Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  My father followed Susannah, with nothing more than his breeches on, fastened through haste with but a single button, and that button only half in the button-hole.

  ‘She has not forgot the name?’ cried my father.

  ‘No, no,’ said the curate.

  ‘And the child is better,’ cried Susannah.

  ‘And how does your mistress?’

  ‘As well,’ said Susannah, ‘as can be expected.’

  ‘Pish!’ said my father, the button of his breeches slipping out of the button-hole. So whether that Pish was levelled at Susannah is a doubt, and must be a doubt till I have time to write the three following favourite chapters: that is, my chapter of chamber-maids, my chapter of Pishes, and my chapter of button-holes.

  All I can say at present is this, that as my father cried ‘Pish!’ he whisked himself about – and with his breeches held up by one hand, he turned along the gallery to bed, somewhat slower than he came.

  CHAPTER 15

  I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep.

  A fitter occasion could never have presented itself than this moment, when all the curtains are drawn – the candles put out – and no creature’s eyes are open but a single one, of my mother’s nurse.

  It is a fine subject!

  And yet, fine as it is, I would rather write a dozen chapters upon button-holes than a single chapter upon this. Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of ’em – and trust me, when I get amongst ’em – You gentry look as grave as you will – I’ll make merry work with my button-holes. I shall have ’em all to myself – ’tis a maiden subject – I shall run foul of no man’s fine sayings in it.

  But as for sleep – I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin. I am no dab hand at fine sayings in the first place, and in the next, I cannot for my soul look grave, and tell the world ’tis the refuge of the unfortunate – the freedom of the prisoner – the comfort of the hopeless and the weary; nor could I lie by affirming, that – of all the delicious functions of our nature, by which God, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompense the sufferings wherewith his justice has wearied us – that this is the chiefest (for I know pleasures worth ten of it); or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties of the day are over, and he lies back, with the heavens looking calm and sweet above him – no fear or doubt troubling him.

  ‘God’s blessing,’ said Sancho Panza, ‘be upon the man who first invented this thing called sleep – it covers a man like a cloak.’ Now this speaks warmer to my heart than all the dissertations squeezed out of the heads of the learned.

  Not that I altogether disapprove of what Montaigne says – ’tis admirable in its way; (I quote by memory):

  ‘The world enjoys other pleasures,’ says he, ‘as they do that of sleep, without feeling it as it slips by. We should ruminate upon it, in order to give proper thanks to him who grants it to us. I cause myself to be disturbed in my sleep, so that I may the better relish it. And yet I see few,’ says he, ‘who sleep less than me. I love to lie hard and alone, and even without my wife. This last may stagger the world – but remember, “La Vraisemblance n’est pas toujours du Côté de la Verité.”’ And so much for sleep.

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘If my wife will allow it, brother Toby, Trismegistus shall be dressed and brought down to us, whilst we are getting our breakfasts. Go fetch Susannah, Obadiah.’

  ‘She is run upstairs,’ answered Obadiah, ‘sobbing and crying as if her heart would break.’

  ‘We shall have a rare month of it,’ said my father wistfully, shaking his head: ‘We shall have a devilish month, brother Toby; fire, water, women, wind!’

  ‘’Tis some misfortune,’ quoth my uncle Toby.

  ‘That it is,’ cried my father, ‘to have so many jarring elements breaking loose in every corner of a gentleman’s house. Whilst you and I, brother Toby, possess ourselves, and sit here silent and unmoved, a storm is whistling over our heads. – And what’s the matter, Susannah?’

  ‘They have called the child Tristram – and my mistress is just got out of an hysteric fit about it – ’tis not my fault,’ said Susannah. ‘I told him it was Tristram-gistus.’

  ‘Make tea for yourself, brother Toby,’ said my father – but in a manner how different from agitation than a common reader would imagine!

  For he spake sweetly, and took down his hat with the genteelest movement.

  ‘Go to the bowling-green for corporal Trim,’ said my uncle Toby to Obadiah, as soon as my father left the room.

