There they were, lost, and there was the master in a terrible temper, raining huge blows from his horsewhip on to his valet and at every blow the poor devil cried out: ‘That must also have been written up above!’

So you can see, Reader, that I’m well away and it’s entirely within my power to make you wait a year, or two, or even three years for the story of Jacques’ loves, by separating him from his master and exposing each of them to whatever perils I liked. What is there to prevent me from marrying off the master and having him cuckolded? Or sending Jacques off to the Indies? And leading his master there? And bringing them both back to France on the same vessel? How easy it is to make up stories! But I will let the two of them off with a bad night’s sleep and you with this delay.

Dawn broke. There they were back on their horses carrying on their way.

– And where were they going?

That is the second time you have asked me that question and for the second time I ask you, what has that got to do with you? If I begin the story of their journey then it’s goodbye to Jacques’ loves… They went on for a little while in silence. When they had both recovered a little from their annoyance the master said to his valet: ‘Well then, Jacques, where did we get to in your loves?’

JACQUES: We had, I believe, got to the rout of the enemy army. Everyone was running away and being chased and it was every man for himself. I was left on the battlefield, buried under the prodigious number of dead and dying bodies. The next day I was thrown onto a cart along with a dozen or so others to be taken to one of our hospitals. Ah! Monsieur, I do not believe there is any wound more painful than a wound in the knee.

MASTER: Come along, Jacques, you’re joking.

JACQUES: No, by God! Monsieur, I am not joking! There are I don’t know how many bones, tendons and other bits called I don’t know what…

Some sort of peasant who was following them with a girl he was carrying on his saddle and who had overheard them interrupted and said: ‘Monsieur is right…’

It was not clear to whom this ‘Monsieur’ was addressed but both Jacques and his master took it badly and Jacques said to this indiscreet interlocutor: ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’

‘I am minding my own business. I am a surgeon2 at your service and I am going to give you a demonstration…’

The woman he was carrying on the crupper said to him: ‘Monsieur le Docteur, let us carry on our way and leave these gentlemen who don’t want to be given a demonstration.’

‘No,’ replied the surgeon, ‘I want to demonstrate to them and I am going to demonstrate to them…’

And as he was turning round to demonstrate he pushed his companion, made her lose her balance and threw her to the ground, with one foot caught in his coat tails and her petticoats over her head. Jacques got down, freed the poor creature’s foot and pulled her skirts back down. I don’t know whether he started by pulling her skirts back down or freeing her foot, but, to judge the state of this woman from her screams, she had hurt herself badly.

And Jacques’ master said to the surgeon: ‘That’s what comes of demonstrating!…’

And the surgeon said: ‘That’s what comes of not wanting people to demonstrate!…’

And Jacques said to the fallen or picked-up young woman: ‘Calm yourself, my dear. It is neither your fault, nor the fault of Monsieur le Docteur, nor mine, nor my master’s. It was written up above that this day, on this road, at this very hour, Monsieur le Docteur would talk too much, my master and I would both be unfriendly, and you would receive a bump on the head and show us your bottom…’

What might this little incident not become in my hands if I took it into my head to reduce you to despair. I could make this woman somebody important. I could make all the peasants come running. I could bring in stories of love and strife, because, after all, underneath her petticoats this peasant girl had a nice little body, as Jacques and his master had noticed. Love hasn’t always waited for so seductive an opportunity. Why shouldn’t Jacques fall in love a second time? Why shouldn’t he be, for a second time, his master’s rival – even his preferred rival?

– Had that happened to him before?

Always questions! Do you not want Jacques to continue with the story of his loves then? Once and for all, tell me: Would that give you pleasure, or would it not give you pleasure?

If that would give you pleasure, then let us put the peasant girl back up behind the surgeon, allow them to carry on their way, and return to our two travellers.

This time it was Jacques who spoke first, and he said to his master:

That’s the way the world goes… You, a man who has never in his life been wounded and who has no idea what it is like to be shot in the knee, you tell me, a man who has had his knee shattered and has had a limp for the last twenty years…

MASTER: You may be right. But that impertinent surgeon is to blame for you still being on that cart with your companions, far from the hospital, far from being cured and far from falling in love.

JACQUES: Whatever you might think, the pain in my knee was extreme. It was becoming more so with the hard ride in the wagon and the bumpy roads, and at every bump I screamed…

MASTER: Because it was written up above that you’d scream?

JACQUES: Undoubtedly! I was bleeding to death and I would have been a dead man if our wagon, which was the last in the column, hadn’t stopped in front of a cottage. There I asked to get down and I was helped to the ground. A young woman who was standing at the door of the cottage disappeared inside and came out again almost immediately with a glass and a bottle of wine. I drank one or two glasses quickly. The carts in front of ours moved off. They were getting ready to throw me back into the wagon amongst my companions, when grabbing hold of the woman’s clothes and everything else within reach I protested that I would not get back in and that, if I was going to die anyhow, I preferred to die on the spot rather than two miles further on. As I finished these words I fainted. When I came to I found myself undressed and lying in bed in the corner of the cottage with a peasant – the master of the house – his wife, the woman who had rescued me, and a few young children gathered around me. The woman had soaked the corner of her apron in vinegar and was rubbing my nose and temples with it.

MASTER: Ah! You villain! You rogue! You traitor! I can see what’s coming.

JACQUES: My master, I don’t think you see anything.

MASTER: Isn’t this the woman you’re going to fall in love with?

JACQUES: And if I were to have fallen in love with her, what could you say about that? Is one free to fall in love or not to fall in love? And if one is, is one free to act as if one wasn’t? If the thing had been written up above, everything which you are about to say to me now I would already have said to myself. I would have slapped my own face, I would have beaten my head against the wall, I would have torn out my hair, and it would have been no more or less so, and my benefactor would have been cuckolded.

MASTER: But if one follows your reasoning there can be no remorse for any crime.

JACQUES: That objection has bothered me more than once, but for all that, however reluctantly, I always come back to what my Captain used to say: ‘Everything which happens to us in this world, good or bad, is written up above…’

Do you, Monsieur, know any way of erasing this writing?

Can I be anything other than myself, and being me, can I act otherwise than I do?

Can I be myself and somebody else?

And ever since I have been in this world, has there ever been one single moment when it has not been so?

You may preach as much as you wish. Your reasons may perhaps be good, but if it is written within me or up above that I will find them bad, what can I do about it?

MASTER: I am wondering about something… that is whether your benefactor would have been cuckolded because it was written up above or whether it was written up above because you cuckolded your benefactor.

JACQUES: The two were written side by side.