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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Section 18 of 48 - Table of Contents
Chapter 2.XXXIV.

'Tis a pity, cried my father one winter's night, after a three hours
painful translation of Slawkenbergius--'tis a pity, cried my father,
putting my mother's threadpaper into the book for a mark, as he spoke--that
truth, brother Toby, should shut herself up in such impregnable fastnesses,
and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself sometimes up upon the
closest siege.--

Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle
Toby's fancy, during the time of my father's explanation of Prignitz to
him--having nothing to stay it there, had taken a short flight to the
bowling-green;--his body might as well have taken a turn there too--so that
with all the semblance of a deep school-man intent upon the medius
terminus--my uncle Toby was in fact as ignorant of the whole lecture, and
all its pros and cons, as if my father had been translating Hafen
Slawkenbergius from the Latin tongue into the Cherokee.  But the word
siege, like a talismanic power, in my father's metaphor, wafting back my
uncle Toby's fancy, quick as a note could follow the touch--he open'd his
ears--and my father observing that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and
shuffled his chair nearer the table, as with a desire to profit--my father
with great pleasure began his sentence again--changing only the plan, and
dropping the metaphor of the siege of it, to keep clear of some dangers my
father apprehended from it.

'Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side, brother
Toby--considering what ingenuity these learned men have all shewn in their
solutions of noses.--Can noses be dissolved? replied my uncle Toby.

--My father thrust back his chair--rose up--put on his hat--took four long
strides to the door--jerked it open--thrust his head half way out--shut the
door again--took no notice of the bad hinge--returned to the table--pluck'd
my mother's thread-paper out of Slawkenbergius's book--went hastily to his
bureau--walked slowly back--twisted my mother's thread-paper about his
thumb--unbutton'd his waistcoat--threw my mother's thread-paper into the
fire--bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill'd his mouth with bran--
confounded it;--but mark!--the oath of confusion was levell'd at my uncle
Toby's brain--which was e'en confused enough already--the curse came
charged only with the bran--the bran, may it please your honours, was no
more than powder to the ball.

'Twas well my father's passions lasted not long; for so long as they did
last, they led him a busy life on't; and it is one of the most
unaccountable problems that ever I met with in my observations of human
nature, that nothing should prove my father's mettle so much, or make his
passions go off so like gun-powder, as the unexpected strokes his science
met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle Toby's questions.--Had ten
dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many different places all at one
time--he could not have exerted more mechanical functions in fewer seconds-
-or started half so much, as with one single quaere of three words
unseasonably popping in full upon him in his hobby-horsical career.

'Twas all one to my uncle Toby--he smoked his pipe on with unvaried
composure--his heart never intended offence to his brother--and as his head
could seldom find out where the sting of it lay--he always gave my father
the credit of cooling by himself.--He was five minutes and thirty-five
seconds about it in the present case.

By all that's good! said my father, swearing, as he came to himself, and
taking the oath out of Ernulphus's digest of curses--(though to do my
father justice it was a fault (as he told Dr. Slop in the affair of
Ernulphus) which he as seldom committed as any man upon earth)--By all
that's good and great! brother Toby, said my father, if it was not for the
aids of philosophy, which befriend one so much as they do--you would put a
man beside all temper.--Why, by the solutions of noses, of which I was
telling you, I meant, as you might have known, had you favoured me with one
grain of attention, the various accounts which learned men of different
kinds of knowledge have given the world of the causes of short and long
noses.--There is no cause but one, replied my uncle Toby--why one man's
nose is longer than another's, but because that God pleases to have it so.-
-That is Grangousier's solution, said my father.--'Tis he, continued my
uncle Toby, looking up, and not regarding my father's interruption, who
makes us all, and frames and puts us together in such forms and
proportions, and for such ends, as is agreeable to his infinite wisdom,.--
'Tis a pious account, cried my father, but not philosophical--there is more
religion in it than sound science.  'Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle
Toby's character--that he feared God, and reverenced religion.--So the
moment my father finished his remark--my uncle Toby fell a whistling
Lillabullero with more zeal (though more out of tune) than usual.--

What is become of my wife's thread-paper?



Chapter 2.XXXV.

