A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

by Лоренс Стерн

  Madame de V-vow’d to every creature she met - “She had never had a more improving conversation with a man in her life.”

  There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman. - She is coquette, - then deist, - then dévote: the empire during these is never lost, - she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-peoples it with slaves of infidelity, - and then with the slaves of the church.

  Madame de V-was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the colour of the rose was fading fast away; - she ought to have been a deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.

  She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing the point of religion more closely. - In short Madame de V-told me she believed nothing. - I told Madame de V-it might be her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended; - that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist; - that it was a debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her; - that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun to form designs; - and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have check’d them as they rose up?

  We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand; - and there is need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays them on us. - But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand, - ’tis too - too soon.

  I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de V-. - She affirmed to Monsieur D-and the Abbé M-, that in one half hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their Encyclopaedia had said against it. - I was listed directly into Madame de V-’s coterie; - and she put off the epocha of deism for two years.

  I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in which I was showing the necessity of a first cause, when the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room, to tell me my solitaire was pinn’d too straight about my neck. - It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down upon his own; - but a word, Monsieur Yorick, to the wise -

  And from the wise, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow, - is enough.

  The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was embraced by mortal man.

  For three weeks together I was of every man’s opinion I met. - Pardi! ce Monsieur Yorick a autant d’esprit que nous autres. - Il raisonne bien, said another. - C’est un bon enfant, said a third. - And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but ’twas a dishonest reckoning; - I grew ashamed of it. - It was the gain of a slave; - every sentiment of honour revolted against it; - the higher I got, the more was I forced upon my beggarly system; - the better the coterie, - the more children of Art; - I languish’d for those of Nature: and one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, I grew sick, - went to bed; - order’d La Fleur to get me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.

  MARIA. MOULINES.

  I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till now, - to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France, - in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into every one’s lap, and every eye is lifted up, - a journey, through each step of which Music beats time to Labour, and all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group before me, - and every one of them was pregnant with adventures. -

  Just heaven! - it would fill up twenty volumes; - and alas! I have but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into, - and half of these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with near Moulines.

  The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, it returned so strong into the mind, that I could not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to enquire after her.

  ’Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in quest of melancholy adventures. But I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.

  The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before she open’d her mouth. - She had lost her husband; he had died, she said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria’s senses, about a month before. - She had feared at first, she added, that it would have plunder’d her poor girl of what little understanding was left; - but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself: - still, she could not rest. - Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road.

  Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La Fleur, whose heart seem’d only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it? I beckoned to the postilion to turn back into the road.

  When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand: - a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.

  I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines - and La Fleur to bespeak my supper; - and that I would walk after him.

  She was dress’d in white, and much as my friend described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net. - She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe. - Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string. - “Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio,” said she. I look’d in Maria’s eyes and saw she was thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat; for, as she utter’d them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.

  I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief. - I then steep’d it in my own, - and then in hers, - and then in mine, - and then I wip’d hers again; - and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.

  I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary.

  MARIA.

  When Maria had come a little to herself, I ask’d her if she remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before? She said she was unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts: - that ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the theft; - she had wash’d it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves, tied round with a tendril; - on opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of the corners.

  She had since that, she told me, stray’d as far as Rome, and walk’d round St. Peter’s once, - and return’d back; - that she found her way alone across the Apennines; - had travell’d over all Lombardy, without money, - and through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes: - how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she could not tell; - but God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

  Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup; -
I would be kind to thy Sylvio; - in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back; - when the sun went down I would say my prayers: and when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with that of a broken heart!

  Nature melted within me, as I utter’d this; and Maria observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steep’d too much already to be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream. - And where will you dry it, Maria? said I. - I’ll dry it in my bosom, said she: - ’twill do me good.

  And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.

  I touch’d upon the string on which hung all her sorrows: - she look’d with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying any thing, took her pipe and play’d her service to the Virgin. - The string I had touched ceased to vibrate; - in a moment or two Maria returned to herself, - let her pipe fall, - and rose up.

