- He Doubted Not But She Was Wicked And Subtle Enough To Contrive
Some Means Of Revenging Herself, In Case She Met With A Disappointment
In Her Wishes, Yet Had Too Great An Abhorrence To Be Able To Entertain
One Thought Of Gratifying Them.
As he was young and unexperienced in the world, he would have been glad
of some advice how to
Act so as not to incur her resentment, yet avoid
her love; but the strict notions he had of honour remonstrated to him
that he ought not to betray a secret of that nature, tho' confided in
him by an ill woman. - Her baseness, cried he to himself, would be no
excuse for mine; and it is better for me to risque whatever her malice
may inflict, than forfeit my character, by exposing a woman who pretends
to love me.
These thoughts kept him waking the whole night; and his restlessness
being observed by an old Swedish officer who by with him, he was very
much importuned by him to discover to him the occasion. - Horatio
defended himself for a good while by the considerations before recited;
but at length reflecting; that the person who was so desirous of being
let into the secret, had a great deal of discretion, he at length
suffered himself to be prevailed upon, and told him what Mattakesa had
wrote to him, for he did not understand a word of French, so could not
read the letter.
This officer no sooner heard the story, than he laughed heartily at the
scruples of Horatio, in thinking himself bound to conceal an affair of
this nature with a woman of the character Mattakesa must needs be: - he
also rallied his delicacy, as he termed it, in hesitating one moment
whether he should gratify the lady's inclinations. - One would imagine,
said he, that so long a fall from love as we have had, should render our
appetites more keen: - what, tho' Mattakesa be neither handsome nor very
young, she is a woman, and amorous, and methinks there should need no
other excitements to a young man like you.
Horatio, tho' naturally gay, was not at present in a disposition to
continue this raillery, and told his friend, he looked on this
inclination of Mattakesa to be as great a misfortune as could happen to
them; for, said he, as it is wholly out of my power to make her any
returns, that violence of temper which has transported her to forget the
modesty of her sex, will probably, when she finds herself rejected, make
her as easily throw off all the softness of it; and you may all feel the
effects of that revenge she will endeavour to take on me.
The other was entirely of his opinion; and they both agreed that, some
way ought to thought on to avert the storm, her resentment might in all
probability occasion.
After many fruitless inventions, they at last hit upon one which had a
prospect of success: they had in their company a gentleman called
Mullern, nephew to chancellor Mullern, who had attended the king in all
his wars: he was handsome, well made, and his age, tho' much superior to
that of Horatio, yet was not so far advanced as to render him
disagreeable to the fair sex: he was of a more than ordinary sanguine
disposition, and had often said, of all the hardships their captivity
had inflicted on them, he felt none so severely as being deprived of a
free conversation with women. - In the ravages the king of Sweden's arms
had made in Lithuania, Saxony and Poland, he was sure to secure to
himself three or four of the finest women; and tho' he had been often
checked by his uncle, and even by the king himself, for giving too great
a loose to his amorous inclinations, yet all their admonitions were too
weak to restrain the impetuosity of his desires this way. To him,
therefore, they resolved to communicate the affair; and as he was in
other respects the most proper object among them to succeed in
supplanting Horatio, so he was also by being perfectly well versed in
the French language, which the rest were ignorant of.
Accordingly they told him what had happened, shewed him the letter, and
how willing Horatio would be to transfer all the interest he had in this
lady to him, if he could by any means ingratiate himself into her
favour. Mullern was transported at the idea; and the stratagem contrived
among them for this purpose was executed in the following manner:
Mattakesa was punctual to the promise she had made in her letter; and
when she came into the room, where she usually found the gentlemen
altogether, it being that where they dined, and saw not Horatio, she
doubted not but he had observed her directions, and pretended himself
indisposed, so asked for him, expecting to be told that he was ill; but
when they answered that he was gone with one of the keepers to the top
of the round tower, in order to satisfy his curiosity in taking a view
of the town, she was confounded beyond expression, and could not imagine
what had occasioned him to slight an assignation, she had flattered
herself he would receive with extacy.
As she was in a little resvery, endeavouring to comprehend, if possible,
the motive of so manifest a neglect, Mullern drew near to her, and
beginning to speak of the beauties of that fine city which the czar had
erected in the midst of war, he told her, that having a little skill in
drawing, he had ventured to make a little sketch of it in chalk on the
walls of the room where he lay, and entreated her in the most gallant
manner to look upon it, and give him her opinion how far he had done
justice to an edifice so much admired.
It cannot be supposed that Mattakesa had in her soul any curiosity to
see a work of this nature, yet, to hide as much as she could the
disorder she was in at her disappointment, gave him her hand, in order
to be concluded to the place where he pretended to have been exercising
his genius.
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