  CHAPTER 17

  When the misfortune of my Nose fell so heavily upon my father – the reader remembers that he walked upstairs, and cast himself upon his bed; and hence will expect the same movements from him, upon his misfortune of my Name: – no.

  The different weight, dear Sir – nay, even the different packaging of two vexations of the same weight – makes a very wide difference in our manner of bearing them. Only half an hour ago, in my hurry, I threw a fair page which I had just finished writing out, slap into the fire, instead of the foul one.

  Instantly I snatched off my wig, and threw it with all my force up to the ceiling – indeed I caught it as it fell – but there was an end of the matter. I do not think anything else in Nature would have given such immediate ease. She, dear Goddess, in provoking cases, thrusts us into this or that posture, we know not why – but we live amongst riddles and mysteries; though we cannot reason upon it – yet we benefit from it – and that’s enough.

  Now, my father could not lie down with this affliction – nor could he carry it upstairs like the other. He walked composedly out with it to the fish-pond.

  Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and reasoned an hour which way to go, reason would not have directed him there: but there is something, Sir, so unaccountably becalming in an orderly and sober walk towards a fish-pond, that I have often wondered that neither Pythagoras, nor Plato, nor Solon, nor Lycurgus, nor Mahomet, nor any of your noted lawgivers, ever gave orders about them.

  CHAPTER 18

  ‘Your honour,’ said Trim, shutting the parlour-door, ‘has heard, I imagine, of the unlucky accident?’

  ‘O yes, Trim,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘and it gives me great concern.’

  ‘I am heartily concerned too,’ replied Trim, ‘but I hope your honour will believe that it was not in the least owing to me.’

  ‘To thee, Trim?’ cried my uncle Toby kindly. ‘’Twas Susannah’s and the curate’s folly betwixt them.’

  ‘What business could they have together in the garden?’

  ‘In the gallery, thou meanest,’ replied my uncle.

  Trim found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped short. Two misfortunes, quoth he to himself, are twice as many as are needed now; – the mischief the cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, may be told to his honour later.

  My uncle Toby, free of all suspicion, went on:

  ‘For my own part, Trim, I can see little difference betwixt my nephew’s being called Tristram or Trismegistus – though as it sits so near my brother’s heart, I would have given a hundred pounds for it not to have happened.’

  ‘A hundred pounds, your honour!’ replied Trim. ‘I would not give a cherry-stone.’

  ‘Nor would I, Trim, upon my own account; but my brother, whom there is no arguing with in this case, maintains that a great deal depends upon christian-names – and he says there never was an heroic action performed by one called Tristram. He holds that a Tristram cannot be learned, wise, or brave.’

  ‘’Tis all fancy, your honour – I fought just as well,’ replied the corporal, ‘when the regiment called me Trim, as when they called me James Butler.’

  ‘For my own part,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘though I should blush to boast, Trim – yet had my name been Alexander, I could have done no more at Namur than my duty.’

  ‘Bless your honour!’ cried Trim, ‘does a man think of his christian-name when he goes upon the attack?’

  ‘Or when he
stands in the trench, Trim?’ cried my uncle.

  ‘Or when he enters a breach?’ said Trim, pushing between two chairs.

  ‘Or forces the lines?’ said my uncle, rising up.

  ‘Or faces a platoon?’ cried Trim, raising his stick.

  ‘Or when he marches up the glacis?’ cried my uncle Toby warmly, as he set his foot upon the stool.

  CHAPTER 19

  My father returned from his walk to the fish-pond, and opened the parlour-door just as my uncle Toby was marching up the glacis. Never in his life was my uncle Toby caught riding at such a desperate rate! Alas! my uncle Toby! had not a weightier matter called forth my father’s eloquence – how would thy poor Hobby-Horse then have been insulted!

  My father hung up his hat, and after glancing at the disorder of the room, he took one of the chairs which had formed the corporal’s breach, and sat down in it. As soon as the tea-things were taken away, and the door shut, he broke out in a lamentation.

  MY FATHER’S LAMENTATION

  ‘It is in vain,’ said my father, ‘to struggle any longer against this most uncomfortable idea. I see plainly, that either for my own sins, brother Toby, or for the sins and follies of the Shandy family, Heaven has arrayed its heaviest artillery against me; and its force is directed against the prosperity of my child.’

