The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

This therefore brought me to a resolution, whatever came of it, to lay

open my whole case; but which way to do it, or to whom, was an

inextricable difficulty, and took me many months to resolve. In the

meantime, another quarrel with my husband happened, which came up to

such a mad extreme as almost pushed me on to tell it him all to his

face; but though I kept it in so as not to come to the particulars, I

spoke so much as put him into the utmost confusion, and in the end

brought out the whole story.

He began with a calm expostulation upon my being so resolute to go to

England; I defended it, and one hard word bringing on another, as is

usual in all family strife, he told me I did not treat him as if he was

my husband, or talk of my children as if I was a mother; and, in short,

that I did not deserve to be used as a wife; that he had used all the

fair means possible with me; that he had argued with all the kindness

and calmness that a husband or a Christian ought to do, and that I made

him such a vile return, that I treated him rather like a dog than a

man, and rather like the most contemptible stranger than a husband;

that he was very loth to use violence with me, but that, in short, he

saw a necessity of it now, and that for the future he should be obliged

to take such measures as should reduce me to my duty.

My blood was now fired to the utmost, though I knew what he had said

was very true, and nothing could appear more provoked. I told him, for

his fair means and his foul, they were equally contemned by me; that

for my going to England, I was resolved on it, come what would; and

that as to treating him not like a husband, and not showing myself a

mother to my children, there might be something more in it than he

understood at present; but, for his further consideration, I thought

fit to tell him thus much, that he neither was my lawful husband, nor

they lawful children, and that I had reason to regard neither of them

more than I did.

I confess I was moved to pity him when I spoke it, for he turned pale

as death, and stood mute as one thunderstruck, and once or twice I

thought he would have fainted; in short, it put him in a fit something

like an apoplex; he trembled, a sweat or dew ran off his face, and yet

he was cold as a clod, so that I was forced to run and fetch something

for him to keep life in him. When he recovered of that, he grew sick

and vomited, and in a little after was put to bed, and the next morning

was, as he had been indeed all night, in a violent fever.