Denis Diderot
Sequel to the Preceding Conversation
Translated by Ian Johnston, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo,
British Columbia, Canada
[The
following translation (2014), which has been prepared by Ian Johnston, Emeritus
Professor at Vancouver Island University, is a revised version of an earlier
translation (originally posted in 2002). Students, teachers, artists, and
members of the general public may download and distribute this text. They may
also freely edit it to suit their purposes. All commercial use of the
translation, however, is prohibited without the permission of the translator.
Please contact Ian Johnston for details. This
work is the first section of a three-part dramatic conversation. For the Table
of Contents of all three parts, please consult the following link: Rêve d’Alembert.
In
the following translation the explanatory endnotes have been added by the
translator.].
Denis Diderot
SEQUEL TO THE PRECEDING CONVERSATION
Speakers: Mademoiselle de L’Espinasse,
Doctor Bordeu
[Around
two o’clock the doctor returns. D’Alembert has
gone out to dine, and the doctor finds himself in an intimate conversation with
Mademoiselle de L’Espinasse. Dinner is
served. They talk about fairly inconsequential things until dessert, but when
the servants leave, Mademoiselle de L’Espinasse speaks
to the doctor.]
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Come, Doctor, drink a glass of
Malaga, and then you can answer a question which has gone through my head a
hundred times and which I wouldn’t dare to ask anyone except you.
BORDEU
This is excellent Malaga. What’s this
question of yours?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
What do you think of breeding between
species?
BORDEU
On my word, that’s another fine
question! I think human beings have placed a great deal of importance on the
reproductive act and they’ve been right to do so, but I’m not happy about their
laws, both civil and religious.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
And what do you find to complain
about with them?
BORDEU
They were made without equity,
purpose, or any regard for the nature of things and public utility.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Please try to explain yourself.
BORDEU
That’s what I propose . . . But
wait. [He looks at his watch] I
still have a good hour to give you. I’ll go quickly, so that we’ll have enough
time. We’re alone. You’re no prude, so you won’t think that I wish to forget
about respecting you the way I should. And however you
judge my ideas, I hope for my part that you’ll not conclude anything from them
critical of my morality.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Certainly not. But your opening
remarks disturb me.
BORDEU
In that case, let’s change the
subject.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
No, no. Go on with what you were
going to say. One of your friends who was looking for husbands for me and my
two sisters gave a sylph to the youngest, a large angel of the Annunciation to
the oldest, and a disciple of Diogenes to me. He understood all three of us
well. Still, Doctor, you can veil some things, just a little.
BORDEU
Of course I will, as
much as the subject and my profession permit.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
That won’t be very difficult for you.
But here’s your coffee. Drink it.
BORDEU [After drinking his coffee]
Your question is a matter of physical
science, morality, and poetics.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Poetics!
BORDEU
Undoubtedly. The art of creating
beings which don’t exist by imitating those which do is true poetry. On this
occasion, instead of citing Hippocrates, will you allow me to quote Horace?
This poet, or maker, says somewhere Omne punctum qui miscuit
utile dulci—the supreme merit is
to have united the pleasant with the useful. Perfection consists in reconciling
these two things. An action which is agreeable and useful should occupy first
place in the aesthetic order, and we can’t refuse second place to what is
useful, so third place will go to what is pleasant. We’ll give lowest rank to
something which brings neither pleasure nor profit.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Up to this point I can share your
opinion without blushing. Where is that going to lead us?
BORDEU
You’ll see. Mademoiselle, can you
inform me what profit or pleasure is produced by chastity and strict
continence, either to the individual who practises
them or to society?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
I’d say none at all.
BORDEU
Thus, despite the magnificent elegies
which fanaticism has produced on their behalf and despite the civil laws which
protect them, we’ll delete them from the catalogue of virtues, and we’ll agree
that there is nothing so childish, ridiculous, absurd, harmful, and contemptible,
nothing worse than these two rare qualities, with the exception of positive
evil.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
We can agree on that.
BORDEU
Be careful here. I warn you, you’ll
be backing away from this position in a moment.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
No, I never retreat.
BORDEU
What about solitary sexual acts?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
What about them?
BORDEU
Well, at least they bring pleasure to
the individual. So either our principle is false or
else . . .
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Come now, doctor!