No matter--as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of
some consequence to my mother--of none to my father, as a mark in
Slawkenbergius.  Slawkenbergius in every page of him was a rich treasure of
inexhaustible knowledge to my father--he could not open him amiss; and he
would often say in closing the book, that if all the arts and sciences in
the world, with the books which treated of them, were lost--should the
wisdom and policies of governments, he would say, through disuse, ever
happen to be forgot, and all that statesmen had wrote or caused to be
written, upon the strong or the weak sides of courts and kingdoms, should
they be forgot also--and Slawkenbergius only left--there would be enough in
him in all conscience, he would say, to set the world a-going again.  A
treasure therefore was he indeed! an institute of all that was necessary to
be known of noses, and every thing else--at matin, noon, and vespers was
Hafen Slawkenbergius his recreation and delight:  'twas for ever in his
hands--you would have sworn, Sir, it had been a canon's prayer-book--so
worn, so glazed, so contrited and attrited was it with fingers and with
thumbs in all its parts, from one end even unto the other.

I am not such a bigot to Slawkenbergius as my father;--there is a fund in
him, no doubt:  but in my opinion, the best, I don't say the most
profitable, but the most amusing part of Hafen Slawkenbergius, is his
tales--and, considering he was a German, many of them told not without
fancy:--these take up his second book, containing nearly one half of his
folio, and are comprehended in ten decads, each decad containing ten tales-
-Philosophy is not built upon tales; and therefore 'twas certainly wrong in
Slawkenbergius to send them into the world by that name!--there are a few
of them in his eighth, ninth, and tenth decads, which I own seem rather
playful and sportive, than speculative--but in general they are to be
looked upon by the learned as a detail of so many independent facts, all of
them turning round somehow or other upon the main hinges of his subject,
and added to his work as so many illustrations upon the doctrines of noses.

As we have leisure enough upon our hands--if you give me leave, madam, I'll
tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decad.



Slawkenbergii Fabella (As Hafen Slawkenbergius de Nasis is extremely
scarce, it may not be unacceptable to the learned reader to see the
specimen of a few pages of his original; I will make no reflection upon it,
but that his story-telling Latin is much more concise than his philosophic-
-and, I think, has more of Latinity in it.)

Vespera quadam frigidula, posteriori in parte mensis Augusti, peregrinus,
mulo fusco colore incidens, mantica a tergo, paucis indusiis, binis
calceis, braccisque sericis coccineis repleta, Argentoratum ingressus est.

Militi eum percontanti, quum portus intraret dixit, se apud Nasorum
promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum proficisci, et Argentoratum, transitu ad
fines Sarmatiae mensis intervallo, reversurum.

Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit--Di boni, nova forma nasi!

At multum mihi profuit, inquit peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens, e quo
pependit acinaces:  Loculo manum inseruit; et magna cum urbanitate, pilei
parte anteriore tacta manu sinistra, ut extendit dextram, militi florinum
dedit et processit.

Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam nanum et valgum alloquens, virum adeo
urbanum vaginam perdidisse:  itinerari haud poterit nuda acinaci; neque
vaginam toto Argentorato, habilem inveniet.--Nullam unquam habui, respondit
peregrinus respiciens--seque comiter inclinans--hoc more gesto, nudam
acinacem elevans, mulo lento progrediente, ut nasum tueri possim.

Non immerito, benigne peregrine, respondit miles.

Nihili aestimo, ait ille tympanista, e pergamena factitius est.

Prout christianus sum, inquit miles, nasus ille, ni sexties major fit, meo
esset conformis.

Crepitare audivi ait tympanista.

Mehercule! sanguinem emisit, respondit miles.

Miseret me, inquit tympanista, qui non ambo tetigimus!

Eodem temporis puncto, quo haec res argumentata fuit inter militem et
tympanistam, disceptabatur ibidem tubicine et uxore sua qui tunc
accesserunt, et peregrino praetereunte, restiterunt.

Quantus nasus! aeque longus est, ait tubicina, ac tuba.

Et ex eodem metallo, ait tubicen, velut sternutamento audias.

Tantum abest, respondit illa, quod fistulam dulcedine vincit.

Aeneus est, ait tubicen.

Nequaquam, respondit uxor.

Rursum affirmo, ait tubicen, quod aeneus est.

