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

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hundred ducats I rescued his copies out of jeopardy, and saved

him from a heavy fine. Though this was a transaction beneath the

prime minister’s notice, his excellency condescended at my

request to interpose his authority. After the printer, a merchant

passed through my hands; the occasion was thus: A Portuguese

vessel had been taken by a Barbary corsair, and re-taken by a

privateer from Cadiz. Two-thirds of the cargo belonged to a

merchant at Lisbon, who, having claimed his due to no purpose,

came to the court of Spain in search of a protector, with

sufficient credit to procure him restitution. I took up his

cause, and he recovered his property, deducting the sum of four

hundred pistoles, paid to me in consideration of my disinterested

zeal for justice.

 

And now most surely the reader will call out to me at this place:

Well said, good master Santillane! Make hay while the sun shines.

You are on the high road to fortune; push forward, and outstrip

your rivals. Oh! let me alone for that. I spy, or my eyes deceive

me, my servant coming in with a new gull that he has just caught.

Even so! It is my very Scipio. Let us hear what he has to say.

Sir, quoth he, give me leave to introduce this eminent

practitioner. He wants a licence to sell his drugs during the

term of ten years in all the towns of the Spanish monarchy, to

the exclusion of all other quacks; in short, a monopoly of

poisons. In gratitude for this patent to thin mankind, he will

present the donor with a gratuity of two hundred pistoles. I

looked superciliously, like a patron, at the mountebank, and told

him that his business should be done. As lameness and leprosy

would have it, in the course of a few days I sent him on his

progress through Spain, invested with full powers to make the

world his oyster, and leave nothing but the shell to his

unpatented competitors.

 

Besides that my avarice outran my accumulating wealth, I had

obtained the four boons just specified so easily from his grace,

as not to be mealy mouthed about asking for a fifth. The town of

Vera, on the coast of Grenada, wanted a governor; and a knight of

Calatrava wanted the government, for which he was willing to pay

me one thousand pistoles. The minister was ready to burst with

laughing, to see me so eager after the scut. By all the powers!

my friend Gil Blas, said he, you go to work tooth and nail! You

have a most inveterate itch to do as you would be done by. But

mark me! When mere trifles stand between us, I shall not stand

upon trifles; but when governments or other places of real value

are in question, you will have the modesty to be content with

half the fee for yourself and will account to me for the other

half. It is inconceivable at what expense I stand, and how it

presses on my finances to support the dignity of my station; for

though disinterestedness looks vastly well in the eyes of the

world, you are to understand between ourselves that I have made a

solemn vow against dipping into my private fortune. On this hint,

arrange your future plans.

 

My master, by this discourse, relieving me from the fear of being

troublesome, or rather egging me on to run at the ring for every

prize, made me still more worldly-minded than ever I had been

before. I should not have objected to circulating hand-bills,

with an invitation to all candidates for places to apply on

certain terms at the secretary’s office. My functions were here,

Scipio’s were there; and we met at the receipt of custom. My

client got the government of Vera for his thousand pistoles; and

as our price was fixed, a knight of St James met his brother of

Calatrava in the market on an equal footing. But mere governors

were paltry fish to fry; I distributed orders of knighthood, and

converted some good stupid burgesses into most insufferable

gentry by one stroke of the pen, and a lacing across the

shoulders with a broad-sword. The clergy, too, were not forgotten

in my charities. Lesser preferments were in my gift; everything

up to prebendal stalls and collegiate dignities. With regard to

bishoprics and archbishoprics, Don Rodrigo de Calderona had the

charge of our holy religion. As church and state must always go

together, supreme magistracies, commanderies, and viceroyalties

were all in his gift; whence the reader will naturally infer,

that the upper offices were little better tenanted than the lower

ones; since the subjects on whom our election fell, establishing

their pretensions on a certain palpable criterion, were not

necessarily and unavoidably either the cleverest or the best-principled people in the world. We knew very well that the wits

and lampooners of Madrid made themselves merry at our expense;

but we borrowed our philosophy from misers, who hug themselves

under the hootings of the people, when they count over the

accumulation of their pelf.

 

Isocrates was in the right to insinuate, in his elegant Greek

expression, that what is got over the devil’s back is spent under

his belly. When I saw myself master of thirty thousand ducats,

and in a fair way to gain perhaps ten times as much, it seemed to

be a necessary of office to make such a figure as became the

right hand of a prime minister. I took a house to myself, and

furnished it in the immediate taste. I bought an attorney’s

carriage at second hand: he had set it up at the suggestion of

vanity, and laid it down at the suggestion of his banker. I hired

a coachman and three footmen. Justice demands that old and

faithful servants should be promoted; I therefore invested Scipio

with the threefold honour of valet-de-chambre, private secretary,

and steward. But the minister raised my pride to its highest

pitch, for he was pleased to allow my people to wear his livery.

