Rameau's Nephew and First Satire (Oxford World's Classics)

by Denis Diderot

  ME: No, it would be better to sequester yourself in a garret, live on dry bread and water, and attempt to know yourself.

  HIM: Perhaps, but I haven’t the courage; and then, to sacrifice one’s happiness for a doubtful outcome! And what about the name I bear? Rameau! Being called Rameau, well, it’s embarrassing. It doesn’t work with talent the way it does with nobility, which passes on, becoming more illustrious as it goes from grandfather to father, from father to son, from son to grandson, without the first generation imposing any particular ability on the descendants. The old stock branches out into a vast tree of fools, but who cares? It’s not the same with talent. To deserve even the fame of the father, you have to be cleverer than he. You have to have inherited his fibre. I lack his fibre; but the wrist is supple, the bow plays, and the pot boils. It isn’t glory, but it is soup in the pot.

  ME: If I were in your shoes I wouldn’t settle for that; I’d try.

  HIM: And you suppose I haven’t done so? I wasn’t yet fifteen when I first said to myself: What’s the matter, Rameau? You’re dreaming. And what are you dreaming of? That you’d love to achieve or to have achieved something the whole world would admire. Ah, yes; all you have to do is whistle and wiggle your fingers. Just say one, two, three, and lo! it’s done. As a grown man, I repeated what I’d said as a child. Today I’m still repeating it, and I stay close to Memnon’s statue.

  ME: Memnon’s statue—what are you talking about?

  HIM: I think it’s obvious. Round Memnon’s statue* there were many, many other statues and, like him, they were all standing in a ray of sunlight; but his was the only one that reverberated. Name a poet: Voltaire. And who else? Voltaire. A third? Voltaire. A fourth? Voltaire again. As for musicians, there’s Rinaldo of Capua, Hasse, Pergolesi, Alberti, Tartini, Locatelli, Terradeglias, and my uncle; there’s that little Duni who has neither looks nor presence but who can feel, by God, and who’s a master of melody and expression. The rest of them, hanging about near that small number of Memnons, they’re so many pairs of ears stuck on the end of a baton. So we’re all dirt-poor, so poor it’s like a blessing. Ah, Master Philosopher, poverty’s a terrible thing. I see her crouching, open-mouthed, waiting to catch a few drops of icy water that drip from the cask of the Danaides.* I don’t know whether poverty sharpens the philosopher’s wits, but it’s damnably numbing to the mind of a poet. You can’t sing well under that cask. You’re very lucky if you can find shelter under it. I did, but I wasn’t able to stay there. I’d already made the same stupid mistake once before. I’ve travelled in Bohemia, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Flanders, to hell and back, God knows where.

  ME: Under the leaky cask?

  HIM: Under the leaky cask. He was a wealthy, spendthrift Jew who loved music, and my antics. I played music whenever God decreed; I played the fool; I wanted for nothing. My Jew was a man well versed in the law, which he observed punctiliously; almost always when dealing with friends, but with strangers, always. He got into a bad business that I must tell you about; it’ll amuse you. There was in Utrecht a charming courtesan. Finding the Christian woman greatly to his taste, he sent a confidential messenger to her, bearing an impressive letter of credit. The odd creature rejected his offer. The Jew was in despair. The messenger said to him: ‘Why get so upset? You want to sleep with a pretty woman; nothing could be easier, and you can even sleep with one prettier than this one you’re pursuing. I mean my wife, whom I’ll let you have for the same price.’ No sooner said than done. The messenger keeps the letter of credit and the Jew sleeps with the messenger’s wife. The letter of credit falls due. The Jew challenges it and denies its validity. The case comes to trial. The Jew thinks: that man will never dare admit how he came into possession of the letter, so I won’t pay. At the hearing he questions the messenger … ‘From whom did you obtain this letter of credit?’ ‘From you …’ ‘Is it for a loan? …’ ‘No …’ ‘Is it for goods received? …’ ‘No …’ ‘Is it for services rendered? …’ ‘No. But that’s not the point. I own it. You signed it, and you’ll pay it …’ ‘I did not sign it …’ ‘Are you saying I’m a forger?’ ‘You or someone whose agent you are …’ ‘I’m despicable, but you’re a swindler. Believe me, you’d be wise not to push me too far. I’ll tell the whole story. I’ll be dishonoured but I’ll see you ruined.’ The Jew ignored the threat and the messenger revealed everything at the next hearing. They were both censured and reprimanded; the Jew was condemned to pay, and the moneys applied to the relief of the poor. It was then that I left him. I returned here. What should I do? For it was either die of starvation or do something. All kinds of projects ran through my head. At one moment I’d be planning to set off on the morrow for the provinces and attach myself to some itinerant troop of actors or musicians—whether good or bad at either, who cared? The following day I’d be thinking of having a sign painted with multiple scenes, the sort you see stuck up on a pole at a crossroads, where I’d bellow at the top of my lungs: ‘See the town where he was born; see him bidding farewell to his father the apothecary, see him arriving in the capital and looking for his uncle’s house; here he is on his knees before his uncle who turns him away, and here he is with a Jew, etc., etc.’ The next day I’d get up determined to join some band of street singers, not the worst idea I had, for we’d have gone and serenaded under my dear uncle’s windows and he’d have kicked the bucket from rage. But I chose a different path.

