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

as a feather in

Calderona’s cap to dispute the empire of love with so illustrious

a rival, and not to be worse used than his lawful prince. The

Count de Lemos, too, was informed how things stood, and promised

me his protection, if the first secretary should come at the

knowledge of the intrigue, and attempt to undermine me with the

duke.

 

Trusting to have secured the frail bark of my fortunes by this

notable contrivance from the rocks and quicksands that threatened

it, my mind was once more at rest. I continued attending the

prince on his visits to Catalina, sirenlike in nature as in

nickname, who was fertile in quaint devices to keep Don Rodrigo

away from next door, whenever the course of business required her

to devote her nights to his royal competitor.

 

CH. XIII. — Gil Blas goes on personating the great man. He hears

news of his family: a touch of nature on the occasion. A grand

quarrel with Fabricio.

 

I MENTIONED some time ago, that in the morning there was usually

a crowd of people in my antechamber, coming to negotiate little

private concerns in the way of politics; but I would never suffer

them to open their business by word of mouth; but adopting court

precedent, or rather giving myself the airs of a jack in office,

my language to every suitor was — Send in a memorial on the

subject. My tongue ran so glibly to that tune, that one day I

gave my landlord the official answer, when he came to put me in

mind of a twelvemonth’s rent in arrear. As for my butcher and

baker, they spared the trouble of asking for their memorials, by

never giving me time to run up a bill. Scipio, who mimicked me so

exactly, that only those behind the scenes could distinguish the

double from the principal performer, held his head just as high

with the poor devils who curried favour with him, as a step of

the ladder to my ministerial patronage.

 

There was another foolish trick of mine, of which I do not by any

means pretend to make a merit; neither more nor less than the

extreme assurance of talking about the first nobility, just as if

I had been one of their kidney. Suppose, for example, the Duke of

Alva, the Duke of Ossuna, or the Duke of Medina Sidonia were

mentioned in conversation, I called them without ceremony, my

friend Alva, that good-natured fellow Ossuna, or that comical dog

Medina Sidonia. In a word, my pride and vanity had swelled to

such a height, that my father and mother were no longer among the

number of my honoured relatives. Alas! poor understrappers, I

never thought of asking whether you had sunk or were swimming in

the Asturias. A thought about you never came into my head. The

court has all the soporific virtues of Lethe, in the case of poor

relations.

 

My family was completely obliterated from the tablets of my

memory, when one morning a young man knocked at my door and

begged to speak with me for a moment in private. He was shown

into my closet, where, without asking him to take a chair, as he

seemed to be quite a common fellow, I desired to know abruptly

what he wanted. How! Signor Gil Blas? said he, do you not

remember me? It was in vain that I perused the lines of his face

over and over again; I was obliged to tell him fairly that he had

the advantage of me. Why, I am one of your old schoolfellows!

replied he, bred and born in Oviedo; Bertrand Muscada, the

grocer’s son, next-door neighbour to your uncle the canon. I

recollect you as well as if it was but yesterday. We have played

a thousand times together at blind man’s buff and prison bars.

 

My youthful recollections, answered I, are very transient and

confused. Blind man’s buff and prison bars are but childish

amusement! The burden of state affairs leaves me little time to

ruminate on the trifles of my younger days. I am come to Madrid,

said he, to settle accounts with my father’s correspondent. I

heard talk of you! Folks say that you have, a good berth at

court, and are already almost as well off as a Jew broker. I

thought I would just call in and say, how d’ye do? On my return

into the country, your family will jump out of their skins for

joy, when they hear how famously you are getting on.

 

It was impossible in decency to avoid asking how my father, my

mother, and my uncle stood in the world; but that duty was

performed in so gingerly a manner, as to leave the grocer little

room to compliment dame Nature on her liberal provision of

instinct. He seemed quite shocked at my indifference for such

near kindred, and told me bluntly, with his coarse shopman’s

familiarity, Methinks you might have shown more heartiness and

natural feeling for your kinsfolk! Why, you ask after them just

as if they were vermin! Your father and mother are still at

service; take that in your dish! And the good canon, Gil Perez,

eat up with gout, rheumatism, and old age, has one foot in the

grave. People should feel as people ought; and seeing that you

are in a berth to be a blessing to your poor parents, take a

friend’s advice, and allow them two hundred pistoles a year. That

will be doing a handsome thing, and making them comfortable, and

then you may spend the rest upon yourself with a good conscience.

