Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  Whilst the unlearned were all thus busy in getting down to the bottom of the well where Truth lived – the learned were as busy in pumping her up through the channel of argument. They concerned themselves not with facts – they reasoned.

  The Faculty had thrown most light upon this subject – except that all their disputes about it ran into the matter of growths and oedematous swellings: they could not keep clear of them – and the stranger’s nose had nothing to do with either.

  It was proved, however, very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous mass of matter could not be conglomerated to the nose whilst the infant was in Utero, without destroying the balance of the foetus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine months before its time.

  The opponents granted the theory – but denied the consequences.

  And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, &c., said they, was not laid in for the nourishment of such a nose from the start, before it came into the world, it could not grow afterwards.

  This was answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect which it had in increasing and prolonging the muscular parts. In the triumph of this theory, they even affirmed that there was no reason why a nose might not grow to the size of the man himself.

  The respondents said this could never happen so long: for a mun’s lungs and heart could produce only enough blood for one single man, and no more; so that, if there was as much nose as man, a mortification must necessarily follow: and either the nose must fall off the man, or the man must fall off his nose.

  The more curious inquirers after nature and her doings were divided about the nose. They theorised that there was a set arrangement of the human frame, which could not be transgressed except within a certain circle; but they could not agree about the diameter of it.

  The logicians stuck much closer to the point: they began and ended with the word Nose.

  A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood circulating in it to supply the drops. Now death being nothing but the stagnation of the blood – I deny the definition, said his antagonist: death is the separation of the soul from the body. Then we don’t agree about our weapons, said the logician. Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the antagonist.

  The civilians were still more concise. Such a monstrous nose, said they, if it was a true nose, could not possibly have been allowed in civil society – and if it was false, to impose upon society in this way was a still greater violation of its rights.

  However, this did not prove whether the stranger’s nose was true or false.

  So the controversy went on. The ecclesiastic court said that there was nothing to stop a decree, since the stranger had confessed he had been at the Promontory of Noses, and had got one of the goodliest. To this it was answered, it was impossible there should be such a place as the Promontory of Noses, without learned men knowing about it. The commissary of the bishop of Strasburg explained in a treatise that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorical expression, meaning only that nature had given him a long nose: in proof of which, he cited some two dozen authorities.

  It happened that the two universities of Strasburg – the Lutheran, founded in 1538 by Jacobus Surmis, and the Popish, founded by Leopold, arch-duke of Austria, – were at this time employing all their knowledge (except what was required by the affair of the abbess of Quedlingberg’s placket-holes) in determining the point of Martin Luther’s damnation.

  The Popish doctors had undertaken to demonstrate that from the influence of the planets on 22nd October 1483, when the moon was in the twelfth house, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus in the third, and the Sun, Saturn and Mercury in the fourth – that he must unavoidably be a damned man – and that his doctrines therefore were damned too.

  By inspecting his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all at once with Scorpio (in reading this my father would always shake his head) in the ninth house, which the Arabians allotted to religion – it appeared that Martin Luther did not care one penny about the matter – and from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars, they made it plain he must die cursing and blaspheming, with his soul, steeped in guilt, being sent to the lake of hell-fire.

  The objection of the Lutheran doctors to this, was that it must certainly be the soul of another man, born on 22nd October 1483, which was damned – for it appeared from the register of Islaben, that Luther was not born in 1483, but in 1484; and not on 22d October, but on 10th November, the eve of Martinmas day, from whence he had the name of Martin.

  [I must break off for a moment, to tell the reader that my father never read this passage of Slawkenbergius to my uncle Toby without triumph – not over my uncle Toby, but over the whole world.

  ‘Now you see, brother,’ he would say, ‘that christian names are not such indifferent things; had Luther here been called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damned to all eternity. Not that I look upon Martin as a good name – ’tis only a little better than neutral – yet you see it was of service to him.’

  Although my father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, he could not help using it; and it was certainly for this reason that there was no other story in Slawkenbergius which my father read over with half the delight. It flattered two of his strangest hypotheses together – his Names and his Noses. He might have read all the books in the Alexandrian Library without finding one which hit these two nails upon the head at one stroke.]

  The universities of Strasburg were hard tugging at this affair of Luther’s destination, and might have gone on with it, had not the size of the stranger’s nose drawn off the attention of the world. – it was their business to follow.

  As for the abbess of Quedlingberg and her dignitaries, the enormity of the stranger’s nose was running so much in their fancies that the affair of their placket-holes was cold..

  ’Twas impossible to have guessed on which side of the nose the two universities would split.

  ‘’Tis above reason,’ cried the doctors on one side.

  ‘’Tis below reason,’ cried the others.

  ‘’Tis faith,’ cried one.

  ‘’Tis a fiddle-stick,’ said the other.

  ‘’Tis possible.’

  ‘’Tis impossible.’

  ‘God’s power is infinite,’ cried the Nosarians. ‘He can make matter think.’

  ‘As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear,’ replied the Antinosarians.

  ‘Infinite power is infinite power.’

  ‘It extends only to possible things,’ replied the Lutherans.

