The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗

sent a few little nice things to a

widow of his acquaintance in the neighbourhood: but as he winked

at the table arrangements of his dear and confidential friends,

it was but fair that he should draw whenever he pleased upon the

wine-cellar: in short, by the practices of these three

bloodsuckers, a most horrible system of extravagance had found

its way into my lord the count’s establishment. If you doubt my

veracity, added the scullion, only take the trouble of going to-morrow morning about seven o’clock into the neighbourhood of St

Thomas’s college, and you will see me with a load upon my back,

which will convert your suspicions into certainty. Then you, said

I, are in the confidence of these honest purveyors! I am factor

to the clerk of the kitchen, answered he; and one of my comrades

runs on errands for the steward.

 

I had the curiosity the next day to loiter about St. Thomas’s

college at the appointed hour. My informer was punctual to time

and place. He brought with him a large tray full of butcher’s

meat, poultry, and game. I took an account of every article; and

drew out the bill of fare in my memorandum book, for the purpose

of shewing it to my master: at the same time telling my little

turnspit to execute his commission as usual.

 

His Sicilian lordship, naturally warm in his temper, would have

turned his countryman and the Italian out of doors together, in

the first fury of his anger; but after cooling upon it, he got

rid of the former only, and gave me his vacant place. Thus my

office of supervisor was suppressed very shortly after its

creation; nor did I relinquish it with any reluctance. To define

it strictly and properly, it was nothing better than that of a

spy with a sounding title; there was nothing substantial in the

nature of the appointment: whereas to the stewardship was tied

the key of the strong box, and with that goes the mastery of the

whole family. There are so many little perquisites and so much

patronage attached to that department of administration, that a

man must inevitably get rich, almost in spite of his own honesty.

 

But our Neapolitan was not so easily to be driven from his

strongholds. Observing to what a pitch of savage zeal I carried

my integrity, and that I was up every morning time enough to

enter in my books the exact quantity of meat that came from

market, he abandoned the practice of sending it off by wholesale:

yet the plunderer did not therefore contract the scale of his

demands on the animal creation. He was cunning enough to make it

as broad as it was long, by arranging the services with so much

the more profusion. Thus, what was sent down again untouched

being his property by culinary common law, he had nothing to do

but to pamper up his pet with victuals ready dressed, instead of

giving her the trouble of cooking for herself. The devil will

levy his due out of every transaction; so that the count was very

little the better for his paragon of a steward. The unbounded

prodigality in our style of setting out a table, even to a

surfeiting degree, was a plain hint to me of what was going

forward; I therefore took upon myself to retrench the

superfluities of every course. This, however, was done with so

judicious a hand, that there was no thing like parsimony to be

discovered. No one would ever have missed what was taken away;

and yet the expense was reduced very considerably by a well-regulated economy. That was just what my employer wanted; good

housewifery, but a magnificent establishment. There was a love of

saving at the bottom; but a taste for grandeur was the ostensible

passion.

 

Abuses seldom exist alone. The wine flowed too freely. If, for

instance, there were a dozen gentlemen at his lordship’s table,

the consumption was seldom less than fifty, sometimes sixty

bottles, This was strange; and looked as if there was more in it

than met the lips of the guests. Hereupon I consulted my oracle

of the scullery, whence I derived most of my wisdom: for he

brought me a faithful account of all that was said and done in

the kitchen, where they had not the least suspicion of him. It

seemed that the havoc of which I complained proceeded from a new

confederacy between the clerk of the kitchen, the cook, and the

under butler. The latter carried off the bottles half full, and

shared their contents with his allies, I spoke to him on the

subject, threatening to turn him and all the footmen under him

out of doors at a minute’s warning, if ever they did the like

again. The hint was understood, and the evil remedied. I took

especial care lest the slightest of my services should be lost

upon my master, who overwhelmed me with commendations, and took a

greater liking to me every day. On my part, as a reward to the

scullion, he was promoted to the situation next under the cook.

 

The Neapolitan was furious at encountering me in every direction.

The most aggravating circumstance of the whole was the

overhauling of his accounts; for, to pare his nails the closer, I

had gone into the market, and informed myself of the prices. I

followed him through all his doublings, and always took off the

market penny which he wanted to add. He must have cursed me a

hundred times a day; but the curses of the wicked fall in

blessings on the good. I wonder how he could stay in his place

under such discipline; but probably something still stuck by the

fingers.

