Diderot and the Encyclopaedists Volume II Part 16

You know that I am an ignoramus, a fool, a madman, an impertinent, a sluggard, a glutton....

_I._--What a panegyric!

_He._--'Tis true to the letter, there is not a word to take away; prithee, no debate on that. No one knows me better. I know myself and I do not tell the whole.

_I._--I have no wish to cross you, and I will agree to anything.

_He._--Well, I used to live with people, who took a liking for me, plainly because I was gifted with all these qualities to such a rare degree.

_I._--That is curious. Until now I always thought that people hid these things even from themselves, or else that they granted themselves pardon, while they despised them in others.

_He._--Hide them from themselves! Can men do that? You may be sure that when Palissot is all alone and returns upon himself, he tells a very different tale; you may be sure that when he talks quietly with his colleague, they candidly admit that they are only a pair of mighty rogues. Despise such things in others! My people were far more equitable, and they took my character for a perfect nonesuch; I was in clover; they feasted me, they did not lose me from their sight for a single instant without sighing for my return. I was their excellent Rameau, their dear Rameau, their Rameau the mad, the impertinent, the lazy, the greedy, the merry-man, the lout.

There was not one of these epithets which did not bring me a smile, a caress, a tap on the shoulder, a cuff, a kick; at table, a t.i.tbit tossed on to my plate; away from the table, a freedom that I took without consequences, for, do you see, I am a man without consequence. They do with me and before me and at me whatever they like, without my standing on any ceremony. And the little presents that showered on me! The great hound that I am, I have lost all! I have lost all for having had common sense once, one single time in my life. Ah! if that ever chances again!

_I._--What was the matter, then?

_He._--Rameau, Rameau, did they ever take you for that? The folly of having had a little taste, a trifle of wit, a spice of reason; Rameau, my friend, that will teach you the difference between what G.o.d made you, and what your protectors wanted you to be. So they took you by the shoulder, they led you to the door, and cried: "Be off, rascal; never appear more. He would fain have sense, reason, wit, I declare! Off with you; we have all these qualities and to spare!" You went away biting your thumb; it was your infernal tongue, that you ought to have bitten before all this. For not bethinking you of that, here you are in the gutter without a farthing, or a place to lay your head. You were well housed, and now you will be lucky if you get your garret again; you had a good bed, and now a truss of straw awaits you between M. de Soubise's coachman and friend Robbe. Instead of the gentle quiet slumber that you had, you will have the neighing and stamping of horses all night long--you wretch, idiot, possessed by a million devils!

_I._--But is there no way of setting things straight? Is the fault you committed so unpardonable? If I were you, I should go find my people again. You are more indispensable to them than you suppose.

_He._--Oh, as for that, I know that now they have me no longer to make fun for them, they are dull as ditch-water.

_I._--Then I should go back: I would not give them time enough to learn how to get on without me, or to turn to some more decent amus.e.m.e.nt. For who knows what may happen?

_He._--That is not what I am afraid of: that will never come to pa.s.s.

_I._--But sublime as you may be, some one else may replace you.

_He._--Hardly.

_I._--Hardly, it is true. Still I would go with that lackl.u.s.tre face, those haggard eyes, that open breast, that tumbled hair, in that downright tragic state in which you are now. I would throw myself at the feet of the divinity, and without rising I would say with a low and sobbing voice: "Forgive me, madam! Forgive me! I am the vilest of creatures. It was only one unfortunate moment, for you know I am not subject to common sense, and I promise you, I will never have it again so long as I live."

[The diverting part of it was that, while I discoursed to him in this way, he executed it pantomimically, and threw himself on the ground; with his eyes fixed on the earth, he seemed to hold between his two hands the tip of a slipper, he wept, he sobbed, he cried: "Yes, my queen, yes, I promise, I never will, so long as I live, so long as ever I live...." Then recovering himself abruptly, he went on in a serious and deliberate tone:]

_He._--Yes, you are right; I see it is the best. Yet to go and humiliate one's self before a hussy, cry for mercy at the feet of a little actress with the hisses of the pit for ever in her ears! I, Rameau, son of Rameau, the apothecary of Dijon, who is a good man and never yet bent his knee to a creature in the world! I, Rameau, who have composed pieces for the piano that n.o.body plays, but which will perhaps be the only pieces ever to reach posterity, and posterity will play them--I, I, must go! Stay, sir, it cannot be [and striking his right hand on his breast, he went on:] I feel here something that rises and tells me: Never, Rameau, never. There must be a certain dignity attached to human nature that nothing can stifle; it awakes _a propos des bottes_; you cannot explain it; for there are other days when it would cost me not a pang to be as vile as you like, and for a halfpenny there is nothing too dirty for me to do.

