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

>Beatrice, then more than four years old, to maintain. The castle,

which was our only tangible resource, was unfortunately mortgaged

to several creditors, the principal of whom was one Bernard

Astuto. Cunning by name, and cunning by nature! He practised as

an attorney at Valencia, and bore his faculties in all the infamy

of pettifogging; law and equity conspired in his person to push

the trade of cozening and swindling to the utmost extremity. To

think of falling into the clutches of such a creditor! A

gentleman’s property under the gripe of such a claw as this

attorney’s affords much the same sport as a lamb to a wolf or a

dove to a kite. Nearly after the fashion of these beasts and

birds of prey, did Signor Astuto, when informed of my husband’s

death, hover over his victim, concealing his fell purpose under

the ambush of the law. The whole estate would have been swallowed

up in pleadings, affidavits, demurrers, and rejoinders, but for

the light thrown upon the proceedings by my lucky star; under

whose influence the plaintiff was turned at once into defendant,

and was left without a reply to the arguments of these all-powerful eyes. I got to the blind side of him in an interview,

which I contrived during the progress of our litigation. Nothing

was wanting on my part, I own it frankly, to fill him brimful of

the tender passion; an ardent longing to save my goods, chattels,

and domain, made me practise upon him, to my own disgust, that

system of coquettish tactics and flirtation which had drawn so

many former fools into an ambuscade. Yet, with all the resources

of a veteran, I was very near letting the attorney escape. He was

so barricaded by mouldy parchments, so immured in actions and

informations, as scarcely to seem susceptible of any love but the

love of law. The truth, however, was, that this moping

pettifogger, this porer over ponderous abridgments, this scrawler

of acts and deeds, had more young blood in him than I was aware

of, and a trick of looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He

professed to be a novice in the art of courtship. My whole heart

and soul, madam, said he, have been wedded to my profession; and

the consequence has been, that the uses and customs of gallantry

have seemed weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable to me. But

though not a man of outward show, I am well furnished with the

stock in trade of love. To come to the point at once, if you can

resolve in your mind to marry me, we will make a grand bonfire of

the whole lawsuit; and I will give the go-by to those rascally

creditors, who have joined issue with me in our attack upon your

estate. You shall have the life interest, and your daughter the

reversion. So good a bargain for Beatrice and myself would not

allow of any wavering: I closed without delay on the conditions.

The attorney kept his word most miraculously: he turned short

round upon the other creditors, defeated them with the very

weapons himself had furnished with their joint campaign, and

secured me in the possession of my house and lands. It was

probably the first time in his life that he had taken up the

cause of the widow and the orphan.

 

Thus did I become the honoured wife of an attorney, without

losing my rank as the lady of the manor. But this incongruous

marriage ruined me in the esteem of the gentry about Valencia.

The women of quality looked upon me as a person who had lowered

herself, and refused any longer to visit me. This inevitably

threw me on the acquaintance of the tradespeople; a circumstance

which could not do otherwise than hurt my feelings a little at

first, because I had been accustomed, for the last six years, to

associate only with ladies of the higher classes. But it was in

vain to fret about it; and I soon found my level. I got most

intimately acquainted with the wives of my husband’s brethren of

the quill and brief. Their characters were not a little

entertaining. There was an absurdity in their manners, which

tickled me to the very soul. These trumpery fine ladies held

themselves up for something far above the common run. Well-a-day!

said I to myself, every now and then, when they forgot the blue-bag: this is the way of the world! Every one fancies himself to

be something vastly superior to his neighbour. I thought we

actresses only did not know our places; women at the lower end of

private life, as far as I see, are just as absurd in their

pretensions. I should like, by way of check upon their

presumption, to propose a law, that family pictures and pedigrees

should be hung up in every house. Were the situation left to the

choice of the owner, the deuce is in it if these legal gentry

would not cram their scrivening ancestors either into the cellar

or the garret.