  ‘Such a thing would batter the universe about our ears, brother Shandy,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘if it was so.’

  ‘Unhappy Tristram: child of wrath! mistake! and discontent! What misfortune in the book of embryonic evils, has not fallen upon thy head, ever since thou camest into the world, in the decline of thy father’s days – ’tis pitiful, brother Toby. How were we defeated! You know the event – ’tis too melancholy a one to be repeated now – when the few animal spirits I had, with which memory, imagination, and quick wits should have been conveyed to my son – were all dispersed, confused, and sent to the devil.

  ‘Here was the time to have tried an experiment – whether serenity of mind in my wife, with a due attention, brother Toby, to her evacuations and repletions, might not, during nine months gestation, have set all things to rights. My child was bereft of these! What a teazing life did she lead herself, and consequently her foetus too, with that nonsensical anxiety about lying-in in town?’

  ‘I thought my sister in law submitted with the greatest patience,’ replied my uncle Toby. ‘I never heard her utter one fretful word about it.’

  ‘She fumed inwardly,’ cried my father; ‘and that, let me tell you, was ten times worse for the child. – And then! what battles did she fight with me about the midwife!’

  ‘There she gave vent,’ said my uncle Toby.

  ‘Vent!’ cried my father. ‘But what was all this, my dear Toby, to the injuries done by my child’s coming head foremost into the world, when all I wished was to have saved this little casket unbroke. – With all my precautions, my system was turned topside-turvy in the womb! his head exposed to the hand of violence, and a pressure of 470 pounds avoirdupois acting so upon its apex – ’tis ninety per cent likely that the fine net-work of the intellectual web was torn to a thousand tatters.

  ‘Still we could have done,’ he went on. ‘Be he a fool, a cripple – give him but a Nose and the door of fortune stands open. There Fate has done her worst. Yet still, brother Toby, there was one cast of the dice left for our child. O Tristram! Tristram! Tristram!’

  ‘We will send for Mr. Yorick,’ said my uncle Toby.

  ‘You may send for whom you will,’ replied my father.

  CHAPTER 20

  What a rate have I gone on at, frisking it away for four volumes, without looking once behind, to see whom I trod upon!

  ‘I’ll tread upon no one,’ quoth I to myself when I mounted – ‘I’ll take a good rattling gallop; but I’ll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the road.’

  So off I set – up one lane – down another, through this turnpike – over that, as if the champion jockeys were behind me.

  Now if you ride at this rate, however good your intention – ’tis a million to one you’ll do some one a mischief, if not yourself. – He’s been flung off – he’s lost his hat – he’ll break his neck – see! if he has not galloped full among the scaffolding of the critics! He’ll knock his brains out against their posts – he’s bounced out! – look – he’s riding like a mad-cap full tilt through a crowd of painters, poets, physicians, lawyers, churchmen, statesmen, soldiers, prelates, popes, and engineers.

  ‘Don’t fear,’ said I, ‘I’ll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the road.’

  ‘But your horse throws dirt; see, you’ve splashed a bishop!’

  ‘I hope to God, ’twas only Ernulphus,’ said I.

  ‘But you’ve squirted full in the faces of the doctors of the Sorbonne!’

  ‘That was last year,’ replied I.

  ‘But you have just trod upon a king!’

  ‘I deny it,’ quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my bridle in one hand, and my cap in the other, to tell my story.

  And what is it? You shall hear in the next chapter.

  CHAPTER 21

  As Francis the first of France was one winterly night warming himself over the fire, and talking with his first minister –

  ‘It would not be amiss,’ said the king, stirring up the embers with his cane, ‘if this good understanding betwixt ourselves and Switzerland was strengthened.’

  ‘There is no end in giving money to them, Sire,’ replied the minister; ‘they would swallow up the treasury of France.’

  ‘Poo! poo!’ answered the king. ‘There are more ways of bribing states than giving money. I’ll pay Switzerland the honour of being godfather to my next child.’

  ‘Your majesty,’ said the minister, ‘you’d have all the grammarians in Europe upon your back; Switzerland, as a republic, being female, cannot be a godfather.’