Rem penitus explorabo; prius, enim digito tangam, ait uxor, quam dormivero,

Mulus peregrini gradu lento progressus est, ut unumquodque verbum
controversiae, non tantum inter militem et tympanistam, verum etiam inter
tubicinem et uxorum ejus, audiret.

Nequaquam, ait ille, in muli collum fraena demittens, et manibus ambabus in
pectus positis, (mulo lente progrediente) nequaquam, ait ille respiciens,
non necesse est ut res isthaec dilucidata foret.  Minime gentium! meus
nasus nunquam tangetur, dum spiritus hos reget artus--Ad quid agendum? air
uxor burgomagistri.

Peregrinus illi non respondit.  Votum faciebat tunc temporis sancto
Nicolao; quo facto, sinum dextrum inserens, e qua negligenter pependit
acinaces, lento gradu processit per plateam Argentorati latam quae ad
diversorium templo ex adversum ducit.

Peregrinus mulo descendens stabulo includi, et manticam inferri jussit:
qua aperta et coccineis sericis femoralibus extractis cum argento laciniato
(Greek), his sese induit, statimque, acinaci in manu, ad forum deambulavit.

Quod ubi peregrinus esset ingressus, uxorem tubicinis obviam euntem
aspicit; illico cursum flectit, metuens ne nasus suus exploraretur, atque
ad diversorium regressus est--exuit se vestibus; braccas coccineas sericas
manticae imposuit mulumque educi jussit.

Francofurtum proficiscor, ait ille, et Argentoratum quatuor abhinc
hebdomadis revertar.

Bene curasti hoc jumentam? (ait) muli faciem manu demulcens--me,
manticamque meam, plus sexcentis mille passibus portavit.

Longa via est! respondet hospes, nisi plurimum esset negoti.--Enimvero, ait
peregrinus, a Nasorum promontorio redii, et nasum speciosissimum,
egregiosissimumque quem unquam quisquam sortitus est, acquisivi?

Dum peregrinus hanc miram rationem de seipso reddit, hospes et uxor ejus,
oculis intentis, peregrini nasum contemplantur--Per sanctos sanctasque
omnes, ait hospitis uxor, nasis duodecim maximis in toto Argentorato major
est!--estne, ait illa mariti in aurem insusurrans, nonne est nasus
praegrandis?

Dolus inest, anime mi, ait hospes--nasus est falsus.

Verus est, respondit uxor--

Ex abiete factus est, ait ille, terebinthinum olet--

Carbunculus inest, ait uxor.

Mortuus est nasus, respondit hospes.

Vivus est ait illa,--et si ipsa vivam tangam.

Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore usque
ad--Quodnam tempus? illico respondit illa.

Minimo tangetur, inquit ille (manibus in pectus compositis) usque ad illam
horam--Quam horam? ait illa--Nullam, respondit peregrinus, donec pervenio
ad--Quem locum,--obsecro? ait illa--Peregrinus nil respondens mulo
conscenso discessit.



Slawkenbergius's Tale

It was one cool refreshing evening, at the close of a very sultry day, in
the latter end of the month of August, when a stranger, mounted upon a dark
mule, with a small cloak-bag behind him, containing a few shirts, a pair of
shoes, and a crimson-sattin pair of breeches, entered the town of
Strasburg.

He told the centinel, who questioned him as he entered the gates, that he
had been at the Promontory of Noses--was going on to Frankfort--and should
be back again at Strasburg that day month, in his way to the borders of
Crim Tartary.

The centinel looked up into the stranger's face--he never saw such a Nose
in his life!

--I have made a very good venture of it, quoth the stranger--so slipping
his wrist out of the loop of a black ribbon, to which a short scymetar was
hung, he put his hand into his pocket, and with great courtesy touching the
fore part of his cap with his left hand, as he extended his right--he put a
florin into the centinel's hand, and passed on.

It grieves, me, said the centinel, speaking to a little dwarfish bandy-
legg'd drummer, that so courteous a soul should have lost his scabbard--he
cannot travel without one to his scymetar, and will not be able to get a
scabbard to fit it in all Strasburg.--I never had one, replied the
stranger, looking back to the centinel, and putting his hand up to his cap
as he spoke--I carry it, continued he, thus--holding up his naked scymetar,
his mule moving on slowly all the time--on purpose to defend my nose.

