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 po
litics. 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 min
d.’
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?’
Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master Page 12
