Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous liberty in arguing, but what Nazianzen cried out to Philagrius–

  ‘O fine reasoning, Sir! when you philosophize in your moods and passions.’

  Nor should I stop to inquire whether love is a disease, or embroil myself with Rhasis and Dioscorides, whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver; because this would lead me on to an examination of the two opposite manners in which patients have been treated – the one, of Aertius, who always began with a cooling dressing of hempseed and bruised cucumbers, followed with thin potations of water-lilies and purslane – to which he added a pinch of snuff of the herb Hanea.

  – The other, that of Gordonius (in Ch. 15 of De Amore), who directs they should be thrashed ad putorem usque – till they stink again.

  My father, who had a great stock of knowledge of this kind, was very busy with the progress of my uncle Toby’s affairs: from his theories of love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby’s mind, almost as much as his amours themselves) – he put one into practice; and by means of a camphorated waxed cloth to allay lust, which he imposed upon the tailor whilst he was making my uncle Toby a new pair of breeches, he produced Gordonius’s effect upon my uncle Toby without the disgrace.

  What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that needs to be added is this – that whatever effect the camphorated cloth had upon my uncle Toby, it had a vile effect upon the house; and if my uncle Toby had not swathed it in smoke, it might have had a vile effect upon my father too.

  CHAPTER 37

  All I ask is that I am not obliged to give a definition of love, so long as I can go on with my story using the word with its common meaning.

  When I find myself entangled in this mystic labyrinth, my Opinion will then come in, of course, and lead me out.

  At present, I hope I shall be understood in telling the reader my uncle Toby fell in love.

  – Not that the phrase is at all to my liking: for to say a man is fallen in love, or is deeply in love, or up to the ears in love, carries the implication that love is a thing below a man: this is returning again to Plato’s damnable opinion.

  Let love be what it will – my uncle Toby fell into it.

  And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation, so wouldst thou: for never did thy eyes behold anything more desirable than widow Wadman.

  CHAPTER 38

  To imagine this right, call for pen and ink – here’s paper ready to your hand. Sit down, Sir, and paint her as like your mistress as you can – as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you – ’tis all one to me – please your own fancy.

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  Was ever any thing in Nature so sweet! so exquisite!

  How could my uncle Toby resist?

  Thrice happy book! thou wilt have this one page, at least, which Malice will not blacken, and which Ignorance cannot misrepresent.

  CHAPTER 39

  As Susannah was informed by Mrs. Bridget of my uncle Toby’s falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it happened – which Susannah then told my mother the next day – it has given me an opportunity of entering upon my uncle Toby’s amours a fortnight before their existence.

  ‘I have some news to tell you, Mr. Shandy,’ quoth my mother, ‘which will surprise you greatly.’

  Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was musing about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother spoke.

  ‘Our brother Toby is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.’

  ‘Then he will never again,’ quoth my father, ‘be able to lie diagonally in his bed as long as he lives.’

  It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.

  ‘She is not a woman of science,’ my father would say – ‘but she might ask a question.’

  My mother never did. She went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still. My father had officiously told her a thousand times which way it was, but she always forgot.

  For these reasons, a discourse between them seldom went on much further than a proposition, a reply, and a rejoinder; after which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again.

  ‘If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us,’ quoth my mother.

  ‘Not much,’ said my father; ‘he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else.’

  ‘To be sure,’ said my mother: so here ended the proposition, the reply and the rejoinder.

  ‘It will be some amusement to him, too,’ said my father.

  ‘A very great one,’ answered my mother, ‘if he should have children.’

  ‘Lord have mercy upon me,’ said my father to himself. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.

  CHAPTER 40

  I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and have no doubt that I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby’s story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now,

  These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes. In the fifth volume I have been very good, – the precise line I have described in it being this:

  By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A, where I took a trip to Navarre, and B, which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page, I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse’s devils led me the round you see marked D. As for c c c c c, they are nothing but parentheses, and the ins and outs common to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with my transgressions at the letters A B D – they vanish into nothing.

  In this last volume I have done better still – for from the end of Le Fever’s episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby’s campaigns, I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way.

  If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible that I may arrive at the excellency of going on even thus:

  which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, with a ruler, turning neither to the right nor left.

  This line – the path-way for Christians to walk in! say divines–

  – The emblem of moral rectitude! says Cicero–

  – The best line! say cabbage planters – is the shortest line, says Archimedes, which can be drawn from one point to another.

  What a journey!

  Pray can you tell me, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight lines – by what mistake it has come to pass, that your men of genius have all along confounded this line with the line of Gravitation?

