Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master

by Denis Diderot

  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 a
sking 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.