A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

by Лоренс Стерн

  When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring after me, - the thing instantly recurred; - and by the time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped I had one. - Not I, faith! said I.

  The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected person, as I declared this; - and poor La Fleur advanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to succour a distress’d one: - the fellow won my heart by it; and from that single trait I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.

  Mon seigneur! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it. - If Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (apparemment) in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one. - Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. - Then certes, replied he, you’ll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet au moins. - Poo! said I, the King of France is a good natur’d soul: - he’ll hurt nobody. - Cela n’empêche pas, said he - you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning. - But I’ve taken your lodgings for a month, answer’d I, and I’ll not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the world. La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of France.

  Pardi! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens très extraordinaires; - and, having both said and sworn it, - he went out.

  THE PASSPORT. THE HOTEL AT PARIS.

  I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur’s with a serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talk’d to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the Opéra Comique. - La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller’s shop; but seeing me come out with the young fille de chambre, and that we walk’d down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem’d it unnecessary to follow me a step further; - so making his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut, - and got to the hotel in time to be inform’d of the affair of the police against my arrival.

  As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation. -

  - And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set out: - I must tell it here.

  Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden’d with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for. Upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull’d out his purse in order to empty it into mine. - I’ve enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I. - Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than you. - But you don’t consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapp’d up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France’s expense. - I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot that resource.

  Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.

  Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?

  - And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word. - Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower; - and a tower is but another word for a house you can’t get out of. - Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year. - But with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man can’t get out, he may do very well within, - at least for a mouth or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

  I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I settled this account; and remember I walk’d down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. - Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I, vauntingly - for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. - ’Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition, - the Bastile is not an evil to be despised; - but strip it of its towers - fill up the fosse, - unbarricade the doors - call it simply a confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper - and not of a man, which holds you in it, - the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

  I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained “it could not get out.” - I look’d up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without farther attention.

  In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. - “I can’t get out, - I can’t get out,” said the starling.

  I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach’d it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. “I can’t get out,” said the starling. - God help thee! said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get to the door: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. - I took both hands to it.

  The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast against it as if impatient. - I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty. - “No,” said the starling, - “I can’t get out - I can’t get out,” said the starling.

  I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call’d home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked upstairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

  Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I, - still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. - ’Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change. - No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron: - with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled! - Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion, - and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them!

  THE CAPTIVE. PARIS.

  The bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close to my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

  I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery: but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me. -
<
br />   - I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then look’d through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

  I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferr’d. Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fann’d his blood; - he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time - nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. - His children -

  But here my heart began to bleed - and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

  He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch’d all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there; - he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, - shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. - He gave a deep sigh. - I saw the iron enter into his soul! - I burst into tears. - I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. - I started up from my chair, and calling La Fleur: I bid him bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in the morning.

  I’ll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.

  La Fleur would have put me to bed; but - not willing he should see anything upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-ache, - I told him I would go to bed by myself, - and bid him go do the same.

  THE STARLING. ROAD TO VERSAILLES.

  I got into my remise the hour I proposed: La Fleur got up behind, and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.

  As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last chapter.

  Whilst the Honourable Mr. - was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had been caught upon the cliffs, before it could well fly, by an English lad who was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had taken it in his breast into the packet; - and, by course of feeding it, and taking it once under his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got it safe along with him to Paris.

  At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the starling, and as he had little to do better the five months his master staid there, he taught it, in his mother’s tongue, the four simple words - (and no more) - to which I own’d myself so much its debtor.

  Upon his master’s going on for Italy, the lad had given it to the master of the hotel. But his little song for liberty being in an unknown language at Paris, the bird had little or no store set by him: so La Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle of Burgundy.

  In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country in whose language he had learned his notes; and telling the story of him to Lord A-, Lord A-begg’d the bird of me; - in a week Lord A-gave him to Lord B-; Lord B-made a present of him to Lord C-; and Lord C-’s gentleman sold him to Lord D-’s for a shilling; Lord D-gave him to Lord E-; and so on - half round the alphabet. From that rank he pass’d into the lower house, and pass’d the hands of as many commoners. But as all these wanted to get in, and my bird wanted to get out, he had almost as little store set by him in London as in Paris.

