The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - 29

WITH all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s fancy——with so many family prejudices—and ten decades of such tales running on for ever along with them——how was it possible with such exquisite——was it a true nose?——That a man with such exquisite feelings as my father had, could bear the shock at all below stairs——or indeed above stairs, in any other posture, but the very posture I have described?

——Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times——taking care only to place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you do it—But was the stranger’s nose a true nose, or was it a false one?

To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth decade, which immediately follows this.

This tale, cried Slawkenbergius, somewhat exultingly, has been reserved by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right well, that when I shall have told it, and my reader shall have read it thro’—’twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book; inasmuch, continues Slawkenbergius, as I know of no tale which could possibly ever go down after it.

’Tis a tale indeed!

This sets out with the first interview in the inn at Lyons, when Fernandez left the courteous stranger and his sister Julia alone in her chamber, and is over-written.

The  I N T R I C A C I E S
O F
Diego and Julia.

Heavens! thou art a strange creature, Slawkenbergius! what a whimsical view of the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou opened! how this can ever be translated, and yet if this specimen of Slawkenbergius’s tales, and the exquisitiveness of his moral, should please the world—translated shall a couple of volumes be.——Else, how this can ever be translated into good English, I have no sort of conception—There seems in some passages to want a sixth sense to do it rightly.——What can he mean by the lambent pupilability of slow, low, dry chat, five notes below the natural tone——which you know, madam, is little more than a whisper? The moment I pronounced the words, I could perceive an attempt towards a vibration in the strings, about the region of the heart.——The brain made no acknowledgment.——There’s often no good understanding betwixt ’em—I felt as if I understood it.——I had no ideas.——The movement could not be without cause.—I’m lost. I can make nothing of it—unless, may it please your worships, the voice, in that case being little more than a whisper, unavoidably forces the eyes to approach not only within six inches of each other—but to look into the pupils—is not that dangerous?——But it can’t be avoided—for to look up to the cieling, in that case the two chins unavoidably meet——and to look down into each other’s lap, the foreheads come to immediate contact, which at once puts an end to the conference——I mean to the sentimental part of it.——What is left, madam, is not worth stooping for.

C H A P.   XXXVII

MY father lay stretched across the bed as still as if the hand of death had pushed him down, for a full hour and a half before he began to play upon the floor with the toe of that foot which hung over the bed-side; my uncle Toby’s heart was a pound lighter for it.——In a few moments, his left-hand, the knuckles of which had all the time reclined upon the handle of the chamber-pot, came to its feeling—he thrust it a little more within the valance—drew up his hand, when he had done, into his bosom—gave a hem! My good uncle Toby, with infinite pleasure, answered it; and full gladly would have ingrafted a sentence of consolation upon the opening it afforded: but having no talents, as I said, that way, and fearing moreover that he might set out with something which might make a bad matter worse, he contented himself with resting his chin placidly upon the cross of his crutch.

Now whether the compression shortened my uncle Toby’s face into a more pleasurable oval—or that the philanthropy of his heart, in seeing his brother beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had braced up his muscles——so that the compression upon his chin only doubled the benignity which was there before, is not hard to decide.——My father, in turning his eyes, was struck with such a gleam of sun-shine in his face, as melted down the sullenness of his grief in a moment.

He broke silence as follows:

C H A P.   XXXVIII

DID ever man, brother Toby, cried my father, raising himself upon his elbow, and turning himself round to the opposite side of the bed, where my uncle Toby was sitting in his old fringed chair, with his chin resting upon his crutch——did ever a poor unfortunate man, brother Toby, cried my father, receive so many lashes?——The most I ever saw given, quoth my uncle Toby (ringing the bell at the bed’s head for Trim) was to a grenadier, I think in Mackay’s regiment.

——Had my uncle Toby shot a bullet through my father’s heart, he could not have fallen down with his nose upon the quilt more suddenly.

Bless me! said my uncle Toby.

C H A P.   XXXIX

WAS it Mackay’s regiment, quoth my uncle Toby, where the poor grenadier was so unmercifully whipp’d at Bruges about the ducats?—O Christ! he was innocent! cried Trim, with a deep sigh.—And he was whipp’d, may it please your honour, almost to death’s door.—They had better have shot him outright, as he begg’d, and he had gone directly to heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour.——I thank thee, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby.——I never think of his, continued Trim, and my poor brother Tom’s misfortunes, for we were all three school-fellows, but I cry like a coward.——Tears are no proof of cowardice, Trim.—I drop them oft-times myself, cried my uncle Toby.——I know your honour does, replied Trim, and so am not ashamed of it myself.—But to think, may it please your honour, continued Trim, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke—to think of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest as God could make them—the children of honest people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the world—and fall into such evils!—poor Tom! to be tortured upon a rack for nothing—but marrying a Jew’s widow who sold sausages—honest Dick Johnson’s soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats another man put into his knapsack!—O!—these are misfortunes, cried Trim,—pulling out his handkerchief—these are misfortunes, may it please your honour, worth lying down and crying over.

