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

to the quick by his misfortune, he shut himself up for

several days, and was visible to no one but myself; a sincere

sympathiser, from the recollection of my own experience in his

sorrow. The occasion drew forth fresh tears to Antonia’s memory.

The death of the Marchioness de Toral, under circumstances so

similar, tore open a wound imperfectly skinned over, and so

exasperated my affliction, that the minister, though he had

enough to do with his own sufferings, could not help taking

notice of mine. It seemed unaccountable how exactly his feelings

were echoed. Gil Blas, said he one day, when my tears seemed to

feed upon indulgence, my greatest consolation consists in having

a bosom friend so much alive to all my distresses. Ah! my lord,

answered I, giving him the full credit of my amiable tenderness,

I must be ungrateful and degenerate in my nature if I did not

lament as for myself. Can I be aware that you mourn over a

daughter of accomplished merit, whom you loved so tenderly,

without shedding tears of fellow-feeling! No, my lord, I am too

much naturalized to you on the side of obligation, not to take a

permanent interest in all your pleasures and disappointments.

 

CH. X. — Gil Blas meets with the poet Nunez by accident, and

learns that he has written a tragedy, which is on the point of

being brought out at the theatre royal. The ill fortune of the

piece, and the good fortune of its author.

 

THE minister began to pick up his crumbs, and myself consequently

to get into feather again, when one evening I went out alone in

the carriage to take an airing. On the road I met the poet of the

Asturias, who had been lost to my knowledge ever since his

discharge from the hospital. He was very decently dressed. I

called him up, gave him a seat in my carriage, and we drove

together to Saint Jerome’s meadow.

 

Master Nunez, said I, it is lucky for me to have met you

accidentally; for otherwise I should not have had the pleasure .

… No severe speeches, Santillane, interrupted he with

considerable eagerness: I most own frankly that I did not mean to

keep up your acquaintance, and I will tell you the reason. You

promised me a good situation provided I abjured poetry, but I

have found a very excellent one, on condition of keeping my

talents in constant play. I accepted the latter alternative, as

squaring best with my own humour. A friend of mine got me an

employment under Don Bertrand Gomez Del Ribero, treasurer of the

king’s galleys. This Don Bertrand, wanting to have a wit in his

pay, and finding my turn for poetical composition very much in

unison with his own sense of what is excellent, has chosen me in

preference to five or six authors who offered themselves as

candidates for the place of his private secretary.

 

I am delighted at the news, my dear Fabricio, said I, for this

Don Bertrand must be very rich. Rich indeed! answered he; they

say that he does not know himself how much he is worth. However

that may be, my business under him is as follows. He prides

himself on his turn for gallantry, at the same time wishing to

pass for a man of genius: he therefore keeps up an epistolary

intercourse of wit with several ladies who have an infinite deal,

and borrows my brain to indite such letters as may amplify the

opinion of his sprightliness and elegance. I write to one for him

in verse, to another in prose, and sometimes carry the letters

myself, to prove the agility of my heels as well as the ingenuity

of my head.

 

But you do not tell me, said I, what I most want to know. Are you

well paid for your epigrammatic cards of compliment? Yes, most

plentifully, answered he. Rich men are not always open-handed;

and I know some who are downright curmudgeons; but Don Bertrand

has behaved in the most handsome manner. Besides a salary of two

hundred pistoles, I receive some little occasional perquisites

from him, sufficient to set me above the world, and enable me to

live on an equal footing with some choice spirits of the literary

circles, who are willing, like myself, to set care at defiance.

But then, resumed I, has your treasurer critical skill enough to

distinguish the beauties of a performance from its blemishes? The

least likely man in the world, answered Nunez: a flippant-tongued

smatterer, with a miserable assortment of materials for judging.

Yet he gives himself out for chief justice and lord president of

Apollo’s tribunal. His decisions are adventurous, if not always

lucky; while his opinions are maintained in so high a tone and

with so bullying a challenge of infallibility, that nine times

out of ten the issue of an argument is silence, though not

conviction, on the part of the opponent, as a measure of

precaution against the gathering storm of foul language and

contemptuous sneers.

 

You may readily suppose, continued he, that I take especial care

never to contradict him, though it almost exceeds human patience

to forbear: for, to say nothing of the unpalatable phrases that

might be hailed down on my defenceless head, I should stand a

very good chance of being shoved by the shoulders out of doors. I

therefore am discreet enough to approve what he praises, and to

condemn without mitigation or appeal whatever he is pleased to

find fault with. By this easy compliance, for poets are compelled

to acquire a knack of knocking under to those by whom they live,

not even excepting their booksellers, I have gained the esteem

and friendship of my patron. He has employed me to write a

tragedy on a plot of his own. I have executed it under his

inspection; and if the piece succeeds, a percentage on the laud

and honour must accrue to him.

