The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Penguin Classics)

by Laurence Sterne

  He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth and began the air again——they were the same notes;——yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the Virgin, said the young man——but who has taught her to play it—or how she came by her pipe, no one knows; we think that Heaven has assisted her in both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation——she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but plays that service upon it almost night and day.

  The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural eloquence, that I could not help decyphering something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria’s taken such full possession of me.

  We had got up by this time almost to the bank where Maria was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket with her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silk net, with a few olive-leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side——she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her——

  ——God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents around, for her,——but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost for ever.

  As the postillion spoke this, MARIA made a cadence so melan-choly, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my enthusiasm.

  MARIA look’d wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat——and then at me——and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately——

  ——Well, Maria, said I softly——What resemblance do you find?

  I do intreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a Beast man is,——that I ask’d the question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scatter’d——and yet I own my heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for Wisdom and utter grave sentences the rest of my days——and never——never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had to live.10

  As for writing nonsense to them——I believe, there was a reserve—but that I leave to the world.

  Adieu, Maria!—adieu, poor hapless damsel!——some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips——but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk’d softly to my chaise.

  ———What an excellent inn at Moulins!

  CHAP. XXV.

  WHEN we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my honour has lain bleeding this half hour——I stop it, by pulling off one of my yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it——

  ——That whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are written in the world, or, for aught I know, may be now writing in it—that it was as casual as the foam of Zeuxis his horse:1 besides, I look upon a chapter which has, only nothing in it, with respect; and considering what worse things there are in the world——That it is no way a proper subject for satire———

  ——Why then was it left so? And here, without staying for my reply, shall I be call’d as many blockheads, numsculs, doddypoles, dunderheads, ninnyhammers, goosecaps, jolt-heads, nicompoops, and sh--t-a-beds——and other unsavory appellations, as ever the cake-bakers of Lernè, cast in the teeth of King Gargantua’s shepherds2——And I’ll let them do it, as Bridget said, as much as they please; for how was it possible they should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the 25th chapter of my book, before the 18th, &c.

  ———So I don’t take it amiss——All I wish is, that it may be a lesson to the world, “to let people tell their stories their own way.”

  The Eighteenth Chapter.

  AS Mrs. Bridget open’d the door before the Corporal had well given the rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby’s introduction into the parlour, was so short, that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from behind the curtain—— lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or two towards the door to receive him.

  My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the manner in which women were saluted by men in the year of our Lord God one thousand seven hundred and thirteen—— then facing about, he march’d up abreast with her to the sopha, and in three plain words——though not before he was sat down——nor after he was sat down———but as he was sitting down, told her, “he was in love”——so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the declaration than he needed.

  Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down, upon a slit she had been darning up in her apron, in expectation every moment, that my uncle Toby would go on; but having no talents for amplification, and LOVE moreover of all others being a subject of which he was the least a master——When he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to work after its own way.

  My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby’s, as he falsely called it, and would often say, that could his brother Toby to his processe have added but a pipe of tobacco——he had wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb,3 towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe.

  My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I presume to extract more from it, than a condemnation of an error which the bulk of the world lie under—— but the French, every one of ’em to a man, who believe in it, almost as much as the REAL PRESENCE, “That talking of love, is making it.”4

  ———I would as soon set about making a black-pudding5by the same receipt.

  Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one side or the other, generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing, as she did it——she took up the gauntlet——or the discourse (if you like it better) and communed with my uncle Toby, thus.

  The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. Wadman, are very great. I suppose so—said my uncle Toby: and therefore when a person, continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at his ease as you are—so happy, captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends and your amusements—I wonder, what reasons can incline you to the state——

  ——They are written, quoth myuncle Toby, in the Common-Prayer Book.6

  Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth, leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulph as she pleased.

  ——As for children—said Mrs. Wadman—though a principal end perhaps of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every parent—yet do not we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain comforts?7 and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heart-aches—what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenceless mother who brings them into life? I declare, said my uncle Toby, smit with pity, I know of none; unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God——

  ——A fiddlestick! quoth she.

  Chapter the Nineteenth

  NOW there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, looks, and accents with which the word fiddlestick may be pronounced in all such causes as this, every one of ’em impressing a sense and meaning as different from the other, as dirt from cleanliness— That Casuists (for it is an affair of conscience on that score) reckon up no less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong.

