live abroad in the event of my Captain’s death. He insisted that unless this condition was satisfied he would not fight. His friend’s reply to this offer was: ‘Do you believe, my friend, that I would survive you for long if I killed you?’
They left the banker’s and started off towards the gates of the town where they were suddenly surrounded by the adjutant and some other officers. Although this encounter appeared to be just a coincidence, our two friends, or two enemies, whichever you please to call them, were not taken in. The peasant admitted his real identity. They went off to spend the night in anisolated house. The next day, at dawn, my Captain, after embracing his comrade several times, left him for good. Hardly had he arrived at his birthplace when he died.
MASTER : And who told you he was dead?
JACQUES : What about the coffin? And the carriage with his arms? My poor Captain is dead, I’m sure of it.
MASTER : And what about the priest whose hands were tied behind his back? And the servants whose hands were tied behind their backs? And the excise men or the mounted constabulary and the cortège heading back to town? Your Captain is alive, I’ve no doubt of it. Do you know nothing of his friend?
JACQUES : The story of his friend is quite a long line on the scroll of Destiny, or whatever is written up above.
MASTER : I hope…
Jacques’ horse did not allow his master to finish. He went off like a shot, and this time did not deviate to the left or the right but followed the road. Soon Jacques was lost from sight and his master, convinced that he would find another gallows at the end of the road, was splitting his sides laughing.
And since Jacques and his master are only good when they are together and are worth nothing when they are separated, any more than is Don Quixote without Sancho or Richardet without Ferragus, which is something that Cervantes’ continuator and Ariosto’s imitator, Forti Guerra, have not quite understood, 18 Reader, let us chat while waiting for them to meet up again.
You are going to take the story of Jacques’ Captain as a mere fiction, but you will be wrong. I assure you that, such as he told the story to his master, so did I hear it at the Invalides, in I’m not sure what year, but on the feast of Saint-Louis. I was dining with Monsieur de Saint-Etienne the adjutant of the Invalides. 19 The story-teller spoke in the presence of several other officers of the establishment who had knowledge of the facts and was a serious man who didn’t seem at all like a joker. This is a timely moment for me to give you a reminder for both the present and the future that you must be circumspect if you want to avoid taking the truth for lies and lies for the truth in Jacques’ conversation with his master. Now that I have warned you, I wash my hands of the matter.
They really are quite an extraordinary pair of men, you are saying to me.
Is that what makes you suspicious? Firstly, nature is so varied, especially when it comes to instinct and character, that there is nothing in a poet’s imagination, however bizarre, for which experience and observation might not find a model in nature. I, who speak to you now, I have met the real-life counterpart of the
Médecin malgré lui
whom I had thought until then to be the most mad and whimsical of inventions. 20
– What! The real-life counterpart of the husband whose wife says to him: ‘I’ve three children on my hands’, and he tells her: ‘Put them on the ground.’
‘They are asking me for bread.’
‘Give them a beating.’
Exactly. This is an account of his conversation with my wife.
‘Is that you there, Monsieur Gousse?’
‘No, Madame, I am here.’
‘Where have you come from?’
‘From where I’ve just been.’
‘What did you do there?’
‘I repaired a windmill which was working badly.’
‘To whom did this windmill belong?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t go there to mend the miller.’
‘You’re very
They left the banker’s and started off towards the gates of the town where they were suddenly surrounded by the adjutant and some other officers. Although this encounter appeared to be just a coincidence, our two friends, or two enemies, whichever you please to call them, were not taken in. The peasant admitted his real identity. They went off to spend the night in anisolated house. The next day, at dawn, my Captain, after embracing his comrade several times, left him for good. Hardly had he arrived at his birthplace when he died.
MASTER : And who told you he was dead?
JACQUES : What about the coffin? And the carriage with his arms? My poor Captain is dead, I’m sure of it.
MASTER : And what about the priest whose hands were tied behind his back? And the servants whose hands were tied behind their backs? And the excise men or the mounted constabulary and the cortège heading back to town? Your Captain is alive, I’ve no doubt of it. Do you know nothing of his friend?
JACQUES : The story of his friend is quite a long line on the scroll of Destiny, or whatever is written up above.
MASTER : I hope…
Jacques’ horse did not allow his master to finish. He went off like a shot, and this time did not deviate to the left or the right but followed the road. Soon Jacques was lost from sight and his master, convinced that he would find another gallows at the end of the road, was splitting his sides laughing.
And since Jacques and his master are only good when they are together and are worth nothing when they are separated, any more than is Don Quixote without Sancho or Richardet without Ferragus, which is something that Cervantes’ continuator and Ariosto’s imitator, Forti Guerra, have not quite understood, 18 Reader, let us chat while waiting for them to meet up again.
You are going to take the story of Jacques’ Captain as a mere fiction, but you will be wrong. I assure you that, such as he told the story to his master, so did I hear it at the Invalides, in I’m not sure what year, but on the feast of Saint-Louis. I was dining with Monsieur de Saint-Etienne the adjutant of the Invalides. 19 The story-teller spoke in the presence of several other officers of the establishment who had knowledge of the facts and was a serious man who didn’t seem at all like a joker. This is a timely moment for me to give you a reminder for both the present and the future that you must be circumspect if you want to avoid taking the truth for lies and lies for the truth in Jacques’ conversation with his master. Now that I have warned you, I wash my hands of the matter.
They really are quite an extraordinary pair of men, you are saying to me.
Is that what makes you suspicious? Firstly, nature is so varied, especially when it comes to instinct and character, that there is nothing in a poet’s imagination, however bizarre, for which experience and observation might not find a model in nature. I, who speak to you now, I have met the real-life counterpart of the
Médecin malgré lui
whom I had thought until then to be the most mad and whimsical of inventions. 20
– What! The real-life counterpart of the husband whose wife says to him: ‘I’ve three children on my hands’, and he tells her: ‘Put them on the ground.’
‘They are asking me for bread.’
‘Give them a beating.’
Exactly. This is an account of his conversation with my wife.
‘Is that you there, Monsieur Gousse?’
‘No, Madame, I am here.’
‘Where have you come from?’
‘From where I’ve just been.’
‘What did you do there?’
‘I repaired a windmill which was working badly.’
‘To whom did this windmill belong?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t go there to mend the miller.’
‘You’re very
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