow the links in your fob-chain.

You need a horse. Fate directs you to a passer-by, and this passer-
by happens to be a hangman. The horse takes you to a gallows
twice. The third time he delivers you to a hangman’s home where
you fall half dead. And from there, where are you taken? Into an
inn, a resting-place, a common refuge. Jacques, do you know the
story of the death of Socrates?
 JACQUES: No.

MASTER: He was an Athenian sage. For a long time now the role
of sage has been dangerous amongst madmen. His fellow citizens
condemned him to drink hemlock. Well, Socrates did what you’ve
just done and behaved as politely with his executioner who
brought him the hemlock as you did. Jacques, you’re a sort of
philosopher, admit it. And I know all too well that philosophers are
a breed of men who are loathed by the mighty because they refuse
to bend the knee to them. Magistrates hate them because they are
by their calling protectors of the prejudices which philosophers
attack, priests because they see them rarely at the foot of their
altars. And poets, who are people without principles, hate them
and are stupid enough to think of philosophy as the hatchet of the
Arts not to mention the fact that those poets who have indulged in
the hateful genre of satire have simply been flatterers. They are
hated also by the peoples who have always been enslaved to the
tyrants who oppress them, the rogues who trick them and the
clowns who amuse them. So you can see that I am familiar with all
of the perils of your profession and am fully aware of the
importance of the admission I am asking you to make. But I will
not betray your secret. Jacques, my friend, you are a philosopher,
and I am sorry for you. If it is permitted to read the events of the
future from those of the present and if what is written up above is
ever revealed to men long before it happens, I predict that your
death will be philosophical and that you will put your head in the
noose with the same good grace as Socrates took his cup of
hemlock.

JACQUES: Master, a prophet couldn’t put it better. But

fortunately…

MASTER:You don’t really believe me. But that gives more weight
to my premonition.

JACQUES: And you, Monsieur, do you believe it?

MASTER: I believe it, but even if I didn’t it wouldn’t make any

difference.

JACQUES: Why?

MASTER: Because there is only danger for people who talk. And I
keep quiet.

JACQUES: What about premonitions?

MASTER: I laugh at them but somewhat nervously, I must admit.

Some of them are of such striking character and we have all been
lulled with tales like that from an early age. If your dreams had
come true five or six times and it happened that you should dream
your friend were dead you would surely go to him the next
morning to find out whether it was true or not. But the
premonitions which are hardest to rebut are those which come to
one at the moment an event is taking place far away from one and
which appear symbolic.

JACQUES:Sometimes you are so profound and sublime that I don’t

understand you. Could you not enlighten me with some example?

MASTER: Nothing simpler. There was once a woman who lived in

the country with her eighty-year-old husband who suffered from
gallstones. The husband left his wife and went into town to have an
operation. On the eve of the operation he wrote to his wife: ‘At the
time you read this letter I’ll be under the scalpel of Friar Cosmas.’22
Are you familiar with those wedding rings which are divided
into two parts, one bearing the husband’s name, and the other the
wife’s? Well, this woman had one on her finger when she opened
her husband’s letter. At that moment the two halves of the ring fell
apart. The half which bore her name stayed on her finger. That
which had his name fell broken on to the letter which she was
reading. Tell me, Jacques, do you think that there is anyone who is
strong-minded or resolute enough not to be more of less shaken by
a similar incident taking place in similar circumstances? So the
woman nearly died. Her fright lasted until the day the next post
arrived and she received a letter in which her husband wrote that
the operation had gone well and he was completely out of danger
and hoped to embrace her by the end of the month.

JACQUES: And did he?

MASTER: Yes.

JACQUES: I asked you that question because I have noticed several

times that there’s something sly about Destiny. The first time round
you think Destiny is a liar but later it turns out it has told the truth.
So, you, Monsieur, think my case comes under the heading of
symbolic premonitions and, in spite of yourself, you believe me to
be threatened by a philosopher’s death.

MASTER: It’s no good my trying to hide it from you… but, so as

not to dwell on such a sad idea, could you not…

JACQUES: Carry on with the story of my loves?

Jacques carried on with the story of his loves. We had left him, I
believe, with the surgeon.

SURGEON: I’m afraid it’ll take more than a day to mend your knee.

JACQUES:It will take precisely the length of time that is written

up above. What does it matter?

SURGEON: At so much a day for accommodation, food and my

services, that’ll make quite a sum.

JACQUES: Doctor, it’s not a question of how much it will cost for
all this time, but how much a day.

SURGEON: Twenty-five sous. Is that too much?

JACQUES: Far too much. Come along, doctor, I’m a poor devil so
let’s say half of that and see how quickly you can have me taken to
your house.

SURGEON: Twelve and a half sous, that’s hardly anything. Shall we

say thirteen sous?

JACQUES: Twelve and a half sous, thirteen sous… done!

SURGEON: And you’ll pay every day?

JACQUES: That’s the condition.

SURGEON: It’s just that I’ve got the devil of a wife who doesn’t like
any funny business, you understand.

JACQUES: Yes, doctor. Just arrange for me to be taken to your

devil of a wife as quickly as you can.

SURGEON: A month at thirteen sous a day, that’s nineteen pounds

ten sous. You’ll make it twenty francs, won’t you?

JACQUES: Twenty francs. Done.

SURGEON: You want to be well fed, well looked after and quickly
cured. Besides food, accommodation and attention there will
perhaps be medicaments, linen. There will perhaps be…

JACQUES: Well?

SURGEON: Well, all that adds up to twenty-four francs easily.

JACQUES: All right then, twenty-four francs, but no more.

SURGEON: One month at twenty-four francs. Two months, that will

be forty-eight. Three months will be seventy-two. Ah, how pleased
Madame my wife would be if you could pay me half of those
seventy-two pounds in advance.23
 JACQUES: I agree.

SURGEON: She’d be even happier if…

JACQUES: If I paid for the quarter. I’ll pay for it.

Jacques added: The surgeon went off to find my hosts and tell
them of our arrangement and the next moment the peasant, his
wife and the children gathered around my bed all looking happy
and relieved. There were endless questions on my state of health
and about my knee, praise for the surgeon their friend and his wife,
endless good wishes, the most friendly affability, and what
solicitude and zeal to serve me. The surgeon had not, however, told
them that I had a little money, but they knew the man. He was
taking me into his house and they knew what that meant. I paid
these people what I owed them and I gave the children small
presents which their mother and father did not leave in their hands
for long. It was morning. My host left for the fields, and my hostess
took her basket on her shoulders and went off. The children, who
were saddened and annoyed at being robbed, disappeared. When
someone was needed to help me off my pallet, dress me and put me
on my stretcher, there was nobody there but the surgeon, who
started to shout his head off… not that anyone could hear.

MASTER: And Jacques, who likes talking to himself so much, was

probably saying: ‘Never pay in advance unless you want bad
service.’

JACQUES: No, no, Master, this was not the time to moralize, but
more the time to get impatient and swear. So I got impatient and
swore. I moralized afterwards. And while I was moralizing the
surgeon, who had left me alone, came back with two peasants
whom he had hired to carry me, at my expense, as he didn’t
hesitate to point out. These men helped me with the preliminaries
prior to getting me to a sort of stretcher they had made for me out
of a mattress stretched over two thin poles.

MASTER: Praise be to God. There you are in the surgeon’s house,

falling in love with the surgeon’s wife, or perhaps it’s his daughter.

JACQUES: I think, Master, that you are wrong there.

MASTER: Do you think I’m going to wait in the surgeon’s house for
three months before hearing the first word of your loves? Ah,
Jacques! That’s not possible. I beg you, spare me the description of
the house, the description of the surgeon’s character, his wife’s
temper, your recovery. Skip over all that. The facts – those are
what matters. Your knee is almost cured. You’re quite well and
you’re in love.

JACQUES: I’m in love, then, since you’re in so much of a hurry.

MASTER: And who are you in love with?

JACQUES: A tall brunette aged eighteen, with a beautiful figure,

large black eyes, delicate crimson mouth, nice arms, pretty hands…
ah, Master… such pretty hands… It’s just that those hands…

MASTER: You think you’re still holding them?

JACQUES: It’s just that you have taken them and held them
furtively yourself more than once, and if they had only let you you
would have done whatever you wanted.

MASTER: My God, Jacques, I didn’t expect that!

JACQUES: Nor did I.

MASTER: No matter how hard I try I cannot remember either the

big brunette or the pretty hands. Try and explain yourself.

JACQUES: All right, but on condition that we retrace our steps to

the surgeon’s house.

MASTER: Do you think that is what is written up above?

 JACQUES: That depends on you. But down here it is written: Chi va
piano va sano.

MASTER: And it is also written: Chi va sano va lontano.24 And I’d

like to hear the end of this.

JACQUES: All right, then, what have you decided?

MASTER: Whatever you want.

JACQUES: In that case here we are again at the surgeon’s – and it

was written up above that we’d return there. The surgeon, along
with his wife and children, made such concerted efforts to empty
my purse by all sorts of little tricks that they soon succeeded. The
recovery of my knee seemed well advanced without in fact being
so. The wound had just about closed. I could go out with the aid of
a crutch and I had eighteen francs left. There’s nobody who likes to
speak more than a man with a stammer and nobody likes walking
more than a man with a limp. One autumn day after lunch I
planned a long trip because the weather was nice. The distance
from the village where I was living to the next village was about
two leagues.

MASTER: And this village was called?

JACQUES: If I told you that you’d know everything. Once I got

there I went into an inn, rested awhile and took some refreshment.
Night was beginning to fall and I was just about to start out on the
journey back home when, from where I was sitting in the inn, I
heard the piercing screams of a woman. I went out and a crowd
had gathered around her. She was on the ground tearing out her
hair, and pointing to the remains of a broken pitcher, saying: ‘I’m
ruined. I shan’t have a sou for the next month, and who will feed
my poor children then? That steward whose heart is harder than
stone won’t let me off even a sou. How unlucky I am! I’m ruined!
Ruined!’
Everyone felt sorry for her, and all I could hear around her were
cries of ‘Poor woman,’ but nobody put their hands in their pockets.
I went up to her suddenly and asked: ‘My good woman, what has
happened to you?’
‘What’s happened to me! Can’t you see? I was sent to buy a
pitcher of oil. I stumbled and fell. The pitcher broke and there is
the oil that was in it.’
At this moment the woman’s little children arrived. They were
practically naked and the bad clothing of their mother showed the
full extent of the poverty of this family. The children and their
mother all started to cry. As I am standing here now, Master, it
needs ten times less than that to move me. I was deeply moved
with compassion and tears came to my eyes. I asked her in a
broken voice how much the oil in the pitcher was worth.
‘How much?’ she answered, lifting her hands up to heaven. ‘Nine
francs’ worth! More than I could earn in a month!’
I untied my purse straight away and tossed her two six-franc
pieces, saying: ‘Here you are, my good woman. There are twelve…’
and without waiting for thanks I started on my way back to the
village.

MASTER: Jacques, you did a beautiful thing there.

JACQUES: I did a very foolish thing, if you please. I wasn’t a

hundred yards from the village when I said as much. And half-way
home I said a lot more. On my arrival at the surgeon’s house with
an empty purse I felt quite differently.

MASTER: You could well be right and my praise could be as

inappropriate as your commiseration… No, no, Jacques, I come
back to my first judgement. The principal merit in your action lies
in the disregard for your own need. I can see the consequences: you
will be exposed to the inhumanity of your surgeon and his wife.
They will throw you out of their house but, when you find yourself
dying on the dungheap outside their door, you will lie dying on
that dungheap satisfied with yourself.

JACQUES: Master, I am not made of such stern stuff as that. I went

limping on my way and I am afraid that I must admit that I missed
my two écus, which didn’t bring them back and spoiled the good
deed I had done with my regrets.
I was about half-way between the two villages and it was quite
dark when three bandits came out from the undergrowth at the
side of the road, leapt on me, knocked me to the ground, searched
me and were astonished to find me with so little money. They had
counted on a better prey. Having witnessed my alms-giving in the
village they had imagined that somebody who could divest himself
of half a louis so easily must have twenty or more. In their fury at
seeing their hopes dashed and exposing themselves to having their
bones broken on a scaffold for the fistful of sous I had on me if I
should denounce them and they were caught and identified by me,
they debated for a while whether or not they ought to kill me.
Fortunately they heard a noise and fled and I escaped with a few
bruises from my fall and a few more which I received when they
were taking my money. When the bandits had gone I withdrew and
got back to the village as best I was able, arriving at two o’clock in
the morning, pale and exhausted. The pain in my knee was by now
extremely intense and I was suffering from pains in various parts of
my body caused by the blows I had received. The surgeon…
Master, what’s wrong with you? You’re clenching your teeth and
getting all agitated as if you were in the presence of some enemy.

MASTER: That’s exactly what I am. I’ve got my sword in my hand,

I’m descending on your robbers and I’m avenging you. Tell me how
it is that whoever wrote out the great scroll could have decreed
that such would be the reward of a noble act? Why should I, who
am merely a miserable compound of faults, take your defence
while He calmly watched you being attacked, knocked down,
manhandled and trampled underfoot, He who is supposed to be the
embodiment of all perfection?…

JACQUES:Master, be quiet, be quiet. What you are saying stinks to

high heaven of heresy.

MASTER: What are you looking at?

 JACQUES: I am looking to see if there is anybody near us who
could have heard you…
The surgeon took my pulse and found I was feverish. I went to
bed without speaking of my adventure and lay dreaming on my
pallet, faced with the prospect of dealing with two people… and
what people, my God! I didn’t have a sou and not the slightest
doubt that when I woke up the next morning I’d be asked for the
agreed daily price.
At this point the master threw his arms round the neck of his
valet crying: ‘My poor Jacques. What are you going to do? What
will become of you? Your situation frightens me.’

JACQUES: Master, reassure yourself. Here I am.

MASTER: I wasn’t thinking. I was on to tomorrow, beside you at

the surgeon’s house at the moment you woke up and they came to
ask you for money.

JACQUES: Master, in life one never knows what to rejoice about or

what to feel sorry about. Good brings bad after it and bad brings
good. We travel in darkness underneath whatever it is that is
written up above, all of us equally unreasonable in our hopes, our
joys and our afflictions. When I cry I often think that I’m a fool.

MASTER: And what about when you laugh?

JACQUES: I still think that I’m a fool. However, I can’t stop myself
from crying or from laughing. And that’s what makes me angry.
I’ve tried a hundred times… I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

MASTER: No, no, tell me what it is you’ve tried.

JACQUES:Not to give a damn about anything. Ah, if only I could

have succeeded!

MASTER: What would that have done?

 JACQUES: It would have made me free from worry, made me no
longer need anything, made me completely master of myself, made
me find myself just as well off with my head against a milestone on
the side of the road as on a good pillow. I am like that sometimes,
but the devil of it is that it doesn’t last, and, however hard and
rock-steady I am on important occasions, a little contradiction, a
mere trifle, will often throw me. It’s enough to make me kick
myself. I’ve given up and decided to be as I am and I’ve realized
through thinking about it a little that that is almost the same thing
if one adds: ‘What does it matter how I am?’ It’s another kind of
resignation, easier to achieve and more convenient to live with.

MASTER: Oh, it’s certainly more convenient.

JACQUES: In the morning the surgeon pulled back the curtains

around my bed, and said: ‘Come along, my friend, I’ve got a long
way to go today, so let’s be looking at your knee.’
I replied sorrowfully: ‘Surgeon… I’m sleepy…’
‘So much the better. That’s a good sign.’
‘Leave me to sleep. I don’t want to be bandaged.’
‘Well, that’s no problem. Go back to sleep.’
At that, he shut the curtains, but I didn’t sleep. One hour
afterwards the surgeon’s wife came, drew back my curtains and
said: ‘Come along, friend, I’ve brought your sugared toast.’
‘Madame,’ I replied sorrowfully, ‘I don’t feel very hungry.’
‘Go on, eat it, eat it. It’s not going to cost any extra and you
won’t pay any the less.’
‘I don’t want to eat.’
‘So much the better. The children and I will have it,’ and at that
she shut my curtains, called her children and they all sat about
polishing off my sugared toast.
Reader, if I were to stop for a while here and come back to the
story of the man who had only one shirt because he had only one
body at a time, I would very much like to know what you would
think. Would you think that I had got myself into what Voltaire
would call an impasse or more vulgarly a cul-de-sac,25 and that I
didn’t know how to get out of it? That I had thrown myself into a
tale dreamed up so that I might gain time to look for some way of
getting out of the story I’ve already started?
Well, Reader, you are wrong. I know very well how Jacques got
out of these straits, and what I am about to tell you of Gousse – the
man with only one shirt at a time because he had only one body at
a time – is not made up at all.
One Whitsun, I received a note from Gousse in which he begged
me to visit him in a prison where he was being held. While getting
dressed I was thinking about his predicament and I supposed that
his tailor, his baker, his wine merchant or his landlord, had
obtained and executed against him an order of imprisonment.
I arrived there and found him sharing a cell with some rather
ominous-looking people. I asked him who they were.
‘The old boy over there is a very able man who is extremely
knowledgeable in arithmetic and who is trying to make the ledgers
which he is copying out tally with his accounts. This is difficult and
we’ve discussed it but I have no doubt that he will succeed.’
‘And the other one?’
‘He’s a fool.’
‘How so?’
‘A fool who invented a machine for counterfeiting bills. It was a
pretty bad machine, a dreadful machine with twenty or more
faults.’
‘And the third? The one wearing livery and playing the double-
bass?’
‘He’s only here waiting. Tonight or tomorrow morning perhaps –
because really his case is nothing – he’ll be transferred to
Bicêtre.’26
‘And you?’
‘Me? My case is even less important.’
After this reply he got up and put his bonnet on his bed, and his
three cell-mates disappeared instantly.
When I had entered I had found Gousse in his dressing-gown
seated at a little table plotting geometric figures and working just
as happily as he would have done at home. Now we were alone.
 ‘And you, what are you doing here?’
‘I’m working, as you can see.’
‘But who got you put in here?’
‘Me.’
‘What do you mean, you?’
‘Yes, me, Monsieur.’
‘And how did you go about that?’
‘The same way I would have gone about having anyone else put
in here. I sued myself. I won, and as a result of the sentence I
obtained against myself and the warrant which followed I was
apprehended and taken here.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘No, Monsieur. I will tell you the thing as it is.’
‘Could you not sue yourself again, win, and by means of another
sentence and another warrant get yourself released?’
‘No, Monsieur.’
Gousse had a pretty servant girl who served him as other half
more often than his own did. This unequal division had somewhat
disturbed the domestic peace. Even though there was nothing that
was harder to do than unsettle this man, who of all men was least
afraid of gossip, he decided to leave his wife and go and live with
his servant girl. But his entire fortune consisted of furniture,
machines, drawings, tools and other moveable effects. And he
preferred leaving his wife naked to going away empty-handed.
Consequently this is the project he conceived.
It was to give credit notes to his servant who would pursue him
for payment and so obtain the distraint and sale of his goods which
would then be transferred from his home in Pont Saint-Michel to
the lodgings he proposed to occupy with her.
He was enchanted with the idea, wrote out the notes, had a writ
issued against himself and engaged two lawyers. There he was,
running from one to the other, prosecuting himself with the utmost
vivacity, attacking himself well and defending himself badly. And
then he was condemned to pay the penalty prescribed by the law.
In his mind’s eye he was taking possession of everything there was
in the house, but it wasn’t quite like that. He was dealing with a
very crafty hussy who, instead of obtaining execution on his
effects, obtained it on his person, had him arrested and put in
prison to such effect that, however bizarre were his enigmatic
replies to my questions, they were none the less true.
While I have been telling you these facts – which you have
dismissed as a mere tale…
– What about the man in livery playing the double-bass?
Reader, I promise you on my word of honour that you won’t lose
that story… but allow me to come back to Jacques and his master.
Jacques and his master had arrived at the place where they were
to spend the night. It was late. The gates of the town were closed
and they were obliged to stop in the suburb. There I heard an
uproar…
– You heard? You weren’t there… It’s got nothing to do with you
at all.
You’re quite right. Well, Jacques… His master… there was a
terrible uproar… I saw two men.
– You saw nothing. We’re not speaking about you. You weren’t
even there.
That’s true. There were two men at table, talking quite quietly.
At the door of the room they were in there stood a woman, hands
on hips, pouring out a stream of abuse at them.
Jacques tried to calm the woman down but she paid no more
attention to his pacifying remonstrations than the two people she
was addressing were paying to her invective.
‘Come along, my dear,’ said Jacques, ‘be patient. Calm down.
What’s it all about? These gentlemen seem to be decent enough to
me.’
‘Decent! Them! They’re brutes, people without pity, humanity or
any feeling. Ah! And what harm did poor Nicole do to them for
them to treat her so badly? She’ll probably be crippled for the rest
of her life.’
‘Perhaps the injury is not as bad as you believe.’
‘It was a frightful blow, I tell you. She’ll be crippled.’
‘You’ll have to wait and see. Someone must get the doctor.’
 ‘Someone’s already gone.’
‘Put her to bed.’
‘She’s already in bed. And she’s crying enough to break anyone’s
heart… My poor Nicole!’
In the midst of these lamentations a bell rang somewhere else
and a voice called: ‘Hostess, some wine.’
‘Coming,’ she replied.
‘Hostess, bring some sheets.’
‘Coming.’
‘What about the cutlets and the duck?’
‘Coming.’
‘Bring me something to drink. Bring me a chamber-pot.’
‘Coming, coming.’
And from another corner of the inn a frantic man was shouting:
‘Damn you, you demented chatterbox, what are you interfering for?
Have you decided to make me wait till tomorrow? Jacques?
Jacques?’
The hostess, who had recovered a little from her sorrow and her
anger, said to Jacques: ‘Monsieur, you may leave me now. You’ve
been too kind.’
‘Jacques? Jacques?’
‘Go to him quickly. Ah, if you only knew the misfortunes of that
poor creature.’
‘Jacques? Jacques?’
‘Go on. I think that’s your master calling you.’
‘Jacques? Jacques?’
Jacques’ master was indeed shouting for him. He had undressed
all by himself. He was dying of hunger and getting extremely
impatient at not being served. Jacques went on up followed a
moment afterwards by the innkeeper’s wife, who looked really
miserable.
‘A thousand pardons, Monsieur,’ she said to Jacques’ master, ‘but
it is just that there are sometimes things in life which are hard to
swallow. What do you want? I have chickens, pigeons, excellent
saddle of hare, rabbits – this is a very good area for rabbits –
perhaps you’d prefer a river fowl?’
Jacques ordered his master’s supper as if it were for him, as he
normally did. It was served and, while he was eating, his master
asked Jacques: ‘What the devil were you doing down there?’

JACQUES: Perhaps some good, perhaps some bad, who can tell?

MASTER: And exactly what good or bad were you doing down
there?

JACQUES:I was stopping that woman from getting herself beaten

up by two men who are down there and who have at the very least
broken her servant’s arm.

MASTER: Perhaps it would have done her some good to get beaten
up.

JACQUES: For ten reasons, each of them better than the previous,
one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life – to
me who speaks to you now…

MASTER: Is to have been beaten up?… Give me something to

drink.

JACQUES: Yes, master, beaten up. Beaten up on the high road at

night on my way back from the village as I have told you after
having committed what was in my opinion the folly or in your
opinion the good deed of giving away my money.

MASTER: I remember… Give me something to drink. What was the

cause of the quarrel you were pacifying downstairs that the
innkeeper’s wife’s servant or daughter should be so badly treated?

JACQUES: For the life of me, I don’t know.

MASTER: You don’t know what it was about and you interfere!
Jacques, that’s not prudent, it’s not just, it’s against the principles
of… Give me something to drink.

JACQUES: Principles are only rules which some people lay down
for other people to observe. I think in one way but I am unable to
stop myself acting in another. All sermons are like the preamble to
the king’s edicts. All preachers want people to practise what they
preach because we might find ourselves better off and they
certainly will be. Virtue…

MASTER: Virtue, Jacques, is a good thing. Both the good and the
bad speak well of it… Give me something to drink.

JACQUES: Because they both profit from it.

MASTER: And how was it such good fortune for you to be beaten
up?

JACQUES: It is late. You’ve eaten well and so have I. We are both

tired. It would be better for us, believe me, if we went to bed.

MASTER: We can’t do that. The innkeeper’s wife still has

something to bring us. While we’re waiting let’s go back to the
story of your loves.

JACQUES: Where was I? I beg you, Master, on this occasion and on

all future ones put me back on the right track.

MASTER: I’ll see to that. And to begin my duties as prompter, you

are in your bed, with no money, at a loss to know what to do while
the surgeon’s wife and her children are eating your sugared toast.

JACQUES: At that moment a carriage drew up outside the door of

the house and a valet came in and asked: ‘Does a poor man lodge
here, a soldier who walks with a crutch and who came back last
night from the next village?’
‘Yes,’ replied the surgeon’s wife, ‘what do you want him for?’
‘To put him in this carriage and take him away with us.’
 ‘He’s in that bed. Draw back the curtains and speak to him.’
Jacques had got to this point when their hostess came in and
asked: ‘What do you want for dessert?’

MASTER: Whatever you’ve got.

Without giving herself the trouble of going downstairs their

hostess shouted from their room: ‘Nanon, bring some fruit, biscuits,
jams.’
On hearing the name Nanon, Jacques said to himself: ‘Ah! It was
her daughter who was maltreated. One could get angry for less
than that.’
And his master said to their hostess: ‘You were very angry just
now.’

HOSTESS: And who wouldn’t get angry? The poor creature hadn’t
done anything to them. She’d hardly gone into their room when I
heard her start crying – such cries… Thank God I’m a little
reassured now. The surgeon says it’s nothing but she’s got two huge
bruises, one on her head, the other on her shoulder.

MASTER: Have you had her long?

HOSTESS:A fortnight at the most. She was abandoned at the

nearby staging-post.

MASTER: What, abandoned!

HOSTESS: Alas, yes. There are some people whose hearts are
harder than stone. She almost drowned trying to cross the river
which runs near here. She arrived here by a miracle and I took her
in out of charity.

MASTER: How old is she?

HOSTESS: I think a little more than a year and a half.

At this point Jacques burst out laughing and exclaimed: ‘Is it a
dog?’

HOSTESS:The prettiest animal in the world. I wouldn’t give my

poor Nicole away for ten louis. Poor Nicole!

MASTER: Madame has a kind heart.

HOSTESS: I have indeed. I look after my animals and my people.

MASTER: Good for you. But who are these people who treated
your Nicole so badly?

HOSTESS: Two bourgeois from the next town. They’re whispering

to each other non-stop and they think that people don’t know what
they’re saying, and nobody knows what they’re doing. They haven’t
been here for more than three hours and there’s not a single bit of
their business that I don’t know about. It’s an amusing story and if
you’re in as little hurry to go to bed as I am I’ll tell you everything
exactly as their servant told my servant, who, by coincidence,
comes from the same province and who told my husband who told
me. The mother-in-law of the younger one passed through here not
more than three months ago. She was going, against her will, to a
convent in the provinces where she didn’t last long. She’s dead and
that’s why our two young men are in mourning…
But look at me, I’m telling their story already. Good-night,
Messieurs, and sleep well… Was the wine to your liking?

MASTER: Very good.

HOSTESS: And were you happy with your supper?

MASTER: Very happy. Your spinach was a bit salty.

HOSTESS:I’m sometimes a little heavy-handed.27 You’ll be well

put up here, and in clean sheets. We never use them twice here.
Having said this, the innkeeper’s wife withdrew, and Jacques
and his master went to bed, laughing at the misunderstanding
which had made them take a dog for the daughter or servant of the
house and at their hostess’s passion for a stray dog which she had
only had for a fortnight. As Jacques tied up the head-band of his
master’s nightcap, he reflected on this: ‘I bet you that out of all the
things living in this inn that woman only loves her Nicole.’
His master replied: ‘That’s as may be, Jacques, but let’s go to
sleep.’
While Jacques and his master are sleeping I shall fulfil my
promise by telling you, or rather by having M. Gousse tell you,. the
story of the man in prison scraping away at the double-bass.
‘The third man’, he said to me…

… is the steward of an important house. He fell in love with the

wife of a pastry-cook in the rue de l’Université. The pastry-cook
was a decent sort of fellow who watched more carefully over his
oven than his wife’s conduct. It wasn’t so much his jealousy as his
zeal which hindered our two lovers. And how did they go about
removing this restriction? The steward showed his master a
petition where the pastry-cook was represented as a man of low
morals, a drunkard who never left the tavern, a brute who beat his
wife who was the best and most unfortunate of wives. On the
strength of this petition he managed to obtain an order under the
King’s private seal which forfeited the husband’s freedom and this
was put in the hands of a bailiff for execution without delay.28
It happened by chance that this bailiff was the pastry-cook’s
friend – they used occasionally to go to the tavern together. The
pastry-cook would provide some of his pastries and the bailiff
would buy the wine. This time the bailiff, carrying the sealed order
of the King, went to his friend’s door and signalled to him in the
usual way. When they were both eating their pastries and washing
them down with wine the bailiff asked his friend how business was.
‘Very good.’
‘No trouble at all?’
‘None.’
Had he any enemies?
Not that he knew of.
 How were things with his relations? His neighbours? His wife?
‘Very friendly. Peaceful.’
‘Well, how does it happen that I’ve got an order to arrest you? If
I did my duty I’d put my hand on your collar, there would be a
carriage ready and waiting and I would take you to the place
specified in the sealed order of the King? Here, read it.’
The pastry-cook read it and turned white.
The bailiff said to him: ‘Don’t worry about it. Let’s just work out
together the best thing we can do for my safety and for yours. Is
there anyone who goes to your shop frequently?’
‘No one.’
‘Your wife is pretty and a flirt.’
‘I let her do what she wants.’
‘Nobody’s after her?’
‘My God, no, unless it’s a certain steward who comes sometimes
and holds her hands and speaks nonsense in her ear. But it’s in my
shop, in front of me, in the presence of my lads, and I don’t think
anything’s going on between them which is not decent and above
board.’
‘You’re a good man.’
‘Maybe I am but it’s always the best course to believe one’s wife
to be honest, and that’s what I do.’
‘And this steward? Whose is he?’
‘He’s M. de Saint-Florentin’s.’29
‘And from whose offices do you think the sealed order of the
King came?’
‘From M. de Saint-Florentin’s perhaps?’
‘You said it.’
‘Oh… eat my pastries, make love to my wife, and have me
locked up, that’s too evil, and I can’t believe it.’
‘You’re a trusting sort. How’s your wife been over the last few
days?’
‘More sad than happy.’
‘And the steward, is it long since you’ve seen him?’
 ‘Yesterday, I think… yes, it was yesterday.’
‘Did you notice anything?’
‘I notice very little. But it seemed to me that when they said
goodbye they were making signs with their heads as if one were
saying yes and the other no.’
‘Whose head was saying yes?’
‘The steward’s.’
‘Either they’re both innocent or they’re both accomplices. Listen,
my friend, don’t go back to your house. Escape to some safe place,
to the temple or the abbey, wherever you want. In the meantime
let me take care of it. Above all remember…’
‘Not to show myself and to keep quiet.’
‘That’s right.’
At this very moment the pastry-cook’s house was surrounded by
spies, and police informers under all sorts of disguises went up to
the pastry-cook’s wife to ask for her husband. To the first she said
he was ill, to the second that he had left for a celebration and to a
third for a wedding. When would he be back? She didn’t know.
On the third day at two o’clock in the morning, the bailiff was
warned that a man whose face was hidden by his cloak had been
seen quietly opening the street door and slipping quietly inside the
pastry-cook’s house. Immediately the bailiff, accompanied by a
commissioner of police, a locksmith, a hackney carriage, and a few
constables, went to the scene. They picked the lock, and the bailiff
and the commissioner went quietly upstairs. They knocked on the
door of the pastry-cook’s wife’s bedroom: no reply. They knocked
again: still no reply. They knocked a third time and a voice from
inside asked who was there.
‘Open up.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Open up in the name of the King.’
‘Good,’ said the steward to the pastry-cook’s wife with whom he
was sleeping, ‘there’s nothing to worry about. It’s the bailiff come
to execute his order. Open up and I’ll identify myself, he’ll go away
and that’ll be the end of that.’
The pastry-cook’s wife, in her nightshirt, opened up and got back
into bed. The bailiff asked: ‘Where is your husband?’
‘He’s not here,’ the pastry-cook’s wife replied.
The bailiff pulled back the curtains and asked: ‘Who’s that there,
then?’
The steward replied: ‘It’s me. I’m M. de Saint-Florentin’s
steward.’
‘You’re lying. You’re the pastry-cook, because the pastry-cook is
the person who sleeps with the pastry-cook’s wife. Get up, put your
clothes on and follow me.’
He had to obey and so they brought him here. When the Minister
had been told of his steward’s villainy he approved of the bailiff’s
conduct. And the bailiff will be returning here at nightfall to take
him away and transfer him to Bicêtre where, thanks to the
economy of the prison governors, he will eat his quarter pound of
stale bread, his scrap of meat and scrape away on his double-bass
from morning to night.

If I were also to rest my head on the pillow while waiting for

Jacques and his master to wake up, what would you think?
The next day Jacques got up early, put his nose to the window to
see what the weather was like, saw it was abominable and went
back to bed again leaving his master and me to sleep for as long as
we wanted.
Jacques, his master and the other travellers who had stopped at
the same resting-place thought that the sky would clear at noon. It
did nothing of the sort, and since the rain from the storm had
swelled the stream which separated the suburb from the town to
such an extent that it would have been dangerous to cross it,
everyone travelling in that direction decided to lose a day and
wait. Some struck up conversations, others went back and forth,
putting their noses outside to look at the sky and then coming back
in swearing and stamping. Several set to drinking and talking about
politics. Many gambled. The rest occupied themselves in smoking,
sleeping and doing nothing.
The master said to Jacques: ‘I hope that Jacques will carry on
the story of his loves and that Heaven which wants me to have the
satisfaction of hearing the end will detain us here with this bad
weather.’

JACQUES: Heaven which wants! We never know what Heaven

wants or doesn’t want, and perhaps Heaven doesn’t even know
itself. My poor Captain, who is no longer, told me that a hundred
times, and the longer I’ve lived the more I’ve realized he was
right… Over to you, Master…

MASTER:I understand. You’d got up to the carriage and the valet

whom the surgeon’s wife had told to open the curtain and speak to
you.

JACQUES: The valet came over to my bed and said to me: ‘Come
along, friend. On your feet. Get dressed and then we’ll go.’
I replied to him from under the bedclothes which I had pulled
over my head without seeing or being seen: ‘Friend, go away and
let me sleep.’
The valet told me that he had his master’s orders which he had
to carry out.
‘And tell me, has your master, who gives orders to a man he
doesn’t know, given orders to pay what I owe here?’
‘That’s all taken care of. Hurry up. Everybody’s waiting for you
in the château and I guarantee you’ll be better off there than you
are here if the curiosity they all have about you is anything to go
by.’
I let him persuade me. I got up and dressed and he took me by
the arm. I had said goodbye to the surgeon’s wife and I was about
to get into the carriage when she came up to me, pulled me by the
sleeve, and asked me to go over into the corner of the room,
because she had something she wanted to say to me.
‘Now, my friend,’ she said, ‘you haven’t got any complaints
about us, have you? The surgeon saved your leg, and, as for me,
I’ve served you well and I hope you won’t forget that in the
château.’
‘What could I do for you there?’
‘Ask for my husband to come and bandage you. There are a lot
of people there. It’s the best practice in the area. The lord of the
château is a generous man and pays well. It’s simply a question of
you doing that and we would make our fortune. My husband’s tried
several times to get in there, but to no avail.’
‘But, Madame, is there not a surgeon at the château?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And if this other surgeon were your husband, would you be
happy if someone was to do him a bad turn and get him thrown
out?’
‘This surgeon is a man to whom you owe nothing and I think you
owe something to my husband. If you are walking around on two
legs now it’s only because of what he’s done.’
‘And because your husband’s done me some good, you want me
to do harm to someone else! Now, if the position were vacant…’
Jacques was about to continue when their hostess came in
carrying Nicole, who was wearing a coat, kissing her, pitying her
and caressing and speaking to her as if she were a child: ‘My poor
Nicole! She only cried once all night. And you, Messieurs, did you
sleep well?’

MASTER: Very well.

HOSTESS: The weather’s closed in on all sides.

JACQUES: We’re quite put out about that.

HOSTESS: Are you gentlemen going far?

JACQUES: We don’t know.

HOSTESS: Are you gentlemen following someone?

JACQUES: We’re not following anyone.

HOSTESS: Perhaps you gentlemen stop and go according to the

business you have along the way.
 JACQUES: We have none.

HOSTESS: You are travelling for pleasure, perhaps?

JACQUES: Or for our pains.

HOSTESS: I hope it’s the former.

JACQUES: Your hopes won’t make a scrap of difference. It will be

however it is written up above.

HOSTESS: Oh!… Is it a wedding?

JACQUES: Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t.

HOSTESS: Messieurs, be careful. That man downstairs who treated

my poor Nicole so badly made the most ridiculous marriage. Come
along, my poor little animal, come here and let me kiss you. I
promise you it won’t happen again. Just look at the way she’s
shaking all over.

MASTER: And what was so unusual about the man’s marriage?

At this question of Jacques’ master the hostess said: ‘I hear noise

downstairs. I must go and give my orders and then I’ll come back
and tell you about it.’
Her husband, who was tired of calling out ‘Wife! wife!’, came up
followed by a neighbour whom he hadn’t seen.
He said to his wife, ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ and
then to his acquaintance, ‘Hello, old chap, have you brought me
some money?’
‘No, my friend, you know well I haven’t got any.’
‘You haven’t got any? I’ll make some soon enough with your
plough, your horses, your oxen and your bed. Hey, you scoundrel.’
‘I am not a scoundrel.’
‘What are you, then? You’re living in abject poverty. You don’t
even know how you’re going to get the seed to sow your fields.
Your landlord’s tired of advancing you money and won’t lend any
more. So you come to me, and this woman, this damned gossip
who’s the cause of all of the follies of my life, persuades me to lend
to you. I lend you money, you promise to pay me back and you fail
me ten times. Oh! I promise you I won’t let you down! Get out of
here! Get out!’
Jacques and his master were getting ready to intercede for the
poor devil but the hostess put her finger on her lips and signalled
them to keep quiet.

HOST: Get out of here!

PEASANT: Everything you say is true and it’s also true that the
bailiffs are at my house and in a short time from now we’ll be
reduced to begging, my daughter, my son and I.

HOST: That’s what you deserve. What have you come here for this
morning? I had to stop bottling my wine, come up out of the cellar,
and you weren’t here when you should have been. Get out of here,
I tell you.

PEASANT:Friend, I did come, but I was afraid of the reception I’d

get and now I’m off again.

HOST: Good idea.

PEASANT:And now my poor little Marguerite who’s so pretty and

well behaved will have to go into service in Paris.

HOST: In service in Paris! You want to ruin her, do you?

PEASANT: It’s not me that wants it, it’s the hard-hearted man I’m
speaking to.

HOST:Me, hard-hearted? I’m nothing of the sort. I never was that,

and you know it well.
 PEASANT:I no longer have enough money to feed my daughter or
my son. My daughter will go into service. My son will join up.