  Mrs. Wadman hit upon
the fiddlestick, which summoned up all my uncle Toby’s modest blood into his cheeks—so feeling within himself that he had somehow or other got beyond his depth, he stopt short; and without entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he laid his hand upon his heart, and made an offer to take them as they were, and share them along with her.

  When my uncle Toby had said this, he did not care to say it again; so casting his eye upon the Bible which Mrs. Wadman had laid upon the table, he took it up; and popping, dear soul! upon a passage in it, of all others the most interesting to him— which was the siege of Jericho—he set himself to read it over— leaving his proposal of marriage, as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after its own way. Now it wrought neither as an astringent or a loosener; nor like opium, or bark, or mercury, or buckthorn, or any one drug which nature had bestowed upon the world—in short, it work’d not at all in her; and the cause of that was, that there was something working there before——Babbler that I am! I have anticipated what it was a dozen times; but there is fire still in the subject——allons.8

  CHAP. XXVI.

  IT is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from London to Edinburgh, to enquire before he sets out, how many miles to York; which is about the half way——nor does any body wonder, if he goes on and asks about the Corporation,1 &c. – –

  It was just as natural for Mrs. Wadman, whose first husband was all his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her feelings, in the one case than in the other.

  She had accordingly read Drake’s anatomy from one end to the other. She had peeped into Wharton upon the brain, and borrowed * Graaf upon the bones and muscles;2 but could make nothing of it.

  She had reason’d likewise from her own powers——laid down theorems——drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion.

  To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor Slop, “if poor captain Shandy was ever likely to recover of his wound——?”

  ——He is recovered, Doctor Slop would say——

  What! quite?

  ——Quite: madam——

  But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. Wadman would say.

  Doctor Slop was the worst man alive at definitions; and so Mrs. Wadman could get no knowledge: in short, there was no way to extract it, but from my uncle Toby himself.

  There is an accent of humanity in an enquiry of this kind which lulls SCUSPICION to rest——and I am half persuaded the serpent got pretty near it, in his discourse with Eve; for the propensity in the sex to be deceived could not be so great, that she should have boldness to hold chat with the devil, without it ——But there is an accent of humanity——how shall I describe it?—’tis an accent which covers the part with a garment, and gives the enquirer a right to be as particular with it, as your body-surgeon.

  “——Was it without remission?—

  ——Was it more tolerable in bed?

  ——Could he lie on both sides alike with it?

  —Was he able to mount a horse?

  —Was motion bad for it?” et cætera, were so tenderly spoke to, and so directed towards my uncle Toby’s heart, that every item of them sunk ten times deeper into it than the evils themselves——but when Mrs. Wadman went round about by Namur to get at my uncle Toby’s groin; and engaged him to attack the point of the advanced counterscarp, and pêle mêle with the Dutch to take the counterguard of St. Roch sword in hand—and then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him all bleeding by the hand out of the trench, wiping her eye, as he was carried to his tent ——Heaven! Earth! Sea!—all was lifted up—the springs of nature rose above their levels—an angel of mercy sat besides him on the sopha—his heart glow’d with fire—and had he been worth a thousand, he had lost every heart of them to Mrs. Wadman.

  —And whereabouts, dear Sir, quoth Mrs. Wadman, a little categorically, did you receive this sad blow?——In asking this question, Mrs. Wadman gave a slight glance towards the waist-band of my uncle Toby’s red plush breeches, expecting naturally, as the shortest reply to it, that my uncle Toby would lay his fore-finger upon the place——It fell out otherwise——for my uncle Toby having got his wound before the gate of St. Nicolas, in one of the traverses of the trench, opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of St. Roch; he could at any time stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where he was standing when the stone struck him: this struck instantly upon my uncle Toby’s sensorium——and with it, struck his large map of the town and citadel of Namur and its environs, which he had purchased and pasted down upon a board by the Corporal’s aid, during his long illness——it had lain with other military lumber in the garret ever since, and accordingly the Corporal was detached into the garret to fetch it.

  My uncle Toby measured off thirty toises, with Mrs. Wad-man’s scissars, from the returning angle before the gate of St. Nicolas; and with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the goddess of Decency, if then in being—if not, ’twas her shade—shook her head, and with a finger wavering across her eyes—forbid her to explain the mistake.

