Rameau's Nephew and First Satire (Oxford World's Classics)

by Denis Diderot

  HIM: How odd you are, you people!

  ME: And how greatly you people are to be pitied, if you can’t believe that one can rise above good or ill fortune, and that it’s impossible to be unhappy, when one is protected by fine deeds like these.

  HIM: That’s a kind of happiness with which I’d find it hard to become familiar, for it is very rare. So, the way you see it, one must be an honourable man?

  ME: To be happy? Unquestionably.

  HIM: Nevertheless, I know countless honourable people who aren’t happy, and countless people who are happy without being honourable.

  ME: That’s what you think.

  HIM: And isn’t it because, for just a moment, I showed some common sense and honesty that I don’t know where to find my dinner this evening?

  ME: Oh no, it’s because you haven’t always shown them. It’s because you didn’t understand straight away that first and foremost one must secure a livelihood that is independent of servitude.

  HIM: Independent or not, the livelihood I secured is surely the least demanding.

  ME: And the least dependable, and the least honourable.

  HIM: But the most consonant with my character of idler, fool and good-for-nothing.

  ME: Agreed.

  HIM: And furthermore, since I can secure my happiness by means of vices which come naturally to me, that I’ve acquired without labour and preserved without effort, which suit the ways of my country, conform to the tastes of my protectors, and are more appropriate to their special little needs than virtues which would embarrass them by making them feel ashamed all day long; it would be extremely odd were I to torment myself like a soul in hell, to become something other than what I am, and develop a character quite alien to my own; highly estimable qualities, I admit, to avoid argument, but which I’d find exceedingly difficult to acquire and to practice, which would get me nowhere, perhaps worse than nowhere, by continually showing up the rich from whom beggars like myself seek to earn their livelihood. The world praises virtue, but loathes it and flees from it; virtue is left out in the cold, and in this world one must keep one’s feet warm. And then, it would be certain to put me out of humour; for why do devout people so often strike us as so hard, so difficult, so unsociable? It’s because they’ve set themselves a task which doesn’t come naturally. They suffer, and when you suffer, you make others suffer. That doesn’t suit me, nor does it suit my patrons; I have to be light-hearted, adaptable, entertaining, clownish, amusing. Virtue demands respect, and respect is uncomfortable. Virtue demands admiration, and admiration isn’t funny. I spend my time with people who get bored, and it’s my job to make them laugh. Now, absurdity and folly are what make people laugh, so I must be absurd, and a fool; if nature had not given me those qualities, then the simplest solution would be to pretend to possess them. Luckily I have no need to be a hypocrite, since there are already so many of every hue, apart from those who are hypocrites with themselves. That chevalier de la Morlière who wears his hat with upturned brim tipped over one ear, sticks his nose in the air and stares over his shoulder at every passerby, who carries a long sword that thumps against his thigh, has an insult ready for anyone not thus armed, and seems to challenge every man he meets, what’s he doing? He’s doing his utmost to persuade himself that he’s brave, but he’s really a coward. Tweak the end of his nose and he’ll take it meekly. If you’d like him to lower his tone, raise yours. Show him your cane, or let your foot connect with his buttocks: astonished at discovering he’s a coward, he’ll ask you who it was that told you, or where you found it out. He himself was unaware of it a moment earlier; his ingrained habit of aping the brave had deceived him. He had so often adopted the posture that he believed he was the real thing. And that woman who mortifies herself, visits prisons, attends every charitable assembly, walks with lowered gaze, not daring to look a man in the face lest she let down her guard against the seduction of the senses; does all that prevent her heart from burning, does it prevent her sighs escaping, or her passions quickening, her desires tormenting her, or her imagination from replaying, by day as by night, scenes from Le Portier des Chartreux, or the positions described in Aretino?* So then what happens to her? What does her maid think as she jumps out of her bed in her shift, and flies to help her mistress who cries out that she’s dying? Justine, go back to bed. It’s not you your mistress is calling for in her delirium. And, were our friend Rameau some day to disdain fortune, women, fine dishes, idleness, and turn stoic, what would he be? A hypocrite. Rameau must be what he is: a lucky rogue among wealthy rogues, and not a trumpeter of virtue, or even a virtuous man, gnawing his crust of bread alone or in a company of beggars. And, in a word, I am not settling for your felicity, nor for the happiness of a few visionaries like yourself.

