The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Part 71

Chapter 4.the Seventy-eighth.

Now there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, looks, and accents with which the word fiddlestick may be p.r.o.nounced in all such causes as this, every one of 'em impressing a sense and meaning as different from the other, as dirt from cleanliness-That Casuists (for it is an affair of conscience on that score) reckon up no less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong.

Mrs. Wadman hit upon the fiddlestick, which summoned up all my uncle Toby's modest blood into his cheeks-so feeling within himself that he had somehow or other got beyond his depth, he stopt short; and without entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he laid his hand upon his heart, and made an offer to take them as they were, and share them along with her.

When my uncle Toby had said this, he did not care to say it again; so casting his eye upon the Bible which Mrs. Wadman had laid upon the table, he took it up; and popping, dear soul! upon a pa.s.sage in it, of all others the most interesting to him-which was the siege of Jericho-he set himself to read it over-leaving his proposal of marriage, as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after its own way. Now it wrought neither as an astringent or a loosener; nor like opium, or bark, or mercury, or buckthorn, or any one drug which nature had bestowed upon the world-in short, it work'd not at all in her; and the cause of that was, that there was something working there before-Babbler that I am! I have antic.i.p.ated what it was a dozen times; but there is fire still in the subject-allons.

Chapter 4.Lx.x.xV.

It is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from London to Edinburgh, to enquire before he sets out, how many miles to York; which is about the half way-nor does any body wonder, if he goes on and asks about the corporation, &c....

It was just as natural for Mrs. Wadman, whose first husband was all his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her feelings, in the one case than in the other.

She had accordingly read Drake's anatomy from one end to the other. She had peeped into Wharton upon the brain, and borrowed Graaf (This must be a mistake in Mr. Shandy; for Graaf wrote upon the pancreatick juice, and the parts of generation.) upon the bones and muscles; but could make nothing of it.

She had reason'd likewise from her own powers-laid down theorems-drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion.

To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor Slop, 'if poor captain Shandy was ever likely to recover of his wound-?'

-He is recovered, Doctor Slop would say-

What! quite?

Quite: madam-

But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. Wadman would say.

Doctor Slop was the worst man alive at definitions; and so Mrs. Wadman could get no knowledge: in short, there was no way to extract it, but from my uncle Toby himself.

There is an accent of humanity in an enquiry of this kind which lulls Suspicion to rest-and I am half persuaded the serpent got pretty near it, in his discourse with Eve; for the propensity in the s.e.x to be deceived could not be so great, that she should have boldness to hold chat with the devil, without it-But there is an accent of humanity-how shall I describe it?-'tis an accent which covers the part with a garment, and gives the enquirer a right to be as particular with it, as your body-surgeon.

'-Was it without remission?-

'-Was it more tolerable in bed?

'-Could he lie on both sides alike with it?

'-Was he able to mount a horse?

'-Was motion bad for it?' et caetera, were so tenderly spoke to, and so directed towards my uncle Toby's heart, that every item of them sunk ten times deeper into it than the evils themselves-but when Mrs. Wadman went round about by Namur to get at my uncle Toby's groin; and engaged him to attack the point of the advanced counterscarp, and pele mele with the Dutch to take the counterguard of St. Roch sword in hand-and then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him all bleeding by the hand out of the trench, wiping her eye, as he was carried to his tent-Heaven! Earth! Sea!-all was lifted up-the springs of nature rose above their levels-an angel of mercy sat besides him on the sopha-his heart glow'd with fire-and had he been worth a thousand, he had lost every heart of them to Mrs. Wadman.

-And whereabouts, dear sir, quoth Mrs. Wadman, a little categorically, did you receive this sad blow?-In asking this question, Mrs. Wadman gave a slight glance towards the waistband of my uncle Toby's red plush breeches, expecting naturally, as the shortest reply to it, that my uncle Toby would lay his fore-finger upon the place-It fell out otherwise-for my uncle Toby having got his wound before the gate of St. Nicolas, in one of the traverses of the trench opposite to the salient angle of the demibastion of St. Roch; he could at any time stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where he was standing when the stone struck him: this struck instantly upon my uncle Toby's sensorium-and with it, struck his large map of the town and citadel of Namur and its environs, which he had purchased and pasted down upon a board, by the corporal's aid, during his long illness-it had lain with other military lumber in the garret ever since, and accordingly the corporal was detached to the garret to fetch it.

My uncle Toby measured off thirty toises, with Mrs. Wadman's scissars, from the returning angle before the gate of St. Nicolas; and with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the G.o.ddess of Decency, if then in being-if not, 'twas her shade-shook her head, and with a finger wavering across her eyes-forbid her to explain the mistake.

Unhappy Mrs. Wadman!

-For nothing can make this chapter go off with spirit but an apostrophe to thee-but my heart tells me, that in such a crisis an apostrophe is but an insult in disguise, and ere I would offer one to a woman in distress-let the chapter go to the devil; provided any d.a.m.n'd critic in keeping will be but at the trouble to take it with him.

Chapter 4.Lx.x.xVI.

My uncle Toby's Map is carried down into the kitchen.

Chapter 4.Lx.x.xVII.

-And here is the Maes-and this is the Sambre; said the corporal, pointing with his right hand extended a little towards the map, and his left upon Mrs. Bridget's shoulder-but not the shoulder next him-and this, said he, is the town of Namur-and this the citadel-and there lay the French-and here lay his honour and myself-and in this cursed trench, Mrs. Bridget, quoth the corporal, taking her by the hand, did he receive the wound which crush'd him so miserably here.-In p.r.o.nouncing which, he slightly press'd the back of her hand towards the part he felt for-and let it fall.

We thought, Mr. Trim, it had been more in the middle,-said Mrs. Bridget-

That would have undone us for ever-said the corporal.

-And left my poor mistress undone too, said Bridget.

The corporal made no reply to the repartee, but by giving Mrs. Bridget a kiss.

Come-come-said Bridget-holding the palm of her left hand parallel to the plane of the horizon, and sliding the fingers of the other over it, in a way which could not have been done, had there been the least wart or protruberance-'Tis every syllable of it false, cried the corporal, before she had half finished the sentence-

-I know it to be fact, said Bridget, from credible witnesses.

-Upon my honour, said the corporal, laying his hand upon his heart, and blushing, as he spoke, with honest resentment-'tis a story, Mrs. Bridget, as false as h.e.l.l-Not, said Bridget, interrupting him, that either I or my mistress care a halfpenny about it, whether 'tis so or no-only that when one is married, one would chuse to have such a thing by one at least-

It was somewhat unfortunate for Mrs. Bridget, that she had begun the attack with her manual exercise; for the corporal instantly....

Chapter 4.Lx.x.xVIII.

It was like the momentary contest in the moist eye-lids of an April morning, 'Whether Bridget should laugh or cry.'

She s.n.a.t.c.h'd up a rolling-pin-'twas ten to one, she had laugh'd-

She laid it down-she cried; and had one single tear of 'em but tasted of bitterness, full sorrowful would the corporal's heart have been that he had used the argument; but the corporal understood the s.e.x, a quart major to a terce at least, better than my uncle Toby, and accordingly he a.s.sailed Mrs. Bridget after this manner.

I know, Mrs. Bridget, said the corporal, giving her a most respectful kiss, that thou art good and modest by nature, and art withal so generous a girl in thyself, that, if I know thee rightly, thou would'st not wound an insect, much less the honour of so gallant and worthy a soul as my master, wast thou sure to be made a countess of-but thou hast been set on, and deluded, dear Bridget, as is often a woman's case, 'to please others more than themselves-'