HOST: And it’s me who will be the cause of that? Well, it’s not
going to happen. You’re a cruel man. As long as I live, you’ll be my
cross. Now let’s see what we can do for you.

PEASANT: You can do nothing for me. I’m heartbroken that I owe
you anything, and I’ll never again owe you anything. You do more
harm with your insults than you do good with your deeds. If I had
the money I’d throw it in your face, but I haven’t got it so my
daughter will become whatever God pleases and my son will get
himself killed if necessary. As for me I’ll go begging but it won’t be
at your door. I’ll not incur any more obligations towards such a
wicked man as you. Make sure you get yourself paid out of my
oxen and horses and implements – and much good may it do you.
You were born to make people ungrateful and I don’t want to be
ungrateful. Goodbye for ever.

HOST: Wife! He’s going away. Stop him!

HOSTESS: Come here, friend, let’s try and find a way to help you.

PEASANT: I don’t want any of his help. It costs too much.

The host kept muttering to his wife: ‘Don’t let him go, stop him.
His daughter in Paris! His son in the army! Him at the door of the
parish! I won’t have it.’
However, his wife’s efforts were useless. The peasant had
integrity and didn’t want to take anything, and it took four people
to stop him from leaving. The innkeeper, tears in his eyes, turned
towards Jacques and his master and said: ‘Messieurs, try to make
him change his mind.’
Jacques and his master intervened and everybody was
beseeching the peasant at the same time. If ever I saw…
– If ever you saw? But you weren’t there. You mean if ever
anyone saw…
Oh well, all right. If ever anybody saw a man become put out by
a refusal and then become enraptured that somebody would take
his money, it was this innkeeper. He kissed his wife, kissed Jacques
and his master, and shouted: ‘Come on, quickly, let’s get those
damned bailiffs out of his house.’

PEASANT: But you must agree that…

HOST: I agree that I spoil everything, but what do you want, my

friend? You see me as I am. Nature made me the hardest-hearted
man and the softest-hearted man. I don’t know either how to give
or how to refuse.

PEASANT: Could you not be different?

HOST: I am at the age when hardly anyone corrects themselves,

but if the very first people who came to me for help had snubbed
me as you have just done, perhaps I would have been a better man.
Friend, I thank you for your lesson. Perhaps I will benefit from it…
Wife, go quickly, go down and give him whatever he needs… Devil
take it, hurry up, will you, damn it, hurry up, you’re so… Woman, I
beseech you to hurry up a bit and not keep him waiting. And after
that, you can come straight back to these gentlemen with whom
you seem to get on so well.
The wife and the peasant went down. Their host stayed for a
moment and when he had gone away Jacques said to his master:
‘What a peculiar man! And what does our Destiny, which sent bad
weather to delay us here so that you could hear about my love life,
hold in store for us now, I wonder?’
His master, who was stretched out in his armchair yawning and
tapping his snuff-box, replied: ‘Jacques, we have more than one
day to live together, unless…’

JACQUES: What you are saying is that today our Destiny is for me
to keep my mouth shut, or, to put it another way, for our hostess to
speak. She’s a chatterbox and that will obviously suit her. Let her
speak, then!
 MASTER: You’re getting cross.

JACQUES: Well, I like to talk too.

MASTER: Your turn will come.

JACQUES: Or not come.

I know what you are thinking, Reader, you are thinking that this
is the real denouement of the Rough Diamond.30 I believe it is. If I
had been the author I would have introduced into this little work a
character whom one would have taken as being episodic, but who
would, in fact, not have been. This character would have appeared
a few times, and some motive would have been given for his
appearances. The first time he would have come to ask for grace,
but the fear of a hostile welcome would have made him leave
before the arrival of Géronte. Pressed by the bailiffs breaking into
his house, the second time he would have had the courage to wait
for Géronte, but Géronte would have refused to see him. Eventually
I would have brought him on at the denouement, where he would
have played the same role the peasant did with the innkeeper. Like
the peasant he would have had a daughter whom he was going to
place with a dressmaker, a son whom he was going to withdraw
from school and send into service, and as for him, he would have
decided to beg until he became tired of living. We would have seen
the Rough Diamond at the feet of this man. We would have heard
the Rough Diamond rebuked because he merited it. He would have
been obliged to appeal to his whole family around him in order to
move his debtor to pity to persuade him to accept fresh help. The
Rough Diamond would have been punished. He would have
promised to correct himself but at this very moment he would
revert to his true character and, losing patience with the characters
on stage, who would, by now, be exchanging civilities in order to
go back into the house, he would have said brusquely: ‘May the
devil take these damned…’ but he would have stopped dead in the
middle of the word, and in a softer tone he would have said to his
nieces: ‘Come along, girls, take my hand and we’ll go…’
– And in order that this character should be better integrated
into the play, you would have made this character a protégé of
Géronte’s nephew?
Very good.
– And it would have been at the nephew’s request that the uncle
lent him money?
Perfect.
– And this loan would have been a bone of contention between
uncle and nephew?
Exactly that.
– And the denouement of this agreeable play, would it not have
been a repeat with the whole family in chorus of what he had
previously said with each of them individually?
You’re right.
– Well then, if ever I meet Monsieur Goldoni I will repeat the
scene in the inn to him.
You would do well there. He’s got more than enough talent to
make something of it.
The hostess came back, still carrying Nicole in her arms, and
said: ‘I hope to give you a good dinner. The poacher’s just come,
which means the squire’s gamekeeper will not be far behind’, and
as she was speaking she took a chair, ‘One should always be
suspicious of servants. Masters do not have a worse enemy.’

JACQUES: Madame, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

There are good ones and bad ones and it might be that there are
more good valets than good masters.

MASTER:Jacques, you are not being very circumspect and are

committing precisely the same indiscretion which shocked you.

JACQUES: It’s just that masters…

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.’

JACQUES: And one never has to go too far to find one…

HOSTESS:What are you interfering for? I am a woman and entitled

to say whatever I like about women without your approval.

JACQUES: My approval’s worth just as much as another’s.

HOSTESS: Monsieur, you have a valet who thinks he knows about

everything and is not showing you proper respect. I have valets
too, but I would like them to get it into their heads…

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:
Than father, mother, sisters, children, valets,
husbands…

HOSTESS: Yes, that’s right. There’s nothing to laugh at. They’re

perfectly innocent, faithful, never do any harm, while all those
others…

JACQUES:Long live dogs! There’s nothing more perfect under

God’s heaven.

HOSTESS: If there is anything more perfect it certainly isn’t man. I

wish you knew the carpenter’s dog. He’s my Nicole’s lover. There’s
not one amongst the lot of you whom he wouldn’t make blush with
shame. He comes as soon as day breaks, from more than a league
away, to station himself under this window. And his sighs, they’d
break anyone’s heart. No matter what the weather is like he stays
there. The rain falls down on him. He sinks into the mud so that
you can hardly see his ears and the end of his nose. Would you do
so much for the woman you loved best?

MASTER: That’s very gallant.

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.’

JACQUES: You haven’t said anything yet.

HOSTESS:
Those two men with whom I was arguing about Nicole
when you arrived, Monsieur.

JACQUES: Say – Messieurs.

HOSTESS: Why?

JACQUES: Because up to now we’ve been treated politely and I’ve

got used to it. My master calls me Jacques, but others call me –
Monsieur Jacques.
 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: How do you know that?

HOSTESS: They said so.

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.’

JACQUES: It’s a terrible shame never to know where one is going.

HOSTESS: The elder of the two is called the Marquis des Arcis. He
used to be a man of pleasure, very likeable, although he is sceptical
about feminine virtue.

JACQUES: He’s right.

HOSTESS: Monsieur Jacques, you’re interrupting me.

JACQUES: Madame, hostess of the Grand-Cerf, I’m not talking to

you.

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.

JACQUES: Ah! If that had been written up above!

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?’

JACQUES: Nobody.
‘It is even possible, Marquise, that the longer I am away, the
more you will gain by comparison and I will return to you more
passionate, more tender, more than ever convinced that Mme de La
Pommeraye is the only woman with whom I could be happy. After
my return it is almost certain that I would stay with you until the
end of my life.’
‘What if you did not find me on your return? After all, Marquis,
life is not always fair and it is not impossible that I might develop a
taste, a fancy or even a passion for someone who is not your equal.’
‘I certainly would be very unhappy, but I couldn’t complain
except that Fate should have separated us when we were united
and brought us back together when we could no longer be
together…’
After this conversation they started to moralize on the
inconstancy of the human heart, the frivolity of oaths, of marriage
vows…

‘Madame!’
 ‘What is it?’
‘The coach!’
‘Messieurs,’ said the hostess, ‘I must leave you. This evening after
I’ve finished my work I’ll come back and finish the story if you’re
interested.’
‘Madame!’
‘Wife!’
‘Hostess!’
‘Coming, coming.’
When the hostess had gone the master said to his valet: ‘Did you
notice anything, Jacques?’

JACQUES: What?

MASTER: This woman tells a story much better than an innkeeper’s

wife ought to.

JACQUES: That is true. The constant interruptions from the people

of the house annoyed me several times.

MASTER: And me too.

And you, Reader, speak without dissimulation, because, as you
can see, we have struck a rich vein of honesty. Would you like us
to leave our elegant and prolix gossip of a hostess here and come
back to Jacques’ loves? I don’t mind which. When this woman
comes back up again, that chatterbox Jacques couldn’t ask for
better than to take over her part and shut the door in her face. All
he would have to do would be to shout through the keyhole: ‘Good
night, Madame. My master is sleeping and I’m going to bed. The
rest will have to wait until we come back.’
The first oath sworn by two creatures of flesh and blood was at
the foot of a rock that was turning into dust. They called upon the
heavens (which are never the same from one instant to the next) to
witness their constancy. Although everything inside them and
outside of them was changing, they believed their hearts to be
immune to change. Oh children! You are still children…
 I don’t know whether these reflections were made by Jacques,
his master, or by me. What is certain, however, is that they were
made by one of the three of us, and that they were preceded and
followed by a great many others which would have taken Jacques,
his master and me up till we had finished supper, and until the
return of the innkeeper’s wife, if Jacques had not said to his
master: ‘Listen, Monsieur, all those grand phrases you’ve just
rattled off without rhyme or reason are not worth half as much as
an old fable told at harvest gatherings in my village.’

MASTER: And what fable is this?

JACQUES: It is the fable of the Knife and the Sheath.

One day the Knife and the Sheath started quarrelling. Knife said
to Sheath: ‘My dear, you are a hussy, because every day you allow
a new knife to enter you.’
Sheath replied: ‘Friend Knife, you are a rogue, because every day
you put your blade into another sheath.’
‘That is not what you promised me, Sheath.’
‘You were unfaithful to me first, Knife.’
The discussion had started at table and he that was seated
between them spake thus: ‘You, Knife, and you, Sheath, did well to
change, since to change gave you pleasure, but you did wrong to
promise each other that you would not change.
‘Do you not see that God made you to fit into several sheaths,
Knife?
‘And you to take more than one knife, Sheath?
‘You thought that those knives who swear that they will always
do without sheaths are mad, as are those sheaths who swear that
they will never allow any knife to enter into them.
‘And yet you did not consider that you were almost as mad as
them when you swore to allow only one knife to enter you, Sheath,
and you, Knife, to confine yourself to only one sheath.’

And the master said to Jacques: ‘I do not find your fable very
moral, but it’s certainly a merry one. You’ll never guess what
strange idea has just come to me. I see you married to the
innkeeper’s wife and wonder what a husband who loves to speak
would do with a wife who won’t stop talking.’

JACQUES: What I did for the first twelve years of my life, which I
spent with my grandparents.

MASTER: What were their names? What did they do?

JACQUES: They dealt in second-hand clothes. My grandfather

Jason32 had several children. All the family was serious. They
would get up, get dressed, go about their business, come back, have
lunch and then go off again without saying a word. At night they
would sit down. The mother and the girls would spin, sew or knit
in silence. The boys would rest and the father would read the Old
Testament.

MASTER: And what would you do?

JACQUES: I would run around the room with a gag on.

MASTER: With a gag!

JACQUES: Yes, with a gag, and it’s because of that damned gag
that I’ve got a mania for talking. A whole week would go by
sometimes without anyone in the Jason household opening their
mouth. During her entire life, which was long, the only thing my
grandmother ever said was ‘Hats for sale’, and my grandfather,
who would always be amongst his ledgers, upright, his hands under
his frock-coat, had only ever said ‘One sou.’ There were days when
he was tempted not to believe in the Bible.

MASTER: Why was that?

JACQUES: Because of the repetitions in it which he regarded as

idle chatter unworthy of the Holy Spirit. He used to say that people
who repeated themselves were idiots who took those who listened
to them for idiots.

MASTER: Jacques, to compensate for the long silence you kept

during the twelve years you were gagged at your grandfather’s and
also while our hostess was speaking, perhaps you could…

JACQUES: Come back to the story of my loves?

MASTER: No, not that one, but another story on which you’ve left
me in suspense – the story of your Captain’s friend.

JACQUES: Oh, Master, what a cruel memory you have!

MASTER: Jacques, my dear Jacques!

JACQUES: What are you laughing at?

MASTER: At something which will make me laugh more than once.

I’m picturing you at your grandfather’s in your youth, with your
gag.

JACQUES: My grandmother used to take it off me when there was

nobody about but my grandfather was not very happy if he saw
that and he’d say: ‘Carry on and that child will become the most
frantic chatterbox who’s ever existed.’
His prediction has been fulfilled.

MASTER: Come on, Jacques, my dear Jacques, the story of your

Captain’s friend.

JACQUES: I’ll tell it if you want, but you’re not going to believe it.

MASTER: Is it that incredible?

JACQUES: No, but it has happened to someone else already, a

French soldier, I believe, called M. de Guerchy.33
 MASTER: Well, I shall reply in the words of a French poet who had
written quite a witty epigram and who said to someone else who
claimed to have written it: ‘Why shouldn’t Monsieur have written
it? I managed to write it…’
Why shouldn’t Jacques’ story have happened to his Captain’s
friend since it certainly happened to the French soldier de
Guerchy? If you tell it to me you’ll kill two birds with one stone,
since you’ll tell the story of two people which I don’t know.

JACQUES: So much the better, but will you swear you don’t know
it?

MASTER: I swear it.

Reader, I’m terribly tempted to insist on the same oath from you,
but I will simply point out to you a strange aspect of Jacques’
character which he inherited, apparently, from his grandfather
Jason, the silent second-hand clothes dealer. It is that Jacques,
contrary to most chatterers, although he loved talking, had a
profound dislike of repetition. That is why he would sometimes say
to his master: ‘Monsieur is preparing the saddest future for me.
What will become of me when I have nothing left to say?’
‘You will begin again.’
‘Jacques! Begin again! The opposite is written up above, and if I
should ever begin again I would not be able to prevent myself from
crying out: “Ah! If only your grandfather could hear you now!” –
and I would miss the gag.’
‘You mean the gag he used to make you wear?’

JACQUES: In the days when one played games of chance in the

fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent…

MASTER:
But they’re in Paris and your Captain’s friend was
commanding officer of a border post.

JACQUES: For the love of God, master, let me speak…

Several officers went into a shop and found another officer there
talking to the lady of the shop. One of them suggested a game of
dice to him, because you should know that after my Captain’s
death his friend, having become rich, took to gambling as well. So,
he, or, if you prefer, M. de Guerchy, accepted. Fortune gave his
opponent the dice box and he won and won and won and it seemed
that it would never end. The game became heated, and they had
played for simple stakes and double stakes, high and low, played
finally for quadruple stakes and then all or nothing, when one of
the spectators took it into his head to say to M. de Guerchy, or my
Captain’s friend, that he’d do better to call it a day and stop
playing because there was more to it than he could see. On hearing
this, which was only a joke, my Captain’s friend, or M. de Guerchy,
thought he was dealing with a cheat. He discreetly put his hand in
his pocket and brought out a sharp knife. As soon as his opponent
stretched out his hand to gather up the dice and put them in the
dice box he stuck his knife in his hand, pinning it to the table, and
said: ‘If the dice are loaded, you are a cheat. If they are good, I am
wrong.’
The dice were good. M. de Guerchy said: ‘I am very sorry and I
will give you whatever compensation you want.’
That was not what my Captain’s friend said. He said: ‘I have lost
all my money and wounded a good man’s hand. But, in return, I
have rediscovered the pleasure of being able to fight for as long as I
want.’
The wounded officer withdrew to have himself bandaged. When
he had recovered, he went to see the officer who had knifed him to
demand satisfaction. Monsieur de Guerchy found this request quite
reasonable. My Captain’s friend threw his arms round his neck and
said: ‘I have been so impatient for you to come. I can’t tell you
how…’
They went off and fought. The knifeman, M. de Guerchy or my
Captain’s friend, received a sword thrust to the body. The knifed
officer picked him up, had him carried home and said: ‘Monsieur,
we will see each other again.’
Monsieur de Guerchy didn’t say anything, but my Captain’s
friend replied: ‘I am counting on it.’
They fought a second and third time, then eight or ten times,
and it was always the knifeman who was wounded. However, they
were both officers of distinction and merit. Their story was much
talked of and the Minister intervened. One was kept in Paris and
the other confined to his post. Monsieur de Guerchy obeyed the
orders of the Court whereas my Captain’s friend was very unhappy
about it, and such is the difference between two men of brave
character, one of whom is wise and the other slightly mad.
Up to this point the stories of M. de Guerchy and my Captain’s
friend are identical. They are one and the same story and that is
why I have named them both, do you understand, Master? Here I
shall separate them, and from now on speak only of my Captain’s
friend, because the rest of the story concerns him alone. Ah!
Monsieur, this will show you how little we are masters of our
destinies, and how many strange things there are inscribed on the
great scroll.
My Captain’s friend, or the knifeman, requested leave to return
to his birthplace and obtained it. His route was via Paris. He took a
seat in a public carriage. At three o’clock in the morning the
carriage passed in front of the Opera, just as all the people were
coming out of a ball. Three or four young scatterbrains, all wearing
masks, decided to join the coach and go off for breakfast. The
coach reached the scheduled breakfast stop just as day was
breaking. And what a surprise it was for the knifed officer to
recognize the man who had knifed him. The latter offered his hand,
embraced him and told him how pleased he was at such a
fortuitous meeting. Straight away they went behind a barn and
drew their swords, the one in his frock-coat, the other in his
ballroom mask. The knifeman, or my Captain’s friend, ended up
wounded on the ground once again. His adversary sent help to him
and then sat down to table with his friends and the other people in
the carriage and ate and drank a hearty meal.

The travellers were about to continue on their journey and the

others to go back into town in their masks on their hired horses
when their hostess reappeared and put an end to Jacques’ story.
Here she is, come back again, and I warn you, Reader, that it is
no longer in my power to send her away again.
 – Why not?
Because she has presented herself carrying two bottles of
champagne, one in each hand, and it is written up above that any
orator who addresses Jacques with an introduction such as that
will inevitably be listened to. She came in, put her two bottles on
to the table and said: ‘Come along, Monsieur Jacques, let’s bury the
hatchet.’
Their hostess was not in the first flush of youth. She was a tall
sturdy lady, nimble, good looking, with a very generous figure. Her
mouth was a little on the large side, but she had nice teeth, large
cheeks, protuberant eyes, a square forehead, the nicest skin, a
lively, cheerful and open face, and breasts large enough to roll
around in for two whole days. Her arms were a bit brawny, but her
hands superb, the kind of hands one would want to paint or sculpt.
Jacques took her around the waist and embraced her warmly.
His bitterness had never held out against a good wine or a
handsome woman. That was written up above about him, about
you, Reader, about me and about a good many others.
‘Monsieur!’ she said to the master, ‘you aren’t going to let us
drink alone, are you? I tell you, even if you’ve got another hundred
leagues to go, you won’t find a better bottle of champagne on the
way,’ and speaking thus she placed one of the bottles between her
legs, pulled the cork, and covered the neck of the bottle with such
dexterity that not a drop of the wine was spilt.
‘Quick,’ she said to Jacques, ‘your glass, quickly!’
Jacques held out his glass and the hostess lifted her thumb a
little, uncovering the top of the bottle slightly and covering
Jacques’ face with foam. Jacques went along with this monkey
business and the hostess, Jacques and his master all started
laughing. They drank a few glasses, one after the other, to assure
themselves of the wisdom of the bottle and then the hostess said:
‘Thank God they’re all in their beds. No one will interrupt me any
more and I can carry on with my story.’
Jacques, looking at her with eyes whose natural vivacity had
been augmented by the champagne, said to her, or his master: ‘Our
hostess was once as beautiful as an angel, don’t you think,
Monsieur?’
 MASTER: Was once? By God, Jacques, she still is.

JACQUES:Monsieur, you’re quite right. It’s just that I’m not

comparing her to any other woman but rather to herself when she
was young.

HOSTESS: I’m not much to look at these days. Time was when a
man could put his thumbs and index fingers round my waist and
have room to spare. You should have seen me then! People used to
come four leagues out of their way to stay here. But let’s not talk
about all the good and bad admirers I’ve had and let us come back
to Mme de La Pommeraye.

JACQUES: Before we do that, perhaps we could drink the health of

all your bad admirers, or my health.

HOSTESS: Willingly. Some of them were worth it, even if I don’t

take you into account. Do you know that for ten whole years I was
the officers’ financial standby, everything above board. I must have
helped scores of them who would have had an awful job getting
themselves kitted out for the year’s campaigning without me. But
they were good men and I’ve no cause to complain about any of
them, nor them of me. I never asked for pledges, though sometimes
they used to make me wait. But at the end of two, three or four
years my money was returned…

And of course that set her off on the list of officers who had done
her the honour of drawing from her purse, the colonel of the ††††
Regiment, Captain so and so of the ****** Regiment, and Jacques
cried out: ‘My Captain! My poor Captain! Did you know him then?’

HOSTESS: Did I know him! Tall man. Well built. A little thin. A
severe but noble manner. A well-shaped leg. And two little red
marks on his right temple. Have you seen service?

JACQUES: Have I seen service!

 HOSTESS:I like you even better for it. You must have some of the
good qualities of your first occupation left. Let’s drink the health of
your Captain.

JACQUES: If he is still alive.

HOSTESS: Dead or alive, what’s that got to do with it? What are
soldiers for if not to be killed? But God, it must be annoying, after
ten sieges and five or six battles, to find oneself dying in the middle
of that black-coated rabble…34 But let’s get back to our story and
have another drink.

MASTER: By God, hostess, you’re right there.

HOSTESS: Oh! You were speaking of my wine, were you? Well, you
are still right. Do you remember where we were?

MASTER: Yes. At the end of one of the most perfidious of

confidences.

HOSTESS: Monsieur le Marquis des Arcis and Mme de La

Pommeraye embraced, absolutely delighted with each other, and
went their ways. But because she had suppressed her feelings so
much when he was there, her grief was all the more violent when
he had left.
‘It’s only too true…’ she cried out, ‘he doesn’t love me any more.’
I will not describe to you in detail all the wild and foolish things
we women do when we are abandoned because that would only
flatter your vanity. I have already told you that this woman was
proud, but her pride was nothing to her vindictiveness. When her
first furies had calmed and her mood turned to cold indignation her
thoughts turned to avenging herself, and to avenging herself in a
cruel way, in a way which would frighten all those who in future
would be tempted to seduce and deceive honest women. She had
her revenge, a cruel revenge, a public revenge, but it turned
against her and served as a lesson to no one. Since that time we
have not been any the less cruelly seduced or deceived.
 JACQUES: That may be the case for other women, but what about
you?

HOSTESS: Alas! Me even more than other women. Oh, we are so

stupid! And it is not even as if these wicked men come out of it any
better! But let us leave that. What will she do? She has not decided
anything yet. She will dream of it. She dreams of it.

JACQUES: If, perhaps, while she is dreaming…

HOSTESS: Yes, well said. But our bottles are empty…

‘Jean!’
‘Yes, Madame.’
‘Bring up two bottles from the special reserve at the back, behind
the firewood.’
‘I understand.’

Eventually, after much thought, this is the idea she had. In

earlier times Mme de La Pommeraye had once known a woman
from the provinces who had been obliged to come up to Paris with
her daughter, who was young and beautiful and well brought up.
She had learnt that this woman, ruined by the loss of her case, had
been reduced to running a bawdy-house.35 People used to go to her
house, gamble, have dinner and generally one or two of her guests
would stay and spend the night with either the lady of the house or
her daughter, at their choice. She set one of her people on the trail
of these creatures. They were tracked down and invited to visit
Mme de La Pommeraye, whom, of course, they hardly
remembered. These women had taken the names Mme and Mlle
d’Aisnon and they did not wait for a second invitation. The very
next day the mother arrived to see Mme de La Pommeraye. After
paying her compliments Mme de La Pommeraye asked the d’Aisnon
woman what she was doing and what she had been doing since the
loss of her case.
‘To tell you the truth,’ replied the d’Aisnon woman, ‘I am in a
dangerous business which is shameful, hardly lucrative, and which
revolts me. But necessity knows no law. I had almost decided to get
my daughter taken on at the Opera but she only has a little
chamber music voice and has never been more than a mediocre
dancer. I took her all round Paris, during and after my trial, to
magistrates, noblemen, priests, speculators, and they all showed
interest for a while, but then lost interest. It’s not that she isn’t
beautiful, nor that she’s not pretty as an angel, and it’s not because
she lacks finesse or grace. It’s just that there’s no devilry in her,
none of those talents needed for stirring jaded men from their
lethargy. So these days I ask people to gamble and eat, and
whoever wants to stay the night stays. But what hindered us the
most is that she became infatuated with some aristocratic little
abbé who is impious, unbelieving, dissolute, hypocritical, anti-
philosophical and whom I won’t name.36 He is only the latest in a
long line of them who in order to obtain a bishopric have taken the
route which is at the same time the most sure and the one
requiring the least talent. I don’t know what he used to say to my
daughter, but he used to come every day and read her extracts
from his latest compilation or whatever he had scribbled over his
lunch or dinner. Would he be bishop, wouldn’t he be bishop?
Anyway, thank God they fell out. My daughter asked him one day
if he knew the people he was writing against and the little priest
told her that he didn’t. She asked him if his views were any
different from those of the people he ridiculed and he told her they
were not. She allowed herself to lose her temper and told him that
what he was doing made him the most wicked and two-faced of
men.’
Madame de La Pommeraye asked her if they were both very well
known.
‘Far too well, unfortunately.’
‘From what I can see you don’t care for your present condition.’
‘Not at all, and my daughter complains daily that even the most
miserable existence would be preferable to hers. She is now so
melancholic that she’s putting the men off…’
‘What if I took it into my head to give you both the most
brilliant future? Would you agree to it?’
‘I’d agree to a lot less.’
 ‘But first of all I must know whether you are able to promise me
that you will follow to the letter the orders I will give you.’
‘Whatever it is, you can count on it.’
‘And will you be at my disposal whenever I want?’
‘We will await your orders with impatience.’
‘That is enough. You may go now and you will not have long to
wait. While you are waiting, get rid of your possessions. Sell
everything. Do not keep even your dresses if you have any that are
even slightly gaudy. That would not fit in with my plans at all.’

Jacques, who had begun to get interested, said to their hostess:

‘Perhaps if we were to drink to the health of Mme de La
Pommeraye?’

HOSTESS: Willingly.

JACQUES: And the health of Mme d’Aisnon?

HOSTESS: Cheers.

JACQUES: And you won’t refuse to drink to the health of Mlle

d’Aisnon who has such a pretty little chamber-music voice, not
much talent for dancing and is so melancholic that she is reduced
to the sad necessity of accepting a new lover every night?

HOSTESS:
There’s no need to laugh. It’s the cruellest thing. If only
you knew what torture it is when you are not in love.

JACQUES: To the health of Mile d’Aisnon, because of her tortures.

HOSTESS: Come on, then.

JACQUES: Hostess, do you love your husband?

HOSTESS: Not much.

JACQUES: In that case I am very sorry for you because he seems in

good health to me.

HOSTESS: Everything that glistens is not gold.

JACQUES: To the good health of our host.

HOSTESS: You’ll drink alone to that.

MASTER: Jacques, Jacques, my friend, you’re drinking very fast.

HOSTESS:
Don’t worry, Monsieur, it’s good stuff and there won’t be
any hangover tomorrow.

JACQUES: Because there won’t be any hangover tomorrow and

because tonight I’m not too concerned about my reason, my
master, my beautiful hostess, one more toast, a toast which I’m
very keen on drinking: To the health of Mlle d’Aisnon’s little priest!

HOSTESS: Ah, no, Monsieur Jacques! A hypocrite, an ambitious,

ignorant, intolerant slanderer – for that is what I think one calls
people who are prepared to cut the throats of others because they
think differently.

MASTER: What you don’t know, Madame, our hostess, is that

Jacques here is a sort of philosopher and he has great esteem for
those little imbeciles who dishonour both themselves and the cause
they are defending so badly. He says that his Captain used to call
them the antidote of the Huets, Nicoles and Bossuets of this
world.37 Jacques didn’t know what that means any more than
you… Is your husband in bed?

HOSTESS: He went some time ago.

MASTER: And he allows you to chat away like this?

HOSTESS:
Our husbands are used to it… Madame de La
Pommeraye got into her carriage and combed the suburbs as far
away as possible from Mme d’Aisnon’s quarter. She rented a small
apartment in a respectable house near a church, furnished it as
simply as possible and invited Mme d’Aisnon and her daughter to
dinner. She moved them in on the same day or a few days after,
leaving them with a set of rules they were to abide by.

JACQUES: Madame, our hostess! We have forgotten to drink to the

health of Mme de La Pommeraye and the Chevalier des Arcis. Ah!
That is not honourable!

HOSTESS: Go ahead, Monsieur Jacques, the cellar isn’t empty…

Here are their rules – or what I remember of them:
‘You will not go near public places because you must not be
recognized.
‘You must not receive anyone into your house, not even your
neighbours or their wives, because you must affect to lead a very
secluded life.
‘From tomorrow you must dress like church-goers because
people must take you for such.
‘The only books which you may have in your house are books of
devotion because there must be nothing around you which can
betray you.
‘You will attend the services of the parish with the greatest
assiduity, both on work days and feast days.
‘You will find a way of introducing yourselves into the parlour of
some convent, because the chitter-chatter of these recluses will not
be without use to us.
‘You will strike up the closest acquaintance with the parish priest
and the other priests in the parish because we may need them to
act as references for you.
‘You will not allow anyone to visit you regularly.
‘You will go to confession and take communion at least twice a
month.
‘You will resume your family name because it is an unsullied
name and sooner or later inquiries will be made in your province.
‘From time to time you will make small charitable donations but
you will never accept any alms under any pretext whatsoever.
Nobody must think you either rich or poor.
‘You must spin, sew, knit and embroider and give all your work
to the sisters of charity to be sold.
‘You will live in the strictest sobriety. Two small portions sent up
to you from the inn and that is it.
‘Your daughter will never go out without you, nor you without
her.
‘You will neglect no way of offering an edifying spectacle if it is
inexpensive.
‘Above all you must never, and I repeat, never, receive into your
house either priests, monks or church-goers.
‘In the streets you will go about with your eyes at all times
lowered. In the church you will have eyes only for God.
‘I admit that this life is austere but it won’t last for long, and I
promise you that you will be well rewarded for it. Now, consider it.
If this discipline seems beyond your capabilities, admit it to me and
I will be neither offended nor surprised. I forgot to tell you that it
would be fitting for you to familiarize yourselves with all the
verbiage of mysticism and the story of the Old and New testaments
so that you will be taken for church-goers of long standing. Make
yourselves Jansenists or Jesuits,38 whichever you want, but it
would be best for you to be of the same inclination as your parish
priest. And be sure at every opportunity, appropriate or
inappropriate, to heap invective on the Philosophers. Cry out that
Voltaire is the Antichrist. Learn by heart the writings of your little
priest and circulate them if necessary…’
Madame de La Pommeraye added: ‘I will not come to see you at
your house. I am not worthy to be the guest of such devout women.
But do not worry. You will come here secretly sometimes and we
will privately find ways of making up for the austerity of your
penitential regime. But, however much you play at devotion, you
must not let yourselves become seriously caught up in it. As for the
expense of your little household, I will see to all that. If my plan
succeeds, you will no longer have need of me. If it goes wrong
through no fault of yours, I am rich enough to ensure that you have
an honest future, better than the life you have sacrificed for me.
But above all I require submission, absolute, unlimited submission,
to my will, without which I will guarantee nothing for the moment
and make no promises for the future.’

MASTER (tapping his snuff-box and looking at his watch to see the
time): What a terrible woman. God preserve me from the likes of
her.

HOSTESS: Patience, patience, you don’t know her yet.

JACQUES:Perhaps, while we are waiting, my beautiful, my

charming hostess, if we could consult the bottle?

HOSTESS: Monsieur Jacques, my champagne makes me grow

prettier in your eyes.

MASTER: I have been dying to ask you a question for ages. It may
be a little indiscreet but I don’t think I can wait.

HOSTESS: Ask your question.

MASTER: I am sure that you were not born in an inn.

HOSTESS: That is correct.

MASTER: And that you were brought to one from a higher estate
through the most extraordinary circumstances.

HOSTESS: I admit that.

MASTER: Perhaps if we left the story of Mme de La Pommeraye…

HOSTESS: That is not possible. I willingly tell the stories of others,

but never my own. I will tell you this much and no more. I was
brought up in Saint-Cyr where I read a little of the Gospel and a lot
of novels. The road from the Royal Abbey to this inn which I am
running is a long one.39
 MASTER: Fair enough. Pretend that I said nothing.

HOSTESS: While our two church-goers were offering so edifying a

spectacle and becoming known for the odour of sanctity and piety
in which they lived, Mme de La Pommeraye continued to show the
Marquis the same outward tokens of esteem, friendship and the
most perfect trust. Always welcome, never scolded, never sulked at,
even after long absences, he would tell her all about his latest little
conquests and she would seem to take a straightforward pleasure in
hearing about them. She would give him her advice when success
seemed more difficult. She even spoke to him of marriage
sometimes, but in such a disinterested manner that one could never
suspect her of speaking on her own behalf. If the Marquis
sometimes addressed her in the language of sentiment and
gallantry which is unavoidable with a woman one has had an affair
with she would either smile, or let it go. If she were to be believed
hers was a happy heart and – this is something she would never
have imagined – she found that a friend such as him was all she
needed to make her happy. But then she was no longer in the first
flower of youth and her desires were less sharp.
‘What! Have you really nothing to confide in me?’
‘No.’
‘But what about my friend the little count, who was pursuing
you so avidly in my day?’
‘I have shut my doors to him and I no longer see him.’
‘What strange behaviour! Why did you send him away?’
‘Because I don’t like him.’
‘Ah! Madame, I think I know what it is. You are still in love with
me.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘You are counting on a reconciliation.’
‘Why not?’
‘And you are making sure of the moral advantage your blameless
conduct would give you over me.’
‘I believe so.’
‘And if I had the fortune or the misfortune to take up with you
again you would at the very least be able to take credit for the
silence you would maintain over my conduct.’
‘You must believe me to be extremely delicate and very
generous.’
‘My friend, after what you have done, there is no sort of heroism
of which you are not capable.’
‘I’m quite happy that you should have such an opinion of me.’
‘By God, I’m in great danger from you, that I’m sure of.’
‘And so am I.’
For about the next three months things were much the same,
until Mme de La Pommeraye decided that the time had come to set
her great schemes in motion. One summer’s day when the weather
was good and she was expecting the Marquis to lunch, she sent
word to the d’Aisnon and her daughter to go to the Royal Botanical
Gardens. The Marquis came. Lunch was served in good time. They
dined. They dined happily. After lunch Mme de La Pommeraye
suggested to the Marquis that they should go for a walk if he didn’t
have anything more enjoyable to do. That day there was nothing
on at the opera or the theatre, as the Marquis remarked, and so as
to make up for the loss of entertainment by an instructive outing
chance had it that it was the Marquis himself who invited the
Marquise to go and see the Royal Collection. The invitation was not
refused, as you can well imagine. The horses were harnessed and
they left. When they arrived at the Royal Botanical Gardens they
mingled with the crowd, looking all around them and seeing
nothing, just like everybody else.
Reader, I have forgotten to describe to you the positions of the
three characters we are concerned with here – Jacques, his master,
and their hostess. Because of this oversight you have heard them
speak but you have not been able to picture them. Better late than
never. On the left Jacques’ master, in his night-cap and dressing-
gown, was nonchalantly stretched out in a large tapestry work
armchair, his handkerchief thrown over one of its arms and his
snuff-box in his hand. At the end, opposite the door, and near the
table, was their hostess, her glass in front of her. And, on her right,
Jacques, without a hat, his elbows on the table, his head leaning
forward between two empty bottles, and two more on the floor
beside him.