  ME: I see, my friend, you don’t know what I’ve been talking about, and you’re not even capable of learning about it.

  HIM: All the better, the Lord be thanked, all the better. It would make me croak from hunger, boredom, and perhaps from remorse.

  ME: So, in view of that, the only advice I have for you is to get back quickly inside the house from which you so imprudently got yourself thrown out.

  HIM: And to do what you don’t disapprove of in a literal sense, but I find rather repugnant in a metaphorical sense.

  ME: That’s my advice.

  HIM: Independently of that metaphor which offends me at this moment, and at some other moment won’t.

  ME: How odd you are!

  HIM: There’s nothing odd about it. I’m quite willing to be abject, but I want to be abject without constraint. I’m quite willing to lower my dignity … you’re laughing.

  ME: Yes, your dignity makes me laugh.

  HIM: Everyone has his dignity; I’m quite willing to forget mine, but when I choose, and not at someone else’s bidding. Why should anyone be able to say: ‘Grovel!’ and I be forced to grovel? Grovelling’s natural to the worm, and to me; that’s what we both do when we’re left to our own devices; but we rear up when we’re stepped on. I’ve been stepped on, and I intend to rear up. And then you’ve no idea what a bear garden the place is. Picture to yourself a gloomy, sullen individual, perpetually prey to the vapours, enveloped in two or three layers of dressing gown; he takes no pleasure in himself, he takes no pleasure in anything else; to raise the merest hint of a smile one must deploy physical and mental gyrations of a hundred different varieties; he observes the funny contortions of my features and those of my intellect—which are even funnier—with equal impassivity; just between ourselves, that père Noël, that ugly Benedictine who’s so famous for his grimaces, well, in spite of his success at court, and in all due modesty and fairness, compared with me he’s nothing but a wooden puppet. It’s in vain that I try to emulate the exquisite grimaces of lunatics; nothing works. Will he or won’t he laugh? That’s what I have to ask myself in the midst of my contortions, and you can imagine how badly this uncertainty affects my performance. My hypochondriac, his head buried in a nightcap coming down to his eyes, looks like a motionless Chinese idol from beneath whose chin a string hangs, leading down under his chair. One waits for the string to be pulled, but it is not pulled; or, if the jaw happens to open slightly, it’s to utter some disheartening words, words which tell you that you have not been noticed, and that all your antics are wasted; the words answer a question you asked several days ago; once they are uttered, the mastoid spring relaxes and the jaws snap shut …* [Then he began to mimic his man; he settled into a chair, head rigid, hat pulled down to his eyelids, eyes half closed, arms hanging loosely, jaw moving, mouthing, like an automaton: ‘Yes, you’re right, Mademoiselle. Subtlety, that’s what is needed.’] That’s what decides, that’s what always decides, irrevocably, in the morning, in the evening, while dressing, at dinner, at the café, at the gaming tables, at the theatre, at supper, in bed, and, God forgive me, I do believe in the arms of his mistress. I’m not in a position to hear these last decisions, but I’m damnably tired of the others. Gloomy, inscrutable, an
d final as fate: that’s our patron.

  Opposite him, there’s a prude who puts on important airs and to whom one forces oneself to say that she’s pretty, because she is, still, although there’s a few scabs on her face, and she’s vying with Madame Bouvillon in the fat stakes. I’m fond of a bit of flesh, when it’s nicely rounded, but enough is enough, and movement is vital to matter! And: she’s nastier, prouder, and stupider than a goose. And: she tries to be witty. And: you have to make her believe you think her wittier than anyone else. And: she knows nothing, but that doesn’t stop her laying down the law. And: you must applaud these pronouncements with your feet, with your hands, leap for joy, faint with amazement. How beautiful, delicate, well expressed, discerning, how extraordinarily sensitive! Whence comes this ability that women possess? It’s unstudied, it’s sheer force of instinct, it’s a powerful natural gift: it’s almost a miracle! Just let someone dare assert that experience, study, reflection, education, play any part in it! And other nonsense of that sort: then come tears of joy. Ten times a day you must bow, one knee bent forward, the other leg stretched back, your arms extended towards the goddess, your eyes fixed on hers to discover her wishes; you must hang on her words, await her bidding, then depart in a flash. Who can subject himself to the demands of such a role, except the wretch who finds in that house, two or three times a week, what he needs to calm the torment in his belly? What is one to think of the others, like Palissot, Fréron, the Poinsinets, Baculard, who aren’t destitute, and whose grovelling can’t be excused by the rumbling of their tortured guts?

