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

his

father had introduced him to the company, the Count de Polan rose

from his chair and ran to embrace him, saying — Welcome, my

deliverer! Don Alphonso, added he, addressing his discourse to

him, observe the power of virtue over generous minds. Though you

have killed my son, you have saved my life. I lay aside my

resentment for ever, and give you that very Seraphina whose

honour you protected from invasion. In so doing, my debt to you

is paid. Don Caesar’s son was not wanting in acknowledgments to

the Count de Polan, nor could he be otherwise than deeply

affected by his goodness; and it maybe doubted whether the

discovery of his birth and parentage touched his felicity more

nearly than the intelligence that he was the destined husband of

Seraphina. This marriage was actually solemnized some days

afterwards, to the entire satisfaction of all parties concerned.

 

As I was one of the Count de Polan’s deliverers, this nobleman,

who knew me again immediately, said that he would take upon

himself the care of making my fortune. I thanked him for his

liberality, but would not leave Don Alphonso, who made me steward

of his household, and honoured me with his confidence. A few days

after his marriage, still harping upon the trick which had been

played to Samuel Simon, he sent me to return to that cozened

shopkeeper all the money which had been filched from him. I went

therefore to make restitution. This was setting up the trade of a

steward, but beginning at the wrong end: they ought all of them

to end with restitution; but nine hundred and ninety-nine out of

a thousand think it double trouble, and excuse themselves.

 

BOOK THE SEVENTH.

 

CH. I. — The tender attachment between Gil Blas and Dame Lorenza

Sephora.

 

AWAY went I to Xelva with three thousand ducats under my charge,

as an equivalent to Samuel Simon for the amount of his loss. I

will have the honesty to own, that my fingers itched as I jogged

along, to transfer these funds to my own account, and begin my

stewardship in character, since everything in this life depends

upon setting out well. There was no risk in preferring instinct

to principle: because it was only to ride about the country for

five or six days, and come home upon a brisk trot as if I had

done my business and made the best of my way. Don Alphonso and

his father would never have believed me capable of a breach of

trust. Yet, strange to tell, I was proof against so tempting a

suggestion: it would scarcely be too much to say, that honour,

not the fear of being found out, was the spring of so

praiseworthy a decision; and as times go, that is saying a great

deal for a lad, whose conscience had been pretty well seasoned by

keeping company with a succession of scoundrels. Many people who

have not that excuse, but frequent worshipful society, will

wonder how such squeamishness should have prevailed over my good

sense: treasurers of charities in particular; persons who have

the wills of relations in their custody, and do not exactly like

the contents; in short, all those whose characters stand higher

than their principles, will find food for reflection in my

overstrained scrupulosity.

 

After having made restitution to the merchant, who little thought

ever to have seen one farthing of his property again, I returned

to the castle of Lena. The Count de Polan had taken his

departure, and was far on his journey to Toledo with Julia and

Don Ferdinand. I found my new master more wrapped up than ever in

Seraphina; his Seraphina equally wrapped up in my master, and Don

Caesar just as much wrapped up as either in the contemplation of

the happy couple. My object was to gain the goodwill of this

affectionate father, and I succeeded to my wish. The whole house

was placed implicitly under my superintendence — nothing was

done without my special direction; the tenants paid their rents

into my hands; the disbursements of the family were all under my

revision; and the subordinate situations in the household were at

my disposal without appeal; and yet the power of tyrannizing did

not give me the inclination, as it has always hitherto done to my

equals and superiors. I neither turned away the male servants,

because I did not like the cut of their beards, nor the female

ones because they happened not to like the cut of mine. If they

made up to Don Caesar or his son at once, without currying my

favour as the channel of all good graces, far from taking umbrage

at them on that account, I spoke out officiously in their behalf.

In other respects, too, the marks of confidence my two masters

were incessantly lavishing on me inspired me with a substantial

zeal for their service. Their interest was my real object: there

was no slight of hand in my ministry; I was such a caterer for

the general good, as you rarely meet with in private families or

in political societies.

 

While I was hugging myself on the well-earned prosperity of my

condition, love, jealous of my dealings with fortune, was bent on

sharing my gratitude by the addition of a higher zest, he

planted, watered, and ripened in the heart of Dame Lorenza

Sephora, Seraphina’s confidential woman, an abundant crop of

liking for the happy steward. My Helen, not to sink the fidelity

of the historian in the vanity of the man, could not be many

months short of her fiftieth year. But for all that, a look of

wholesomeness, a face none of the ugliest, and two good-looking

eyes of which she knew the efficient use, might make her still

pass for a decent bit of amusement in a summer evening. I could

only just have been thankful for a little more relief to her

complexion, since it was precisely the colour of chalk; but that

I attributed to maiden concealments, which had eat away all the

damask of her cheek.

