55 pages • 1 hour read
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
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Chapters 47-56Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 47-50 Summary
Yorick has no trouble in getting a meeting with Count de B---. Together, they examine the count’s Shakespeare collection and Yorick flatters his host. They discuss the issue of the passport and the count listens “with great good nature” (49) and then the conversation moves on to “books, and politics, and men—and then of women” (49). Eventually, the count realizes that Yorick has not properly introduced himself.
The issue of “telling anyone who I am” (50) perplexes Yorick but he sees an opportunity. He picks up a copy of Hamlet from the count’s collection and opens the page to the gravedigger’s scene, pointing his finger at the name “Yorick” on the page. After some confusion, the count puts the book in his pocket and leaves the room.
Yorick is puzzled. He sits down and reads Much Ado About Nothing. A short while later, the count reappears with Yorick’s passport in his hand. The count appears to be confused; he has assumed that Yorick is some kind of jester at the English court. Yorick tries to correct him and insists that there has not been a jester there since “the licentious reign of Charles the IId” (51).
Yorick takes the passport anyway, as it allows him to travel throughout France, even if it describes him as a jester. This leaves Yorick feeling “a little tarnish’d” (52) but he accepts his fate.
Chapters 51-53 Summary
After taking the passport from the count, Yorick reveals what he thinks about the French. Yorick uses a handful of shillings to illustrate his point that “they are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and good-temper’d people as is under heaven—if they have a fault—they are too serious” (53). The count is taken aback. Though he must leave for a dinner arrangement, he asks Yorick to dine with him before leaving for Italy. Yorick agrees.
Yorick arrives back at the hotel in Paris and is told that a young woman has inquired after him. On the way to his room, Yorick meets her: it is the chambermaid he met the day before, who has come for the letter. She and Yorick enter his room, where he searches hopelessly for a card on which he can write an apology to Madame de R---. Yorick’s mind is overcome with sexual thoughts, so he escorts the chambermaid to the door and reminds her of the values of chastity. Before she leaves, they sit together for a moment on the bed. She notices that “a stitch or two” (55) have broken out on Yorick’s stock and, whipping out a needle and thread, she repairs it. Yorick lifts up his other leg to compare the finished job.
Yorick again finds his mind filled with sexual thoughts and reasons with his temptations before leading the woman to the door. Once he has locked his room, he “press’d [his] lips to her cheek” (55) and escorts her to the gate of the hotel.
Chapters 54-56 Summary
After the chambermaid leaves, Yorick stands at the gate of the hotel “for some time” (56), watching the street outside. As he watches, he notices a “single object which confounded all kind of reasoning” (56). It is an old man, begging for money with an outstretched hat. The man seems to offer the hat to everyone he passes, though keeps the hat to himself when he passes Yorick. The man continues and Yorick spends half an hour watching him: he then notices that the man only offers his hat to women and ignores men. Bemused by the man’s behavior, Yorick returns to his room.
The master of the hotel follows Yorick to his room. Yorick is told that he will need to find new lodgings, as he had a woman up to his room for a long time, which is against the rules of the hotel.
Later, Yorick tells La Fleur to send his apologies to the hotel owner for the way the argument ensued and says that if the chambermaid calls again, he will not see her. Yorick threatens to leave Paris the next day, “with all the virtue” (58) with which he entered the city. As Yorick prepares for bed, he gets the sense that La Fleur is holding back from saying something. He is still concerned with the mystery of the man begging in the street, however, so pays it little mind.
Chapters 47-56 Analysis
One of Yorick’s greatest skills is flattery. His ability to charm, sweet-talk, and compliment others aides him in getting around in a foreign country, even when his linguistic skills or lack of cultural awareness hold him back. In the chapters above, Yorick finds himself face-to-face with the count, a man who can single-handedly resolve his passport issue, and manages to flatter the man to such an extent that most of his problems are solved.
As well as the constant flirting with members of the opposite sex, Yorick knows how to charm men. His conversation with the count is an excellent example of this. He begins by praising the man’s taste in literature, suggesting that the only form of introduction he requires comes from “my countryman the great Shakspere [sic]” (48), appealing to the count’s preferences and flattering his knowledge of English literature. From this introduction, Yorick segues straight into his complaint about the passport, suggesting that once Yorick heard there was a French aristocrat who loved Shakespeare, the count was ideally placed to help. Despite the fact that Yorick has already tried to call on another person that very day, the count takes Yorick’s lie at face value and immediately fetches Yorick the required documents.
It is in this moment that Yorick encounters an issue. Trying to be dramatic and witty, he uses the count’s copy of Hamlet to announce his name. This joke falls flat, the joviality lost in the cultural divide. Immediately afterwards, the count puts the copy of Hamlet into his pocket and exits without a word. Yorick “could not conceive” (51) what had just happened and finds himself alone, unsure whether his problem has been solved. Rather than the laugh he was expecting, he finds himself alone with a Shakespeare collection. He sits down to read and, when the count returns, discovers that the man believes Yorick to be “the king’s jester” (51). Not only does this position not exist, but the suggestion is something of a joke at Yorick’s expense. His flattery has led him into a difficult situation, confusing the count at a time when Yorick needs the man’s help.
However, Yorick does now possess a passport, even if the description of him as a jester tarnishes his reputation. Yorick reads the situation and surmises that the acquisition of the passport is worth more than the slight insult. Furthermore, this meeting with the count becomes his introduction into French high society, another setting in which Yorick’s flattery skills will become useful. Additionally, Yorick has not only acquired a passport, but he has found himself another anecdote. As the text is a collection of misadventures and incidents, it is useful in filling pages in his book. This kind of sentiment is one of the key distinguishing factors between Yorick and his travel writing contemporaries. The willingness to not just describe the foreign destination, but to populate it with characters (including oneself) makes the world seem more vivid and real. As such, Yorick becomes the conduit for the kind of travel writing which Sterne values.
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By Laurence Sterne
