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

immediately closeted

together on some family business, of which I shall speak in the

sequel. The king’s affairs at this time were obliged to play

second to those of the minister.

 

While they were caballing it struck twelve. As I knew that the

secretaries and their clerks quitted office at that hour to go

and dine wherever their business and desire should point them, I

left my prize performance behind me, and went to the gayest

tavern at the court end of the town, for I had nothing further to

do with Monteser, who had paid my salary, and taken his leave of

me. But a common eating-house would have been a very improper

place for me to be seen in. “Consider yourself as to the very

bone and marrow the king’s.” This metaphorical expression of the

duke had given birth to a real and tangible ambition in my soul,

which put forth shoots like a plantation in a fat and unvexed

soil.

 

CH. III. — All is not gold that glitters. Some uneasiness

resulting from the discovery of that principle in philosophy, and

its practical application to existing circumstances.

 

I TOOK especial care, on my first entrance, to instil into the

tavern-keeper’s conception that I was secretary to the prime

minister; nor was it easy, in that view of my rank and

consequence, to order anything sufficiently sumptuous for dinner.

To have selected from the bill of fare, might have looked as if I

descended to the meanness of calculation; I therefore told him to

send up the best the house afforded. My orders were punctually

obeyed; and the anxious assiduity of the attendance pampered my

fancy as much as the dishes did my palate. As to the bill, I had

nothing to do with it but to pay it. Down went a pistole upon the

table, and the waiters pocketed the difference, which was

somewhat more than a quarter. After this display of grandeur I

strutted out, practising those obstreperous clearings of the

throat which announce, by empty sound, the approach of a

substantial coxcomb.

 

There was at the distance of twenty yards a large house with

lodgings to let, principally frequented by foreign nobility. I

rented at once a suite of apartments, consisting of five or six

rooms elegantly furnished. From my style of living, any one would

have thought I had two or three thousand ducats of yearly income.

The first month was paid in advance. Afterwards I returned to

business, and employed the whole afternoon in going on with what

I had begun in the morning. In a closet adjoining mine there were

two other secretaries; but their office was only to copy out

fair. I got acquainted with them as we were shutting up for the

evening; and, by way of smoothing the first overtures towards

friendship, invited them home with me to my tavern, where I

ordered the choicest delicacies of the season, with a profusion

of the most exquisite wines.

 

We sat down to table, and began bandying about more merriment

than wit; for with all due deference to my guests, it was but too

visible that they owed their official situations to any

circumstance rather than to their abilities. They were adepts, it

must be confessed, in all the history and mystery of scrivening

and clerkship; but as for polite literature and university

education, there was not even a suspicion of it in all their

talk.

 

To make amends for that defect, they had a keen eye to the main

chance; and though sensible how high an honour it was to be on

the prime minister’s establishment, there were some dashes of

acid in the cup of good fortune. It is now full five months, said

one of them, that we have been serving at our own cost. We do not

touch one farthing of salary; and, what is worst of all, our very

board wages are shamefully in arrear. There is no knowing what

footing we are upon. As for me, said the other, I would willingly

be tied up to the halbert, and receive a percentage in lashes,

for the liberty of changing my berth; but I dare not either take

myself off or petition for my discharge, after having transcribed

such state secrets as have passed under my inspection. I might

chance to become too well acquainted with the tower of Segovia or

the castle of Alicant.

 

How do you manage for a subsistence, then? said I. You must of

course have means of your own. These they represented as very

slender; but that, fortunately for them, they lodged with a kind-hearted widow, who boarded them on tick, at the rate of a hundred

pistoles a year for each These anecdotes of a court life, not one

of which escaped me, completely ventilated all the rising fumes

of pride. It could not be supposed that more consideration would

be shewn to me than to others, and consequently there was nothing

to be so puffed up with in my post; there seemed to be much cry

and little wool, a discovery which rendered it expedient to

husband my finances with a narrower economy. A picture like this

was enough to cure my taste for treating. I repented not having

left these secretaries to find their own supper; for they played

a most cruel knife and fork at mine! and, when the bill was

brought, I squabbled with the landlord about the charges.

 

We parted at midnight; and the early breaking up was to be laid

at my door; for I did not propose another bottle. They went home

to their widow, and I withdrew to my magnificent lodgings, which

I was now mad with myself for having taken, and was fully

determined to give up at the month’s end. My bed of down was now

converted into a couch of thorns; sleep had abandoned his

narcotic tenement, and sold the fee-simple of my repose to the

demon of eternal wakefulness. The remainder of the night was

passed in contriving not to serve the state too patriotically.

