Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master

by Denis Diderot

  ‘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 ca
n 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 sa
id 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.’