HOSTESS: On leaving the Royal Collection, the Marquis and his

good friend went for a walk in the garden. They followed the first
path to the right as you go in near the arboretum when Mme de La
Pommeraye suddenly cried out in surprise: ‘I am not mistaken. I
think it’s… yes, it is, it’s them,’ and immediately left the Marquis to
go over and meet our two saintly ladies. The d’Aisnon girl looked
stunning in a simple dress, which, without attracting attention,
made her the centre of attraction.
‘Ah! Is it you, Madame?’
‘Yes, it is I.’
‘And how have you been keeping and what has become of you
after all this time?’
‘You know our misfortunes. We have had to resign ourselves to
them and we lead a withdrawn life as befits our meagre fortune.
When one can no longer continue to show oneself decently, one
must withdraw from social life.’
‘But me, leave me? I am not of society and I have always had the
wit to see how tedious it is.’
‘One of the bad things about misfortune is the suspicion it
inspires. Those in misfortune are always afraid of being
unwelcome.’
‘You, unwelcome to me! That suspicion is a terrible insult.’
‘Madame, I am innocent of it. I reminded Maman of you at least
ten times, but she always said: “Nobody thinks of us anymore, not
even Mme de La Pommeraye.” ’
‘What an injustice! Let us sit down and chat. This is M. le
Marquis des Arcis. He is my friend and his presence here need not
disturb us. How Mademoiselle has grown! How pretty she has
become since the last time we saw each other!’
‘The good thing about our position is that it deprives us of
everything which could be harmful to our health. Look at her face!
Look at her arms! Look at what one gains by a frugal well-ordered
life, sleep, work, and a happy conscience. It is certainly
something…’
 They sat down and conversed warmly. The d’Aisnon mother
spoke a lot, her daughter hardly at all. The tone of each was that of
devotion without being contrived or prudish. Long before nightfall
our two church-goers got up. In spite of protests that it was still
early, the d’Aisnon mother whispered to Mme de La Pommeraye
loudly enough to be heard that they still had an office of devotion
to fulfil, and that it was not possible for them to stay any longer.
They were already some way off when Mme de La Pommeraye
reproached herself for not having learnt where they lived and not
having told them where she lived. It was a fault, she added, which
she would not have committed in earlier days. The Marquis ran
after them to make amends. They accepted the address of Mme de
La Pommeraye but no matter how hard the Marquis insisted he
could not obtain theirs. He did not dare to offer them his coach
although he admitted to Mme de La Pommeraye that he had been
tempted. The Marquis did not fail to ask Mme de La Pommeraye
who these two women were.
‘Two people who are happier than we are. Can you not see the
good health they enjoy! Their serenity of expression! The
innocence, the decency which governs their every word! One does
not see or hear any of that in the circles we move in. We pity the
devout and they pity us, but all in all I am inclined to think that
they are right.’
‘But, Marquise, are you tempted to become devout?’
‘Why not?’
‘Take care, I would not want the end of our relationship – if that
is what it is – to drive you to that.’
‘Would you rather I reopened my doors to the little count?’
‘Much rather.’
‘Would you advise me to do that?’
‘Without hesitation.’
Madame de La Pommeraye told the Marquis what she knew of
the name, the origins, the earlier status and the court case of our
two devout ladies, making the story as interesting and as touching
as possible.
‘They are two women of rare merit – the daughter above all. You
must admit that with looks like hers one would lack for nothing if
one wished to exploit them. But they have preferred honest poverty
to shameful luxury. What they have left is so little that in all
honesty, I cannot imagine how they can live on it. They work night
and day. Plenty of people know how to put up with poverty when
they are born into it, but to fall from opulence into the direst
necessity and somehow find contentment and happiness is
something which I cannot understand. That is what religion does.
No matter what our philosophers say, religion is a good thing.’
‘Especially for the unfortunate.’
‘And who isn’t more or less?’
‘I’m damned if you’re not turning devout.’
‘What’s so tragic about that? This life is so insignificant when
one compares the eternity to come!’
‘But you sound like a missionary already.’
‘I speak like a convinced woman. Now, Marquis, give me an
honest answer. Would not all our riches appear to us to be mere
baubles if we were more affected by the anticipation of future
reward and fear of future punishment? If someone were to seduce a
young girl or a woman devoted to her husband, while believing
that if he should die in her arms he would be plunged immediately
into endless tortures, you must admit that would be the height of
folly.’
‘However, it happens every day.’
‘Because people have no faith, because they allow themselves to
be distracted.’
‘It’s because our religious opinions have very little influence over
our morals. But, my friend, I tell you that you are going the
quickest route to the confessional.’
‘That would be the best thing for me.’
‘Come on, you are mad. You’ve got another twenty or so years of
happy sinning ahead of you. Don’t miss out on it. After that you
will be able to repent, and you can go and parade your repentance
at the feet of a priest if that is what you want… But this is a very
serious conversation. Your imagination is becoming terribly morbid
and it is because of this dreadful solitude you have driven yourself
into. Believe me, call back the little count as soon as possible and
you will see no more devil or hell and you will be as charming as
you were before. You are afraid that I will reproach you for it if
ever we take up again. But in the first place, we may never be
reconciled, and because of your apprehension which may or may
not be well founded you are depriving yourself of the most
delightful of pleasures. In all honesty, the merit of being morally
superior to me is not worth the sacrifice.’
‘What you say is true, but that is not what is holding me back…’
They also said many other things which I cannot remember.

JACQUES: Madame, let’s have a drink. That refreshes the memory.

HOSTESS: Let’s have a drink… After a few turns around the

gardens, Mme de La Pommeraye and the Marquis got back into the
carriage and Mme de La Pommeraye said: ‘How she ages me! When
she first came to Paris she was no higher than a cabbage!’
‘You are speaking of the daughter of the lady we met on our
walk?’
‘Yes, it is just like a garden where the faded roses make place for
the new ones. Did you look at her?’
‘I could not fail to.’
‘How did you find her?’
‘The face of a Raphael virgin on the body of his Galatea, and
such softness of voice!’
‘Such a modest look!’
‘Such propriety in her bearing!’
‘And a refinement in what she says such as I have seen in no
other young woman. That is what education does.’
‘When there is good material there to start with.’
The Marquis left Mme de La Pommeraye at her door. Madame de
La Pommeraye hastened to tell our two devout ladies how satisfied
she was with the way they had played their roles.

JACQUES: If they carry on the way they’ve started, M. le Marquis

des Arcis, even if you were the devil himself you’d never get out of
it.

MASTER: I would very much like to know what their scheme is.

JACQUES: I wouldn’t. It would spoil everything.

HOSTESS:
From that day the Marquis became more assiduous in
his visits to Mme de La Pommeraye, who noticed this without
asking the reason. She never spoke first on the subject of the two
devout ladies, but waited for him to bring it up, which the Marquis
always did with impatience, and with badly simulated indifference.

MARQUIS: Have you seen your friends?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: No.

MARQUIS:
Do you know that is not very nice? You are rich and
they are badly off. Do you not even invite them to eat with you
occasionally?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE:I thought Monsieur le Marquis knew me a

little better than that. Your love used to see good points in me.
Today your friendship only sees my faults. I have invited them ten
times, without once getting them to accept. They refuse to come to
my house because of the most singular objections. And when I visit
them I have to leave my carriage at the end of their road and go
practically undressed, without rouge or diamonds. But you must
not be surprised by their reserve. One false rumour would be
enough to alienate the good will of a certain number of benevolent
people and deprive them of their assistance. Marquis, it would
appear that the price of doing good is great.

MARQUIS: Especially to church-goers.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE:
Since the smallest pretext suffices for it to
be withdrawn. If people knew that I was taking any interest they
would soon say: ‘Madame de La Pommeraye is their protector.
They have need of nothing.’ And that would be the end of their
charity.

MARQUIS: Charity?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Yes, Monsieur, charity!

MARQUIS: You know them and they depend on charity?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Yet again, Marquis, I see that you do not

love me any more and that a large part of your esteem has
vanished with your love. Who told you that if these women depend
on the charity of the parish it is my fault?

MARQUIS:Pardon, a thousand pardons, Madame, I am wrong. But

what reason could they have for refusing the benevolence of a
friend?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Ah! Marquis, we people of the world are a

long way from understanding the delicate scruples of such timorous
souls. They believe themselves unable to accept help from anyone
indiscriminately.

MARQUIS: But that deprives us of the best way of making amends

for our follies and dissipation.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE:Not at all. If I were to suppose that

Monsieur le Marquis des Arcis were touched with compassion for
them, what would there be to prevent him from offering his help
through hands more worthy than his?

MARQUIS: And less sure.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Perhaps.

MARQUIS: Tell me, if I sent them twenty louis, do you think they
would refuse it?
 MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I am sure of it. And would their refusal be
inappropriate, coming from a mother with such a charming
daughter?

MARQUIS: Do you know that I have been tempted to go and see

them?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I can well believe it. Marquis! Marquis! Be

careful. Your compassion is rather sudden and rather suspect.

MARQUIS: Whatever it is, would they have received me?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Certainly not! With the brilliance of your

carriage, your clothes, your servants and the charms of the young
lady, it would not need more than that to set the neighbours
gossiping and lead to the two women’s downfall.

MARQUIS: I am upset, because that was certainly not my intention.

Must I give up any hope of helping them or seeing them?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I think so.

MARQUIS: But if my help came to them through you?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I do not think that kind of help is

disinterested enough for me to take responsibility.

MARQUIS: That is harsh.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Yes, harsh, that is the word.

MARQUIS: What an idea! Marquise, you are making fun of me. A

young girl whom I have only seen once…

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: But one of the small number of girls that

are once seen and never forgotten.
 MARQUIS: It is true that faces like that stay with you.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Marquis, take great care for yourself, you

are heading for great sorrows and I would prefer preserving you
from them to having to console you. Do not confuse these women
with the women you have known. You cannot tempt them, cannot
seduce them, cannot go near them, they will not listen to you and
you will never get what you want.
After this conversation the Marquis suddenly remembered that
he had urgent business, got up quickly and left, looking very
preoccupied. For quite a long period of time the Marquis hardly
went a day without seeing Mme de La Pommeraye, but when he
arrived he would sit down and stay silent. Madame de La
Pommeraye would speak alone, and after a quarter of an hour or so
the Marquis would get up and leave. After that he disappeared for
maybe a month, at the end of which time he reappeared, but how
sad, how melancholic, how dejected he looked. On seeing him like
this, the Marquise said: ‘What are you doing here! Where have you
come from? Have you been all this time in a bawdy-house, or
what?’

MARQUIS: My God, almost. My despair flung me into the most

frightful debauchery.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: What! Despair?

MARQUIS: Yes, despair!…

At this point he started pacing up and down without saying a

word. He went to the windows, looked out at the sky, stopped in
front of Mme de La Pommeraye, went to the door, called his
servants to whom he had nothing to say, sent them away again,
came back in and came back to Mme de La Pommeraye, who was
working and appeared not to notice. He wanted to say something
but didn’t dare. At last Mme de La Pommeraye took pity on him
and asked him: ‘What is the matter with you? We go a whole
month without seeing you, and then you reappear with a face like
a corpse and prowl around like a soul in torment.’
 MARQUIS: I cannot stand it any longer. I must tell you everything.
I am struck to the quick by your friend’s daughter. I have tried
everything, everything, to forget her, and the more I have tried the
more I have remembered her. I am obsessed by this angelic
creature. You must do me a great favour.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: What?

MARQUIS: I have to see her again and it must be through you. All
my agents are in the field. The only thing the two women do is to
go from their house to the church and from the church to their
house. I have intercepted them on foot at least ten times and they
have not even noticed me. I have waited at their door without
success. At first their snubs made me debauched as a monk and
then as devout as an angel. I haven’t missed Mass for a fortnight.
Ah! My friend! What a face! She is so beautiful!
Madame de La Pommeraye already knew all this.
‘What you are telling me’, she replied to the Marquis, ‘is that,
after you tried everything to get over it, you then tried everything
likely to drive you wild with desire and succeeded in this.’

MARQUIS: Succeeded! I could not begin to tell you quite how

much. Will you not take pity on me? Shall I not be indebted to you
for the joy of seeing her again?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: That will be difficult, but I will take care of

it on one condition. That is that you leave these poor ladies in
peace and stop tormenting them. I will not hide from you that they
have written bitterly to me of your persecution. Here is their
letter…

The letter which she gave the Marquis to read had been
composed between the three women. It came as if from the
daughter following her mother’s instructions and they had
contrived to make it honest, sweet, touching, elegant and witty – in
short everything that would touch the Marquis’ heart. So, on
reading it he exclaimed at every word. There was not a sentence he
didn’t read twice. He was crying with joy and said to Mme de La
Pommeraye: ‘Admit it, Madame, one could not have written a letter
better than that.’
‘I admit it.’
‘Every line fills me with admiration and respect for women of
such character.’
‘That is as it should be.’
‘I will give you my word, only I beg you not to fail me on yours.’

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: In all truth, Marquis, I am as foolish as you

are. You must have retained terrible powers over me. That
frightens me.

MARQUIS: When will I see her?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I don’t know. I must first find a way of

arranging things without arousing suspicion. They can hardly be
ignorant of your feelings.
Imagine how my complicity would appear in their eyes if they
thought I was acting in concert with you… Marquis, between you
and me, do I need to saddle myself with these problems? Does it
matter to me whether you are in love or you are not in love, or
whether you are delirious? Get out of your mess by yourself. The
role you are asking me to play is too bizarre.

MARQUIS: My friend, if you abandon me I am lost! I will not speak

to you about myself since that will offend you. But I entreat you on
behalf of those touching and worthy creatures who are so dear to
you. You know me: spare them from the follies of which I am
capable. I will go to their house, yes, I will go there, I warn you of
it. I will break down their door, and force my way past them. I will
sit down and I don’t know what I will say or do because I could do
anything in the violent state I am in.

HOSTESS: You will have noticed, Messieurs, that from the

beginning of this story, up to this point, the Marquis des Arcis has
not said one word which was not like a knife thrust into the heart
of Mme de La Pommeraye. She was bursting with indignation and
rage and when she replied it was in a trembling, broken voice:

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: You are right. Ah! If only I had been loved
like that, perhaps… But let’s not speak of that… It is not for you
that I will do this thing, but I flatter myself, Monsieur le Marquis,
that you will at least allow me time.

MARQUIS: The least I can.

JACQUES:Ah! Madame! What a devil of a woman! Lucifer himself

cannot be worse. I am trembling. I’d better have a drink to steady
me… You will not leave me to drink alone?

HOSTESS: Well, I am not afraid… Madame de La Pommeraye said

to herself: ‘I am suffering, but I will not suffer alone. Cruel man. I
do not know how long my torments will last but I will make yours
last for ever…’
She kept the Marquis waiting more than a month for the
encounter she had promised. She left him all this time to suffer, to
become more obsessed, and under the pretence of making the
length of his waiting more tolerable she allowed him to speak to
her of his passion.

MASTER: And strengthen it in talking about it.

JACQUES: What a woman! What a devil of a woman! Madame, my

fears are mounting.

HOSTESS: And so every day the Marquis would come and speak to
Mme de La Pommeraye, who with her artful speeches succeeded in
driving him to a peak of irritation, resolution and perdition. He
found out about the birthplace, the education, the fortune and the
misfortune of these two women. He came back to this all the time
and never thought himself well enough informed or touched
enough by the story. The Marquise pointed out how his feelings
were becoming deeper and stronger and under the pretext of
frightening him gradually got him used to considering what would
be the final outcome of this process.
‘Marquis,’ she said to him, ‘take great care for yourself. This
passion will take you to great lengths. There may well come a day
when my friendship which you now abuse so strangely, will not
excuse me in your eyes, or in those of others. It is not as though
even greater follies are not a daily occurrence. Marquis, I have
grave suspicions that you will only obtain this girl on conditions
which up to now have not been to your liking.’
When Mme de La Pommeraye believed the Marquis to be well
set up for the successful completion of her plan, she arranged for
the two women to come and have lunch at her house. She also
arranged with the Marquis that he should come dressed for the
country to put them off the scent. This was done.
They were on the second course when the Marquis was
announced. The Marquis, Mme de La Pommeraye and the two
d’Aisnons gave a convincing display of embarrassment.
‘Madame, I have just returned from my estates. It is too late for
me to return to my home and I am not expected there until this
evening. I flattered myself that you would not refuse to invite me
to luncheon.’
While he was speaking he had taken a chair and sat down to
table. The table had been set in such a way that he found himself
next to the mother and opposite the daughter. He thanked Mme de
La Pommeraye for this thoughtful gesture with a wink. After the
confusion of the first moment the two devout ladies became more
relaxed. They talked and even laughed. The Marquis was full of
attention for the mother and maintained an attitude of very
reserved politeness with the daughter. The scrupulousness of the
Marquis to say and do nothing which might frighten them away
gave the three women a great deal of secret amusement. They were
inhuman enough to make him speak for three whole hours on
matters of devotion. Madame de La Pommeraye said to him: ‘What
you have been saying there is a marvellous tribute to your parents.
One’s first lessons are never forgotten. You understand all the
subtleties of divine love as if you had never read anything other
than the writings of Saint Francis of Sales. You haven’t dabbled in
quietism at some stage, have you?’
‘I really don’t remember any more.’
Needless to say, our two pious ladies made their conversation as
graceful, witty, charming and sophisticated as they could. They
touched in passing upon the subject of the passions and Mlle
Duquênoi (for that was her family name) maintained that there was
only one dangerous passion. The Marquis was of the same opinion.
Between six and seven o’clock the two ladies retired in spite of all
efforts to make them stay. Madame de La Pommeraye maintained
with Mme Duquênoi that one should always place duty first,
otherwise one would hardly spend a day whose sweetness was not
embittered by remorse. Eventually, to the great regret of the
Marquis, they were gone, leaving the Marquis alone with Mme de
La Pommeraye.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE:Well, Marquis, you must admit that I am

kind to you. Show me another woman in Paris who would have
done as much for you.

MARQUIS (throwing himself on his knees): I admit it. There is no

one like you. Your kindness leaves me speechless. You are my only
true friend in the whole world.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Are you sure that you will always

appreciate what I am doing for you as greatly?

MARQUIS: I would be a monster of ingratitude were that not the

case.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Well, let’s change the subject. What is the

state of your feelings?

MARQUIS: The simple truth?… I must have that girl or I will die.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: You will have her without doubt. The

question is, on what basis?
 MARQUIS: We will see.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Marquis! Marquis! I know you and I know

them. It is obvious.

The Marquis did not show himself at Mme de La Pommeraye’s

for about two months and this is what he did in the meantime. He
got to know the confessor of the mother and daughter. He was a
friend of the little priest of whom I’ve already spoken. This
confessor, after having brought up every hypocritical objection that
might be raised against a dishonest intrigue, and after having sold
for the highest possible price the sanctity of his ministry, finally
agreed to everything the Marquis wanted.
The first villainy of this man of God was to alienate the
benevolence of the parish priest and convince him that the two
protégées of Mme de La Pommeraye were depriving other
parishioners who were more needy than themselves of the alms
they were obtaining from the parish. His aim was to force them to
do what he wanted through poverty.
Next he sought, through the confessional, to sow discord
between the mother and the daughter. When he heard the mother
criticize the daughter he exaggerated the faults of the daughter and
increased the resentment of the mother. If the daughter complained
of her mother he suggested that the power of fathers and mothers
over their children was limited and that if the persecution of the
mother went beyond a certain point it would not be impossible to
withdraw the daughter from such tyrannical authority, and for her
penance he would order her to come back to confession.
Another time he spoke to her of her charms, but in a frivolous
manner. These were, he said, the most dangerous presents which
God had given to a woman. He spoke of the great impression they
had made on an honest man whose identity he did not reveal but
which was easy to guess. From there he passed on to the infinite
mercy of heaven and its indulgence for faults which certain
circumstances made inevitable. He spoke of the weakness of human
nature for which each of us finds excuse in himself. He spoke of the
violence and the universality of certain feelings from which even
the most saintly of men were not free. He asked her if she had ever
experienced any desires, if her feelings ever spoke to her in dreams,
if the presence of men did not trouble her. Next he brought up the
question of whether a woman should give way to an impassioned
man or resist him and so doom to death and damnation one for
whom Christ’s blood was spilled. And he did not dare decide for
her. Then he sighed deeply several times, raised his eyes to heaven
and prayed for peace to be brought to troubled souls. The young
girl let him carry on. Her mother and Mme de La Pommeraye, to
whom she faithfully reported all of the advice of her spiritual
director, suggested fresh revelations she might make to him which
were all designed to lead him on further.

JACQUES: Your Mme de La Pommeraye is a really wicked woman.

MASTER: That is easily said, Jacques. But where does her

wickedness come from? From the Marquis des Arcis. Let him be
what he swore he would be and what he should have been; then
find fault with Mme de La Pommeraye. When we are on our way
again, you will accuse her, but I will make it my business to defend
her. As for this priest, this vile seducer… I won’t attempt to defend
him.

JACQUES: The priest is such a wicked man that this whole business
will put me off going to confession ever again. And you, Madame
Hostess?

HOSTESS: I shall continue my visits to my old parish priest who

isn’t the least bit curious and only ever hears what people say to
him.

JACQUES: Perhaps if we drink to the health of your old parish

priest?

HOSTESS: I’ll take you up on that for he’s a good man, who allows
the boys and girls to dance on Sundays and feast days and lets the
men and the women come here provided they don’t come out
drunk. To my parish priest!

JACQUES: To your parish priest!

HOSTESS: The three women were certain that very soon the man
of God would risk giving a letter to his penitent, and this he did.
But what a performance he made of it! He didn’t know who it came
from. He was certain, however, that it had come from some well-
meaning charitable soul who had discovered how badly off the two
ladies were and was offering help. He often passed on similar
letters. He advised that since the girl was wise and her mother
prudent she should open the letter only in her mother’s presence.
Mademoiselle Duquênoi accepted the letter and gave it to her
mother, who straight away sent it to Mme de La Pommeraye. She,
armed with the letter, summoned the priest, overwhelmed him
with the reproaches he deserved and threatened to report him to
his superiors if he caused any more trouble.
In the letter the Marquis exhausted almost his entire vocabulary
in praise of himself, in praise of Mlle Duquênoi, painted his passion
in all its violence, made drastic offers and even proposed a
kidnapping.
After her lecture to the priest Mme de La Pommeraye called the
Marquis to her and pointed out to him in the strongest terms how
his conduct was little worthy of a man of the world and how much
it could compromise her. She showed him his letter and protested
that in spite of the tender friendship which united them she could
not promise to withhold it from the hands of the law or from Mme
Duquênoi if the daughter were involved in any scandal.
‘Ah! Marquis,’ she said, ‘love has corrupted you. You were surely
born under an evil sign since love, which inspires great actions, can
only prompt you to such degrading ones. What have these poor
women done to you that you should want to add ignominy to their
poverty? Just because this girl is beautiful and wants to remain
virtuous, do you have to become her persecutor? What right have
you to make her hate heaven’s greatest gift? What have I deserved,
to be your accomplice in this? Come, Marquis, down on your knees
and ask me to forgive you and give me your oath that you will
leave my poor friends in peace.’
The Marquis promised her not to do anything without her
permission but he had to have this girl, whatever the cost. The
Marquis was anything but faithful to his word. The mother knew
how things stood and he did not hesitate to address himself to her.
He wrote admitting the wickedness of his plans and he offered a
considerable sum of money by way of a token of what the future
might bring. His letter was accompanied by a jewel box full of rich
stones.
The three women held counsel. The mother and the daughter
were of a mind to accept but this was not what Mme de La
Pommeraye wanted. She reminded them of the promise they had
given her and threatened to reveal everything. And so, to the great
regret of the two devout ladies, the younger woman had to take off
the diamond ear-rings which suited her so well, and the jewel case
and the letter were returned with a reply full of pride and
indignation. Madame de La Pommeraye complained to the Marquis
about the unreliability of his promises. The Marquis excused
himself by pointing out that it was impossible for him to ask her to
carry out such a dishonourable errand.
‘Marquis, Marquis,’ Mme de La Pommeraye replied, ‘I have
already warned you and I repeat my warning. You have not got
what you want but this is not the time to preach to you. That
would be a waste of breath. There is nothing left to do.’
The Marquis admitted that he thought as she did and asked her
permission to make one last attempt. This was to settle a
considerable sum on the two women, to share his fortune with
them, and to settle on them for life one of his town houses and
another in the country.
‘Go ahead,’ said the Marquise, ‘I forbid only violence. But believe
me, my friend, when honour and virtue are real, their value to
those who are fortunate enough to possess them is beyond price.
Your new offers will not be any more successful than the previous
ones. I know these women and I will stake my life on it.’
The new propositions were made. The three women again held
counsel together. The mother and daughter waited in silence for
the decision of Mme de La Pommeraye. She paced up and down for
a while without speaking: ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘it is not enough for
my wounded heart.’ And as soon as she announced her refusal the
two women burst into tears, threw themselves at her feet and
protested how terrible it was for them to reject an immense fortune
which they could accept without any awkward consequences.
Madame de La Pommeraye replied harshly: ‘Do you imagine that
I am doing what I do for you? Who are you? What do I owe you?
Why should I not send the two of you back to your brothel? If what
is being offered is too much for you, it is not enough for me. Write
down the reply I dictate to you, Madame, and I want to see it go
off.’
The two women went away more frightened than sorrowful.

JACQUES: This woman has the devil in her. What does she want?
What! Isn’t the loss of half a great fortune punishment enough for
the waning of love?

MASTER: Jacques, you’ve never been a woman, still less a

respectable one, and you are judging with reference to your own
character, which is not that of Mme de La Pommeraye. Do you
want to know what I think? I’m very much afraid that the marriage
of the Marquis des Arcis and a whore is written up above.

JACQUES: If it is written up above it will be.

HOSTESS: The Marquis soon visited Mme de La Pommeraye again:

‘Well,’ she asked him, ‘what about your new offers?’

MARQUIS: Made and rejected. It has driven me to despair. I would

like to tear this unfortunate passion from my heart. I would like to
tear out my heart itself and I am not able to. Marquise, look at me.
Do you not see certain similarities between me and this young girl?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Although I have not said anything to you I

had noticed. But that’s not the point. What have you decided to do?

MARQUIS: I cannot come to any decision. One minute I am seized

with the urge to leap into a post-chaise and travel to the ends of
the earth. The next I am left completely helpless, I cannot think
straight, I go into a daze and I do not know what to do with myself.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I do not advise you to travel. It is not worth

going as far as Villejuif just to come back again.40
The next day the Marquis wrote to the Marquise that he was
leaving for his estates, he would stay as long as he could and he
begged her to look after his interests with her two friends if the
opportunity arose. His absence was short. He came back resolved
to marry.

JACQUES: I feel sorry for this poor Marquis.

MASTER: I don’t.

HOSTESS: On the way back he stopped at the door of Mme de La

Pommeraye. She had gone out. On her return she found the
Marquis stretched out in a large armchair, his eyes shut, deeply lost
in thought.
‘Ah, it is you, Marquis! The charms of the country did not detain
you very long!’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘I am happy nowhere and I have come back
resolved to commit the greatest stupidity which a man of my rank,
my age and my character could do. But it is better to get married
than to suffer. I am getting married.’

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: This is a serious business and requires

reflection.

MARQUIS: I have made only one reflection but it is a sound one.

That is that I could never be more unhappy than I am.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: You could be wrong there.

JACQUES: What treachery!

 MARQUIS: Here at last, my friend, is a negotiation which, it seems
to me, I can decently entrust to you. See the mother and the
daughter. Question the mother, sound out the feelings of the
daughter and tell them of my plan.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Gently, Marquis. I believed I knew them

well enough for the dealings I had with them but since I am now
concerned with your happiness, my friend, you must allow me to
investigate further. I will make inquiries in their province of origin,
and I promise you I will follow every step they take during the rest
of their stay in Paris.

MARQUIS: Such precautions seem quite superfluous to me. Women

who live in poverty and who are able to resist the bait I have held
out to them can only be exceptional beings. With the offers I have
made them I could have overcome a duchess, and anyway, did you
not tell me yourself…

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: Yes, I said whatever you like, but, in spite

of that, allow me to satisfy myself.

JACQUES: What a bitch, what a wicked, mad bitch! Why did he

take up with such a woman?

MASTER: Why did he seduce her and then abandon her?

HOSTESS: Why did he stop loving her without rhyme or reason?

JACQUES (pointing to the heavens): Ah! Master!…

MARQUIS: Why do you not get married too, Marquise?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: To whom, if you please?

MARQUIS: To the little Count. He is witty, of good family and has a

large fortune.
 MME DE LA POMMERAYE: And who will answer to me for his fidelity?
You, perhaps?

MARQUIS: No, but it seems to me that one can easily do without a

husband’s fidelity.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I agree, but if my husband were unfaithful

to me I might perhaps be eccentric enough to take offence and I am
vindictive.

MARQUIS: Well then, you would avenge yourself, obviously. We

would take a town house together and we’d make the most
delightful foursome.

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: That is all very nice, but I am not going to

get married. The only man whom I might perhaps have been
tempted to marry…

MARQUIS: Was me?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: I can admit it to you now without

consequence.

MARQUIS: Why did you not tell me sooner?

MME DE LA POMMERAYE: From what has happened I did well not to.
The wife you are going to have suits you in every way better than I
would.

Madame de La Pommeraye made her inquiries with all the

precision and rapidity she wanted. She produced for the Marquis
the most glowing of testimonials, both from Paris and the country.
She made the Marquis wait another fortnight so that he might take
stock of himself once more. This fortnight seemed an eternity to
him. At last the Marquise was obliged to give in to his impatience
and his entreaties. The first meeting took place at the house of her
friends. Everything was agreed. The banns were published. The
Marquis gave Mme de La Pommeraye a superb diamond, and the
marriage was consummated.

JACQUES: What a conspiracy! What a revenge!

MASTER: She is incomprehensible.

JACQUES: Deliver me from my worries about the wedding night,

but up to this moment I do not see any great harm in it.

MASTER: Shut up, you fool.

HOSTESS: The wedding night went very well.

JACQUES: But I thought…

HOSTESS:Don’t think. Just remember what your master told you…

And as she said that she smiled and as she smiled she passed her
hand over Jacques’ face and pinched his nose: ‘It was the next day.’

JACQUES: The next day wasn’t like the day before?

HOSTESS: Not exactly. The next day Mme de La Pommeraye sent

the Marquis a note inviting him to go to her house as soon as he
could on an important matter. The Marquis did not keep her
waiting. When she received him her face expressed her indignation
in all its violence. Her speech was not lengthy.
‘Marquis,’ she said to him, ‘learn to know me. If other women
valued themselves enough to show the resentment I feel, men like
you would be less common. You acquired an honest woman whom
you could not keep. That woman was me. She has avenged herself
on you by making you marry someone who is worthy of you. Leave
my house and go to the Hôtel de Hambourg in the rue Traversière
where you will learn the filthy trade your wife and mother-in-law
carried on for ten years under the name of d’Aisnon.’
It would be impossible to describe the surprise and consternation
of the poor Marquis. He did not know what to think, but his
uncertainty lasted only the time it took to go from one end of town
to the other. For the rest of the day he did not return home but
wandered the streets. His mother-in-law and his wife had some
suspicion of what had happened. At the first knock on the door his
mother-in-law fled to her apartment and locked herself in. His wife
waited for him alone. As her husband approached she could read
on his face the fury which possessed him. She threw herself at his
feet, her face pressed against the parquet, silent.
‘Get out, you unspeakable creature. Get away from me.’
She wanted to get up but she fell back down on her face again,
her hands stretched out on the floor between the Marquis’ feet.
‘Monsieur,’ she said to him, ‘trample me underfoot, crush me, for
I have deserved it. Do with me whatever you will, but spare my
mother.’
‘Get away from me!’ repeated the Marquis. ‘Get away from me!
It is enough that you have covered me with shame. Spare me a
crime.’
The poor creature stayed in the same position and did not reply.
The Marquis was sitting in an armchair, his head cradled in his
arms, half leaning forward against the foot of his bed and shouting
at her from time to time without looking at her: ‘Get away from
me!’
The silence and immobility of the girl took him by surprise and
he shouted at her even more loudly: ‘Get out, do you hear me!’
Next he bent down and pushed her away heavily. Realizing that
she was unconscious and almost dead, he took her round the waist
and laid her down on a sofa. For a short while he stood looking at
her with an expression which alternated between commiseration
and anger. He rang and his valets came. Her maids were
summoned and he told them: ‘Take your mistress. She is ill. Carry
her into her apartment and look after her.’
A few moments afterwards he secretly sent for news of her. They
told him that she had come round from her first faint but that her
swoons were following in rapid succession. They were so frequent
and so long that it was impossible to say whether she would
recover. One or two hours afterwards he again sent secretly to find
out about her condition. He was told that she was suffocating and
that there had come over her a kind of repeated choking which
could be heard as far away as the courtyard. The third time,
towards daybreak, they told him that she had cried a lot, that her
gasping had calmed and that she appeared to be dozing.
The following day the Marquis gave orders for his horses to be
harnessed to his carriage and disappeared for a fortnight without
anybody knowing where he had gone. However, before going, he
had made all the necessary arrangements for the mother and the
daughter, and had given orders that Madame’s commands were to
be obeyed as if they were his own.
During this time the two women remained in each other’s
company hardly speaking, the daughter sobbing and occasionally
crying out, tearing her hair and wringing her hands, the mother not
daring to go near her or console her. One was the picture of
despair, the other the picture of stubborn endurance. The daughter
said to her mother twenty times: ‘Mother, let us leave here, let us
escape,’ and as many times the mother rejected the idea, replying:
‘No, my daughter, we must stay. We must see what happens. This
man is not going to kill us.’
‘I wish to God he had already done so,’ said her daughter.
Her mother replied: ‘You would do better to keep quiet than to
speak like a fool.’
On his return the Marquis shut himself in his study and wrote
two letters, one to his wife, one to his mother-in-law. The latter left
the same day and went to a Carmelite convent in the next town,
where she died a few days ago. Her daughter got dressed and
dragged herself to her husband’s apartment, to which he had
apparently summoned her. At the door she threw herself to her
knees.
‘Get up,’ the Marquis told her…
Instead of getting up she went forward to him on her knees. Her
whole body was shaking. Her hair was dishevelled. She was
bending forward, her hands by her side, her head raised up, her
gaze fixed on his eyes and her face flooded with tears.
‘I think I perceive’, she said to him, a sob separating her every
word, ‘that your justly outraged heart has softened and that
perhaps with time I will obtain mercy from you. Monsieur, I beg
you, do not hasten to forgive me. So many honest girls have
become dishonest wives that perhaps I will provide an example to
the contrary. I am not yet worthy enough for you to come near me,
but wait and only leave me with the hope of forgiveness. Keep me
far away from you. You will see my conduct. You will judge it. I
will be a thousand times too happy, a thousand times, if you deign
occasionally to summon me! Mark out for me an obscure corner of
your house where you will allow me to live. I will stay there
without complaint. Ah! If only I could tear away from me the name
and the title which I have been made to usurp, and then die
afterwards. I would instantly give you such satisfaction. I have
allowed myself through weakness, seduction, domination and
threats to be led to an infamous action. But do not believe,
Monsieur, that I am wicked. I am not since I did not hesitate to
appear before you when you summoned me and I now dare to set
eyes on you and speak to you. Ah! If you could only read the
bottom of my heart and see how far away from me are my past
faults, how the morals of those others of my kind are alien to me.
Corruption alighted on me but did not gain hold. I know myself
and will do myself justice on this point, which is that by my tastes,
my emotions and my character I was born worthy of the honour of
belonging to you. Ah! If I had only been free to see you. I would
only have needed to speak one word and I believe that I would
have had the courage. Monsieur, do with me what you want.
Summon your people. Let them strip me naked and throw me into
the street at night. I will consent to everything. Whatever destiny
you are preparing for me, I will submit to it. Some remote part of
the country, the obscurity of some cloister, would remove me
forever from your eyes. Just speak and I will go there. Your
happiness is not lost without hope and you will be able to forget
me.’
‘Get up,’ the Marquis said softly, ‘I have forgiven you. Even as I
received the offence. I respected my wife in you. Not one word has
left my lips which has humiliated her or at least of which I do not
repent and I promise that she will not hear one more word to
humiliate her, if she only remembers that one cannot make one’s
spouse unhappy without becoming unhappy oneself. Be honest, be
happy, and make me the same. Get up, I beg you, my wife, get up
and embrace me. Madame la Marquise, get up! You are not in your
proper place! Madame des Arcis, get up!’
While he was speaking she had stayed where she was, her face in
her hands and her head pressed between the knees of the Marquis,
but at the words ‘My wife’, at the words ‘Madame des Arcis’, she
got up sharply and threw herself on to the Marquis. She held him
in her arms, half suffocated by sorrow and joy. Then she pulled
away from him, threw herself to the floor and kissed his feet.
‘Ah!’ the Marquis said to her, ‘I have told you that I have
forgiven you and I can see that you do not believe a word of it.’
‘It is necessary’, she replied, ‘that it be so and that I never
believe it.’
The Marquis added: ‘In all honesty I believe that I regret nothing
and that this Pommeraye woman, instead of avenging herself, has
done me a great service. My wife, go and get dressed while our
luggage is being packed. We are leaving for my estates where we
will stay until we can show ourselves here again without
consequence for either of us.’
They spent nearly three years away from the capital.

JACQUES: And I bet that those three years went as quickly as a day
and that the Marquis des Arcis was one of the best husbands and
had one of the best wives in the world.

MASTER: I’d go along with you, but to be honest I do not know

why because I was not at all happy with this girl during the course
of the schemings between Mme de La Pommeraye and the girl’s
mother. Not one moment’s fear, not the slightest sign of
uncertainty, not the slightest remorse. I saw her lend herself to this
long and horrible scheme without any repugnance. Whatever was
wanted of her, she never hesitated to do it. She went to confession
and went to communion, she played at religion and played along
with its ministers. She seemed to me to be as false, as despicable
and as wicked as the two others.
Madame, you tell a story quite well, but you are not yet skilled
enough in dramatic art. If you had wanted us to feel for this young
woman, you should have made her honest and shown her to us as
an innocent victim forced to her actions by her mother and de La
Pommeraye. She should have been forced, against her will, by the
cruellest treatment, to participate in a series of hideous and
continual crimes lasting a year. That was how the reconciliation of
this woman with her husband should have been prepared. When
one introduces a character on the stage the role of that character
must be consistent. Now, I ask you, dear lady, is the girl who plots
with our two scoundrels the same imploring wife we have seen at
her husband’s feet? You have sinned against the rules of Aristotle,
Horace, de Vida and Le Bossu.41

HOSTESS: I don’t follow any rules. I told you the story as it

happened, without leaving anything out and without adding
anything. Who knows what was going on at the bottom of this
young girl’s heart, and whether perhaps in the moments when she
appeared to us to be acting in the most carefree manner she was
not secretly consumed with sorrow.

JACQUES: Madame, this time I must agree with my Master, who

will forgive me for it since it happens to me so rarely. I don’t know
about his Bossu or those other gentlemen he mentioned either. If
Mlle Duquênoi, formerly d’Aisnon, had been a nice child it would
have shown through.

HOSTESS: Nice child or not, she’s still an excellent wife and her
husband is pleased as a lord with her and wouldn’t swap her for
any other.

MASTER: I congratulate him for it. He has had more luck than
wisdom.

HOSTESS: And as for me, I wish you a good night. It is late and I
am always the last to bed and the first to get up. What a wretched
trade. Bonsoir, messieurs, bonsoir. I promised, I can’t remember why,
that I would tell you the story of a preposterous marriage and I
believe that I have kept my word. Monsieur Jacques, I don’t think
you will have any trouble sleeping – your eyes are more than half
shut already. Bonsoir, Monsieur Jacques.

MASTER:Madame, is there no way we will hear of your

adventures?

HOSTESS: No.

JACQUES: You have a terrible appetite for stories.

MASTER: That is true. They instruct me and amuse me. A good

raconteur is a rare man.

JACQUES: And that is exactly why I don’t like stories – unless I am

telling them.

MASTER: You prefer speaking badly to keeping quiet.

JACQUES: That is true.

MASTER: And I prefer to listen to someone speaking badly than to

nothing at all.

JACQUES: And that suits us both perfectly.

