Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

that cursed man! Had it not been for him! I had never had this, the most crying of all my sins, to answer for!

And then she set up another howl.

And is she dead?⁠—Indeed dead? proceeded she, when her howl was over⁠—O what an angel have I been the means of destroying! For though it was that it was mine, and yours, and yours, and yours, devils as we all were (turning to Sally, to Polly, and to one or two more) that he did not do her justice! And that, that is my curse, and will one day be yours! And then again she howled.

I still advised patience. I said, that if her time were to be so short as she apprehended, the more ought she to endeavour to compose herself: and then she would at least die with more ease to herself⁠—and satisfaction to her friends, I was going to say⁠—But the word die put her into a violent raving, and thus she broke in upon me. Die, did you say, Sir?⁠—Die!⁠—I will not, I cannot die!⁠—I know not how to die!⁠—Die, Sir!⁠—And must I then die?⁠—Leave this world?⁠—I cannot bear it!⁠—And who brought you hither, Sir?⁠—(her eyes striking fire at me) Who brought you hither to tell me I must die, Sir?⁠—I cannot, I will not leave this world. Let others die, who wish for another! who expect a better!⁠—I have had my plagues in this; but would compound for all future hopes, so as I may be nothing after this!

And then she howled and bellowed by turns.

By my faith, Lovelace, I trembled in every joint; and looking upon her who spoke this, and roared thus, and upon the company round me, I more than once thought myself to be in one of the infernal mansions.

Yet will I proceed, and try, for thy good, if I can shock thee but half as much with my descriptions, as I was shocked with what I saw and heard.

Sally!⁠—Polly!⁠—Sister Carter! said she, did you not tell me I might recover? Did not the surgeon tell me I might?

And so you may, cried Sally; Monsieur Garon says you may, if you’ll be patient. But, as I have often told you this blessed morning, you are reader to take despair from your own fears, than comfort from all the hope we can give you.

Yet, cried the wretch, interrupting, does not Mr. Belford (and to him you have told the truth, though you won’t to me; does not he) tell me that I shall die?⁠—I cannot bear it! I cannot bear the thoughts of dying!

And then, but that half a dozen at once endeavoured to keep down her violent hands, would she have beaten herself; as it seems she had often attempted to do from the time the surgeon popped out the word mortification to her.

Well, but to what purpose, said I (turning aside to her sister, and to Sally and Polly), are these hopes given her, if the gentlemen of the faculty give her over? You should let her know the worst, and then she must submit; for there is no running away from death. If she had any matters to settle, put her upon settling them; and do not, by telling her she will live, when there is no room to expect it, take from her the opportunity of doing needful things. Do the surgeons actually give her over?

They do, whispered they. Her gross habit, they say, gives no hopes. We have sent for both surgeons, whom we expect every minute.

Both the surgeons (who are French; for Mrs. Sinclair has heard Tourville launch out in the praise of French surgeons) came in while we were thus talking. I retired to the farther end of the room, and threw up a window for a little air, being half-poisoned by the effluvia arising from so many contaminated carcases; which gave me no imperfect idea of the stench of gaols, which, corrupting the ambient air, gives what is called the prison distemper.

I came back to the bedside when the surgeons had inspected the fracture; and asked them, If there were any expectation of her life?

One of them whispered me, there was none: that she had a strong fever upon her, which alone, in such a habit, would probably do the business; and that the mortification had visibly gained upon her since they were there six hours ago.

Will amputation save her? Her affairs and her mind want settling. A few days added to her life may be of service to her in both respects.

They told me the fracture was high in her leg; that the knee was greatly bruised; that the mortification, in all probability, had spread halfway of the femur: and then, getting me between them, (three or four of the women joining us, and listening with their mouths open, and all the signs of ignorant wonder in their faces, as there appeared of self-sufficiency in those of the artists), did they by turns fill my ears with an anatomical description of the leg and thigh; running over with terms of art, of the tarsus, the metatarsus, the tibia, the fibula, the patella, the os tali, the os tibae, the tibialis posticus and tibialis anticus, up to the os femoris, to the acetabulum of the os ischion, the great trochanter, glutaeus, triceps, lividus, and little rotators; in short, of all the muscles, cartilages, and bones, that constitute the leg and thigh from the great toe to the hip; as if they would show me, that all their science had penetrated their heads no farther than their mouths; while Sally lifted up her hands with a Laud bless me! Are all surgeons so learned!⁠—But at last both the gentlemen declared, that if she and her friends would consent to amputation, they would whip off her leg