Лоренс Стерн - A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men, - I did, what amounted to the same thing -

- I bid God bless her.

When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been enquired after by the Lieutenant de Police. - The deuce take it! said I, - I know the reason. It is time the reader should know it, for in the order of things in which it happened, it was omitted: not that it was out of my head; but that had I told it then it might have been forgotten now; - and now is the time I want it.

I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter’d my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there without a passport. Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could less bear the thoughts of it: so hearing the Count de - had hired the packet, I begg’d he would take me in his suite. The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made little or no difficulty, - only said, his inclination to serve me could reach no farther than Calais, as he was to return by way of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass’d there, I might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I must make friends and shift for myself. - Let me get to Paris, Monsieur le Count, said I, - and I shall do very well. So I embark’d, and never thought more of the matter.

When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring after me, - the thing instantly recurred; - and by the time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped I had one. - Not I, faith! said I.

The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected person, as I declared this; - and poor La Fleur advanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to succour a distress’d one: - the fellow won my heart by it; and from that single trait I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.

Mon seigneur ! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it. - If Monsieur, said he, has not a passport ( apparemment ) in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one. - Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. - Then certes , replied he, you’ll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet au moins . - Poo! said I, the King of France is a good natur’d soul: - he’ll hurt nobody. - Cela n’empêche pas , said he - you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning. - But I’ve taken your lodgings for a month, answer’d I, and I’ll not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the world. La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of France.

Pardi ! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens très extraordinaires ; - and, having both said and sworn it, - he went out.

I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur’s with a serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talk’d to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the Opéra Comique. - La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller’s shop; but seeing me come out with the young fille de chambre , and that we walk’d down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem’d it unnecessary to follow me a step further; - so making his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut, - and got to the hotel in time to be inform’d of the affair of the police against my arrival.

As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation. -

- And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set out: - I must tell it here.

Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden’d with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for. Upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull’d out his purse in order to empty it into mine. - I’ve enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I. - Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than you. - But you don’t consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapp’d up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France’s expense. - I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot that resource.

Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.

Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?

- And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word. - Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower; - and a tower is but another word for a house you can’t get out of. - Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year. - But with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man can’t get out, he may do very well within, - at least for a mouth or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I settled this account; and remember I walk’d down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. - Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I, vauntingly - for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. - ’Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition, - the Bastile is not an evil to be despised; - but strip it of its towers - fill up the fosse, - unbarricade the doors - call it simply a confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper - and not of a man, which holds you in it, - the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained “it could not get out.” - I look’d up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without farther attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. - “I can’t get out, - I can’t get out,” said the starling.

I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach’d it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. “I can’t get out,” said the starling. - God help thee! said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get to the door: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. - I took both hands to it.