W. C. Green - "The Book of Good Manners"

Rex Beach - "The Winds of Chance"

Harold Bell Wright - "Their Yesterdays"

Jules Verne - "Autour de la Lune"

A Sentimental Journey

L >> Laurence Sterne >> A Sentimental Journey




The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with
five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a
joyous genealogy out of them.

They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large
wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine
at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast: --
'twas a feast of love.

The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality
would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the
moment I enter'd the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the
family; and to invest myself in the character as speedily as I
could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up the
loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a
testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a
welcome mix'd with thanks that I had not seem'd to doubt it.

Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this
morsel so sweet,--and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I
took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain
upon my palate to this hour?

If the supper was to my taste,--the grace which followed it was
much more so.


THE GRACE.


When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with
the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance: the
moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether
into a back apartment to tie up their hair,--and the young men to
the door to wash their faces, and change their sabots; and in three
minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the
house to begin.--The old man and his wife came out last, and
placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon
the vielle,--and at the age he was then of, touch'd it well enough
for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune,-
-then intermitted,--and join'd her old man again, as their children
and grand-children danced before them.

It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some
pauses in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I
fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from
that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity. In a
word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance: --but, as I
had never seen her so engaged, I should have look'd upon it now as
one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally
misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended,
said, that this was their constant way; and that all his life long
he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his
family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful
and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an
illiterate peasant could pay, -

Or a learned prelate either, said I.


THE CASE OF DELICACY.


When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently
down to Lyons: --adieu, then, to all rapid movements! 'Tis a
journey of caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be
in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his
time with a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe to
Turin, through Savoy.

Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty, the
treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the
world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it.--Nature! in the
midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness
thou hast created: with all thy great works about thee, little
hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle;--but
to that little thou grantest safety and protection; and sweet are
the dwellings which stand so shelter'd.

Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden
turns and dangers of your roads,--your rocks,--your precipices;--
the difficulties of getting up,--the horrors of getting down,--
mountains impracticable,--and cataracts, which roll down great
stones from their summits, and block his road up.--The peasants had
been all day at work in removing a fragment of this kind between
St. Michael and Madane; and, by the time my voiturin got to the
place, it wanted full two hours of completing before a passage
could any how be gain'd: there was nothing but to wait with
patience;--'twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the delay,
and that together, the voiturin found himself obliged to put up
five miles short of his stage at a little decent kind of an inn by
the roadside.

I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber--got a good fire--
order'd supper; and was thanking heaven it was no worse, when a
voiture arrived with a lady in it and her servant maid.

As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess,--
without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she
usher'd them in, that there was nobody in it but an English
gentleman;--that there were two good beds in it, and a closet
within the room which held another. The accent in which she spoke
of this third bed, did not say much for it;--however, she said
there were three beds and but three people, and she durst say, the
gentleman would do anything to accommodate matters.--I left not the
lady a moment to make a conjecture about it--so instantly made a
declaration that I would do anything in my power.

As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber,
I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to
do the honours of it;--so I desired the lady to sit down,--pressed
her into the warmest seat,--called for more wood,--desired the
hostess to enlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with
the very best wine.

The lady had scarce warm'd herself five minutes at the fire, before
she began to turn her head back, and give a look at the beds; and
the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the more they return'd
perplexd;--I felt for her--and for myself: for in a few minutes,
what by her looks, and the case itself, I found myself as much
embarrassed as it was possible the lady could be herself.

That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was
enough simply by itself to have excited all this;--but the position
of them, for they stood parallel, and so very close to each other
as only to allow space for a small wicker chair betwixt them,
rendered the affair still more oppressive to us;--they were fixed
up moreover near the fire; and the projection of the chimney on one
side, and a large beam which cross'd the room on the other, formed
a kind of recess for them that was no way favourable to the nicety
of our sensations: --if anything could have added to it, it was
that the two beds were both of them so very small, as to cut us off
from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which in
either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside them,
though a thing not to be wish'd, yet there was nothing in it so
terrible which the imagination might not have pass'd over without
torment.

As for the little room within, it offer'd little or no consolation
to us: 'twas a damp, cold closet, with a half dismantled window-
shutter, and with a window which had neither glass nor oil paper in
it to keep out the tempest of the night. I did not endeavour to
stifle my cough when the lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced
the case in course to this alternative--That the lady should
sacrifice her health to her feelings, and take up with the closet
herself, and abandon the bed next mine to her maid,--or that the
girl should take the closet, &c., &c.

The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health
in her cheeks. The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk and
lively a French girl as ever moved.--There were difficulties every
way,--and the obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us
into the distress, great as it appeared whilst the peasants were
removing it, was but a pebble to what lay in our ways now.--I have
only to add, that it did not lessen the weight which hung upon our
spirits, that we were both too delicate to communicate what we felt
to each other upon the occasion.

We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it
than a little inn in Savoy could have furnish'd, our tongues had
been tied up, till necessity herself had set them at liberty;--but
the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down
her fille de chambre for a couple of them; so that by the time
supper was over, and we were left alone, we felt ourselves inspired
with a strength of mind sufficient to talk, at least, without
reserve upon our situation. We turn'd it every way, and debated
and considered it in all kinds of lights in the course of a two
hours' negotiation; at the end of which the articles were settled
finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a
treaty of peace,--and I believe with as much religion and good
faith on both sides as in any treaty which has yet had the honour
of being handed down to posterity.

They were as follow: -

First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur,--and he
thinking the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists
upon the concession on the lady's side of taking up with it.

Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as the
curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear
likewise too scanty to draw close, that the fille de chambre shall
fasten up the opening, either by corking pins, or needle and
thread, in such manner as shall be deem'd a sufficient barrier on
the side of Monsieur.

2dly. It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall
lie the whole night through in his robe de chambre.

Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a robe de chambre; he
having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk
pair of breeches.

The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of
the article,--for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for
the robe de chambre; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that
I should lie in my black silk breeches all night.

3dly. It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady, that
after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire
extinguished, that Monsieur should not speak one single word the
whole night.

Granted; provided Monsieur's saying his prayers might not be deemed
an infraction of the treaty.

There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the
manner in which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress
and get to bed;--there was but one way of doing it, and that I
leave to the reader to devise; protesting as I do it, that if it is
not the most delicate in nature, 'tis the fault of his own
imagination,--against which this is not my first complaint.

Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the
situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not
shut my eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn'd and turn'd
again, till a full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience
both wearing out,--O, my God! said I.

- You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no
more slept than myself.--I begg'd a thousand pardons--but insisted
it was no more than an ejaculation. She maintained 'twas an entire
infraction of the treaty--I maintained it was provided for in the
clause of the third article.

The lady would by no means give up her point, though she weaken'd
her barrier by it; for in the warmth of the dispute, I could hear
two or three corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground.

Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I,--stretching my arm out of
bed by way of asseveration. -

(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed
against the remotest idea of decorum for the world); -

But the fille de chambre hearing there were words between us, and
fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept silently
out of her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close
to our beds, that she had got herself into the narrow passage which
separated them, and had advanced so far up as to be in a line
betwixt her mistress and me: -

So that when I stretch'd out my hand I caught hold of the fille de
chambre's -


Footnotes:

{1} Nosegay.

{2} Hackney coach.

{3} Plate, napkin, knife, fork and spoon.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.