The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗
- Author: Alain René le Sage
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you going, my little darling? said he in a philandering tone of
voice, unlike the natural hoarseness of his accents. Good worthy
gentleman, answered she, I am going to Toledo, where I hope to
gain an honest livelihood by hook or by crook. Your intentions
are highly commendable, retorted he; and I doubt not but you have
many a hook and many a crook among the implements of your trade.
Yes, with a blessing on my endeavours, rejoined she: I have
several little ways of doing for myself: I know how to make
washes and creams for the ladies’ faces, perfumes for their noses
and their chambers; then I can tell fortunes, can search for
things lost with a sieve and shears, and erect figures for the
taking in of shadows with a glass.
Torribio, concluding that so well-provided a girl would be a very
advantageous match for a man like himself, who could scarcely
scrape wherewithal to support life by his own profession, though
he was as good a thief-taker as the best of them, made her an
offer of marriage, and she was nothing loth, nor prudishly coy.
They flew on the wings of inclination and convenience to Toledo,
where they were joined together; and you behold in me the happy
pledge of holy and lawful matrimony. They fixed themselves in a
shop on the outskirts of the town, where my mother commenced her
career by selling the said washes, creams, tapes, laces, silk,
thread, toys, and pedlar’s ware; but trade not being brisk enough
to live comfortably by it, she turned fortune-teller. This drew
her customers, got her countenance, credit, crowns, and pistoles:
a thousand dupes of either sex soon trumpeted up the reputation
of Coselina; for so my gipsy mamma had the honour to be named.
Some one or other came every day to bargain for the exercise of
her skill in the black art: at one time a nephew at his wit’s and
purse’s end, wanting to know how soon his uncle was to set off
post for the other world, and leave behind him wherewithal to
piece his worn-out fortunes: at another, some yielding, love-sick
girl, to inquire whether the swain who kept her company, and had
promised to marry her, would keep his word or be false-hearted.
You will take notice, if you please, that my mother always sold
good luck for good money; if the accomplishment trod on the heels
of the prediction, well and good; if it was fulfilled according
to the rule of contraries, she was always cool, though the
parties were ever so violently in a passion, and told them
plainly that it was her familiar’s fault, not hers; for though
she paid him the highest wages, and bound him by potent spells to
stir up the cauldron of futurity from the bottom, like earthly
cooks, he would sometimes be careless or out of humour, and
apportion the ingredients wrongly.
When my mother thought the conjuncture momentous enough to raise
the devil without cheapening him in the eyes of the vulgar,
Torribio Scipio enacted his infernal majesty, and played the part
just as if he had been born to it, humouring the hideous features
of the character by a very small aggravation of his own natural
face, and practising the pandemonian note of elocution in the
lower octave of his voice. A person in the slightest degree
superstitious would
be scared out of his senses at my father’s figure. But one day,
as his satanic prototype would have it, there came a savage
rascal of a captain, who asked to see the devil, for no earthly
purpose but to run him clean through the body. The Inquisition,
having received notice of the devil’s death, sent to take charge
of his widow, and administer to his effects; as for poor little
me, just seven years old at the time, I was sent to the foundling
hospital. There were some charitable ecclesiastics on that
establishment, who, being liberally paid for the education of the
poor orphans, were so zealous in their office as to teach them
reading and writing. They fancied there was something
particularly promising about me, which made them pick me out from
all the rest, and send me on their errands. I was letter-carrier,
messenger, and chapel clerk. As a token of their gratitude, they
undertook to teach me Latin; but their mode of tuition was so
harsh, and their discipline so severe, though I was a sort of pet
with them, that, not being able to stand it any longer, I ran
away one morning while out on an errand; and, so far from
returning to the hospital, got out of Toledo through the suburbs
on the Seville side.
