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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Section 38 of 48 - Table of Contents
Chapter 4.IX.

--Now this is the most puzzled skein of all--for in this last chapter, as
far at least as it has help'd me through Auxerre, I have been getting
forwards in two different journies together, and with the same dash of the
pen--for I have got entirely out of Auxerre in this journey which I am
writing now, and I am got half way out of Auxerre in that which I shall
write hereafter--There is but a certain degree of perfection in every
thing; and by pushing at something beyond that, I have brought myself into
such a situation, as no traveller ever stood before me; for I am this
moment walking across the market-place of Auxerre with my father and my
uncle Toby, in our way back to dinner--and I am this moment also entering
Lyons with my post-chaise broke into a thousand pieces--and I am moreover
this moment in a handsome pavillion built by Pringello (The same Don
Pringello, the celebrated Spanish architect, of whom my cousin Antony has
made such honourable mention in a scholium to the Tale inscribed to his
name.  Vid. p.129, small edit.), upon the banks of the Garonne, which Mons.
Sligniac has lent me, and where I now sit rhapsodising all these affairs.

--Let me collect myself, and pursue my journey.



Chapter 4.X.

I am glad of it, said I, settling the account with myself, as I walk'd into
Lyons--my chaise being all laid higgledy-piggledy with my baggage in a
cart, which was moving slowly before me--I am heartily glad, said I, that
'tis all broke to pieces; for now I can go directly by water to Avignon,
which will carry me on a hundred and twenty miles of my journey, and not
cost me seven livres--and from thence, continued I, bringing forwards the
account, I can hire a couple of mules--or asses, if I like, (for nobody
knows me,) and cross the plains of Languedoc for almost nothing--I shall
gain four hundred livres by the misfortune clear into my purse:  and
pleasure! worth--worth double the money by it.  With what velocity,
continued I, clapping my two hands together, shall I fly down the rapid
Rhone, with the Vivares on my right hand, and Dauphiny on my left, scarce
seeing the ancient cities of Vienne, Valence, and Vivieres.  What a flame
will it rekindle in the lamp, to snatch a blushing grape from the Hermitage
and Cote roti, as I shoot by the foot of them! and what a fresh spring in
the blood! to behold upon the banks advancing and retiring, the castles of
romance, whence courteous knights have whilome rescued the distress'd--and
see vertiginous, the rocks, the mountains, the cataracts, and all the hurry
which Nature is in with all her great works about her.

As I went on thus, methought my chaise, the wreck of which look'd stately
enough at the first, insensibly grew less and less in its size; the
freshness of the painting was no more--the gilding lost its lustre--and the
whole affair appeared so poor in my eyes--so sorry!--so contemptible! and,
in a word, so much worse than the abbess of Andouillets' itself--that I was
just opening my mouth to give it to the devil--when a pert vamping chaise-
undertaker, stepping nimbly across the street, demanded if Monsieur would
have his chaise refitted--No, no, said I, shaking my head sideways--Would
Monsieur choose to sell it? rejoined the undertaker--With all my soul, said
I--the iron work is worth forty livres--and the glasses worth forty more--
and the leather you may take to live on.

What a mine of wealth, quoth I, as he counted me the money, has this post-
chaise brought me in?  And this is my usual method of book-keeping, at
least with the disasters of life--making a penny of every one of 'em as
they happen to me--

--Do, my dear Jenny, tell the world for me, how I behaved under one, the
most oppressive of its kind, which could befal me as a man, proud as he
ought to be of his manhood--

'Tis enough, saidst thou, coming close up to me, as I stood with my garters
in my hand, reflecting upon what had not pass'd--'Tis enough, Tristram, and
I am satisfied, saidst thou, whispering these words in my ear, .... .. ....
... ......;--...... ...--any other man would have sunk down to the centre--

--Every thing is good for something, quoth I.