_I._--Then if the expedient I have suggested to you is not to your taste, have courage enough to remain a beggar.

_He._--'Tis hard being a beggar, while there are so many rich fools at whose expense one can live. And the contempt for one's self, it is insupportable.

_I._--Do you know that sentiment?

_He._--Know it! How many times have I said to myself: What, Rameau, there are ten thousand good tables in Paris, with fifteen or twenty covers apiece, and of these covers not one for thee! There are purses full of gold which is poured out right and left, and not a crown of it falls to thee! A thousand witlings without parts and without worth, a thousand paltry creatures without a charm, a thousand scurvy intriguers, are all well clad, while thou must go bare! Canst thou be such a nincomp.o.o.p as all this? Couldst thou not flatter as well as anybody else? Couldst thou not find out how to lie, swear, forswear, promise, keep or break, like anybody else?

Couldst thou not favour the intrigue of my lady, and carry the love-letter of my lord, like anybody else? Couldst thou not find out the trick of making some shopkeeper's daughter understand how shabbily dressed she is, how two fine earrings, a touch of rouge, some lace, and a Polish gown would make her ravis.h.i.+ng; that those little feet were not made for trudging through the mud; that there is a handsome gentleman, young, rich, in a coat covered with lace, with a superb carriage and six fine lackeys, who once saw her as he pa.s.sed, who thought her charming and wonderful, and that ever since that day he has taken neither bite nor sup, cannot sleep at nights, and will surely die of it?... He comes, he pleases, the little maid vanishes, and I pocket my two thousand crowns. What, thou hast a talent like this, and yet in want of bread? Shame on thee, wretch!

I recalled a crowd of scoundrels who were not a patch upon me, and yet were rolling in money. There was I in serge, and they in velvet; they leaned on gold-headed canes, and had fine rings on their fingers. And what were they? Wretched bungling strummers, and now they are a kind of fine gentlemen. At such times I felt full of courage, my soul inflamed and elevated, my wits alert and subtle, and capable of anything in the world. But this happy turn did not last, it would seem, for so far I have not been able to make much way. However that may be, there is the text of my frequent soliloquies, which you may paraphrase as you choose, provided you are sure that I know what self-contempt is, and that torture of conscience which comes of the usefulness of the gifts that heaven has bestowed on us; that is the cruellest stroke of all. A man might almost as well never have been born.

[I had listened to him all the time, and as he enacted the scene with the poor girl, with my heart moved by two conflicting emotions, I did not know whether to give myself up to the longing I had to laugh, or to a transport of indignation. I was distressingly perplexed between two humours; twenty times an uncontrollable burst of laughter kept my anger back, and twenty times the anger that was rising from the bottom of my soul suddenly ended in a burst of laughter. I was confounded by so much shrewdness and so much vileness, by ideas now so just and then so false, by such general perversity of sentiments, such complete turpitude, and such marvellously uncommon frankness. He perceived the struggle going on within me:] What ails you? said he.

_I._--Nothing.

_He._--You seem to be disturbed.

_I._--And I am.

_He._--But now, after all, what do you advise me to do?

_I._--To change your way of talking. You unfortunate soul, to what abject state have you fallen!

_He._--I admit it. And yet, do not let my state touch you too deeply; I had no intention, in opening my mind to you, to give you pain. I managed to sc.r.a.pe up a few savings when I was with the people. Remember that I wanted nothing, not a thing, and they made me a certain allowance for pocket-money.

[He again began to tap his brow with one of his fists, to bite his lips, and to roll his eyes towards the ceiling, going on to say:]

But 'tis all over; I have put something aside; time has pa.s.sed, and that is always so much gained.

_I._--So much lost, you mean.