—My father could not help blushing.

’Twould be a pity, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of thy own—thou feelest it so tenderly for others.—Alack-o-day, replied the corporal, brightening up his face——your honour knows I have neither wife or child——I can have no sorrows in this world.——My father could not help smiling.—As few as any man, Trim, replied my uncle Toby; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age—when thou art passed all services, Trim—and hast outlived thy friends.——An’ please your honour, never fear, replied Trim, chearily.——But I would have thee never fear, Trim, replied my uncle Toby, and therefore, continued my uncle Toby, throwing down his crutch, and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word therefore—in recompence, Trim, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy heart I have had such proofs of—whilst thy master is worth a shilling——thou shalt never ask elsewhere, Trim, for a penny. Trim attempted to thank my uncle Toby—but had not power——tears trickled down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off—He laid his hands upon his breast——made a bow to the ground, and shut the door.

——I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby——My father smiled.——I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby.——My father looked grave.

C H A P.   XL

IS this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of PENSIONS and GRENADIERS?

C H A P.   XLI

WHEN my uncle Toby first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off the bed—he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam——’tis the transition from one attitude to another——like the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all.

For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floor——pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within the valance—gave a hem—raised himself up upon his elbow—and was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Toby—when recollecting the unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude——he got upon his legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short before my uncle Toby; and laying the three first fingers of his right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed himself to my uncle Toby as follows:

C H A P.   XLII

WHEN I reflect, brother Toby, upon MAN; and take a view of that dark side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble—when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our inheritance——I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting my father—but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year?——What could I have done without it? replied my uncle Toby——That’s another concern, said my father testily—But I say Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful Items with which the heart of man is overcharged, ’tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand out, and bear itself up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature.——’Tis by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the palms of his hands close together——’tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy——a centinel in a wooden centry-box might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men.——We are upheld by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings.

——That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it,——But give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into the mystery.

With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby.

My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which Socrates is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens; which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning of Socrates is expressed by it—for he holds the fore-finger of his left-hand between the fore-finger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying to the libertine he is reclaiming——“You grant me this——and this: and this, and this, I don’t ask of you—they follow of themselves in course.”

So stood my father, holding fast his fore-finger betwixt his finger and his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle Toby as he sat in his old fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs——O Garrick!——what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy immortality, and secure my own behind it.

C H A P.   XLIII

THOUGH man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time ’tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day——was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us.—Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion.—Will that set my child’s nose on? cried my father, letting go his finger, and striking one hand against the other.——It makes every thing straight for us, answered my uncle Toby.——Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can’t prevent the shock——at least it imposes upon our sense of it.

Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his fore-finger, as he was coming closer to the point——had my child arrived safe into the world, unmartyr’d in that precious part of him—fanciful and extravagant as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress upon our characters and conducts—Heaven is witness! that in the warmest transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than what GEORGE or EDWARD would have spread around it.

But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him——I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good.

He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother.

I wish it may answer——replied my uncle Toby, rising up.

C H A P.   XLIV

WHAT a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going down stairs, what a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us! Take pen and ink in hand, brother Toby, and calculate it fairly——I know no more of calculation than this balluster, said my uncle Toby (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate blow souse upon his shin-bone)——’Twas a hundred to one—cried my uncle Toby—I thought, quoth my father, (rubbing his shin) you had known nothing of calculations, brother Toby.

a mere chance, said my uncle Toby.——Then it adds one to the chapter——replied my father.

The double success of my father’s repartees tickled off the pain of his shin at once—it was well it so fell out—(chance! again)—or the world to this day had never known the subject of my father’s calculation——to guess it—there was no chance——What a lucky chapter of chances has this turned out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express, and in truth I have enough already upon my hands without it.—Have not I promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon wishes?——a chapter of noses?—No, I have done that—a chapter upon my uncle Toby’s modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep—by my great grandfather’s whiskers, I shall never get half of ’em through this year.

Take pen and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother Toby, said my father, and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts of the body, the edge of the forceps should have the ill luck just to fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the fortunes of our house with it.

It might have been worse, replied my uncle Toby.——I don’t comprehend, said my father.——Suppose the hip had presented, replied my uncle Toby, as Dr. Slop foreboded.

My father reflected half a minute—looked down——touched the middle of his forehead slightly with his finger——

—True, said he.

C H A P.   XLV