The Adventures of Roderick Random

End of Withers’ Pursuit

After washing his mouth repeatedly and reviving himself with a glass of wine, the protagonist recounts every detail of what happened to Strap. The old governess is never heard from again, whether because her love turned to disdain at his abrupt departure or because she was too ashamed to face him on account of her infirmity. The protagonist is never again troubled with her passion.

Debriefing Failed Rendezvous with Strap

Strap listens in silence at first, lifting up his eyes, clasping his hands, and uttering a hollow groan, then laments that it is a thousand pities the protagonist’s organs are so delicate as to be offended by the smell of garlic. He adds pointedly that no such odor would give him the least uneasiness, remarking on the advantages of being a cobbler’s son. When the protagonist snaps that Strap is welcome to go and retrieve the miscarriage himself, Strap starts, forces a smile, and leaves the room shaking his head.

第五十章

The narrator, seeking revenge on Melinda, enlists Billy Chatter and Banter to devise an elaborate scheme for the private assembly: he will pose as a French marquis to dance with Miss Biddy Gripewell, a wealthy heiress of thirty thousand pounds, while a barber disguised as a travel-sharpened gentleman is set up to humiliate Melinda herself. The plan succeeds brilliantly at the ball, where Melinda’s indignation flares at seeing the narrator’s apparent conquest, her fan shattering in fury, while the metamorphosed barber entertains the company with such ridiculous extravagance that his partner, Miss Gripewell, is forced to retire in confusion before the barber himself is exposed, bringing disgrace upon Chatter and ruining the narrator’s credit with the ladies. Reduced to melancholy and approaching want, the narrator takes refuge in drink, the playhouse, and the company of young templars, until a mysterious letter arrives by penny post from an “incognita” who writes in high-flown, poetical terms of love, prompting the narrator to believe he has captured the heart of Miss Sparkle, the beautiful heiress of Sir John Sparkle, whose governess Miss Withers has been facilitating the correspondence. After an exchange of tender epistles and confident hopes, the narrator arrives at the trysting place only to discover that his unknown admirer is not the young beauty he envisioned but Miss Withers herself, a wrinkled woman of seventy whose antiquated coquetries and garlic-breathed endearments drive him from the house in horror and disgust, ending the affair as abruptly as it began.