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

loudly as it may,

can never confound our exactness of discrimination. When Lope de

Vega himself or Calderona ventured on the boards, they

encountered rigid critics, though in an audience which doted on

them: critics who would not sign their passport to the regions of

immortality till they had sifted their claims to be admitted

there.

 

That is a little too much, interrupted the knight of St James. We

are not quite so cautious as you. It is not our custom to wait

for the printing of a piece in order to decide on its reputation.

By the very first performance it sinks or swims. It does not even

seem necessary to be inconveniently attentive to the business of

the stage. It is sufficient that we know it for a production of

Don Gabriel, to be persuaded that it combines every excellence.

The works of that poet may justly be considered as commencing a

new era, and fixing the criterion of good taste. The school of

Lope and Calderona was the mere cart of Thespis, compared with

the polished scenes of this great dramatic master. The gentleman,

who looked up to Lope and Calderona as the Sophocles and

Euripides of the Spaniards, could not easily be brought to

acknowledge such wild canons of criticism. This is dramatic

heresy with a vengeance! exclaimed he. Since you compel me,

gentlemen, to decide like you on the fallacious evidence of a

first night, I must tell you that I am not at all satisfied with

this new tragedy of your Don Gabriel. As a poem it abounds more

with glittering conceits than with passages of pathos or

delineations of nature. The verses, three out of four, are

defective either in measure or rhyme; the characters, clumsily

imagined or incongruously supported; and the thoughts have often

the obscurity of a riddle without its ingenuity.

 

The two authors at table, who, with a prudence equally

commendable and unusual, had said nothing for fear of lying under

the imputation of jealousy, could not help assenting to the last

speaker’s opinions by their looks; which warranted me in

concluding that their silence was less owing to the perfection of

the work than to the dictates of personal policy. As for the

military critics, they got to their old topic of ringing the

changes on Don Gabriel, and exalted him to a level with the

under-tenants of Olympus. This extravagant association with the

demi-gods, this blind and stiff-necked idolatry, divorced the

Castilian from his little stock of patience, so that, raising his

hands to heaven, he broke out abruptly into a volley of

enthusiasm: O divine Lope de Vega, sublime and unrivalled genius,

who has left an immeasurable space between thee and all the

Gabriels who would light their tapers from thy bright effulgence!

and thou, mellow, soft-voiced Calderona, whose elegance and

sweetness, rejecting buskined rant and tragic swell, reign with

undisputed sway over the affections, fear not, either of you,

lest your altars should be overturned by this tongue-tied

nurseling of the muses! It will be the utmost of his renown, if

posterity, before whose eyes your works shall live in daily view,

and form their dear delight, shall enrol his name, as. matter of

history and curious record, on the list of obsolete authors.

 

This animated apostrophe, for which the company was not at all

prepared, raised a hearty laugh, after which we all rose from

table and withdrew. An apartment had been got ready for me by Don

Alphonso’s order, where I found a good bed; and my lordship,

lying down in luxurious weariness, went to sleep upon the tag of

the Castilian gentleman’s impassioned vindication, and dreamed

most crustily of the injustice done to Lope and Calderona by

ignorant pretenders.

 

CH. VI. — Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets

with a man of sanctity, whose pious face he has seen somewhere

else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out to be.

 

As I had not been able to complete my view of the city on the

preceding day, I got up betimes in the morning with the intention

of taking another walk. In the street I remarked a Carthusian

friar, who doubtless was thus early in motion to promote the

interests of his order, He walked with his eyes fixed on the

ground, and a gait so holy and contemplative, as to inspire every

passenger with religious awe. His path was in the same direction

as mine, I looked at him with more than ordinary curiosity, and

could not help fancying it was Don Raphael, that man of shifts

and expedients, who has already secured so honourable a niche in

the temple of fame. (See Books I. to VI. of my Memoirs.)

 

I was so utterly astonished, so thrown off my balance by this

meeting, that instead of accosting the monk, I remained

motionless for some seconds, which gave him time to get the start

of me. Just heaven! said I, were there ever two faces more

exactly alike? I do not know what to make of it! It seems

incredible that Raphael should turn up in such a guise! And yet

how is it possible to be any one else! I felt too great a

curiosity to get at the truth not to pursue the inquiry. Having

ascertained the way to the monastery of the Carthusians, I

repaired thither immediately, in the hope of coming across the

object of my search on his return, and with the full intent of

stopping and parleying with him. But it was quite unnecessary to

wait for his arrival to enlighten my mind on the subject: on

reaching the convent gate, another physiognomy, such as few

persons had read without paying for their lesson, resolved all my

doubts into certainty; for the friar who served in the capacity

of porter was unquestionably my old and godly-visaged servant,

Ambrose de Lamela.

