Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
"The day after our arrival we became acquainted with Mons. Bagillard.
He was a Frenchman of great wit and vivacity, with a greater share of
learning than gentlemen are usually possessed of. As he lodged in the
same house with us, we were immediately acquainted, and I liked his
conversation so well that I never thought I had too much of his
company. Indeed, I spent so much of my time with him, that Amelia (I
know not whether I ought to mention it) grew uneasy at our
familiarity, and complained of my being too little with her, from my
violent fondness for my new acquaintance; for, our conversation
turning chiefly upon books, and principally Latin ones (for we read
several of the classics together), she could have but little
entertainment by being with us. When my wife had once taken it into
her head that she was deprived of my company by M. Bagillard, it was
impossible to change her opinion; and, though I now spent more of my
time with her than I had ever done before, she still grew more and
more dissatisfied, till at last she very earnestly desired me to quit
my lodgings, and insisted upon it with more vehemence than I had ever
known her express before. To say the truth, if that excellent woman
could ever be thought unreasonable, I thought she was so on this
occasion.
"But in what light soever her desires appeared to me, as they
manifestly arose from an affection of which I had daily the most
endearing proofs, I resolved to comply with her, and accordingly
removed to a distant part of the town; for it is my opinion that we
can have but little love for the person whom we will never indulge in
an unreasonable demand. Indeed, I was under a difficulty with regard
to Mons. Bagillard; for, as I could not possibly communicate to him
the true reason for quitting my lodgings, so I found it as difficult
to deceive him by a counterfeit one; besides, I was apprehensive I
should have little less of his company than before. I could, indeed,
have avoided this dilemma by leaving Montpelier, for Amelia had
perfectly recovered her health; but I had faithfully promised Captain
James to wait his return from Italy, whither he was gone some time
before from Gibraltar; nor was it proper for Amelia to take any long
journey, she being now near six months gone with child.
"This difficulty, however, proved to be less than I had imagined it;
for my French friend, whether he suspected anything from my wife's
behaviour, though she never, as I observed, shewed him the least
incivility, became suddenly as cold on his side. After our leaving the
lodgings he never made above two or three formal visits; indeed his
time was soon after entirely taken up by an intrigue with a certain
countess, which blazed all over Montpelier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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