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

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from the natural effect of the ingredients compounded by the

cook. A joint of roast mutton was next served up. It was

remarkable that the carrier only paid his respects to this last

article; and I asked him why he had not taken his share of the

other. He answered with a suppressed smile, that he was not fond

of made dishes. This reason, or rather the turn of countenance

with which it was alleged, seemed to imply more than was

expressed. You have not told me, said I, the real meaning of your

not eating the fricassee: do have the goodness to explain it at

once. Since you are so curious to be made acquainted with it,

replied he, I must own that I have an insuperable aversion to

cramming my stomach with meats in masquerade, since one evening

at an inn on the road between Toledo and Cuen�a, they served me

up, instead of a wild rabbit, a hash of tame cat; enough, of all

conscience, ever after to set my intestines in battle-array

against all minces, stews, and force-meats.

 

No sooner had the muleteer let me into this secret, than in spite

of the hunger which raged within me, my appetite left me

completely in the lurch. I conceived, in all the horrors of

extreme loathing, that I had been eating a cat dressed up as the

double of a rabbit; and the fricassee had no longer any power

over my senses, except by producing a strong inclination to

retch. My companion did not lessen my tendency that way, by

telling me that the innkeepers in Spain, as well as the pastry-cooks, were very much in the habit of making that substitution.

The drift of the conversation was, as you may perceive, very much

in the nature of a lenitive to my stomach; so much so, that I had

no mind to meddle any more with the dish of undefinables, nor

even to make an attack upon the roast meat, for fear the mutton

should have performed its duty by deputy as well as the rabbit. I

jumped up from table, cursing the cookery, the cook, and the

whole establishment; then, throwing myself down upon the sofa, I

passed the night with less nausea than might reasonably have been

expected. The day following with the dawn, after having paid the

reckoning with as princely an air as if we had been treated like

princes, away went I from Ilescas, bearing my faculties so

strongly impregnated with fricassee, that I took every animal

which crossed the road, of whatever species or dimensions, for a

cat.

 

We got to Madrid betimes, where I had no sooner settled with my

carrier than I hired a ready-furnished lodging near the Sungate.

My eyes, though accustomed to the great world, were nevertheless

dazzled by the concourse of nobility which was ordinarily seen in

the quarter of the court. I admired the prodigious number of

carriages, and the countless list of gentlemen, pages,

gentlemen’s gentlemen, and plain, downright footmen in the train

of the grandees. My admiration exceeded all bounds, on going to

the king’s levee, and beholding the monarch in the midst of his

court. The effect of the scene was enchanting, and I said to

myself, It is no wonder they should say that one must see the

court of Madrid to form an adequate idea of its magnificence: I

am delighted to have directed my course hither, and feel a sort

of prescience within me that I shall not come away without taking

fortune by surprise. I caught nothing napping, however, but my

own prudence, in making some thriftless, expensive acquaintance.

My money oozed away in the rapid thaw of my propriety and better

judgment, so that it became a measure of expedient degradation to

throw away my transcendent merit on a pedagogue of Salamanca,

whom some family lawsuit or other concern had brought to Madrid,

where he was born, and where chance, more whimsical than wise,

thrust me within the horizon of his knowledge. I became his right

hand, his prime principal agent; and dogged him at the heels to

the university when he returned thither.

 

My new employer went by the name of Don Ignacio de Ipigna. He

furnished himself with the handle of don, inasmuch as he had been

tutor to a nobleman of the first rank, who had recompensed his

early services with an annuity for life: he likewise derived a

snug little salary from his professorship in the university; and

in addition to all this, laid the public under a yearly

contribution of two or three hundred pistoles for books of

uninstructive morality, which he protruded from the press

periodically by weight and measure. The manner in which he worked

up the shreds and patches of his composition de serves a notice

somewhat more than cursory. The heavy hours of the forenoon were

spent in muzzing over Hebrew, Greek, and Latin authors, and in

writing down upon little squares of card every pithy sentence or

striking thought which occurred in the morning’s reading.

According to the progress of this literary Pam, in winning tricks

from the ancients, he employed me to score up his honours in the

form of an Apollo’s wreath: these metaphysical garlands were

strung upon wire, and each garland made a pocket volume. What an

execrable hash of wholesome viands did we cook up! The

commandments set at loggerheads with an utter confusion of

tables; Epicurean conclusions grafted on stoical premises! Tully

quoting Epictetus, and Seneca supporting his antitheses on the

authority of monkish rhyme! Scarcely a month elapsed without our

putting forth at least two volumes, so that the press was kept

continually groaning under the weight of our transgressions. What

seemed most extraordinary of all, was that these literary

larcenies were palmed upon the purchasers for spick and span new

wares, and if, by any strange and improbable chance, a thick-headed critic should stumble with his noddle smack against some

palpable plagiarism, the author would plead guilty to the

indictment, and make a merit of serving up at second-hand

 

What Gellius or Stobaeus hash’d before,

Though chewed by blind old scholiasts o’er and o’er.

