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

my room. I beg pardon, said he, for having cut

your clerks so abruptly last night; but, to deal freely, I was so

much out of my element, that I should soon have played old chaos

with them. Proud puppies, with their starch and self-important

air! I cannot conceive how a clever fellow like you can sit it

out with such loutish guests. To-day I will bring you some of

more life and spirit. I shall be very much obliged to you,

answered I; your introduction is sufficient. Exactly so, replied

he. You shall have the feast of reason and the flow of soul. I

will go forthwith and invite them, for fear they should engage

themselves elsewhere; for happy man be his dole who can get them

to dinner or supper; they are such excellent company!

 

Away went he; and in the evening, at supper-time, returned with

six authors in his train, whom he presented one after another

with a set speech in their praise. According to his account, the

wits of Greece and Italy were nothing in comparison of these,

whose works ought to be printed in letters of gold. I received

this deputation from the tuneful sisters very politely. My

behaviour was even in the extravagance of good breeding; for the

republic of authors is a little monarchical in its demands upon

our flattery. Though I had given Scipio no express direction

respecting the number of covers at this entertainment, yet

knowing what a hungry and voluptnous race were to be crammed, he

had mustered the courses in more than their full complement.

 

At length supper was announced, and we fell to merrily. My poets

began talking of their poems and themselves. One fellow, with the

most lyrical assurance, numbered up whole hosts of first-rate

nobility and high-flying dames, who were quite enraptured with

his muse. Another, though it was not for him to arraign the

choice which a learned society had lately made of two new

members, could not help saying that it was strange they should

not have elected him. All the rest were much in the same story.

Amid the clatter of knives and forks, my ears were more

discordantly dinned with verses and harangues. They each took it

by turns to give me a specimen of their composition. One

languishes out a sonnet; another mouths a scene in a tragedy; and

a third reads a melancholy criticism on the province of comedy.

The next in turn spouts an ode of Anacreon, translated into most

un-anacreontic Spanish verse. One of his brethren interrupts him,

to point out the unclassical use of a particular phrase. The

author of the version by no means acquiesces in the remark; hence

arises an argument, in which all the literati take one side or

the other. Opinions are nearly balanced; the disputants are

nearly in a passion; as argument weakens, invective grows

stronger; they get from bad to worse; over goes the table, and up

jump they to fisty-cuffs. Fabricio, Scipio, my coachman, my

footman, and myself, have scarcely lungs or strength to bring

them to their senses. The moment the battle was over, off

scampered they as if my house had been a tavern, without the

slightest apology for their ill behaviour.

 

Nunez, on whose word I had anticipated a very pleasant party,

looked rather blue at this conclusion. Well, my friend, said I,

what do you think of your literary acquaintance now? As sure as

Apollo is on Parnassus, you brought me a most blackguard set. I

will stick to my clerks; so talk no more to me about authors. I

shall take care, answered he, not to invite any of them to a

gentleman’s house again; for these are the most select and well-mannered of the tribe.

 

CH. X. — The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they

had never been at all. A commission from the Count de Lemos,

which, like most court commissions, implies an intrigue.

 

WHEN once my name was up for a man after the Duke of Lerma’s own

heart, I had very soon my court about me. Every morning was my

antechamber crowded with company, and my levees were all the

fashion. Two sorts of customers came to my shop; one set, to

engage my interposition with the minister, on fair commercial

principles; the other set, to excite my compassion by pathetic

statements of their cases, and give me a lift to heaven on the

packhorse of charity. The first were sure of being heard

patiently and served diligently; with regard to the second order,

I got rid of them at once by plausible evasions, or kept them

dangling till they wore their patience threadbare, and went off

in a huff. Before I was about the court my nature was

compassionate and charitable; but tenderness of heart is an

unfashionable frailty there, and mine became harder than any

flint. Here was an admirable school to correct the romantic

sensibilities of friendship: nor was my philosophy any longer

assailable in that quarter. My manner of dealing with Joseph

Navarro, under the following circumstances, will prove more than

volumes on that head.