  There he stopped, moving successively from the stance of a man holding a violin and tightening the strings as hard as he can, to that of a poor devil who’s utterly exhausted, worn out, trembling at the knees, ready to drop unless someone flings him a crust of bread; he was indicating his extreme hunger by pointing at his half-open mouth; then he added: ‘Need I say more? They’d toss me a chunk of bread. There’d be three or four of us there—starving—and we’d fight over it; you try thinking great thoughts and accomplishing great deeds, when you’re that destitute.’

  ME: It’s hard to do.

  HIM: One thing led to another, and I fetched up with them. I lived there in royal comfort. I’ve left. First thing I must do is crop the gut and get back to the finger-pointing-at-the-gaping-mouth business. Nothing lasts in this world. Today, you’re right up at the top, tomorrow you’re down at the bottom. Damned circumstance leads us, and does it very badly.

  [Then, gulping down what remained in the bottle, and turning to his neighbour:] Monsieur, be so kind, just a tiny pinch of snuff? You’ve a handsome box there. You’re not a musician? No … Lucky for you; the poor buggers, they’re certainly to be pitied. Fate decreed that I, Rameau, should be one; whereas in Montmartre, in a windmill, there’s perhaps a miller or miller’s boy who’ll never hear anything but the sound of the ratchet, and who might have created the loveliest melodies. Rameau, in a mill? Get yourself off to a mill, that’s where you belong.

  ME: Whatever a man works hard at, Nature destined him for it.

  HE: She makes some peculiar blunders. For my part, I’m unable to see anything from that tremendous height where everything looks the same—the man with shears pruning a tree, and the caterpillar gnawing one of its leaves, so that all you see are two different insects, each doing its job. Perch yourself on Mercury’s epicycle* and, like Réamur who classified flies into seamstresses, measurers, and reapers, classify humankind into joiners, carpenters, messengers, dancers, singers, you decide. I want no hand in it. I’m of this world and this is where I’m staying. But if it’s natural to have an appetite—for I invariably come back to appetite, to the sensation I’m always conscious of—then I think it’s no part of a proper system ever to be without food to eat. What a devil of an economy, some men glutted with food while others, whose stomachs are just as importunate, and whose appetite returns just as predictably, can’t even find a crust to chew on. The worst thing about being in want is the physical constraint it forces upon us. The destitute don’t walk like other men; they leap, creep, wriggle, crawl; they spend their days adopting and performing positio
ns.

  ME: What do you mean by positions?

  HIM: Go and ask Noverre. The world offers many more examples of them than his art is capable of imitating.

  ME: But now you’re up there as well, if I may borrow the expression from you or from Montaigne, perched on the top of Mercury’s epicycle, and contemplating the various pantomimes of humankind.

  HIM: No, not so, I tell you. I’m too ungainly to climb so high. I leave those misty heights to the cranes. I like to stay down on the ground; I look around me and I take up my positions, or I amuse myself observing the positions others take. I’m an excellent mime, as you’re about to see.

