Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress. Даниэль Дефо
that he would by no means have me confined, that it would injure my health, and that I should then take a country house in some village, a good way off from the city, where it should not be known who I was, and that I should be there sometimes, to divert me.
I made no scruple of the confinement, and told His Highness no place could be a confinement where I had such a visitor; and so I put off the country house, which would have been to remove myself further from him and have less of his company, and I made the house be, as it were, shut up. Amy indeed appeared, and when any of the neighbours and servants enquired, she answered in broken French that I was gone to England to look after my affairs, which presently went current through the streets about us. For you are to note that the people of Paris, especially the women, are the most busy and impertinent enquirers into the conduct of their neighbours, especially that of a single woman, that are in the world; though there are no greater intriguers in the universe than themselves, and perhaps that may be the reason of it, for it is an old but a sure rule that
When deep intrigues are close and shy,
The guilty are the first that spy.
Thus His Highness had the most easy and yet the most undiscoverable access to me imaginable, and he seldom failed to come two or three nights in a week, and sometimes stayed two or three nights together. Once he told me he was resolved I should be weary of his company, and that he would learn to know what it was to be a prisoner; so he gave out among his servants that he was gone to ----, where he often went a-hunting, and that he should not return under a fortnight. And that fortnight he stayed wholly with me, and never went out of my doors.
Never woman in such a station lived a fortnight in so complete a fullness of human delight. For, to have the entire possession of one of the most accomplished princes in the world, and of the politest, best-bred man, to converse with him all day and, as he professed, charm him all night, what could be more inexpressibly pleasing, and especially to a woman of a vast deal of pride as I was?
To finish the felicity of this part, I must not forget that the devil had played a new game with me, and prevailed with me to satisfy myself with this amour as a lawful thing; that a prince of such grandeur and majesty, so infinitely superior to me, and one who had made such an introduction by an unparalleled bounty, I could not resist; and therefore that it was very lawful for me to do it, being at that time perfectly single and unengaged to any other man--as I was, most certainly, by the unaccountable absence of my first husband, and the murder of my gentleman who went for my second.
It cannot be doubted but that I was the easier to persuade myself of the truth of such a doctrine as this, when it was so much for my ease and for the repose of my mind to have it be so.
In things we wish, 'tis easy to deceive; What we would have, we willingly believe.
Besides, I had no casuists to resolve this doubt. The same devil that put this into my head bade me go to any of the Romish clergy and, under the pretence of confession, state the case exactly, and I should see they would either resolve it to be no sin at all, or absolve me upon the easiest penance. This I had a strong inclination to try, but I know not what scruple put me off it, for I could never bring myself to like having to do with those priests. And though it was strange that I, who had thus prostituted my chastity and given up all sense of virtue in two such particular cases, living a life of open adultery, should scruple anything; yet so it was, I argued with myself, that I could not be a cheat in anything that was esteemed sacred, that I could not be of one opinion and then pretend myself to be of another, nor could I go to confession who knew nothing of the manner of it, and should betray myself to the priest to be a Huguenot, and then might come into trouble; but, in short, though I was a whore, yet I was a Protestant whore, and could not act as if I was Popish upon any account whatsoever.
But, I say, I satisfied myself with the surprising occasion that as it was all irresistible, so it was all lawful; for that Heaven would not suffer us to be punished for that which it was not possible for us to avoid. And with these absurdities I kept conscience from giving me any considerable disturbance in all this matter, and I was as perfectly easy as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the Prince and had had no other husband. So possible is it for us to roll ourselves up in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of pleasure continues to flow or till something dark and dreadful brings us to ourselves again.
I have, I confess, wondered at the stupidity that my intellectual part was under all that while, what lethargic fumes dozed the soul, and how it was possible that I, who in the case before, where the temptation was many ways more forcible and the arguments stronger and more irresistible, was yet under a continued inquietude on account of the wicked life I led, could now live in the most profound tranquillity, and with an uninterrupted peace, nay, even rising up to satisfaction and joy, and yet in a more palpable state of adultery than before; for before, my gentleman who had called me wife had the pretence of his wife, being parted from him, refusing to do the duty of her once as a wife to him. As for me, my circumstances were the same; but as for the Prince, as he had a fine and extraordinary lady, or Princess, of his own, so he had had two or three mistresses more besides me and made no scruple of it at all.
However, I say, as to my own part I enjoyed myself in perfect tranquillity, and as the Prince was the only deity I worshipped, so I was really his idol. And however it was with his Princess, I assure you his other mistresses found a sensible difference; and though they could never find me out, yet I had good intelligence that they guessed very well that their lord had got some new favourite that robbed them of his company, and perhaps of some of his usual bounty too. And now I must mention the sacrifices he made to his idol; and they were not a few, I assure you.
As he loved like a prince, so he rewarded like a prince; for though he declined my making a figure, as above, he let me see that he was above doing it for the saving the expense of it--and so he told me--and that he would make it up in other things. First of all he sent me a toilet with all the appurtenances of silver, even so much as the frame of the table, and then for the house he gave me the table or sideboard of plate I mentioned above, with all things belonging to it of massy silver; so that, in short, I could not for my life study to ask him for any thing of plate which I had not.
He could then accommodate me in nothing more but jewels and clothes, or money for clothes. He sent his gentleman to the mercers, and bought me a suit or whole piece of the finest brocaded silk, figured with gold, and another with silver, and another of crimson, so that I had three suits of clothes such as the Queen of France would not have disdained to have worn at that time. Yet I went out nowhere; but as these were for me to put on when I went out of mourning, I dressed myself in them, one after another, always when His Highness came to see me.
I had no less than five several morning dresses besides these, so that I need never be seen twice in the same dress. To these he added several parcels of fine linen and of lace, so much that I had no room to ask for more, or indeed for so much.
I took the liberty once in our freedoms to tell him he was too bountiful and that I was too chargeable to him for a mistress, and that I would be his faithful servant at less expense to him, and that he not only left me no room to ask him for anything, but that he supplied me with such a profusion of good things that I scarce could wear them or use them unless I kept a great equipage, which he knew was no way convenient for him or for me. He smiled and took me in his arms, and told me he was resolved, while I was his, I should never be able to ask him for anything, but that he would be daily asking new favours of me.
After we were up, for this conference was in bed, he desired I would dress me in the best suit of clothes I had. It was a day or two after the three suits were made and brought home. I told him, if he pleased, I would rather dress me in that suit which I knew he liked best. He asked me how I could know which he would like best before he had seen them. I told him I would presume for once to guess at his fancy by my own, so I went away and dressed me in the second suit brocaded with silver, and returned in full dress, with a suit of lace upon my head which would have been worth in England £200 sterling; and I was every way set out as well as Amy could dress me, who was a very genteel dresser too. In this figure I came to him out of my dressing-room, which opened with folding doors into his bedchamber.
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