  ‘She may be godmother,’ replied Francis – ‘so announce my intentions by a courier tomorrow.’

  ‘I am astonished,’ said Francis a fortnight later, to his minister, ‘that we have had no answer from Switzerland.’

  ‘Sire, I have this moment brought you their reply.’

  ‘They take it kindly?’ said the king.

  ‘They do, Sire, and have the highest sense of the honour your majesty has done them – but the republic, as godmother, claims her right of naming the child.’

  ‘Probably,’ quoth the king, ‘she will christen him Francis, or Henry, or some name that she knows will be agreeable to us.’

  ‘Your majesty is deceived,’ replied the minister. ‘I have received a message from our ambassador, with the republic’s decision on that point.’

  ‘And what name has the republic fixed upon for the prince?’

  ‘Shadrach, Meshech, Abed-nego,’ replied the minister.

  ‘By Saint Peter’s girdle, I will have nothing to do with the Swiss,’ cried Francis. ‘We’ll pay them off.’

  ‘Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury.’

  ‘I’ll pawn the best jewel in my crown,’ quoth Francis.

  ‘Your honour stands pawned already in this matter.’

  ‘Then, Monsieur,’ said the king, ‘by ___, we’ll go to war with ’em.’

  CHAPTER 22

  Although, gentle reader, I have endeavoured carefully (with such slender skill as God has given me,) that these little books which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead of many bigger books – yet I have been so fanciful and careless, that I am ashamed, and assure thee that I have no thoughts of treading upon Francis the First. Nor, in the character of my uncle Toby, do I mean to characterize the military of my country – and by Trim, I do not mean the duke of Ormond – and if my book is wrote against free-will, or taxes, or any thing – ’tis wrote, your worships, against the spleen! – in order, by convulsive movements of the diaphragm, and the shaking of the abdominal muscles in laughter, to drive the gall and other bitter juices from the organs of his majesty’s subje
cts, down into their duodenums.

  CHAPTER 23

  ‘But can the thing be undone, Yorick?’ said my father.

  ‘I am vile at canon law,’ replied Yorick, ‘but we shall at least know the worst of this matter.’

  ‘I hate these great dinners,’ said my father.

  ‘The size of the dinner is not the point,’ answered Yorick. ‘We want, Mr. Shandy, to dive into the bottom of this doubt, whether the name can be changed or not – and as so many officials, advocates, proctors, and school-divines are all to meet at one table, and Didius has invited you – who, in your distress, would miss such an occasion? All that you need to do is to ask Didius to manage a conversation after dinner so as to introduce the subject.’

  ‘Then my brother Toby shall go with us,’ cried my father.

  ‘Let my old tie-wig,’ quoth my uncle Toby, ‘and my laced regimentals, be hung by the fire all night, Trim.’

  CHAPTER 25

  – No doubt, Sir – there is a whole chapter (number 24) missing here – and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it – but the bookbinder is neither a fool, or a knave, nor is the book a jot more imperfect – but, on the contrary, is more perfect by missing the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate.

  – I question, by the bye, whether the same experiment might not be made successfully upon various other chapters – but there is no end in trying experiments upon chapters – so enough.

  But before I begin my demonstration, let me just tell you, that the chapter which I have torn out, and which otherwise you would be reading now, was the description of my father’s, my uncle Toby’s, Trim’s, and Obadiah’s setting out and journeying to the visit at ****.

  ‘We’ll go in the coach,’ said my father – ‘Prithee, has the coat of arms been altered, Obadiah?’

  It would have made my story much better to have begun with telling you that at the time my mother’s heraldic arms were added to the Shandy’s, when the coach was re-painted upon their marriage, it had so happened that the coach-painter – whether by painting all his works with the left-hand, like Hans Holbein – or whether ’twas a blunder – or the sinister turn which everything relating to our family was apt to take – it happened that, instead of the bend-dexter, which since Harry the Eighth’s reign was honestly our due, a bend-sinister, the emblem of a child born out of wedlock, had been drawn across the field of the Shandy coat of arms.