 

After four years passed in the holy state of wedlock, Signor

Bernardo d’Astuto fell sick, and went the way of all flesh. We

had no family. Between my settlement and what I was worth before,

I found myself a well-endowed widow. I had too the reputation of

being so; and on this report, a Sicilian gentleman, by name

Colifichini, determined to stick in my skirts, and either ruin or

marry me. The alternative was kindly left to my own choice. He

was come from Palermo to see Spain, and, after having satisfied

his curiosity, was waiting, as he said, at Valencia for an

opportunity of taking his passage back to Sicily. The spark was

not quite five-and-twenty; of an elegant, though diminutive

person; … . in short, his figure absolutely haunted me. He

found the means of getting to the speech of me in private; and, I

will own it to you frankly, I fell distractedly in love with him

from the moment of our very first interview. On his part, the

little knave flounced over head and ears in admiration of my

charms. I do really think, God forgive me for it, that we should

have been married out of hand, if the death of the attorney,

whose funeral baked meats were scarcely cold enough to have

furnished forth the marriage tables, would have allowed me to

contract a new engagement at so short a warning. But since I had

got into the matrimonial line, it was necessary that where the

church makes the feast, the devil should not send cooks; I

therefore took care always to season my nuptials to the palate of

the world at large.

 

Thus did we agree to delay our coming together for a time, out of

a tender regard to appearances. Colifichini, in the mean time,

devoted all his attentions to me: his passion, far from

languishing, seemed to become more a part of himself from day to

day. The poor lad was not too flush of ready money. This struck

my observation; and he was no longer at a loss for his little

pocket expenses. Besides being very nearly twice his age, I

recollected having laid the men under contribution in my younger

days; so that I looked upon what I was then lavishing as a sort

of restitution, which balanced my debtor and creditor account,

and made me quits with my conscience. We waited, as patiently as

our frailty would allow, for the period when widows may in

decency so far surmount their grief as to try their luck again.

When the happy morning rose, we presented ourselves before the

altar, where we plighted our faith to each other by oaths the

most solemn and binding. We then retired to my castle, where I

may truly say that we lived for two years, less as husband and

wife than as tender and unfettered lovers. But alas l such an

union, so happy and sentimental, was not long to be the lot of

humanity: a pleurisy carried off my dear Colifichini.

 

At this passage in her history, I interrupted my mother. Heyday l

madam, your third husband dispatched already? You must he a most

deadly taking. What do you mean? answered she: is it for me to

dispute the will of heaven, and lengthen the days parcelled out

to every son of earth? If I have lost three husbands, it was none

of my fault. Two of them cost me many a salt tear. If I buried

any with dry eyes, it was the attorney. As that was merely a

match of interest, I was easily reconciled to the loss of him.

But to return to Colifichini, I was going to tell you, that some

months after his death, I had a mind to go and take possession of

a country house near Palermo, which he had settled on me as a

jointure, by our marriage contract. I took my passage for Sicily

with my daughter; but we were taken on the voyage by Algerine

corsairs. This city was our destination. Happily for us, you

happened to he at the market where we were put up for sale. Had

it been otherwise, we must have fallen into the hands of some

barbarian purchaser, who would have used us ill; and we probably

might have passed our whole life in slavery, nor would you ever

have heard of us.

 

Such was my mother’s story. To return to my own, gentlemen, I

gave her the best apartment in my house, with the liberty of

living after her own fashion; which was a circumstance very

agreeable to her taste. She had a confirmed habit of loving,

brought to such a system by so many repeated experiments, that it

was impossible for her to do without either a gallant or a

husband. At first she looked with favour on some of my slaves;

but Hali Pegelin, a Greek renegado, who sometimes came and called

upon us, soon drew all her glances on himself. She conceived a

stronger passion for him than she had ever done for Colifichini:

and such was her aptitude for pleasing the men, that she found

the way to wind herself about the heart of this man also. I

seemed as if unconscious of their good understanding; being then

intent only on my return into Spain. The bashaw had already given

me leave to fit out a vessel, for the purpose of sweeping the sea

and committing acts of piracy. This armament was my sole object.

Just a week before it was completed, I said to Lucinda: Madam, we

shall take our leave of Algiers almost immediately; so that you

will bid a long farewell to an abode which you cannot but detest.

 

My mother turned pale at these words, and stood silent and

motionless. My surprise was extreme. What do I see? said I to

her: whence comes it that you present such an image of terror and

despair? My design was to fill you with transport; but the effect

of my intelligence seems only to overwhelm you with affliction. I

thought to have been thanked for my welcome news; and hastened

with eagerness to tell you that all is ready for our departure.

Are you no longer in the mind to go back into Spain? No, my son;

Spain no longer has any charms for me, answered my mother. It has

been the scene of all my sorrows, and I have turned my back on it

for ever. What do I hear? exclaimed I in an agony: Ah! tell me

rather, that it is a fatal passion which alienates you from your

native country. Just heavens! what a change! When you landed

here, every object that met your eyes was hateful to them, but

Hali Pegelin has given another colour to your