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

next day, the opportunity

occurred. Santillane, said his excellency, the place of governor

in the royal prison of Valladolid is vacant: it is worth more

than three hundred pistoles a year; and is yours if you will

accept of it. Not if it were worth ten thousand ducats, answered

I, for it would carry me away from your lordship. But, replied

the minister, you may fill it by deputy, and only visit

occasionally. That is as it may be, rejoined I; but I shall only

accept it on condition of resigning in favour of Don Andrew de

Tordesillas, a brave and loyal gentleman; I should like to give

him this place in acknowledgment of his kindness to me in the

tower of Segovia.

 

This plea made the minister laugh heartily, and say: As far as I

see, Gil Blas, you mean to make yourself a general patron. Even

so be it, my friend; the vacancy is yours for Tordesillas; but

tell me unfeignedly what fellow-feeling you have in the business,

for you are not such a fool as to throw away your interest for

nothing. My lord, answered I, Don Andrew charged me nothing for

all his acts of friendship, and should not a man repay his

obligations? You are become highly moral and self-mortified,

replied his excellency; rather more so than under the last

administration. Precisely so, rejoined I; then evil communication

corrupted my principles; bargain and sale were the order of the

day, and I conformed to the established practice: now, all

preferment is allotted on the footing of a meritorious free gift,

and my integrity shall not be the last to fall in with the

fashion.

 

CH. XIV. — Santillane’s visit to the poet Nunez, the company and

conversation.

 

ONE day, after dinner, a fancy seized me to go and see the poet

of the Asturias, feeling a sort of curiosity to know on what

floor he lodged. I repaired to the house of Signor Don Bertrand

Gomex Del Ribero, and asked for Nunez. He does not live here now,

said the porter, but over the way, in apartments at the back of

the house. I went thither, and crossing a small court, entered an

unfurnished parlour, where my friend Fabricio was sitting at

table, doing the honours to five or six guests from the hamlet

and liberty of Parnassus.

 

They were at the latter end of a feast, and of course at the

beginning of an affray; but as soon as they perceived me, a dead

silence succeeded to their obstreperous argumentation. Nunez rose

from his seat with much pomp and circumstance of politeness to

receive me, saying: Gentlemen, Signor de Santillane! He does me

the honour to visit me under this humble roof; as the favourite

of the prime minister, you will all join with me in tendering

your humble services. At this introduction, the worshipful

company got up and made their best bows; for my rank could not

fail of procuring me respect from the manufacturers of

dedications. Though I was neither hungry nor thirsty, it was

impossible not to sit down and drink a toast in such society.

 

My presence appearing to be a restraint, Gentlemen, said I, it

should seem that I have interrupted your conversation: resume it,

or you drive me away. My learned friends, said Fabricio, were

discussing the “Iphigenia” of Euripides. The bachelor, Melchior

de Vill�gas, a clever man of the first rank in the republic of

letters, resumed the topic by asking Don Jacinto de Romerate

which was the point of interest in that tragedy. Don Jacinto

ascribed it to the imminent danger of Iphigenia. The bachelor

contended, offering to prove his proposition by all the evidence

admissible at the bar of logic or criticism, that the danger of a

trumpery girl had nothing to do with the real sympathy of that

affecting piece. What has to do with it then? bawled the old

licentiate Gabriel of Leon indignantly. It turns with the wind,

replied the bachelor.

 

The whole company burst into a shout of laughter at this

assertion, which they were far from considering as serious; and I

myself thought that Melchior had only launched it by way of

adding the zest of wit to the severity of critical discussion.

But I was out in my calculation respecting the character of that

eminent scholar: he had not a grain of sprightliness or

pleasantry in his whole composition. Laugh as you please,

gentlemen, replied he, very coolly; I maintain that there is no

circumstance but the wind, unless it be the weathercock, to

interest, to strike, to rouse the passions of the spectator.

Figure to yourselves a multitudinous army, assembled for the

purpose of laying siege to Troy; take into account the eager

haste of the officers and common men to carry their enterprise

into execution, that they may return with their best legs

foremost into Greece, where they have left everything most dear

to them, their household gods, their wives and their children:

all this while a mischievous wind from the wrong quarter keeps

them port-bound at Aulis, and, as it were, drives a nail into the

very head of the expedition; so that till better weather, it was

impossible to go and lay siege to Priam’s town. Wind and weather

therefore make up the interest of this tragedy. My good wishes

are with the Greeks: my whole faculties are wrapped up in the

success of their design; the sailing of their fleet is with me

the only hinge of the fable, and I look at the danger of

Iphigenia with somewhat of a self-interested complacency, because

by her death the winding up of the story into a brisk and

favourable gale was likely to be accelerated,

 

As soon as Vill�gas had finished his criticism, the laugh burst

out more than ever, at his expense. Nunez was sly enough to side

with him, that a fairer scope and broader mark might be presented

to the shafts of malicious wit which were let fly from all the

quarters in the shipman’s card, at this poster of the sea and

land. But the bachelor, eyeing them all with sublime indifference

and supreme contempt, gave them to understand how low in the list

of the ignorant and vulgar they ranked in his estimation. Every

moment did I expect to see these vapouring spirits kindle into a

blaze, and wage war against the hairy honours of each other’s

brainless skulls: but the joke was not carried to that length;

they confined their hostilities to opprobrious epithets, and took

their leave when they had eaten and drunk as much as they could

get.