 

This Navarro, the founder of my fortune, to whom my obligations

were thick and threefold, paid me a visit one day. With the

warmest expressions of regard such as he was in the habit of

lavishing, he begged me to ask the Duke of Lerma for a certain

situation for one of his friends, a young man of excellent

qualities and undoubted merit, but incumbered with an inability

of getting on in the world. I am well assured, added Joseph, that

with your good and obliging disposition, you will be enraptured

to confer a favour on a worthy man with a very slender purse; I

am sure you will feel obliged to me for giving you an opportunity

of carrying your benevolent inclinations into effect This was

just as good as telling me that the business was to be done for

nothing. Though such doctrine was not quite level to my capacity,

I still affected a wish to do as he desired. It gives me infinite

pleasure, answered I to Navarro, to have it in my power to evince

my lively sense of all your former kindness to me. It is enough

for you to take any man living by the hand; from that moment he

becomes the object of my unwearied care. Your friend shall have

the situation you want for him; nay, he has it already: it is no

longer any concern of yours; leave it entirely to me.

 

On this assurance Joseph went away in high glee; nevertheless,

the person he recommended had not the post in question. It was

given to another man, and my strong box was the stronger by a

thousand ducats. This sum was infinitely preferable to all the

thanks in the world, so that I looked pitifully blank when next

we met, saying — Ah, my dear Navarro! you should have thought of

speaking to me sooner. That Calderona got the start of me; he has

given away a certain thing that shall be nameless. I am vexed to

the soul not to meet you with better tidings.

 

Joseph was fool enough to give me credit, and we parted better

friends than ever; but I suspect that he soon found out the

truth, for he never came near me again. This was just what I

wanted. Besides that the memory of benefits received grated

harshly, it would not have been at all the thing for a person in

my then sphere to keep company with a certain description of

people.

 

The Count de Lemos has been long in the background, let us bring

him a little forwarder on the canvas. We met occasionally. I had

carried him a thousand pistoles, as the reader will recollect;

and I now carried him a thousand more, by order of his uncle the

duke, out of his excellency’s funds lying in my hands. On this

occasion the Count de Lemos honoured me with a long conference.

He informed me that at length he had completely gained his end,

and was in unrivalled possession of the Prince of Spain’s good

graces, whose sole confidant he was. His next concern was to

invest me with a right honourable commission, of which he had

already given me a hint. Friend Santillane, said he, now is the

time to strike while the iron is hot. Spare no pains to find out

some young beauty, worthy to while away the prince’s amorous

hours. You have your wits about you; and a word to the wise is

sufficient. Go; run about the town; pry into every hole and

corner; and when you have pounced upon anything likely to suit,

you will come and let me know. I promised the count to leave no

stone unturned in the due discharge of my employment, which

seemed to require no great force of genius, since the professors

of the science are so numerous.

 

I had not hitherto been much practised in such delicate

investigations, but it was more than probable that Scipio had,

and that his talent lay peculiarly that way. On my return home I

called him in, and spoke thus to him in private: My good fellow,

I have a very important secret to impart. Do you know that in the

midst of fortune’s favours, there is something still wanting to

crown all my wishes? I can easily guess what that is, interrupted

he, without giving me time to finish what I was going to say; you

want a little snug bit of contraband amusement, to keep you awake

of evenings, and rub off the dust of business. And, in fact, it

is a marvellous thing that you should have played the Joseph in

the heyday of your blood, when so many greybeards around you are

playing the Elder. I admire the quickness of your apprehension,

replied I with a smile. Yes, my friend, a mistress is that

something still wanting; and you shall choose for me. But I

forewarn you that I am nice hungry, and must have a pretty

person, with more than passable manners. The sort of thing that

you require, returned Scipio, is not always to be met with in the

market. Yet, as luck will have it, we are in a town where

everything is to be got for money, and I am in hopes that your

commission will not hang long on hand.

 

Accordingly within three days he pulled me by the sleeve: I have

discovered a treasure! a young lady whose name is Catalina, of

good family and matchless beauty, living with her aunt in a small

house, where they make both ends meet by clubbing their little

matters, and set the slanderous world at defiance. Their waiting-maid, a girl of my acquaintance, has given me to understand that

their door, though barred against all impertinent intruders,

would turn upon its hinges to a rich and generous suitor, if he

would only consent, for fear of prying neighbours, not to pay his

visits till after night-fall, and then in the most private manner

possible. Hereupon I magnified you as the properest gentleman in

the world, and intreated piety in pattens to offer your humble

services to the ladies. She promised to do so, and to bring me

back my answer to-morrow morning at an appointed place. That is

all very well, answered I; but I am afraid your goddess of bed-making has been running her rig upon you. No, no, replied he, old

birds are not to be caught with chaff; I have already made

inquiry in the neighbourhood, and by the general report of her,

Signora Catalina is a second Danae, on whom you will have the

happiness of coming down,

 

Like Jove descending from his tower,

To court her