I don’t know where Jacques, his master and their hostess had left
their wits for them not to have been able to find even one of the
many things which could be said in favour of Mlle Duquênoi.
Did this girl understand anything of the schemings of Mme de La
Pommeraye before they reached their end? Would she not have
preferred to accept the offers of the Marquis rather than his hand
and have him as her lover rather than her husband? Was she not
under the continual despotism and threats of the Marquise? Can
one blame her horrible aversion for an unspeakable condition? And
if one gives her credit for these feelings, could one expect very
much more delicacy and scruple in the choice of means to extricate
herself?
And, do you think, Reader, that it is any the more difficult to
offer a defence of Mme de La Pommeraye? Perhaps you would
prefer to hear Jacques and his master on that subject, but they had
so many more interesting things to talk about that it is probable
they would have neglected to talk about this one. Allow me
therefore to discuss it for a moment.
You are furious at the mention of the name Mme de La
Pommeraye; you are crying out: ‘Ah! What a horrible woman! Ah!
What a hypocrite! Ah! What a scoundrel!’
Do not exclaim, do not get angry, do not take sides. Let us
reason. Every day blacker crimes than hers are committed but
without any genius. You may hate Mme de La Pommeraye, you
may fear her, but you will not despise her. Her vengeance is
abominable but it is unsullied by any mercenary motive.
I did not tell you that she threw the beautiful diamond which the
Marquis had given her back in his face, but she did, and I have it
on the best authority. It wasn’t a question of increasing her fortune
or gaining honourable titles. If this woman had done as much to
obtain for a husband the due rewards for his services, if she had
prostituted herself to a minister, or even a first secretary, for some
decoration or a regiment, or to the keeper of the register
of benefices for a rich abbey, that would seem all too simple.
Everyday experience would be on your side. But when she avenges
a treacherous act you become indignant with her instead of seeing
that her resentment only moves you to indignation because you
yourself are incapable of feeling such deep resentment, or perhaps
because you place almost no value on the honour of women. Have
you reflected a little on the sacrifices Mme de La Pommeraye had
made for the Marquis? There is no point in telling you that her
purse had been open to him whenever required and that for several
years he had no other home, no other table, than hers. You’d
merely shake your head, but she had given in to his every whim, to
his every taste, and in order to please him she had turned her life
upside down. She enjoyed the highest esteem in society because of
the purity of her morals and she had now lowered herself to the
common rank. People said, when they saw she had accepted the
attentions of the Marquis des Arcis, ‘At last that wonderful Mme de
La Pommeraye has become one of us…’ All around her she had
noticed ironic smiles and heard their jokes which often made her
blush and lower her eyes. She had drained the cup of bitterness
reserved for those women whose blameless conduct has for too
long shown up the morals of other women around them. She had
endured all the scandal and publicity by which society takes its
revenge on those rash prudes who make a show of
propriety. She was proud and she would have died of shame
rather than show society the ridiculous spectacle of forsaken love
following lost virtue. She was nearing the age when the loss of a
lover cannot be made good. Her character was such that this event
condemned her to boredom and solitude. A man will stab another
for a gesture or a denial. Is it not permissible for an honest woman
who has been lost, dishonoured and betrayed to throw the man
who betrayed her into the arms of a courtesane? Ah! Reader, you
are frivolous in praise and harsh in censure. But are you saying: ‘It
is more the way the thing was done than the thing itself that I
reproach in the Marquise. I cannot accept such a long-lived
resentment, an intrigue of lies and deceit lasting nearly a year.’ But
then, nor can I, nor Jacques, nor his master, nor their hostess. One
does, however, forgive everything that is done in the heat of the
moment and I can tell you that, if the heat of the moment means a
short while for you and me, for Mme de La Pommeraye and women
of her character it is a long time. Sometimes their heart continues
for the rest of their life to feel the injury just as deeply as in the
first moment, and what is wrong or unjust about that? I see in it
nothing more than a less ordinary type of treachery and I would
strongly approve of a law which condemned to the company of
prostitutes whomsoever might have seduced and abandoned
any honest woman. The common man to the common woman.
Meanwhile, while I have been expatiating, Jacques’ master is
snoring as if he had been listening to me, and Jacques, who has lost
the use of the muscles in his legs, is prowling around the room
barefoot in his nightshirt, bumping into everything in his way,
eventually awakening his master, who said to him from behind his
bed curtains: ‘Jacques, you’re drunk!’
‘Or not far from it.’
‘And what time do you intend to go to bed?’
 ‘Soon, Monsieur. It’s just… it’s just…’
‘It’s just that what?’
‘There’s a little left in this bottle which will go off. I hate half-
empty bottles. I’d remember in bed and I don’t need more than that
to stop me getting a moment’s sleep. By God, Madame our hostess
is an excellent woman and her champagne is excellent as well. It
would be a shame to let it go bad. There, it will soon be covered up
and then it won’t go bad any more.’
And while he was babbling away, Jacques, in his nightshirt and
bare feet, had knocked back two or three glasses without
punctuation, as he used to say, that is from the bottle to the glass
and from the glass straight into his mouth. There are two versions
of what happened after he had put out the light. Some claim that
he started to feel his way along the walls of the room without
being able to find his bed and that he said: ‘My God, it isn’t there
any more or if it is it must be written up above that I won’t find it.
One way or another I’ll have to do without.’ And then he decided
to stretch out on some chairs. Others claim that it was written up
above that he would trip over the legs of the chairs and that he
would fall on to the floor where he stayed.
Tomorrow or the day after, when you have had time to consider
more fully, you may choose whichever of these two versions suits
you best.
Having gone to bed late and a little the worse for wear our two
travellers overslept the next morning, Jacques on the floor or the
chairs, according to whichever version you prefer, his master more
comfortably in his bed. Their hostess came up and told them that
the day would not be fine and that even if the weather allowed
them to continue on their way they would have to choose between
risking their lives in trying to cross the swollen streams on their
way or being forced back, as had already happened to several men
on horseback who’d chosen not to believe her.
The master said to Jacques: ‘Jacques, what shall we do?’
Jacques replied: ‘First we will have breakfast with our hostess.
That will give us the answer.’
The hostess swore that this was a wise decision. Breakfast was
served. Now their hostess wanted nothing better than a cheerful
time and Jacques’ master would have been quite happy to join in
but Jacques was beginning to suffer. He ate reluctantly, drank
little, and did not speak. This last symptom was especially serious.
It was because of the bad night he had spent and the bad bed he
had spent it in. He complained of pains in his limbs and his hoarse
voice indicated a sore throat. His master advised him to go to bed
but he wouldn’t hear of it. Their hostess offered to make him some
onion soup. He asked for a fire to be lit in his room because he was
feeling cold and for them to make him some tisane and bring him a
bottle of white wine. This was done immediately. When their
hostess was gone, Jacques was left alone with his master. His
master went over to the window and said: ‘What devilish weather!’,
looked at his watch to see what the time was, because it was the
only one he trusted, took a pinch of snuff from his snuff-box and
did the same thing hour by hour, saying every time: ‘What devilish
weather!’, and then turning to Jacques and adding: ‘This would be
a good moment for you to carry on and finish the story of your
loves! But one cannot talk well of love and other things when one
is in pain. Listen, see how you feel. If you can carry on, do so. If
not drink your tisane and sleep.’
Jacques claimed that silence was bad for him, that he was a
talkative creature and the principal advantage of his present
position and the one which mattered the most to him was the
freedom it gave him to make up for the twelve years he had spent
gagged in the house of his grandfather – on whose soul may God
have mercy.

MASTER: Speak, then, since it gives us both pleasure. You had got
up to some dishonest proposition or other made by the surgeon’s
wife. It was a question, I believe, of throwing out the surgeon in
the château and installing her husband there.

JACQUES: I remember. But one moment, if you please. Let us

imbibe.

Jacques filled up a large goblet with tisane, poured a little white

wine into it and swallowed the brew. It was a recipe which he had
got from his Captain and which M. Tissot, who had got it from
Jacques, recommends in his treatise on common illnesses.42 White
wine, as Jacques and M. Tissot used to say, makes you piss, is a
diuretic, enriches the bland flavour of the tisane and improves the
tone of the stomach and intestine. When he had drunk his glass of
tisane, Jacques continued.

JACQUES: There I was, out of the surgeon’s house, into the

carriage, arrived at the château and surrounded by everyone who
lived there.

MASTER: Did they know who you were?

JACQUES: Most certainly. Do you remember a certain lady with a

pitcher of oil?

MASTER: Very well.

JACQUES: This woman was the messenger of the steward and the
servants. Jeanne had extolled the act of commiseration I had
performed towards her around the château. My good deed had
come to the ears of the master of the château who had also heard
of the kicks and punches with which I had been rewarded that
night on the high-road. He had given orders for me to be found and
brought to his château. There I was. They looked at me, asked me
questions, and admired me. Jeanne embraced me and thanked me.
‘Give him a comfortable room,’ the master said to his people,
‘and see that he lacks for nothing.’
Then he said to the surgeon of the house: ‘Take good care of
him.’
His instructions were followed to the letter. There now, Master.
Who knows what is written up above? Tell me whether it was a
good or a bad thing to have given away my money or whether it
was a bad thing to have been beaten up. Without these two events
M. Desglands would never have heard of Jacques.

MASTER: Monsieur Desglands, Seigneur of Miremont! You are at

the château of Miremont? At my old friend’s house, the father of M.
Desforges, the King’s Administrator for the province?

JACQUES: Exactly. And the young girl with the beautiful figure
and black eyes…

MASTER: Is Denise, Jeanne’s daughter?

JACQUES: The same.

MASTER: You are right. She is one of the most beautiful creatures
to be found within a radius of fifty miles of the château. Most of
the men who used to visit Desglands’ château, including myself,
tried everything possible to seduce her but all to no avail. There
was not one of us who would not have committed great follies for
her provided she committed a little one for him…

Here Jacques stopped talking and his master asked him: ‘What
are you thinking about, what are you doing?’

JACQUES: I am saying my prayer.

MASTER: Do you pray?

JACQUES: Sometimes.

MASTER: And what do you say?

JACQUES: I say: ‘Thou who mad’st the Great Scroll, whatever Thou
art, Thou whose finger hast traced the Writing Up Above, Thou
hast known for all time what I needed, Thy will be done. Amen.’

MASTER: Don’t you think you would do just as well if you shut
up?

JACQUES: Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I pray on the off-chance, and

no matter what might happen to me I would neither rejoice nor
complain if I could keep control of myself. But I am inconsistent
and violent and I forget the lessons or the principles of my Captain
and laugh and cry like an idiot.

MASTER: And did your Captain never laugh or cry?

JACQUES: Rarely… Jeanne brought her daughter to me one

morning and addressing me first she said: ‘Monsieur, here you are
in a beautiful château where you will be a little better looked after
than at your surgeon’s house. In the first days especially you will
be wonderfully looked after, but I know servants, I’ve been one
long enough. Little by little their zeal wears off, their masters will
no longer think of you, and if your illness lasts you will be
forgotten, and so completely forgotten that if you took it into your
head to die of hunger you would succeed.
‘Listen, Denise,’ she said to her daughter, ‘I want you to visit this
good man four times a day, in the morning, at lunch time, at five
o’clock and at supper time. I want you to obey him as you would
me. That is an order, make sure you obey it.’

MASTER: Do you know what happened to poor Desglands?

JACQUES: No, Monsieur, but if the wishes which I made for his
prosperity have not been fulfilled it is not for want of their being
sincere. It was he who gave me to Commander La Boulaye who
died on his way to Malta. And it was Commander La Boulaye who
gave me to his elder brother, the Captain, who is now probably
dead from the fistula, and it is this Captain who gave me to his
youngest brother, the Advocate-General of Toulouse who went mad
and was shut up by the family. It was M. Pascal, Advocate-General
of Toulouse, who gave me to the Comte de Tourville who preferred
to take a monk’s habit and let his beard grow rather than risk his
life. It was the Comte de Tourville who gave me to the Marquise du
Belloy who ran away to London with a foreigner. It was the
Marquise du Belloy who gave me to one of her cousins who ruined
himself with women and went off to the Indies and it was that
cousin who gave me to a M. Hérissant, a usurer by profession, who
was investing the money of M. de Rusai, doctor of the Sorbonne
who placed me with Mlle Isselin whom you were keeping as your
mistress and who placed me with you, who will provide me with a
crust of bread in my old age, as you promised, if I stay with you.43
And there is not the slightest indication that we will separate.
Jacques was made for you and you were made for Jacques.

MASTER: But Jacques, you went through a large number of houses

in a very short time.

JACQUES: That is true. Sometimes they dismissed me.

MASTER: Why?

JACQUES: Because I was born a talker and all those people wanted
silence. They are not like you, who would suggest I find another
position if I shut up tomorrow. I have got precisely the vice which
suits you. But what happened to M. Desglands? Tell me, while I
pour myself some more tisane.

MASTER: You lived in his château and you never heard about his
spot?

JACQUES: No.

MASTER: That story will be for the road. The other one is short. He
made his fortune gambling. Then he attached himself to a woman
whom you might have seen in his château, an intelligent woman,
but serious, taciturn, unconventional and hard. This woman told
him one day: ‘Either you love me better than you love gambling, in
which case you will give me your word of honour that you will
never gamble again, or you love gambling better than me, in which
case you will never speak to me again of love and gamble as much
as you want.’
Desglands gave his word of honour that he would never gamble
again.
‘No matter how big or small the stakes?’
‘No matter how big or small.’
 They had been living together in the château which you know
for around ten years when Desglands, having been called to town
on business, had the misfortune to meet at his lawyer’s one of his
old gambling cronies who dragged him off to dinner in a gambling
den, where he lost everything he owned in a single sitting. His
mistress was unyielding. She was rich and gave Desglands a small
pension and left him for ever.

JACQUES: That’s a shame. He was a good man.

MASTER: How’s the throat?

JACQUES: Bad.

MASTER: That’s because you are speaking too much and not
drinking enough.

JACQUES: That’s because I don’t like tisane and I like speaking.

MASTER: Well then, Jacques, there you are at Desglands’ château,

near Denise, and Denise has been authorized by her mother to visit
you at least four times a day. The hussy! Prefer a Jacques!

JACQUES: A Jacques! A Jacques, Monsieur, is a man like any

other.44

MASTER: Jacques, you are wrong. A Jacques is not a man like any
other.

JACQUES: He is sometimes better than another.

MASTER: Jacques, you are forgetting yourself. Get on with the

story of your loves and remember that you are only and will never
be anything other than a Jacques.

JACQUES:When we came across those rogues in the cottage, if

Jacques hadn’t been worth a bit more than his master…
 MASTER: Jacques, you are insolent. You are abusing my kindness.
If I was foolish enough to raise you from your proper place I can
always send you back. Jacques, take your bottle and your pot of
tisane and go downstairs.

JACQUES: You say what you like, Monsieur, I am comfortable here

and I will not go downstairs.

MASTER: I tell you, you will go downstairs.

JACQUES: I am sure that what you say is wrong. What, Monsieur,

after having accustomed me over ten years to live as your equal…

MASTER: It is my pleasure to put an end to all that.

JACQUES: After having put up with all my impertinence…

MASTER: I will suffer it no more.

JACQUES: After having seated me next to you at table, having

called me your friend…

MASTER: You do not know the meaning of the word ‘friend’ when
it is used by a superior to his inferior.

JACQUES: When everybody knows that your orders aren’t worth a

fig unless they have been ratified by Jacques; after your name and
mine have become so well linked that one never goes without the
other and everyone says: ‘Jacques and his master…’, all of a sudden
you take it into your head to separate them. No, Monsieur, it will
not be so. It is written up above that as long as Jacques lives, as
long as his master lives, and even after they are both dead, people
will still say: ‘Jacques and his master’.

MASTER: And I tell you, Jacques, that you will go downstairs and
you will go downstairs immediately because I order you to.
 JACQUES: Monsieur, order me to do anything else if you want me
to obey.
Here Jacques’ master got up, took Jacques by the lapels and said
gravely: ‘Go downstairs.’
Jacques replied coldly: ‘I will not go downstairs.’
His master shook him hard and said: ‘Go down, you scoundrel,
obey me.’
‘Scoundrel if you wish, but the scoundrel will not go downstairs.
Listen, Monsieur, what I have in my head, as they say, I have in my
heels. You are losing your temper for nothing. Jacques is staying
where he is and will not go downstairs.’
And then Jacques and his master, who had been restrained up to
this point, both lost control at the same time and started shouting.
‘You will go down!’
‘I will not go down!’
‘You will go down!’
‘I will not go down!’
At this noise their hostess came up to see what it was all about
but she didn’t get an answer straight away since they carried on
shouting.
‘You will go down.’
‘I will not go down.’
Then the master, with heavy heart, stalked up and down the
room grumbling: ‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’
The hostess, who was standing there in amazement, said:
‘Messieurs, what’s going on?’
Jacques did not move but said to the hostess: ‘It’s my master.
He’s gone off his head. He’s mad.’

MASTER: Soft, you mean.

JACQUES: If you say so.

MASTER (to hostess): Did you hear that?

 HOSTESS: He’s wrong, but peace, peace. Speak, one of you or the
other, and let me know what it’s all about.

MASTER (to Jacques): Speak, you scoundrel.

JACQUES (to master): Speak yourself.

HOSTESS (to Jacques): Come along, Monsieur Jacques, speak. Your

master has ordered you to and after all a master is a master.
Jacques explained the thing to their hostess. When she had heard
it the hostess said: ‘Messieurs, do you agree to accept me as
arbitrator?’

JACQUES AND HIS MASTER (at the same time): Willingly, willingly,
Madame.
‘And will you promise me on your word of honour to carry out
my sentence?’

JACQUES AND HIS MASTER: On our word of honour.

Then the hostess sat down at table and taking on the grave
manner of a magistrate she said: ‘Having heard the declaration of
Monsieur Jacques and having considered the facts which would
tend to prove that his master is a good, indeed a very good, in fact
too good a master, and that Jacques is not a bad servant although
sometimes subject to confound absolute and irrecoverable
possession with passing and gratuitous concession, I hereby annul
the equality which has been established between them by virtue of
lapse of time and hereby recreate it simultaneously. Jacques will go
downstairs and when he shall have gone downstairs he shall come
back up again and there shall revert to him all the prerogatives he
has exercised up to this date. His master shall tender his hand to
him and shall say to him in friendship: “Hello, Jacques, I am
pleased to see you again”, and Jacques will reply: “And I,
Monsieur, am delighted to return.” And I forbid this business ever
to be discussed by them or the prerogative of master and servant
ever to be re-examined by them again. It is our wish that the one
shall order and the other obey, each as best he can, and that there
be left between that which the one can and that which the other
must the same obscurity as heretofore.’
In finishing this judgement, which she had lifted from some
work of that time published on the occasion of a similar quarrel
when from one end of the kingdom to the other the entire country
could hear the master crying to his servant: ‘You will go down!’,
and the servant from his side shouting: ‘I will not go down!’,45
‘Come along,’ she said to Jacques, ‘give me your arm without any
more argument.’
Jacques cried out plaintively: ‘It must have been written up
above that I would go downstairs.’
The hostess said to Jacques: ‘It is written up above that at the
moment when any man takes a master he will go down, rise up, go
forward, go backward or stay where he is without his feet ever
being free to refuse the orders of his head. Give me your arm and
let my order be fulfilled.’
Jacques gave his arm to their hostess but they had hardly passed
the threshold of the room when the master threw himself on to
Jacques and embraced him. Then he let go of Jacques to embrace
the hostess and then both of them together saying: ‘It is written up
above that I shall never get rid of that character there and so long
as I live he shall be my master and I shall be his servant.’
The hostess added: ‘And as far as one can tell neither of you will
be any the worse off.’
After the hostess had calmed their quarrel, which she took for
the first of its kind when there had been more than a hundred like
it, and reinstated Jacques in his former position, she carried on
about her business and the master said to Jacques: ‘Now that we
have calmed down and are in a state where we can make clear
judgements, will you not acknowledge it?’

JACQUES:I will admit that when one has given one’s word of
honour one must keep it, and since we gave our judge our word of
honour not to come back to this business we must speak no more of
it.
 MASTER: You are right.

JACQUES: But without coming back on this dispute, could we not

prevent a hundred more like it by means of some reasonable
arrangement?

MASTER: I agree to that.

JACQUES: Whereas it is agreed: Firstly, considering that it is

written up above that I am essential to you, that I know it, and that
I know that you cannot do without me, I will abuse this advantage
each and every time the occasion presents itself.

MASTER: But Jacques, no such agreement was ever made.

JACQUES: Made or not, that’s how it has been for all time, is now,
and ever shall be. Do you imagine that other men have not looked
for a way to escape from this decree or that you are cleverer than
them? Rid yourself of that idea and submit yourself to the rule of a
necessity from which you cannot escape.
Whereas it is agreed: Secondly, considering that it is just as
impossible for Jacques not to know his ascendancy over his master
as it is for his master to be unaware of his own weakness and divest
himself of his indulgence, it is therefore necessary that Jacques be
insolent, and that for the sake of peace his master not notice. All of
this was arranged without our knowledge, all of this was sealed by
Fate at the moment when nature created Jacques and his master. It
was ordained that you would have the title to the thing and I
would have the thing itself. If you wish to oppose yourself to the
will of nature you will only make a fool of yourself.

MASTER: But if that is right your lot is worth more than mine.

JACQUES: Who’s arguing with you?

MASTER: Then if that is true I have only to take your place and put
you in mine.
 JACQUES: Do you know what would happen then? You would lose
the title to the thing and still not have it. Let us stay as we are. It
suits us both very well, and let the rest of our life be devoted to
creating a proverb.

MASTER: What proverb?

JACQUES: Jacques leads his master. It will be said of us first but it

will be repeated about a thousand others who are worth more than
you or me.

MASTER: That seems to be hard, very hard.

JACQUES:My Master, my dear Master, you are shying away from a

needle which will only prick you the harder. That is what has been
agreed between us.

MASTER: What relevance has our consent got if it’s a law of

necessity?

JACQUES: A lot. Do you not think that it would be useful to know

where we stand, clearly and precisely, once and for all? The only
reason for all our quarrels up to now is that we had not accepted,
for your part, that you would call yourself my master and, for my
part, that I would be yours. But now that is all understood and all
that remains for us is to carry on our way accordingly.

MASTER: Where the devil did you learn all that?

JACQUES: In the great book. Ah! Master, no matter how much a

man may study, reflect and meditate on all the books in the world,
he is nothing more than a minor scribe unless he has read the great
book.

After lunch the sun came out. A few travellers assured them that
the stream could now be crossed. Jacques went downstairs. His
master paid their hostess very generously. At the door of the inn
quite a large number of travellers who had been held back by the
bad weather were getting ready to continue on their way. Among
these travellers were Jacques and his master, the man who had
made the ridiculous marriage and his friend. Those travellers who
were on foot had taken their sticks and their bundles, others had
got into their wagons or coaches and those with horses were
mounted up drinking stirrup cups. Their gracious hostess had a
bottle in one hand and was giving out glasses and filling them, not
forgetting her own. They all made obliging remarks to her which
she replied to with politeness and gaiety. Then they spurred their
horses, waved goodbye and went off into the distance.
It so happened that Jacques, his master, the Marquis des Arcis
and his young travelling companion were going the same way. Out
of these four characters only the last one is unknown to you. He
was barely twenty-two or twenty-three. His face showed that he
was a person of great timidity. He carried his head a little inclined
towards his left shoulder. He was quiet and showed hardly any
knowledge of worldly ways. If he bowed he lowered the upper part
of his body without moving his legs. When seated he had the
peculiar habit of taking the tails of his coat and crossing them on
his thighs, keeping his hands in the pockets, and also the peculiar
habit of listening to whoever was speaking with his eyes almost
shut. From this extraordinary bearing of his, Jacques figured him
out, and moving close to his master’s ear he said: ‘I bet you that
young man was a monk.’
‘Why is that, Jacques?’
‘You’ll see.’
Our four travellers carried on together, talking about the rain,
good weather, their hostess, their host and about the argument the
Marquis des Arcis had had about Nicole. This starved and filthy
bitch kept wiping herself on his stockings and, after he had chased
her away several times with his napkin to no avail, out of
impatience he let fly a rather violent kick… And then all of a
sudden the conversation turned to this singular attachment women
have for animals. Everyone said what they thought. Jacques’
master turned towards Jacques and said: ‘And you, Jacques, what
do you think?’
 Jacques asked his master if he had ever noticed that no matter
what poverty people lived in, even if they hadn’t got enough bread
for themselves, they always kept dogs. If he hadn’t noticed that
these dogs were always trained to turn circles, walk on their hind
legs, dance, retrieve, jump into the air at the name of the king or
the queen or play dead, and this training had made them the most
unfortunate beasts in the world. From this he concluded that every
man wants to command another and that since animals are
immediately below the lowest classes of society which are ordered
around by all the other classes, these get hold of animals so that
they too can order someone around…
‘And so,’ said Jacques, ‘everyone has his dog. The Minister is the
King’s dog, the First Secretary is the Minister’s dog, the wife is the
husband’s dog, or the husband the wife’s dog. Favori is so-and-so’s
dog and Thibault is the man on the corner’s dog.
‘When my master makes me speak when I want to be silent,
which in all honesty happens rarely,’ continued Jacques, ‘or when
he makes me silent when I want to speak, which is very difficult, or
when he asks me to tell the story of my loves when I want to talk
about something else, or when I have started the story of my loves
and he interrupts me, am I anything other than his dog? Weak men
are the dogs of the strong.’

MASTER: But, Jacques, I haven’t noticed this attachment to

animals only in the poor. I know many great ladies who are
surrounded by packs of dogs, and that’s without counting their
cats, parrots and songbirds.

JACQUES: It makes them look ridiculous as well as those around

them. They love nobody and nobody loves them and so they throw
this emotion which they don’t know what to do with to their dogs.

MARQUIS DES ARCIS: To love animals means to throw one’s heart to

the dogs. That is a singular interpretation.

MASTER: What they give to those animals would be enough to

feed two or three of the poor.
 JACQUES: Does that surprise you now?

MASTER: No.
The Marquis des Arcis turned his eyes on Jacques, smiled at his
ideas, and then, speaking to his master, he said: ‘That is a most
extraordinary servant you have there.’

MASTER: A servant. You are too kind. It is I who am his. And he

almost proved it to me this morning in due and established form.

While they were talking they arrived at the place where they
were to spend the night, and took rooms together. Jacques’ master
and the Marquis des Arcis had supper together. Jacques and the
young man were served separately. The master explained to the
Marquis in four words the story of Jacques and his fatalistic turn of
mind. The Marquis spoke of the young man who was with him. He
had been a Premonstratensian and had left his abbey through a
bizarre incident.46 Some friends of the Marquis had recommended
him to the Marquis who had made him his secretary while waiting
for better things.
‘That’s funny.’
‘What do you find funny about that?’
‘I was speaking of Jacques. Hardly had we gone into the inn we
have just left when Jacques whispered to me: “Monsieur, take a
good look at that young man. I bet that he was a monk.” ’
‘He guessed correctly, but I don’t know how. Do you normally go
to bed early?’
‘Not usually, and this evening I am in even less of a hurry since
we have only made half a day’s travel.’
‘If you have nothing more useful or agreeable to do I will tell
you the story of my secretary. It’s rather unusual.’
‘I’ll be glad to hear it.’
I can hear you, Reader, you are asking me: ‘What about the story
of Jacques’ loves?…’
Do you think that I am not as curious as you? Have you
forgotten that Jacques loved to speak, and especially about himself,
which is the normal obsession of people of his condition, an
obsession which raises them from their debasement, which puts
them on a pedestal and suddenly transforms them into interesting
people? What do you think is the reason that the populace is
attracted to public executions? Inhumanity? Well, you are wrong.
The populace is not inhuman but if it could it would tear from the
hands of justice the unfortunate man around whose gallows it
gathers.
The man in the street goes to the Place de Grève so that he can
see something which he can in his turn tell to others in his suburb.
Whatever the scene it doesn’t matter, just so long as it gives him a
role to play, makes his neighbours gather round him, and makes
them listen to him. Put on some exciting festival on the boulevard
and you will see that the place of execution will be empty. The
populace is hungry for something to look at and goes there because
it enjoys seeing it and even more enjoys telling others about it
afterwards. The populace is terrible in its fury but that does not last
long. Its own poverty has made it compassionate and it turns its
eyes away from the spectacle of horror which it has gone to see, is
moved to pity and goes home crying.
Everything which I have just told you, Reader, I was told by
Jacques. I admit it to you because I do not like to take the credit
for the cleverness of others. Jacques knew neither the word vice
nor the word virtue. He claimed that we were all born at a good or
an evil hour. When he heard the words reward or punishment he
used to shrug his shoulders. According to him reward was the
encouragement of the good and punishment the fear of the wicked.
How could it be otherwise, he used to ask, if we have no freedom
and our destiny is written up above? He believed that a man
follows his path towards glory or ignominy as ineluctably as a
boulder with consciousness of its self might roll down the side of a
mountain, and that if the series of causes and effects which form
the life of a man, beginning at the first moment of his birth up to
his last breath, were known to us, we would remain convinced that
he had only ever done the inevitable.
I have often argued the contrary with him but to no avail and
without success. What does one say to somebody who says:
‘Whatever the sum total of the elements I am composed of I am still
one entity. Now one cause has only one effect. I have always been
one single cause and I have therefore only ever had one effect to
produce. My existence in time is therefore nothing more than a
series of necessary effects’?
Thus did Jacques reason in the manner of his Captain. The
distinction between a physical world and a moral world seemed to
him to be devoid of sense. His Captain had crammed into Jacques’
head all these opinions which he had found in his Spinoza, whom
he knew by heart. According to this system one might imagine that
Jacques neither rejoiced in nor despaired of anything. But that was
not, however, quite correct. He acted more or less like you and me.
He thanked his benefactor so that he might do him more good and
got angry with the unjust man. When people pointed out to him
that this was like a dog biting the stone that hurt him, he would
say: ‘No, the stone that the dog bites will not correct itself but the
unjust man is often corrected by the stick.’
Like you and me he was often inconsistent, and inclined to forget
his principles, except, of course, in the moments when his
philosophy dominated him and then he would say: ‘That had to be
so because it was written up above.’
He tried to anticipate misfortune and while he showed the
greatest disdain for prudence he was always prudent. When
misfortune struck he came back to his motto and was always
consoled by it. Otherwise he was a good man, frank, honest,
courageous, loyal, faithful, very stubborn, even more talkative and
as upset as you and me at having started the story of his loves with
hardly any hope of finishing it.47
And so I advise you, Reader, to submit yourself to the inevitable
and in the absence of the story of Jacques’ loves to make the best
of the story of the Marquis des Arcis’ secretary. Besides, I can see
him, this poor Jacques, his neck wrapped in a large handkerchief,
his gourd, hitherto full of good wine, now holding no more than
tisane, coughing and cursing the hostess of the inn they had just
left and her champagne, which he would not be doing if he only
remembered that everything is written up above, even his cold.
And what is this, Reader? One love story after another! That
makes one, two, three, four love stories I’ve told you and three or
four more still to come. That is a lot of love stories. It is also a fact
that since I am writing for you I must either go without your
applause or follow your taste, and you have shown a decided taste
for love stories. All of your works, whether in prose or verse, are
love stories. Nearly all your poems, elegies, eclogues, idylls, songs,
epistles, comedies, tragedies and operas are love stories. Nearly all
your paintings and sculptures are no more than love stories. Love
stories have been your only food ever since you existed, and you
show no sign of ever growing tired of them. You have been kept on
this diet and will be kept on it for a very long time to come, all of
you, men, women and children, both big and small, and you will
never grow tired of it. To be truthful it is really very strange… I
wish that the Marquis’ secretary’s story was yet another kind of
love story, but I am afraid that it is nothing of the kind, and you
will be bored. Well, that is too bad for the Marquis des Arcis, too
bad for Jacques’ master, for you, Reader, and for me too.
There comes a moment when nearly all young girls and young
boys become melancholic. They are disturbed by a vague
uneasiness which extends to everything and can find no
consolation. They look for solitude. They weep. The silence of the
cloister moves them and the image of peace which seems to reign
in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first movements
of their developing emotions for the voice of God calling them and
it is at the precise moment when nature is calling to them that they
embrace a life which is contrary to the laws of nature. Their
mistake does not last. The voice of nature becomes clearer and is
heard and the prisoner falls into regrets, listlessness, swooning,
madness or despair.’
That was how the Marquis des Arcis started.
‘At the age of seventeen, disgusted with the world, Richard left
his father’s house to take the habit of a Premonstratensian.’

MASTER: A Premonstratensian? I am pleased at his choice. Their

habits are white as swans and Saint Norbert who founded them left
only one thing out of their constitutions…
 MARQUIS: To give them each a two-seater carriage.