For that purpose I bethought me of Monteser’s good counsel. I got

up with the intention of making my bow to Don Rodrigo de

Calderona. My present temper was just pat to the purpose of

ingratiating myself with so high and mighty a gentleman; whose

patronage was indispensable to my existence. I therefore

presented my person in that secretary’s antechamber.

 

His apartments communicated with the duke’s, and rivalled them in

the lustre of their decorations. The field officer could scarcely

be distinguished from the subaltern by any outward distinction in

his paraphernalia. I sent in my name as Don Valerio’s successor;

but that did not hinder me from being kept kicking my heels for a

good hour. Trusty, but novice officer of the king, said I, while

ruminating on court manners, lean a lesson of patience, if so

please you. You must begin with shewing paces yourself, and

afterwards make others bite the bridle.

 

At length the door of the inner room opened. I went in, and

advanced towards Don Rodrigo, who had just been writing an

amorous epistle to his charming Siren, and was giving it to

Pedrillo at that very moment. I had never manufactured my face

and air into such a counterfeit of reverence before the

Archbishop of Grenada, nor on my introduction to the Count de

Galiano, nor even in presence of the prime minister himself: the

crisis of my fawning was reserved for Signor de Calderona. I paid

my respects to him with my body bent down to the very ground, as

if crouching under the ken of a superior intelligence; and

solicited his protection in strains of humble hypocrisy, at which

my cheek now burns with shame, to think that man can so debase

himself before his fellow-man. My servility would have recoiled

to my own undoing, had it been practised towards a compound of

any manly and independent ingredients. As for this fellow, he

swallowed flattery by the lump without mastication; and assured

me, just as if he meant what he said, that he would leave no

stone unturned to do me service.

 

Hereupon, thanking him with unlimited expressions of attachment

for his kind and generous sentiments, I sold my very soul and all

my little stock of conscience to his free disposal. But as this

farce might be tiresome if prolonged, I took my leave,

apologizing for having broken in upon his more serious

avocations. As soon as I had finished this abominable scene, I

slunk back to my desk, where I finished my prescribed task. The

duke was at my elbow the next morning. The end of my performance

was not less to his mind than the beginning; and he praised it

accordingly: This is extremely well indeed! Copy this abridgment

in your best hand into the register of Catalonia. You shall not

want employment of this kind. I had a very long conversation with

his excellency, and was delighted at his mild and familiar

deportment. What a contrast to Calderona! They might have sat to

a painter for Pan and Apollo.

 

To-day I dined at a cheap ordinary, and sunk the secretary upon

my messmates, till I should ascertain what solid profit might

accrue from all my bows and scrapes. I had funds for three

months, or thereabouts. That interval I allowed myself for

casting my bread upon the waters. But as the shortest

speculations are the safest, if my salary was not paid by that

time, a long farewell to the court, its frippery, and its

falsehood! Thus were my plans arranged. For two months I laboured

hard and fast to stand well with Calderona: but his senses were

so callous to all my assiduity, that it seemed labour in vain to

build on so hopeless a foundation. This idea produced a change in

my conduct. I left some greener fool to fumigate the nostrils of

this idol; and placed all my own dependence on making my ground

sure with the duke, by the benefit of our frequent conferences.

 

CH. IV. — Gil Blas becomes a favourite with the Duke of Lerma,

and the confidant of an important secret.

 

THOUGH his grace’s interviews with me were short as the fleeting

visions of supernatural communication, my turn and character won

its way gradually into his excellency’s good liking. One day

after dinner, he said: Attend to me, Gil Blas. I really like you

very muck You are a zealous, confidential lad, full of

understanding and discretion. My trust cannot be misplaced in

such hands. I threw myself at his feet, at the music of these

words; and kissing his outstretched hand, answered thus: Is it

possible that your excellency can think so favourably of your

servant? What a host of enemies will such a preference conjure up

against me! But Don Rodrigo is the only man whose privy grudge is

formidable enough to alarm me.

 

You have nothing to fear from that quarter, replied the duke. I

know Calderona. He has loved me from his cradle. Every movement

of his heart is in unison with mine. He cherishes whatever I

love, and hates in exact proportion to my dislike. So far from

being alarmed at his ill-will, you ought, on the contrary, to hug

yourself on his peculiar partiality. This let me at once into the

abysses of Don Rodrigo’s character. He shuffled and cut the cards

to his own deal, and paid his debts of honour out of his

excellency’s pool. One could not be too wary with this gentleman.

 

To begin, pursued the duke, with a proof my thorough reliance on

your faith, I will open to you a long-projected design. It is

necessary for you to be informed of it, to qualify you for the

commissions with which I shall hereafter have occasion to