The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)

by Daniel Defoe

born, and leave it to curse and reproach ushereafter for what may be so easily avoided.

  "Then, dear madam," said he, with a world of tenderness (and I thought Isaw tears in his eyes), "allow me to repeat it, that I am a Christian,and consequently I do not allow what I have rashly, and without dueconsideration, done; I say, I do not approve of it as lawful, andtherefore, though I did, with the view I have mentioned, oneunjustifiable action, I cannot say that I could satisfy myself to livein a continual practice of what in judgment we must both condemn; andthough I love you above all the women in the world, and have done enoughto convince you of it by resolving to marry you after what has passedbetween us, and by offering to quit all pretensions to any part of yourestate, so that I should, as it were, take a wife after I had lain withher, and without a farthing portion, which, as my circumstances are, Ineed not do; I say, notwithstanding my affection to you, which isinexpressible, yet I cannot give up soul as well as body, the interestof this world and the hopes of another; and you cannot call this mydisrespect to you."

  If ever any man in the world was truly valuable for the strictesthonesty of intention, this was the man; and if ever woman in her sensesrejected a man of merit on so trivial and frivolous a pretence, I wasthe woman; but surely it was the most preposterous thing that ever womandid.

  He would have taken me as a wife, but would not entertain me as a whore.Was ever woman angry with any gentleman on that head? And was ever womanso stupid to choose to be a whore, where she might have been an honestwife? But infatuations are next to being possessed of the devil. I wasinflexible, and pretended to argue upon the point of a woman's libertyas before, but he took me short, and with more warmth than he had yetused with me, though with the utmost respect, replied, "Dear madam, youargue for liberty, at the same time that you restrain yourself from thatliberty which God and nature has directed you to take, and, to supplythe deficiency, propose a vicious liberty, which is neither honourableor religious. Will you propose liberty at the expense of modesty?"

  I returned, that he mistook me; I did not propose it; I only said thatthose that could not be content without concerning the sexes in thataffair might do so indeed; might entertain a man as men do a mistress,if they thought fit, but he did not hear me say I would do so; andthough, by what had passed, he might well censure me in that part, yethe should find, for the future, that I should freely converse with himwithout any inclination that way.

  He told me he could not promise that for himself, and thought he oughtnot to trust himself with the opportunity, for that, as he had failedalready, he was loth to lead himself into the temptation of offendingagain, and that this was the true reason of his resolving to go back toParis; not that he could willingly leave me, and would be very far fromwanting my invitation; but if he could not stay upon terms that becamehim, either as an honest man or a Christian, what could he do? And hehoped, he said, I could not blame him that he was unwilling anythingthat was to call him father should upbraid him with leaving him in theworld to be called bastard; adding that he was astonished to think how Icould satisfy myself to be so cruel to an innocent infant not yet born;professed he could neither bear the thoughts of it, much less bear tosee it, and hoped I would not take it ill that he could not stay to seeme delivered, for that very reason.

  I saw he spoke this with a disturbed mind, and that it was with somedifficulty that he restrained his passion, so I declined any fartherdiscourse upon it; only said I hoped he would consider of it. "Oh,madam!" says he, "do not bid me consider; 'tis for you to consider;" andwith that he went out of the room, in a strange kind of confusion, aswas easy to be seen in his countenance.

  If I had not been one of the foolishest as well as wickedest creaturesupon earth, I could never have acted thus. I had one of the honestest,completest gentlemen upon earth at my hand. He had in one sense saved mylife, but he had saved that life from ruin in a most remarkable manner.He loved me even to distraction, and had come from Paris to Rotterdam onpurpose to seek me. He had offered me marriage even after I was withchild by him, and had offered to quit all his pretensions to my estate,and give it up to my own management, having a plentiful estate of hisown. Here I might have settled myself out of the reach even of disasteritself; his estate and mine would have purchased even then above twothousand pounds a year, and I might have lived like a queen--nay, farmore happy than a queen; and, which was above all, I had now anopportunity to have quitted a life of crime and debauchery, which I hadbeen given up to for several years, and to have sat down quiet in plentyand honour, and to have set myself apart to the great work which I havesince seen so much necessity of and occasion for--I mean that ofrepentance.

