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

my body came

nearer; my frame was contracted within somewhat less than its

human dimensions, and my heart felt exactly like the heart of a

coward. The hearts of Homer’s heroes felt exactly the same, when

the dastardly dogs were not backed by a supernatural drawcansir!

In short, I was just as much out of my element as ever Paris was,

when he pitted himself against Menelaus in single combat. I began

taking measure of this operator in love, war, and anatomy. He

appeared to be large limbed and well knit, with a sword by his

side of a most abominable length. All this made me consider, that

the better part of valour is discretion: nevertheless, whether

from the superiority of mind over the nervous system in a case of

honour, or from whatever other cause, though the danger grew

bigger as the distance diminished, and in spite of nature, which

pleaded obstinately that honour is a mere scutcheon, and can

neither set a leg nor take away the grief of a wound, I mustered

up boldness enough to march forward towards the surgeon sword in

hand.

 

My proceeding seemed to him to be of the drollest. What is the

matter, Signor Gil Blas? exclaimed he. Why all this fire and

fury? You are in a bantering mood, to all appearance. No, good

master shaver, answered I, no such thing; there never was

anything more serious since Cain killed Abel. I am determined to

try the experiment, whether as little preparation serves your

turn in the field of battle as in a lady’s chamber. Hope not that

you will be suffered to possess without a rival that heaven of

bliss in which you have been indulging but this moment at the

castle. By all the martyrdoms we phlebotomizers have ever

suffered or inflicted! replied the surgeon, setting up a shout of

laughter, this is a most whimsical adventure. As heaven is my

judge! appearances are very little to be trusted. At this put

off, fancying that he had no keener stomach for cold iron than

myself, I got to be I ten times more over bearing. Teach your

parrot to speak better Spanish, my friend, interrupted I; do you

think we do not know a hawk from a hernshaw? Imagine not that the

simple denial of the fact will settle the business. I see

plainly, replied he, that I shall be obliged to speak out, or

some mischief must happen either to you or me. I shall therefore

disclose a secret to you; though men in our profession cannot be

too much on the reserve. If Dame Lorenza sends for me into her

apartment under suspicious circumstances, it is only to conceal

from the servants the knowledge of her malady. She has an

incurable ulcer in her back, which I come every evening to dress.

This is the real occasion of those visits which disturb your

peace. Henceforward, rest assured that you have her all to

yourself. But if you are not satisfied with this expectation, and

are absolutely bent on a fencing match, you have only to say so;

I am not a man to turn my back upon a game at sword play. With

these words in his mouth he drew his long rapier, which made my

heart jump into my throat, and stood upon his guard. It is

enough, said I, putting my sword up again in its scabbard, I am

not a wild beast, to turn a deaf ear to reason: after what you

have told me, there is no cause of enmity between us. Let us

shake hands. At this proposal, by which he found out that I was

not such a devil of a fellow as he had taken me for, he returned

his weapon with a laugh, met my advances to be reconciled, and we

parted the best friends in the world.

 

From that time forward Sephora never came into my thoughts but

with the most disgusting associations. I shunned all the

opportunities she gave me of entertaining her in private, and

this with so obvious a study, almost bordering on rudeness, that

she could not but notice it. Astonished at so sudden a reverse,

she was dying to know the cause, and at length, finding the means

of pinning me down to a t�te-�-t�te, Good Mr Steward, said she,

tell me, if so please you, why you avoid the very sight of me! It

is true that I made the first advances; but then you fed the

consuming fire. Recall to memory, if it is not too great a

favour, the private interview we had together. Then you were a

magazine of combustibles, now you are as frozen as the north sea.

What is the meaning of all this? The question was not a little

difficult of solution, for a man unaccustomed to the violence of

amorous interrogatories. The consequence was, that it puzzled me

most confoundedly. I do not precisely recollect the identical lie

I told the lady, but I recollect perfectly that nothing but the

truth could have affronted her more highly. Sephora, though by

her mincing air and modest outside one might have taken her for a

lamb, was a tigress when the savage was roused in her nature. I

did think, said she, darting a glance at me full of malice and

hideousness, I did think to have conferred such honour as was

never conferred before, on a little scoundrel like you, by

betraying sentiments which the first nobility in the country

would make it their boast to excite. Fitly indeed am I punished

for having preposterously lowered myself to the level of a dirty,

snivelling adventurer.