  Unhappy Mrs. Wadman!——

  ——For nothing can make this chapter go off with spirit but an apostrophe to thee——but my heart tells me, that in such a crisis an apostrophe is but an insult in disguise, and ere I would offer one to a woman in distress—let the chapter go to the devil; provided any damn’d critick in keeping3 will be but at the trouble to take it with him.

  CHAP. XXVII.

  MY uncle Toby’s Map is carried down into the kitchen.

  CHAP. XXVIII.

  ——And here is the Maes —and this is the sambre;1 said the Corporal, pointing with his right hand extended a little towards the map, and his left upon Mrs. Bridget’s shoulder—but not the shoulder next him—and this, said he, is the town of Namur—–and this the citadel—and there lay the French—and here lay his honour and myself——and in this cursed trench, Mrs. Bridget, quoth the Corporal, taking her by the hand, did he receive the wound which crush’d him so miserably here——In pronouncing which he slightly press’d the back of her hand towards the part he felt for——and let it fall.

  We thought, Mr. Trim, it had been more in the middle—— said Mrs. Bridget——

  That would have undone us for ever—said the Corporal.

  ——And left my poor mistress undone too—said Bridget.

  The Corporal made no reply to the repartee, but by giving Mrs. Bridget a kiss.

  Come—come—said Bridget—holding the palm of her left-hand parallel to the plane of the horizon, and sliding the fingers of the other over it, in a way which could not have been done, had there been the least wart or protuberance——’Tis every syllable of it false, cried the Corporal, before she had half finished the sentence——

  —I know it to be fact, said Bridget, from credible witnesses.

  ———Upon my honour, said the Corporal, laying his hand upon his heart, and blushing as he spoke with honest resent-ment—’tis a story, Mrs. Bridget, as false as hell——Not, said Bridget, interrupting him, that either I or my mistress care a halfpenny about it, whether ’tis so or no———only that when one is married, one would chuse to have such a thing by one at least——

  It was somewhat unfortunate for Mrs. Bridget, that she had begun the attack with her manual exercise; for the Corporal instantly * * * * * * * *

  * * * * * * * * * * * *

  * * * * * * * * * * * *

  * * * * *.

  CHAP. XXIX.

  IT was like the momentary contest in the moist eye-lids of an April morning,1 “Whether Bridget should laugh or cry.”

  She snatch’d up a rolling-pin——’twas ten to one, she had laugh’d——

  She laid it down——she cried; and had one single tear of ’em but tasted of bitterness, full sorrowful would the Corporal’s heart have been that he had used the argument; but the Corporal understood the sex, a quart major to a t
erce2 at least, better than my uncle Toby, and accordingly he assailed Mrs. Bridget after this manner.

  I know, Mrs. Bridget, said the Corporal, giving her a most respectful kiss, that thou art good and modest by nature, and art withal so generous a girl in thyself, that if I know thee rightly, thou wouldst not wound an insect, much less the honour of so gallant and worthy a soul as my master, wast thou sure to be made a countess of——but thou hast been set on, and deluded, dear Bridget, as is often a woman’s case, “to please others more than themselves——”

  Bridget’s eyes poured down at the sensations the Corporal excited.

  ——Tell me——tell me then, my dear Bridget, continued the Corporal, taking hold of her hand, which hung down dead by her side,——and giving a second kiss——whose suspicion has misled thee?

  Bridget sobb’d a sob or two——then open’d her eyes—— the Corporal wiped ’em with the bottom of her apron——she then open’d her heart and told him all.

  CHAP. XXX.

  MY uncle Toby and the Corporal had gone on separately with their operations the greatest part of the campaign, and as effectually cut off from all communication of what either the one or the other had been doing, asif they had been separated from each other by the Maes or the Sambre.

  My uncle Toby, on his side, had presented himself every afternoon in his red and silver, and blue and gold alternately, and sustained an infinity of attacks in them, without knowing them to be attacks—and so had nothing to communicate——

  The Corporal, on his side, in taking Bridget, by it had gain’d considerable advantages——and consequently had much to communicate——but what were the advantages——as well, as what was the manner by which he had seiz’d them, required so nice an historian that the Corporal durst not venture upon it; and as sensible as he was of glory, would rather have been contented to have gone barehead and without laurels for ever, than torture his master’s modesty for a single moment——