  It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and if any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform them, that that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to represent him.

  I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from that time to this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my arms. - Thus:

  [Picture which cannot be reproduced]

  - And let the herald’s officers twist his neck about if they dare.

  THE ADDRESS. VERSAILLES.

  I should not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind when I am going to ask protection of any man; for which reason I generally endeavour to protect myself; but this going to Monsieur le Duc de C-was an act of compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should have done it, I suppose, like other people.

  How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my servile heart form! I deserved the Bastile for every one of them.

  Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of Versailles, but putting words and sentences together, and conceiving attitudes and tones to wreath myself into Monsieur le Duc de C-’s good graces. - This will do, said I. - Just as well, retorted I again, as a coat carried up to him by an adventurous tailor, without taking his measure. Fool! continued I, - see Monsieur le Duc’s face first; - observe what character is written in it; - take notice in what posture he stands to hear you; - mark the turns and expressions of his body and limbs; - and for the tone, - the first sound which comes from his lips will give it you; and from all these together you’ll compound an address at once upon the spot, which cannot disgust the Duke; - the ingredients are his own, and most likely to go down.

  Well! said I, I wish it well over. - Coward again! as if man to man was not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in the field - why not face to face in the cabinet too? And trust me, Yorick, whenever it is not so, man is false to himself and betrays his own succours ten times where nature does it once. Go to the Duc de C-with the Bastile in thy looks; - my life for it, thou wilt be sent back to Paris in half an hour with an escort.

  I believe so, said I. - Then I’ll go to the Duke, by heaven! with all the gaiety and debonairness in the world. -

  - And there you are wrong again, replied I. - A heart at ease, Yorick, flies into no extremes - ’tis ever on its centre. - Well! well! cried I, as the coachman turn’d in at the gates, I find I shall do very well: and by the time he had wheel’d round the court, and brought me up to the door, I found myself so much the better for my own lecture, that I neither ascended the steps like a victim to justice, who was to part with life upon the top most, - nor did I mount them with a skip and a couple of strides, as I do when I fly up, Eliza! to thee to meet it.

  As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who possibly might be the maîtred’hôtel, but had more the air of one of the under secretaries, who told me the Duc de C-was busy. - I am utterly ignorant, said I, of the forms of obtaining an audience, being an absolute stranger, and what is worse in the present conjuncture of affairs, being an Englishman too. - He replied, that did not increase the difficulty. - I made him a slight bow, and told him, I had something of importance to say to Monsieur le Duc. The secretary look’d towards the stairs, as if he was about to leave me to carry up this account to some one. - But I must not mislead you, said I, - for what I have to say is of no manner of importance to Monsieur le Duc de C- - but of great importance to myself. - C’est une autre affaire, replied he. - Not at all, said I, to a man of gallantry. - But pray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger hope to have access? - In not less than two hours, said he, looking at his watch. The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to justify the calculation, that I could have no nearer a prospect; - and as walking backwards and forwards in the saloon, without a soul to commune with, was for the time as bad as being in the Bastile itself, I instantly went back to my remise, and bid the coachman drive me to the Cordon Bleu, which was the nearest hotel.

  I think there is a fatality in it; - I seldom go to the place I set out for.

  LE PATISSIER. VERSAILLES.

  Before I had got half way down the street I changed my mind: as I am at Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the town; so I pull’d the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round some of the principal streets. - I suppose the town is not very large, said I. - The coachman begg’d
pardon for setting me right, and told me it was very superb, and that numbers of the first dukes and marquises and counts had hotels. - The Count de B-, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had spoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind. - And why should I not go, thought I, to the Count de B-, who has so high an idea of English books and English men - and tell him my story? so I changed my mind a second time. - In truth it was the third; for I had intended that day for Madame de R-, in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent her word by her fille de chambre that I would assuredly wait upon her; - but I am governed by circumstances; - I cannot govern them: so seeing a man standing with a basket on the other side of the street, as if he had something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to him, and enquire for the Count’s hotel.

  La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de St. Louis selling pâtés. - It is impossible, La Fleur, said I. - La Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, he said, tied to his buttonhole - and had looked into the basket and seen the pâtés which the Chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken in that.