  Then he begins to smile, to mimic a man who admires, who entreats, who defers; he stands with one foot forward, the other back, bowed over, head up, eyes seemingly fixed upon another’s eyes, mouth half open and arms reaching towards some object; he’s awaiting an order, he receives it; off he flies like an arrow, he returns. He’s carried it out; he reports. Ever watchful, he picks up something that falls, places a cushion or a stool beneath someone’s feet, holds a saucer, pulls out a chair, opens a door, closes a window, draws the curtains; he keeps his eye on the master and mistress, standing motionless, arms hanging at his sides and legs together; he’s listening, trying to read faces. Then he adds: ‘That was my pantomime, it’s much the same as the one flatterers, courtiers, footmen, and beggars perform.’

  Sometimes the antics of this man, like the stories of the Abbé Galiani* and Rabelais’s extravaganzas, prompt me to reflect deeply. They’re three storehouses which supply me with absurd masks I set on the faces of the gravest personages. I see Pantaloon* in a prelate, a satyr in a presiding judge, a pig in an ascetic monk, an ostrich in a minister, a goose in his principal secretary. ‘But by your calculation,’ I said to my companion, ‘there must be a great many beggars in this world of ours, for I know nobody who hasn’t mastered a few steps of your dance.’

  HIM: You’re quite right. In the entire kingdom, there’s only one man who walks—the Sovereign. All the others take up positions.

  ME: The Sovereign? You don’t think there might even be something to say about him? You don’t think that now and again he might notice a little foot, a little coil of hair, a little nose beside him, that would prompt him to perform a little pantomime? Whoever needs someone else is himself needy, and assumes a position. The King takes up a position before his mistress and before God; he performs his steps in the pantomime. The minister, when he’s before his King, performs the steps of the courtier, the sycophant, the footman, or the beggar. The crowd of power-seekers take up your positions in a hundred different ways, each baser than the last, in the presence of the minister. As does the fashionable Abbé, dressed in his bands and long cloak, at least once every week, in the presence of the Controller of Benefices. Upon my word, what you call the beggars’ pantomime, is what keeps the world going round. Each of us has his little Hus and his Bertin.

  HIM: I find that consoling.

  But while I was speaking he kept imitating, to hilarious effect, the positions of the personages I named; for example, he did the little Abbé by placing his hat under his arm, his breviary in the left hand, and holding up the train of his cloak with the right; poking his head forward, slightly tilted towards the shoulder, and casting his eyes down: such a consummate imitation of the hypocrite that I felt I was watching the author of The Refutation petitioning the Bishop of Orléans.* He grovelled on the ground to mimic sycophants and power-seekers—he was Bouret, before the Auditor-General.

  ME: That’s quite brilliant [I told him]. However, there’s one person who’s exempt from playing a part in the pantomime. I mean the philosopher, who has nothing and asks for nothing.

  HIM: And where is such a creature to be found? If he has nothing he’ll suffer; if he asks for nothing, he’ll get nothing, and he’ll go on suffering.

  ME: No. Diogenes scoffed at need.

  HIM: But you have to be clothed.

  ME: No. He went naked.

  HIM: It could be cold in Athens.

  ME: Less so than here.

  HIM: People ate there.

  ME: Undoubtedly.

  HIM: At whose expense?

  ME: Nature’s. Where does the savage turn for food? To the earth, to animals, to fish, to trees, to plants, to roots, to streams.

  HIM: A poor table.

  ME: It’s a generous one.

  HIM: But badly served.

  ME: Nevertheless it’s the one we clear away, to supply our own table.

  HIM: But you’ll agree that our chefs, pastry-cooks, spit-turners, caterers, and confectioners add something further of their own. Considering the austere diet of your Diogenes, he can’t have had a very refractory digestion.

  ME: You’re mistaken. The habit of the Cynic used to be the same as our monastic habit, and possessed the same virtue. The Cynics were the Carmelites and Franciscans of Athens.

  HIM: Now I’ve got you! So Diogenes must have done the pantomime dance, if not for Pericles, at any rate for Laïs or Phryne.