MASTER: If it wasn’t already Cupid’s custom to go naked he would

wear the habit of a Premonstratensian. That order has the most
extraordinary ways. You are allowed to have a duchess, a
marquise, a countess, the wife of a president, a counsellor or even a
financier, but not the wife of a bourgeois. No matter how pretty the
shopkeeper’s wife you will rarely see a Premonstratensian in a
shop.
 MARQUIS: That is what Richard told me. Richard would have
taken his vows after two years in the novitiate if his parents had
not expressed their opposition. His father insisted that he return to
his house and that he should test his vocation by following all the
rules of the monastic life at home for a year. And this pact was
faithfully carried out on both sides. When he had spent the trial
year under the eyes of his family Richard again asked to take his
vows. His father said to him: ‘I gave you a year so that you could
finally make up your mind and I hope that you will not refuse me
one for the same reason. All that I will agree to is that you spend
that year wherever you please.’
While waiting for the end of the second period the Abbot of the
Order took up Richard and it is during this interval that he became
implicated in one of those intrigues which can only ever happen in
monasteries.
There was at that time at the head of one of the Houses of the
Order a Superior of extraordinary character. He was called le père
Hudson. Father Hudson had the most attractive features, a large
forehead, oval face, aquiline nose, large blue eyes, large handsome
cheeks, a generous mouth, fine teeth, the most subtle smile and, on
his head, a forest of white hair which added
dignity to the attractiveness of his face. He was a man of
intelligence, knowledge and gaiety, dignified in speech and
manner, with a love of order and of work, but also a man of the
most fiery passions and the most immoderate love of pleasure and
women, a consummate genius for intrigue, the most dissolute
morals and the most absolute despotism over his own House. When
he was given charge of it, the House was blighted by ignorant
Jansenism. The studies of the House were neglected, its temporal
affairs were in disorder, religious duties were no longer fulfilled,
the divine services were celebrated without proper respect and the
surplus accommodation was occupied by dissolute lodgers. Father
Hudson either won over or sent away the Jansenists, presided
personally over the studies of the House, put the temporal affairs in
order, reintroduced the monastic rule, expelled the scandalous
lodgers and introduced regularity and propriety into the
celebration of the divine offices, making his community one of the
most edifying. But he himself dispensed with the austerity to which
he subjected the others. He was not fool enough to follow this rule
of iron under which he held his subordinates, who consequently
were moved against Father Hudson with a fury which was all the
more violent and dangerous for being secret. Every one of them
was his enemy and spied on him. Every one busied himself secretly
in order to penetrate the mystery surrounding his conduct. Every
one of them kept his own record of Hudson’s secret depravity.
Every one of them was resolved to bring about his downfall. He
couldn’t make a move without being followed. He had no sooner
planned some intrigue than it was known about. The Abbot of the
Order had a house adjoining the monastery. This house had two
doors, one of which opened on to the street, the other into the
cloister. Hudson had forced the locks and this house had become
the retreat for his nocturnal activities and the bed of the Abbot that
of his pleasures. It was through this door which led into the street
that when night had fallen he would personally bring into the
rooms of the Abbey women of every condition. It was here that he
would give his delicate supper parties. Hudson had a confessional
and he had corrupted every one of his female penitents who was
worth the trouble. Among these penitents there was a little
confectioner who was well known in the quarter because of her
coquettishness and her charms. Since he was not able to go to her
house Hudson shut her up in his seraglio. Such an abduction did
not take place without arousing the suspicions of her parents and
her husband. They came to visit him. Hudson listened to them with
an air of dismay. While these good people were explaining their
sorrows to him the bell rang. It was six o’clock in the evening.
Hudson bade them be silent, took off his hat, stood up,
crossed himself generously and started off in a sincere and
vibrant tone ‘Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae…’, leaving the father
and brothers of the little confectioner ashamed of their suspicions
to say to the husband as they were on their way down the stairs:
‘My son, you’re an idiot…’; ‘Brother, have you no shame?… A man
who says the angelus! A saint!…’
One winter’s evening on his way back to his monastery he was
accosted by one of those creatures who solicit passers-by. She
seemed pretty. He followed her. Hardly had he gone into her house
when the night watch arrived. This incident would have been the
undoing of another man but Hudson was a cool customer and the
incident won him the friendship and the protection of the
Commissioner of Police. When he was brought into his presence
this is what he said: ‘My name is Hudson. I am the Superior of my
House. When I arrived there everything was in disorder. There was
no learning, no discipline, no morals. The spiritual life was
neglected to the point of scandal and the neglect of temporal affairs
threatened the imminent ruin of the House. I have reformed
everything but I am a man and I preferred to address myself to a
corrupt woman than to an honest one. You may now do with me
what you will.’
The magistrate advised him to be more careful in the future,
promised he would say nothing of the incident, and indicated a
desire to get to know him better.
However, the enemies he was surrounded by had each
individually sent to the General of the Order memoranda in which
what they knew of Hudson’s misconduct was exposed. Comparison
of these records only increased their strength. The General was a
Jansenist and consequently inclined to seek vengeance for the kind
of persecution which Hudson had led against adherents of his
belief. He would have been only too pleased to extend the reproach
against one defender of laxism and the papal bull Unigenitus to the
whole sect. Consequently he entrusted the different records of the
actions and deeds of Hudson to two commissioners whom he
secretly sent away to the Abbey with orders to verify these and
obtain legally admissible evidence. He instructed them above all to
show the greatest circumspection in the way they went about the
business since it was the sole means of bringing about the downfall
of the guilty party and removing him from the protection of the
court and Mirepoix, in whose eyes Jansenism was the greatest of all
crimes, and submission to the bull Unigenitus was the greatest of all
virtues.48 Richard, my secretary, was one of these two
investigators. The two men left the novice house and were installed
in Hudson’s Abbey, where they secretly set about obtaining
information. Before long they had gathered a list of more crimes
than it needed to send fifty monks to the in pace.49 Their stay had
been a long one but their conduct had been so skilful that nothing
had leaked out. Hudson, sly as he was, was nearing the moment of
his undoing without the least suspicion. However, the newcomers’
failure to pay court to him, the secrecy of their journey, their
frequent discussions with the other monks and their journeys out,
sometimes together, sometimes alone, the kind of people they
visited and who visited them all caused him some anxiety. He
watched them and had them spied on and before long the object of
their mission became clear to him. He did not lose his self-
assurance but busied himself in finding a way not of escaping the
storm which was threatening him but of bringing it down on the
heads of the two commissioners, and this is the extraordinary way
he went about it.
He had seduced a young girl whom he held hidden in a little
lodging in the Saint-Medard quarter. He went straight to her house
and this is what he said to her: ‘My child, everything has been
discovered and we are lost. Before the week is out you will be
locked up and I do not know what will become of me. But do not
despair, do not cry, pull yourself together. Listen to me and do
what I tell you. Do it well and I will take care of the rest.
‘Tomorrow I am leaving for the country. During my absence go
and find two monks whose names I shall give you,’ and he named
the two commissioners. ‘Ask to speak to them in secret. When you
are alone with them, throw yourself at their feet, beg their help,
beseech their impartiality, beg their mediation with the General
over whom you know they have so much influence. Cry, sob, tear
out your hair, and while you are crying and sobbing and tearing
your hair tell them all about us and tell them in the way which will
inspire the most commiseration for you and the most horror of me.’
‘What, Monsieur, do you want me to tell them…’
‘Yes, you will tell them who you are, who your family is, that I
seduced you, yes, seduced you, in the confessional, abducted you
from your parents and shut you away in the house you are in now.
Tell them that after having dishonoured you and thrown you into
crime I have abandoned you in squalor. Tell them that you do not
know what will become of you.’
 ‘But, Father Hudson…’
‘Either you will do what I have told you and what I am about to
tell you or you will bring about your downfall and mine. These two
monks will not fail to feel sorry for you, to offer their assistance,
and ask for a second meeting which you will consent to. They will
make inquiries of you and your parents and, since you will not
have told them anything which is not true, they will not become
suspicious. After the first and second meeting I will tell you what
you have to do at the third. All that I ask of you is that you play
your role well.’
Everything happened as Hudson thought it would. He went away
on a second journey and the two commissioners told the girl to
come to the monastery. They asked her to tell them her sad story
again. While she was telling it to one, the other was taking down
notes. They lamented over her misfortune and told her of her
parents’ distress, which was only too real, and promised her
immunity for herself and prompt vengeance on her seducer but on
condition that she would sign a declaration. At first this proposition
appeared to revolt her. They insisted. She agreed. All that remained
to be decided was the day, the hour and the place where the
document could be drawn up, something which needed time and
privacy…
‘We can’t do it here: if the Abbot came back and saw me… I
wouldn’t dare suggest my house…’
The girl and the two commissioners went their own ways, giving
each other time to overcome these difficulties.
The same day Hudson was told of what had happened. He was
overjoyed, nearing the moment of his triumph. Soon he would
teach these callow youths what kind of man they were dealing
with.
‘Take your pen,’ he said to the girl, ‘and arrange a rendezvous
with them in the place I will tell you. This place will suit them, I
am sure, since it is a respectable house and the woman who
occupies it has a very good reputation amongst the other lodgers
and in the neighbourhood.’
This woman was, however, one of those secret schemers who
pretend to be devout, who insinuate themselves into the best
houses, affect a soft, friendly, ingratiating manner and abuse the
confidence of mothers and daughters to bring them to dishonour.
That was the use Hudson made of her. She was his procuress. But
did he tell her or did he not tell her of his secret? That I do not
know.
In fact the two envoys of the General accepted the invitation and
were there with the young girl. The lady of the house withdrew.
They had started taking down the evidence when a loud noise
broke out in the house.
‘Messieurs, who do you want?’
‘We want Mme Simion.’ (This was the lady’s name.)
‘You are at her door.’
They knocked loudly on the door.
‘Messieurs,’ the girl asked the monks, ‘shall I answer?’
‘Answer.’
‘Shall I open the door?’
‘Open it.’
The person who had spoken was a Commissioner of Police whom
Hudson knew intimately. After all, whom didn’t he know? He had
told the man of his peril and told him what part to play.
‘Aha! Aha!’ said the Commissioner of Police, ‘two monks, alone
with a prostitute! She’s not bad either.’
The girl was so indecently dressed that it was impossible to be
mistaken about her profession or what she could have been doing
alone with two monks, the eldest of whom was not yet thirty. They,
however, protested their innocence. The Commissioner sneered and
passed his hand under the chin of the young girl who had thrown
herself at his feet and was begging for mercy.
‘We are in a respectable house,’ said the monks.
‘Yes, yes, a respectable house,’ said the Commissioner.
‘We are here on important business.’
‘We know what important business you had here. Speak,
Mademoiselle.’
‘Monsieur, these men are telling you the truth.’
The Commissioner, however, started to speak in his turn and as
there was nothing in his report other than the pure and simple
exposition of fact the two monks were obliged to sign it. On their
way out they passed all the other tenants, who were on the
landings outside their apartments. At the door of the house there
was a large crowd of people, a carriage and constables of the
watch, who put them into the carriage to the booing and shouting
of the crowd. They had covered their faces with their cloaks and
were deeply distressed.
The perfidious Commissioner shouted: ‘Fathers, tell me, why do
you frequent these places and these creatures? But nothing will
come of this. I have orders from the authorities to hand you over to
your Superior, who is a broad-minded and tolerant man and will
not treat this business more severely than it deserves. I do not think
that your order behaves in quite the same way as the cruel
Franciscans. If it were them you were dealing with, by God I’d feel
sorry for you.’
While the Commissioner of Police was speaking to them the
coach started on its way back to the monastery. The crowd, which
was still growing, surrounded them and people were running as
fast as they could in front and behind. This is what they heard:
‘What’s going on?’
‘Those are monks there.’
‘What have they done?’
‘They got caught in a brothel.’
‘Premonstratensians in a brothel!’
‘Yes, they’re poaching the Carmelites’ and the Franciscans’
game.’
Then they arrived. The Commissioner of Police got down and
knocked on the door. He knocked again, and then again. At last the
door opened. The Superior was sent for. Hudson made them wait at
least half an hour in order to create as big a scandal as possible. He
appeared at last and the Commissioner whispered some words in
his ear. The Commissioner appeared to be pleading and Hudson to
be rejecting his intercessions harshly. Eventually, putting on a
serious face and a firm manner, he said: ‘I have no dissolute monks
in my House. These people here are two strangers who are
unknown to me. Perhaps they are two ruffians in disguise. You can
do whatever you want with them.’
At this the door was shut. The Commissioner got back into the
carriage and said to our two poor devils, who were more dead than
alive: ‘I have done everything I could for you. I would never have
thought that Father Hudson was so harsh. Why the devil did you go
to the prostitutes?’
‘If the girl you found us with is a prostitute, it is not debauchery
which led us to her.’
‘Come on, fathers, you are talking to an old Commissioner of
Police. Who are you?’
‘We are monks and the habits we are wearing are our own.’
‘Listen. Tomorrow you will have to explain your business. Tell
me the truth. I may perhaps be able to help you.’
‘We have told you the truth… But where are we going?’
‘To the Petit Châtelet.’
‘To the Petit Châtelet… To prison!’
‘I’m afraid so.’
And it was there that Richard and his companion were led. But it
was not Hudson’s intention to leave them there. He had got into a
post-chaise and gone back to Versailles, where he had managed to
get an audience with the Minister, to whom he explained the
business as it suited him.
‘And so you see, Monseigneur, what one exposes oneself to by
introducing reform into a dissolute House, and expelling heretics. A
moment later and I would have been lost and dishonoured. But
their persecution will not stop there. You will hear every single
allegation by which it is possible to blacken the reputation of a
good man. But I hope, Monseigneur, that you will remember that
our General…’
‘I know, I know, and I feel sorry for you. The services which you
have rendered to the Church and your Order will not be forgotten.
The Lord’s elect have always been exposed to disgrace. They have
suffered it. You must learn to imitate their courage. You may
depend on the kindness and the protection of the King… Ah!
monks, monks… I was once one and I know from experience what
they are capable of.’
‘Were the Church and State so fortunate as to see Your Eminence
outlive myself, I would persevere without fear.’
‘I will help without delay. Go now.’
‘No, Your Eminence, no, I will not go without an express
order…’
‘To free those two bad monks? I do believe that the honour of
your religion and your cloth has moved you to the point of
forgetting your personal injuries. That is a very Christian act, and I
am edified by it but not surprised, coming from a man such as you.
This affair will have no publicity.’
‘Ah, Monseigneur, my soul is overwhelmed with joy! That is the
only thing I feared.’
‘I will see to it.’
That same evening Hudson had the order for release and the
next day Richard and his companion found themselves twenty
miles from Paris at daybreak, under the conduct of a bailiff who
brought them back to their Mother House. He also brought with
him a letter which enjoined the General to desist from similar
intrigues and to impose monastic discipline on our two monks. This
incident threw Hudson’s enemies into consternation. There was not
one monk in his House who did not tremble under his gaze.
A few months afterwards he received the preferment of a rich
abbey.
The General developed an intense hatred for him. He was old
and he had every reason to fear that abbot Hudson might one day
succeed him. He was very fond of Richard. ‘My dear friend,’ he said
to him one day, ‘what would happen to you if you fell under the
power of that scoundrel Hudson? I am afraid for you. You have not
yet taken your final vows. If you take my advice you will put aside
your habit…’
Richard followed this advice and returned to his father’s house,
which was not far from Hudson’s abbey.
Hudson and Richard moved in the same society and it was
impossible that they should not one day meet. In fact they did
meet. One day Richard was visiting the lady of a château situated
between Chalons and Saint-Dizier, but nearer to Saint-Dizier than
Chalons, and a stone’s throw away from Hudson’s monastery.
The lady said to him: ‘Your old abbot is here. He is very likeable,
but what kind of man is he underneath?’
‘The best of friends and the most dangerous of enemies.’
‘Are you not tempted to see him again?’
‘Not at all.’
Hardly had Richard answered when they heard the noise of a
coach entering the courtyard and saw Hudson get down,
accompanied by one of the most beautiful ladies of the
neighbourhood.
‘Well, in spite of your wishes, you are going to see him again,’
said the lady of the château, ‘for here he is.’
The lady of the château and Richard went to meet Hudson and
the lady who had got out of the carriage with him. The ladies
embraced. As Hudson got close to Richard, he recognized him and
cried out: ‘Ah! Is that you, my dear Richard? You once tried to
cause my downfall. I have forgiven you. You must forgive me for
your visit to the Petit Châtelet and there’s an end to it.’
‘Father Abbot, you must admit that you were a terrible
scoundrel.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And if justice had been done it wouldn’t have been me in the
Châtelet but you.’
‘Perhaps… But I think that I owe my new way of life to the
dangers I ran then. Ah, my dear Richard, how it has made me
reflect, and how I am changed.’
‘That lady you arrived with is charming.’
‘I no longer see such attractions.’
‘What a figure!’
‘I am indifferent to all that.’
‘How well she looks.’
‘Sooner or later one tires of a pleasure which one can take only
on the apex of a roof in danger of breaking one’s neck at any
moment.’
 ‘She has the most beautiful hands in the world.’
‘I no longer have any use for them. A sensible person always
returns to the real values of his calling, to the only true happiness.’
‘And those eyes, and the sidelong glances they are giving you.
You must admit that even you, who happen to be a connoisseur,
can hardly ever have attached yourself to eyes more brilliant or
more soft than that. What grace, what nobility and what dignity in
her gait and her bearing.’
‘I no longer think of such vanities. I read the Scriptures and
meditate on the fathers of the Church.’
‘And from time to time the perfections of this lady. Does she live
far from Moncetz? Is her husband young?’
Hudson, tired of these questions, and quite convinced that
Richard did not take him for a saint, said: ‘My dear Richard, you
are taking the piss, and you are quite right.’

My dear Reader, you must forgive me here for the lack of

propriety of this expression and admit that here, as in an infinity of
good stories, such as, for example, those of the conversation of
Piron and the late Abbé Vatri,50 the decent word would spoil
everything.
– What’s this conversation between Piron and the late Abbé
Vatri?
Go and ask the editor of his works who hasn’t dared write it
down but won’t need to have his arm twisted to tell you.
Our four protagonists had joined company again in the château.
They ate well, and happily, and that evening they parted company
promising to see each other again. But while the Marquis des Arcis
was speaking with Jacques’ master, Jacques for his part was not
sitting in silence with the Marquis’ secretary, who thought Jacques
one of life’s true originals. Such characters would be more
prevalent if first of all education, and then afterwards the ways of
the world, did not wear men down like pieces of money which lose
their definition in circulation. It was late. The masters and their
valets were warned by the clock that it was time to go to bed. And
they followed its advice.
While he was undressing his master Jacques asked him: ‘Do you
like pictures?’

MASTER: Yes, but only verbal pictures, because when they are in
colour on canvas, although I am as trenchant in my verdicts as any
connoisseur, I will admit to you that I don’t know anything about
them at all and I would be very hard put to tell the difference
between one School and another. I would take a Boucher for a
Rubens or a Raphael and I would mistake a bad copy for the
sublime original. I would pay a thousand écus for some daub worth
six francs and six francs for something worth a thousand écus. And
I have always bought paintings at the Pont Notre-Dame at the
Gallery of a certain Tremblin, who in my youth was the dealer for
those who hadn’t much money or who wanted salacious stuff and
who ruined the talent of Vanloo’s young pupils.51

JACQUES: How was that?

MASTER: What has that got to do with you? Describe your picture
to me and be quick about it because I am dropping with sleep.

JACQUES: Imagine yourself in front of the Fountain of the

Innocents, or near Saint-Denis’ gate – two accessories which will
enrich the composition.

MASTER: I am there.

JACQUES: Picture, in the middle of the road, a carriage with a

broken spring turned over on its side.

MASTER: I can see it.

JACQUES: A monk and two prostitutes have got out of it. The
monk is running away as fast as he can, the coachman rushing to
get down from his seat. The coachman’s dog has escaped from
inside the coach and set off in pursuit of the monk, whom he has
caught by his tails. The monk is trying everything to rid himself of
the dog. One of the prostitutes, dishevelled, and with her breasts
showing, is splitting her sides laughing. The other prostitute, who
has received a bump on her forehead, is leaning against the door of
the coach holding her head in both hands. Meanwhile the populace
of the town has gathered around. Street urchins run up shouting.
The shopkeepers and their wives are all at their doors and other
spectators are at their windows.

MASTER: What the devil! Jacques, your composition is well

ordered, rich, pleasing, varied and full of movement. On our return
to Paris take this subject to Fragonard and you will see what he
could do with it.

JACQUES:
After what you’ve confessed to me about your
knowledge of painting, I can accept your praise without lowering
my eyes.

MASTER: I bet that was one of the adventures of Hudson.

JACQUES: That is correct.

Reader, while these good people are sleeping, I would like to

propose a little question for you to think about on your pillow.
What would the child of Abbot Hudson and Mme de La Pommeraye
have been like?
Perhaps an honest man?
Perhaps a scheming trickster?
You can tell me the answer tomorrow morning.
Morning has come and gone and our travellers have parted
company because the Marquis des Arcis wasn’t going the same way
as Jacques and his master.
– So are we going to get back to the story of Jacques’ love life?
I hope so, but I can tell you one thing for certain. The master
knows what time it is, has taken a pinch of snuff and has already
asked Jacques: ‘Well, Jacques, your love life?’
Instead of replying to this question Jacques said: ‘Isn’t it
amazing? From morning to night they speak badly of life and yet
they still can’t bring themselves to end it all. Could it be that life is
not such a bad thing, all in all, or are they just afraid of a worse
one to come?’

MASTER: I suppose it’s a bit of both really. While we’re on the

subject, Jacques, do you believe in the life to come?

JACQUES: I neither believe nor disbelieve. I just don’t think about

it. I do my best to enjoy this one as an advance against future
expectations.

MASTER: Well, I prefer to think of myself as a sort of chrysalis. I

rather like to think that the butterfly – which is my soul – will one
day manage to break out of its cocoon and fly away to divine
justice.

JACQUES: What a charming image.

MASTER: It’s not mine. I read it I think in a book by an Italian poet

called Dante who wrote a work called The Comedy of Inferno,
Purgatory and Paradise.

JACQUES: That’s a strange subject for a comedy.

MASTER: By God, there are some good things in it though –

especially in Hell. He shuts all the heretics in tombs of fire out of
which spout flames which carry destruction far and wide. And he
puts the ungrateful in niches where they cry tears that freeze on
their faces. And the slothful in other niches where their life blood
flows from their veins and is consumed by disdainful worms…52
But why the sudden outburst about our disdain for a life we are
afraid of losing?

JACQUES:Because of what the Marquis’ secretary told me about

the husband of that pretty girl in the gig.

MASTER: Is she a widow?

 JACQUES: She lost her husband on a trip they made to Paris and
the wretch of a man wouldn’t even hear mention of the sacraments.
The lady of the château where Richard met the Abbé Hudson was
given the job of putting his bonnet on.

MASTER: What do you mean by bonnet?

JACQUES: His christening bonnet, like they put on new-born

babies.53

MASTER: I see what you mean. And how did she go about that?

JACQUES: They all gathered round the fire. The doctor took his
pulse, which he found very weak, and went to sit down with the
others. The lady in question went over to the bed and asked the
deceased several questions in a calm quiet voice without speaking
any louder than she needed to in order for him to hear every word
she wanted him to. After that the conversation continued between
the lady, the doctor and one or two others as follows:

LADY: Well, Doctor, how is Mme de Parme these days, tell us?54

DOCTOR: I’ve just come from a house where I was assured that she
is so ill that they think it’s hopeless.

LADY: But the Princess has always shown herself so devout. As

soon as she felt herself in danger she asked to confess and receive
the sacraments.

DOCTOR: The curé of Saint-Roch is bringing a relic to Versailles

for her today, but it will arrive too late.

LADY: The Princess is not the only person to give that example.
The Duke of Chevreuse did not wait until the sacraments were
suggested to him when he was ill. He asked for them by himself
and that gave great solace to his family…
 DOCTOR: He is much better now.

ONE OF THOSE PRESENT: It is absolutely beyond doubt that the

sacraments can’t kill you… on the contrary even.

LADY: In all honesty one should attend to these things as soon as

there is any danger at all… Sick people apparently have no
conception of how hard it is for those around them and yet how
indispensable it is to suggest these things to them.

DOCTOR: I have just left a man who asked me two days ago:
‘Doctor, how am I?’
‘Monsieur, the fever is bad and relapses are common.’
‘Do you think that I will have one soon?’
‘No, I am afraid only for tonight.’
‘In that case I had better warn a certain gentleman with whom I
have a little personal business to attend to so I can finish it while
I’ve still got my wits about me.’
He confessed and took the sacraments. I returned that evening
and there was no relapse. Yesterday he was much better. Today
he’s almost completely out of it. And I’ve seen the sacraments have
that effect many times in the course of my practice.

SICK MAN (to his servant): Bring me my chicken.

JACQUES: So they brought him his chicken. He wanted to cut it

but didn’t have the strength so they cut up the wing into small
pieces. He asked for some bread and threw himself on it, tried to
chew a mouthful, which he wasn’t able to swallow and which he
threw up in his napkin. He called for some wine and wet his lips
with it and said: ‘I feel fine.’
Half an hour after he had eaten his bread and drunk his wine he
was no more.

MASTER:Yet the lady went about the business quite well… What
about your love life?
 JACQUES: What about the condition you agreed to?

MASTER: I understand – you are installed in the château Desglands

and the old messenger Jeanne has ordered her young daughter
Denise to visit you four times a day and look after you. But before
we go any further, tell me, had Denise lost her virginity?

JACQUES: I don’t believe so.

MASTER: What about yours?

JACQUES: Mine had long since vanished.

MASTER: So the story of your love life is not about your first love.

JACQUES: No, why should it be?

MASTER: Because a man loves the girl he loses his virginity to just
as he is loved by the one whose virginity he takes away.

JACQUES: Sometimes yes and sometimes no.

MASTER: Well, how did you lose it, then?

JACQUES: I didn’t lose it. I swapped it.

MASTER: Well, tell me something about this swap.

JACQUES: That would be like the first chapter of Luke’s gospel – a

litany of begats – from the first one up to Denise, the last.55

MASTER: Denise who thought she was taking it but wasn’t.

JACQUES: And before Denise our two neighbours’ wives.

MASTER: Who thought they were taking it and didn’t get it.
 JACQUES: No.

MASTER: For both of them to miss your virginity is none too

clever.

JACQUES: Master, I can see from the way the right-hand corner of
your mouth is twisting up and the way your left nostril is twitching
that I may as well tell the thing with good grace as have you beg
me for it. Just as I can sense my sore throat getting worse and
know that the story of my loves will be long and I have hardly
enough strength to tell one or two little stories.

MASTER: If Jacques wanted to give me very great pleasure…

JACQUES: How would he go about that?

MASTER: He would begin with the loss of his virginity. Do you

want me to tell you why? It is because I’ve always been very partial
to stories about that great event.

JACQUES: And why is that, if you please?

MASTER: That is because out of all the stories of the same type it is
the only interesting one. All the other times are nothing more than
insipid banal repetition. Out of all the transgressions of a pretty
sinner I am sure that her father confessor is only interested in the
first time.

JACQUES: My master, my master, I can see that your mind is

corrupted and on your death bed the devil will probably appear to
you in the same form as to Ferragus.56

MASTER:Well, perhaps he will. But I bet you were deflowered by

some dreadful old bag from your village.

JACQUES: Don’t bet on it – you’d lose.

 MASTER: Was it your parish priest’s housekeeper?

JACQUES: Don’t bet on it – you’d still lose.

MASTER: It was his niece then?

JACQUES: His niece was seething with bad temper and piety,
which are two qualities that go very well together but do not suit
me.

MASTER: This time I think I’ve got it.

JACQUES: I don’t think anything of the sort.

MASTER:It was one day when the fair was in town – or perhaps it
was market day.

JACQUES: There wasn’t any fair and it wasn’t market day.

MASTER: You went to town.

JACQUES: I didn’t go to town.

MASTER:And it was written up above that in some tavern you

would meet one of those obliging young ladies, that you would get
drunk and…

JACQUES: Actually I hadn’t eaten and what has been written up

above is that at the present moment you will tire yourself out with
false conjecture. And that you will pick up a bad habit which you
have corrected me of – a mania for guessing, and always wrongly.
As I stand before you now, Monsieur, I was once baptized…

MASTER:If you intend to start the loss of your virginity with your
emergence from the font we’re not going to get there very quickly.

JACQUES: But I had a godfather and a godmother just like anyone

else. Master Bugger – the most famous cartwright in our village –
had a son. Bugger the Father was my godfather and Bugger the Son
was my friend. When we were about eighteen or nineteen we both
of us at the same time fell for a little seamstress called Justine. She
wasn’t supposed to be particularly unyielding but she thought it
right to establish her reputation by a first act of rejection and her
choice for this fell on me.

MASTER:That is one of the strange things about women one can

never understand.

JACQUES: The total living arrangements of the cartwright, Master

Bugger my godfather, consisted of a workshop and a garret. His
bed was at the back of the shop and Bugger the Son, my friend,
used to sleep up in the loft which you got up to by a little ladder
placed about half-way between his father’s bed and the door of the
workshop.
When Bugger my godfather was fast asleep Bugger my friend
used to open the door of the shop and Justine would slip up the
little ladder into the loft. The following morning at daybreak,
before Bugger the Father was awake, Bugger the Son would come
down from the loft, open the door again and Justine would slip out
the way she had entered.

MASTER: To go off and visit some other bugger’s loft, yours or

another’s.

JACQUES: Why not? Bugger and Justine got along quite well
really, but their relationship had to run into trouble. That was
written up above. And so it did.

MASTER: Because of the father?

JACQUES: No.

MASTER: Because of the mother?

 JACQUES: No, she was dead.

MASTER: A rival, then?

JACQUES: No! No! And by all the devils that ever were, No! My
Master, it is written up above that you will suffer from this for the
rest of your days. For the rest of your life, I’m telling you, you’ll try
to guess things and guess wrong…
One morning while my friend Bugger – who was more tired than
usual, either from the previous day’s work or the previous night’s
pleasure – was sleeping softly in Justine’s arms, a loud roar
bellowed up from the foot of the little ladder.
‘Bugger? Bugger? You lazy swine! The angelus has sounded. It’s
nearly half past five already, and there you are still up in your loft!
Have you decided to stay there till noon? Do you want me to come
up there and throw you down? Bugger! Bugger!’
‘Yes, father.’
‘And what about the axle that old bear of a farmer is waiting
for? Do you want him to come ranting back here again?’
‘His axle is ready and he’ll have it in another fifteen minutes.’
I will leave you to imagine the terror of Justine and my poor
friend Bugger the Son.

MASTER: I am sure that Justine swore never to come back to that

loft and that she came back the same night. But how did she
manage to get out that morning?

JACQUES: If you’ve decided that it’s your duty to guess the rest
then I’ll stop now… Meanwhile Bugger the Son had leapt out of
bed naked, trousers in one hand and jacket in the other. While he
was getting dressed Bugger the Father was muttering between his
teeth: ‘Ever since he’s been caught up with that little tramp
everything’s gone wrong. It’s got to stop. This can’t carry on any
longer. I’m getting tired of it. It wouldn’t be so bad if she was
worth it, but a creature like that! My God, what a creature! Ah, if
only the poor departed wife who was honour down to the tips of
her fingers could see him like this, she would have taken the stick
to him long ago and then scratched out the girl’s eyes on her way
out of High Mass right outside the church in front of everyone.
Nothing would have stopped her! But I’ve been too kind up to now,
and if they think I’m going to carry on like this they’re making a
big mistake.’

MASTER: And could Justine hear all this in the loft?

JACQUES: I’m sure that she could. Meanwhile Bugger the Son had
gone off to the farmer, axle on his shoulder, and Bugger the Father
had set to work. After a few strokes with the adze he was dying for
some tobacco. He turned out all his pockets looking for his pouch.
Then he searched around the side of his bed and didn’t find it.
‘It’s that brat’, he said, ‘who’s taken it again as usual, I suppose. I
wonder if he’s left it upstairs…’
And there he was going up into the loft.
A moment later he noticed that his pipe and his knife were
missing and went back up again.

MASTER: What about Justine?

JACQUES: She had quickly gathered up all of her clothes and slid
underneath the bed where she was lying on her stomach more dead
than alive.

MASTER: What about your friend Bugger the Son?

JACQUES: When he had delivered, fitted and been paid for the axle
he ran straight to my house, where he told me about the terrible
predicament he was in. After I had laughed a bit I said: ‘Listen,
Bugger, go and walk around the village or somewhere. I’ll get you
out of it. I only ask one thing of you: that is to give me time…’
You’re smiling, Master – what do you find so funny?

MASTER: Nothing.

JACQUES: My friend Bugger left. I got dressed because I hadn’t got

up, then I went to see his father, who no sooner set eyes on me
than he let out a great yell of surprise and joy and said to me: ‘Eh!
Godson! Is that you there? Where have you come from and what
are you doing here so early?’
My godfather Bugger was always very fond of me so my answer
was quite open: ‘It’s not so much a question of where I’ve come
from but more one of how I’m going to get home.’
‘Ah! Godson, you’re becoming a rake. You and Bugger make a
right pair. You’ve spent the night out.’
‘And that’s not something you can discuss with my father.’
‘And he’s quite right too, Godson. But let’s have some breakfast
and see if the wine bottle can give us the answer.’

MASTER: Now there’s a man with the right idea, Jacques!

JACQUES: I told him that I neither needed nor wanted anything to

eat or drink but I was on the point of collapse from exhaustion. The
old Bugger who’d been as good as the next man in his time said: ‘I
know, Godson. She was a pretty girl and you really went at it, eh?
Listen. Bugger has gone out. Go up into his loft and get into his
bed… but a quick word before he comes back. He’s your friend.
Next time you’re alone with him you tell him from me I’m not
pleased with him, not at all pleased. It’s that little Justine – you
know the one I mean, there’s not a boy in the village who doesn’t
know her – who’s debauched him. You’d be doing me a great
service if you could detach him from that creature. Before, he was
what you might call a nice lad – but ever since he made her
unfortunate acquaintance…
‘You’re not listening to me. Your eyes are closing. Go on up and
get some rest.’
I went up. I got undressed. I lifted up the blanket and the sheets
and felt all around. No Justine. Meanwhile my godfather Bugger
was muttering away downstairs: ‘Children! Damned children!
There’s another one breaking his father’s heart.’
Since Justine was not in the bed I suspected she might be
underneath it. The loft was quite dark. I got down and ran my
hands around, met one of her hands, grabbed it and pulled her
towards me. Out she came from under the bed trembling. I kissed
her, reassured her, and indicated that she was to go to bed. She
clasped her hands, threw herself at my feet and threw her arms
around my knees. I might not perhaps have been able to resist this
mute scene if the loft had been lit, but when darkness does not
scare people it makes them enterprising. And anyway I was still
bitter about her earlier rejection of me. By way of reply I pushed
her towards the ladder which led down to the workshop.
She let out a long cry of fear.
Bugger heard this and said: ‘He must be dreaming.’
Justine fainted. Her knees gave way under her. In her delirium
she said in a stifled voice: ‘He’s going to come… he’s coming… I
can hear him coming up… I’m lost!’
‘No, no,’ I replied in a muffled voice. ‘Calm down, shut up, and
get into bed.’
She persisted in her refusal. I held firm. She resigned herself.
And then there we were the one beside the other.

MASTER: You traitor! You criminal! Do you know what crime

you’re about to commit? You’re about to rape that girl. If not by
sheer force then by force of terror. If you were to be brought before
a court of law you would be punished with all the severity reserved
for rapists.

JACQUES: I don’t know whether I raped her or not. But I do know

that I didn’t do her any harm and she didn’t do me any harm
either!
At first she turned her mouth away from my kisses and
whispered: ‘No, Jacques, no…’
At this I pretended to get out of bed and go towards the ladder.
She held me back and whispered in my ear again: ‘I would never
have thought you were so wicked. I can see it’s no use asking you
to have pity on me, but at least promise me, swear to me…’
‘What?’
‘That Bugger will never know.’
 MASTER: And you promised, you swore, and everything went very
well.

JACQUES: And then again very well.

MASTER: And then very well again?

JACQUES: Precisely. You speak like a man who was there himself.
Meanwhile Bugger my friend, impatient, worried and tired of
prowling around his house waiting for me, decided to go home to
his father, who said angrily: ‘You’ve been away a long time over
nothing…’
Bugger replied even more angrily: ‘Didn’t I have to trim down
both ends of that blasted axle which was too thick?’
‘I warned you about that but you always want to do things your
way.’
‘Well, it’s always easier to take a bit more wood off than to put it
on again.’
‘Take this rim and go and finish it over by the door.’
‘Why at the door?’
‘Because the noise of your tool will wake up your friend
Jacques.’
‘Jacques!’
‘Yes, Jacques. He’s upstairs resting in your loft. Ah! God I feel
sorry for fathers. If it’s not one thing it’s another! Well, can’t you
move? Standing there like an imbecile with your head hanging,
your mouth gaping and your arms akimbo isn’t going to get the
work done, you know.’
Bugger my friend was furious and threw himself at the ladder.
Bugger my godfather pulled him back and said: ‘Where are you
going? Let the poor devil sleep. He’s worn out. If you were him
would you like to have your rest disturbed?’

MASTER: And Justine heard all that too?

JACQUES: As you hear me now.

 MASTER: And what were you doing?

JACQUES: I was laughing.

MASTER: And Justine?

JACQUES: She had ripped off her coif and was tearing her hair. She
was raising her eyes to heaven – or I assume she was – and
wringing her hands.

MASTER: Jacques, you’re a barbarian. You have a heart of stone.

JACQUES: No, Master, that’s not true. I’m very sensitive really but I
keep it in reserve for an occasion when I might need it more – ‘And
the foolish ones used of these riches prodigiously when they should
have used of them sparingly and found they had none to use when
they should have used of them prodigiously…’
In the meantime I got dressed and went down to Bugger my
godfather who said to me: ‘You certainly needed that. It’s done you
the world of good, that has. When you arrived here you looked like
you’d just been disinterred. And now look at you! All pink and rosy
like a baby fresh from the breast. Sleep is a marvellous thing!
Bugger! Go down to the cellar and bring up a bottle so we can have
breakfast. Now, Godson, will you eat with us?’
‘Willingly.’
The bottle had arrived and been put on the work-bench. We
were standing around. Old Bugger filled his glass and mine. Bugger
the Son pulled his away and said in a fierce voice: ‘I’m not thirsty
so early in the day.’
‘Don’t you want a drink?’
‘No.’
‘Ah! I know what it is. Listen, Godson, Justine is in this
somewhere. He went round to her house and she wasn’t there.
Either that or he found her with someone else. This sulking and
taking it out on the bottle isn’t natural, I tell you.’
 JACQUES: I think you might have hit on it there.

BUGGER THE SON: Jacques, enough of your witticisms, appropriate

or inappropriate. I don’t like them.

BUGGER THE FATHER: If he doesn’t want a drink we mustn’t let that

stop us. Your health, Godson.

JACQUES: Your health, Godfather. Bugger, my friend, have a drink

with us. You’re upsetting yourself over nothing.

BUGGER THE SON: I’ve already told you. I’m not drinking.

JACQUES: Bugger, if your father has hit on the truth, what the
devil. You’ll see her again, ask her about it and then you’ll accept
that you’re wrong.

BUGGER THE FATHER: Leave him alone. Isn’t it right that this
creature should punish him for all the suffering he’s caused me.
There, one more glass and we’ll get down to your business. I can
see that I’ll have to take you back to your father, but what do you
want me to say to him?

JACQUES:Whatever you want. Whatever you’ve heard him say to

you a hundred times before whenever he’s brought your son home.

BUGGER THE FATHER: Let’s go.

He left and I followed. We arrived at the door of my house and I
allowed him to go in alone. Being curious about what Bugger the
Father was going to say to my father, I hid in a corner behind a
partition where I could hear every word.

BUGGER THE FATHER: Come on old chap, you can forgive him this
time too.
‘Forgive him? What for?’
‘You’re just pretending you don’t know.’
 ‘I’m not pretending. I don’t know.’
‘You’re angry and you’ve got every right to be.’
‘I’m not angry.’
‘I’m telling you, you are angry.’
‘If you want me to be angry with him that suits me fine but
would you mind telling me what mischief he’s been up to before I
get angry.’
‘All right, three times, four times, but it’s hardly a habit. You
find yourself with a crowd of young lads and girls, have a few
drinks and a laugh, dance a bit. Time passes quickly, and before
you know it you’re locked out.’
Lowering his voice, Bugger added: ‘They can’t hear us. Tell me
honestly. Were we any wiser than they are at their age? Do you
know what a bad father is? A bad father is one who has forgotten
the faults of his own youth. Tell me, did we never spend a night
away from home?’
‘And you tell me, Bugger old friend, did we never take up with
girls our parents didn’t like?’
‘All right… So I shout louder than it hurts. Do the same.’
‘But Jacques didn’t spend the night away from home, at least not
last night, I’m sure of it.’
‘Oh well, if it’s not that girl it’s another one. Anyway the long
and the short of it is you’re not cross with the boy?’
‘No.’
‘And when I’m gone you won’t ill-treat him?’
‘Not at all.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘Word of honour?’
‘Word of honour.’
‘Well that’s that and I’m going home.’
Just when Bugger my godfather was on the doorstep my father
tapped him on the shoulder and said: ‘Bugger, my friend, there’s
something funny going on. Your boy and mine are a tricky pair of
rogues, and I suspect they’ve put one over on us today. Time will
reveal all, though. Goodbye, old friend.’

MASTER: And what was the end of the story for your friend Bugger
and Justine?

JACQUES: As it should have been. He got very angry. She got even
angrier. She cried. He softened. She swore I was the best friend he
ever had. I swore to him that she was the most faithful girl in the
village. He believed us and apologized and loved and valued us
both all the more afterwards. And that’s the beginning, the middle
and the end of the loss of my virginity. Now, Monsieur, I should
like you to tell me – what is the moral of this rude story?

MASTER: To show what women are like?

JACQUES: Do you need to learn that?

MASTER: To show what friends are like?

JACQUES:
Have you ever believed that you had even one friend
who would resist if your own wife or your daughter proposed her
own undoing?

MASTER: To show what fathers and children are like?

JACQUES: Come on, Monsieur. Children have always fooled their

fathers and been fooled by their own children. It has always been
so and will be so evermore.

MASTER: These things you are saying are the eternal facts of life
and cannot be emphasized too much. But no matter what the story
you have promised to tell me after this one is about, Jacques, you
may be assured that only an idiot would not find some lesson to be
learned from it. So carry on.

Reader, there is something that is worrying me, and that is that I

have honoured Jacques or his master with making reflections
which belong to you by right. If that is the case you can take them
back without Jacques and his master taking offence.
I believe that I have also noticed that the word ‘Bugger’
displeases you. I would like to know why. It is the real name of my
cartwright’s family. Their birth certificates, death certificates and
marriage certificates are all signed ‘Bugger’. The descendants of
Bugger occupy the same workshop today and they are all called
Bugger. When their children, who are all pretty, pass by in the
street, people cry out: ‘Look at the little Buggers!’
When you pronounce the word Boulle you remember one of the
greatest cabinet-makers that ever lived. In Bugger’s country no one
pronounces the name Bugger without remembering the greatest
cartwright in living memory. The Bugger whose name is on all the
pious religious publications of the beginning of this century was
related to him. If ever the great-grand-nephew of Bugger
distinguishes himself the name will be no less imposing to you than
that of Caesar or Condé.57
You see there’s Bugger and Bugger like there’s William and
William. If I say simply William, that is neither William the
Conqueror nor William the draper in the farce of Maître Pathelin.58
The name William is neither heroic nor common. And it’s the same
with Bugger. Bugger without qualification is neither the famous
cartwright nor one of his boring ancestors nor one of his boring
descendants. In all honesty, how can a person’s name be in good or
bad taste? The streets are full of hounds called Pompey. So cast off
your irrational false sense of propriety or I shall have to deal with
you like Lord Chatham dealt with Parliament: ‘Shh… ugar, Sugar,
Sugar,’ he said to them. ‘What do you find so funny about that?’59
And as for me I say unto you: Bugger, Bugger, Bugger. Why
shouldn’t someone be called Bugger?
As one of his officers told General Condé, the thing is there’s
proud Buggers like Bugger the cartwright, good Buggers like you
and me, and plain Buggers like a hell of a lot of others.

JACQUES: It was a wedding feast. Friar Jean had married one of

our neighbour’s daughters and I was a groomsman. I was seated at
table between the two jokers of the parish. I looked like a right
booby, but I wasn’t as much of a fool as they thought. They asked
me a few questions about what happens on wedding nights and I
gave them some pretty dumb answers. They were splitting their
sides with laughter and the wives of these two jokers shouted down
from the other end of the table: ‘What’s the matter with you?
You’re having a good time over there.’
‘It’s just too funny for words,’ one of them replied to his wife. ‘I’ll
tell you about it tonight.’
The other wife, who was just as curious, asked her husband the
same question and got the same reply. The meal continued. So did
the questions and my stupid answers, the bursts of laughter and the
surprise of the women. And then, after the meal the dance, and
after the dance the nuptial bed for the happy couple, the giving
away of the bride’s garter and bed for me. And bed for the two
jokers as well, who told the incomprehensible unbelievable fact to
their wives that at twenty-two years of age, hale and hearty as I
was, good-looking, alert and sound in mind, I was as pure, as pure
as the day I came from my mother’s belly. And then it was the turn
of the wives to marvel as much as their husbands had done.
But the very next day Suzanne beckoned me: ‘Jacques, have you
nothing to do?’
‘No, neighbour. Can I be of service to you?’
‘I would like… I would like…’ and as she said ‘I would like’ she
squeezed my hand and looked at me in a singular way… ‘I would
like you to take our bill-hook and come with me to the common
and help me to cut two or three sheaves because it’s too hard for
me all alone.’
‘Certainly, Madame Suzanne.’
I took the bill-hook and off we went. On the way Suzanne let her
head fall on to my shoulder, tickled my chin, pulled my ears and
pinched my sides. We arrived. It was a sloping field. Suzanne
stretched herself out at the top of the slope, her arms behind her
head, her legs wide apart. I was beneath her cutting on the slope.
Suzanne bent her legs drawing her heels up to her thighs. Since her
knees were in the air her skirts didn’t come down very far. I was
still cutting away on the slope hardly looking where I was cutting
and missing most of the time. At last Suzanne spoke: ‘Jacques, you
will finish soon, won’t you.’
And I replied: ‘Whenever you want, Madame Suzanne.’
‘Can’t you see’, she half-whispered, ‘that I want you to finish?’
So I finished, got my breath back and finished again. And
Suzanne…

MASTER: Took away the virginity you never had.

