The Adventures of Roderick Random

A Garret in St. Giles’s

With no other options, Roderick moves his remaining belongings to the house of a former lodger, then after being rejected by all his contacts, rents a cheap garret room near St. Giles’s for nine pence per week, where he later accidentally discovers the woman he previously courted living in miserable, destitute conditions and provides her with relief.

第二十一章

The narrator is sitting in his solitary retreat musing on his unhappy fate when he hears a groan from the adjacent chamber, rushes in to find a woman collapsed on a miserable truckle bed with no visible signs of life, and is stunned to recognize her as the very lady who once won his heart and to whose fate he had once been nearly inseparably bound. He revives her with a smelling bottle, and she tearfully confesses she is a sex worker who contracted a dangerous, common illness for her profession after being swindled of all her money and possessions by a fraudulent advertising doctor, who left her destitute three days prior with no food for 48 hours and a landlady threatening to turn her out onto the street. He forgives her for her past plot to take advantage of him, offers to share his meager remaining funds and let her lodge with him to cut costs while he cares for her illness, and soon finds she is both a pleasant companion who eases his low spirits and a devoted nurse who serves him with great fidelity, prompting him to beg her to share the full story of how her beauty, education, and good sense led her to her current disgraced, destitute life.

The Groan from the Next Room

While musing on his unhappy fate in his solitary retreat, the narrator is alarmed by a groan issuing from the adjacent room. He rushes in to find a woman stretched on a miserable truckle bed with no visible signs of life, and revives her by holding a smelling bottle to her nose.