 

Our surprise was equal on both sides at meeting again in such a

place. Is not this a play upon the senses? said I, paying my

compliments to him. Is it actually one of my friends who presents

himself to my astonished sight? He did not know me again at

first, or probably might pretend not to do so; but reflecting

within himself that it was in vain to deny his own identity, he

assumed the start of a man who all at once hits upon a

circumstance which had hitherto escaped his recollection, Ah,

Signor Gil Blas! exclaimed he, excuse my not recognizing your

person immediately. Since I have lived in this holy place, every

faculty of my soul has been absorbed in the performance of the

duties prescribed by our rules, so that by degrees I lose the

remembrance of all worldly objects and events.

 

After a separation of ten years, said I, it gives me much

pleasure to find you again in so venerable a garb. For my part,

answered he, it fills me with shame and confusion to appear in it

before a man who has been an eye-witness of my guilty courses.

These ghostly weeds are at once the charm of my present life, and

the condemnation of my former. Alas! added he, heaving a

righteous sigh, to be worthy of wearing it, my earlier years

should have been passed in primitive innocence. By this

discourse, so rational and edifying, replied I, it is plain, my

dear brother, that the finger of the Lord has been upon you, that

you are marked out for a vessel of sanctification. I tell you

once again, I am delighted at it, and would give the world to

know in what miraculous manner you and Raphael were led into the

path of the righteous; for I am persuaded that it was his own

self whom I met in the town, habited as a Carthusian. I was

extremely sorry afterwards not to have stopped and spoken to him

in the street; and I am waiting here to apologize for my neglect

on his return.

 

You were not mistaken, said Lamela, it was Don Raphael himself

whom you saw; and as for the particulars of our conversion, they

are as follow: After parting with you near Segorba, we struck

into the Valencia road, with the design of bettering our trade by

some new speculation. Chance or destiny one day led our steps

into the church of the Carthusians, while service was performing

in the choir. The demeanour of the brethren attracted our notice,

and we experienced in our own persons the involuntary homage

which vice pays to virtue. We admired the fervour with which they

poured forth their devotions, their looks of pious mortification,

their deadness to the pleasures of the world and the flesh, and

in the settled composure of their countenances, the outward sign

of an approving conscience within.

 

While making these observations, we fell into a train of thought

which became like manna to the hungry and thirsty soul: we

compared our habits of life with the employments of these holy

men, and the wide difference between our spiritual conditions

filled us with confusion and affright. Lamela, said Don Raphael,

as we went out of church, how do you stand affected by what we

have just seen? For my part, there is no disguising the truth, my

mind is ill at ease. Emotions, new and indescribable, are rushing

upon my mind: and, for the first time in my life, I reproach

myself with the wickedness of my past actions. I am just in the

same temper of soul, answered I; my iniquities are all drawn up

in array against me, they beset me, they stare me in the face; my

heart, hitherto proof against all the arrows of remorse, is at

this moment shot through, torn and disfigured, tormented and

destroyed. Ah! my dear Ambrose, resumed my partner, we are two

stray sheep, whom our Heavenly Father, in mercy, would lead back

gently to the fold. It is he himself, my child, it is he who

warms and guides us. Let us not be deaf to the call of his voice;

let us abandon all our wicked courses, let us begin from this day

to work out our salvation with diligence and in the spirit of

repentance: we had better spend the remainder of our days in this

convent, and consecrate them to penitence and devotion.

 

I applauded Raphael’s sentiment, continued brother Ambrose; and

we formed the glorious resolution of becoming Carthusians. To

carry it into effect, we applied to the venerable prior, who was

no sooner made acquainted with our purpose, than to ascertain

whether our call was front the world above or the world beneath,

he appointed us to cells, and all the strictness of monkish

discipline, for a whole year. We acted up to the rules with equal

regularity and fortitude, and, by way of reward, were admitted

among the novices. Our condition was so much what we wished it,

and our hearts were so full of religious zeal, that we underwent

the toils of our noviciate with unflinching courage. When that

was over, we professed; after which, Don Raphael, appearing

admirably well qualified, both by natural talent and various

experience, for the management of secular concerns, was chosen

assistant to an old friar who was at that time proctor. The son

of Lucinda would infinitely have preferred dedicating every

remaining moment of his existence to prayer; but he found it

necessary to sacrifice his taste for devotion, in furtherance of

the general prosperity. He entered with so much zeal and

knowledge into the interests of the house, that he was considered

as the most eligible person to succeed the old proctor, who died

three years afterwards. Don Raphael accordingly fills that office

at present; and it may be truly said that he discharges his duty

to the entire satisfaction of all our fathers, who