“My present situation gave a new turn to my reflection; and I wondered (now the film seemed to be withdrawn, that obscured the piercing sight of reason) how I could, previously to the deciding outrage, have considered myself as everlastingly united to vice and folly!  ’Had an evil genius cast a spell at my birth; or a demon stalked out of chaos, to perplex my understanding, and enchain my will, with delusive prejudices?’

“I pursued this train of thinking; it led me out of myself, to expatiate on the misery peculiar to my sex.  ‘Are not,’ I thought, ’the despots for ever stigmatized, who, in the wantonness of power, commanded even the most atrocious criminals to be chained to dead bodies? though surely those laws are much more inhuman, which forge adamantine fetters to bind minds together, that never can mingle in social communion!  What indeed can equal the wretchedness of that state, in which there is no alternative, but to extinguish the affections, or encounter infamy?’”

CHAPTER 12

“TOWARDS midnight Mr. Venables entered my chamber; and, with calm audacity preparing to go to bed, he bade me make haste, ’for that was the best place for husbands and wives to end their differences.  He had been drinking plentifully to aid his courage.

“I did not at first deign to reply.  But perceiving that he affected to take my silence for consent, I told him that, ’If he would not go to another bed, or allow me, I should sit up in my study all night.’  He attempted to pull me into the chamber, half joking.  But I resisted; and, as he had determined not to give me any reason for saying that he used violence, after a few more efforts, he retired, cursing my obstinacy, to bed.

“I sat musing some time longer; then, throwing my cloak around me, prepared for sleep on a sopha.  And, so fortunate seemed my deliverance, so sacred the pleasure of being thus wrapped up in myself, that I slept profoundly, and woke with a mind composed to encounter the struggles of the day.  Mr. Venables did not wake till some hours after; and then he came to me half-dressed, yawning and stretching, with haggard eyes, as if he scarcely recollected what had passed the preceding evening.  He fixed his eyes on me for a moment, then, calling me a fool, asked ’How long I intended to continue this pretty farce?  For his part, he was devilish sick of it; but this was the plague of marrying women who pretended to know something.’

“I made no other reply to this harangue, than to say, ’That he ought to be glad to get rid of a woman so unfit to be his companion—­and that any change in my conduct would be mean dissimulation; for maturer reflection only gave the sacred seal of reason to my first resolution.’

“He looked as if he could have stamped with impatience, at being obliged to stifle his rage; but, conquering his anger (for weak people, whose passions seem the most ungovernable, restrain them with the greatest ease, when they have a sufficient motive), he exclaimed, ’Very pretty, upon my soul! very pretty, theatrical flourishes!  Pray, fair Roxana, stoop from your altitudes, and remember that you are acting a part in real life.’