Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master by Denis Diderot Read Free Book Online Page A

together with the silence which followed led me to believe that her earache had got better one way or another, it doesn’t matter how, and that gave me pleasure, and her too.
    MASTER : Jacques, put your hand on your conscience and swear to me that it wasn’t this woman you fell in love with.
    JACQUES : I swear it.
    MASTER : So much the worse for you.
    JACQUES : So much the worse or so much the better. Could it be that you believe that women with ears like hers are willing listeners?
    MASTER : I think that is written up above.
    JACQUES : I think that it is written lower down that they never listen for long to one man and that they are all more or less inclined occasionally to lend an ear to someone else.
    MASTER : It could well be.
    And there they were started off on an interminable quarrel about women. One claimed they were good, the other wicked, and they were both right; one said they were stupid, the other clever, and they were both right; one that they were unfaithful, the other faithful, and they were both right; one that they were mean, the other generous, and they were both right; one that they were beautiful, the other ugly, and they were both right; one talkative, the other discreet; one open, the other deceitful; one ignorant, the other enlightened; one moral, the other immoral; one foolish, the other wise; one big, the other small. And they were both right.
    While engaged in this discussion – and they could have travelled around the entire world without either pausing or agreeing – they were caught up in a storm which forced them to seek shelter.
    – Where? – Where?
    Reader, your curiosity is extremely annoying. What the devil does it have to do with you? If I told you it was Pontoise or Saint-Germain or Loreto or Compostella, would you be any the wiser? 7
    If you insist I will tell you that they made their way towards… yes, why not?… towards a huge château, on whose façade were inscribed the words:‘I belong to nobody and I belong to everybody. You were here before you entered and you will still be here after you have left.’
    – Did they go into this château?
    No, because either the inscription was a lie, or they were there before they went in.
    – Well, did they manage to leave, at least?
    No, because either the inscription was a lie, or they were still there after they left.
    – And what did they do there?
    Jacques said whatever it was written up above that he would say and his master whatever he liked. And they were both right.
    – What kind of people did they find there?
    A mixture.
    – What did they say?
    A few truths and a lot of lies.
    – Were there intelligent men there?
    Where are there not some? And damned questioners whom they avoided like the plague. The thing that most shocked Jacques and his master while they were walking about…
    – So they were walking, were they?
    They did nothing but that except when they were sitting down or sleeping. The thing which shocked Jacques and his master most was to find about twenty scoundrels there who had taken over all the most luxurious rooms, where, it appears, they stayed almost all the time crowded together and pretended, in defiance of customary right and the true meaning of the château’s inscription, that the château had been bequeathed to them lock, stock and barrel, and with the help of a certain number of pricks in their pay they had brought round to this view a great number of other pricks, also in their pay, who were quite prepared for the smallest sum of money to hang or kill the first man who dared contradict them. Nevertheless, in the days of Jacques and his master people sometimes dared.
    – With impunity?
    That depended.
    You are going to say that I am amusing myself and that because I do not know what to do with my two travellers any more, I am throwing myself into allegory, which is the usual recourse of sterile minds. For you I will sacrifice my allegory and all the riches I could draw from it and I will agree with