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

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announcing these gentlemen at the same time, as my physician and

apothecary.

 

The doctor came up to my bedside, felt my pulse, looked in my

face; and discovering undeniable symptoms of approaching

convalescence, assumed an air of triumph, as if it was all his

handiwork; and said there was nothing wanting but to keep the

bowels open, and then he flattered himself he might boast of

having performed an extraordinary cure. Speaking after this

manner, he dictated a prescription to the apothecary, looking in

the glass all the time, adjusting the dress of his hair, and

twisting his visage into shapes which set me laughing in spite of

my debility. At length he took his leave with a slight

inclination of the head, and went his way, more taken with the

contemplation of his own pretty person, than anxious about the

success of his remedies.

 

After his departure, the apothecary, not to have the trouble of a

visit for nothing, made ready to proceed as it is prescribed in

certain cases. Whether he was afraid that the old woman’s skill

was not equal to the exigency, or whether he meant to enhance his

own services by assiduity, he chose to operate in person; but in

spite of practice and experience, accidents will happen. Haste to

return benefits is among the most amiable propensities of our

nature; and such was my eagerness not to be behindhand with my

benefactor, that his velvet dress bore immediate testimony to the

profuseness of my gratitude. This he considered merely as one of

those little occurrences which chequer the fortunes of the

pharmaceutical profession. A napkin is a resource for everything

in a sick room, and least said was soonest mended; so he wiped

himself quietly, vowing indemnity and vengeance to himself for

the necessity under which he unquestionably laboured of sending

his clothes to the scourer.

 

On the following morning he returned to the attack more modestly

equipped, though there was then no risk of my springing a

countermine, as he had only to administer the potion which the

doctor had prescribed the evening before. Besides that I felt

myself getting better every moment, I had taken such a dislike,

since the day before, to the pill-dispensing tribe, as to curse

the very universities where these graduated cut-throats kept

their exercises in the faculty of slaying. In this temper of

mind, I declared, with a round oath, that I would not accept of

health through such a medium, but would willingly make over

Hippocrates and his myrmidons to the devil. The apothecary, who

did not care a doit what became of his compound, if it was but

paid for, left the phial on the table, and stalked away in

Telamonian silence.

 

I immediately ordered that bitch of a medicine to be thrown out

of window, having set myself so doggedly against it, that I would

as soon have swallowed arsenic. Having once drawn the sword, I

threw away the scabbard; and erecting my tongue into an

independent potentate, told my nurse in a determined tone, that

she must absolutely inform me what was become of my master. The

old lady, fearing lest the development of the mystery might

completely overset me, or thinking possibly that her prey might

escape out of her clutches for want of a little irritating

contradiction, was most provokingly mute; but I was so pressing

in my demand to be obeyed, that she at length gave me a decisive

answer: Worthy sir, you have no longer any master but your own

will. Count Galiano is gone back into Sicily.

 

I could not believe my ears; and yet it was fatally the fact.

That nobleman, on the second day of my indisposition, being

afraid of harbouring death under the same roof with him, had the

benevolence to send me packing with my little effects to a ready-furnished room, where providence was left to cure, or a nurse to

kill me, as it happened. While the alternative was tottering on

the balance, he was ordered back into Sicily, and in the headlong

haste of his obedience, never thought about me; whether it was

that he numbered me already among the death, or that great lords,

like great wits, have short memories.

 

My nurse gave me these particulars, and informed me that it was

she who had called in a physician and an apothecary, that I might

not die without professional honours. I fell into profound musing

at this fine story. Farewell my brilliant establishment in

Sicily! Farewell my budding hopes and blushing honours! When any

great misfortune shall have befallen you, says a certain pope,

look well to your own conduct, and you will find that there is

always some thing wrong at the bottom of it. With all reverent

submission to his holiness, I cannot help thinking myself in this

instance an exception to the infallibility of his maxim. How the

deuce was I to blame for being visited by a fever? There was more

reason for remorse in the monkey or his master than in me.

 

When I beheld the flattering chimeras with which my head was

filled, all vanishing into air, into thin air, the first thing

that worried my poor brain was my portmanteau, which I ordered to

be laid upon my bed to examine it. I groaned heavily on

discovering that it had been opened. Alas! my dear portmanteau,

exclaimed I, my only hope, consolation, and refuge! You have

been, to all appearance, a prisoner in an enemy’s country. No,

no, Signor Gil Blas, said the old woman, make yourself easy on

that head; you have not fallen among thieves. Your baggage is as

immaculate as my honour.

