French-English translation by Holly Ronayne

predetermined and due to sequences of cause and effect. The novel has been likened to Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy for its meandering and comic narration style.

ENGLISH Jacques the Fatalist and his Master

translated by Holly Ronayne

Jacques knew neither the name of vice nor of virtue; he claimed that a person was fortunately or unfortunately born. Upon hearing spoken the words reward or retribution, he shrugged his shoulders. According to him, reward was the encouragement of the good; retribution, the wrath of the wicked. “Moreover”, he would say, “our destiny is written in the heavens, and so we have no freedom”. He believed that, by necessity, a man was brought to glory or disgrace, just as a self-aware ball follows the slope of a mountain; and that, if one knew of the link of cause and effect that shapes man’s life from birth to final breath, one would remain convinced that he did simply what was necessary to do.

I have contradicted it many times before, but to no avail. Indeed, what to reply to he who tells you: “regardless of the sum of my parts, I am an individual being. However, each cause has but one effect. I have always been but one cause, hence I have never had but one effect to produce; my life therefore is simply a series of necessary effects.” It is in this manner that Jacques reasoned with his captain. The distinction between a physical world and a moral world seemed senseless to him. It was his captain that had filled his head with all these opinions that he had drawn from the Spinoza that he knew by heart.

Following this system, one can imagine that Jacques neither rejoiced nor despaired of anything; not so. He behaved rather like you and I. He thanked his benefactor, so that he would still do good. He became angered at the iniquitous man; and when slighted he became like the dog that bites the stone that struck him: “Nay”, said he, “the stone bitten by the dog cannot be corrected; the unjust man is corrected by the baton”. Like anyone, he was often inconsistent, and inclined to forget his principles, except in certain circumstances when his philosophy evidently dominated him; it was then that he would say: “It had to be, for it was written in the heavens.”

CZECH Věštkyně (úlomky) by Karel Jaromír Erben

Když oko vaše slzou se zaleje, když na vás těžký padne čas, tehda přináším větvici naděje, tu se můj věští ozve hlas.

Nechtějte vážiti lehce řeči mojí, z nebeť přichází věští duch; zákon nezbytný ve všem světě stojí a vše tu svůj zaplatí dluh. Řeka si hledá konce svého v moři, plamen se k nebi temeni; co země stvoří, sama zase zboří: avšak nic nejde v zmaření.

Jisté a pevné jsou osudu kroky, co má se státi, stane se; a co den jeden v své pochová toky, druhý zas na svět vynese.

Viděla jsem muže na Bělině vodě, praotce slavných vojvodů, an za svým pluhem po dědině chodě, vzdělával země úrodu.

Tu přišli poslové od valného sněmu, a knížetem jest oráč zván, oblekli oděv zlatoskvoucí jemu, a nedoorán zůstal lán. “Prophetess” is the last poem in K.J. Erben’s collection Kytice (The Bouquet) published in 1853.