The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne (short novels to read .txt) 📖

all. It was a little stiff and awkward, from a total disuse of it, for the three years he lay confined at my father’s house in town; but it was plump and muscular, and in all other respects as good and promising a leg as the other.

I declare, I do not recollect any one opinion or passage of my life, where my understanding was more at a loss to make ends meet, and torture the chapter I had been writing, to the service of the chapter following it, than in the present case: one would think I took a pleasure in running into difficulties of this kind, merely to make fresh experiments of getting out of ’em⁠⸺⁠Inconsiderate soul that thou art! What! are not the unavoidable distresses with which, as an author and a man, thou art hemm’d in on every side of thee⁠⸺⁠are they, Tristram, not sufficient, but thou must entangle thyself still more?

Is it not enough that thou art in debt, and that thou hast ten cartloads of thy fifth and sixth volumes still⁠—still unsold, and art almost at thy wit’s ends, how to get them off thy hands?

To this hour art thou not tormented with the vile asthma that thou gattest in skating against the wind in Flanders? and is it but two months ago, that in a fit of laughter, on seeing a cardinal make water like a quirister (with both hands) thou brakest a vessel in thy lungs, whereby, in two hours, thou lost as many quarts of blood; and hadst thou lost as much more, did not the faculty tell thee⁠⸻it would have amounted to a gallon?⁠⸻

VII

⸺⁠But for heaven’s sake, let us not talk of quarts or gallons⁠⸺⁠let us take the story straight before us; it is so nice and intricate a one, it will scarce bear the transposition of a single tittle; and, somehow or other, you have got me thrust almost into the middle of it⁠—

—I beg we may take more care.

VIII

My uncle Toby and the corporal had posted down with so much heat and precipitation, to take possession of the spot of ground we have so often spoke of, in order to open their campaign as early as the rest of the allies; that they had forgot one of the most necessary articles of the whole affair; it was neither a pioneer’s spade, a pickax, or a shovel⁠—

—It was a bed to lie on: so that as Shandy-Hall was at that time unfurnished; and the little inn where poor Le Fever died, not yet built; my uncle Toby was constrained to accept of a bed at Mrs. Wadman’s, for a night or two, till corporal Trim (who to the character of an excellent valet, groom, cook, sempster, surgeon, and engineer, superadded that of an excellent upholsterer too), with the help of a carpenter and a couple of tailors, constructed one in my uncle Toby’s house.

A daughter of Eve, for such was widow Wadman, and ’tis all the character I intend to give of her⁠—

—“That she was a perfect woman⁠—” had better be fifty leagues off⁠—or in her warm bed⁠—or playing with a case-knife⁠—or anything you please⁠—than make a man the object of her attention, when the house and all the furniture is her own.

There is nothing in it out of doors and in broad daylight, where a woman has a power, physically speaking, of viewing a man in more lights than one⁠—but here, for her soul, she can see him in no light without mixing something of her own goods and chattels along with him⁠⸺⁠till by reiterated acts of such combination, he gets foisted into her inventory⁠⸺⁠

—And then good night.

But this is not matter of System; for I have delivered that above⁠⸺⁠nor is it matter of Breviary⁠⸺⁠for I make no man’s creed but my own⁠⸺⁠nor matter of Fact⁠⸺⁠at least that I know of; but ’tis matter copulative and introductory to what follows.

IX

I do not speak it with regard to the coarseness or cleanness of them⁠—or the strength of their gussets⁠⸺⁠but pray do not night-shifts differ from day-shifts as much in this particular, as in anything else in the world; That they so far exceed the others in length, that when you are laid down in them, they fall almost as much below the feet, as the day-shifts fall short of them?

Widow Wadman’s night-shifts (as was the mode I suppose in King William’s and Queen Anne’s reigns) were cut however after this fashion; and if the fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing)⁠⸺⁠so much the worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length; so that allowing a moderate woman two ells, she had half an ell to spare, to do what she would with.

Now from one little indulgence gained after another, in the many bleak and decemberly nights of a seven years widowhood, things had insensibly come to this pass, and for the two last years had got establish’d into one of the ordinances of the bedchamber⁠—That as soon as Mrs. Wadman was put to bed, and had got her legs stretched down to the bottom of it, of which she always gave Bridget notice⁠—Bridget, with all suitable decorum, having first open’d the bedclothes at the feet, took hold of the half-ell of cloth we are speaking of, and having gently, and with both her hands, drawn it downwards to its furthest extension, and then contracted it again sidelong by four or five even plaits, she took a large corking pin out of her sleeve, and with the point directed towards her, pinn’d the plaits all fast together a little above the hem; which done, she tuck’d all in tight at the feet, and wish’d her mistress a good night.

This was constant, and without any other variation than this; that on shivering and tempestuous nights, when Bridget untuck’d the feet of the bed, etc., to do this⁠⸺⁠she consulted no thermometer but that of