The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Volume 02Smollett, T. (Tobias)
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The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Volume 02
Smollett, T. (Tobias)
Adventure stories; Gothic fiction
When he recovered the faculty of swallowing, a cordial was administered,
and whether the fever abated, in consequence of the blood's being cooled
and condensed during the recess of action in the solids, or nature, in
that agony, had prepared a proper channel for the expulsion of the
disease, certain it is, he was from this moment rid of all bodily pain;
he retrieved the animal functions, and nothing remained of his malady but
an extreme weakness and languor, the effect of nature's being fatigued in
the battle she had won.
Unutterable was the joy that took possession of his mother and sister
when Farrel flew into her apartment to intimate this happy turn. Scarce
could they be restrained from pouring forth their transports in the
presence of Renaldo, who was still too feeble to endure such
communication; indeed, he was extremely mortified and dejected at this
event, which had diffused such pleasure and satisfaction among his
friends, for though his distemper was mastered, the fatal cause of it
still rankled at his heart, and he considered this respite from death as
a protraction of his misery.
When he was congratulated by the Major on the triumph of his
constitution, he replied, with a groan, "I would to heaven it had been
otherwise, for I am reserved for all the horrors of the most poignant
sorrow and remorse. O Monimia! Monimia! I hoped by this time to have
convinced thy gentle shade, that I was, at least intentionally, innocent
of that ruthless barbarity which hath brought thee to an untimely grave.
Heaven and earth! do I still survive the consciousness of that dire
catastrophe! and lives the atrocious villain who hath blasted all our
hopes!"
With these last words the fire darted from his eyes, and his brother,
snatching this occasional handle for reconciling him to life, joined in
his exclamations against the treacherous Fathom, and observed, that he
should not, in point of honour, wish to die, until he should have
sacrificed that traitor to the manes of the beauteous Monimia. This
incitement acted as a spur upon exhausted nature, causing the blood to
circulate with fresh vigour, and encouraging him to take such sustenance
as would recruit his strength, and repair the damage which his health had
sustained.
His sister assiduously attended him in his recovery, flattering his
appetite, and amusing his sorrow at the same time; the clergyman
assailed his despondence with religious weapons, as well as with
arguments drawn from philosophy; and the fury of his passions being
already expended, he became so tractable as to listen to his
remonstrances. But notwithstanding the joint endeavours of all his
friends, a deep fixed melancholy remained after every consequence of his
disease had vanished. In vain they essayed to elude his grief by gaiety
and diversions, in vain they tried to decoy his heart into some new
engagement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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