JACQUES: That is true, but she wasn’t fooled and smiled at me and
said: ‘Well, you certainly fooled my husband. God, you’re a rogue.’
‘What do you mean by that, Madame Suzanne?’
‘Nothing, nothing. You know very well what I mean. But fool me
again a few more times and I forgive you.’
I tied up her bundles, put them on my back and we came back,
her to her house and me to ours.

MASTER: Without stopping on the way?

JACQUES: No.

MASTER: So it wasn’t far from the common to the village?

JACQUES: No farther than from the village to the common.

MASTER: Wasn’t she worth more than that?

JACQUES: Perhaps she would have been worth more to another

man or on another day. Every moment has its price.
Some time after that Marguerite, the wife of the other joker, had
some grain which needed milling and didn’t have the time to go to
the mill. She came to ask my father if one of his boys could go for
her. Since I was the biggest she was sure that his choice would fall
on me – which it did. Marguerite left. I followed, loaded the sack
on to the mule and drove it to the mill – alone. Her grain milled,
we started on our way back – the mule and I – sadly, because I
thought I would be left unrewarded for my pains. I was wrong. The
road from the mill to the village passed through a little wood. It
was there that I found Marguerite sitting by the roadside. Dusk was
falling.
‘Jacques,’ she said to me, ‘there you are at last! Do you know I’ve
been waiting here for a whole interminable hour?’

– Reader, you are being far too pedantic… Very well,

interminable hour is what a society lady would call it and damned
hour is what Marguerite would call it.

JACQUES: Well, the water was low so the mill went slowly and the
miller was drunk and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t
come back any quicker.

MARGUERITE: Sit down here and let’s talk awhile.

JACQUES: Madame Marguerite, I’d like that…

And so there I was seated beside her to chat and all the time we
were silent. So I said to her: ‘Madame Marguerite, you’re not saying
anything to me and we’re not chatting.’

MARGUERITE: It’s just that I’m dreaming about what my husband

told me about you.

JACQUES: Don’t believe anything your husband told you. He’s full
of wind.

MARGUERITE: He told me that you’ve never been in love.

JACQUES: Oh well, yes, he’s right about that.

MARGUERITE: What? Never in your life?

JACQUES: Never.

MARGUERITE: What! At your age you don’t even know what a

woman is?
 JACQUES: Excuse me, I do, Madame Marguerite.

MARGUERITE: Well, tell me then, what is a woman?

JACQUES: A woman?

MARGUERITE: Yes, a woman.

JACQUES:
A woman… wait a minute… it’s a man… with skirts… a
bonnet… and big tits.

MASTER: You villain.

JACQUES: The other one wasn’t fooled by me and I wanted to

make sure that this one was. On my reply Madame Marguerite
burst into fits of laughter which seemed as if they would never
stop. I was speechless and asked her what she found so much to
laugh about. Marguerite said she was laughing at my innocence.
‘Are you telling me that at your age you really don’t know any
more than that?’
‘No, Madame Marguerite…’
At that Marguerite fell silent and I did the same: ‘But, Madame
Marguerite,’ I said to her, ‘we sat down here to chat and you
haven’t said a word and we’re not chatting. Madame Marguerite,
what’s wrong with you? Are you dreaming?’

MARGUERITE: Yes I’m dreaming… dreaming… dreaming…

As she was saying ‘I’m dreaming’ her breasts were rising and
falling, her voice growing weaker, her limbs trembling, her eyes
closed, her mouth half open. She let forth a great sigh and I
pretended I thought she was dead and started shouting in a tone of
terror: ‘Madame Marguerite! Madame Marguerite! Speak to me!
Madame Marguerite, are you ill?’

MARGUERITE:No, my child. Leave me to rest a moment. I don’t

know what took me. It came on suddenly.
 MASTER: She was lying.

JACQUES: Yes, she was lying.

MARGUERITE: I was dreaming…

JACQUES: Do you dream like that at night, next to your husband?

MARGUERITE: Sometimes.

JACQUES: That must frighten him.

MARGUERITE: He’s used to it…

Marguerite came out of her faint little by little and said to me: ‘I
was dreaming that at the wedding night eight days ago my man
and Suzanne’s made fun of you and I felt sorry for you and then I
felt all peculiar.’

JACQUES: You are too kind.

MARGUERITE: I don’t like people being made fun of. I was

dreaming that the first chance they get they would start all over
again even worse. And that would make me even more angry.

JACQUES:But it would only need you to make sure that it would

never happen again.

MARGUERITE: How?

JACQUES: By teaching me…

MARGUERITE: Teaching you what?

JACQUES:Whatever it is that I don’t know which made your man

and Suzanne’s laugh so much, which they wouldn’t do again.
 MARGUERITE: Oh no! No! I know that you’re a good lad and that
you wouldn’t tell a soul, but I wouldn’t dare to.

JACQUES: And why not?

MARGUERITE: It’s just that I wouldn’t dare to.

JACQUES: Ah, Madame Marguerite, teach me, I beg you. I will be

ever so grateful to you. Please teach me…

While I was begging her I was gripping her hands and she was
gripping mine. I was kissing her eyes and she was kissing me on
the mouth. By now it was quite dark so I said to her: ‘I can see,
Madame Marguerite, that you don’t care about me enough to teach
me. I am very hurt. Come on. Let’s get up and go back.’
Marguerite became quiet. She took hold of one of my hands. I
don’t know where she put it but the fact is I cried out: ‘There’s
nothing there! There’s nothing there!’

MASTER: You scoundrel! You double-dyed scoundrel!

JACQUES: The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was
extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where
she didn’t have anything and she had hers where the same wasn’t
quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and
consequently she found herself on top of me. The fact is that since I
wasn’t helping any she had to do all the work. The fact is that she
gave herself to my instruction so wholeheartedly that there came a
moment when I thought it was going to kill her. The fact is that I
was as agitated as she was and not knowing what I was saying I
cried out: ‘Ah! Suzanne! You make me feel so good!’

MASTER: You mean Marguerite.

JACQUES: No, no. The fact is that I took one name for the other
and instead of saying Marguerite I said Suzon. The fact is that I
made Marguerite realize that it was not her who was teaching me
on that day but Suzon who had taught me – a bit differently, it is
true – three or four days earlier. The fact is that she said to me:
‘What, it was Suzon and not me?’
The fact is that I replied: ‘It was neither of you.’
The fact is that while she was all the time making fun of herself,
Suzon, their two husbands, and throwing little insults at me, I
found myself on top of her, and consequently she found herself
underneath me, and while she was admitting that she enjoyed it a
lot like that but not as much as the other way round she found
herself back on top of me and consequently I found myself
underneath her. The fact is that after some moments of rest and
silence I found myself neither underneath nor on top of her and
consequently she found herself neither on top of nor underneath
me, because we were both on our sides, her head was bent forward
and her two buttocks were stuck against my two thighs. The fact is
that if I had not known so much, the good Marguerite would have
taught me everything there was to learn. The fact is that we had a
lot of trouble getting back to the village. The fact is that my sore
throat has got much worse and there is no sign of me being in a
position to talk for the next fortnight.

MASTER: And have you never seen these women since then?

JACQUES: On the contrary, more than once.

MASTER: Both of them?

JACQUES: Both of them.

MASTER: They didn’t fall out together?

JACQUES: They were both useful to each other and they became
better friends than ever.

MASTER: Women of our class would probably have done the same.
But each woman to her man… Why are you laughing?
 JACQUES: Every time I remember that little man shouting,
swearing, foaming at the mouth, struggling with his head, his feet,
his hands, his whole body, and ready to throw himself from the top
of the barn at the risk of killing himself, nothing can stop me
laughing.

MASTER: And who is this little man? Suzanne’s husband?

JACQUES: No.

MASTER: Marguerite’s husband?

JACQUES: No… Always the same, and it’ll be the same as long as
he lives.

MASTER: Who is he then?…

Jacques didn’t answer his question and the master added: ‘Just
tell me who the man was.’

JACQUES: Once upon a time there was a child sitting at the foot of
the counter in a laundry, and he was crying with all his might. The
shopkeeper’s wife, put out by his crying, said to him: ‘Little man,
why are you crying?’
‘Because they want me to say “A”.’
‘And why don’t you want to say “A”?’
‘Because as soon as I say “A” they’ll want me to say “B”.’
As soon as I tell you the name of the little man I’ll have to tell
you the rest.

MASTER: Perhaps.

JACQUES: No, it’s absolutely certain.

MASTER:Come along, my dear friend Jacques, tell me the little

man’s name. You’re dying to, aren’t you? Tell me for your own
satisfaction.

JACQUES: He was a sort of dwarf, hunchbacked, gnarled, blind in

one eye, with a stammer, jealous and lecherous, in love with and
maybe even loved by Suzanne. He was the village priest.
Jacques resembled the child in the laundry as if they were two
peas in a pod. The only difference was that ever since he had
caught a sore throat one had the greatest difficulty to get him to
say “A”, but once he had started he would carry on by himself to
the end of the alphabet.

JACQUES: I was in Suzon’s barn alone with her.

MASTER: And you hadn’t gone in there for nothing.

JACQUES: No. Then the priest arrived, lost his temper, started
preaching and asked Suzon haughtily what she was doing alone
with one of the most debauched boys in the village in the most
isolated part of the farm.

MASTER: I can see that you had a reputation even then.

JACQUES: And well earned at that. He was really angry and added
a few more even less flattering things to what he had said already.
So then I got angry. From swapping insults it turned to blows. I
grabbed a pitchfork and passed it between his legs – one prong
through here and the other here – and then threw him into the
hayloft, not more or less but exactly as if he were a bale of hay.

MASTER: And how high was this hayloft?

JACQUES: Ten feet at least. And he couldn’t get down without

breaking his neck.

MASTER: And next?

JACQUES: Next I undid Suzon’s blouse, took her breasts, caressed

them. She resisted a little. In the barn there was a pack saddle
whose other uses were well known to us. I pushed her on to it.

MASTER: And pulled up her skirts?

JACQUES: I pulled up her skirts.

MASTER: And the priest could see all that?

JACQUES: As I see you now.

MASTER: And he shut up?

JACQUES: Certainly not, if you please. Barely able to contain his

anger he started shouting ‘Mmm… mm… murder! Fff… ff… fire!
Ttt… tt… thief!’ and then the husband whom we thought was far
away ran in.

MASTER: I’m sorry about that. I don’t like priests.

JACQUES:Then you would have been delighted if in front of his

very eyes…

MASTER: Yes, I admit it.

JACQUES: Suzon just had time to get up. I adjusted my clothing

and ran off and Suzon told me what happened later. As soon as the
husband saw the priest perched on top of the hayloft he burst out
laughing. The priest said: ‘That’s right, laugh, you fool.’
And so the husband laughed even more and asked who had
perched him up there.

PRIEST: Lll… ll… let me ddd… dd… down!

The husband carried on laughing and asked how he should go

about that.
 PRIEST:Lll… ll… like I ggg… gg… got up here, www… ww…
with a ppp… pp… pitchfork.

‘Hell’s teeth, you’re right. That’s what comes of having studied.’

So the husband took the pitchfork and presented it to the priest
who straddled himself on it as I’d done with him. The husband
then carried him round the barn on the end of it a few times
singing a sort of plainchant while the priest was yelling: ‘Lll… ll…
let me ddd… dd… down you rrr… rr… ruffian!’
The husband said: ‘Monsieur le vicaire, why should I not show
you like this along all the roads in the village? They can’t ever have
seen such a pretty procession as this.’
However, the priest was let off with just the threat and the
husband got him down. I don’t know what he said to the husband
next because Suzon ran away. But a little while later I heard:
‘Www… ww… wretch, you ddd… dd… dare to sss… ss… strike a
ppp… pp… priest. I exccc… cc… communiccc… cc… cate you. You
will be ddd… dd… damned!’
It was the little man who was speaking and he was being chased
by the husband, who was hitting him with the pitchfork. I arrived
with a crowd of others. From a long way off the husband saw me,
stopped his business with the pitchfork and said: ‘Come here.’

MASTER: And Suzon?

JACQUES: She got out of it.

MASTER: Badly?

JACQUES: No. Women always get out of things well when they are
not caught in flagrante delicto… What are you laughing at?

MASTER:
At what makes me laugh, like you, every time I
remember the little priest on the end of the husband’s pitchfork.

JACQUES:It was not long after this incident, which my father

heard about and also laughed at, that I joined up, as I have told
you…
After a few moments of silence, or coughing, on the part of
Jacques – according to some – or more laughter – according to
others – his master turned to Jacques and said: ‘And the story of
your loves?’
Jacques tossed his head and did not answer.
How can a man of wisdom and morality, who fancies himself as
something of a philosopher, amuse himself telling tales as obscene
as this?
Well, firstly you must remember that these are not tales. It is a
true story, and I certainly do not feel more guilty – and perhaps
even less – when I write about Jacques’ follies than Suetonius when
he recorded for us the orgies of Tiberius. Moreover you read
Suetonius without reproaching him. Why do you not frown at
Catullus, Martial, Horace, Juvenal, Petronius, La Fontaine and so
many others? Why don’t you tell the stoic Seneca: ‘We don’t need
to hear about the debauchery of your slave with his concave
mirrors?’ Why is it that you are only indulgent with dead writers?
If you were to reflect a little on this partiality you will see that it is
born of a false assumption. If you are innocent you will not read
my work. If, on the other hand, you are depraved, you may read
me without consequence. And then if you are not satisfied by what
I say, open the preface to the works of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau and
you will find my apologia.
Who is there amongst you who dares to criticize Voltaire for
writing La Pucelle?60 Nobody. So you have, therefore, two
standards for assessing the actions of men.
– But, I hear you protest, Voltaire’s Pucelle is a masterpiece.
So much the worse since people will read it more.
– And your Jacques is nothing more than a tasteless farrago of
facts, some real, some imaginary, written without elegance and
arranged without order.
So much the better: Jacques will be less read.
Whichever way you turn you are wrong. If my work is good it
will please you. If it is bad it won’t do you any harm. There is no
book that is more innocent than a bad book.
 I enjoy writing up under assumed names the follies I have seen
you commit. Your follies make me laugh and my writings annoy
you. To speak to you frankly, Reader, I find that you are the more
wicked of the two of us. How satisfied would I be if it were as easy
for me to protect myself from your calumny as it is for you to
protect yourself from the boredom or the danger of my work!
Filthy hypocrites. Leave me in peace. Fuck away like unsaddled
asses but allow me to say ‘fuck’. I allow you the action. Allow me
the word. You boldly use words like ‘kill’, ‘steal’, ‘betray’ all the
time but only dare to pronounce that word under your breath.
Might it be that the less you allow such supposed impurities to pass
your lips the more they remain in your thoughts? And what has a
thing so natural, so right and so necessary as sexual intercourse
done to you that you should exclude the word for it from your
conversation and imagine that your mouth, your eyes and your
ears will be sullied by it?
It is a good thing that the expressions we use least, write least,
and repress most are the best known and the most widely
understood. Thus the proper term is as common as the word
‘bread’. It is present in every age in every idiom. There are a
thousand synonyms in all languages and it impresses itself in each
of us without being expressed, without voice and without shape,
and the sex which does the thing the most is the one which says
the word the least.
I can still hear you exclaiming: ‘Oh! What a vulgar man! Oh!
What a cynic! Oh! What a sophist!’
Go on. Heap your insults on an estimable author who is always
in your hands and whom I only translate here. To me the freedom
of his style is almost the guarantee of the purity of his morals. It is
Montaigne. Lasciva est nobis pagina vita proba.61
Jacques and his master spent the rest of the day without opening
their lips. Jacques kept coughing and his master kept saying: ‘That
is a terrible cough.’
Then he would look at his watch to see what time it was without
being aware of doing so, and then take a pinch of snuff without
being aware of it. The proof of this is that he would do these things
three or four times in a row in the same order. A moment
afterwards Jacques would cough again and then his master would
say: ‘That’s the devil of a cough you’ve got there! So you drank so
much of our hostess’s wine that you lost your voice. And last night
with the secretary you weren’t any more moderate. When you
came up you were staggering and you didn’t know what you were
saying, and today you’ve stopped ten times and I bet that you
haven’t got a drop of wine left in your gourd.’
Then he would carry on muttering to himself, look at his watch
and give his nostrils a treat.
I have forgotten to tell you, Reader, that Jacques never went
anywhere without a gourd filled with the best wine, which used to
hang from the pommel of his saddle. Every time his master
interrupted him with a question which was a little long he would
unfasten his gourd, throw back his head, raise the gourd above it
and pour a stream of its contents into his mouth, only putting it
back when his master had stopped speaking. I have also forgotten
to tell you that in moments which required reflection his first
impulse was to ask his gourd. Were it a matter of resolving a moral
question, discussing an event, choosing one road rather than
another, beginning, continuing or abandoning a transaction,
weighing up the advantages or disadvantages of a political matter,
a commercial or financial speculation, the wisdom or folly of a law,
the outcome of a war, the choice of a room, or in a room the choice
of a bed, his first word was, ‘Let us consult the gourd’, and his last
word, ‘That is the opinion of the gourd and my own.’
When his Destiny was silent in his head, it made itself known
through his gourd. It was a sort of portable Pythian priestess, silent
as soon as it was empty. At Delphi the Pythian priestess, her skirts
pulled up, sitting bare-bottomed on the tripod, received her
inspiration from the bottom upwards. Jacques, on his horse, his
head turned towards heaven, his gourd uncorked with the neck
inclined towards his mouth, received his inspiration from the top
downwards. When the Pythian priestess and Jacques spoke their
oracles, they were both drunk.
Jacques used to claim that the Holy Spirit had descended on the
apostles in the form of a gourd and he used to call Pentecost the
feast of the gourd. He even wrote a treatise on all the various types
of divination, a profound treatise in which he gives preference to
divination by Bacbuc, or by the gourd.62 He contradicted, in spite
of all the veneration he had for him, the curate of Meudon who
consulted the divine bottle by its effect on the stomach. He used to
say: ‘I like Rabelais, but I prefer the truth to Rabelais.’ He used to
call him a heretical engastrimyth,63 and prove in a hundred ways,
each one better than the previous, that the true oracles of Bacbuc,
or the gourd, could only be understood through the neck of a
bottle. He included amongst the ranks of the distinguished
followers of Bacbuc those who have during these last centuries
been truly inspired by the gourd: Rabelais, La Fare, Chapelle,
Chaulieu, La Fontaine, Molière, Panard, Gallet and Vade.64 Plato
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who recommended good wine without
drinking it, are in his opinion two false followers of the gourd. In
olden times the gourd had a few well-known sanctuaries, the
Pomme de Pin, the Temple and La Guingette, a place of worship
whose history is recorded elsewhere.65 He gave the most
magnificent description of the enthusiasm, the warmth and the fire
with which Bacbucians or Périgourdians were and are still today
filled, when, at the end of the meal, with their elbows on the table,
the divine Bacbuc or the sacred gourd would appear and be
brought down into their midst, would hiss, pop its cork and cover
its worshippers in its prophetic foam. His manuscript is illustrated
with two portraits beneath which appear the words: ‘Anacreon and
Rabelais, the former among the ancients, the latter among the
moderns, sovereign pontiffs of the gourd’.
– Did Jacques use the expression ‘engastrimyth’?
Why not, Reader? Jacques’ Captain was a follower of Bacbuc. He
might have known this expression and Jacques, who used to pick
up everything he said, might have remembered it. But the truth is
that ‘engastrimyth’ is my own word and the original text says
‘ventriloquist’.
– That’s all very nice, you are saying, but what about Jacques’
loves?
Jacques’ loves? Only Jacques knows about those, and there he is
tormented by a sore throat which has reduced his master to his
watch and his snuff-box – a privation which distresses him as much
as you.
– What is to become of us?
My God, how should I know? This would now be an opportune
moment to consult the divine Bacbuc or the sacred gourd, but her
cult has declined, her temples are deserted. In the same way as the
pagan oracles ended on the birth of our Saviour, so did the oracles
of Bacbuc become silent on the death of Gallet. And so that was the
end of those great poems, no more of those sublimely eloquent
pieces, no more of those works stamped with the seal of
drunkenness and genius. Everything is reasoned, measured,
academic and flat. Oh divine Bacbuc! Oh sacred gourd! Oh divinity
of Jacques! Come back amongst us…
There comes upon me, Reader, the need to talk to you about the
birth of the divine Bacbuc, of the prodigies which accompanied her
and followed her, of the marvels of her reign and the disasters of
her retreat from society. And if our friend Jacques’ sore throat
continues and if his master stubbornly persists in silence you will
have to make do with this story, which I will try and drag out until
Jacques recovers and continues the story of his loves.
At this point there is a really deplorable gap in the conversation
of Jacques and his master. Someday a descendant of Nodot or of
the president of de Brosse or Freinsheimius or Father Brothier66
will perhaps fill it and the descendants of Jacques, or of his master,
the owners of the manuscript, will laugh a lot.
It would appear that Jacques, reduced to silence by his sore
throat, suspended the story of his loves and that his master started
the story of his own. This is only a conjecture, which I make for
whatever it is worth. After a few perfunctory lines which announce
the gap, one reads the words: ‘There is nothing that is more sad in
this world than to be a fool.’
Is it Jacques who offers this aphorism? Is it his master? This
could become the subject of a long and thorny dissertation. If
Jacques was not insolent enough to address these words to his
master, was the latter frank enough to address them to himself?
Whichever it was, it is evident, it is very evident, that it is the
master who continues.
 MASTER: It was the eve of her birthday and I had no money.
However, the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin, my intimate friend, was
never at a loss.
‘Have you no money?’ he asked me.
‘No.’
‘Well then, all we have to do is make some.’
‘And do you know how that’s done?’
‘Of course.’
He got dressed. We went out and he led me through several
remote streets until we reached an obscure little house where we
went up a dirty little staircase to the third floor where I went into
quite a spacious and strangely furnished apartment. There were,
among other things, three chests of drawers, all three in different
styles. Behind the middle one there was a large mirror with a
cornice, too high for the ceiling, which was placed in such a
manner that a good half foot of this mirror was hidden by the chest
of drawers, on top of which there were goods of every kind, and
two backgammon boards. All around the apartment were quite
good chairs of which there were no two the same. At the foot of a
bed which had no curtains there was a superb day-bed and against
one of the windows a brand-new birdcage without any birds in it.
Against the other window there was a chandelier hanging on a
broom handle, both ends of which were resting on the backs of two
dilapidated rush chairs, and to the right and the left all around
were pictures, some hanging on the walls, others stacked up.

JACQUES: That smells of shady deals a mile away.

MASTER: You’ve guessed it. And there we were, with the Chevalier
and M. Le Brun – which was the name of our dealer in second-hand
goods and usurer’s broker – throwing themselves into each others’
arms.
‘Ah! Is it you, Monsieur le Chevalier?’
‘Yes, it is me, my dear Le Brun.’
‘But what has become of you? We haven’t seen you for ages.
Times are very sad, are they not?’
 ‘Very sad, my dear Le Brun. But it’s nothing to do with all that.
Listen to me, I have something to say to you…’
I sat down. The Chevalier and Le Brun withdrew into a corner to
talk. I can only tell you the few words of their conversation which I
overheard…
‘Is he good?’
‘Excellent.’
‘Adult?’
‘Very much so.’
‘And he is the son?’
‘The son.’
‘You do know that our last two affairs…‘
‘Speak more quietly.’
‘And the father?’
‘Rich.’
‘Old?’
‘Decrepit.’

LE BRUN (more loudly): Now look, Monsieur le Chevalier, I don’t

want to get involved any more. There are always unfortunate
consequences. He is your friend. Fine! Monsieur has every
appearance of being an honest man, but…

‘My dear Le Brun…’

‘I have no money at all.’
‘But you know people.’
‘But they are all scoundrels, complete tricksters. Monsieur le
Chevalier, are you not tired of dealing with such people?’
‘Necessity knows no law.’
‘The necessity that’s pressing you is a fine sort of necessity, a
game, a hand of cards, some girl.’
‘My dear friend!…’
‘It’s always me. I am weak as a baby, and then as for you, I do
not know anyone whom you couldn’t make break an oath. Well,
let’s ring so I can find out if Fourgeot is at home… No, don’t ring,
Fourgeot will take you to Merval.’
‘Why not you?’
‘Me, I have sworn that this abominable Merval would never
again work, either for me or for my friends. You would be obliged
to answer for Monsieur, who is perhaps, who is without doubt, an
honest man, I would answer for you to Fourgeot, and Fourgeot
would answer for me to Merval…’
Meanwhile his servant girl had come in and asked: ‘Is it for M.
Merval’s?’
Le Brun said to his servant: ‘No, it’s for nobody’s… Monsieur le
Chevalier, I really can’t, I can’t.’
The Chevalier embraced him and caressed him: ‘My dear Le
Brun, my dear friend…’
I came nearer and joined my pleadings to the Chevalier’s:
‘Monsieur Le Brun, my good sir…’
Le Brun allowed himself to be persuaded. The servant who was
smiling at this dumb show left and then reappeared in the
twinkling of an eye with a little man with a limp, dressed in black,
a cane in his hand, a stammer, a thin wrinkled face and a sharp
eye.
The Chevalier turned to him and said: ‘Come, Monsieur Mathieu
de Fourgeot, we have not a moment to lose. Lead the way
quickly…’
De Fourgeot did not seem to have heard him and was undoing a
little chamois purse.
The Chevalier said to Fourgeot: ‘Don’t be silly, we’ll look after
that.’
I came closer and pulled out an écu, which I slipped to the
Chevalier, who gave it to the servant girl, passing his hand under
her chin. Meanwhile Le Brun said to Fourgeot: ‘I forbid you to do
it. You are not to take these gentlemen there.’
‘Monsieur Le Brun, why not?’
‘He is a trickster, a scoundrel.’
‘I am well aware that M. de Merval… but forgive them that
trespass… and then he’s the only person I know who’s got any
money at the moment.’
 LE BRUN:
Monsieur Fourgeot, do as you please. Messieurs, I wash
my hands of it.

FOURGEOT: Monsieur Le Brun, are you not coming with us?

LE BRUN: Me! God preserve me. He is a traitor and I will never

again see him for the rest of my days.

FOURGEOT: But without you we won’t get anything done.

CHEVALIER: That is true. Come along, my dear Le Brun, it is a

question of helping me, and it is a question of obliging a gallant
man who finds himself in straits. You will not refuse me. You will
come.

LE BRUN: Go to the house of a Merval! Me! Me!

CHEVALIER: Yes, you. You will come for me.

Eventually, through our pleadings, Le Brun allowed himself to be
borne away, and there we were, him, Le Brun, the Chevalier and
Mathieu de Fourgeot on our way, with the Chevalier patting Le
Brun’s hand in a friendly manner and saying to me: ‘He is the best
of men, the most helpful man in the world, the best
acquaintance…’
‘I believe that M. le Chevalier would even persuade me to turn
counterfeiter.’
And then there we were at Merval’s house.

JACQUES: Mathieu de Fourgeot…

MASTER: Well! What are you trying to say?

JACQUES: Mathieu de Fourgeot… I mean to say that M. le

Chevalier de Saint-Ouin knows these people by name and Christian
name and that he is a trickster in league with all these other
scoundrels.
 MASTER: You may well be right…
You couldn’t meet a man more kind, more civil, more honest,
more polite, more human, more tender-hearted or more
disinterested than M. de Merval. Having established to his
satisfaction that I was not a minor and that I was solvent, M. de
Merval looked positively affectionate and sad and said to us in a
tone of deep compassion that he was profoundly sorry but he had
been obliged that very morning to help one of his friends, pressed
by the most urgent needs, and that he was absolutely without
funds. Then, turning to me, he added: ‘Monsieur, do not regret not
having come here earlier. I would have been distressed to refuse
you, but I would have done so. Friendship goes before everything
else.’
We were all totally flabbergasted. There were the Chevalier,
even Le Brun and Fourgeot, at the knees of Merval.
And M. de Merval said to them: ‘Messieurs, you all know me. I
like to oblige people and try not to spoil the services which I render
by obliging people to plead for them. But, on my word, as a man of
honour, there are not four louis in this house.’
And I, standing in the midst of these people, resembled a patient
who has heard his death sentence.
I said to the Chevalier: ‘Chevalier, let us go away since these
gentlemen can do nothing.’
And the Chevalier drew me to one side: ‘That is unthinkable. It is
the day before her birthday. I have warned her, I tell you, and she
is expecting a gallant gesture on your part. You know her. It is not
that she is self-interested, but she is like all the others and does not
like to be betrayed in her expectations. She may already have
boasted to her father, her mother, her aunts, to her friends, and,
after all that, to have nothing to show them, that is mortifying…’
And then he went back to Merval and pressed him even harder.
Eventually, after letting himself be pestered at some length, Merval
said: ‘I have the softest heart in the world. I cannot bear to see
people in trouble. I’m mulling things over, I’ve had an idea.’

CHEVALIER: What idea?

 MERVAL: Why do you not take some goods?

CHEVALIER: Do you have any?

MERVAL:No, but I know a woman who will give you some, a good
woman, an honest woman.

LE BRUN: Yes, who will give us baubles which she will sell to us
for their weight in gold, from which we will recover nothing.

MERVAL: Not at all. There will be beautiful cloths, jewels in gold

and silver, silks of every kind, pearls, a few precious stones. There
will be very little to lose on her goods. She is a good creature who
is content with little provided that she is given good security. And
these are business goods which cost her very little. Anyway, why
don’t you see them? Seeing won’t cost you anything…
I protested to Merval and to the Chevalier that I was not of a
rank to engage in trade and that, even if this arrangement was not
repugnant to me, my situation would not leave me time to benefit
from it.67 The kindly Le Brun and Mathieu de Fourgeot both said at
the same time: ‘What does that matter? We will sell for you. It is
only half a day’s work…’
And the rendezvous was set for that afternoon at the house of M.
de Merval, who tapped me lightly on the shoulder and said in an
unctuous and sincere tone of voice: ‘Monsieur, I am delighted to
help, but believe me, do not make a habit of borrowing money in
this manner. It always ends in ruin. It would be a miracle if you
were to find for a second time in this part of the world such honest
people to deal with as Messieurs Le Brun and Mathieu de
Fourgeot…’
Le Brun and Fourgeot de Mathieu or Mathieu de Fourgeot bowed
and thanked him and told him that he was too kind, that they had
simply tried until the present to carry on their little business in
good faith, and there was no cause to praise them.
‘You are wrong, Messieurs. Tell me, who has a conscience these
days? Ask Monsieur le Chevalier de Saint-Ouin, who knows what I
am talking about…’
 And then there we were on our way out of Merval’s house when
he shouted to us from the top of the stairs to ask if he could count
on us and summon his tradeswoman. We told him that he could
and the four of us went off to have lunch in a neighbouring inn to
pass the time until the appointment.
Mathieu de Fourgeot ordered lunch and ordered well. At dessert
two street girls came over to our table with their hurdy-gurdys. Le
Brun had them sit down. They were given something to drink, and
encouraged to chatter and play. While my three guests were
amusing themselves in teasing one of them, her friend, who was
sitting next to me, said to me quietly: ‘Monsieur, you are in very
bad company here. There is not one of these people here whose
name isn’t on police files.’
We left the inn at the appointed hour and went to Merval’s
house. I forgot to tell you that our lunch had emptied the
Chevalier’s purse and my own and on the way there Le Brun told
the Chevalier, who repeated it to me, that Mathieu de Fourgeot
would require six louis for his commission, which was the least
that one could give him, and that if he was satisfied with us we
would have the goods at a better price and would easily recover
this sum on their sale.
There we were again at Merval’s house, where his merchant lady
had arrived before us with her goods. Mademoiselle Bridoie, for
that was her name, overwhelmed us with politeness and curtseys
and then laid out before us her materials, cloths, laces, rings,
diamonds and gold boxes. We took something of everything. It was
Le Brun, Mathieu de Fourgeot and the Chevalier who fixed the
prices of the goods, and Merval wrote them down. The total came
to nineteen thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five pounds, for
which sum I was about to make out my note when Mlle Bridoie
curtseyed to me – because she never said anything without
curtseying: ‘Monsieur, do you intend to pay your notes when they
fall due?’
‘Of course,’ I answered.
‘In that case,’ she replied, ‘it makes no difference to you whether
you give me a note or a bill of exchange…’
The word ‘bill of exchange’ made me turn pale. The Chevalier
noticed and said to Mlle Bridoie: ‘Bills of exchange, Mademoiselle!
But bills of exchange circulate and there is no telling in whose
hands they might end up.’
‘You are joking, Monsieur le Chevalier. One does have some idea
of the respect due to persons of your rank…’ And then she
curtseyed… ‘One keeps this sort of document in one’s wallet and
only produces it on the due date. Here, look…’
And then another curtsey… and she took her wallet out of her
pocket and read out a multitude of names of every state and
condition.
The Chevalier had come over to me and said: ‘Bills of exchange!
That is all devilish serious. Consider what it is you are going to do.
This woman seems honest to me, and then before it falls due you
will be in funds, or I will be.

JACQUES: And you signed the bills of exchange?

MASTER: That is correct.

JACQUES: It is the custom of fathers when their children leave for

the capital to preach them a little sermon. Do not frequent bad
company, make yourself liked by your superiors through your
assiduity to fulfil your duties, don’t forget your religion, avoid girls
of bad character and sharpsters, and above all never sign bills of
exchange.68

MASTER: Well, what do you expect? I did the same as everyone

else. The first thing I forgot was my father’s lesson. There I was,
well stocked in goods for sale, but it was money we needed. There
were a few pairs of lace cuffs which were very beautiful. The
Chevalier took some at cost price and said: ‘There, that is already
one part of your purchase on which you will lose nothing.’
Mathieu de Fourgeot took a watch and two gold boxes for which
he was going to give me cash immediately. Le Brun took
everything else on sale or return at his house. I put a superb set of
jewels into my pocket along with the lace cuffs. It was one of the
flowers in the bouquet which I was going to present. Mathieu de
Fourgeot returned in the twinkling of an eye with sixty louis. He
kept ten for himself and I took the fifty remaining. He told me that
he had sold neither the watch nor the two boxes but that he’d
pawned them.

JACQUES: Pawned them?

MASTER: Yes.

JACQUES: I know where…

MASTER: Where?

JACQUES: With the lady with the curtseys, la Bridoie.

MASTER: True. With the pair of lace cuffs and the rest of the set of
jewels I also took a pretty ring and a gold plated box. I had fifty
louis in my purse, and we were, the Chevalier and I, in the utmost
good spirits.

JACQUES: That’s all very well. There’s only one thing in all this
which intrigues me. That is the disinterestedness of M. Le Brun.
Didn’t he have any part of the spoils?

MASTER: Come along, Jacques, you are joking. You do not know
M. Le Brun. I suggested to him that I should reward his good
offices. He got angry with me and replied that I apparently took
him for a Mathieu de Fourgeot, and that he had never asked for
anything.
‘Good old Monsieur Le Brun,’ exclaimed the Chevalier, ‘he’s
always the same. We would be embarrassed if you were more
honest than us…’
And straight away he took out from amongst our merchandise
two dozen handkerchiefs and a piece of muslin, which he asked
him to accept for his wife and daughter. Le Brun started to
contemplate the handkerchiefs which appeared so beautiful to him,
the muslin which he found so fine. It was offered to him with such
good grace and he had so close at hand the opportunity to repay
our kindness through the sale of the goods which remained in his
hands that he allowed himself to be won over. And then we were
gone, going as fast as our carriage would take us towards the home
of her whom I loved and for whom the set of jewels, the lace cuffs
and the ring were destined. The present worked like magic. She
was charming and tried on the set of jewels and the lace cuffs
straight away. The ring seemed to have been made for her finger.
We dined merrily as you can well imagine.

JACQUES: And you slept there?

MASTER: No.

JACQUES: It was the Chevalier, then?

MASTER: I believe so.

JACQUES: At the pace you were being led, your fifty louis did not
last very long.

MASTER: No. At the end of a week or so we returned to Le Brun to

see what the rest of our goods had produced.

JACQUES: Nothing or hardly anything. Le Brun was sad and spoke

out against Merval and the lady with the curtseys and called them
thieves, scoundrels, rogues, swore all over again never to have
anything more to do with them and paid you seven to eight
hundred francs.

MASTER: More or less. Eight hundred and seventy pounds.

JACQUES: If I know how to count at all – eight hundred and

seventy pounds from Le Brun, fifty louis from Merval or de
Fourgeot, the set of jewels, the lace cuffs and the ring, say another
fifty louis, and that is what you recovered from your nineteen
thousand seven hundred and seventy three pounds worth of goods.
Heavens, that is honest. Merval was right. It’s not every day one
deals with such worthy people.

MASTER: You are forgetting the lace cuffs taken at cost price by
the Chevalier.

JACQUES: That is because the Chevalier never mentioned them to

you.

MASTER:Exactly. And the two gold watches and the watch

pawned by Mathieu, you haven’t mentioned them.

JACQUES: That is because I don’t know what to say.

MASTER: Meanwhile the date of payment of the bills of exchange

came.

JACQUES: And neither your funds nor the Chevalier’s arrived.

MASTER: I was obliged to hide myself. My parents were informed.

One of my uncles came to Paris. He sent a statement against all
these rogues to the police. This statement was sent to a clerk and
this clerk was a paid protector of Merval. They replied that since
the matter was a civil case the police could do nothing. The
pawnbroker to whom Mathieu had entrusted the two boxes issued
a summons against Mathieu. I became involved in the action. The
court costs were so enormous that after the sale of the watch and
the boxes there still remained five or six hundred francs to pay.

You don’t believe that, do you, Reader? But if I told you that an
innkeeper in my neighbourhood died a short time ago and left two
poor infant children. The bailiff went to the deceased’s house and
had the place sealed. Then the seals were removed, an inventory
was made, and a sale took place. The sale produced nine hundred
francs. Out of these nine hundred francs, after the costs of justice
had been deducted, there remained two sous for each orphan,
which they put into each child’s hand and then led them both to
the workhouse.
 MASTER: That’s horrifying.

JACQUES: And it’s still going on.

MASTER: My father died while all this was going on. I paid off all
the bills of exchange and came out of my retreat, and to give credit
to the Chevalier and my lady-friend I must admit that they kept me
more or less faithful company.

JACQUES: And there you were, just as struck on the Chevalier and
your girlfriend keeping you on an even tighter rein.

MASTER: Why so, Jacques?

JACQUES: Why? Because, being the master of your own person,

and the possessor of an honest fortune, they had to make a
complete fool of you, a husband.

MASTER: Indeed, I think that was their project, but they didn’t
succeed.

JACQUES: You were very lucky, or they were very clumsy.

MASTER:It seems to me that your voice is less hoarse and you are
speaking more freely.

JACQUES: It may seem so to you, but that is not the case.

MASTER: Could you not continue with the story of your loves?

JACQUES: No.

MASTER:Then is it your wish that I should continue with the story

of my own?

JACQUES: It is my wish to stop here for a moment and raise the

gourd.
 MASTER: What! With your sore throat, you’ve filled your gourd?

JACQUES: Yes, but by all the devils that ever were, it’s tisane. So I
have no inspiration, I am a fool, and for as long as there is nothing
but tisane in the gourd, I will remain a fool.

MASTER: What are you doing?

JACQUES: I am pouring the tisane away. I am afraid it will bring

us bad luck.

MASTER: You’re mad.

