Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress. Даниэль Дефо
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knew not what to say to him for a good while, but blushed and, looking up towards him, said I was already made happy in the favour of a person of such rank, and had nothing to ask of His Highness but that he would believe me infinitely obliged.
After he had eaten he poured the sweetmeats into my lap, and the wine being out he called his gentleman again to take away the table, who at first only took the cloth and the remains of what was to eat away, and laying another cloth, set the table on one side of the room, with a noble service of plate upon it worth at least 200 pistoles; then having set the two decanters again upon the table, filled as before, he withdrew, for I found the fellow understood his business very well, and his lord's business too.
About half an hour after, the Prince told me that I offered to wait a little before, that if I would now take the trouble he would give me leave to give him some wine. So I went to the table, filled a glass of wine, and brought it to him on a fine salver which the glasses stood on, and brought the bottle, or decanter for water, in my other hand, to mix it as he thought fit.
He smiled and bid me look on that salver, which I did, and admired it much, for it was a very fine one indeed. "You may see," says he, "I resolve to have more of your company, for my servant shall leave you that plate for my use." I told him I believed His Highness would not take it ill that I was not furnished fit to entertain a person of his rank, and that I would take great care of it, and value myself infinitely upon the honour of His Highness's visit.
It now began to grow late and he began to take notice of it. "But," says he, "I cannot leave you; have you not a spare lodging for one night?" I told him I had but a homely lodging to entertain such a guest. He said something exceedingly kind on that head, but not fit to repeat, adding that my company would make him amends.
About midnight he sent his gentleman on an errand, after telling him aloud that he intended to stay here all night. In a little time his gentleman brought him a nightgown, slippers, two caps, a neckcloth, and a shirt, which he gave me to carry into his chamber, and sent his man home; and then, turning to me, said I should do him the honour to be his chamberlain of the household, and his dresser also. I smiled, and told him I would do myself the honour to wait on him upon all occasions.
About one in the morning, while his gentleman was yet with him, I begged leave to withdraw, supposing he would go to bed; but he took the hint, and said, "I'm not going to bed yet, pray let me see you again."
I took this time to undress me and to come in a new dress, which was in a manner un déshabillé, but so fine, and all about me so clean and so agreeable, that he seemed surprised. "I thought," says he, "you could not have dressed to more advantage than you had done before; but now," says he, "you charm me a thousand times more, if that be possible."
"It is only a loose habit, my lord," said I, "that I may the better wait on Your Highness." He pulls me to him. "You are perfectly obliging," says he; and sitting on the bedside, says he, "Now you shall be a princess and know what it is to oblige the gratefullest man alive "; and with that he took me in his arms. . . . I can go no further in the particulars of what passed at that time, but it ended in this, that, in short, I lay with him all night.
I have given you the whole detail of this story, to lay it down as a black scheme of the way how unhappy women are ruined by great men; for though poverty and want is an irresistible temptation to the poor, vanity and great things are as irresistible to others. To be courted by a prince, and by a prince who was first a benefactor, then an admirer, to be called handsome, the finest woman in France, and to be treated as a woman fit for the bed of a prince: these are things a woman must have no vanity in her, nay, no corruption in her, that is not overcome by it; and my case was such, that, as before, I had enough of both.
Chapter 6
I had now no poverty attending me. On the contrary, I was mistress of ten thousand pounds before the Prince did anything for me. Had I been mistress of my resolution, had I been less obliging and rejected the first attack, all had been safe; but my virtue was lost before, and the devil, who had found the way to break in upon me by one temptation, easily mastered me now by another, and I gave myself up to a person who, though a man of high dignity, was yet the most tempting and obliging that ever I met with in my life.
I had the same particular to insist upon here with the Prince that I had with my gentleman before. I hesitated much at consenting at first asking, but the Prince told me princes did not court like other men, that they brought more powerful arguments, and he very prettily added that they were sooner repulsed than other men and ought to be sooner complied with, intimating, though very genteelly, that after a woman had positively refused him once, he could not, like other men, wait with importunities and stratagems and laying long sieges; but as such men as he stormed warmly, so, if repulsed, they made no second attacks; and indeed it was but reasonable, for as it was below their rank to be long battering a woman's constancy, so they ran greater hazards in being exposed in their amours than other men did.
I took this for a satisfactory answer, and told His Highness that I had the same thoughts in respect to the manner of his attacks, for that his person and his arguments were irresistible; that a person of his rank and a munificence so unbounded could not be withstood; that no virtue was proof against him, except such as was able too to suffer martyrdom; that I thought it impossible I could be overcome, but that now I found it was impossible I should not be overcome; that so much goodness, joined with so much greatness, would have conquered a saint; and that I confessed he had the victory over me by a merit infinitely superior to the conquest he had made.
He made me a most obliging answer; told me abundance of fine things which still flattered my vanity, till at last I began to have pride enough to believe him and fancied myself a fit mistress for a prince.
As I had thus given the Prince the last favour, and he had all the freedom with me that it was possible for me to grant, so he gave me leave to use as much freedom with him another way, and that was to have everything of him I thought fit to command. And yet I did not ask of him with an air of avarice, as if I was greedily making a penny of him, but I managed him with such art that he generally anticipated my demands; he only requested of me that I would not think of taking another house, as I had intimated to His Highness that I had intended, not thinking it good enough to receive his visits in. But, he said, my house was the most convenient that could possibly be found in all Paris for an amour, especially for him, having a way out into three streets, and not overlooked by any neighbours, so that he could pass and repass without observation, for one of the back ways opened into a narrow dark alley, which alley was a thoroughfare or passage out of one street into another, and any person that went in or out by the door had no more to do but to see that there was nobody following him in the alley before he went in at the door. This request I knew was reasonable, and therefore I assured him I would not change my dwelling, seeing His Highness did not think it too mean for me to receive him in.
He also desired me that I would not take any more servants or set up any equipage, at least for the present, for that it would then be immediately concluded I had been left very rich, and then I should be thronged with the impertinence of admirers, who would be attracted by the money as well as by the beauty of a young widow, and he should be frequently interrupted in his visits; or that the world would conclude I was maintained by somebody and would be indefatigable to find out the person; so that he should have spies peeping at him every time he went out or in, which it would be impossible to disappoint, and that he should presently have it talked over all the toilets in Paris that the Prince de ---- had got the jeweller's widow for a mistress.
This was too just to oppose, and I made no scruple to tell His Highness that since he had stooped so low as to make me his own, he ought to have all the satisfaction in the world that I was all his own; that I would take all the measures he should please to direct me to avoid the impertinent attacks of others; and that if he thought fit I would be wholly within doors, and have it given out that I was obliged to go to England to solicit my affairs there after my husband's misfortune, and that I was not expected there again for at least a year or two. This he liked very well; only, he said,