Jacques and his master, p.3
Jacques and his Master, page 3
JACQUES: I’m going home.
OLD BIGRE: Oh godson, godson, you been a naughty boy?
JACQUES: Can’t deny it.
OLD BIGRE: I wouldn’t be surprised if you and that lad of mine weren’t up to the same tricks! You spend the night out?
JACQUES: Can’t deny it.
OLD BIGRE: What, whoring?
JACQUES: Yes – but with my dad, you can’t even talk about it.
OLD BIGRE: Quite right, he ought to give you a good thwack round the head, and I ought to do the same to my boy. But come on, let’s have some breakfast. The wine’s wise, know what I mean?
JACQUES: Please. Godfather. I’m dropping.
OLD BIGRE: Didn’t stint yourself, I see. Hope she was worth the effort. All right, no more chat – look, my boy’s out, go upstairs, snuggle up in his bed.
(JACQUES climbs the staircase.)
MASTER: (Shouting at JACQUES) Traitor! Rotter! I should have guessed…
OLD BIGRE: These kids! Bloody kids!…(Noises and stifled cries from the granary.) He’s dreaming, that one… obviously spent a very lively night.
MASTER: Dreaming! He’s not dreaming at all! He’s terrorizing her, that’s what he’s doing. She’s fighting him off, but she’s frightened of being found out so she has to keep quiet. You beast, you should be charged with rape.
JACQUES: (From the granary) I don’t know whether I raped her, sir, but I do know that it was pretty good – for both of us, her and me. She just made me promise…
MASTER: What did you promise, worm?
JACQUES: That Bigre would know nothing.
MASTER: And that promise made sure things went well.
JACQUES: Better and better!
MASTER: How many times?
JACQUES: A lot of times, and always better and better.
(YOUNG BIGRE comes back.)
OLD BIGRE: Where have you been all this time? Get hold of this wheel and finish it off on the doorstep.
YOUNG BIGRE: Why on the doorstep?
OLD BIGRE: So as not to wake Jacques up.
YOUNG BIGRE: Jacques?
OLD BIGRE: Yes, Jacques. He’s upstairs, snoring. Who’d be a father? You’re all the same. Well, come on, look lively, grown to the spot, have you?
(YOUNG BIGRE rushes to the staircase and is about to climb up.)
Where are you going? Let the poor kid sleep!
YOUNG BIGRE: (Loud) Papa! Papa!
OLD BIGRE: He’s dead tired!
YOUNG BIGRE: Let me past!
OLD BIGRE: Push off! How would you like to be woken up when you’re sleeping?
MASTER: And Justine heard all this?
JACQUES: (Coming to the top of the stairs) As clear as you can hear me!
MASTER: Oh, lovely! You first-class shit! And what did you do?
JACQUES: I laughed.
MASTER: You should swing for that. What about her?
JACQUES: She tore her hair out, lifted her eyes up to heaven and wrung her hands.
MASTER: Jacques, you are a savage and you have a heart of tempered steel.
JACQUES: (Descending the stairs, very seriously) Not true, sir. I have great sensibility. But I was keeping it for a better occasion. People who spread their sensibility here, there and everywhere don’t have any left when they need it.
OLD BIGRE: (To JACQUES) Ah! There you are. Sleep well? You certainly needed to. (To his son) Look at him! Fresh as a new born babe! Go and get a bottle from the cellar. Now you won’t say no to a spot of breakfast.
(YOUNG BIGRE finds a bottle and the old boy fills three glasses.)
YOUNG BIGRE: (Pushing his glass away) I’m not thirsty this early in the morning.
OLD BIGRE: Not thirsty?
YOUNG BIGRE: No.
OLD BIGRE: Ah ha ha! I know what’s up! (To JACQUES) There’s a bit of Justine behind all this! Look how long he was out, he must have stopped by at Justine’s and found her with someone else! I told you she was a slag. (To JACQUES) So he takes it out on this poor innocent bottle.
JACQUES: You may have hit the nail on the head.
YOUNG BIGRE: Jacques, we’ve had enough of this joke.
OLD BIGRE: Well, just because you don’t want to drink, it doesn’t mean we can’t: (Lifts his glass) Your health, godson…
JACQUES: And yours…(To YOUNG BIGRE) Come on, chum, drink. I’m sure you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
YOUNG BIGRE: I’ve already said I’m not drinking.
JACQUES: You’ll see her again and it’ll all be all right. You have nothing to fear.