JACQUES: Wise or mad, I’m not leaving a drop in this gourd.

While Jacques was emptying out his gourd his master looked at
his watch, opened his snuff-box, and prepared to continue the story
of his loves. But, as for me, Reader, I am tempted to shut his mouth
by showing him, in the distance, either an old soldier on a horse,
his back stooped, coming towards them rapidly, or a young peasant
girl, wearing a little straw hat and red petticoats, going her way on
foot, or on a donkey. And why shouldn’t this old soldier be
Jacques’ Captain or his Captain’s friend?
– But he’s dead!
You think so? And why shouldn’t the young peasant girl be
Suzon or Marguerite, or the hostess of the Grand-Cerf, or mother
Jeanne, or even Denise, her daughter? A novelist wouldn’t miss
such an opportunity, but I don’t like novels – except Richardson’s. I
am writing history: either this story will be interesting or it won’t
be interesting, but that is the least of my worries. My project is to
be truthful and I have fulfilled it. So I will not have brother Jean
return from Lisbon. That fat prior coming towards us in a gig with
a pretty young lady sitting beside him will not be Father Hudson.
– But Father Hudson is dead.
You believe so? Were you at his funeral?
– No.
You didn’t see him buried?
 – No.
Then he is either dead or alive, as you please. It is entirely up to
me whether or not I stop this gig and bring out of it along with the
Prior and his travelling companion a series of events, the result of
which would be that you would know neither Jacques’ loves nor
those of his master. But I disdain all these expedients. I can see that
with only a little bit of imagination and style, nothing is easier to
rattle off than a novel. But let us stick to the truth, and while we
are waiting for Jacques’ sore throat to go away, let us allow his
master to speak.

MASTER: One morning the Chevalier seemed to me to be

extremely sad. It was the day after we had spent a day in the
country, that is, the Chevalier, his lady friend, or my lady friend, or
perhaps his and mine, her father, her mother, her aunts, her
cousins and me. He asked me if I had committed any indiscretion
which might have alerted her parents to my passion. He informed
me that her father and mother, alarmed by my regular visits, had
questioned their daughter, that if I had honest intentions nothing
was more simple than admitting them, that they would be
honoured to receive me on those conditions, but if I did not explain
myself clearly within a fortnight they begged me to stop these
visits, which were being talked about and which were harming
their daughter by keeping away from her advantageous parties who
might present themselves were it not for fear of refusal.

JACQUES: Well then, Master, didn’t Jacques smell it?

MASTER: The Chevalier added: ‘Within a fortnight! That is quite a

short time. You are in love and you are loved. In a fortnight, what
are you going to do?’
I told the Chevalier straight away that I would give up.
‘You’re giving up! Don’t you love her, then?’
‘I love her a lot, but I have parents, a name, a position in life,
ambitions, and I will never decide to bury all those advantages in
the shop of a little bourgeoise.’
‘Shall I tell them that?’
 ‘If you wish. But, Chevalier, the sudden scrupulous delicacy of
these people surprises me. They have allowed their daughter to
accept my presents, they have left me alone with her a score of
times, she goes to balls, gatherings, shows, walks alone in the fields
and in the town with the first fellow who has a decent carriage and
team to put at her disposal. They sleep soundly while people
converse or play music at her house. You frequent the house
whenever you please and, between you and me, Chevalier, when
you are allowed into a house, anyone else can be brought there.
Their daughter has a reputation. I do not believe and I do not deny
all the things that people say about her, but you must admit that
these parents might have taken it into their heads earlier to be
punctilious about their child’s honour. Do you want me to speak
the truth? They have taken me for some kind of simpleton whom
they have calculated they could lead by the nose to the feet of the
parish priest. They’ve made a mistake. I find Mlle Agathe charming
and I am infatuated with her, which is obvious, I believe, from the
frightful expense I have incurred for her. I’m not saying that I
won’t continue in the same vein, but I must be certain, in that
event, that I’ll find her somewhat less unyielding in the future.
‘It is not my intention to lose at her knees time, money and
entreaties which I could put to much better use elsewhere. You will
repeat these last words to Mlle Agathe, and everything which
preceded to her parents. Our relationship must end, or I must be
accepted on a new footing and Mlle Agathe treat me better than
she has done up to now. When you introduced me to her house,
you must admit, Chevalier, that you led me to anticipate a more
responsive attitude than I’ve met with so far.’
‘Heavens, I was a little deceived myself at first. Who the devil
would ever have imagined that with her free and easy airs and
manner the young scatterbrain would be a little dragon of virtue?’

JACQUES:What the devil! Monsieur, that’s strong stuff. So you

have been brave at least once in your life?

MASTER: There are days like that. I still had the incident of the
usurers on my mind, my retreat in sanctuary because of the Bridoie
woman, and more than all the rest the severity of Mlle Agathe. I
was a little tired of being strung along.

JACQUES:And consequent on this courageous speech which you

made to your friend the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin, what did you do
then?

MASTER: I kept my word. I stopped my visits.

JACQUES: Bravo! Bravo! Mio caro maestro!

 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.’

JACQUES: Monsieur, two points. The first is that I have never been
able to tell my story without some devil or other interrupting me
and yet you tell your story straight off. That’s the way life goes.
One person runs through life’s thorns without pricking himself
while another, no matter how hard he looks where he puts his feet,
finds thorns even on the best path and arrives at his destination
skinned alive.

MASTER: Can you have forgotten your philosophy? What about

the great scroll and the writing up above?

JACQUES: The other point is that I’m still convinced that your
Chevalier de Saint-Ouin is a great rogue, and now that he has
shared your money with the usurers Le Brun, Merval, Mathieu de
Fourgeot or Fourgeot de Mathieu and the Bridoie woman he is
trying to lumber you with his mistress, all square and above board,
of course, and in front of a notary and a priest, so that he can share
your wife with you… Ahi! My throat!…

MASTER:Do you know what you are doing there? It is something

very common and very impertinent.

JACQUES: I am certainly capable of it.

MASTER: You complain about being interrupted and yet you

interrupt me.

JACQUES:That is the effect your bad example has had on me.

Mothers want to have a good time and want their daughters to be
well behaved, fathers want to be spendthrift and have thrifty sons,
masters want…

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: All right, but that’s not all.

JACQUES: What other impropriety can I have committed?

 MASTER: You are anticipating the story-teller and taking away
from him the pleasure he has promised himself by surprising you,
so that, since you have guessed by a very misplaced and
ostentatious show of wisdom what he was going to tell you, there is
nothing left for him other than to shut up, so I am shutting up.

JACQUES: Ah! Master!

MASTER: God damn all clever men!

JACQUES: I agree. But you are not going to be so cruel…

MASTER: Admit at least that you would deserve it.

JACQUES: All right. But all the same, you are going to look at your
watch to see what time it is, you will take your pinch of snuff, your
bad temper will go away, and you will carry on with your story.

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: They asked me the reason for my absence. I told them

something or other. They accepted what I said and everything
carried on as before.

JACQUES:That is to say that you continued your expenditure and

your amours did not progress any further.

MASTER: The Chevalier asked me for news and seemed to become

impatient.

JACQUES: And he actually really was becoming impatient,

perhaps…

MASTER: Why so?

JACQUES: Why? Because he…

MASTER: Well, finish.

JACQUES: I’ll be careful not to. That must be left to the story-teller.

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.

MASTER: My anger subsided little by little. I embraced the

Chevalier, who sat down again in his chair with his elbows on the
table and fists clenched over his eyes. He did not dare to look at
me.

JACQUES: He was so upset! And you had the kindness to console

him!
(And Jacques carried on whistling.)

MASTER: It seemed to me that the best thing to do was to turn the

thing into a joke. At every light-hearted word the downcast
Chevalier said to me: ‘There can be no other man like you. You are
unique. You are worth a hundred times more than me. I doubt if I
would have had the generosity or the strength to forgive you a
similar wrong and you are treating it all light-heartedly. That is
unheard of. My friend, what could I do that could ever make
amends?… Ah! No, no, that is not the kind of thing one can make
amends for. Never, never will I forget either my crime or your
leniency. Those are two deeds which are profoundly engraved on
my heart… I will remember one so that I may detest myself, the
other so that I may admire you and so that my affection for you
will increase.’
‘Come along, Chevalier, think no more of it. You are making too
much of your action and mine. Let us drink. To your health.
Chevalier, to my own health then, since you do not wish us to
drink to yours…’
Little by little the Chevalier took heart. He then told me all the
details of his betrayal, heaping upon himself the hardest epithets.
He tore the daughter, her mother, her father, her aunts and her
whole family to pieces and he showed them to be a bunch of
rogues unworthy of me but only too worthy of him. Those were his
own words.

JACQUES: And that is why I advise women never to sleep with

people who get drunk. I despise your Chevalier hardly less for his
indiscretion in love than for his treachery in friendship. What the
devil! He had only to… be an honest man and tell you straight
away… But listen, Monsieur, I still think he’s a blackguard, a
frightful blackguard. I no longer know how all this will end and I
am afraid lest he cheat you again in being honest with you. Release
me, release yourself quickly from the inn and the company of that
man…
At this point Jacques picked up his gourd again, forgetting that it
contained neither tisane nor wine. His master started laughing.
Jacques coughed non-stop for nearly ten minutes afterwards. His
master took out his watch and his snuff-box and carried on with his
story, which I will interrupt, if you don’t mind, if only to annoy
Jacques by proving to him that it was not written up above, as he
believed, that he would always be interrupted and his master
would never be.

MASTER: ‘After what you have told me I hope that you will never
ever see them again.’
‘Me, see them again! But what infuriates me is to go away
without taking revenge. They have betrayed, manipulated and
robbed a worthy man. They have taken unfair advantage of the
passion and weakness of another worthy man – for I still dare to
think of myself as such – to lead him into one abomination after
another. They have exposed two friends to hate each other,
perhaps to tear out each other’s throat, because, after all, my dear
friend, you must admit that, if you had discovered my unworthy
conduct, you are brave and you might perhaps have felt such
resentment at it that…’
‘No, it would not have been as bad as that. Why should it? And
for whom? Because of a deed which nobody could guarantee they
might not commit? Is she my wife? And even if she were? Is she
my daughter? No, she’s a little guttersnipe, and you believe that for
a little guttersnipe… Come along, my friend, let us forget all about
that and drink. Agathe is young, lively, white, shapely, plump…
with the firmest body? The softest skin? Making love to her must
have been delightful and I imagine that the pleasure of being in her
arms could hardly have left you much time to think of your
friends.’
‘It is beyond doubt that, if the charms of the person concerned
and physical pleasure could mitigate the offence, no one on this
earth could be less guilty than me.’
‘Ah! Now then, Chevalier, I will backtrack a little. I withdraw my
forgiveness and wish to impose one condition on pardoning your
betrayal.’
‘Speak, my friend, command me, tell me. Must I throw myself
out of the window, hang myself, drown myself, plunge this knife
into my chest…’
At that moment the Chevalier grabbed a knife which was on the
table, pulled off his collar, opened his shirt and, wild-eyed, with his
right hand placed the point of the knife on his left clavicle and
seemed to be just waiting for my order to dispatch himself in the
manner of the ancients.
‘That’s not what I meant, Chevalier, put the knife down.’
‘I will not. I deserve it. Give me the signal.’
‘Put that useless knife down, I tell you. I don’t put such a high
price on your pardon…’
However, the point of the knife was still hovering over his left
clavicle. I grabbed his hand, snatched the knife away from him and
threw it far away from me. Then, moving the bottle close to his
glass and filling it full, I spoke to him: ‘First of all let us drink and
then you will know what terrible terms I am imposing for your
forgiveness. So, Agathe is delicious then, voluptuous?’
‘Ah, my friend, if only you knew like I do.’
‘But wait. Let them bring us a bottle of champagne and then you
can tell me the story of one of your nights. Charming traitor, your
absolution comes at the end of the story. Go on, begin… Didn’t you
hear me?’
‘I heard you.’
‘Does the sentence seem too harsh to you?’
‘No.’
‘You are thinking.’
‘I am thinking.’
‘What did I ask you?’
‘For the story of one of my nights with Agathe.’
‘That’s right.’
Meanwhile the Chevalier was measuring me from head to toe
and saying to himself: ‘Same size, more or less the same age, and
although there are some differences there won’t be any light and in
her mind’s eye she’ll be expecting me and won’t suspect a thing…’
‘But, Chevalier, what are you thinking of? Your glass is still full
and you haven’t started.’
‘I am thinking, my friend, I have thought it out. Everything is
worked out. Embrace me. We will have our vengeance, yes, we will
have it. It is a dastardly trick on my part, but, if it is unworthy of
me, it certainly isn’t unworthy of that little hussy. You asked me to
tell the story of one of my nights, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, is that too much to ask?’
‘No, but what if, instead of the story, I could get you the night
itself?’
‘That would be even better.’

(Jacques started whistling.)

At that the Chevalier took two keys out of his pocket, one small,
the other large.
‘The small one’, he said to me, ‘is the latch-key to the front door.
The large one is for Agathe’s dressing-room. There they are. Both of
them are at your service. This has been my routine every day for
about the past six months. Yours will be the same. The windows of
her room are at the front, as you know. I walk up and down the
street for as long as I see them lit up. A pot of basil placed outside
is the agreed signal, and when I see that I go up to the front door,
open it, go in, shut it behind me and go upstairs as quietly as I can.
Then I turn down the little corridor which is on the right. The first
door on the left of this corridor, as you know, is hers. I unlock this
door with the big key and go into the little dressing-room which is
on the right, where I find a little night candle, by the light of which
I undress at my leisure. Agathe leaves the door to her bedroom ajar
and I go through and go to her in her bed. Do you understand
that?’
‘Very well.’
‘Since there are people all around us we keep quiet.’
‘And then I imagine that you’ve got better things to do than talk.’
‘If anything goes wrong I can always jump out of her bed and
shut myself in the dressing-room. However, that has never
happened. Our normal practice is to part around four o’clock in the
morning. When pleasure or sleep keeps us later, we get up
together. She goes downstairs and I stay in the dressing-room
where I get dressed, read, rest and wait until I can safely appear.
Then I go downstairs, say hello and embrace her as if I had just
arrived.’
 ‘Are you expected tonight?’
‘I am expected every night.’
‘And will you let me take your place?’
‘With all my heart. I don’t mind at all if you prefer the night
itself to the story, but what I would like is…’
‘Say it. There is hardly anything that I do not feel courageous
enough to do to oblige you.’
‘What I would like is for you to stay in her arms till daylight and
then I could arrive and surprise you.’
‘Oh, no, Chevalier, that would be too wicked.’
‘Too wicked? I am not as wicked as you think. Beforehand I
would get undressed in the dressing-room.’
‘Come along, Chevalier, you have the devil in you. Anyhow it’s
impossible. If you give me the keys you won’t have them any
more.’
‘Ah! My friend, you are so stupid!’
‘Yes, but not all that stupid, it seems to me.’
‘And why could we not go in together? You would go to Agathe
and I would stay in the dressing-room until you gave a signal we
agreed on.’
‘My God, that is so absurd, so mad, that it wouldn’t take much
for me to keep this trick up my sleeve for one of the other nights.’
‘Ah! I understand. Your plan is to take your revenge more than
once.’
‘If you agree.’
‘Absolutely.’

JACQUES: Your Chevalier is upsetting all my theories. I thought

that…

MASTER: You thought?

JACQUES: No, Monsieur, you may continue.

MASTER: We drank and we said a hundred extravagant things

about the night which was coming, the following nights and the
night when Agathe would find herself between the Chevalier and
me. The Chevalier’s mood changed back to one of delightful
merriment and the subject of our conversation was hardly a sad
one. He laid down for me rules of nocturnal conduct which were
not all equally easy to follow, but after a long succession of well-
spent nights I was sure of upholding the honour of the Chevalier on
my first night, no matter how wonderful he maintained he was.
And then there were endless details on the talents, perfections and
facilities offered by Agathe. The Chevalier combined the headiness
of passion and that of wine with incredible skill. The hour chosen
for our escapade or vengeance seemed to come all too slowly.
Nevertheless we got up from table. The Chevalier paid. It was the
first time he had ever done that. We got into our carriage. We were
drunk, and our coachman and valets were even drunker than us.

Reader, what is there to prevent me from throwing the

coachman, the horses, the carriage, the masters and their valets
into a ditch? If the ditch scares you, what is there to prevent me
from bringing them safe and sound into town where I could have
their coach collide with another in which I could place some other
young drunkards? Offensive words would be spoken, then a
quarrel, swords drawn and a full-scale brawl. If you don’t like
brawls, what is there to stop me from substituting Mlle Agathe and
one of her aunts for these young people? But there was none of
that. The Chevalier and Jacques’ master arrived in Paris. The latter
took the Chevalier’s clothes. It was midnight and they were
underneath Agathe’s windows. The light went out. The pot of basil
was in its place. They went down to the end of the road and back
again for the last time, the Chevalier rehearsing the drill with his
friend. They went up to the door. The Chevalier unlocked it and let
Jacques’ master in, keeping the pass-key to the street door, and
giving him the key to the corridor room. Then the Chevalier closed
the door and went off. After this little detail, laconically related,
Jacques’ master carried on talking and said: ‘The building was
familiar to me. I went upstairs on tiptoe, opened the door into the
corridor, shut it, and went into the dressing-room where I found
the little night light. I undressed. The bedroom door was ajar. I
went through and into the alcove where Agathe was still awake. I
opened the curtains around her bed and at the same moment felt
two bare arms throw themselves around me and pull me closer. I
let myself go, got into bed, and was overwhelmed with caresses
which I returned. There I was, the happiest man who ever lived,
and I still was when…’
Here Jacques’ master noticed that Jacques was sleeping or
pretending to sleep and said: ‘You are sleeping, you are sleeping,
you scoundrel, at the most interesting part of my story…’
This was just what Jacques had been anticipating.
‘Will you wake up?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if I wake up my sore throat might wake up as well and I
think it would be better for both of us if we rested.’
And Jacques let his head hang forward.
‘You’ll break your neck riding like that.’
‘Of course, if that is what is written up above. Were you not in
Mlle Agathe’s arms?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you not happy there?’
‘Very happy.’
‘Well, stay there then.’
‘Long may I stay there, you mean to say.’
‘At least until I hear the story of Desglands’ spot.’

MASTER: You are avenging yourself, you traitor.

JACQUES: What if I am, Master? After you have interrupted the

story of my loves with a thousand questions and as many whims,
without the least murmur on my part, can I not beg you to
interrupt your own to tell me the story of Desglands’ spot, that
good man to whom I owe so much, who took me out of the
surgeon’s house at the very moment when, because of shortage of
money, I knew not what was to become of me, and at whose house
I met Denise, Denise without whom I would not have spoken one
word to you this whole journey? My Master, my dear Master, the
story of Desglands’ spot. You may be as brief as you like and in the
meantime the drowsiness which grips me and of which I am not
the master will disappear and you may count on all my attention.

MASTER (shrugging his shoulders): In the neighbourhood of

Desglands, there was a charming widow who had several qualities
in common with a well-known courtesan of the last century. She
was discreet by reason but libertine by temperament and regretted
the next day the follies of the day before. She spent her whole life
going from pleasure to remorse and remorse to pleasure, without
the habit of pleasure lessening her remorse and without the habit
of remorse lessening her taste for pleasure. I knew her towards the
end of her life, when she used to say that at long last she had
escaped from two great enemies. Her husband, who was lenient
about the only fault which he could reproach her for, complained
about her while she was alive and missed her for a long time after
her death. He claimed that it would have been as ridiculous for him
to prevent his wife from taking lovers as to prevent her from
drinking. He forgave her the multitude of her conquests because of
the discrimination she showed in her choice. She never allowed a
stupid or wicked man to pay her court; her favours were always the
reward of talent or probity. To say of a man that he was or had
been her lover was to certify that he was a man of worth. Because
she was aware of her inconstant nature she never pledged fidelity.
She used to say: ‘I have only made one false oath in my life, and
that was the first.’
After the decline of those feelings she inspired or felt, friendship
remained. Never was there a more striking example of the
difference between probity and morality. One could not say that
she had morals, but at the same time one had to admit that it was
difficult to find a more honest person. Her parish priest saw her but
rarely at the foot of his altar but he found her purse open at all
times to help the poor. She used to say jokingly of religion and the
law that they were a pair of crutches which were not to be taken
away from those who had weak limbs. Women who feared their
husbands being in her company desired their children to be so.
 After Jacques had muttered from between clenched teeth: ‘You
will pay for that damned portrait’, he added: ‘Were you in love
with this woman?’

MASTER: I would certainly have become so had not Desglands got

there first. Desglands fell in love with her.

JACQUES: Monsieur, could it be that the story of his spot and that
of his loves are so closely linked the one to the other that one
cannot separate them?

MASTER: They can be separated. The spot is an incident. The story

is the account of everything which happened while they were in
love.

JACQUES: And did a lot of things happen?

MASTER: A lot.

JACQUES: In that case, if you are going to give each one the same
length as you have given to the portrait of the heroine we won’t get
to the end of this much before Whitsun, and that will be the end of
the story of your loves and mine.

MASTER:Well, Jacques, why did you sidetrack me then?…

Did you ever notice a little child at Desglands’ château?

JACQUES: A wicked, stubborn insolent little valetudinarian? Yes, I

saw him.

MASTER: He is the natural son of Desglands and the beautiful

widow.

JACQUES: That child will cause him a lot of sorrow. He was an

only child, which is good enough reason to be a scoundrel. He
knew he was going to be rich, which is another good reason to be
just a scoundrel.
 MASTER: And since he is a valetudinarian, no one can teach him
anything or dares to annoy him or contradict him on anything,
which is a third good reason to be just a scoundrel.

JACQUES: One night the little lunatic started uttering the most
awful cries. The whole house was in uproar. Everybody ran to him.
He wanted his father to get up.
‘Your father’s sleeping.’
‘It doesn’t matter. He must get up. I want it. I want it.’
‘He is ill.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I want him to get up. I want it. I want it.’
They woke up Desglands. He threw his dressing-gown over his
shoulders and arrived.
‘Well, my little man, here I am. What do you want?’
‘I want you to make them come.’
‘Who?’
‘Everyone in the château.’
He made them come, masters, valets, guests, all the other
habitués of the place, Jeanne, Denise, me with my bad knee,
everybody except for one old crippled concierge who had been
given a place of retirement in a cottage about a half a mile from
the château. He wanted her to be fetched.
‘But, my child, it is midnight.’
‘I want it, I want it.’
‘You know that she lives a long way away.’
‘I want it. I want it.’
‘And that she’s very old and hardly able to walk.’
‘I want it. I want it.’

JACQUES: The poor concierge had to come. She was carried,

because she would as soon have eaten the road there as walked it.
When we were all assembled he wanted to be got up and dressed.
Then when he was up and dressed he wanted us all to go into the
great drawing-room and he wanted to be put in the middle of us in
his papa’s great armchair. When that was done he wanted us all to
take each other by the hand, which we did, and then we had to
dance around him, and so we all started to dance around him. But
it is the rest which is incredible…

MASTER: I hope you’ll spare me the rest.

JACQUES: No, Monsieur, you will listen to the rest. If he thinks he

can paint me a portrait four yards long with impunity…

MASTER: Jacques, I spoil you.

JACQUES: Too bad for you.

MASTER: You are cross about that long boring portrait of the
widow, but I think you have paid me back sufficiently with the
long boring story of the child’s whims.

JACQUES:If that’s your opinion carry on with his father’s story,

but no more portraits, Master. I hate portraits to death.

MASTER: Why do you hate portraits?

JACQUES: Because they are so unlifelike that if, by chance, one

happens to meet the subjects, one does not recognize them. Tell me
facts, repeat words to me faithfully, and then I will know what kind
of man I am dealing with. One word, one gesture, has sometimes
taught me more than the gossip of an entire town.

MASTER: One day Desglands…

JACQUES:When you are away I sometimes go into your library

and take down a book, which is normally a history book.

MASTER: One day Desglands…

JACQUES: I skip all the portraits.

 MASTER: One day Desglands…

JACQUES: Forgive me, Master. The mechanism was wound up and

had to carry on until it had run down.

MASTER: Has it?

JACQUES: It has.

MASTER: One day Desglands invited the beautiful widow to

dinner, together with a few neighbouring gentlemen. The reign of
Desglands was in its decline and among his guests there was one
towards whom the inconstant widow was beginning to be
attracted. At table, Desglands and his rival were sitting next to each
other opposite the beautiful widow. Desglands used all his wit to
enliven the conversation. He addressed the most gallant remarks to
the widow but she was distracted, paid no attention to him and
continued to stare at his rival. Desglands was holding a fresh egg in
his hand when he was overcome by a convulsive movement
occasioned by jealousy. He clenched his fist and the next moment
there was the egg squeezed from its shell and plastered all over the
face of his neighbour, who made a movement with his hand.
Desglands grabbed his wrist, stopped him and said in his ear:
‘Monsieur, I consider the blow to have been struck.’
Then there was a profound silence. The beautiful widow felt ill.
The meal was sad and brief. On leaving table the widow called
Desglands and his rival into a separate room. She did everything
which a woman could decently do to reconcile them. She begged,
she cried, she fainted, quite genuinely. She clasped Desglands’
hands, she turned to his rival with tears in her eyes.
To him she said: ‘You love me.’
To the other she said: ‘And you have loved me.’
To both of them: ‘And you want to ruin me, to make me the
scandal of the whole province, hated and despised by all!
Whichever of the two of you takes the life of his enemy, I will
never see him again. He can be neither my friend nor my lover and
I vow that I will hate him until my dying day.’
 Then she swooned again and as she swooned she said: ‘Cruel
men. Draw your swords and plunge them into my breast. If I see
your arms around each other when I die, I will die without regret.’
Desglands and his rival stood motionless or helped her and a few
tears fell from their eyes. The time finally came to part and the
beautiful widow was taken back to her house more dead than alive.

JACQUES: Well, Monsieur! Why did I need the portrait you painted
of this woman? Don’t I now know everything mentioned in the
portrait?

MASTER: The next day Desglands went to visit his fickle charmer
and found his rival there. Mistress and rival were both surprised
when they saw Desglands’ entire right cheek covered with a large
circle of black taffeta.
‘What’s that?’ asked the widow.

DESGLANDS: Nothing.

HIS RIVAL: A gumboil.

DESGLANDS: It will go away.

After a moment’s conversation, Desglands went, and on his way

out he gave his rival a sign which was clearly understood. The
latter followed him downstairs and they each went a different way
down the street. They met behind the gardens of the beautiful
widow where they fought. Desglands’ rival was left lying on the
field seriously, but not mortally, wounded. While he was being
carried back to his house, Desglands returned to the widow’s
house. He sat down and they spoke again of the incident the day
before. She asked him the significance of the enormous and
ridiculous patch covering his cheek. He got up and looked at
himself in the mirror. Indeed, he said to her, he did find it a little
too big. Then he took a pair of scissors from the lady and took off
the spot, made it a stitch or two smaller all round, put it back on
again, and said to the widow: ‘How do you find me now?’
 ‘A stitch or two less ridiculous than before.’
‘Well, that’s something anyway.’
Desglands’ rival got better. There was a second duel, victory
again falling to Desglands; this happened again five or six times in
a row. After every combat, Desglands reduced the size of his taffeta
spot a little by trimming the edge down and put the rest back on
his cheek.

JACQUES: And how did this little adventure end? When they
carried me into Desglands’ château my recollection is that he no
longer had his black spot.

MASTER: No. The end of this adventure was the end of the
beautiful widow. The long sorrow which it caused her completed
the ruin of her weak and delicate health.

JACQUES: And Desglands?

MASTER: One day while we were out walking together he received

a note which he opened and said: ‘He was a very brave man, but I
am unable to feel upset at his death…’, and at that moment he tore
from his cheek the remainder of the black circle which his frequent
trimmings had almost reduced to the size of an ordinary patch.
That is the story of Desglands. Is Jacques happy now? Might I now
hope that he will either listen to the story of my loves or carry on
again with the story of his own?

JACQUES: Neither.

MASTER: And why not?

JACQUES: Because it is hot, I am tired, this place is charming, and

we will be shaded under these trees, where we will be able to rest
in the cool air at the side of the stream.

MASTER: I agree, but what about your cold?

 JACQUES: It is a hot cold and doctors do say that things are cured
by their opposites.

MASTER: Which is true in matters moral as well as physical. I have

noticed something quite peculiar. It is that there are hardly any
moral maxims which could not be turned into medical aphorisms,
and reciprocally hardly any medical aphorisms which could not be
turned into moral maxims.

JACQUES: That has to be so.

They got down from their horses and stretched out on the grass.
Jacques said to his master: ‘Are you watching? Or are you
sleeping? If you watch I will sleep. If you sleep I will watch.’
His master said to him: ‘Sleep, sleep.’
‘Can I count on it that you will watch, because this time we
could have two horses stolen?’
His master took out his watch and snuff-box. Jacques prepared
himself to sleep but every other second he kept waking up with a
start, beating his two hands against each other in the air.
His master asked him: ‘What the devil are you doing?’

JACQUES:
I’m trying to get the flies and the midges. I wish
somebody would tell me what’s the use of these irritating creatures.

MASTER:Just because you don’t know you think they’re useless,

do you? Nature made nothing useless or superfluous.

JACQUES: I can believe that because if something is it has to be.

MASTER: When you have too much blood or bad blood what do
you do? You call a surgeon who relieves you of two or three basins
of it. Well then! These gnats which you are complaining about are
a cloud of little winged surgeons who come with their little lancets
to sting you and draw off your blood drop by drop.

JACQUES: Yes, but at random, without knowing whether I’ve got

too much or too little. Bring some starving wretch here and see if
your little winged surgeons don’t sting him. They are concerned
with themselves. Everything in nature is concerned with itself, and
with itself only. If it is harmful to others, then so what, as long as
the thing is all right itself…
Next he beat the air again with both hands and said: ‘The devil
with your little winged surgeons!’

MASTER: Do you know the fable of Garo?72

JACQUES: Yes.

MASTER: What do you think of it?

JACQUES: Bad.

MASTER: That’s easily said.

JACQUES: And easily proved. What if oak trees had pumpkins

instead of acorns? Would that fool Garo have gone to sleep under
an oak tree then? And if he hadn’t fallen asleep under an oak tree,
what difference would it have made to the safety of his nose if
pumpkins or acorns fell from it? Give that to your children to read.

MASTER: A philosopher with the same name as you will not have
that.

JACQUES:Well, everyone has his own opinion and Jean-Jacques is

not Jacques.73

MASTER: Well, too bad for Jacques.

JACQUES: Who can tell unless he has read the last word on the last
line on the page which he occupies on the great scroll?

MASTER: What are you thinking?

 JACQUES: I am thinking that, although you were speaking to me
and I was answering you, you were speaking without wanting to
and I was answering without wanting to.

MASTER: And?

JACQUES: And? That we are nothing but two living and thinking
machines.

MASTER: Well, at this moment what do you want?

JACQUES: My God, that doesn’t make any difference. That only

brings one more function of the two machines into play.

MASTER: What function is that?

JACQUES: May the devil take me if I can conceive of any function

operating without a cause. My Captain used to say: ‘Suppose a
cause and an effect will follow. From a weak cause, a weak effect.
From a momentary cause a momentary effect, from an intermittent
cause an intermittent effect, from an impeded cause a reduced
effect, from a cause that ceases a nil effect.’

MASTER: But it seems to me that I can sense within me that I am

free in the same way that I sense that I think.

JACQUES: My Captain used to say: ‘That may be true at this

moment when you do not want to do anything, but what if you
wanted to throw yourself off your horse?’

MASTER: I’d throw myself off.

JACQUES:Happily, without repugnance, without effort, as when

you dismount at the door of an inn?

MASTER: Not exactly, but what does it matter so long as I throw

myself off, and prove that I am free?
 JACQUES: My Captain used to say: ‘What! Can you not see that
were it not for my contradiction you would never have taken it into
your head to break your neck. It is therefore me who takes you by
the foot and throws you out of your saddle. If your fall proves
something it is not that you are free but that you are mad…’ My
Captain also used to say that the enjoyment of freedom which
could be exercised without any motivation would be the real
hallmark of a maniac.

MASTER: That is all too much for me. But in spite of your Captain
and in spite of you, I believe that I want when I want.

JACQUES: But if you are now and have always been the master of
your will, why don’t you want to make love to some old bag at this
moment, and why did you not stop loving Agathe all the times that
you wanted to? My Master, one spends three quarters of one’s life
wanting without doing.

MASTER: That is true.

JACQUES: And doing without wanting to.

MASTER: Will you demonstrate that to me?

JACQUES: If you consent to it.

MASTER: I consent.

JACQUES: Then it will be done, but let us speak of other things…

After this nonsense and a few other words of the same

importance they were silent and Jacques pushed up his enormous
hat, which was an umbrella in bad weather, a parasol in hot
weather and a hat in all weathers, the shadowy sanctuary under
which one of the best brains which has ever existed would consult
destiny on great occasions… When the edges of his hat were raised
up his face was more or less in the middle of his body. When they
were turned down he could hardly see ten feet in front of him,
which had given him the habit of walking with his nose in the air
and it is because of this that one could say of his hat: Os illi sublime
didit, caelumque tueri/Jussit, et erectos ad sidere tollere vultus…74
And so, as Jacques pushed up his enormous hat, looking far and
wide around him, he saw a farmer who was belabouring one of the
two horses harnessed to his plough, apparently to no effect. This
horse, which was young and vigorous, had lain down in the furrow,
and no matter how much the farmer shook his bridle, begged him,
caressed him, threatened him, swore at him and beat him, the
animal stayed stock still and stubbornly refused to get up.
After Jacques had mused for a while on this scene he turned to
his master, whose attention had similarly been attracted.

JACQUES: Do you know what is happening over there, Monsieur?

MASTER:What would you wish to be happening over there other

than what I already see?

JACQUES: Can you really not guess?

MASTER: No, but what’s your guess?

JACQUES: My guess is, that there stupid proud useless animal is a

town-dweller and because he is proud of his first condition as a
saddle horse he despises the plough, and, in a word, it is your horse
and also the symbol of Jacques here and so many other faint-
hearted wretches like him who have left the countryside to go and
bear livery in the capital and who would prefer to beg their bread
in the streets or die of hunger than to return to agriculture, the
most useful and honourable of occupations.

The master started to laugh, and Jacques, speaking to the

farmer, who could not hear him, said: ‘Poor devil. Beat him, beat
him as much as you want. He’s set in his ways now and you’ll wear
out more than one cracker on your whip before you inspire a little
true dignity and some taste for work in that good-for-nothing…’
 His master carried on laughing and Jacques, half out of
impatience, and half out of pity, got up and walked over toward
the farmer. He hadn’t gone two hundred paces when he turned
round to his master and started shouting: ‘Monsieur, come here,
come here. It’s your horse, it’s your horse!’
And it was indeed. Hardly had the animal recognized Jacques
and his master when he got up of his own accord, shook his mane,
whinneyed, reared and tenderly nuzzled his companion’s muzzle.
Meanwhile Jacques, who was indignant, said from between
clenched teeth: ‘Scoundrel, wastrel, good for nothing. Is there even
one good reason why I shouldn’t give you twenty good kicks?’
His master, by way of contrast, was kissing him and had put one
hand on his side and was softly patting his rump with the other,
almost crying with joy, and he was saying: ‘My horse, my poor
horse, so I’ve found you once again!’
The farmer understood nothing of all this: ‘I can see, Messieurs,
that this horse used to belong to you but I do not own him any the
less legitimately for that. I bought him at the last fair. If you want
to take him for two thirds of what he cost me, you’ll be doing me a
great service because I can do nothing with him. When he has to be
taken out of the stable he’s the devil incarnate. When he has to be
harnessed he’s even worse, and when we arrive in the fields he lies
down. He’d rather be beaten to death than pull anything or put up
with a sack on his back. Messieurs, would you be so charitable as
to relieve me of this accursed animal. He’s a fine animal, but he’s
good for nothing other than prancing under a gentleman, and that’s
no use to me…’
They suggested a swap with whichever of the two others suited
him best. He agreed and our two travellers came slowly back
towards the place where they had rested, from where they watched
with great satisfaction as the horse they had given the farmer
acquiesced without repugnance in his new condition.

JACQUES: Well, Monsieur?

MASTER: Well! Nothing can be surer than that you’re inspired. But
is it by God or by the devil? I don’t know which. Jacques, my dear
friend, 1 am afraid you’ve got the devil in you.

JACQUES: And why the devil?

MASTER: Because you work wonders and your doctrine is

extremely suspect.

JACQUES: And what connection is there between the doctrine one

possesses and the wonders one works?

MASTER: I can see that you have not read Dom La Taste.75

JACQUES: And this Dom La Taste whom I haven’t read, what does
he say?

MASTER: He says that God and the devil both work miracles.

JACQUES: And how does one distinguish God’s miracles from the
miracles of the devil?

MASTER: By doctrine. If the doctrine is good the miracles are

God’s, if it is bad they are the devil’s.

Here Jacques started whistling, then he added: ‘And who will

teach me, poor ignorant fellow that I am, if the doctrine of any
particular miracle-worker is good or bad? Come along, Monsieur,
let us mount up again. What does it matter to you whether your
horse has been recovered by the work of God or Beelzebub? Will he
go any the less well for it?’

MASTER: No. If, however, Jacques, you were possessed…

JACQUES: What cure would there be for that?

MASTER: The cure! That would be, until you were exorcized, to
put you on holy water for your only drink.
 JACQUES: Me, Monsieur, on water! Jacques on holy water! I would
rather have a thousand legions of devils stay in my body than drink
one drop, holy or unholy. Have you never noticed that I’m
hydrophobic?…

– Ah, hydrophobic? Did Jacques say ‘hydrophobic’?

No, Reader, no, I confess that the word isn’t his own, but with
such a severe critical attitude, I defy you to read a scene of any
comedy or tragedy, a single dialogue, no matter how well it is
written, without surprising the words of its author in the mouth of
his character.
What Jacques said was: ‘Master, have you never noticed that at
the sight of water I turn rabid?’
Well, in speaking differently from him I have been less truthful
but more brief. They got back on their horses and Jacques said to
his master: ‘You had got up to the point in the story of your loves
where after you had been made happy twice you were getting
ready perhaps to be made happy for a third time.’

MASTER: And all of a sudden the door from the corridor opened.
The bedroom was invaded by a tumult of people. I saw lights and
heard the voices of men and women all speaking at the same time.
The curtains were pulled back violently and I saw the mother, the
father, the aunts, the cousins and a Commissioner of Police, who
said to them in a serious voice: ‘Messieurs, mesdames, no noise. He
has been caught red-handed. Monsieur is a gallant man. There is
only one way to make good the wrong, and Monsieur will surely
prefer to do it voluntarily than be forced to do it by the law…’
At every word he was interrupted by the father and the mother,
who were heaping reproaches on me, by the aunts and the female
cousins, who were berating in the most unrestrained terms Agathe,
who had buried her head in the covers. I was stupefied and I didn’t
know what to say. The Commissioner turned to me and said in an
ironic tone of voice: ‘Monsieur, I can see that you are comfortable
there but please be so good as to get up and get dressed…’
Which, of course, I did, with my own clothes, which had been
substituted for those of the Chevalier. A table was pulled out and
the Commissioner started to draw up the charge. Meanwhile it was
taking four people to keep the mother held down and stop her from
beating her daughter, and the father was saying to her: ‘Gently,
wife, gently, when you’ve finished beating your daughter it won’t
change things one bit. Everything will turn out all right.’
The other people were spread around the room on chairs in
varying attitudes of sorrow, indignation and anger. The father was
scolding his wife at intervals, saying: ‘That’s what happens when
one doesn’t watch over one’s daughter’s conduct.’
The mother replied: ‘With such a good and honest appearance,
who would have thought it of Monsieur?…’
The others were silent. When the police report had been
prepared it was read out to me and since it contained nothing but
the truth I signed it and went downstairs with the Commissioner,
who asked me most politely to get into the carriage which was at
the door, and from there I was led away in quite a large convoy
straight to Fort-l’Evêque.76

JACQUES: Fort-l’Evêque! To prison!