  ‘By God in heaven,’ cried the Popish doctors, ‘he can make a nose, if he thinks fit, as big as the steeple of Strasburg.’

  Now the steeple of Strasburg being the tallest church-steeple in the whole world, the Antinosarians denied that a nose of 575 feet in length could be worn, at least by a middle-sized man. The Popish doctors swore it could. The Lutheran doctors said No; it could not.

  This at once started a new dispute upon the extent and limitation of the attributes of God. That led them naturally to Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Aquinas to the devil.

  The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute.

  The controversy inflamed the Strasburgers’ imaginations to a vast degree. The less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it. Their doctors had argued themselves out of sight, and left the poor Strasburgers stranded!

  What was to be done? The uproar increased – the city gates were set open.

  Unfortunate Strasburgers! – they neither ate, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls of religion or nature for seven-and-twenty days together.

  On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to Strasburg.

  Seven thousand coaches (Slawkenbergius must certainly have made some mistake in his numbers) – 15,000 single-horse chairs – 20,000 waggons, crowded as full as they could hold with senators, counsellors, widows, wives, virgins, canons, and concubines – the ab
bess of Quedlingberg leading the procession in one coach, and the dean of Strasburg on her left – the rest following higglety-pigglety, some on horseback, some on foot, some down the Rhine – all set out at sun-rise to meet the courteous stranger on the road.

  Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale. I say Catastrophe (cries Slawkenbergius) inasmuch as a tale not only rejoiceth in the Catastrophe and Peripetia of a Drama, but moreover in all the essential parts of it – its Protasis, Epitasis, Catastasis: all growing one out of the other, in the order Aristotle first planted them – without which a tale had better never be told at all. In all my ten decads, I, Slawkenbergius, have tied down every tale tightly to this rule.

  From the stranger’s first speech with the sentinel, to his leaving the city of Strasburg after pulling off his crimson-satin pair of breeches, is the Protasis or first entrance – where the characters are just touched in, and the subject begun.

  The Epitasis, wherein the action is more fully entered upon, till it arrives at its height called the Catastasis, and which usually takes up the 2nd and 3rd act, is included within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night’s uproar about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter’s wife’s lectures upon it: and from the first dispute of the learned to the doctors finally leaving the Strasburgers stranded, is the Catastasis or the ripening of events for their bursting forth in the fifth act.

  This begins with the setting out of the Strasburgers in the Frankfort road, and ends in unwinding the labyrinth and bringing the hero out of agitation (as Aristotle calls it) to a state of rest and quietness.

  This, says Hafen Slawkenbergius, constitutes the Catastrophe or Peripetia of my tale – which I am going to relate.

  We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep – he enters now upon the stage.

  ‘What dost thou prick up thy ears at? ’tis nothing but a man upon a horse,’ was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. The mule let the traveller and his horse pass by.

  This traveller was hastening to get to Strasburg. ‘What a fool am I,’ said he, when he had rode about a league farther, ‘to think of getting into Strasburg this night. The great Strasburg! garrisoned with five thousand of the best troops in the world! Alas! if I was at its gates this moment, I could not gain admittance – better go back to the last inn I have passed.’ The traveller turned his horse, and three minutes after the stranger had been conducted into his chamber, he arrived at the same inn.

  ‘We have bacon in the house,’ said the host, ‘and bread – and till eleven o’clock tonight we had three eggs – but a stranger, who arrived an hour ago, has had them in an omelette.’

  ‘I want nothing but a bed,’ said the traveller.

  ‘I have one as soft as in all Alsatia,’ said the host. ‘The stranger would have slept in it, for ’tis my best bed, were it not for his nose.’

  ‘He has got a cold?’ said the traveller.

  ‘No – but ’tis a camp-bed, and our maid Jacinta imagined there was not room in it to turn his nose in, it is so long a nose.’

  The traveller fixed his eyes upon Jacinta. ‘Trifle not with my anxiety,’ said he.

  ‘’Tis no trifle,’ said Jacinta, ‘’tis the most glorious nose!’

  The traveller fell upon his knees, and said, looking up to heaven, ‘Thou hast conducted me to the end of my pilgrimage. – ’Tis Diego.’

  This traveller was the brother of the Julia so often invoked that night by the stranger as he rode; and was come, on her behalf, in quest of him. He had accompanied his sister from Valadolid across the Pyrenean mountains and through France, along the many meanders of a lover’s thorny tracks.

  Julia had sunk under the journey, and at Lyons had sickened, but had just strength to write a tender letter to Diego; and having put the letter into her brother’s hands, she took to her bed.

  Fernandez (for that was her brother’s name) could not shut his eyes that night. At dawn he rose, and hearing Diego was risen too, he entered his chamber, and handed over his sister’s letter.

  It was as follows:

  ‘Seig. Diego,

  ‘Whether my suspicions of your nose were just – ’tis not the time to inquire – it is enough I have not had firmness to put them to farther trial.