--I'll go into Wales for six weeks, and drink goat's whey--and I'll gain
seven years longer life for the accident.  For which reason I think myself
inexcusable, for blaming Fortune so often as I have done, for pelting me
all my life long, like an ungracious duchess, as I call'd her, with so many
small evils:  surely, if I have any cause to be angry with her, 'tis that
she has not sent me great ones--a score of good cursed, bouncing losses,
would have been as good as a pension to me.

--One of a hundred a year, or so, is all I wish--I would not be at the
plague of paying land-tax for a larger.



Chapter 4.XI.

To those who call vexations, Vexations, as knowing what they are, there
could not be a greater, than to be the best part of a day at Lyons, the
most opulent and flourishing city in France, enriched with the most
fragments of antiquity--and not be able to see it.  To be withheld upon any
account, must be a vexation; but to be withheld by a vexation--must
certainly be, what philosophy justly calls
Vexation
upon
Vexation.

I had got my two dishes of milk coffee (which by the bye is excellently
good for a consumption, but you must boil the milk and coffee together--
otherwise 'tis only coffee and milk)--and as it was no more than eight in
the morning, and the boat did not go off till noon, I had time to see
enough of Lyons to tire the patience of all the friends I had in the world
with it.  I will take a walk to the cathedral, said I, looking at my list,
and see the wonderful mechanism of this great clock of Lippius of Basil, in
the first place--

Now, of all things in the world, I understand the least of mechanism--I
have neither genius, or taste, or fancy--and have a brain so entirely unapt
for every thing of that kind, that I solemnly declare I was never yet able
to comprehend the principles of motion of a squirrel cage, or a common
knife-grinder's wheel--tho' I have many an hour of my life look'd up with
great devotion at the one--and stood by with as much patience as any
christian ever could do, at the other--

I'll go see the surprising movements of this great clock, said I, the very
first thing I do:  and then I will pay a visit to the great library of the
Jesuits, and procure, if possible, a sight of the thirty volumes of the
general history of China, wrote (not in the Tartarean, but) in the Chinese
language, and in the Chinese character too.

Now I almost know as little of the Chinese language, as I do of the
mechanism of Lippius's clock-work; so, why these should have jostled
themselves into the two first articles of my list--I leave to the curious
as a problem of Nature.  I own it looks like one of her ladyship's
obliquities; and they who court her, are interested in finding out her
humour as much as I.

When these curiosities are seen, quoth I, half addressing myself to my
valet de place, who stood behind me--'twill be no hurt if we go to the
church of St. Irenaeus, and see the pillar to which Christ was tied--and
after that, the house where Pontius Pilate lived--'Twas at the next town,
said the valet de place--at Vienne; I am glad of it, said I, rising briskly
from my chair, and walking across the room with strides twice as long as my
usual pace--'for so much the sooner shall I be at the Tomb of the two
lovers.'

What was the cause of this movement, and why I took such long strides in
uttering this--I might leave to the curious too; but as no principle of
clock-work is concerned in it--'twill be as well for the reader if I
explain it myself.



Chapter 4.XII.

O! there is a sweet aera in the life of man, when (the brain being tender
and fibrillous, and more like pap than any thing else)--a story read of two
fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by still more
cruel destiny--

Amandus--He
Amanda--She--
each ignorant of the other's course,
He--east
She--west
Amandus taken captive by the Turks, and carried to the emperor of Morocco's
court, where the princess of Morocco falling in love with him, keeps him
twenty years in prison for the love of his Amanda.--

She--(Amanda) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell'd hair,
o'er rocks and mountains, enquiring for Amandus!--Amandus! Amandus!--making
every hill and valley to echo back his name--
Amandus! Amandus!
at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate--Has Amandus!--has
my Amandus enter'd?--till,--going round, and round, and round the world--
chance unexpected bringing them at the same moment of the night, though by
different ways, to the gate of Lyons, their native city, and each in well-
known accents calling out aloud,
Is Amandus / Is my Amanda still alive?
they fly into each other's arms, and both drop down dead for joy.