  BOOK 7

  CHAPTER 1

  No – I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which then tormented me, and which I dread worse than the devil, would allow me – and in another place (but where, I can’t recollect now) I swore it should be kept going at that rate these forty years, if I were blessed so long with health and good spirits.

  Now as for my spirits, apart from playing the fool with me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, I have much to thank ’em for. Cheerily have ye made me tread the path of life with all its burdens upon my back; ye have never once deserted me. In dangers ye gilded my horizon with hope, and when Death himself knocked at my door – ye bade him come again, in so gay and careless a tone that he doubted his mission–

  ‘There must certainly be some mistake,’ quoth he.

  Now there is nothing in this world I hate worse, than to be interrupted in a story – and I was that moment telling Eugenius a most tawdry one, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, and of a monk damned for eating a mussel, and was showing him
the justice of the procedure–

  ‘Did ever so grave a person get into so vile a scrape?’ quoth Death.

  ‘Thou hast had a narrow escape, Tristram,’ said Eugenius, taking my hand as I finished my story.

  ‘But there is no living, Eugenius,’ replied I, ‘now that this son of a whore has found out my lodgings. I have forty volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which nobody in the world will say and do for me; and as thou seest, Death has got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak). As I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better, whilst these two spider legs of mine are able to support me – had I not better fly for my life?’

  ‘’Tis my advice, my dear Tristram,’ said Eugenius.

  ‘Then by heaven! I will lead him a dance – for I will gallop to the banks of the Garonne,’ quoth I, ‘and if I hear him clattering at my heels I’ll scamper away to Mount Vesuvius, and from there to the world’s end. If he follows me, I pray God he may break his neck.’

  ‘He runs more risk there,’ said Eugenius, ‘than thou.’

  Eugenius’s wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it had been some months banished. – ’Twas a vile moment to bid adieu; he led me to my chaise.

  ‘Allons!’ said I; the postboy cracked his whip – off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into Dover.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘Now hang it!’ quoth I, as I looked towards the French coast – ‘a man should know something of his own country before he goes abroad – and I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or Chatham Dock, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all lay in my way.’

  – But mine, indeed, is a particular case –

  So without arguing further, I skipped into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like the wind.

  ‘Pray, captain,’ quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, ‘is a man never overtaken by Death in this crossing?’

  ‘Why, there is not time for a man to be sick,’ replied he.

  ‘What a cursed liar! for I am sick as a horse already,’ quoth I. ‘What a brain! – upside down! hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into another, and the blood, and lymph, and nervous juices are all jumbled into one mass – everything turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools–

  ‘Sick! sick! sick! sick!

  ‘When shall we get to land, captain? – they have hearts like stones – O I am deadly sick! reach me that thing, boy – I wish I was at the bottom – Madam! how is it with you? Undone! undone! – What, the first time? – No, ’tis the second, third, sixth, tenth time, sir – hey-day! what a trampling over head! Hallo! cabin boy! what’s the matter?’

  The wind chopped about! s’Death! – then I shall meet him full in the face.

  What luck! ‘’Tis chopped about again, master.’

  ‘O the devil chop it–’

  ‘Captain,’ quoth she, ‘for heaven’s sake, let us get ashore.’

  CHAPTER 3

  It is a great inconvenience to a man in a hurry, that there are three distinct roads between Calais and Paris, and there is so much to be said about them by the deputies from the towns which lie along them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you’ll take.

  First, the road by Lisle and Arras, which is the most round-about – but most interesting.

  The second, that by Amiens, which you may go if you would see Chantilly.

  And that by Beauvais, which you may go if you wish.

  For this reason a great many choose to go by Beauvais.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘Now before I leave Calais,’ a travel-writer would say, ‘it would not be amiss to give some account of it.’

  Now I think it very much amiss that a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it does not meddle with him; but he must be taking out his pen at every kennel he crosses over, for the sake of describing it. If we may judge from what has been wrote of these things, by all who have wrote and galloped – or who have galloped and wrote – or who have wrote galloping, which is the way I do – from the great Addison, who did it with his satchel of school books hanging at his a___, there is not a galloper of us all who might not have gone on ambling quietly in his own ground, and have wrote all he had to write there.

  For my own part, as heaven is my judge – I know no more of Calais (except the little my barber told me of it as he was sharpening his razor), than I do of Cairo; for it was dusky evening when I landed, and as dark as pitch in the morning when I set out. Yet by merely knowing what is what, and by putting this and that together, I would lay odds that I could this moment write a chapter upon Calais as long as my arm; and with such distinct and satisfactory detail that you would take me for the town-clerk himself.