  ‘How could I know myself so little, when I sent my Duenna to forbid your coming to my house? or how could I know you so little, Diego, as to imagine you would not have stayed one day in Valadolid to have eased my doubts? Was I to be abandoned, Diego, because I was deceived? or was it kind to take me at my word, whether my suspicions were just or no, and leave me, as you did, a prey to uncertainty and sorrow?

  ‘My brother will tell you how soon Julia repented of the rash message she had sent you – in what frantic haste she flew to her window, and how many days and nights she stayed there, looking towards the way which Diego was wont to come.

  ‘He will tell you how, when Julia heard of your departure, her spirits deserted her – her heart sickened. O Diego! how many weary steps has my brother led me trying to trace out yours; how oft have I fainted by the way, and sunk into his arms, with only power to cry out – O my Diego!

  ‘If you are as noble as you look, you will fly to me, almost as fast as you fled from me – yet you will arrive but to see me expire. ’Tis a bitter draught, Diego, but oh! ’tis embittered still more by dying un___’

  Her strength gave out, and she could proceed no farther.

  The heart of the courteous Diego overflowed as he read – he ordered his mule to be saddled forthwith; and as no prose is equal to poetry in such conflicts, whilst the ostler was getting ready his mule, Diego eased his mind by writing on the wall in charcoal:

  ODE

  Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love,

  Unless my Julia strikes the key,

  Her hand alone can touch the part,

  Whose dulcet movement charms the heart,

  And governs all the man with sympathetic sway.

  ’Tis a pity there was no more; but whether Diego was slow in composing verses – or the ostler quick in saddling mules – certainly, the mule and Fernandez’s horse were ready at the door before Diego was ready for his second stanza.

  So they sallied forth, passed the Rhine, traversed Alsace, rode towards Lyons, and before the Strasburgers had set out on their cavalcade, Fernandez, Diego, and his Julia, had crossed the Pyrenean mountains, and got safe to Valadolid.

  Of all restless desires, curiosity is the strongest – and the Strasburgers felt the full force of it; for three days and nights they were tossed to and fro in the Frankfort road with the tempestuous fury of this passion, before they could bear to return home. When alas! an event was prepared for them, the most grievous that could befall a free people.

  As this revolution of the Strasburgers’ affairs is often spoken of, and little understood, I will, in ten words, says Slawkenbergius, give the world an explanation, and finish my tale.

  Everybody knows of the grand system of Universal Monarchy, written in France in the year 1664.

  One branch of that system, was to get possession of Strasburg, in order to disturb the quiet of Germany – and in consequence, Strasburg unhappily fell into French hands.

  In tracing the true springs of such revolutions – the vulgar look too high for them – statesmen look too low – Truth (for once) lies in the middle.

  What a fatal thing is the pride of a free city! cries one historian. The Strasburgers were too proud to receive an imperial garrison – so fell prey to a French one.

  Another says, The Strasburgers’ fate may be a warning to all free people to save their money. They used up their resources, and in the end had not strength to keep their gates shut, and so the French pushed them open.

  Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius, ’twas not the French; ’twas Curiosity pushed them open. When they saw the Strasburgers all marched out to follow the stranger’s nose – the French marched in.

  Trade has decayed ever since, only because Noses have alway
s so run in their heads, that the Strasburgers could not follow their business.

  Alas! cries Slawkenbergius; it is not the first – and I fear will not be the last fortress that has been either won – or lost – by Noses.

  The End Of Slawkenbergius’s Tale

  CHAPTER 1

  With all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s fancy – with so many family prejudices – ten decads of such tales – how could a man with such exquisite feelings as my father bear the shock in any other posture, but the very one I have described?

  Throw yourself down upon the bed – only place a looking-glass in a chair beside it, before you do–

  – But was the stranger’s nose a true nose, or a false one?

  To tell that before-hand, madam, would spoil one of the best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth decad, which immediately follows it.

  This tale, cried Slawkenbergius, somewhat exultingly, has been reserved by me for the conclusion of my whole work, as I know of no tale which could possibly ever go down after it.

  ’Tis a tale indeed!

  It starts with the first interview in the inn at Lyons, when Fernandez left the courteous stranger and his sister Julia alone in her chamber, and is titled

  THE INTRICACIES OF DIEGO AND JULIA

  Heavens! thou art a strange creature, Slawkenbergius! what a whimsical view of the heart of woman hast thou opened! How this can ever be translated into good English, I have no idea. There seems a sixth sense needed to do it rightly. What can he mean by ‘the lambent pupilability of slow, low, dry chat, five notes below the natural tone’ – which you know, madam, is little more than a whisper?

  The moment I pronounced the words, I felt something like a vibration in the heart-strings. – The brain made no acknowledgment. There’s often no good understanding betwixt ’em. – I’m lost. I can make nothing of it – unless the voice being little more than a whisper, it forces the eyes to approach within six inches of each other – and to look into the pupils – is not that dangerous? But it can’t be avoided – for if they look up to the ceiling, the two chins unavoidably meet – and if they look down into each other’s lap, the foreheads contact, which at once puts an end to the sentimental part of the conference. – What is left, madam, is not worth stooping for.