OLD BIGRE: No – let her make him suffer…meanwhile, you pack off to your dad so as he can forgive you for your escapades. Bloody kids! All the same…load of louse-infected layabouts…All right, let’s go.
(Takes JACQUES by the arm and leads him off. YOUNG BIGRE goes up the staircase. After a few steps, JACQUES leaves OLD BIGRE and turns towards his MASTER, while the old boy leaves the stage.)
MASTER: That’s a wonderful story. It teaches you to know women better, and to know your friends better.
(On the rostrum, SAINT-OUEN starts to come slowly towards JACQUES and his MASTER.)
JACQUES: You think that a friend would turn his back on your mistress if he had the opportunity?
SCENE FOUR
SAINT-OUEN: Friend! Dear friend! Come over here! (He’s at the edge of the rostrum and stretches out his arm to the MASTER, who’s below the rostrum. The MASTER climbs up to the rostrum and joins SAINT-OUEN who takes him by the arm and promenades him up and down.) My dear friend! It’s wonderful having a friend for whom one feels really sincere friendship…
MASTER: I’m touched, Saint-Ouen.
SAINT-OUEN: Yes, of all friends, you, my friend, are the best of friends, whereas I, my friend…
MASTER: You? You too, of all my friends – you are the best of friends.
SAINT-OUEN: (Lowering his head) I’m afraid, my friend, you don’t know me.
MASTER: I know you like I know myself!
SAINT-OUEN: If you knew me, you wouldn’t want to know me…
MASTER: Don’t say that.
SAINT-OUEN: I am a worthless man. No, there’s no other word: worthless. That’s the only way I can describe myself to you. I am a worthless man.
MASTER: I won’t allow you to humble yourself before me.
SAINT-OUEN: Worthless!
MASTER: No!
SAINT-OUEN: A worthless man!
MASTER: (Kneeling) Be quiet, my friend. Your words rend my heart. What is it that’s tormenting you? What have you done that’s so terrible?
SAINT-OUEN: There’s a blot on my past life. Only a blot, just the one, in fact, but…
MASTER: There you are: just one blot. That’s nothing. What is it?
SAINT-OUEN: Just one blot can blacken a whole life.
MASTER: One swallow doesn’t make a summer. Just one blot is no blot at all.
SAINT-OUEN: No. No. It may be just one blot, all on its own, but that one is terrible. I, Saint-Ouen, I, yes, me, I once betrayed, I betrayed – a friend.
MASTER: All right. Now: how did it happen?
SAINT-OUEN: We were both, he and I, paying calls on the same young lady. He was in love with her, and she was in love with me. He was keeping her, and I reaped the benefit. I never had the courage to tell him. But I must. When I come across him again, I must tell him everything, I must make a full confession if I want to rid myself of the dreadful secret that’s dragging me down…
MASTER: That would be good, Saint-Ouen.
SAINT-OUEN: That’s your advice?
MASTER: Yes, that’s my advice.
SAINT-OUEN: And how do you think my friend will take it?
MASTER: He’ll be touched by your frankness and penitence.
He’ll take you in his arms.
SAINT-OUEN: You really think so?
MASTER: I really do.
SAINT-OUEN: What about you? Would you do the same?
MASTER: Me? Of course.
SAINT-OUEN: (Opening his arms) My friend! Take me in your arms!
MASTER: Pardon?
SAINT-OUEN: Embrace me! The friend I deceived is you.
MASTER: (Shattered) Agathe?
SAINT-OUEN: Yes…Ah! You’re unhappy! – You can go back on what you said. Go on! Do what you like with me! You’re right: what I did is unforgivable! Leave me! Abandon me!
Hate me!…oh if only you knew what that wretched girl has made me do! If only you knew how I suffered, playing a part that was forced on me!
SCENE FIVE
(Intercut dialogue)
YOUNG BIGRE and JUSTINE come down the staircase and sit side by side. They seem exhausted.
JUSTINE: I swear! I swear on my mother’s and my father’s head!
YOUNG BIGRE: I’ll never believe you!
(JUSTINE breaks down sobbing.)
MASTER: (To SAINT-OUEN) That wretched girl! But Saint-Ouen, how could you, how could you…
SAINT-OUEN: Don’t torture me, friend!
JUSTINE: I swear he never even touched me!
YOUNG BIGRE: Liar!
MASTER: How could you!
YOUNG BIGRE: With that rat!
(JUSTINE sobs some more.)
