Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master Read Online Free PDF

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 asking 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. Jacquesreturned, 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