The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (pdf e book reader txt) 📕

how things went on⁠—observing a wicker-basket of fine chesnuts standing upon the dresser, had ordered that a hundred or two of them might be roasted and sent in, as soon as dinner was over⁠⸺⁠Gastripheres inforcing his orders about them, that Didius, but Phutatorius especially, were particularly fond of ’em.

About two minutes before the time that my uncle Toby interrupted Yorick’s harangue⁠—Gastripheres’s chesnuts were brought in⁠—and as Phutatorius’s fondness for ’em was uppermost in the waiter’s head, he laid them directly before Phutatorius, wrapt up hot in a clean damask napkin.

Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all thrust into the napkin at a time⁠—but that some one chesnut, of more life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion⁠—it so fell out, however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as Phutatorius sat straddling under⁠⸺⁠it fell perpendicularly into that particular aperture of Phutatorius’s breeches, for which, to the shame and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word throughout all Johnson’s dictionary⁠⸺⁠let it suffice to say⁠⸺⁠it was that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of decorum do strictly require, like the temple of Janus (in peace at least) to be universally shut up.

The neglect of this punctilio in Phutatorius (which by the by should be a warning to all mankind) had opened a door to this accident.⁠⸺⁠

Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of speaking⁠⸻but in no opposition to the opinion either of Acrites or Mythogeras in this matter; I know they were both prepossessed and fully persuaded of it⁠—and are so to this hour, That there was nothing of accident in the whole event⁠⸺⁠but that the chesnut’s taking that particular course and in a manner of its own accord⁠—and then falling with all its heat directly into that one particular place, and no other⁠⸺⁠was a real judgment upon Phutatorius, for that filthy and obscene treatise de Concubinis retinendis, which Phutatorius had published about twenty years ago⁠⸺⁠and was that identical week going to give the world a second edition of.

It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy⁠⸺⁠much undoubtedly may be wrote on both sides of the question⁠—all that concerns me as an historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and render it credible to the reader, that the hiatus in Phutatorius’s breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chesnut;⁠⸺⁠and that the chesnut, somehow or other, did fall perpendicularly and piping hot into it, without Phutatorius’s perceiving it, or anyone else at that time.

The genial warmth which the chesnut imparted, was not undelectable for the first twenty or five-and-twenty seconds⁠⸺⁠and did no more than gently solicit Phutatorius’s attention towards the part:⁠⸻But the heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain, the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deliberation, ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten battalions of animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles and circuits, to the place of danger, leaving all his upper regions, as you may imagine, as empty as my purse.

With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him back, Phutatorius was not able to dive into the secret of what was going forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the devil was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter;⁠⸺⁠but the sallies of the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind⁠—a thought instantly darted into his mind, that tho’ the anguish had the sensation of glowing heat⁠—it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a burn; and if so, that possibly a Newt or an Asker, or some such detested reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth⁠⸺⁠the horrid idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant from the chesnut, seized Phutatorius with a sudden panick, and in the first terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw him, as it has done the best generals upon earth, quite off his guard:⁠⸺⁠the effect of which was this, that he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the aposiopestic break after it, marked thus, Z⁠⸺⁠ds⁠—which, though not strictly canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the occasion;⁠⸻and which, by the by, whether canonical or not, Phutatorius could no more help than he could the cause of it.

Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little more time in the transaction, than just to allow for Phutatorius to draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the floor⁠—and for Yorick to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up.

It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:⁠⸺⁠What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things⁠⸺⁠that trifles, light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it⁠⸺⁠that Euclid’s demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it.

Yorick, I said, picked up the chesnut which Phutatorius’s wrath had flung down⁠⸺⁠the action was trifling⁠⸺⁠I am ashamed to account for it⁠—he did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot worse for the adventure⁠—and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping for.⁠⸻But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in Phutatorius’s head: He considered this act of Yorick’s in getting off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in