by Лоренс Стерн
’Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empire extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea, to have done this.
MONTREUIL.
When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn, unless you are a little sour’d by the adventure, there is always a matter to compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; and that is with the sons and daughters of poverty, who surround you. Let no man say, “Let them go to the devil!” - ’tis a cruel journey to send a few miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: I always think it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every gentle traveller to do so likewise: he need not be so exact in setting down his motives for giving them; - They will be registered elsewhere.
For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, that I know, have so little to give; but as this was the first public act of my charity in France, I took the more notice of it.
A well-a-way! said I, - I have but eight sous in the world, showing them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for ’em.
A poor tatter’d soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying bow on his part. Had the whole parterre cried out, Place aux dames, with one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference for the sex with half the effect.
Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?
- I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his politesse.
A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in the circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once been a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously offer’d a pinch on both sides of him: it was a gift of consequence, and modestly declined. - The poor little fellow pressed it upon them with a nod of welcomeness. - Prenez en - prenez, said he, looking another way; so they each took a pinch. - Pity thy box should ever want one! said I to myself; so I put a couple of sous into it - taking a small pinch out of his box, to enhance their value, as I did it. He felt the weight of the second obligation more than of the first, - ’twas doing him an honour, - the other was only doing him a charity; - and he made me a bow down to the ground for it.
- Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaigned and worn out to death in the service - here’s a couple of sous for thee. - Vive le Roi! said the old soldier.
I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, pour l’amour de Dieu, which was the footing on which it was begg’d. - The poor woman had a dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.
Mon cher et très-charitable Monsieur. - There’s no opposing this, said I.
Milord Anglois - the very sound was worth the money; - so I gave my last sous for it. But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a pauvre honteux, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I believe, would have perished, ere he could have ask’d one for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days. - Good God! said I - and I have not one single sous left to give him. - But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of nature, stirring within me; - so I gave him - no matter what - I am ashamed to say how much now, - and was ashamed to think how little, then: so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was the precise sum.
I could afford nothing for the rest, but Dieu vous bénisse!
- Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore, said the old soldier, the dwarf, &c. The pauvre honteux could say nothing; - he pull’d out a little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away - and I thought he thanked me more than them all.
THE BIDET.
Having settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little bidet, and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs) - he canter’d away before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince. - But what is happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life! A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to La Fleur’s career; - his bidet would not pass by it, - a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick’d out of his jack-boots the very first kick.
La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more nor less upon it, than Diable! So presently got up, and came to the charge again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as he would have beat his drum.
The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back again, - then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but by the dead ass: - La Fleur insisted upon the thing - and the bidet threw him.
What’s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine? Monsieur, said he, c’est un cheval le plus opiniâtre du monde. - Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I. So La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, and away he scampered back to Montreuil. - Peste! said La Fleur.
It is not mal-à-propos to take notice here, that though La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this encounter, - namely, Diable! and Peste! that there are, nevertheless, three in the French language: like the positive, comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serves for every unexpected throw of the dice in life.
Le Diable! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall out contrary to your expectations; such as - the throwing once doublets - La Fleur’s being kick’d off his horse, and so forth. - Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always - Le Diable!
But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in that of the bidet’s running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground in jack-boots, - ’tis the second degree.
’Tis then Peste!
And for the third -
- But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use of it. -
Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in distress! - what ever is my cast, grant me but decent words to exclaim in, and I will give my nature way.
- But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take every evil just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.
La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight, - and then, you may imagine, if you please, with what word he closed the whole affair.
As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise, or into it. -
I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house at Nampont.
NAMPONT. THE DEAD ASS.
- And this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet - and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me. - I thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to his child; but ’twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur’s misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho’s lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.
The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass’s pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time, - then laid them down, - look’d at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it some time in his hand, - then laid it upon the bit of his ass’s bridle, - looked wistfully at the little arrangem
ent he had made - and then gave a sigh.
The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.
- He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home, when his ass died. Every one seemed desirous to know what business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.
It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the eldest of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if heaven would not take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.
When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp’d to pay Nature her tribute, - and wept bitterly.
He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of his journey; - that it had eaten the same bread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.
Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern. - La Fleur offered him money. - The mourner said he did not want it; - it was not the value of the ass - but the loss of him. - The ass, he said, he was assured, loved him; - and upon this told them a long story of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated them from each other three days; during which time the ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, and that they had scarce either eaten or drank till they met.
Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy poor beast; I’m sure thou hast been a merciful master to him. - Alas! said the mourner, I thought so when he was alive; - but now that he is dead, I think otherwise. - I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions together have been too much for him, - they have shortened the poor creature’s days, and I fear I have them to answer for. - Shame on the world! said I to myself. - Did we but love each other as this poor soul loved his ass - ’twould be something. -
NAMPONT. THE POSTILION.
