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

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competent judges, and began to appreciate their merit more truly

than they had estimated that of the authors. All the lampoons

which were current about them were fully justified. The actors

and actresses ran riot on the applauses of the town, and stood so

high in their own conceit, as to think that they conferred a

favour by appearing on the boards. I was shocked at their public

misconduct; but unfortunately reconciled myself too easily to

their private manners, and plunged into debauchery. How could I

do otherwise? Every word they uttered was poison in the ears of

youth, and every scene that was presented, an alluring picture of

corruption. Had I been a stranger to what passed with Casilda,

with Constance, and with the other actresses, Arsenia’s house

alone would have been sufficient for my ruin. Besides the old

noblemen of whom I have spoken, there came thither young

debauchees of fashion, who forestalled their inheritances by the

disinterested mediation of money-lenders: and sometimes we had

officers under government, who were so far from receiving fees,

as at their public boards, that they paid most exorbitant ones

for the privilege of mixing with such worshipful society.

 

Florimonde, who lived at next door, dined and supped with Arsenia

every day. Their long intimacy surprised every one. Coquets were

not thought usually to maintain so good an understanding with

each other. It was concluded that they would quarrel, sooner or

late; about some paramour; but such reasoners could not see into

the hearts of these exemplary friends. They were united in the

bonds of indissoluble love. Instead of harbouring jealousy, like

other women, they had everything in common. They had rather

divide the plunder of mankind, than childishly fall out, and

contend for trumpery, as hearts and affections.

 

Laura, after the example of these two illustrious partners,

turned the fresh season of youth to the best advantage. She had

told me that I should see strange doings. And yet I did not take

up the jealous part. I had promised to adopt the principles of

the company on that score. For some days I kept my thoughts to

myself. I only just took the liberty of asking her the names of

the men whom she favoured with her private ear. She always told

me that they were uncles or cousins. From what a prolific family

was she sprung! King Priam had no luck in propagation, compared

with her ancestors. Nor did this precious abigail confine herself

to her uncles and cousins: she went now and then to lay a trap

for unwary aliens, and personate the widow of quality under the

auspices of the discreet old dowager above mentioned. In short

Laura, to hit off her character exactly, was just as young, just

as pretty, and just as loose as her mistress, who had no other

advantage over her than that of figuring in a more public

capacity.

 

I was borne down by the torrent for three weeks, and ran the

career of dissipation in my turn. But I must at the same time say

for myself, that in the midst of pleasure I frequently felt the

still small voice of conscience, arising from the impression of a

serious education, which mixed gall in the Circean cup. Riot

could not altogether get the better of remorse: on the contrary,

the pangs of the last grew keener with the more shameful

indulgence of the first; and, by a happy effect of my

temperament, the disorders of a theatrical life began to make me

shudder. Ah! wretch, said I to myself, is it thus that you make

good the hopes of your family? Is it not enough to have thwarted

their pious intentions, by not following your destined course of

life as an instructor of youth? Need your condition of a servant

hinder you from living decently and soberly? Are such monsters of

iniquity fit companions for you? Envy, hatred, and avarice are

predominant here; intemperance and idleness have purchased the

fee-simple there: the pride of some is aggravated into the most

barefaced impudence, and modesty is turned out of doors, by the

common consent of all. The business is settled: I will not live

any longer with the seven deadly sins.

 

BOOK THE FOURTH.

 

CH. I. — Gil Blas not being able to reconcile himself to the

morals of the actresses, quits Arsenia, and gets into a more

reputable service.

 

A SURVIVING spark of honour and of religion, in the midst of so

general depravity, made me resolve not only to leave Arsenia, but

even to abjure all commerce with Laura, whom yet I could not

cease to love, though I was well aware of her daily inconstancy.

Happy the man who can thus profit by those appeals, which

occasionally interrupt the headlong course of his pleasures! One

fine morning, I made up my bundle; and, without reckoning with

Arsenia, who indeed owed me next to nothing, without taking leave

of my dear Laura, I burst from that mansion, which smelt of

brimstone and fire reserved for the wicked. I had no sooner taken

so virtuous a step, than providence interfered in my behalf. I

met the steward of my late master, Don Matthias, and greeted him:

he knew me again at once, and stopped to inquire where I lived. I

answered that I had just left my place; that after staying near a

month with Arsenia, whose manners did not at all suit me, I was

come away by a sudden impulse of virtue, to save my innocence.

The steward, just as if he had been himself of a religious cast,

commended my scruples, and offered me a place much to my

advantage, since I was so chaste and honest a youth. He kept his

word, and introduced me on that very day into the family of Don

Vincent de Gusman, with whose agent he was acquainted.

