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

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his age he has already been tenant at will to two actresses? What

is it you tell me? replied Aurora. What shocking conduct! But do

you know for certain, Gil Blas, that he leads so dissolute a

life? Oh! there is no doubt of it, madam, rejoined I. A servant,

turned off this morning, told me so, and servants are very plain

dealers when the failings of their masters are the topic.

Besides, he keeps company with Don Alexo Segiar, Don Antonio

Centell�s, and Don Fernando de Gamboa; that single circumstance

proves his libertinism with all the force of demonstration. It is

enough, Gil Blas, said my mistress with a sigh; on your report I

am determined to struggle with my unworthy passion. Though it has

already struck deep root in my heart, I do not despair of tearing

it forcibly from its bed. Go, added she, putting into my hands a

small purse, none of the lightest, take this for your pains.

Beware of betraying my secret. Consider it as entrusted to your

silence.

 

I assured my mistress that she might be perfectly easy on that

score, for I was the Harpocrates of confidential servants. After

this compliment to myself, I withdrew with no small eagerness to

investigate the contents of the purse. There were twenty

pistoles. It struck me all at once that Aurora would surely have

given me more had I been the bearer of pleasant tidings, since

she paid so handsomely for a blank in the lottery. I was sorry

not to have adopted the policy of the pleaders in the courts, who

sometimes paint the cheek of truth when her natural complexion is

inclined to be cadaverous. It was a pity to have stifled an amour

in the birth which might in its growth have been so profitable.

Yet I had the comfort of finding myself reimbursed the expense so

unseasonably incurred in perfumery and washes.

 

CH. III. — A great change at Don Vincent’s. Aurora’s strange

resolution.

 

IT happened soon after this adventure that Signor Don Vincent

fell sick. Independent of his very advanced age, the symptoms of

his disorder appeared in so formidable a shape that a fatal

termination was but too probable. From the beginning of his

illness he was attended by two of the most eminent physicians in

Madrid. One was Doctor Andros, and the other Doctor Oquetos. They

considered the case with due solemnity; and both agreed, after a

strict investigation, that the humours were in a state of mutiny,

but this was the only thing about which they did agree. The

proper practice, said Andros, is to purge the humours, though

raw, with all possible expedition, while they are in a violent

agitation of flux and reflux, for fear of their fixing upon some

noble part. Oquetos maintained, on the contrary, that we must

wait till the humours were ripened before it would be safe to go

upon purgatives. But your method, replied the first speaker, is

directly in the teeth of the rules laid down by the prince of

medicine. Hippocrates recommends purging in the most burning

fever from the very first attack, and says in plain terms that no

time is to be lost in purging when the humours are in ???as�??

{orgasmos}, that is to say, in a state of fermentation. Ay! there

is your mistake, replied Oquetos. Hippocrates by the word

???as�?? {orgasmos} does not mean the fermentation, he means

rather the concoction of the humours.

 

Thereupon our doctors got heated. One quotes the Greek text, and

cites all the authors who have explained it in his sense; the

other, trusting to a Latin translation, takes up the controversy

in a still more positive tone. Which of the two to believe? Don

Vincent was not the man to decide that question. In the mean

time, finding himself obliged to choose, he gave his confidence

to the party who had dispatched the greatest number of patients -

- I mean the elder of the two. Andros, the younger, immediately

withdrew, not without flinging out a few satirical taunts at his

senior on the ???as�?? {orgasmos}. Here then was Oquetos

triumphant. As he was a professor of the Sangrado school, he

began by bleeding copiously, waiting till the humours were

ripened before he went upon purgatives. But death, fearing, no

doubt, lest this reserve of purgatives should turn the fortunes

of the day, got the start of the concoction, and secured his

victory over my master by a coup-de-main. Such was the final

close of Signor Don Vincent, who had lost his life because his

physician did not know Greek.

 

Aurora having buried her father with a pomp suited to the dignity

of his birth, administered to his effects. Having the whole

arrangement of everything in her own breast, she discharged some

of the servants with rewards proportioned to their services, and

soon retired to her castle on the Tagus, between Sacedon and

Buendia. I was among the number of those whom she kept, and who

made part of her country establishment. I had even the good

fortune to become a principal agent in the plot. In spite of my

faithful report on the subject of Don Lewis, she still harboured

a partiality for that bewitching young fellow; or rather, for

want of spirit to combat her passion in the first instance, she

surrendered at discretion. There was no longer any need of taking

precautions to speak with me in private. Gil Blas, said she with

a sigh, I can never forget Don Lewis. Let me make what effort I

will to banish him from my thoughts, he is present to them

without intermission, not as you have described him, plunged in

every variety of licentious riot, but just what my fancy would

paint him — tender, loving, constant. She betrayed considerable

emotion in uttering these words, and could not help shedding

tears. My fountains were very near playing from mere sympathy.