_He._--No, no; gained. People grow rich every moment; a day less to live, or a crown to the good, 'tis all one. When the last moment comes, one is as rich as another; Samuel Bernard, who by pillaging and stealing and playing bankrupt, leaves seven and twenty million francs in gold, is just like Rameau, who leaves not a penny, and will be indebted to charity for a shroud to wrap round him. The dead man hears not the tolling of the bell; 'tis in vain that a hundred priests bawl dirges for him, and that a long file of blazing torches go before: his soul walks not by the side of the master of the ceremonies. To moulder under marble, or to moulder under clay, 'tis still to moulder. To have around one's bier children in red and children in blue, or to have not a creature, what matters it? And then, look at this wrist, it was stiff as the devil; the ten fingers, they were so many sticks fastened into a metacarpus made of wood; and these muscles were like old strings of catgut, drier, stiffer, harder to bend than if that they had been used for a turner's wheel; but I have so twisted and broken and bent them. What, thou wilt not go? And I say that thou shalt....

[And at this, with his right hand he seized the fingers and wrist of his left hand, and turned them first up and then down. The extremity of the fingers touched the arm, till the joints cracked again. I was afraid every instant that the bones would remain dislocated.]

_I._--Take care, you will do yourself a mischief.

_He._--Don't be afraid, they are used to it. For ten years I have given it them in a very different style. They had to accustom themselves to it, however they liked it, and to learn to find their place on the keys and to leap over the strings. So now they go where they must.

[At the same moment he threw himself into the att.i.tude of a violin-player; he hummed an allegro of Locatelli's; his right arm imitated the movement of the bow; his left hand and his fingers seemed to be feeling along the handle. If he makes a false note, he stops, tightens or slackens his string, and strikes it with his nail, to make sure of its being in tune, and then takes up the piece where he left off. He beats time with his foot, moves his head, his feet, his hands, his arms, his body, as you may have seen Ferrari or Chiabran, or some other virtuoso in the same convulsions, presenting the image of the same torture, and giving me nearly as much pain; for is it not a painful thing to watch the torture of a man who is busy painting pleasure for my benefit? Draw a curtain to hide the man from me, if he must show me the spectacle of a victim on the rack. In the midst of all these agitations and cries, if there occurred one of those harmonious pa.s.sages where the bow moves slowly over several of the strings at once, his face put on an air of ecstasy, his voice softened, he listened to himself with perfect ravishment; it is undoubted that the chorus sounded both in his ears and mine. Then replacing his imaginary instrument under his left arm with the same hand by which he held it, and letting his right hand drop with the bow in it, said:]

Well, what do you think of it?

_I._--Wonderful!

_He._--Not bad, I fancy; it sounds pretty much like the others....

[And then he stooped down, like a musician placing himself at the piano.]

_I._--Nay, I beg you to be merciful both to me and to yourself.

_He._--No, no; now that I have got you, you shall hear me. I will have no vote that is given without your knowing why. You will say a good word for me with more confidence, and that will be worth a new pupil to me.

_I._--But I am so little in the world, and you will tire yourself all to no purpose.

_He._--I am never tired.

[As I saw that it was useless to have pity on my man, for the sonata on the violin had bathed him in perspiration, I resolved to let him do as he would. So behold him seated at the piano, his legs bent, his head thrown back towards the ceiling, where you would have thought he saw a score written up, humming, preluding, das.h.i.+ng off a piece of Alberti's or Galuppi's, I forget which. His voice went like the wind, and his fingers leapt over the imaginary keys.

The various pa.s.sions succeeded one another on his face; you observed on it tenderness, anger, pleasure, sorrow; you felt the piano notes, the forte notes, and I am sure that a more skilful musician than myself would have recognised the piece by the movement and the character, by his gestures, and by a few notes of airs which escaped from him now and again. But the absurd thing was to see him from time to time hesitate and take himself up as if he had gone wrong.]

Now, you perceive, said he, rising and wiping away the drops of sweat which rolled down his cheeks, that we know how to place our third, our superfluous fifth, and that we know all about our dominants. Those enharmonic pa.s.sages, about which the dear uncle makes such fuss, they are not like having the sea to swallow; we can manage them well enough.

_I._--You have given yourself a great deal of trouble to show me that you are uncommonly clever; but I would have taken your word for it.