 

I could not have got into a better service; nor did I repent in

the sequel of having accepted the situation. Don Vincent was a

very rich old nobleman, who had lived many years unincumbered

with lawsuits or with a wife. The physicians had removed the last

plague out of the way, in their attempts to rid her of a cough,

which might have lasted a great while longer, if the remedies had

not been more fatal than the disease. Far from thinking of the

holy state a second time, he gave himself up entirely to the

education of his only daughter Aurora, who was then entering her

twenty-sixth year, and might pass for an accomplished person.

With beauty above the common, she had an excellent and highly

cultivated understanding. Her father was a poor creature as to

intellect; but he possessed the happy talent of looking well

after his affairs. One fault he had, of a kind excusable in old

men: he was an incessant talker, especially about war and

fighting. If that string was unfortunately touched in his

presence, in a moment he blew his heroic trumpet, and his hearers

might think themselves lucky if they compounded for a gazette

extraordinary of two sieges and three battles. As he had spent

two-thirds of his life in the service, his memory was an

inexhaustible depot of various facts; but the patience of the

listeners did not always keep pace with the perseverance of the

relater. The stories, sufficiently prolix in themselves, were

still further spun out by stuttering; so that the manner was

still less happy than the matter. In all other respects, I never

met with a nobleman of a more amiable character: his temper was

even; he was neither obstinate nor capricious; the general

alternative of men in the higher ranks of life. Though a good

economist, he lived like a gentleman. His establishment was

composed of several men servants, and three women in waiting on

Aurora. I soon discovered that the steward of Don Matthias had

procured me a good post, and my only anxiety was to establish

myself firmly in it. I took all possible pains to feel the ground

under my feet, and to study the characters of the whole

household: then regulating my conduct by my discoveries, I was

not long in ingratiating myself with my master and all the

servants.

 

I had been with Don Vincent above a month, when it struck me that

his daughter was very particular in her notice of me above all

the servants in the family. Whenever her eyes happened

accidentally to meet mine, they seemed to be suffused with a

certain partial complacency, which did not enter into her silent

communications with the vulgar. Had it not been for my haunts

among the coxcombs of the theatrical tribe and their hangers-on,

it would never have entered into my head that Aurora should throw

away a thought on me: but my brain had been a little turned among

those gentry, from whose libertine suspicions ladies of the

noblest birth are not always held sacred. If, said I, those

chronicles of the age are to be believed, fancy and high blood

lead women of quality a dance, in which they sometimes join hands

with unequal partners: how do I know but my young mistress may

caper to a tune of my piping? But no: it cannot be so, neither.

This is not one of your Messalinas, who, derogating from the

loftiness of ancestry, unworthily let down their regards to the

dust, and sully their pure honour without a blush: but rather one

of those virtuously apprehensive, yet tender-hearted girls, who

encircle their softness within the in surmountable pale of

delicacy; yet think it no tampering with chastity, to inspire and

cherish a sentimental flame, interesting to the heart without

being dangerous to the morals.

 

Such were my ideas of my mistress, without knowing exactly

whether they were right or wrong. And yet when we met, she was

continually caught with a smile of satisfaction on her

countenance. Without passing for a fop, a man might give in to

such flattering appearances; and a philosophical apathy was not

to be expected from me. I conceived Aurora to have been deeply

smitten with my irresistible attractions; and looked on myself

henceforth in the light of a favoured attendant, whose servitude

was to be sweetened by the balmy infusion of love. To appear in

some measure less unworthy of the blessings, which propitious

fortune had kept in store for me, I began to take better care of

my person than I had done heretofore. I laid out my slender stock

of money in linen, pomatums, and essences. The first thing in the

morning was to prank up and perfume myself, so as not to be in an

undress in case of being sent for into the presence of my

mistress. With these attentions to personal elegance and other

dexterous strokes in the art of pleasing, I flattered myself that

the moment of my bliss was not very distant.

 

Among Aurora’s women there was one who went by the name of Ortiz.

This was an old dowager, who had been a fixture in Don Vincent’s

family for more than twenty years. She had been about his

daughter from her childhood, and still held the office of duenna;

but she no longer performed the invidious part of the duty. On

the contrary, instead of blazoning, as formerly, Aurora’s little

indiscretions, her skill was now employed in throwing them into

shade. One evening, Dame Ortiz, having watched her opportunity of

speaking to me with. out observation, said in a low voice, that

if I was close and trustworthy, I had only to be in the garden at

midnight, when a scene would be laid open in which I should not

be sorry to be an actor. I answered the duenna, pressing her hand

significantly, that I would not fail, and we parted in a hurry

for fear