There was no better way of paying my court than by appearing

sensibly touched at her distress. My friend, continued she, after

having wiped her lovely eyes, your nature is evidently cast in a

benevolent mould; and I am so well satisfied with your zeal that

it shall not go unrewarded. Your assistance, my dear Gil Blas, is

more necessary to me than ever. You must be made acquainted with

a plan which engrosses all my thoughts, though it will appear

strangely eccentric. You are to know that I mean to set out for

Salamanca as soon as possible. There my design is to assume the

disguise of a fashionable young fellow, and to make acquaintance

with Pacheco under the name of Don Felix. I shall endeavour to

gain his confidence and friendship, and lead the conversation

incidentally to the subject of Aurora de Guzman, for whose cousin

I shall pass. He may perhaps express a wish to see her, and there

is the point on which I expect the interest to turn. We will have

two apartments in Salamanca. In one I shall be Don Felix, in the

other, Aurora; and I flatter myself that by presenting my person

before Don Lewis, sometimes under the semblance of a man,

sometimes in all the natural and artificial attractions of my own

sex, I may bring him by little and little to the proposed end of

my stratagem. I am perfectly aware that my project is extravagant

in the highest degree, but my passion drives me headlong; and the

innocence of my intentions renders me insensible to all

compunctious feelings of virgin apprehension respecting so

hazardous a step.

 

I was exactly in the same mind with Aurora respecting the

extravagance of her scheme. Yet, unseasonable as it might seem to

reflecting persons like myself, there was no occasion for me to

play the schoolmaster. On the contrary, I began to practise all

the arts of a thorough-bred special pleader, and undertook to

magnify this hair-brained pursuit into a piece of incomparable

wit and spirit, without the least tincture of imprudence. This

was highly gratifying to my mistress. Lovers like to have their

rampant fancies tickled. We no longer considered this rash

enterprise in any other light than as a play, of which the

characters were to be properly cast, and the business

dramatically arranged. The actors were chosen out of our own

domestic establishment, and the parts distributed without secret

jealousy or open rupture, but then we were not players by

profession. It was determined that Dame Ortiz should personate

Aurora’s aunt, under the name of Donna Kimena de Guzman, with a

valet and waiting-maid by way of attendance; and that Aurora,

with the swashing outside of a gay spark, was to take me for her

valet-de-chambre, with one of her women disguised as a page, to

be more immediately about her person. The drama thus filled up we

returned to Madrid, where we understood Don Lewis still to be,

though it was not likely to be long till his departure for

Salamanca. We got up with all possible haste the dresses and

decorations of our wild comedy. When they were in complete order,

my mistress had them packed up carefully, that they might come

out in all their gloss and newness on the rising of the curtain.

Then, leaving the care of her family to her steward, she began

her journey in a coach drawn by four mules, and travelled towards

the kingdom of Leon, with those of her household who had some

part to play in the piece.

 

We had already crossed Old Castile, when the axle-tree of the

coach gave way. The accident happened between Avila and

Villaflor, at the distance of three or four hundred yards from a

castle near the foot of a mountain. Night was coming on, and the

measure of our troubles seemed to be heaped up and overflowing.

But there passed accidentally by us a countryman, by whose

assistance we were relieved from our difficulties. He acquainted

us that the castle yonder belonged to Donna Elvira, widow of Don

Pedro de Penar�s; at the same time giving us so favourable a

character of that lady, that my mistress sent me to the castle

with a request of a night’s lodging. Elvira did not disgrace the

good word of the countryman. She received me with an air of

hospitality, and returned such an answer to my compliment as I

wished to carry back. We all went to the castle, whither the

mules dragged the carriage with considerable difficulty. At the

gate we met the widow of Don Pedro, who came out to meet my

mistress. I shall pass over in silence the reciprocal civilities

which were exchanged on this occasion, in compliance with the

usage of the polite world. I shall only say that Elvira was a

lady rather advanced in years, but remarkably well bred, with an

address superior to that of most women in doing the honours of

her house. She led Aurora into a sumptuous apartment, where,

leaving her to rest herself for a short time, she looked after

everything herself, and left nothing undone which could in the

least contribute to our comfort. Afterwards, when supper was

ready, she ordered it to be served up in Aurora’s chamber, where

they sat down to table together. Don Pedro’s widow was not of a

description to cast a slur on her own hospitalities, by assuming

an air of abstraction or sullenness. Her temper was gay, and her

conversation lively without levity; for her ideas were dignified,

and her expressions select. Nothing could exceed her wit,

accompanied by a peculiarly fine turn of thought. Aurora appeared

as much to be delighted as myself. They became sworn friends, and

mutually engaged in a regular correspondence. As our carriage

could not be repaired till the following day, and we should have

encountered some perils by setting out late at night, it was