It is well worth it, gentle stranger, replied the centinel.

--'Tis not worth a single stiver, said the bandy-legg'd drummer--'tis a
nose of parchment.

As I am a true catholic--except that it is six times as big--'tis a nose,
said the centinel, like my own.

--I heard it crackle, said the drummer.

By dunder, said the centinel, I saw it bleed.

What a pity, cried the bandy-legg'd drummer, we did not both touch it!

At the very time that this dispute was maintaining by the centinel and the
drummer--was the same point debating betwixt a trumpeter and a trumpeter's
wife, who were just then coming up, and had stopped to see the stranger
pass by.

Benedicity!--What a nose! 'tis as long, said the trumpeter's wife, as a
trumpet.

And of the same metal said the trumpeter, as you hear by its sneezing.

'Tis as soft as a flute, said she.

--'Tis brass, said the trumpeter.

--'Tis a pudding's end, said his wife.

I tell thee again, said the trumpeter, 'tis a brazen nose,

I'll know the bottom of it, said the trumpeter's wife, for I will touch it
with my finger before I sleep.

The stranger's mule moved on at so slow a rate, that he heard every word of
the dispute, not only betwixt the centinel and the drummer, but betwixt the
trumpeter and trumpeter's wife.

No! said he, dropping his reins upon his mule's neck, and laying both his
hands upon his breast, the one over the other in a saint-like position (his
mule going on easily all the time) No! said he, looking up--I am not such a
debtor to the world--slandered and disappointed as I have been--as to give
it that conviction--no! said he, my nose shall never be touched whilst
Heaven gives me strength--To do what? said a burgomaster's wife.

The stranger took no notice of the burgomaster's wife--he was making a vow
to Saint Nicolas; which done, having uncrossed his arms with the same
solemnity with which he crossed them, he took up the reins of his bridle
with his left-hand, and putting his right hand into his bosom, with the
scymetar hanging loosely to the wrist of it, he rode on, as slowly as one
foot of the mule could follow another, thro' the principal streets of
Strasburg, till chance brought him to the great inn in the market-place
over-against the church.

The moment the stranger alighted, he ordered his mule to be led into the
stable, and his cloak-bag to be brought in; then opening, and taking out of
it his crimson-sattin breeches, with a silver-fringed--(appendage to them,
which I dare not translate)--he put his breeches, with his fringed cod-
piece on, and forth-with, with his short scymetar in his hand, walked out
to the grand parade.

The stranger had just taken three turns upon the parade, when he perceived
the trumpeter's wife at the opposite side of it--so turning short, in pain
lest his nose should be attempted, he instantly went back to his inn--
undressed himself, packed up his crimson-sattin breeches, &c. in his cloak-
bag, and called for his mule.

I am going forwards, said the stranger, for Frankfort--and shall be back at
Strasburg this day month.

I hope, continued the stranger, stroking down the face of his mule with his
left hand as he was going to mount it, that you have been kind to this
faithful slave of mine--it has carried me and my cloak-bag, continued he,
tapping the mule's back, above six hundred leagues.

--'Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn--unless a man has
great business.--Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at the promontory
of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank Heaven, that ever
fell to a single man's lot.

Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master of
the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the stranger's
nose--By saint Radagunda, said the inn-keeper's wife to herself, there is
more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put together in all
Strasburg! is it not, said she, whispering her husband in his ear, is it
not a noble nose?

'Tis an imposture, my dear, said the master of the inn--'tis a false nose.

'Tis a true nose, said his wife.

'Tis made of fir-tree, said he, I smell the turpentine.--

There's a pimple on it, said she.

'Tis a dead nose, replied the inn-keeper.

'Tis a live nose, and if I am alive myself, said the inn-keeper's, wife, I
will touch it.

I have made a vow to saint Nicolas this day, said the stranger, that my
nose shall not be touched till--Here the stranger suspending his voice,
looked up.--Till when? said she hastily.

It never shall be touched, said he, clasping his hands and bringing them
close to his breast, till that hour--What hour? cried the inn keeper's
wife.--Never!--never! said the stranger, never till I am got--For Heaven's
sake, into what place? said she--The stranger rode away without saying a
word.