 

After their departure, I asked Fabricio why he had separated

himself from his treasurer, and whether they had quarrelled.

Quarrelled! answered he: Heaven defend me from such a misfortune!

I am on better terms than ever with Signor Don Bertrand, who gave

his consent to my living apart from him: here therefore I receive

my friends, and take my pleasure with them unmolested. You know

very well that I am not of a temper to lay up treasures for those

who are to come after me; and as it happens luckily, I am now in

circumstances to give my little classical entertainments every

day. I am delighted at it, my dear Nunez, replied I, and once

more wish you joy on the success of your last tragedy: the great

Lope, by his eight hundred dramatic pieces, never made a quarter

of the money which you have got by the damnation of your “Count

de Saldagna.”

 

BOOK THE TWELFTH.

 

CH I. — Gil Blas sent to Toledo by the minister. The purpose of

his journey and its success.

 

For nearly a month his excellency had been saying to me every

day: Santillane, the time is approaching, when I shall call your

choicest powers of address into action; but the time that was

coming never came. It is a long lane, however, where there is no

turning; and his excellency at length spoke to me nearly as

follows: They say that there is, in the company of comedians at

Toledo, a young actress of much note for her personal and

professional fascinations; it is affirmed that she dances and

sings like all the muses and graces put together, and that the

whole theatre rings with applause at her performance: to these

perfections is added matchless and irresistible beauty. Such a

star should only shine within the circle of a court. The king has

a taste for the stage, for music, and for dancing: nor must he be

debarred from the pleasure of seeing and hearing such a prodigy.

I have determined on sending you to Toledo, that you may judge

for yourself whether she really is so extraordinary an actress:

on your feeling of her merit my measures shall be taken; for I

have unlimited confidence in your discernment.

 

I undertook to bring his lordship a good account of this

business, and made my arrangements for setting out with one

servant, but not in the minister’s livery, by way of conducting

matters more warily; and that precaution relished well with his

excellency. On my arrival at Toledo, I had scarcely alighted at

the inn, when the landlord, taking me for some country gentleman,

said: Please your honour, you are probably come to be present at

the august ceremony of an Auto da F� to-morrow. I answered in the

affirmative, the more completely to mislead him, and keep my own

counsel. You will see, replied he, one of the prettiest

processions you ever saw in your life: there are said to be more

than a hundred prisoners, and ten of them are to be roasted.

 

In good truth, next morning, before sunrise, I heard all the

bells in the town peal merrily; and the design of their bob-majors was to acquaint the people that the pastime was about to

begin. Curious to see what sort of a recreation it was, I dressed

in a hurry, and posted to the scene of action. All about that

quarter, and along the streets where the procession was to pass,

were scaffolds, on one of which I purchased a standing. The

Dominicans walked first, preceded by the banner of the

Inquisition. These Christian fathers were immediately followed by

the hapless victims of the holy office, selected for this day’s

burnt-offering. These devoted wretches walked one by one with

their head and feet bare, each of them with a taper in his hand,

and a fiery, not baptismal godfather by his side. Some had large

yellow scapularies, worked with crosses of St Andrew, in red;

others wore sugar-loaf caps of paper, illustrated with flames,

and diabolical figures of all sorts by way of emblem.

 

As I looked narrowly at these objects of religious gaze, with a

compassion in my heart which might have been construed criminal,

had it run over from my eyes, I fancied that the reverend Father

Hilary and his companion brother Ambrose were among those who

figured in the sugar-loaf caps. They passed too near for me to be

deceived. What do I see? thought I inwardly: heaven, wearied out

with the wicked lives of these two scoundrels, has given them up

to the justice of the Inquisition! My whole frame trembled at the

thought, and my spirits were scarcely equal to support me from

fainting. My connection with these knaves, the adventure at

Xelva, all our pranks in partnership rushed upon my memory, and I

did not know how sufficiently to thank God for having preserved

me from St Andrew’s crosses and the painted devils on the paper

caps.

 

When the ceremony was over, I returned to the inn, with my heart

sickening at the dreadful sight; but painful impressions soon

wear away, and I thought only of my commission and its due

accomplishment. I waited with impatience