Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (22 page)

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.

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
: 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
: 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?’