The concern which the poor fellow’s story threw me into required some attention; the postilion paid not the least to it, but set off upon the pavé in a full gallop.
The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not have wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave and quiet movements; and I should have had an high opinion of the postilion had he but stolen off with me in something like a pensive pace. - On the contrary, as the mourner finished his lamentation, the fellow gave an unfeeling lash to each of his beasts, and set off clattering like a thousand devils.
I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven’s sake to go slower: - and the louder I called, the more unmercifully he galloped. - The deuce take him and his galloping too - said I, - he’ll go on tearing my nerves to pieces till he has worked me into a foolish passion, and then he’ll go slow that I may enjoy the sweets of it.
The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he had got to the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont, - he had put me out of temper with him, - and then with myself, for being so.
My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling gallop would have been of real service to me. -
- Then, prithee, get on - get on, my good lad, said I.
The postilion pointed to the hill. - I then tried to return back to the story of the poor German and his ass - but I had broke the clue, - and could no more get into it again, than the postilion could into a trot.
- The deuce go, said I, with it all! Here am I sitting as candidly disposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all runs counter.
There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds out to us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and the first word which roused me was Amiens.
- Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes, - this is the very town where my poor lady is to come.
AMIENS.
The words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L-’s post-chaise, with his sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time to make me a bow of recognition, - and of that particular kind of it, which told me she had not yet done with me. She was as good as her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, her brother’s servant came into the room with a billet, in which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which I was to present myself to Madame R-the first morning I had nothing to do at Paris. There was only added, she was sorry, but from what penchant she had not considered, that she had been prevented telling me her story, - that she still owed it to me; and if my route should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the name of Madame de L-, - that Madame de L-would be glad to discharge her obligation.
Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels; - ’tis only returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route of Flanders, home; - ’twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but, were it ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my journey, in sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery told to me by such a sufferer? To see her weep! and, though I cannot dry up the fountain of her tears, what an exquisite sensation is there still left, in wiping them away from off the cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I’m sitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole night beside her?
There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly reproached my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of expressions.
It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one; and my last flame happening to be blown out by a whiff of jealousy on the sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure taper of Eliza but about three months before, - swearing, as I did it, that it should last me through the whole journey. - Why should I dissemble the matter? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity; - she had a right to my whole heart: - to divide my affections was to lessen them; - to expose them was to risk them: where there is risk there may be loss: - and what wilt thou have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust and confidence - so good, so gentle, and unreproaching!
- I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself. - But my imagination went on, - I recalled her looks at that crisis of our separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu! I look’d at the picture she had tied in a black riband about my neck, - and blush’d as I look’d at it. - I would have given the world to have kiss’d it, - but was ashamed. - And shall this tender flower, said I, pressing it between my hands, - shall it be smitten to its very root, - and smitten, Yorick! by thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?
Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the ground, - be thou my witness - and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my witness also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went along with me, did the road lead me towards heaven!
In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding, will always say too much.
THE LETTER. AMIENS.
Fortune had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful in his feats of chivalry, - and not one thing had offered to signalise his zeal for my service from the time that he had entered into it, which was almost four-and-twenty hours. The poor soul burn’d with impatience; and the Count de L-’s servant coming with the letter, being the first practicable occasion which offer’d, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and, in order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back parlour in the auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in Picardy; and the Count de L-’s servant, in return, and not to be behindhand in politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him to the Count’s hotel. La Fleur’s prevenancy (for there was a passport in his very looks) soon set every servant
in the kitchen at ease with him; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out his fife, and leading off the dance himself with the first note, set the fille de chambre, the maître d’hôtel, the cook, the scullion, and all the household, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: I suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.
Madame de L-, in passing from her brother’s apartments to her own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her fille de chambre to ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman’s servant, who had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.
As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de L-, on the part of his master, - added a long apocrypha of inquiries after Madame de L-’s health, - told her, that Monsieur his master was au désespoire for her re-establishment from the fatigues of her journey, - and, to close all, that Monsieur had received the letter which Madame had done him the honour - And he has done me the honour, said Madame de L-, interrupting La Fleur, to send a billet in return.
Madame de L-had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations; - he trembled for my honour, - and possibly might not altogether be unconcerned for his own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could be wanting en égards vis à vis d’une femme! so that when Madame de L-asked La Fleur if he had brought a letter, - O qu’oui, said La Fleur: so laying down his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right side pocket with his left hand, he began to search for the letter with his right; - then contrariwise. - Diable! then sought every pocket - pocket by pocket, round, not forgetting his fob: - Peste! - then La Fleur emptied them upon the floor, - pulled out a dirty cravat, - a handkerchief, - a comb, - a whip lash, - a nightcap, - then gave a peep into his hat, - Quelle étourderie! He had left the letter upon the table in the auberge; - he would run for it, and be back with it in three minutes.