Though I had not then completed my ninth year, I already felt the
pleasure of being free, and master of my own actions. I was
without money and without food; no matter! I had no lessons to
say by heart, no themes to hammer out. After having pushed on for
two hours, my little legs began to refuse their office. I had
never before made so long a trip. It became necessary to stop and
take some rest. I sat myself down at the foot of a tree close by
the high. way; there, by way of amusement, I took my grammar out
of my pocket, and began conning it over by way of a joke; but at
length, coming to recollect the raps on the knuckles, and the
castigations on the more classical seat of punishment which it
had cost me, I tore it leaf by leaf with an apostrophe of angry
import. Ah! you odious thing of a book! you shall never make me
shed tears any more. While I was assuaging my vindictive spirit,
by strewing the ground about me with declensions and
conjugations, there passed that way a hermit with a white beard,
with a large pair of spectacles on his nose, and altogether an
outside of much sanctity. He came up to me; and, if I was an
object of speculation to him, he was no less so to me. My little
man, said he with a smile, it should seem as if we had both taken
a sudden liking to each other, and in that case we cannot do
better than to live together in my hermitage, which is not two
hundred yards distant. Your most obedient for that, answered I
pertly enough; I have not the least desire to turn hermit. At
this answer, the good old man set up a roar of laughter, and said
with a kind embrace: You must not be frightened at my dress; if
it is not becoming, it is useful; it gives me my title to a
charming retreat, and to the goodwill of the neighbouring
villages, whose inhabitants love or rather idolize me. Come this
way, and I will clothe you in a jacket of the same stuff as mine.
If you think well of it, you shall share with me the pleasures of
the life I lead; and, if it does not hit your fancy, you shall
not only be at liberty to leave me, but you may depend on it that
in the event of our parting, I shall not fail to do something
handsome by you.
I suffered myself to be persuaded, and followed the old hermit,
who put several questions to me, which I answered with a truth-telling simplicity, not always to be found in a more advanced
stage of morality. On our arrival at the hermitage he set some
fruit before me, which I devoured, having eaten nothing all day
but a slice of dry bread, on which I had breakfasted at the
hospital in the morning. The recluse, seeing me play so good a
part with my jaws, said: Courage, my good boy, do not spare my
fruit; there is plenty of it, Heaven be praised. I have not
brought you hither to starve you. And indeed that was true
enough; for an hour after our coming in, he kindled a fire, put a
leg of mutton down to roast; and while I turned the spit, laid a
small table for himself and me, with a very dirty napkin upon it.
When the meat was done enough he took it up, and cut some slices
for our supper, which was no dry bargain, since we quaffed a
delicious wine, of which he had laid in ample store. Well! my
chicken, said he, as he rose from table, are you satisfied with
my style of living? You see how we shall fare every day, if you
fix your quarters here. Then with respect to liberty, you shall
do just as you please in this hermitage. All I require of you is
to accompany me whenever I go begging to the neighbouring
villages; you will be of use in driving an ass laden with two
panniers, which the charitable peasants usually fill with eggs,
bread, meat, and fish. I ask no more than that. I will do, said
I, whatever you desire, provided you will not oblige me to learn
Latin. Friar Chrysostom, for that was the old hermit’s name,
could not help smiling at my schoolboy frowardness, and assured
me once more that he should not pretend to interfere either with
my studies or my inclinations.
On the very next day we went on a foraging party with the donkey,
which I led by the halter. We made a profitable gleaning; for all
the farmers took a pleasure in throwing somewhat into our
panniers. One chucked in an uncut loaf; another a large piece of
bacon; here a goose, there a pair of giblets, and a partridge to
crown the whole. But without entering further into particulars,
we carried home provender enough for a week; and hence you may
infer the esteem and friendship in which the country people held
the holy man. It is true that he was a great blessing to the
neighbourhood: his advice was always at their service when they
came to consult him: he restored peace where discord had reigned
in families, and made up matches for the daughters; he had a
nostrum for almost any disease you could mention, with an
assortment of pious rituals, to avert the curse of barrenness.
Hence you perceive that I was in no danger of starving in my
hermitage. My lodging, too, was none of the worst: stretched on
good fresh straw, with a cushion of ratteen under my head, and a
coverlet over me of the same stuff I made but one nap of it all
night. Brother Chrysostom, who had promised me a hermit’s dress,
made up an old gown of his own for me, and called me little
brother Scipio. No sooner did I appear in my religious uniform,
than the ass’s back suffered for my genteel appearance in the
eyes of the villagers. It was who should give most to the little
brother! so much were they delighted with his spruce figure.
The easy, slothful life I led with the old hermit could not be
very revolting to a boy of my age. On the contrary, it suited my
taste so exactly, that I should have continued it to this time,
but that the fates and destinies were weaving a more complicated
tissue for my future years. It was cast in the figure of my
nativity, early to rouse myself from the effeminacy of a
religious life, and to take leave of brother Chrysostom after the
following manner.
I often observed the old man at work upon his pillow, unsewing
and sewing it up again; and one day, I saw him put in some money.
This circumstance excited a tingling curiosity, which I promised
myself to satisfy the first time he went to
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