The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

[43] Alluding to the first edition. C H A P. LX I CALL all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in our careers in this world, to bear me witness, that I could never yet get fairly to my uncle _Toby_’s amours, till this very moment, that my mother’s _curiosity_, as she stated the affair,——or a different impulse in her, as my father would have it——wished her to take a peep at them through the key-hole. “Call it, my dear, by its right name, quoth my father, and look through the key-hole as long as you will.” Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humour, which I have often spoken of, in my father’s habit, could have vented such an insinuation——he was however frank and generous in his nature, and at all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word of this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him. My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested upon the back of his—she raised her fingers, and let them fall—it could scarce be call’d a tap; or if it was a tap——’twould have puzzled a casuist to say, whether ’twas a tap of remonstrance, or a tap of confession: my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, class’d it right—Conscience redoubled her blow—he turn’d his face suddenly the other way, and my mother supposing his body was about to turn with it in order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping her left as its centre, brought herself so far in front, that as he turned his head, he met her eye——Confusion again! he saw a thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himself——a thin, blue, chill, pellucid chrystal with all its humours so at rest, the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen, at the bottom of it, had it existed——it did not——and how I happen to be so lewd myself, particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal equinoxes——Heaven above knows——My mother——madam——was so at no time, either by nature, by institution, or example. A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months of the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humours from the manual effervescencies of devotional tracts, which having little or no meaning in them, nature is oft-times obliged to find one——And as for my father’s example! ’twas so far from being either aiding or abetting thereunto, that ’twas the whole business of his life, to keep all fancies of that kind out of her head——Nature had done her part, to have spared him this trouble; and what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew it——And here am I sitting, this 12th day of _August_ 1766, in a purple jerkin and yellow pair of slippers, without either wig or cap on, a most tragicomical completion of his prediction, “That I should neither think, nor act like any other man’s child, upon that very account.” The mistake in my father, was in attacking my mother’s motive, instead of the act itself; for certainly key-holes were made for other purposes; and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true proposition, and denied a key-hole to be what it was——it became a violation of nature; and was so far, you see, criminal. It is for this reason, an’ please your Reverences, That key-holes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together. ——which leads me to my uncle _Toby_’s amours. C H A P. LXI THOUGH the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle _Toby_’s great ramallie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaign trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished. The corporal with cheary eye and both arms extended, had fallen back perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with a better air——had SPLEEN given a look at it, ’twould have cost her ladyship a smile——it curl’d every where but where the corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it honour, he could as soon have raised the dead. Such it was——or rather such would it have seem’d upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle _Toby_’s, assimilated every thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had moreover wrote GENTLEMAN with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnish’d gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him; and though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle _Toby_ put them on, they became serious objects, and altogether seem’d to have been picked up by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage. Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle _Toby_’s blue and gold——_had not Quantity in some measure been necessary to Grace:_ in a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle _Toby_’s life, for he seldom went further than the bowling-green—his blue and gold had become so miserably too straight for him, that it was with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no advantage.——They were laced however down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c. in the mode of King _William_’s reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallick and doughty an air with them, that had my uncle _Toby_ thought of attacking in armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination. As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripp’d by the taylor between the legs, and left at _sixes and sevens_—— ——Yes, Madam,——but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held impracticable the night before, and as there was no alternative in my uncle _Toby_’s wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush. The corporal had array’d himself in poor _Le Fever_’s regimental coat; and with his hair tuck’d up under his _Montero_-cap, which he had furbish’d up for the occasion, march’d three paces distant from his master: a whiff of military pride had puff’d out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that in a black leather thong clipp’d into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the corporal’s stick——my uncle _Toby_ carried his cane like a pike. ——It looks well at least; quoth my father to himself. C H A P. LXII MY uncle _Toby_ turn’d his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the corporal; and the corporal as oft as he did it, gave a slight flourish with his stick—but not vapouringly; and with the sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid his honour “never fear.” Now my uncle _Toby_ did fear; and grievously too; he knew not (as my father had reproach’d him) so much as the right end of a Woman from the wrong, and therefore was never altogether at his ease near any one of them——unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor would the most courteous knight of romance have gone further, at least upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman’s eye; and yet excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. _Wadman_, he had never looked stedfastly into one; and would often tell my father in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as taking bawdy.—— ——And suppose it is? my father would say. C H A P. LXIII SHE cannot, quoth my uncle _Toby_, halting, when they had march’d up to within twenty paces of Mrs. _Wadman_’s door—she cannot, corporal, take it amiss.—— ——She will take it, an’ please your honour, said the corporal, just as the _Jew_’s widow at _Lisbon_ took it of my brother _Tom._—— ——And how was that? quoth my uncle _Toby_, facing quite about to the corporal. Your honour, replied the corporal, knows of _Tom_’s misfortunes; but this affair has nothing to do with them any further than this, That if _Tom_ had not married the widow——or had it pleased God after their marriage, that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and dragg’d to the inquisition——’Tis a cursed place—added the corporal, shaking his head,—when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an’ please your honour, for ever. ’Tis very true; said my uncle _Toby_, looking gravely at Mrs. _Wadman_’s house, as he spoke. Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for life—or so sweet, an’ please your honour, as liberty. Nothing, _Trim_——said my uncle Toby, musing—— Whilst a man is free,—cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his stick thus—— squiqqly line diagonally across the page A thousand of my father’s most subtle syllogisms could not have said more for celibacy. My uncle _Toby_ look’d earnestly towards his cottage and his bowling-green. The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do, but to conjure him down again with his story, and in this form of Exorcism, most un-ecclesiastically did the corporal do it. C H A P. LXIV AS _Tom_’s place, an’ please your honour, was easy—and the weather warm—it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the world; and as it fell out about that time, that a _Jew_ who kept a sausage shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade——_Tom_ thought (as every body in _Lisbon_ was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it on: so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages at her shop—_Tom_ set out—counting the matter thus within himself, as he walk’d along; that let the worst come of it that could, he should at least get a pound of sausages for their worth—but, if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not only a pound of sausages—but a wife and—a sausage shop, an’ please your honour, into the bargain. Every servant in the family, from high to low, wish’d _Tom_ success; and I can fancy, an’ please your honour, I see him this moment with his white dimity waist-coat and breeches, and hat a little o’ one side, passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a chearful word for every body he met:——But alas! _Tom!_ thou smilest no more, cried the corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as if he apostrophised him in his dungeon. Poor fellow! said my uncle _Toby_, feelingly. He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an’ please your honour, as ever blood warm’d—— ——Then he resembled thee, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, rapidly. The corporal blush’d down to his fingers ends—a tear of sentimental bashfulness—another of gratitude to my uncle _Toby_—and a tear of sorrow for his brother’s misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran sweetly down his cheek together; my uncle _Toby_’s kindled as one lamp does at another; and taking hold of the breast of _Trim_’s coat (which had been that of _Le Fever_’s) as if to ease his lame leg, but in reality to gratify a finer feeling——he stood silent for a minute and a half; at the end of which he took his hand away, and the corporal making a bow, went on with his story of his brother and the _Jew_’s widow. C H A P. LXV WHEN _Tom_, an’ please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in it, but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers slightly