MASTER: To prison. And then what an abominable court case. It

was nothing less than a question of marrying Mlle Agathe. Her
parents didn’t want to listen to any arrangement. At daybreak the
Chevalier appeared in my retreat. He knew everything. Agathe was
devastated. Her parents were enraged. He had been subjected to
the most cruel reproaches because of the perfidious acquaintance
he had introduced to them. It was he who was the primary cause of
their unhappiness and their daughter’s dishonour. The poor parents
were a pitiful sight. He had asked to speak to Agathe alone, which
he eventually – though not without difficulty – succeeded in doing.
Agathe had almost torn his eyes out. She had called him the most
odious names. He had been prepared for it and he waited for her
fury to subside, after which he tried to bring her to a more
reasonable frame of mind.
‘But this girl said one thing,’ added the Chevalier, ‘to which I do
not know the answer: “My father and my mother surprised me with
your friend. Should I tell them that when I was sleeping with him I
thought I was sleeping with you?” ’
He replied: ‘In all honesty, do you think that my friend could
marry you?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘it is you, you unworthy wretch, who ought to be
condemned to do so.’
‘But,’ I said to the Chevalier, ‘it only needs you to get me out of
the mess I am in.’
‘And how could I do that?’
‘How? By explaining things as they are.’
‘I have threatened Agathe I would do so, but I certainly will not.
It is by no means certain whether it would be of any use to us, but
it is absolutely certain that we’d be completely dishonoured. And
anyway it’s your fault.’
‘My fault?’
‘Yes, your fault. If you had approved the trick I suggested to you,
Agathe would have been caught between two men and the whole
thing would have finished in derision. But things didn’t work out
like that and now it’s a question of getting out of this mess.’
‘But, Chevalier, could you explain to me one small thing. That is
how my clothes were returned to me and yours put in the dressing-
room. My God, I’ve thought about it a lot but it is a mystery which
totally baffles me. It made me suspect Agathe a little because it
occurred to me that she might have discovered the ruse and there
was some kind of connivance between her and her parents.’
‘Perhaps you were seen going up. What is certain is that you
were hardly undressed when my clothes were sent to me and yours
asked for.’
‘It will all come clear in time…’
While we were busy, the Chevalier and I, grieving, consoling
ourselves, accusing ourselves, insulting ourselves and begging each
other’s pardon, the Commissioner came in. The Chevalier turned
pale and left abruptly. This Commissioner was a good man, as some
of them are, and reading over the police report at his home
remembered that in earlier times he had studied with a young man
who had my name. It occurred to him that I might perhaps be a
relation or even the son of this old college friend, as was in fact the
case. His first question was to ask me who was the man who had
run away as he came in.
‘He didn’t run away,’ I told him, ‘he went out. He’s my close
friend, the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin.’
‘Your friend! You have a nice friend there! Do you know,
Monsieur, that he is the man who came to warn me? He was
accompanied by the father and another relation.’
‘Him!’
‘Himself!’
‘Are you absolutely sure of this?’
‘Absolutely sure. What did you call him again?’
‘The Chevalier de Saint-Ouin.’
‘Ah! The Chevalier de Saint-Ouin, that’s it. And do you know
what your friend, your intimate friend the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin,
is? A crook. A man on record for a hundred dirty tricks. The police
only leave that type of man free to walk the streets because he can
sometimes be useful to them. They are rogues and informers on
rogues and are apparently more useful in the harm they forestall or
reveal than dangerous by that which they do…’
I told the Commissioner my sad story exactly as it had happened.
He didn’t see it in any the more favourable light because nothing
that could exculpate me could be adduced or proved in any court
of law. However, he undertook to call the girl’s father and mother
and grill her, to inform the magistrate and to neglect nothing
which might help to justify me. But he warned me all the same that
if these people were well counselled the authorities could do little.
‘What! Monsieur le Commissaire, do you mean I will be forced to
marry her?’
‘Marry her! That would be very harsh, and that wasn’t what I
was concerned about, but there will be damages, in this case,
considerable…’
But Jacques, I think there is something you want to say to me…

JACQUES: Yes. I wanted to say to you that you were actually more
unfortunate than me who paid for it but didn’t get my night’s
worth. All the same I think I’ll have heard it all if she turns out to
be pregnant.

MASTER: Don’t drop the idea yet. The Commissioner told me that
a short while after my arrest she had come to see him and made a
declaration of pregnancy.

JACQUES: And there you were, the father of a child.

MASTER: Whom I haven’t done badly by.

JACQUES: And whom you didn’t spawn.

MASTER: Neither the protection of the magistrate nor all the steps
taken by the Commissioner could prevent this affair from following
the course of justice. But, as the girl and her parents were of bad
repute I didn’t end up marrying in prison. I was sentenced to a
large fine to pay the costs of the childbirth and also to provide for
the maintenance and education of a child which issued from the
actions and deeds of my friend the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin, of
whom he was the portrait in miniature. It was a bonny boy to
whom Mlle Agathe gave birth without any problems between the
seventh and eighth month and who was given over to a good nurse
whom I have paid every month until this day.

JACQUES: And what age is Monsieur your son now?

MASTER: He will soon be ten. I have left him in the country all this
time and the schoolmaster there has taught him to read and write
and count. It is not far from where we are going and I am taking
the opportunity to pay these people what is owing to them and to
take him away and put him to a trade.
Jacques and his master spent yet another night on the road.
They were too close to the end of their journey for Jacques to take
up the story of his loves again, and anyway his sore throat was far
from better. The following day they arrived.
– Where?
On my word of honour, I don’t know.
 – And what did they have to do at wherever they were going to?
Whatever you like. Do you think that Jacques’ master told
everyone his business? Whatever it was, they did not need to stay
for more than two weeks.
– Did it end well or did it end badly?
That is what I still don’t know. Jacques’ sore throat cleared up
because of two cures which he had an aversion to: diet and rest.
One morning the master said to his valet: ‘Jacques, saddle up
and bridle the horses and fill up your gourd because we have to go
you know where.’
It was no sooner said than done and there they were on their
way towards the place where for the last ten years the Chevalier de
Saint-Ouin’s son had been looked after at the expense of Jacques’
master. Some distance from the resting-place they had just left the
master addressed the following words to Jacques: ‘Jacques, what
do you think of the story of my loves?’

JACQUES: There are strange things written up above. There’s one

more child made, God knows how. Who knows what role the little
bastard will play in the world? Who knows if he wasn’t born for
the happiness or the destruction of an empire?

MASTER: I say no. I will make a good turner or a good clock-

maker out of him. He will get married and have children who will
turn the chair legs of this world in perpetuity.

JACQUES: Yes, if that is what is written up above. But why

shouldn’t another Cromwell come out of a turner’s shop? Didn’t the
man who had his King’s head cut off come out of a brewer’s shop?
And aren’t people saying today…

MASTER: Let’s leave all that. You are better now. You know the
story of my loves. In all conscience you cannot get out of carrying
on the story of your own.

JACQUES: Everything is against it. Firstly the short distance we’ve

got left to travel. Secondly I’ve forgotten where I was. Thirdly I
have the devil of a premonition… that this story will not be
finished, that this story must bring us bad luck, and that I will have
no sooner started when it will be interrupted by a favourable or an
unfavourable event.

MASTER: If it is favourable, so much the better.

JACQUES:I agree, but something tells me that it will be

unfavourable.

MASTER: Unfavourable! So be it, but whether you speak or not,

will it happen any the less?

JACQUES: Who knows?

MASTER: You were born two or three centuries too late.

JACQUES: No, Monsieur, I was born at the right time like everyone
else.

MASTER: You would have been a great augur.

JACQUES: I do not know precisely what an augur is, nor do I

particularly want to.

MASTER: It is one of the important chapters in your Treatise of

Divination.

JACQUES: That’s true but it is so long since I wrote it that I can’t

remember a word. Monsieur, listen. This is what knows more than
any augurs, prophetic geese or sacred hens of the Republic of
Rome. It is the gourd. Let us consult the gourd.
Jacques took his gourd and consulted it at length. His master
took out his watch and snuff-box, saw what time it was, took his
pinch of snuff, and then Jacques spoke.

JACQUES: It seems to me at present that I see Destiny less darkly.

Tell me where I was up to.

MASTER:The château of Desglands. Your knee was a little better

and Denise had been ordered by her mother to look after you.

JACQUES: Denise was obedient. The wound in my knee had almost

closed up. I had even been able to dance on the night of the child.
However, every now and then I would suffer the most unheard-of
pain. It occurred to the surgeon in the château, who knew a little
more than his colleague, that these attacks, which returned so
suddenly, could only have as their cause the fact that a foreign
body had stayed in the flesh after the extraction of the bullet.
Consequently he came into my bedroom early one morning,
brought a table over to my bed and when my bed curtains were
opened I saw that this table was covered in surgical instruments…
Denise was sitting at the head of my bed, crying hot tears. Her
mother was standing up with her arms crossed and looking sad.
The surgeon took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and took a
lancet in his right hand.

MASTER: You are frightening me.

JACQUES: I was frightened too.

‘Friend,’ the surgeon asked me, ‘are you tired of being in pain?’
‘Very tired.’
‘Do you want it to finish and keep your leg?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then put it outside the bed so that I can work on it more
easily…’
I held out my leg. The surgeon put the handle of his lancet
between his teeth, took my leg under his left arm, held it firmly in
place, took his lancet again and put the point into the opening of
my wound, making a wide deep incision. I didn’t turn a hair, but
Jeanne turned her head away and Denise screamed and felt ill…

At this point Jacques stopped his story and took another pull at
his gourd. His halts became more frequent as the distances became
shorter, or, as the geometricians say, they were in inverse
proportion to the distances. He was so precise in his measurements
that although the gourd was full on leaving it was always exactly
empty on arrival. The Department of Bridges and Highways would
have made an excellent odometer of him, and each pull he took
from the gourd usually had its own sufficient reason. This time it
was to bring Denise back from her faint and to recover from the
pain of the incision the surgeon had made in his knee. When
Denise had recovered and he was comforted he continued.

JACQUES: This enormous incision revealed the bottom of the

wound out of which the surgeon pulled with his tweezers a very
small piece of cloth from my breeches which had stayed there and
whose presence was causing my pain and preventing the complete
healing of the wound. After this operation my health got better and
better, thanks to the attentions of Denise. There were no more
attacks and no more fever. My appetite returned and I slept and
grew stronger. Denise bandaged me with precision and infinite
gentleness. You should have seen the cautiousness and dexterity of
hand with which she used to undo my bandage, the fear she had of
causing me pain, the way she used to bathe my wound. I used to be
sitting on the edge of my bed and she would have one knee on the
floor. My leg would rest on her thigh which I sometimes used to
press a little. I used to have one hand on her shoulder and watch
her do all this with a tenderness which I believe she shared. When
my bandaging was finished I would take her two hands and thank
her. I did not know what to say to her. I did not know how I could
express my thanks. She would stand there, her eyes lowered,
listening to me without saying anything. Not a single pedlar passed
through the château from whom I did not buy something for her.
Once a neckerchief, another time a few lengths of calico or muslin,
a golden cross, cotton stockings, a ring, a garnet necklace. When
my little present had been bought my problem was to offer it and
hers to accept it. At first I would show her the thing and if she
liked it I would say: ‘Denise, I bought it for you.’ If she accepted it,
my hand used to tremble when I gave it to her, as did hers when
she took it. One day, no longer knowing what I could give her, I
bought her some garters. They were made of silk and brightly
figured in red, white and blue. That morning before she arrived I
put them on the back of the chair which was next to my bed. As
soon as Denise saw them she said: ‘Oh, what pretty garters.’
‘They are for my lover,’ I replied.
‘So you have a lover, Monsieur Jacques?’
‘Of course, haven’t I already told you?’
‘No. She’s very attractive, I suppose?’
‘Very attractive.’
‘And do you love her a lot?’
‘With all my heart.’
‘And does she love you too?’
‘I have no idea. These garters are for her and she has promised to
grant me a favour which will drive me mad, I think, if she grants it
to me.’
‘What favour is that?’
‘It is that I will put on one of these two garters with my own
hands…’
Denise blushed, misunderstood what I had said and thought the
garters were for someone else. She became sad and made blunder
after blunder, looked for everything she needed for my bandage
without finding it when she had it under her nose the whole time,
knocked over the wine which she had warmed, came close to my
bed to bandage me, took hold of my leg with a trembling hand,
undid my bandage all wrong and then, when she had to bathe my
wound, she had forgotten what she needed for the task and had to
go and look for it. She bandaged me, and as she was bandaging me
I saw she was crying.
‘Denise, I do believe that you are crying. What’s wrong with
you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Has somebody hurt you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What nasty man has hurt you?’
‘You.’
‘Me?’
 ‘Yes.’
‘How did that happen?…’
Instead of answering me she looked at the garters.
‘Oh,’ I said to her, ‘is that what made you cry?’
‘Yes.’
‘Denise, don’t cry any more. It is for you that I bought them.’
‘Monsieur Jacques, is that true?’
‘Very true. So true that here they are.’
As I said this I gave her both of them but I held one back and as I
did so a smile appeared under her tears. I took her by the arm and
drew her closer to my bed, took one of her feet which I put on the
edge, and raised up her skirts as far as the knee where she held
them down with both hands. I kissed her leg and attached the
garter which I had held on to, and hardly had I put it on when
Jeanne, her mother, came in.

MASTER: That was an annoying visit.

JACQUES: Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Instead of noticing our

emotion she only saw the garter which her daughter had in her
hands.
‘That’s a pretty garter,’ she said, ‘but where’s the other one?’
‘On my leg. He told me that he’d bought them for his lover and I
imagined that they were for me. Now that I’ve put one on I have to
keep the other one, isn’t that right, Mother?’
‘Ah! Monsieur Jacques, Denise is right. One garter doesn’t go
without the other, and you wouldn’t want to take back the one she
is wearing.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Denise wouldn’t wish it, nor me either.’
‘Well, let’s settle it. I’ll put the other one on in your presence.’
‘No, no, you can’t do that.’
‘Then let her give them both back to me.’
‘She can’t do that either.’
But now Jacques and his master are at the edge of the village
where they were going to see the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin’s child
and his foster-parents. Jacques fell silent.

MASTER: Let us sit down and pause a while here.

JACQUES: Why?

MASTER: Because, by all appearances, you are nearing the end of

the story of your loves.

JACQUES: Not quite.

MASTER: When you get as far as the knee there’s not much farther
to go.

JACQUES: Master, Denise’s thigh was longer than many another

girl’s.

MASTER: Well, let’s get down anyway.

They dismounted. Jacques got down first and attended rapidly to

the boot of his master, who had no sooner put his foot on the
stirrup when the strap became undone and our horseman was
thrown backwards and would have landed heavily on the ground if
his valet hadn’t caught him in his arms.

MASTER:Well, Jacques! So that is how you look after me! It

wouldn’t have taken much for me to have broken a rib or an arm
or cracked open my head or even been killed.

JACQUES: What a terrible misfortune that would have been.

MASTER:What did you say, you scoundrel? Just you wait, I’ll
teach you to speak…

And after he had wound the lash of his whip twice around his
wrist, the master set off after Jacques, who ran around the horse
bursting with laughter while his master was swearing, cursing,
foaming with rage, also running round the horse, vomiting forth a
torrent of invective against Jacques. This went on until the two of
them, both worn out and dripping with sweat, stopped each on the
opposite side of the horse from the other. Jacques was panting and
still laughing. His master was also panting and giving him furious
looks. They waited to get their breath back, when Jacques said to
his master: ‘My Master, will you not admit it now?’

MASTER: Well, what do you want me to admit, you dog, you

wretch, you scoundrel, other than the fact that you are the most
wicked of all valets and that I am the most unfortunate of all
masters?

JACQUES: Has it not been clearly demonstrated that most of the

time we act without willing to? Come now, put your hand on your
conscience and tell me, did you will any of the things you have said
and done for the last half hour? Were you not my marionette, and
would you not have carried on being my puppet for a month if I’d
wanted you to?

MASTER: What, it was a game?

JACQUES: A game.

MASTER: And you were waiting for the straps to come undone?

JACQUES: I had prepared them.

MASTER: And your impertinent reply was premeditated?

JACQUES: Premeditated.

MASTER:And that was the string you’d tied to my head to throw

me around as you wished?

JACQUES: Just so.

 MASTER: You are a dangerous ruffian.

JACQUES:Say, rather, that I am a subtle reasoner, thanks to my

Captain, who once played the same trick on me.

MASTER: But what if I had hurt myself?

JACQUES:It was written up above and in my precautions that such

a thing would not happen..

MASTER: Come, let us sit down. We must rest.

As they sat down Jacques cried: ‘A plague be on the fool.’

MASTER: You are speaking of yourself, I presume?

JACQUES: Yes, for not leaving an extra pull in the gourd.

MASTER: There’s no point in regretting it. I would have drunk it

because I’m dying of thirst.

JACQUES: A plague again on the fool for not having left two.

The master begged him to take their minds off their tiredness
and their thirst by continuing his story. Jacques refused and his
master sulked. Jacques let him sulk, but at length, after he had
protested against the misfortunes which would happen to him,
Jacques carried on again with the story of his loves.

JACQUES: One feast day the lord of the château was away hunting.

After these words he stopped dead and said: ‘I cannot do it. It is

impossible for me to continue. It seems to me that yet again the
hand of Destiny is on my throat and I can feel it tighten. For God’s
sake, Monsieur, allow me to stop.’

MASTER:Very well, stop, and go and ask at the first cottage over
there where the foster-parents live.
 It was the last house. They went there, each of them leading his
horse by the reins. At that moment the door opened and a man
appeared. Jacques’ master cried out and drew his sword and the
other man did the same. The two horses were frightened by the
clashing of swords and Jacques’ horse broke away from its reins
and ran free. At the same moment the gentleman his master was
fighting fell dead on the spot. The peasants from the village rushed
up. Jacques’ master jumped nimbly into his saddle and rode away
as fast as he could. They grabbed hold of Jacques, tied his hands
behind his back, and brought him in front of the local judge, who
sent him to prison. The dead man was the Chevalier de Saint-Ouin,
whom Fate had led, on that very day, along with Agathe, to their
foster-parents. Agathe was tearing her hair out over her lover’s
corpse. Jacques’ master was already so far away that he was lost
from sight. Jacques mused as he was led from the judge’s house to
the prison that it was, it had to be, written up above.
And as for me, I’m stopping because I’ve told you everything that
I know about these two people.
– What about the story of Jacques’ loves?
Jacques must have said a hundred times that it was written up
above that he would not finish the story and I can see, Reader, that
Jacques was right. I can see that this annoys you. Well then, carry
on his story where he left off and finish it however you like. Or, if
you’d rather, go and see Mlle Agathe. Find out the name of the
village where Jacques is in prison, go and see Jacques and question
him. He won’t need to be coaxed to satisfy you. It will relieve him
of his boredom. Following the written record, which I have good
reason to hold suspect, I might perhaps supply what is missing
here. But what use would that be? One can only interest oneself in
that which one believes to be true. However, since it would be
imprudent to make any final decision without a detailed
examination of the conversations of Jacques the Fatalist and his
master, the most important work which has appeared since
Francois Rabelais’ Pantagruel, and the life and times of Compère
Mathieu,77 I will re-read these memoirs with all the concentration
and impartiality of which I am capable. And after a week I will
give you my definitive judgement – definitive, that is, until I retract
it because someone more intelligent than me has shown that I’m
wrong.
A week has gone by. I have read the memoirs in question and
out of the three additional paragraphs which I find in the
manuscript I own, the first and the last appear to me to be original,
and the middle one has obviously been interpolated. Here is the
first one, which supposes a second gap in the conversation of
Jacques and his master.
One feast day, while the lord of the château was hunting and the
other residents had gone to Mass at the parish church, which was a
good quarter of a league away, Jacques got up. Denise was sitting
beside him and they were both silent and seemed to be sulking. In
fact they were sulking. Jacques had done everything he could to
persuade Denise to make him happy. And Denise held fast. After
this long silence Jacques was crying hot tears and he said to her in
a harsh, bitter voice: ‘You don’t love me.’
Disappointed, Denise got up, took him by the arm, led him to the
edge of the bed and said: ‘So, Monsieur Jacques, I don’t love you.
Well then, Monsieur Jacques, do with the unfortunate Denise
whatever you want.’
And as she said these words she burst into tears, was choking
with sobs.
Tell me, what would you have done if you were in Jacques’
place?
– Nothing.
Well, that is precisely what he did. He brought Denise from the
bed to her chair, threw himself at her feet, wiped the tears which
were running from her eyes, kissed her hands, consoled her,
reassured her, believed that she loved him dearly and left it to her
love to choose the moment to reward his own. This behaviour
deeply touched Denise. One might perhaps object that if Jacques
was at Denise’s feet he could hardly wipe her eyes unless the chair
was extremely low. The manuscript doesn’t say, but this seems a
plausible assumption.
Here is the second paragraph, which has been copied from The
Life and Times of Tristram Shandy, unless the conversation of
Jacques the Fatalist and his master predates this work and the good
minister Sterne himself is the plagiarist, which is something I do
not believe, because of the particular esteem in which I hold Mr
Sterne, whom I distinguish from the majority of men of letters of
his nation whose quite frequent custom is to steal from us and then
insult us.
Another time it was morning and Denise had come to bandage
Jacques. Everyone was still asleep in the château. Denise came near
to Jacques, trembling. When she reached Jacques’ door she
stopped, uncertain whether to go in or not. She entered, trembling,
and stayed for quite a long time beside Jacques’ bed without daring
to open the curtains. Still trembling, she opened them quietly, and
said good morning to Jacques. She asked about the night he had
spent and his health and she was still trembling. Jacques told her
that he hadn’t slept a wink and that he had suffered and he was
still suffering from a terrible itching on his knee. Denise offered to
comfort him and took a little piece of flannel. Jacques put his leg
out of the bed and Denise started to rub below the wound with her
flannel, first with one finger, then two, then three, then four, then
her whole hand. Jacques watched her do this, drunk with love.
Then Denise started to rub her flannel on the wound itself, the scar
of which was still red, first with one finger, then two, then three,
then four, then her whole hand.
But it wasn’t enough to have cured the itching under the knee
and on the knee. It still needed to be cured above the knee where
he could feel it all the more sharply. Denise put her flannel above
his knee and started rubbing there quite firmly, first with one
finger, then two, then three, then four, then her whole hand.
Jacques had not stopped looking at her and his passion reached
such a point that, no longer being able to resist, he threw himself
on Denise’s hand… and then kissed her… hand.
But what leaves no doubt at all as to the fact that this is a
plagiarism is what follows. The plagiarist adds the following
exhortaton: If you are not satisfied with what I have revealed to
you of Jacques’ loves, Reader, you may go away and do better – I
consent to it. But however you go about it I am sure you will
conclude as I have.
– You are wrong, insidious slanderer. I will not conclude as you
have. Denise was a good girl.
But who has told you otherwise? Jacques threw himself on her
hand, and then he kissed her – on the hand, that is. You are the one
with the corrupted mind who doesn’t understand what he is being
told.
– Well! And he only kissed her hand?
Of course. Jacques had too much sense to take advantage of the
woman he wanted to make his wife and prepare for himself a
lifetime of poisonous suspicions.
– But in the previous paragraph it says that Jacques tried
everything to persuade Denise to make him happy.
Apparently that is because at that time he didn’t want to make
her his wife.
The third paragraph shows us Jacques, our poor Fatalist, with
his hands and his feet in irons, stretched out on the straw, at the
bottom of some dark dungeon, recalling all the principles which he
could remember of his Captain’s philosophy, and not very far away
from reaching the conclusion that he would perhaps one day regret
his humid, foul-smelling dark dwelling, where he was fed on black
bread and water and had to defend his feet and hands from the
attacks of mice and rats. We are told that, in the middle of these
meditations, the doors of his prison and dungeon were broken
down and that he was given his liberty along with a dozen brigands
and found himself enrolled in the gang of the outlaw Mandrin.78
Meanwhile the mounted constabulary who had been tracking his
master found him, arrested him and put him in custody in another
prison. He got himself released through the good offices of the
Commissioner, who had served him so well in his first adventure,
and had been living in retirement in Desglands’ château for two or
three months when chance returned to him a servant who was
almost as essential to his happiness as his watch and his snuff-box.
There was not a single time that he took a pinch of snuff, nor a
single time that he looked to see what time it was, that he didn’t
say with a sigh: ‘What has become of my poor Jacques?’
One night Desglands’ château was attacked by Mandrin’s gang.
Jacques recognized the residence of his benefactor and his mistress,
interceded and preserved the château from being plundered.
 We then come to the passage which describes the pathetic details
of the unexpected encounter of Jacques, his master, Desglands,
Denise and Jeanne.
‘Is that you, my friend?’
‘Is that you, my dear master?’
‘How did you come to be with these people?’
‘And how is it that I find you here? Is that you, Denise?’
‘Is that you, Monsieur Jacques? How you made me cry!’
Meanwhile Desglands shouted out: ‘Bring glasses and wine
quickly. He has saved all our lives.’
A few days afterwards the old concierge of the château died.
Jacques secured his place and married Denise, with whom he
occupied himself in raising disciples of Zeno and Spinoza, loved by
Desglands, cherished by his master and adored by his wife, for thus
was it written up above.
It has been claimed that his master and Desglands fell in love
with his wife. I do not know if this is true but I am sure that at
night he used to say to himself:

If it is written up above that you will be cuckolded, no matter

what you do you will be. If, however, it is written up above that
you will not be cuckolded, no matter what they do you won’t be.
So sleep, my friend.

And he slept.
 NOTES

1. A Belgian village, site of a French victory in 1745 over a

combined force of English, Dutch and Imperial troops.
2. The surgeon, like other country surgeons who appear in
Jacques, would seem to be a barber-surgeon, occupying a relatively
humble position in the medical hierarchy of the period and dealing
with minor surgical interventions.
3. French military successes of 1747 and 1756 respectively.
4. Saint Roch, traditionally invoked by plague victims, is
sometimes represented as a pilgrim, but is most often recognizable
by a sore or boil on his thigh. It is not known whether Diderot was
thinking of any particular representation of the saint.
5. This anecdote refers to the Marquis de Castries, wounded
fighting in Westphalia in 1762. Dufouart and Louis were prominent
French surgeons of the period.
6. This phrase has become a catch-phrase in French, but
Diderot’s reference to Harpagon is inaccurate, since the words are
spoken by Géronte in Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin, and not by
Harpagon in L’Avare.
7. Pontoise and Saint-Germain are small towns situated close to
Paris, and no doubt chosen to contrast with the more exotic and
far-away places of pilgrimage, Loreto and Compostella.
8. Lieutenant-governor is an approximate translation of
‘lieutenant-général, which, by the eighteenth century, refers to a
magistrate appointed by the king and responsible for the
administration of justice in and around a fairly important town.
This suggests that the town of Conches referred to is the one in
Normandy.
9. The reference is to Le Philosophe anglais ou Histoire de Monsieur
Cleveland, a very popular novel by the Abbé Prévost, published
between 1731 and 1739 and often cited in the eighteenth century
as an example of the extravagant adventure-novel.
10. Diderot greatly admired Richardson for his realism. Regnard
was the best-known writer of comedies in the generation after
Molière, while Sedaine, a contemporary whom Diderot much
admired, was a successful writer of comedies and light-opera
librettos.
11. The poet has been identified as one Viguier, who published a
collection of verse in 1765. Pondicherry was a French possession
on the east coast of India, and a prosperous commercial centre in
spite of the effects of Anglo-French conflict in India during the
eighteenth century.
12. Horace, Ars poetica, ll. 372–3, Mediocribus esse poetis/Non
homines, non di, non concessere columnae (‘Neither gods, men nor
columns allow poets to be mediocre’). The columns referred to
were used for advertising new literary works.
13. Carmelites who followed the reformed rule of Saint John of
the Cross. They went barefoot (or rather wore sandals) as a sign of
their commitment to a life of austerity.
14. A reference to the earthquake of 1 February 1755, and
indirectly, perhaps, to Voltaire’s Candide.
15. Aesop’s master was Xanthos.
16. Diderot refers here to the gardes de la Ferme, that is, to the
agents of the great organization which was contracted to levy some
of the most important taxes for the kings of France. The system of
tax-farming was open to considerable abuse, led to widespread
smuggling and tax evasion, and was greatly disliked.
17. Charles le Pelletier, who died in 1756, was widely known for
his piety and charitable work.
18. Niccolo Fortiguerra (1674–1735) was the author of
Ricciardetto, a burlesque version of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso.
Richardet and Ferragus are characters in Fortiguerra’s work. The
continuator of Don Quixote is Luis Aliaga, who published his
continuation under the name of Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda.
19. It is not known to whom Diderot might be referring here.
The Invalides is the establishment founded by Louis XIV for the
relief of old and infirm soldiers.
20. The Reluctant Doctor, by Molière, Act I, scene 1. The original
of Gousse is supposed to be one Louis-George Goussier.
21. Both Prémontval and the Pigeons have been identified. It is
worth noting, however, that Prémontval had to leave France
because of his anti-Christian views, rather than for the reasons
given by Diderot.
22. A well-known surgeon of the period. Rousseau refers to him
in his Confessions.
23. In the pre-Revolutionary currency, there were twenty sous to
the livre (pound) or franc (the terms were often but not always
interchangeable). The écu was a silver coin worth three or six livres,
and the louis a gold coin worth twenty-four livres. The wages of
daily paid workers are reckoned to have been between ten and
twenty sous per day.
24. ‘He who goes slowly goes safely… he who goes safely goes
far.’
25. Voltaire had objected to the vulgarity of cul-de-sac, cul
having the sense of ‘bottom’, but some of the connotations of ‘arse’.
French usage followed Voltaire, and impasse replaced cul-de-sac to
indicate a dead-end.
26. Prison situated to the south of Paris.
27. The eminent critic Jacques Proust, in a recent critical edition
of Jacques, suggests that there is here an allusion to a well-known
belief that a heavy hand with the seasoning is a sign of a woman in
love.
28. This order is the famous lettre de cachet, which allowed for
arrest and detention without trial for indefinite periods. It could
easily be used to secure private and personal ends, as in the
episode Diderot relates, and came to be seen as one of the most
flagrant abuses of the ancien régime.
29. The comte de Saint-Florentin, later duc de La Vrillière, was a
favourite of Louis XV and became minister of the royal household.
He was held to be somewhat too free in issuing lettres de cachet.
30. Goldoni’s play Le Bourru bienfaisant was written in French
and first performed on 4 November 1771. Diderot had been
accused, many years earlier, of plagiarizing Goldoni, and this may
explain the reference to Goldoni here.
31. A well-known Genevan doctor who enjoyed a high
reputation among the intelligentsia of Diderot’s generation.
32. An untranslatable pun. Jason in French is close to jaser, ‘to
chatter’.
33. Claude-Louis de Regnier, comte de Guerchy.
34. In other words, the clergy.
35. A tripot was primarily a gambling-den, often maintained with
some pretence of respectability by a woman of quality, and equally
often functioning as a brothel.
36. In eighteenth-century French usage, the term abbé does not
always mean ‘abbot’, but may indicate a priest without specific
ecclesiastical duties. It often has pejorative connotations, implying
venality, immorality, and lack of belief and vocation.
37. Respected seventeenth-century French churchmen.
Dangerous from the anti-Christian perspective of Jacques’ Captain
because likely to foster a favourable attitude to the Christian
religion.
38. Jansenism, in its seventeenth-century origins, was both a
theological tendency, marked by its claim to return to a stricter
understanding of certain aspects of the Church’s teaching
(particularly on human nature and divine grace), and a rigorist
reaction to what were perceived as laxist tendencies in the Church.
These, often associated with the Jesuits, came to be referred to as
Molinism, after the Spanish Jesuit Molina. It is fair to say that by
the second half of the eighteenth century the great issues that had
animated controversy in the seventeenth century had in large
measure ceased to be of primary importance. Jansenism was
petering out into various forms of opposition to the Church
hierarchy or to ultramontanism, while Molinism in turn came to
mean little more than anti-Jansenism. Madame de La Pommeraye’s
dismissive reference may be seen as indicative of her own
indifference to matters religious, but also as representative of much
of public opinion.
39. A school for the daughters of the nobility was established by
Louis XIV’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon, in the convent of
Saint-Cyr in 1685. More important, perhaps, is the fact that this is
one of several examples of Diderot’s teasing the reader; here, by
drawing attention to the ‘romantic’ possibilities offered by the
hostess’s own life-story and at the same time refusing it to the
reader.
40. A town which was only five miles from Paris.
41. This list of writers of poetics is taken from the title of a work
by the abbé Batteux, but typically, Diderot replaces the last author,
Despréaux, by Le Bossu merely for the sake of an untranslatable
pun – bossu meaning ‘crooked’ or ‘hunch-backed’ in French.
42. Another doctor of Swiss origin admired by Diderot.
43. No one has satisfactorily established whether this list refers
to historical persons, nor is it obvious that the effort would be
worthwhile.
44. The quarrel between Jacques and his master takes on an
added historical and political resonance when one remembers that
a jacques was the traditional term of contempt for the French
peasant.
45. This passage is probably an allusion to the political conflict
between the monarchy and the parlements – particularly that of
Paris – in eighteenth-century France. The parlements were the great
courts of justice of the kingdom. The parlementaires, the great
hereditary magistrates of these courts, claimed to be the defenders
of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and used their power to
withhold ratification of royal decrees in order to assert their
importance.
46. Premonstratensians were an order of regular canons founded
by Saint Norbert in 1120. They had a reputation for social
exclusiveness.
47. A passage which well illustrates the difficulty that the reader
has in deciding on what level to take the philosophical issues
advanced in the book.
48. On Jansenism and laxism, see note 38. The Papal Bull
Unigenitus was promulgated in 1713. It condemned a number of
propositions in a work by the Jansenist Quesnel, and was fiercely
opposed for a further fifty years or more. The bishop of Mirepoix
had much influence with Louis XV and was hostile to Jansenism.
49. An in pace is a monastic prison cell.
50. Piron was a celebrated wit who died in 1773, and whose
works were edited by a rather prudish gentleman called Rigoley de
Juvigny. The abbé Vatri was a near-contemporary of Piron and a
classical scholar.
51. This reference reflects Diderot’s preoccupation with the
commercial pressures that lead artists to betray their talent.
52. The image of the chrysalis and the butterfly is from the
Purgatorio, Canto X, ll. 124–6. The references to the heresiarchs, to
the treacherous (rather than ungrateful as Diderot terms them) and
to the slothful (‘vile’ is closer to Dante) come from the Inferno,
Cantos IX, XXXII and XXXIII respectively.
53. The sense of this remark becomes clearer when one learns
that from the word for christening cap or bonnet (béguin), French
has formed the verb embéguiner, with the secondary meaning of ‘to
persuade someone to accept a foolish idea or belief’. Jacques’
meaning is violently anti-Christian.
54. Madame de Parme was the eldest daughter of Louis XV. She
died in 1759; the duc de Chevreuse in 1771.
55. The genealogy occurs in the first chapter of Matthew’s
gospel.
56. Ferragus, in Fortiguerra’s Ricciardetto, is castrated for
attempting to rape a nun. As he lies delirious on his death-bed,
Lucifer appears before him, taunting him with the evidence of his
lost virility.
57. The reference is to the prince de Condé, one of the greatest
French generals of the seventeenth century.
58. La Farce de Maître Pathelin, written in the 1460s.
59. William Pitt, the Elder, made the speech in the House of
Commons in 1759.
60. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau was accused of writing obscene and
slanderous verses. He defended himself in a 1712 edition of his
works. Voltaire’s mock-heroic epic poem La Pucelle (‘The Virgin’)
plays on the theme of Joan of Arc’s virginity and its preservation.
 61. Montaigne, Essays, book III, chapter 5. The Latin quotation is
from Martial’s epigrams, book I, no. 4, l. 8, and means, ‘Our page is
licentious, but our life pure.’
62. Bacbuc is the name given to the ‘sacred bottle’ in Rabelais.
The following pages are very much a celebration of the Rabelaisian
tradition as Diderot seems to have understood it. The consultation
of the bottle is to be found in the Cinquième livre, chapter XLV.
63. The same as ventriloquist, i.e. stomach-speaker.
64. The authors that Diderot lists here share – by reputation, at
least – a more or less philosophical tendency to epicureanism.
65. The Pomme de Pin was a well-known meeting-place of poets
in the seventeenth century, frequented in particular by Chapelle,
Molière and La Fontaine. The Temple was the meeting-place of
poets such as La Fare and Chaulieu, who established a prevailing
tone of easy hedonism.
66. Editors and annotators of classical authors.
67. The clearest indication that Jacques’ master is a nobleman.
With a few local exceptions, the nobility could not engage in work
or trade personally.
68. In contrast to the simple promissory note, the bill of
exchange was a commercial transaction, and therefore made one
liable to more stringent prosecution and penalties if one failed to
honour it on the due date.
69. Madame Riccoboni was particularly noted for her success
with the epistolary novel, which was very popular in the latter half
of the eighteenth century.
70. Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio (1579–1644), historian and papal
nuncio in France.
71. That is, in vino veritas – ‘in the wine is truth’. Charles Collé
was a successful song-writer and comic author. This play was first
staged in 1747.
72. La Fontaine, Fables, book IX, 4. Garo asks why God didn’t
give the mighty oak a fruit of appropriate size, such as the
pumpkin. While he takes a nap under an oak, an acorn falls on his
nose, prompting Garo to the conclusion that, after all, God
organizes things for the best.
 73. The reference is to Jean-Jacques Rousseau who, in his Emile
(book II), condemns La Fontaine’s fables as unsuitable for children.
74. Ovid, Metamorphoses, book I, ll. 85–6. The quotation should
read Os homini sublime dedit caelumque videre/lussit et erectos ad
sidera tollere vultus (‘He placed man’s countenance on top of his
body, and enjoined him to look at the sky and to raise his face to
the stars’).
75. Carmelite who published a series of letters during the 1730s
in which he sought to prove that the miracles that the Jansenists
claimed were occurring in their community might be of diabolical
inspiration.
76. It is not clear why Jacques’ master should be taken to what
was primarily a debtors’ prison.
77. Le Compère Mathieu (1766–73) was a bawdy and picaresque
novel by an ex-priest called Dulaurens.
78. Brigand who developed an almost legendary reputation. He
died in 1755.