 

I found the dress I had on at my first entrance into the count’s

service; but it was in vain to look for that which my friend from

Messina had ordered for me as a member of the household. My

master had not thought fit to leave me in possession of it, or

else some one had made free with it. All my other little matters

were safe, and even a large leather purse with my coin in it,

which I counted over twice, not being able to believe at first

that there could be only fifty pistoles remaining out of two

hundred and sixty, which was the balance of the account before my

illness. What is the meaning of all this, my good lady? said I to

the nurse. Here is a leak in the vessel. No living soul but

myself has touched a farthing, answered the old woman, and I have

been as good an economist for you as possible. But illness is

very expensive; one must always have one’s money in one’s hand.

Here! added this excellent economist, taking a bundle of papers

out of her pocket, this is a statement of debtor and creditor, as

exact as a banker’s book, and you will see that I have not laid

out the veriest trifle in need-nots.

 

I ran over the account with a hasty glance; for it extended to

fifteen or twenty pages. Mercy on us! The poulterers’ shops must

have been exhausted, while I was in too weak a state to take

sustenance! There must have been at least twelve pistoles stewed

down into broths. Other articles were much to the same tune. It

was incredible what a sum had been lavished in firing, candles,

water, brooms, and innumerable articles of housekeeping and house

cleaning. After all, extortionate as the bill was, the utmost

ingenuity could not raise it above thirty pistoles, and

consequently there was a deficiency of a hundred and eighty to

make the account even. I just ventured to point that out; but the

old woman, with a shew of simplicity and candour, put all the

saints in the calendar into requisition to attest that there were

no more than eighty pistoles in the purse when the count’s

steward gave her charge of the wallet. What say you, my good

woman, interrupted I with precipitation: was it the steward who

placed my effects in your hands? To be sure it was, answered she,

the very man, and with this piece of advice: Here, good mother,

when Gil Blas shall be numbered with the dead, do not fail to

treat him with a handsome funeral; there is in this wallet

wherewithal to defray the expenses.

 

Ah! most pestiferous Neapolitan! exelaimed I in the bitterness of

my heart. I am no longer at a loss to conjecture what is become

of the deficiency. You have swept it off as an indemnity for a

part of the plunder which I have prevented you from making free

with. After relieving my mind by exclamations, I returned thanks

to heaven that the scoundrel had been so modest as not to take

the whole. Yet whatever reason I had for believing the action to

be perfectly in character for the person to whom it was imputed,

the nurse had not altogether cleared herself from my suspicions.

They hovered sometimes over one and sometimes over the other; but

let them light where they would, it was all the same to me. I

said nothing about the matter to the old woman; not even so much

as to haggle about the items of her fine bill. I should not have

been an atom the richer for doing so; and we must all live by our

trades. The utmost of my malice was to pay her and send her

packing three days afterwards.

 

I am inclined to think that at her departure she gave the

apothecary notice of her quitting the premises, and having left

me sufficiently in possession of myself to take French leave

without acknowledging my obligations to him; for she had not been

gone many minutes before he came in puffing and blowing, with his

bill in his hand. There, under names which had escaped my

conscription, though as arrant a physician as the worst of them,

he had set down all the hypothetical remedies which he insisted

that I had taken during the time when I could take nothing. This

bill might truly be called the epitome of an apothecary’s

conscience. Such being the case, we had a bustle about the

payment. I pleaded for an abatement of one-half. He swore that he

would not take a doit less than his just demand. He kept his oath

and yet relaxed; for considering that he had to do with a young

man who might run away from Madrid within four-and-twenty hours,

he preferred my offer of three hundred per cent, on the prime

cost of his drugs, though a pitiful profit for an apothecary, to

the risk of losing all. I counted out the money with an aching

heart, and he withdrew, chuckling over his revenge for the scurvy

trick I had played him on the day of evacuation.

 

The physician made his appearance next; for beasts of prey

inhabit the same latitudes. I fee’d him for his visits, which had

been quite as frequent as necessary, and his object was answered.

But he would not leave me without proving how hardly he had

earned his money, for that he had not only expelled the enemy

from the interior, but had defended the frontiers from the attack

of all the disorders on the army list of the materia medica. He

talked very learnedly, with good emphasis and discretion; so much

so, that I did not comprehend one word he said. When I had got

rid of him, I flattered myself that the destinies had now done

their worst. But I was mistaken; for there came a surgeon whose

face I had never seen in the whole course of my life. He accosted

me very politely, and congratulated me on the imminent danger I

had escaped; attributing the happy issue of my complaints to

those which