  And where are you going, Maria? said I. - She said, to Moulines. - Let us go, said I, together. - Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string, to let the dog follow, - in that order we enter’d Moulines.

  MARIA. MOULINES.

  Though I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet, when we got into the middle of this, I stopp’d to take my last look and last farewell of Maria.

  Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine forms: - affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce earthly; - still she was feminine; - and so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she should not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup, but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.

  Adieu, poor luckless maiden! - Imbibe the oil and wine which the compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy wounds; - the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only bind them up for ever.

  THE BOURBONNNOIS.

  There was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through this part of France; but pressing through this gate, of sorrow to it, my sufferings have totally unfitted me. In every scene of festivity, I saw Maria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across her.

  - Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw - and ’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven! - Eternal Fountain of our feelings! - ’tis here I trace thee - and this is thy “divinity which stirs within me;” - not that, in some sad and sickening moments, “my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction;” - mere pomp of words! - but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself; - all comes from thee, great - great SENSORIUM of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest desert of thy creation. - Touch’d with thee, Eugenius draws my curtain when I languish - hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou giv’st a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains; - he finds the lacerated lamb of another’s flock. - This moment I behold him leaning with his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon it! - Oh! had I come one moment sooner! it bleeds to death! - his gentle heart bleeds with it. -

  Peace to thee, generous swain! - I see thou walkest off with anguish, - but thy joys shall balance it; - for, happy is thy cottage, - and happy is the sharer of it, - and happy are the lambs which sport about you!

  THE SUPPER.

  A shoe coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at the beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point of having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilion had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of no great use without them, I submitted to go on.

  He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other fore foot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it. The look of the house, and of every thing about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. - It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn; - and close to the house, on one side, was a potagerie of an acre and a half, full of everything which could make plenty in a French peasant’s house; - and, on the other side, was a little wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about eight in the evening when I got to the house - so I left the postilion to manage his point as he could; - and, for mine, I walked directly into the house.

  The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them.

  They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast: - ’twas a feast of love.

  The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment I enter’d the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the family; and to invest myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man’s knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a welcome mix’d with thanks that I had not seem’d to doubt it.

  Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this morsel so sweet, - and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate to this hour?

  If the supper was to my taste, - the grace which followed it was much more so.

  THE GRACE.

  When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance: the moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether into a back apartment to tie up their hair, - and the young men to the door to wash their faces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. - The old man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

  The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle, - and at the age he was then of, touch’d it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, - then intermitted, - and join’d her old man again, as their children and grand-children danced before them.

  It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance: - but, as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have look’d upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said, that this was their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay, -

  Or a learned prelate either, said I.

  THE CASE OF DELICACY.

  When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently down to Lyons: - adieu, then, to all rapid movements! ’Tis a journey of caut
ion; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his time with a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe to Turin, through Savoy.

  Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty, the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it. - Nature! in the midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created: with all thy great works about thee, little hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle; - but to that little thou grantest safety and protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so shelter’d.

  Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden turns and dangers of your roads, - your rocks, - your precipices; - the difficulties of getting up, - the horrors of getting down, - mountains impracticable, - and cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and block his road up. - The peasants had been all day at work in removing a fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane; and, by the time my voiturin got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing before a passage could any how be gain’d: there was nothing but to wait with patience; - ’twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the delay, and that together, the voiturin found himself obliged to put up five miles short of his stage at a little decent kind of an inn by the roadside.

  I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber - got a good fire - order’d supper; and was thanking heaven it was no worse, when a voiture arrived with a lady in it and her servant maid.

  As there was no other bedchamber in the house, the hostess, - without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she usher’d them in, that there was nobody in it but an English gentleman; - that there were two good beds in it, and a closet within the room which held another. The accent in which she spoke of this third bed, did not say much for it; - however, she said there were three beds and but three people, and she durst say, the gentleman would do anything to accommodate matters. - I left not the lady a moment to make a conjecture about it - so instantly made a declaration that I would do anything in my power.