Instead of being softened by this family picture, I only resented

the officiousness of unasked advice. A more delicate and covert

remonstrance might perhaps have made its impression, but so bold

a rebuke only hardened my heart. My sulky silence was not lost

upon him, so that while he moralized himself out of charity into

downright abuse, my choler began to overflow. Nay, then! this is

too much, answered I, in a devil of a passion. Get about your

business, Master Muscada, and mind your own shop. You are a

pretty fellow to preach to me! As if I were to be taught my duty

by you. Without further parley I handed the grocer out of my

closet by the shoulder, and sent him off to weigh figs and

nutmegs at Oviedo.

 

The home-strokes he had laid on were not lost to my sober

recollection. My neglect of filial piety struck home to my heart,

and melted me into tears. When I recollected how much my

childhood was indebted to my parents, what pains they had taken

in my education, these affecting thoughts gave language for the

moment to the still small voice of nature and gratitude; but the

language was never translated into solid sense and service. An

habitual callousness succeeded this transient sensation, and

peremptorily cancelled every obligation of humanity. There are

many fathers besides mine, who will acknowledge this portrait of

their sons.

 

Avarice and ambition, dividing me between them, annihilated every

trace of my former temper. I lost all my gaiety, became absent

and moping, — in short, a most unsociable animal. Fabricio

seeing me so furiously bent on accumulation, and so perfectly

indifferent to him, very rarely came to see me. He could not help

saying one day: In truth, Gil Blas, you are quite an altered man.

Before you were about the court, you were always pleasant and

easy. Now you are all agitation and turmoil. You form project

after project to make a fortune, and the more you realize, the

wider your views of aggrandizement extend. But this is not the

worst! You have no longer that expansion of heart, those open

manners, which form the charm of friendship. On the contrary, you

wrap yourself round, and shut the avenues of your heart even to

me. In your very civilities, I detect the violence you impose

upon yourself. In short, Gil Blas is no longer the same Gil Blas

whom I once knew.

 

You really have a most happy talent for bantering, answered I,

with repulsive jocularity. But this metamorphose into the shag of

a savage is not perceptible to myself. Your own eyes, replied he,

are insensible to the change, because they are fascinated. But

the fact remains the same. Now, my friend, tell me fairly and

honestly, shall we live together as heretofore? When I used to

knock at your door in the morning, you came and opened it

yourself; between asleep and awake, and I walked in without

ceremony. Now, what a difference! You have an establishment of

servants. They keep me cooling my heels in your antechamber; my

name must be sent in before I can speak to you. When this is got

over, what is my reception? A cold inclination of the head, and

the insolent strut of office. Any one would suppose that my

visits were growing troublesome! Can you suppose this to be

treatment for a man who was once on equal terms with you? No,

Santillane, it can never be, nor will I bear it longer. Farewell!

Let us part without ill blood. We shall both be better asunder;

you will get rid of a troublesome censor, and I of a purse-proud

upstart who does not know himself.

 

I felt myself more exasperated than reformed by his reproaches;

and suffered him to take his departure without the slightest

effort to overcome his resolution. In the present temper of my

mind, the friendship of a poet did not seem a catch of sufficient

importance to break one’s heart about its loss. I found ample

amends in the intimacy of some subaltern attendants about the

king’s person, with whom a similarity of humour had lately

connected me closely. These new acquaintance of mine were for the

most part men from no one knows where, pushed up to their

appointments more by luck than merit. They had all got into warm

berths; and, wretches as they were, measuring their own

consequence by the excess of royal bounty, forgot their origin as

scandalously as I forgot mine. We gave ourselves infinite credit

for what told so much and bitterly to our disgrace. O fortune!

what a jade you are, to distribute your favours at haphazard as

you do! Epictetus was perfectly in the right, when he likened you

to a jilt of fashion, prowling about in masquerade, and tipping

the wink to every blackguard who parades the street.

 

BOOK THE NINTH.

 

CH. I. — Scipio’s scheme of marriage for Gil Blas. The match, a

rich goldsmith’s daughter. Circumstances connected with this

speculation.

 

ONE evening, on the departure of my supper company, finding

myself alone with Scipio, I asked him what he had been doing that

day. Striking a masterstroke, answered he. I intend that you

should marry. A goldsmith of my acquaintance has an only

daughter, and I mean to make up a match between you.

 

A goldsmith’s daughter! exclaimed I with a disdainful air: are

you out of your senses? Can you think of tying me up to a

trinket-maker? People of a certain character in society, and on a

certain footing at court, ought to have much higher views of

things. Pardon me, sir! rejoined Scipio, do not take the subject

up in that light. Recollect that nobility accrues by the male

side, and do not ride a higher horse than a thousand jockeys of

quality whom I could name. Do you know that the heiress in

question will bring a hundred thousand ducats in her pocket? Is

not that a pretty little sprig of jewellery? To the resounding

echo of so large a sum, my ears were instantly symphonious. The

day is your own, said I to the secretary; the fortune determines

the case in