BORDEU
Yes, Mademoiselle, yes because such
acts are just as harmless but they’re not pointless. It’s a need, and even if a
person isn’t drawn to them by need, it’s always something pleasant. I want
people to be healthy—that’s my first priority. Do you understand that? I
criticize all excess, but in a social condition like ours, for every reasonable
consideration there are a hundred more (not including our emotional temperament
and the dreadful consequences of a rigorous continence, above all with young
people)—lack of money, men’s fear of bitter regrets, a woman’s fear of
dishonour, things which reduce an unhappy creature dying of languor and
boredom, a poor devil who doesn’t know where to turn, to finish himself off in
the manner of a Cynic. Cato told a young man on the point of entering a
prostitute’s house, “Courage, my son. . . .” Would he
give him the same advice today? On the other hand, if he caught him alone in
the act of masturbating would he not claim that that was better than corrupting
another man’s wife or risking his own honour and health? What then? Because
circumstances do not permit me the greatest imaginable happiness, that of
mixing my senses, intoxication, and soul with the senses, intoxication, and
soul of a companion chosen by my heart and of reproducing myself in her and
with her, because I cannot consecrate my action with the seal of utility, am I
to forbid myself a necessary and sweet moment? We have our blood let when we
suffer from a plethora, and what does it matter what the nature of the
superabundant humour is, its colour, and the manner we relieve ourselves of it?
It’s just as superfluous in one of these conditions as in another. And if it’s
pumped out of its reservoirs and distributed throughout the machine, it evacuates
itself by another longer route, more painful and dangerous. So
won’t it be lost anyway? Nature doesn’t permit anything useless. And how could
helping her make me guilty when she calls for my help with the most unambiguous
symptoms? We should never provoke nature, but we can lend her a hand
occasionally. Refusing to do that or just doing nothing I see as mere
foolishness and the loss of pleasure. Live temperately, people tell me, wear
yourself out with physical exhaustion. I understand what they’re saying—I
should deprive myself of one pleasure and go to great trouble to distance
myself from another one. What an excellent idea!
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Now there’s a doctrine which isn’t a
good one to preach to children.
BORDEU
Or to others. However, will you allow
me an assumption? You have a good daughter, too good, and innocent, too
innocent. She is at an age where her emotional life is developing. Her head is
all upset, and nature is no help. You call me in. I see right away that all the
symptoms which have you afraid are born from the superabundance and retention
of sexual fluid. I warn you that she is threatened by a madness which is easy
to prevent and which sometimes is impossible to cure. I indicate the remedy to
you. What do you do?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
To tell you the truth, I think . . .
but this example never happens.
BORDEU
Don’t believe that. It’s not rare,
and it would be frequent if the looseness in our morals didn’t stop it. . . . Whatever the case, to reveal these principles would
be treading all decency underfoot, drawing all the most hateful suspicions onto
oneself, and committing a crime against society. You’re day-dreaming.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Yes, I was hesitating about asking
you if it had ever happened that you’d had to give advice like that to any
mothers.
BORDEU
Of course I have.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
And what view did these mothers take?
BORDEU
All of them, without exception, chose
the good side, the sensible side . . . I wouldn’t raise my hat in the street to
the man suspected of practising my doctrine. It would be fine with me if people
called him despicable. But we are chatting without witnesses and without any
consequences, and I’ll tell you about my philosophy what a completely naked
Diogenes said to the young and prudish Athenian against whom he was intending
to compete in wrestling, “My son, don’t be afraid of anything. I’m not as bad
as that man over there.”
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE [covering
her eyes]
Doctor, I see where you are going, and
I bet you. . . .
BORDEU
I don’t bet. You’ll win. Yes,
Mademoiselle, that’s what I think.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
What! You don’t care whether people
confine their sexual activity to those like themselves or not?
BORDEU
That’s right.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
You really are a monster.
BORDEU
It’s not me—it’s either nature or
society. Listen, Mademoiselle. I don’t allow myself to be limited by the words
I use, and I explain myself all the more freely because I speak my mind and
because the well-known purity of my morals doesn’t expose me to criticism from
any quarter. So I’ll ask you this: if there are two
actions equally concerned with and limited to sexual pleasure, both of which
can give pleasure without utility, and if one of them gives pleasure only to
the person who does it and the other shares the pleasure with a similar being,
male or female, for here the gender of the participants or even the nature of
the sexual acts is irrelevant, what would common sense say in favour of one or
the other?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Questions like that are too lofty for
me.
BORDEU
Ah, after being a man for four
minutes, there you go taking up your wimple and petticoats again and becoming a
woman once more. Well, all right, then. We must treat you as such. . . . That’s that . . . No one says a word any more about
Madame du Barry(1). . . You see, everything works out. We thought that
the court would be thrown upside down. But the master has acted like a sensible
man: Omne tulit punctum [He’s
won every point]. He kept the woman who gives him pleasure and the
minister who’s useful to him . . . But you’re not listening to me . . . Where’s
your head been?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
I was thinking of those sexual
combinations which all seem to me to be all contrary to nature.