  – It should be penned moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and good sense, and truth, and precision–

  – Nay – if you don’t believe me, you may read the chapter.

  CHAPTER 5

  Calais, Calatium, Calusium, Calesium.

  This town, if we may trust its archives, was once a small village belonging to the Count de Guignes; and as it now boasts fourteen thousand inhabitants, as well as four hundred and twenty families in the suburbs, it must have grown up little by little, I suppose, to its present size.

  Though there are four convents, there is but one parish church in the whole town; I had not an opportunity of taking its dimensions, but it is pretty easy to make a guess at ’em – for as there are fourteen thousand inhabitants in the town, if the church holds them all it must be considerably large – and if it will not, ’tis a pity they have not another. It is built in the form of a cross, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary; the steeple, which has a spire, is in the middle of the church, and stands upon four pillars elegant and light enough, but also strong. It is decorated with eleven altars, fine rather than beautiful. The great altar is a masterpiece in its kind; ’tis of white marble, and, I was told, near sixty feet high.

  There was nothing struck me more than the great Square, tho’ I cannot say ’tis either well paved or well built; but ’tis in the heart of the town, and most of the streets around there terminate in it. Could there have been a fountain, which it seems there cannot, it would have doubtless been a great ornament in the centre of this square, – not that it is properly a square, because ’tis forty feet longer from east to west, than from north to south; so that the French are right to call them Places rather than Squares, which, strictly speaking, they are not.

  The town-hall seems to be but a sorry building, and not in the best repair; however it serves very well for the magistrates, who assemble in it from time to time to distribute justice.

  Although I have heard much of it, there is nothing at all curious in the Courgain; ’tis a quarter inhabited solely by sailors and fishermen, consisting of a number of small streets, neatly built of brick; ’tis extremely populous, but there is nothing curious in that either. – A traveller may see it to satisfy himself – however he must not on any account omit seeing La Tour de Guet; ’tis so called because in war it serves to give warning of approaching enemies – but ’tis monstrous high, and catches the eye so continually, you cannot avoid noticing it.

  It was a singular disappointment to me that I could not take an exact survey of the fortifications, which are the strongest in the world, and which, since they were started by Philip, Count of Boulogne, have cost (as I learned from an engineer in Gascony) above a hundred million livres. It is very remarkable that where the town is naturally the weakest, they have expended the most money; so that the out-works stretch a great way, and occupy a large area of ground.

  However, when all is said and done, it must be acknowledged that Calais was never so important in itself, as from its situation, which gave our ancestors easy entrance into France. It was no less troublesome to the English in those times, than Dunkirk has been in ours; so that it was looked upon as the key to both kingdoms, which no doubt is the reason that there
have arisen so many contentions about who should keep it.

  Of these, the siege of Calais, or rather the blockade, was the most memorable, as it withstood the efforts of Edward the Third a whole year, and was only ended at last by famine and extreme misery. The gallantry of Eustace de St. Pierre, who offered himself as a victim for his fellow-citizens, has ranked his name with heroes. As it will not take up above fifty pages, it would be unjust to the reader not to give him a detailed account of that romantic story, as well as of the siege itself, in Rapin’s own words:

  CHAPTER 6

  – But courage, gentle reader! – I scorn it – ’tis enough to have thee in my power – but to make use of that advantage would be too much – No! by that all-powerful fire which warms the visionary brain! before I would force a helpless creature upon this hard service, and make thee pay, poor soul! for fifty pages, which I have no right to sell thee, – naked as I am, I would browse upon the mountains, and smile when the north wind brought me neither my tent nor my supper.

  So keep on, my brave boy! and make thy way to Boulogne.

  CHAPTER 7

  – Boulogne! hah! – so we are all got together – a jolly set of debtors and sinners – but I can’t stay with you – I’m pursued like a hundred devils, and shall be overtaken before I can change horses:– for heaven’s sake, make haste–

  ‘’Tis for high-treason,’ quoth a very little man, whispering to a tall man next to him.

  ‘Or else for murder,’ quoth the tall man.

  ‘No’, quoth a third; ‘the gentleman has been committing–’

  ‘Ah! ma chere fille!’ said I, as she tripped by, ‘you look as rosy as the morning,’

  ‘No; ’tis debt,’ quoth a fourth (she curtsied to me – I kissed my hand to her.)

  ‘’Tis certainly for debt,’ quoth a fifth; ‘I would not pay that gentleman’s debts for a thousand pounds.’