Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master Read Online Free PDF Page B

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