  ME: I’d never have supposed you to be so fastidious.

  HIM: I’m not fastidious. At first I watched the others, and I did what they did, or even improved on it a little, because I’m more openly impudent, a better actor, more ravenous, blessed with better lungs. Evidently I’m a direct descendant of the famous Stentor.

  And, to give me a clear idea of the power of that organ, he began coughing so violently that it rattled the panes of the café windows, and distracted the chess players from their game.

  ME: But what’s the use of that talent?

  HIM: You can’t guess?

  ME: No. I haven’t much imagination.

  HIM: Imagine that an argument is in full swing and my victory is uncertain: I rise, and, deploying my thunder, say: ‘It’s just as Mademoiselle has declared. That’s what I call judgement! I defy any of our best minds to equal it. The expression is pure genius.’ But you mustn’t always give your approval in the same manner. You’d become boring. You’d sound false. You’d lack piquancy. You can only avoid that by judgement and inventiveness; you have to know how to prepare and situate these imperious major keys, how to grasp the opportunity and the moment; for instance, when opinions are divided, and the argument has reached boiling-point, people are no longer listening but are all speaking at once; then you must distance yourself, take up your position in the corner of the room farthest from the battlefield, prepare for your thunderbolt by a long silence, and suddenly launch it like an exploding mortar into the thick of the battle. No one can equal me in this art. But where I am astonishing is in the opposite situation: I can draw on a range of soft tones that accompany a smile; on an infinite variety of approving expressions, working now the nose, now the mouth, now the forehead, now the eyes; I’ve a particular pliancy of the hips; a way of contorting the spine, of raising or dropping the shoulders, of spreading the fingers, of nodding the head and closing the eyes, of registering amazement, as if I’d heard a divine, angelic voice issuing from heaven. That’s the way to flatter. I’m not sure you fully grasp how much energy goes into this last charade. It’s not my invention, but no one has surpassed me in its performance. See? See?

  ME: It’s true, it’s quite unique.

  HIM: Do you believe any female mind inclined to vanity could resist that?

  ME: I have to agree that you’ve carried the talent of playing the lunatic, and of degrading yourself, to its farthest possible extreme.

  HIM: Whatever they try, every last one of them, they’ll never equal that. The best of them, Palissot for example, will never be more than a good student. But although the game’s amusing at first, and one takes a certain pleasure in privately deriding those whom one befuddles, in the long run it loses its savour; and then, also, after coming up with a few new ideas, one is obliged to repeat oneself. Wit and art have their limits. There’s only God or a handful of rare geniuses for whom the way ahead stretches endlessly on, as they move forward along it. Bouret may be one of those. There are certain traits of his which give me—yes, me—a sense of the sublime. The little dog, the Register of Felicity, the flaming torches on the road to Versailles, they’re the kind of things which confound and mortify me. They’re enough to discourage one from trying.

  ME: What are you talking about, what little dog?

  HIM: Where have you been all this time? Do you really not know how this extraordinary man set about detaching from himself and attaching to the Minister of Justice the affections of a little dog that had caught the minister’s fancy?

  ME: I do not know, I confess.

  HIM: Good. It’s one of the most beautiful stories anyone could imagine; all of Europe marvelled at it, and there isn’t a single courtier whose envy it did not excite. You’re a shrewd man; let’s see how you’d have gone about it. Remember that Bouret’s dog loved him. Remember that the minister’s bizarre costume frightened the little animal. Remember that Bouret only had a week to solve the difficulties. You must be aware of all aspects of the problem to fully appreciate the merit of the solution. Well?

  ME: Well, I must admit to you that in this kind of situation I’d be incapable of solving the simplest difficulty.