  But my measure of wickedness was not yet full. I continued obstinateagainst matrimony, and yet I could not bear the thoughts of his goingaway neither. As to the child, I was not very anxious about it. I toldhim I would promise him it should never come to him to upbraid him withits being illegitimate; that if it was a boy, I would breed it up likethe son of a gentleman, and use it well for his sake; and after a littlemore such talk as this, and seeing him resolved to go, I retired, butcould not help letting him see the tears run down my cheeks. He came tome and kissed me, entreated me, conjured me by the kindness he had shownme in my distress, by the justice he had done me in my bills and moneyaffairs, by the respect which made him refuse a thousand pistoles fromme for his expenses with that traitor the Jew, by the pledge of ourmisfortunes--so he called it--which I carried with me, and by all thatthe sincerest affection could propose to do, that I would not drive himaway.

  But it would not do. I was stupid and senseless, deaf to all hisimportunities, and continued so to the last. So we parted, only desiringme to promise that I would write him word when I was delivered, and howhe might give me an answer; and this I engaged my word I would do. Andupon his desiring to be informed which way I intended to dispose ofmyself, I told him I resolved to go directly to England, and to London,where I proposed to lie in; but since he resolved to leave me, I toldhim I supposed it would be of no consequence to him what became of me.

  He lay in his lodgings that night, but went away early in the morning,leaving me a letter in which he repeated all he had said, recommendedthe care of the child, and desired of me that as he had remitted to methe offer of a thousand pistoles which I would have given him for therecompense of his charges and trouble with the Jew, and had given it meback, so he desired I would allow him to oblige me to set apart thatthousand pistoles, with its improvement, for the child, and for itseducation; earnestly pressing me to secure that little portion for theabandoned orphan when I should think fit, as he was sure I would, tothrow away the rest upon something as worthless as my sincere friend atParis. He concluded with moving me to reflect, with the same regret ashe did, on our follies we had committed together; asked me forgivenessfor being the aggressor in the fact, and forgave me everything, he said,but the cruelty of refusing him, which he owned he could not forgive meso heartily as he should do, because he was satisfied it was an injuryto myself, would be an introduction to my ruin, and that I wouldseriously repent of it. He foretold some fatal things which, he said, hewas well assured I should fall into, and that at last I would be ruinedby a bad husband; bid me be the more wary, that I might render him afalse prophet; but to remember that, if ever I came into distress, I hada fast friend at Paris, who would not upbraid me with the unkind thingspast, but would be always ready to return me good for evil.

  This letter stunned me. I could not think it possible for any one thathad not dealt with the devil to write such a letter, for he spoke ofsome particular things which afterwards were to befall me with such anassurance that it frighted me beforehand; and when those things did cometo pass, I was persuaded he had some more than human knowledge. In aword, his advices to me to repent were very affectionate, his warningsof evil to happen to me were very kind, and his promises of assistance,if I wanted him, were so generous that I have seldom seen the like; andthough I did not at first set much by that part because I looked uponthem a
s what might not happen, and as what was improbable to happen atthat time, yet all the rest of his letter was so moving that it left mevery melancholy, and I cried four-and-twenty hours after, almost withoutceasing, about it; and yet even all this while, whatever it was thatbewitched me, I had not one serious wish that I had taken him. I wishedheartily, indeed, that I could have kept him with me, but I had a mortalaversion to marrying him, or indeed anybody else, but formed a thousandwild notions in my head that I was yet gay enough, and young andhandsome enough, to please a man of quality, and that I would try myfortune at London, come of it what would.

  Thus blinded by my own vanity, I threw away the only opportunity I thenhad to have effectually settled my fortunes, and secured them for thisworld; and I am a memorial to all that shall read my story, a standingmonument of the madness and distraction which pride and infatuationsfrom hell run us into, how ill our passions guide