My poor little wits were now completely turned. I was little more

in my senses than the disciples of Porcius Latro, who, by dint of

drinking cummin, having made themselves as pale as their master,

thought themselves every whit as learned; so I could scarcely

refrain from fancying myself next of kin and presumptive heir to

the Duke of Lerma himself. The populace might take me for his

cousin, and people who knew better, for one of his bastards; a

suspicion most flattering to my pride of blood.

 

Add to this, that after the example of his excellency, who kept a

public table, I determined to give parties of my own. Pursuant

thereunto, I commissioned Scipio to find me out a professed cook,

and he stumbled upon one who might have dished up a dinner for

Nomentanus, of dripping-pan notoriety. My cellar was well stored

with the choicest wines. My establishment being now complete, I

gave my house-warming. Every evening some of the clerks in the

public offices came to sup with me, and affected a sort of

political high life be low-stairs. I did the honours hospitably,

and always sent them home half seas over. Like master like man!

Scipio, too, had his parties in the servants’ hall, where he

treated all his chums at my expense. But besides that I felt a

real kindness for that lad, he contributed to grease the wheels

of my establishment, and was entitled to have a finger in the

dissipation. As a young man, some little licence was allowable;

and the ruinous consequences did not strike me at the time.

Another reason, too, prevented me from taking notice of it;

incessant vacancies, ecclesiastical and secular, paid me amply in

meal and in malt. My surplus was increasing every day. Fortune’s

curricle seemed to have driven to my door, there to have broken

down, and the driver to have taken shelter with me.

 

One thing more was wanting to my complete intoxication, that

Fabricio might be witness to my pomp. He was most probably come

back from Andalusia. For the fun of surprising him, I sent an

anonymous note, importing that a Sicilian nobleman of his

acquaintance would be glad of his company to supper, with the

day, hour, and place of appointment, which was at my house. Nunez

came, and was most inordinately astonished to recognize me in the

Sicilian nobleman. Yes, my friend, said I, behold the master of

this family. I have a retinue, a good table, and a strong box

besides. Is it possible, exclaimed he with vivacity, that all

this opulence should be yours? It was well done in me to have

placed you with Count Galiano. I told you beforehand that he was

a generous nobleman, and would not be long before he set you at

your ease. Of course you followed my wise advice, in giving the

rein a little more freely to your servants; you find the benefit

of it. It is only by a little mutual accommodation, that the

principal officers in great houses feather their nests so

comfortably.

 

I suffered Fabricio to go on as long as he liked, complimenting

himself for having introduced me to Count Galiano. When he had

done, to chastise his ecstasies at having procured me so good a

post, I stated at full length the returns of gratitude with which

that nobleman had recompensed my services. But, perceiving how

ready my poet was to string his lyre to satire at my recital, I

said to him — The Sicilian’s contemptible conduct I readily

forgive. Between ourselves, it is more a subject of

congratulation than of regret. If the count had dealt honourably

by me, I should have followed him into Sicily, where I should

still be in a subordinate capacity, waiting for dead men’s shoes.

In a word, I should not now have been hand in glove with the Duke

of Lerma.

 

Nunez felt so strange a sensation at these last words, that he

was tongue-tied for some seconds. Then gulping. up his stammering

accents like harlequin, Did I hear aright? said he. What! you

hand in glove with the prime minister. I on one side, and Don

Rodrigo de Calderona on the other, answered I; and according to

all appearance, my fortunes will move higher. Truly, replied he,

this is admirable. You are cut out for every occasion. What an

universal genius! To borrow an expression from the tennis-court,

you have a racket for every ball; nothing comes amiss to you. At

all events, my lord, I am sincerely rejoiced at your lordship’s

prosperity. The deuce and all, Master Nunez! interrupted I; good

now, dispense with your lords and lordships. Let us banish such

formalities, and live on equal terms together. You are in the

right, replied he; altered circumstances should not make strange

faces. I will own my weakness; when you announced your elevation

you took away my breath; but the chill and the shudder are over,

and I see only my old friend Gil Blas.

 

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of four or five

clerks. Gentlemen, said I, introducing Nunez, you are to sup with

Signor Don Fabricio, who writes verses of impenetrable sublimity,

and such prose as would not know itself in the glass. Unluckily I

was talking to gentry who would have had more fellow-feeling with

an Oran Outang than with a poet They scarcely condescended to

look at him. In vain did he pun, parody, rally, or rail to hit

their fancies, for they had none. He was so nettled at their

indifference, that he assumed the poetic licence, and made his

escape. Our clerks never missed him, but forgot at once that he

had been there.

 

Just as I was going out the next morning, the poet of the

Asturias came into