 

Fabricio, whom I saw occasionally, rather blamed my conduct than

otherwise. Heaven grant, said he, one day, that all this virtue

may meet with its reward! But between ourselves you might as well

be a little more practicable with the clerk of the kitchen. What!

answered I, shall this freebooter put a bold face upon the

matter, and charge a fish at ten pistoles in his bill, which

costs only four, and would you have me pass the articles in my

accounts? Why not? replied he, coolly. He has only to let you go

snacks in the commission, and the books will be balanced in your

favour by the customary rule of stewardship arithmetic. Upon my

word, my friend, you are enough to overturn all regular systems

of housekeeping; and you are likely to end your days in a livery,

if you let the eel slip through your fingers without skinning it.

You are to learn that fortune is a very woman; ready and eager to

surrender, but expecting the formality of a summons.

 

I only laughed at this doctrine; and Nunez laughed at it too,

when he found that bad advice was thrown away upon an

incorrigibly honest subject. He then wished to make me believe it

was all a mere joke. At all events, nothing could shake my

resolution to act for my employer as for myself. Indeed my

actions corresponded with my words on that subject; for I may

venture to say that in four months my master saved at least three

thousand ducats by my thrift.

 

CH. XVI. — An accident happens to the Count de Galiano’s monkey;

his lordship’s affliction on that occasion. The illness of Gil

Blas, and its consequences.

 

AT the expiration of the before-mentioned time; the repose of the

family was marvellously troubled by an accident, which will

appear but a trifle to the reader; and yet it was a very serious

matter to the household, especially to me. Cupid, the monkey of

whom I was speaking, that animal, so much the idol of our lord

and master, attempting to leap from one window to another,

performed so ill as to fall into the court and put his leg out of

joint. No sooner were the fatal tidings carried to the count,

than he sung a dirge which pealed through all the neighbourhood.

In the extremity of his sufferings, every inmate without

exception was taken to task, and we were all within an inch of

being packed off about our business. But the storm only rumbled

without falling; he gave us and our negligence to the devil,

without being by any means select in the terms of the bequest.

The most notorious of the faculty in the line of fractures and

dislocations were sent for. They examined the poor dear leg, set,

and bound it up. But though they all gave it as their opinion

that there was no danger, my master could not be satisfied

without retaining the most eminent about the person of the

animal, till he could be pronounced to be in a state of

convalescence.

 

It would be a manifest injustice to the family affections of his

Sicilian lordship, not to commemorate all the agonizing

sensations of his soul during this period of painful suspense.

Would it be thought possible that this tender nurse did not stir

from his darling Cupid’s bedside all the live-long day? The

bandages were never altered or adjusted but in his presence, and

he got up two or three times in the night to inquire after his

patient. The most provoking part of the business was, that all

the servants, and myself in particular, were required to be

eternally on the alert, to anticipate the slightest wishes of

this ridiculous baboon. In short, there was no peace in the

house, till the cursed beast, having recovered from the effects

of its fall, got back again to his old tricks and whirligigs.

After this shall we be mealy-mouthed about believing Suetonius,

when he tells us that Caligula cared more for his horse than for

all the world besides, that he gave him more than the

establishment and attendance of a senator, and that he even

wanted to make him consul? Our wise master stopped little short

of the emperor in his partiality to the monkey; and had serious

thoughts of purchasing for him the place of corregidor.

 

Mine was the worst luck of any in the family; for I had so topped

my part above all the other servants, by way of paying my court

to his lordship, and had nursed poor dear Cupid with such

assiduity, as to throw myself into a fit of illness. A violent

fever seized me, so that I was almost at death’s door. They did

what they pleased with me for a whole fortnight, without my

consciousness; for the physicians and the fates were both

conspiring against me. But my youth was more than a match for the

fever and the prescriptions united. When I recovered my senses,

the first use I made of them was to observe myself removed to

another room. I wanted to know why; and asked an old woman who

nursed me: but she told me that I must not talk, as the physician

had expressly forbidden it. When we are well, we turn up our

noses at the doctors; but when we are sick, we are as much like

old women as themselves.

 

It seemed best therefore to keep silence, though with an

inveterate longing to hold converse with my attendant I was

debating the point in my own mind, when there came in two

foppish-looking fellows, dressed in the very extreme of fashion.

Nothing less than velvet would serve their turn, with linen and

lace to correspond. They looked like men of rank; and I could

have sworn that they were some of my master’s friends come to see

me out of regard for him. Under that impression I attempted to

sit up, and flung away my nightcap to look genteel; but the nurse

forced me under the bedclothes again, and tucked me