Tristram and Nannette? A love story that never took place? What is the logic behind the dream-like atmosphere of these three pages or so from volume VII of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy? Even if we do not have an especially prurient mind, it is difficult not to ask ourselves why the protagonist runs away from such a ravishing (and inviting?) young woman. In order to find a comprehensive answer, it is essential to return to the rest of the novel and assess what diagnosis Sterne offers of what he sees as a general malaise which proves extremely difficult to define. This essay proposes that Sterne interrogates the notion of crisis and posits that it is linked to a problem focusing on fatherhood.