SAINT-OUEN: How could I? Because I’m worthless! The most worthless man on the face of the earth. I have as a friend the best of men, and I have ignominiously betrayed him. You ask me why? Because I’m a rat! That’s all: just a rat!
JUSTINE: He is not a rat! He’s your friend!
YOUNG BIGRE: (Enraged) Friend?
JUSTINE: Friend – if only you knew it. He never so much as touched me!
YOUNG BIGRE: Shut up.
SAINT-OUEN: Yes, just a rat. That’s all.
MASTER: No. Stop shitting on yourself.
SAINT-OUEN: I do! I shit on myself!
MASTER: Despite everything that’s happened, you mustn’t shit on yourself.
JUSTINE: He told me that he was your friend and that he could have nothing to do with me, even if we were alone on a desert island.
MASTER: Stop making yourself ill.
YOUNG BIGRE: He said that?
JUSTINE: Yes!
SAINT-OUEN: I want to be ill.
MASTER: We’re both victims of the same monster, you just as much as me! She seduced you! You’ve been honest and told me everything. You’re still my friend.
YOUNG BIGRE: On a desert island? He said that?
JUSTINE: Yes!
SAINT-OUEN: I’m unworthy of your friendship.
MASTER: On the contrary, that’s why you’re worthy of it. You’ve paid with the torments of remorse.
YOUNG BIGRE: He really said he was my friend and that he wouldn’t be able to touch you even if you were alone together on a desert island?
JUSTINE: Yes!
SAINT-OUEN: You’re so generous!
MASTER: Embrace me!
(They embrace.)
YOUNG BIGRE: He really said he wouldn’t touch you even if you were alone together on a desert island?
JUSTINE: Yes!
YOUNG BIGRE: A desert island? Swear it.
JUSTINE: I swear!
MASTER: Come on, let’s have a drink.
JACQUES: Oh sir, this is really painful to watch.
MASTER: To our friendship, which no scrubber is going to kill!
YOUNG BIGRE: A desert island. I’ve done him an injustice, he’s a real friend.
JACQUES: It seems to me, Master, that our adventures are strangely similar.
MASTER: (Coming out of the action) What?
JACQUES: I say, our adventures are strangely similar.
YOUNG BIGRE: Jacques is a true friend.
JUSTINE: Your best.
SAINT-OUEN: Just now all I can think of is revenge. That awful girl has abused us, and we must be revenged: both of us. Just tell me what I must do, and I’ll do it!
MASTER: (Annoyed by JACQUES’s last observation, to SAINT-OUEN) Later. We’ll finish the story later…
SAINT-OUEN: No, no! Now! Immediately! I’ll do whatever you say! Just tell me what you want.
MASTER: I will, but later. At this precise moment I want to know how things worked out for Jacques.
(MASTER comes down from the rostrum.)
YOUNG BIGRE: Jacques!
(JACQUES leaps on to the rostrum and goes to YOUNG BIGRE.)
YOUNG BIGRE: I want to thank you. You’re my best friend. (Kisses him) And now, kiss Justine. (JACQUES hesitates.) Go on, now, don’t be shy, you’ve got every right to kiss her in front of me! I command you! (JACQUES kisses JUSTINE.) We’re the three best friends in the world, for life, till death…A desert island…is it true you wouldn’t touch her, not even on a desert island?
JACQUES: A friend’s woman? You crazy?
YOUNG BIGRE: You are the most faithful friend!
MASTER: You filthy pig. (JACQUES comes back to his MASTER.) But my adventure is still far from over.
JACQUES: Being cuckolded wasn’t enough for you?
YOUNG BIGRE: (At the very height of happiness) The most faithful woman! The most faithful friend! I’m happy as a lord!
(As he says the last couple of speeches YOUNG BIGRE leaves with JUSTINE. SAINT-OUEN stays to hear the first speeches of the next scene, then he goes too.)
SCENE SIX
MASTER: My adventure ended up very badly: the worst possible ending an adventure can have…
JACQUES: And what is the worst ending an adventure can have?
MASTER: Think about it.
JACQUES: I will…what could be the worst ending an adventure…? But you know, sir, my adventure is far from having come to an end. I’d lost my cherry, I’d found my best friend. I was so happy I got arseholed. My father bashed me round the head. A regiment was passing by, I sign up on an impulse, then I’m in the middle of a campaign, I get a bullet in the knee, I’m shoved on a cart, it stops in front of a shack and this woman appears on the doorstep…
MASTER: You already told me.
JACQUES: You going to keep chipping in?