 

He was also a great commentator; and filled his notes chuck full

of so much erudition, as to multiply whole pages of discussion

upon what homely common-sense would have consigned to the brief

alternative of a query:

 

Disputes of Me or Te, or Aut at At,

To sound or sink in cano O or A,

Or give up Cicero to C or K.

 

As almost every author, ethical and didactic, from Hesiod down to

himself, took his turn to dangle on some one or other of our

manuscript garlands, it was impossible for me not to suck in

somewhat of sage nurture from so copious a stream of philosophy:

it would be rank ingratitude to shift off my obligation. My handwriting also became strictly and decidedly legible, by dint of

continual transcription; my estate was more that of a pupil than

of a servant, and my morals were not neglected, while my mind was

polished, and my faculties raised above their former level.

Scipio, he used to say, when he chanced to hear of any serving

lad with more cunning than honesty in his dealings, beware, my

good boy, how you take after the evil example of that graceless

villain. “The honour of a servant is his fidelity; his highest

virtues are submission and obedience. Be studious of thy master’s

interests, be diligent in his affairs, and faithful to the trust

which he reposeth in thee. Thy time and thy labour belong unto

him. Defraud him not thereof; for he payeth thee for them.” To

sum up all, Don Ignacio lost no opportunity of leading me on in

the path of virtue, and his prudent counsels sank so deep into my

heart, as to keep under anything like even the slightest wish of

playing him a rogue’s trick during the fifteen months which I

spent in his service.

 

I have already mentioned that Doctor de Ipigna was a native of

Madrid. He had a relation there, by name Catalina, waiting-maid

to the lady who officiated as nurse to the heir-apparent. This

abigail, the same through whose intervention I got Signor de

Santillane released from the tower of Segovia, intent on

rendering a service to Don Ignacio, prevailed with her mistress

to petition the Duke of Lerma for some preferment. The minister

named him for the archdeaconry of Grenada, which, as a conquered

country, is in the king’s gift. We repaired immediately to Madrid

on receiving the intelligence, as the doctor wished to thank his

patronesses before he took possession of his benefice. I had more

than one opportunity of seeing Catalina, and conversing with her.

The cheerful turn of my temper and a certain easy air of good

company were altogether to her taste; for my part, I found her so

much to my liking, that I could not help saying yes to the little

advances of partiality which she made in my favour: in short, we

got to feel very kindly towards each other. You must not write a

comment with your nails, my dear Beatrice, on this episode in the

romance of my amours, because I was firmly persuaded of your

inconstancy, and you will allow that heresy, though impious,

being also blind, my penance may reasonably be remitted on

sincere conversion.

 

In the mean time Doctor Ignacio was making ready to set out for

Grenada. His relation and myself, out of our wits at the

impending separation, had recourse to an expedient which rescued

us from its horrors: I shammed illness, complained of my head,

complained of my chest, and made a characteristic wry face for

every pain and ache in the catalogue of human infirmities. My

master called in a physician, who told me with a grave face,

after putting his questions in the usual course, that my

complaint was of a much more serious nature than might appear to

unprofessional observation, and that, according to all present

likelihood, I should keep my chamber a long time. The doctor,

impatient to take possession of his preferment, did not think it

quite so well to delay his departure, but chose rather to hire

another boy; he therefore contented himself with handing me over

to the care of a nurse, with whom he left a sum of money to bury

me if I should die, or to remunerate me for my services if I

should recover.

As soon as I knew Don Ignacio to be safe on the road for Grenada,

I was cured of all my maladies. I got up, made my final bow to

the physician who had evinced so thorough a knowledge of my ease,

and fairly turned my nurse out of doors, who made her retreat

good with baggage and ammunition, to the amount of more than half

the sum for which she ought to have accounted with me. While I

was enacting the sick man, Catalina was playing another part

about the person of her mistress, Donna Anna de Gu�vra, into

whose conception having by dint of many a wordy process inserted

the notion, that I was the man of all others ready cut and dry

for an intrigue, she induced her to choose me for one of her

agents. The royal and most catholic nurse, whose genius for great

undertakings was either produced or exasperated by the love of

great possessions, having occasion for suitable ministers,

received me among her hangers-on, and lost no opportunity of

ascertaining how far I was for her purpose. She confided some

commissions to my ear; which, vanity apart, called for no little

address, and what they called for was ready at hand: accordingly,

she gave me all possible credit for the diligent execution of my

office, while my discontent swelled high against