  HIM: Listen [he tapped me lightly on the shoulder as he spoke, for he likes taking little liberties], listen, and marvel. He gets himself a mask made in the likeness of the Minister of Justice; he borrows the voluminous cassock from a valet. He covers his face with the mask. He puts on the cassock. He calls his dog, pats him, gives him a biscuit. Then suddenly, after changing his accoutrements, it’s no longer the Minister of Justice, it’s now Bouret that calls his dog and beats him. In less than two or three days of continually performing this drill from dawn to dusk, the dog has learnt to flee from Bouret the tax farmer, and run to Bouret the Minister of Justice. But I’m being too kind. You’re a non-believer who doesn’t deserve to be instructed in the miracles which take place right under your nose.

  ME: Nevertheless, I entreat you—the book, the flaming torches?

  HIM: No, no. Enquire of the pavingstones, they’ll give you those details; you should be making the most of our chance meeting to hear of things no one knows but me.

  ME: You’re right.

  HIM: Borrow the gown and the wig; I forgot the wig, the wig of the Minister of Justice! To get a mask made in his likeness! The mask, above all else, makes my head spin. Of course the man enjoys the highest reputation. Of course he’s a millionaire. There are military officers with the Cross of St Louis who want for bread, so why exert oneself to get a Cross, at the risk of life and limb, rather than choose a safe calling which never fails to be rewarded. That’s what’s called aiming at true greatness. Such examples are discouraging; they make you feel sorry for yourself, and bored with life. The mask! The mask! I’d give one of my fingers to have thought of the mask.

  ME: But, with your passion for the finer things of life, and your inventive mind, have you yourself created nothing new?

  HIM: Excuse me, indeed I have. For instance, that admiring inclination of the spine I mentioned; I consider it mine, although the envious might dispute my claim. I agree that it’s been used before, but did anyone appreciate how it enabled you to enjoy a laugh at the expense of the fool you were admiring? I know a hundred ways to set about seducing a young girl, with her mother at her side, without the latter being aware of it; I can even turn her into an accomplice. Hardly had I begun my career than I disdained all the routine devices for passing on billets d
oux. I know ten ways to make the girl snatch it away from me, and among those ways I dare to flatter myself that some are entirely new. I’m particularly good at encouraging a timid young man; I’ve seen some succeed who lacked both looks and wit. If this were written down, I think I’d be recognized as something of a genius.

  ME: People would hold you in great esteem.

  HIM: I don’t doubt it.

  ME: Were I in your place, I’d scribble these things down on paper. It would be a pity if they were lost.

  HIM: True; but you’ve no idea how little importance I attach to method and precepts. He who must follow instructions will never get far. Geniuses read little, do a lot, and create themselves. Look at Caesar, Turenne, Vauban, the Marquise de Tencin, her brother the cardinal, and the cardinal’s secretary, Abbé Trublet. And Bouret? Who taught Bouret? No one. It’s nature that teaches those exceptional men. Do you imagine the story of the dog and the mask is written down somewhere?

  ME: But when you’ve nothing to do, when the pangs of your empty stomach or the travails of your overburdened stomach keep you from sleeping…

  HIM: I’ll think about it; it’s better to write of great deeds than to perform trivial ones. They uplift your soul, they stir, inspire, and expand your imagination, whereas your imagination shrivels when you have to pretend, when you’re with little Hus, that you’re astonished by the applause a half-witted public obstinately showers on that simpering Dangeville; her style of acting is insipid, she walks about the stage bent right over, she’s so affected, the way she gazes all the time into her interlocutor’s eyes while standing right under his nose, and imagining that the faces she’s pulling are subtle acting, and that her mincing gait’s really graceful; and as for that bombastic Clairon! She’s skinnier, stiffer, stagier, starchier than I can find words for. That idiotic parterre applauds them to the skies, without noticing the bundle of charms that we are—a bundle that’s getting a bit fatter, it’s true—but who cares? They don’t notice that our skin’s quite exquisite, our eyes absolutely beautiful, our mouth very pretty; admittedly we’ve no real heart, and we’re a bit heavy-footed, but not as awkward as some would claim. When it comes to emotions, on the other hand, there’s no one who comes a close second.