The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [259]
——Turn in hither, I beseech thee!——behold these breeches!——they are all I have in the world——that piteous rent was given them at Lyons———
My shirts! see what a deadly schism has happen’d amongst ’em—for the laps are in Lombardy, and the rest of ’em here—I never had but six, and a cunning gypsey of a laundress at Milan cut me off the fore-laps of five—To do her justice, she did it with some consideration—for I was returning out of Italy.5
And yet, notwithstanding all this, and a pistol tinder-box which was moreover filch’d from me at Sienna, and twice that I pay’d five Pauls for two hard eggs, once at Raddicoffini, and a second time at Capua6—I do not think a journey through France and Italy, provided a man keeps his temper7 all the way, so bad a thing as some people would make you believe: there must be ups and downs, or how the duce should we get into vallies where Nature spreads so many tables of entertainment.—’tis nonsense to imagine they will lend you their voitures8 to be shaken to pieces for nothing; and unless you pay twelve sous for greasing your wheels, how should the poor peasant get butter to his bread?—We really expect too much—and for the livre or two above par for your suppers and bed—at the most they are but one shilling and ninepence halfpenny——who would embroil their philosophy for it? for heaven’s and for your own sake, pay it——pay it with both hands open, rather than leave Disappointment sitting drooping upon the eye of your fair Hostess and her Damsels in the gate-way, at your departure——and besides, my dear Sir, you get a sisterly kiss of each of ’em worth a pound——at least I did——
——For my uncle Toby’s amours running all the way in my head, they had the same effect upon me as if they had been my own——I was in the most perfect state of bounty and good will; and felt the kindliest harmony vibrating9 within me, with every oscillation of the chaise alike; so that whether the roads were rough or smooth, it made no difference; every thing I saw, or had to do with, touch’d upon some secret spring either of sentiment or rapture.
——They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly——’tis Maria;10 said the postilion, observing I was listening———Poor Maria, continued he, (leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us) is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe, with her little goat beside her.
The young fellow utter’d this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow, I would give him a four and twenty sous piece, when I got to Moulins——
———And who is poor Maria? said I.
The love and pity of all the villages around us; said the postillion——it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve, than to have her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the parish who published them——
He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth and began the air again——they were the same notes;——yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the Virgin, said the young man——but who has taught her to play it—or how she came by her pipe, no one knows; we think that Heaven has assisted her in both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation——she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but plays that service upon it almost night and day.
The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural eloquence, that I could not help decyphering something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria’s taken such full possession of me.