  ME: Once again you’re mistaken. The others paid highly for the courtesan, but she gave herself to him for pleasure.

  HIM: What if the courtesan was busy, and his desire urgent?

  ME: He went back into his barrel, and did without.

  HIM: And you’re advising me to do as he did?

  ME: I’d stake my life that would be better than grovelling, licking boots, and prostituting yourself.

  HIM: But I need a good bed, a good table, a warm coat in winter and a cool one in summer, rest, money, and many other things for which I’d rather be indebted to benevolence than earn by toil.

  ME: The fact is that you’re an idle, greedy coward, with the soul of an earth-worm.

  HIM: I believe I already told you that.

  ME: The material things in life are certainly to be valued, but you’re not taking into account the sacrifice you’re making to obtain them. You are dancing, you’ve been dancing, and you’re going to go on dancing that vile pantomime.

  HIM: True. But it hasn’t cost me much and now it doesn’t cost me anything more. That’s why it would be a mistake for me to assume a different posture that would be difficult for me, and that I wouldn’t be able to maintain. But I see from what you’ve been telling me that my poor little wife was something of a philosopher. She was as brave as a lion. There were times when we had nothing to eat, and no money. We’d sold almost all our clothes. I’d fling myself down on the end of our bed, racking my brains to think of someone who’d lend me a few francs, which I didn’t intend to repay. But she, happy as a lark, would be sitting at her harpsichord, playing and singing. She had the voice of a nightingale; I’m sorry you never heard her. When I was engaged for a concert, I’d take her with me. On the way, I’d say to her: ‘Now, Madame, get yourself admired, show off your talent and your charms. Dazzle us with your brio, your inverted chords.’ We’d arrive; she’d sing, she’d dazzle with her brio, her inversions. Alas, I’ve lost her, the poor little thing. Apart from her talent, she had a mouth as tiny as the circumference of your little finger, teeth like a row of pearls, eyes, feet, skin, cheeks, breasts, gazelle-like legs, thighs, and buttocks to inspire a sculptor. Sooner or later she’d have had the chief tax collector, at the very least. Her walk, her behind! Ah, God, what a behind!

  Whereupon he began imitating his wife’s walk—tiny mincing steps, nose in the air, plying his fan, swaying his behind; it was the most laughable, most ridiculous caricature of our little coquettes.

  Then, picking up the thread of his discourse, he added: ‘I used to take her out everywhere, to the Tuileries, to the Palais Royal, to the Boulevards. It was impossible to believe that I could keep her. If you’d seen her crossing the road in the morning, in her short jacket, bare-headed, you’d have stopped to look at her; you could have circled her waist with your thumbs and forefingers without having to squeeze. The men following her, as they watched her trot along on her tiny feet, tried to gauge the size of that ampl
e behind whose contours were suggested by her flimsy petticoats, and would speed up their pace; she’d let them catch up with her, and then promptly turn her huge, brilliant black eyes upon them, stopping them in their tracks. For the right side of the medal did not mar the reverse. But, alas, I’ve lost her, and with her all my hopes of fortune. That was the only reason I’d taken her, as indeed I’d confided to her; and she was too wise not to grasp that my plan was assured of success, and too sound of judgement not to approve of it.’

  Then, starting to sob and sigh, he said: ‘No, no, I’ll never get over it. Since it happened, I’ve taken to wearing clerical bands and cap.’

  ME: From grief?

  HIM: If you like, but actually so that I can carry my dinner-bowl on my head. But let’s see what the time is, because I’m going to the Opéra.

  ME: What’s on?

  HIM: Something of Dauvergne’s. There are plenty of lovely passages in his music; it’s a pity he wasn’t the first to compose them. A few among the dead invariably manage to upset the living. What can we do? Quisque suos patimur manes.* But it’s half-past five; I can hear the bell ringing vespers* for Abbé Cannaye, and for me. Farewell, Monsieur Philosopher; isn’t it true that I am always the same?

  ME: Alas yes, unfortunately.

  HIM: Here’s hoping that I continue to enjoy that particular misfortune for another forty or so years. He that laughs last, laughs best.

  FIRST SATIRE

  Quot capitum vivunt, totidem capitum milia