 

That was pretty well; but she did not stop there: I should have

come off too cheaply on such terms. Her fury taking a long lease

of her tongue, that brawling instrument of discord rung a bob-major of invective, each strain more clamorous and confounding

than the former. It certainly was my duty to have received it all

with cool indifference, and to have considered candidly that in

triumphing over female reserve, and then not taking possession of

the conquest, I had committed that sin against the sex, which

would have transformed the most feminine of them into a Sephora.

But I was too irritable to bear abuse, at which a man of sense in

my place would only have laughed; and my patience was at length

exhausted. Madam, said I, let us not rake into each other’s

personal misfortunes, If the first nobility in the country had

only looked at your back, they would have forgotten all your

other charms, and have boasted but little of the sentiments they

had excited you to betray. I had no sooner laid in this home

stroke, then the enraged duenna visited me with the hardest box

on the ear that ever yet proceeded from the delicate fingers of a

woman scorned. Such favours might pall on repetition; so I did

not wait for a second, but took shelter in the nimbleness of my

legs from the clatter of castigation she was going to shower down

on me.

 

I returned thanks to the protecting powers for having brought me

clear off from this unequal encounter, and fancied that I had

nothing further to apprehend, since the lady had taken corporal

vengeance. It was likely, too, that she would be wise and hold

her tongue, for the honour of her own back: and, in point of

fact, a full fortnight had elapsed without my hearing a word upon

the subject The very tingling in my own cheek began to abate,

when I was told that Sephora was taken ill. With that forgiveness

of injuries so natural to me, I was sincerely afflicted at the

news. I really felt for the poor lady. I concluded that, unable

to contend with a passion so ill repaid, that hapless victim of

her own tenderness was giving up the ghost. It was with exquisite

pain that I turned this subject in my thoughts. I was the cruel

cause that her heart was breaking; and my pity at least was the

duenna’s, though love is too wayward to be controlled by advice.

But I was miserably mistaken in her nature. Her tenderness had

all curdled into acrimonious hatred; and at that very moment was

she plotting to be my bane.

 

One morning while I was with Don Alphonso, that amiable young

master of mine was absent, moody, and out of spirits. I inquired

respectfully what was the matter. I am vexed to the soul, said

he, to find Seraphina weak, unjust, ungrateful. You are not a

little surprised at this, added he, remarking the expression of

astonishment with which I heard him; yet nothing is more strictly

and lamentably true. I know not what reason you have given Dame

Lorenza to be at variance with you; but true it is, you are

become so unbearably hateful to her, that if you do not get out

of this castle as soon as possible, her death, she says, must be

the sure consequence. You cannot but suppose that Seraphina, who

knows your value, used all her influence at first against a

prejudice to which she could not administer without injustice and

ingratitude. But though the best of women, she is still a woman.

Sephora brought her up, and she loves her like a mother. Should

her old nurse die shortly, she would fancy she had her death to

answer for, had she refused herself to any of her whims. For my

own part, with all my affection towards Seraphina, and it is none

of the weakest, I will never be guilty of so mean a compliance as

to side with her on this question. Perish our duennas, perish the

whole system of our Spanish vigilance! but never let me consent

to the banishment of a young man whom I look upon rather as a

brother than a servant!

 

When Don Alphonso had thus expressed his sentiments, I said to

him: My good sir, I am born to be the mere whipping-top of

fortune. It had been my hope that she would leave off persecuting

me when under your roof, where everything held out to me happy

days and an unruffled life. Now, the part for honour to take is

to tear myself away, whatever hankering I may feel after my

continuance. No, no, exclaimed the generous son of Don Caesar.

Leave me to bring Seraphina to a proper view of things. It shall

never be said that you are sacrificed to the caprices of a

duenna, who, on every occasion, has but too much influence over

the family. All you will get by it, sir, replied I, will only be

to put Seraphina in an ill humour by opposing her wishes. I had

much rather withdraw than run the risk, by a longer abode here,

of sowing division between a married pair, who are a model of

conjugal felicity. Such a consequence of my unhappy quarrel would

make me miserable for the remainder of my days.

 

Don Alphonso absolutely forbade me to take any hasty step; and I

found him so determined in the intention of standing by me, that

Lorenza must infallibly have been thrown into the background, if

I had chosen to have stood an election against her. There were

moments when, exasperated against the duenna, I was tempted to

keep no measures with her; but when I came to consider that to

unravel this surgical mystery would be to plunge a dagger into

the heart of a poor creature, whose curse had been my fastidious

prejudice against an ulcerated back, and whom a physical and

mental misfortune were conjointly handing down to the grave; I

lost all feeling but that of compassion towards her. It was

evident, since I was so portentous a phenomenon, that it was my

imperious duty to re-establish