Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress. Даниэль Дефо

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СКАЧАТЬ and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from our youth and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth; nay, he told me, it was true in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.

      I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy, and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for though he had indeed debauched the wench, I know that I was the principal occasion of it, and as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till I prevailed with him to be easy with her; and as I was now become the devil's agent to make others as wicked as myself, I brought him to lie with her again several times after that, till at last, as the poor girl said, so it happened, and she was really with child.

      She was terribly concerned at it, and so was he too. "Come, my dear," says I, "when Rachel put her handmaid to bed to Jacob she took the children as her own. Don't be uneasy, I'll take the child as my own; had not I a hand in the frolic of putting her to bed to you? It was my fault as much as yours." So I called Amy and encouraged her too, and told her that I would take care of the child and her too, and added the same argument to her. "For," says I, "Amy, it was all my fault; did not I drag your clothes off your back and put you to bed to him?" Thus I, that had indeed been the cause of all the wickedness between them, encouraged them both when they had any remorse about it, and rather prompted them to go on with it than to repent of it.

      When Amy grew big she went to a place I had provided for her, and the neighbours knew nothing but that Amy and I were parted. She had a fine child indeed, a daughter, and we had it nursed, and Amy came again in about half a year to live with her old mistress. But neither my gentleman nor Amy either cared for playing that game over again; for, as he said, the jade might bring him a houseful of children to keep.

      We lived as merrily and as happily after this as could be expected, considering our circumstances; I mean as to the pretended marriage, etc. And as to that, my gentleman had not the least concern about him for it; but as much as I was hardened, and that was as much as I believe ever any wicked creature was, yet I could not help it; there was and would be hours of intervals and of dark reflections which came involuntarily in and thrust in sighs into the middle of all my songs, and there would be sometimes a heaviness of heart which intermingled itself with all my joy and which would often fetch a tear from my eye. And let others pretend what they will, I believe it impossible to be otherwise with anybody. There can be no substantial satisfaction in a life of known wickedness; conscience will, and does, often break in upon them at particular times, let them do what they can to prevent it.

      But I am not to preach, but to relate; and whatever loose reflections were, and how often soever those dark intervals came on, I did my utmost to conceal them from him, ay, and to suppress and smother them too in myself, and to outward appearance we lived as cheerfully and as agreeably as it was possible for any couple in the world to live.

      After I had thus lived with him something above two years, truly I found myself with child too. My gentleman was mightily pleased at it, and nothing could be kinder than he was in the preparations he made for me and for my lying-in, which was, however, very private, because I cared for as little company as possible, nor had I kept up my neighbourly acquaintance, so that I had nobody to invite upon such an occasion.

      I was brought to bed very well (of a daughter too, as well as Amy), but the child died at about six weeks old; so all that work was to do over again, that is to say, the charge, the expense, the travel, etc.

      The next year I made him amends, and brought him a son, to his great satisfaction. It was a charming child and he did very well. After this, my husband, as he called himself, came to me one evening and told me he had a very difficult thing happened to him, which he knew not what to do in or how to resolve about unless I would make him easy; this was, that his occasions required him to go over to France for about two months.

      "Well, my dear," says I, "and how shall I make you easy?"

      "Why, by consenting to let me go," says he; "upon which condition I'll tell you the occasion of my going, that you may judge of the necessity there is for it on my side." Then to make me easy in his going, he told me he would make his will before he went, which should be to my full satisfaction.

      I told him the last part was so kind that I could not decline the first part, unless he would give me leave to add that if it was not for putting him to an extraordinary expense I would go over along with him.

      He was so pleased with this offer that he told me he would give me full satisfaction for it, and accept of it too. So he took me to London with him the next day, and there he made his will, and showed it to me, sealed it before proper witnesses, and then gave it to me to keep. In this will he gave a thousand pounds to a person that we both knew very well, in trust, to pay it, with the interest from the time of his decease, to me or my assigns; then he willed the payment of my jointure, as he called it, viz. his bond of a hundred pounds, after his death, also he gave me all my household stuff, plate, etc.

      This was a most engaging thing for a man to do to one under my circumstances, and it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him anything or to refuse to go with him anywhere. So we settled everything as well as we could, left Amy in charge of the house, and for his other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he entrusted, whom he had good security for, and who managed for him and corresponded with him.

      Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at Calais, and by easy journeys came in eight days more to Paris, where we lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance and were very courteously entertained.

      My gentleman's business was with some persons of the first rank, and to whom he had sold some jewels of very good value and received a great sum of money in specie, and, as he told me privately, he gained 3,000 pistoles by his bargain, but would not suffer the most intimate friend he had there to know what he had received, for it is not so safe a thing in Paris to have a great sum of money in keeping, as it might be in London.

      We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent for one of his managers in London to come over to us to Paris with some diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more. Then other business fell into his hands so unexpectedly, that I began to think we should take up our constant residence there, which I was not very averse to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well. So we took a good house in Paris and lived very well there, and I sent for Amy to come over to me; for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it, especially at Paris; but as they have those conveniences by the day there at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I pleased, and I lived here in a very good figure, and might have lived higher if I pleased.

      But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster befell me, which entirely unhinged all my affairs and threw me back into the same state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception, however, that whereas before I was poor even to misery, now I was not only provided for, but very rich.

      My gentleman had the name in Paris for a very rich man, and indeed he was so, though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was fatal to him was that he generally carried a shagreen case in his pocket, especially when he went to court or to the houses of any of the princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.

      It happened one day, that being to go to Versailles to wait upon the Prince of ----, he came up into my chamber in the morning and laid out his jewel case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but to get a foreign bill accepted which he had received from Amsterdam. So when he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this with me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is too much to venture." СКАЧАТЬ