BORDEU
Everything which exists cannot be
either against nature or outside of nature, and I don’t even exclude chastity
and voluntary continence, which would be most important crimes against nature
if it was possible to sin against nature, and the most important crimes against
the social laws of a country where actions were weighed in some scale other
than fanaticism and prejudice.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
I come back to your accursed
syllogisms, and I don’t see any middle ground. One must either deny everything
or accept everything . . . But what about this, Doctor—the fairest and shortest
way would be to jump over the quagmire and to get back to my first question:
What do you think about inter-species breeding?
BORDEU
We don’t need to jump to get there—we
were already there. Now, is your question about physical science or morality?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
About science, physical science.
BORDEU
So much the better. The question of
morality comes first, and you have settled it. So then . . .
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
I agree . . . It’s undoubtedly what
has to come first, but I wanted . . . you to separate cause and effect. Let’s
leave the ugly cause out of it.
BORDEU
That’s asking me to begin at the
ending. But since that’s what you want, then I’ll tell you that, thanks to our
timidity, our aversions, our laws, and our prejudices, there have been very few
experiments tried, and we don’t know which sexual unions would be completely
sterile or cases where the useful would combine with the pleasant or what sort
of species we could expect from various prolonged attempts. We don't know whether fauns are real or fabulous, or whether we could
multiply the race of mules in a hundred different ways, or whether those we do
know about are truly sterile. But here’s a strange fact which countless
educated people will tell you is true but which is false, namely, that in the
poultry yard of the archduke they’ve seen a disgusting rabbit who used act as a
cock and service around twenty shameless hens who were happy with the
arrangement. The people will add that they have been shown some chickens
covered with fur, which were the products of this bestiality. You can be sure
they were ridiculed.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
But what do you mean by some
prolonged attempts?
BORDEU
I mean that the transitions from one
creature to another are gradual, that assimilations of beings need to be
prepared for, and that in order to succeed in these kinds of experiments, it
would be necessary to work for a long time at first bringing the animals closer
together by a similar diet.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
It would be difficult to reduce a
human being to grazing.
BORDEU
But not to drink goat’s milk
frequently, and we could easily lead the goat to feed on bread. I’ve chosen the
goat for my own particular reasons.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
What reasons?
BORDEU
You are being very bold! Well, the
reason is . . . it’s because from them we would derive a vigorous
race—intelligent, tireless, and quick. From them we could make excellent
household servants.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
A very good idea, Doctor. It seems to
me that I can already see behind our duchesses' carriages five or six large
insolent types with goats’ feet, and that makes me happy.
BORDEU
And we wouldn’t be degrading our
brothers any more by subjecting them to work unworthy of them and us.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Even better.
BORDEU
And in our colonies
we wouldn’t be reducing human beings any more to the condition of beasts of
burden.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Then quickly, Doctor, don’t waste any
time. Make us some goat-men.
BORDEU
And you’d allow that without any
scruples?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Just a moment—I’ve thought of one.
Your goat men would be dreadfully dissolute sexually.
BORDEU
I’m not guaranteeing that they’d have
good morals.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
There’d no longer be any safety for
decent women. They’d multiply without end. And in time we’d have to knock them
down or obey them. I don’t want them any more—no, no more. You can stop
worrying.
BORDEU [as
he goes to leave]
What about the question of their
baptism?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
That would make a fine fuss at the
Sorbonne.
BORDEU
Have you seen in the King’s Garden
zoo, in a glass cage, that orang-utang who
looks like a Saint John preaching in the desert?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Yes, I’ve seen it.
BORDEU
Well, Cardinal de Polignac said to it one day, “If you speak, I’ll
baptize you.”
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Good bye then, Doctor. Don’t neglect
us for ages, as you usually do, and remember sometimes that I love you madly.
If people only knew all these horror stories you’ve been telling me.
BORDEU
I’m very sure you’ll keep quiet about
them.
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
Don’t be too sure. I only listen for
the pleasure of repeating them. But one word more, and for the life of me I
won’t return to the subject.
BORDEU
What’s that?
MADEMOISELLE
DE L’ESPINASSE
What about these abominable tastes?
Where do they come from?
BORDEU
Always from some deficiency in the
organic structure of young people and a corruption of the minds of old men,
from the attractions of beauty in Athens, the shortage of women in Rome, and
the fear of the pox in Paris. Good bye, good bye.
ENDNOTE
(1) Madame du
Barry (1743-1793) was an official mistress of Louis XV, king of France. [Back to Text]