 

The lady ogled me for a long time, with ogles that savoured more

of passion than of chastity; but instead of communing in the

language of the eyes, I made pretence at first not to be sensible

of my own happiness. Thus did my gallantry appear as if arrayed

in its first blushes; a circumstance which was rather tempting

than repulsive to her feelings. Taking it into her head,

therefore, that there was no standing upon dumb eloquence with a

young man who looked more like a novice than he was, at our very

first interview she declared her sentiments in broad, unequivocal

terms, that I might have no plea for misinterpretation. She

played her part like an old stager: affected to be overwhelmed

with confusion while she was speaking to me; and after having

said all she wanted to say in a good audible voice, put her hand

before her face, to hide the shame which was not there, and make

me believe that she was incommoded by the delicacy of her own

feelings. There was no standing such an attack; and though vanity

had a larger share in my surrender than the tender passion, I did

not receive her overtures ungraciously. Nay, more, I presumed to

overlook decorum in my vivacity, and acted the impatient lover so

naturally as to call down a modest rebuke upon my freedoms.

Lorenza chid my fondness, but with so much fondness in her

chidings, that while she prescribed to me the coldness of an

anchorite, it was very evident she would have been miserably

disappointed if I had taken her prescription. I should have

pressed the affair at once to the natural termination of all such

affairs, if the lovely object of my ardent wishes had not been

afraid of giving me a left-handed opinion of her virtue, by

abandoning the works before the siege was regularly formed. This

being so, we parted, but with a promise to meet again: Sephora in

the full persuasion that her reluctant resistance would stamp her

for a vestal in my esteem, and myself full of the sweet hope that

the torments of Tantalus would soon be succeeded by an elysium of

enjoyment.

 

My affairs were in this happy train, when one of Don Caesar’s

under servants brought me such a piece of news, as gave an ague

to my raptures. This lad was one of those inquisitive inmates who

apply either an ear or an eye to every keyhole in a house. As he

paid his court constantly to me, and served up some fresh piece

of scandal every day, he came to tell me one morning that he had

made a pleasant discovery; and that he had no objection to

letting me into the fun, on condition that I would not blab:

because Dame Lorenza Sephora was the theme of the joke, and he

was afraid of becoming obnoxious to her resentment and revenge. I

was too much interested in coming at the story he had to tell,

not to swear myself into discretion through thick and thin; but

it was necessary that my motive should seem curiosity and not

personal concern, so that I asked him, with an air of as much

indifference as I could put on, what was this mighty discovery

about which he made such a piece of work. Lorenza, whispered he,

smuggles the surgeon of the village every evening into her

apartment: he is a tight vessel, well armed and manned; and the

pirate generally stays pretty long upon his cruise. I do not mean

to say, added he, with supercilious candour but that all this may

be perfectly innocent on both sides, but you cannot help

admitting, that where a young man does insinuate himself slily

into a girl’s bedchamber he takes better care of his own pleasure

than of her reputation.

 

Though this tale gave me as much uneasiness as if I had been

verily and romantically in love, I had too much sense to let him

know it; but so far stifled my feelings as to laugh heartily at a

story which struck at the very life of all my hopes. But when no

witnesses were by, I made myself full amends for having gulped

down my rising indignation. I blustered and stormed; muttered

blessings on them the wrong way, and swore outright: but all this

without coming nearer to a decision on my own conduct. At one

time, holding Lorenza in utter contempt, it was my good pleasure

to give her up altogether, without condescending so far as to

come to any explanation with the coquette. At an other time,

laying it down as a principle, that my honour was concerned in

making the surgeon an example to all intriguers, I spirited up my

courage to call him out. Thus dangerous valour prevailed over

safe indifference. At the approach of evening I placed myself in

ambuscade; and sure enough the gentleman did slink into the

temple of my Vesta, with a fear of being found out that spoke

rather unfavourably for the purity of his designs. Nothing short

of this could have kept my rage alive against the chilliness of

the night air. I immediately quitted the precincts of the castle,

and posted myself on the high road, where the gay deceiver was

sure to be intercepted on his return. I waited for him with my

fighting spirits on the full boil: my impatience increased with

the lapse of time, till Mars and Bellona seemed to inhabit my

frame, and enlarge it beyond human dimensions. At length my

antagonist came in sight. I took a few strides, such as bully

Mars or Bellona might have taken; but I do not know how the devil

it came to pass, my courage went further off as