MASTER: All right then, get on with it.
JACQUES: I won’t. Not if you’re going to keep interrupting.
MASTER: (Humorously) Fine. In that case, let’s take a few steps …there’s still quite a way to go…God almighty, we haven’t got horses. How come?
JACQUES: You’re forgetting we’re on stage. How could we have horses?
MASTER: Thanks to some ridiculous play, I have to go on foot! Even though the master who invented us allotted us horses.
JACQUES: That’s the danger of being invented by too many masters.
MASTER: I sometimes wonder, Jacques, whether we’re good inventions. D’you think we’ve been well invented?
JACQUES: Which inventor are you referring to? The great one in the sky? Up there?
MASTER: It was written, up there, that someone down here would write our story. What I want to know is: is it well written? I mean, was he talented?
JACQUES: If he wasn’t talented, he wouldn’t have written.
MASTER: What?
JACQUES: I’m saying, if he wasn’t talented, he wouldn’t have written.
MASTER: (Roaring with laughter) You’ve just proved that you’re only a servant after all. You think that people who write have talent? What about the young poet who one day came to see our master?
JACQUES: I don’t know any poet.
MASTER: Clearly you won’t know much about our master. You’re just an ignorant servant.
(The INNKEEPER comes on stage. She comes towards JACQUES and his MASTER and curtsies.)
INNKEEPER: Welcome, gentlemen.
MASTER: Welcome? Where are we, Madam?
INNKEEPER: The Stag Inn.
MASTER: I’ve never heard that name before.
INNKEEPER: Tables! Chairs!
(Two WAITERS rush on stage with tables and chairs which they put in front of JACQUES and his MASTER.)
INNKEEPER: It was written that on your travels you would stop at our inn, where you would eat, drink, sleep and listen to the patronne who is famed for miles around on account of the incredible size of her gob.
MASTER: As if my servant weren’t enough.
INNKEEPER: What is the gentlemen’s favour?
MASTER: (Gazing at the INNKEEPER with greed) That needs a little thought.
INNKEEPER: It doesn’t need any thought at all. It was written that you would have duck, spuds and a bottle of wine.
(She goes.)
JACQUES: Sir. You were going to say a word on the subject of this poet.
MASTER: (Still under the spell of the INNKEEPER) Poet?
JACQUES: The young poet who went to find our master.
MASTER: Oh yes. One day, a young poet came to our master’s place – the master who invented us. They often used to come and annoy him. Young poets are always legion. They multiply at a rate of about four hundred thousand a year. In France alone. And it’s even worse in less cultured countries.
JACQUES: What can be done about it? Drown them?
MASTER: That was the practice in the past. In Sparta, in the good old days. There poets were hurled into the sea from the top of a cliff as soon as possible after birth. In our enlightened century, however, anyone at all can live to the end of their natural span.
INNKEEPER: (Bringing a bottle of wine and filling glasses) Like it?
MASTER: (Having tasted the wine) Excellent. Leave the bottle. (INNKEEPER goes.) Now, one day, a young poet showed up at our master’s and pulled some paper out of his pocket. ‘Surprise, surprise,’ said our master, ‘poems!’ ‘Yes, Master, poems, my own, original poems,’ said the poet. ‘I want you to tell me the truth, nothing but the truth.’ – ‘And you aren’t afraid of the truth?’ said our master. ‘No,’ replied the young poet in a trembling voice. And our master said to him, ‘Dear young friend, not only have you proved to me that your poems are not worth their own weight in shit, you have shown beyond question that you will never write better ones.’ ‘That’s annoying,’ says the young poet, ‘it means I shall have to write bad poems all my life.’ And our master replied, ‘A warning, young poet. Neither the gods, nor men, nor the signposts in the street, have ever forgiven mediocrity in a poet!’ ‘I know,’ says the poet, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s an impulse.’
JACQUES: A what?
MASTER: An impulse. ‘I have this terrific impulse that drives me to write bad poems.’ ‘Again, I warn you!’ cried our master; and the young poet replied, ‘I know, Master, that you are the great Diderot, and that I am a bad poet, but we bad poets, there are more of us than you, we’re always going to be in the majority. All of humanity is made up of nothing but bad poets. And the public, in its mind, its taste and its feelings, is just a huge gathering of bad poets. How would a bad poet give offence to other bad poets? The bad poets who constitute the human race adore bad poetry. It’s precisely because I write such bad poems that one day I’ll be established as a great poet.’