 

I asked our poet what was the title of his tragedy. He informed

me that it was “The Count of Saldagna,” and that it would come

out in two or three days. I told him that I wished it all

possible success, and thought so favour ably of his genius, as to

entertain considerable hopes. So do I, said he, but hope never

tells a more flattering tale than in the ear of a dramatic

author. You might as well attempt to fix the wind by nailing the

weathercock, as speculate on the reception of a new piece with an

audience.

 

At length, the day of performance arrived. I could not go to the

play, being prevented by official business. The only thing to be

done was to send Scipio, that he might bring me back word how it

went off; for I was sincerely interested in the event. After

waiting impatiently for his return, in he came with a long face

which boded no good. Well, said I, how was “The Count of

Saldagna” welcomed by the critics? Very roughly, answered he;

never was there a play more brutally handled; I left the house in

high anger at the injustice and insolence of the pit. It serves

him right, rejoined I. Nunez is no better than a madman, to he

always running his head against the stone walls of a theatre. If

he was in his senses, could he have preferred the hisses and

catcalls of an unfeeling mob, to the ease and dignity he might

have commanded under my patronage? Thus did I inveigh with

friendly vehemence against the poet of the Asturias, and disturb

the even tenor of my mind for an event, which the sufferer hailed

with joy, and inserted among the well-omened particulars of his

journal.

 

He came to see me within two days, and appeared in high spirits.

Santillane, cried he, I am come to receive your congratulations.

My fortune is made, my friend, though my play is marred. You know

what a mistake they made on the first and last night of “The

Count of Saldagna;” hissed instead of applauding! You would have

thought all the wild beasts of the forest had been let loose,

with their ears fortified against the softening power of poetry:

but the more they bellowed, the better I fared, and they have

roared me into a provision for life.

 

There was no knowing what to make of this incident in the drama

of our poet’s adventures. What is all this, Fabricio? said I: how

can theatrical damnation have conjured up such Elysian ecstacy?

It is exactly so, answered he: I told you before that Don

Bertrand had thrown in some of the circumstances; and he was

fully convinced that there was no defect but in the taste of the

spectators. They might he very good judges; but, if they were, he

was no judge at all! Nunez! said he this morning;

 

Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

 

[Members of parliament, and the ladies, will probably expect a

translation of these hard words; but I refer the former to their

dictionaries, to which they bade a long farewell on leaving Eton

or Harrow; and the latter to an extended paraphrase of five acts

in the tragedy of Cato. Those of the softer sex who may think the

Stoic philosophy rude and uncouth, will feel their nerves vibrate

in unison with the love scenes. — Translator.]

 

Your piece has been ill-received by the public; but against that

you may place my entire approbation; and thus you ought to set

your heart at rest. By way of something to balance the bad taste

of the age, I shall settle an annuity of two thousand crowns on

you: go to my solicitor, and let him draw the deed. We have been

about it: the treasurer has signed and sealed; my first quarter

is paid in advance … .

 

I wished Fabricio joy on the unhappy fate of “The Count of

Saldagna,” and probably most authors would have envied his

failure more than all the success that ever succeeded. You are in

the right, continued he, to prefer my fortune to my fame. What a

lucky peal of disapprobation in double choir! If the public had

chosen to ring the changes on my merits rather than my misdeeds,

what would they have done for my pocket? A mere paltry nothing.

The common pay of the theatre might have kept me from starving;

but the wind of popular malice has blown me a comfortable

pension, engrossed on safe and legal parchment.

 

CH. XI. — Santillane gives Scipio a situation: the latter sets

out for New Spain.

 

MY secretary could not look at the unexpected good luck of Nunez

the poet without envy: he talked of nothing else for a week. The

whims of that baggage, Fortune, said he, are most unaccountable:

she delights to turn her lottery wheel into the lap of a sorry

author, while she deals out her disappointments like a stepmother to the race of good ones. I should have no objection,

though, if she would throw me up a prize in one of her vertical

progresses. That is likely enough to happen, said I, and sooner

than you imagine. Here you are in her temple; for it is scarcely

too presumptuous to call the house of a prime minister the temple

of Fortune, where favours are conferred by wholesale, and

votaries grow fat on the spoils of her altar. That is very true,

sir, answered he; but we must have patience, and wait till the

happy moment comes. Take my advice while it is worth having,

Scipio, replied I, and make your mind easy: perhaps you are on

the eve of some good appointment. And so it turned out; for

within a few days an opportunity offered of employing him