The Adventures of Roderick Random

第七章

After being reduced to utter destitution, the narrator is summoned to a public-house where he meets Mr. Launcelot Crab, a corpulent, mulberry‑coloured surgeon who harbours a bitter grudge against his rival Potion and whose wives have clashed over precedence at a christening. Crab hires the penniless narrator despite the latter’s pride, placing him in a garret and exploiting his knowledge of pharmacy and surgery, while also using him to undermine Potion and to fill the vacancy left by his deceased apprentice. The narrator soon learns Crab’s contradictory temperament—reacting to the slightest shared pleasure with fury and to submission with even greater rage—so he adopts a bold, unyielding stance that ultimately wins Crab’s grudging respect and a modest glass of punch. When a housemaid declares herself pregnant and implicates the narrator, he redirects the scandal onto Crab, who, fearing exposure, schemes to abort the pregnancy; however, the maid’s refusal forces Crab to secure her silence by arranging a financial parting gift for the narrator. Now deemed essential enough for his skill yet eager to escape, the narrator accepts Crab’s counsel to “launch out into the world,” receives a modest loan, a letter of recommendation to a Member of Parliament, and sets out for London with a sparse wardrobe, a few medical texts and ten guineas, carrying the promise of a surgeon’s mate position aboard a king’s ship poised for the impending war with Spain.

Deserted in Want

After the fumes of resentment dissipated and the vanity of success faded, the narrator found himself completely abandoned and facing extreme poverty. Mankind avoided him as if he were a different species, outside Providence’s scheme of protection. His despair had left him nearly stupified when he received word that a gentleman wished to see him at a public-house.