There is a soft aera in every gentle mortal's life, where such a story
affords more pabulum to the brain, than all the Frusts, and Crusts, and
Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.

--'Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of
what Spon and others, in their accounts of Lyons, had strained into it; and
finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God knows--That sacred to
the fidelity of Amandus and Amanda, a tomb was built without the gates,
where, to this hour, lovers called upon them to attest their truths--I
never could get into a scrape of that kind in my life, but this tomb of the
lovers would, somehow or other, come in at the close--nay such a kind of
empire had it establish'd over me, that I could seldom think or speak of
Lyons--and sometimes not so much as see even a Lyons-waistcoat, but this
remnant of antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often
said in my wild way of running on--tho' I fear with some irreverence--'I
thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of Mecca, and
so little short, except in wealth, of the Santa Casa itself, that some time
or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business at Lyons)
on purpose to pay it a visit.'

In my list, therefore, of Videnda at Lyons, this, tho' last,--was not, you
see, least; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than usual cross my
room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down calmly into the basse
cour, in order to sally forth; and having called for my bill--as it was
uncertain whether I should return to my inn, I had paid it--had moreover
given the maid ten sous, and was just receiving the dernier compliments of
Monsieur Le Blanc, for a pleasant voyage down the Rhone--when I was stopped
at the gate--



Chapter 4.XIII.

--'Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large
panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-
leaves; and stood dubious, with his two fore-feet on the inside of the
threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing
very well whether he was to go in or no.

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike--there
is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks
and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me;
and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him:  on the
contrary, meet him where I will--whether in town or country--in cart or
under panniers--whether in liberty or bondage--I have ever something civil
to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he has as
little to do as I)--I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely
never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the
etchings of his countenance--and where those carry me not deep enough--in
flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to
think--as well as a man, upon the occasion.  In truth, it is the only
creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this:
for parrots, jackdaws, &c.--I never exchange a word with them--nor with the
apes, &c. for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the others
speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my dog and my cat, though I
value them both--(and for my dog he would speak if he could)--yet somehow
or other, they neither of them possess the talents for conversation--I can
make nothing of a discourse with them, beyond the proposition, the reply,
and rejoinder, which terminated my father's and my mother's conversations,
in his beds of justice--and those utter'd--there's an end of the dialogue--

--But with an ass, I can commune for ever.

Come, Honesty! said I,--seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and
the gate--art thou for coming in, or going out?

The ass twisted his head round to look up the street--

Well--replied I--we'll wait a minute for thy driver:

--He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite
way--

I understand thee perfectly, answered I--If thou takest a wrong step in
this affair, he will cudgel thee to death--Well! a minute is but a minute,
and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as
ill-spent.

He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in
the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness,
had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and pick'd it up again--
God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't--and many a
bitter day's labour,--and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages--'tis
all--all bitterness to thee, whatever life is to others.--And now thy
mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot--(for
he had cast aside the stem) and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this
world, that will give thee a macaroon.--In saying this, I pull'd out a
paper of 'em, which I had just purchased, and gave him one--and at this
moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me, that there was more of
pleasantry in the conceit, of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon--than
of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.

When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press'd him to come in--the poor
beast was heavy loaded--his legs seem'd to tremble under him--he hung
rather backwards, and as I pull'd at his halter, it broke short in my hand-
-he look'd up pensive in my face--'Don't thrash me with it--but if you
will, you may'--If I do, said I, I'll be d....d.

The word was but one-half of it pronounced, like the abbess of
Andouillet's--(so there was no sin in it)--when a person coming in, let
fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil's crupper, which put an end
to the ceremony.

Out upon it!
cried I--but the interjection was equivocal--and, I think, wrong placed
too--for the end of an osier which had started out from the contexture of
the ass's panier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket, as he rush'd by
me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can imagine--so that
the

Out upon it! in my opinion, should have come in here--but this I leave to
be settled by
The
Reviewers
of
My Breeches,
which I have brought over along with me for that purpose.
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