The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards Frankfort before
all the city of Strasburg was in an uproar about his nose.  The Compline
bells were just ringing to call the Strasburgers to their devotions, and
shut up the duties of the day in prayer:--no soul in all Strasburg heard
'em--the city was like a swarm of bees--men, women, and children, (the
Compline bells tinkling all the time) flying here and there--in at one
door, out at another--this way and that way--long ways and cross ways--up
one street, down another street--in at this alley, out of that--did you see
it? did you see it? did you see it?  O! did you see it?--who saw it? who
did see it? for mercy's sake, who saw it?

Alack o'day! I was at vespers!--I was washing, I was starching, I was
scouring, I was quilting--God help me!  I never saw it--I never touch'd
it!--would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg'd drummer, a trumpeter, a
trumpeter's wife, was the general cry and lamentation in every street and
corner of Strasburg.

Whilst all this confusion and disorder triumphed throughout the great city
of Strasburg, was the courteous stranger going on as gently upon his mule
in his way to Frankfort, as if he had no concern at all in the affair--
talking all the way he rode in broken sentences, sometimes to his mule--
sometimes to himself--sometimes to his Julia.

O Julia, my lovely Julia!--nay I cannot stop to let thee bite that thistle-
-that ever the suspected tongue of a rival should have robbed me of
enjoyment when I was upon the point of tasting it.--

--Pugh!--'tis nothing but a thistle--never mind it--thou shalt have a
better supper at night.

--Banish'd from my country--my friends--from thee.--

Poor devil, thou'rt sadly tired with thy journey!--come--get on a little
faster--there's nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts--a crimson-sattin
pair of breeches, and a fringed--Dear Julia!

--But why to Frankfort?--is it that there is a hand unfelt, which secretly
is conducting me through these meanders and unsuspected tracts?

--Stumbling! by saint Nicolas! every step--why at this rate we shall be all
night in getting in--

--To happiness--or am I to be the sport of fortune and slander--destined to
be driven forth unconvicted--unheard--untouch'd--if so, why did I not stay
at Strasburg, where justice--but I had sworn!  Come, thou shalt drink--to
St. Nicolas--O Julia!--What dost thou prick up thy ears at?--'tis nothing
but a man, &c.

The stranger rode on communing in this manner with his mule and Julia--till
he arrived at his inn, where, as soon as he arrived, he alighted--saw his
mule, as he had promised it, taken good care of--took off his cloak-bag,
with his crimson-sattin breeches, &c. in it--called for an omelet to his
supper, went to his bed about twelve o'clock, and in five minutes fell fast
asleep.

It was about the same hour when the tumult in Strasburg being abated for
that night,--the Strasburgers had all got quietly into their beds--but not
like the stranger, for the rest either of their minds or bodies; queen Mab,
like an elf as she was, had taken the stranger's nose, and without
reduction of its bulk, had that night been at the pains of slitting and
dividing it into as many noses of different cuts and fashions, as there
were heads in Strasburg to hold them.  The abbess of Quedlingberg, who with
the four great dignitaries of her chapter, the prioress, the deaness, the
sub-chantress, and senior canonness, had that week come to Strasburg to
consult the university upon a case of conscience relating to their placket-
holes--was ill all the night.

The courteous stranger's nose had got perched upon the top of the pineal
gland of her brain, and made such rousing work in the fancies of the four
great dignitaries of her chapter, they could not get a wink of sleep the
whole night thro' for it--there was no keeping a limb still amongst them--
in short, they got up like so many ghosts.

The penitentiaries of the third order of saint Francis--the nuns of mount
Calvary--the Praemonstratenses--the Clunienses (Hafen Slawkenbergius means
the Benedictine nuns of Cluny, founded in the year 940, by Odo, abbe de
Cluny.)--the Carthusians, and all the severer orders of nuns, who lay that
night in blankets or hair-cloth, were still in a worse condition than the
abbess of Quedlingberg--by tumbling and tossing, and tossing and tumbling
from one side of their beds to the other the whole night long--the several
sisterhoods had scratch'd and maul'd themselves all to death--they got out
of their beds almost flay'd alive--every body thought saint Antony had
visited them for probation with his fire--they had never once, in short,
shut their eyes the whole night long from vespers to matins.
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