As soon as my uncle Toby had laid a foundation, he sent him to a public school, where, excepting Whitsuntide and Christmas, at which times the Corporal was punctually dispatched for him, — he remained to the spring of the year, seventeen; when the stories of the Emperor’s sending his army into Hungary against the Turks, kindling a spark of fire in his bosom, he left his Greek and Latin without leave, and throwing himself upon his knees before my uncle Toby, begged his father’s sword, and my uncle Toby’s leave along with it, to go and try his fortune under Eugene. — Twice did my uncle Toby forget his wound, and cry out, Le Fever! I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight beside me — And twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his head in sorrow and disconsolation. —
My uncle Toby took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung untouched ever since the Lieutenant’s death, and delivered it to the Corporal to brighten up; — and having detained Le Fever a single fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to Leghorn, — he put the sword into his hand, — If thou art brave, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, this will not fail thee, — but Fortune, said he, (musing a little) — Fortune may — And if she does, — added my uncle Toby, embracing him, come back again to me, Le Fever, and we will shape thee another course.
The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of Le Fever more than my uncle Toby’s paternal kindness; — he parted from my uncle Toby, as the best of sons from the best of fathers — both dropped tears — and as my uncle Toby gave him his last kiss, he slipped sixty guineas, tied up in an old purse of his father’s, in which was his mother’s ring, into his hand, — and bid God bless him.
Le Fever got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal his sword was made of, at the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade; but a series of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment, and trod close upon his heels for four years together after: he had withstood these bussetings to the last, till sickness overtook him at Marseilles, from whence he wrote my uncle Toby word, he had lost his time, his services, his health, and, in short, every thing but his sword; — and was waiting for the first ship to return back to him
Le Fever was hourly expected; and was uppermost in my uncle Toby’s mind all the time my father was giving him and Yorick a description of what kind of a person he would choose for a preceptor to me: but as my uncle Toby thought my father at first somewhat fanciful in the accomplishments he required, he forbore mentioning Le Fever’s name, — till the character, by Yorick’s interposition, ending unexpectedly, in one, who should be gentle tempered, and generous, and good, it impressed the image of Le Fever, and his interest upon my uncle Toby so forcibly, he rose instantly off his chair; and laying down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my father’s hands — I beg, brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, I may recommend poor Le Fever’s son to you — I beseech you, do, added Yorick — He has a good heart, said my uncle Toby — And a brave one too, an’ please your honour, said the Corporal.
— The best hearts, Trim, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle Toby.
T. SHANDY. VOL. III. CHAP. 49.
THE PULSE.
PARIS.
HAIL ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it! like grace and beauty which beget inclinations to love at first sight: ’tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.
— Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I must turn to go to the Opera Comique: — Most willingly, Monsieur, said she, laying aside her work —
I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops as I came along in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption; till at last, this hitting my fancy, I had walked in.
She was working a pair of ruffles as she sat in a low chair on the far side of the shop facing the door —
— Tres volontiers: most willingly, said she, laying her work down upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was sitting in, with so cheerful a movement and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying out fifty louis d’ors with her, I should have said— “This woman is grateful.”
You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take — you must turn first to your left hand — mais prenez garde — there are two turns; and be so good as to take the second — then go down a little way and you’ll see a church, and when you are past it, give yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the pont neuf, which you must cross — and there any one will do himself the pleasure to shew you —
She repeated her instructions three times over to me with the same good natured patience the third time as the first; — and if tones and manners have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts which shut them out — she seemed really interested, that I should not lose myself.
I will not suppose it was the woman’s beauty, notwithstanding she was the handsomest Grisset, I think, I ever saw, which had much to do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her eyes, — and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.
I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot every tittle of what she had said — so looking back, and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop as if to look whether I went right or not — I returned back, to ask her whether the first turn was to my right or left — for that I had absolutely forgot. — Is it possible! said she, half laughing.— ’Tis very possible, replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman, than of her good advice.
As this was the real truth — she took it, as every woman takes a matter of right, with a slight courtesy.
— Attendez, said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back-shop to get ready a parcel of gloves. am just going to send him, said she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place. — So I walked in with her to the far side of the shop, and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down beside her.
— He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment — And in that moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies. Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shews it is a part of the temperature; and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart, which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist), I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world — Feel it, said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two sore-fingers of my other to the artery —
— Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-aday-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever — How wouldst thou have laugh’d and moralized upon my new profession — and thou shouldst have laugh’d and moralized on — Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, “there are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman’s pulse.” — But a Grisset’s! thou wouldst have said — and in an open shop! Yorick —
— So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it.
I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband coming unexpected from a back parlour into the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning.— ’Twas nobody but her husband, she said, — so I began a fresh score — Monsieur is so good, quoth she, as he pass’d by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my pulse — The husband took off his hat, and making a bow, said I did him too much honour — and having said that, he
put on his hat and walked out.
Good God! said I to myself, as he went out — and can this man be the husband of this woman?
Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.
In London a shop-keeper and a shop-keeper’s wife seem to be one bone and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as in general to be upon a par, and to tally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.
In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there — in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerceless in his thrum night-cap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.
The genius of a people where nothing but the monarchy is salique, having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the women — by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant — Monsieur Le Marli is little better than the stone under your foot —
— Surely — surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone — thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings, and this improvement of our natures from it, I appeal to, as my evidence.
— And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she. — With all the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected — She was going to say something civil in return — but the lad came into the shop with the gloves — A propos, said I, I want a couple of pair myself.
The beautiful Grisset rose up when I said this, and going behind the counter, reached down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over against her: they were all too large. The beautiful Grisset measured them one by one across my hand — It would not alter the dimensions — She begged I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least — She held it open — my hand slipped into it at once — It will not do, said I, shaking my head a little — No, said she, doing the same thing.
There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety — where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set loose together could not express them — they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infector. I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it — it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so folding our hands within our arms, we both loll’d upon the counter — it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay between us
The beautiful Grisset looked sometimes at the gloves, then side-ways to the window, then at the gloves — and then at me. I was not disposed to break silence — I followed her example: so I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her — and so on alternately.
I found I lost considerably in every attack — she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eye-lashes with such penetration, that she looked into my very heart and reins — It may seem strange, but I could actually feel she did —
It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, and putting them into my pocket.
I was sensible the beautiful Grisset had not ask’d above a single livre above the price — I wish’d she had ask’d a livre more, and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about — Do you think, my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of a stranger — and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy? — M’en croyez capable? — Faith! not I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome — so counting the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a shopkeeper’s wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel followed me.
SENT. JOURNEY, PAGE, 95.
THE PIE-MAN.
SEEING a man standing with a basket on the other side of a street, in Versailles, as if he had something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to him and enquire for the Count de B***’s hotel.
La Fleur returned a little pale: and told me it was a Chevalier de St. Louis selling patés — It is impossible, La Fleur! said I. — La Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red ribband, he said, tied to his button-hole — and had looked into his basket and seen the patés which the Chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken in that.
Such a reverse in a man’s life awakens a better principle than curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise — the more I looked at him, his croix and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain — I got out of the remise and went towards him.
He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees, and with a sort of a bib which went half way up his breast; upon the top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His basket of little patés was covered over with a white damask napkin; another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look of propreté and neatness throughout; that one might have bought his patés of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.
He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at the corner of a hotel, for those to buy who chose it, without solicitation.
He was about forty-eight — of a sedatelook, something approaching to gravity. I did not wonder. — I went up rather to the basket than him, and having lifted up the napkin and taken one of his patés into my hand — I begg’d he would explain the appearance which affected me.
He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had passed in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony, he had obtained a company and the croix with it; but that, at the conclusion of the last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those of some other regiments, left without any provision, — he found himself in a wide world without friends, without a livre — and indeed, said he, without any thing but this — (pointing, as he said it, to his croix) — The poor Chevalier won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem too.
The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his generosity could neither relieve or reward every one, and it was only his misfortune to be amongst the number. He had a little wise, he said, whom he loved, who did the patisserie; and added, he felt no dishonour in defending her and himself from want in this way — unless providence had offered him a better.
It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing over what happened to this poor Chevalier of St. Louis about nine months after.
It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers, numbers had made the same enquiry which I had done — He had told them the same story, and always with so much modesty and good sense, that it had reached at last the King’s ears — who hearing the Chevalier had been a gallant officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a man of honour and integrity — he broke up his little trade by a pension of fifteen hundred livres a year.
SENT. JOURNEY, PAGE, 148.
As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me to relate another, out of its order, to please myself — the two stories reflect light upon each other — and ’tis a pity they should be parted.
THE SWORD.
RENNES.
WHEN states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel in their turns what distress and poverty is — I stop not to tell the causes which gradually brought the house d’E**** in Britanny into decay. The Marquis d’E**** had fought up against his condition with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still shew to the world, some little fragments of what his ancestors had been — their indiscre
tions had put it out of his power. There was enough left for the little exigencies of obscurity — But he had two boys who looked up to him for light — he thought they deserved it. He had tried his sword — it could not open the way — the mounting was too expensive — and simple oeconomy was not a match for it — there was no resource but commerce.
In any other province in France, save Britanny, this was smiting the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wished to see re-blossom — But in Britanny, there being a provision for this, he availed himself of it; and taking an occasion when the states were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two sons, entered the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which, though seldom claimed, he said, was no less in force; he took his sword from his side — Here, said he, take it; and be trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in condition to reclaim it.
The president accepted the Marquis’s sword — he staid a few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his house, and departed.
The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next day for Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to business, with some unlooked for bequests from distant branches of his house — returned home to reclaim his nobility and to support it.
It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any traveller, but a sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the very time of this solemn requisition: I call it solemn — it was so to me.
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 130
