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

they had treated me a

little more kindly, I might have been a blackguard butcher at

this moment, instead of having the honour to be your lieutenant.

Gentlemen, — interrupted a hopeful young freebooter who sat

between the captain and the lieutenant, — the stories we have

just heard are neither so complicated nor so curious as mine. I

peeped into existence by means of a country woman in the

neighbourhood of Seville. Three weeks after she had set me down

in this system, a nurse child was offered her. You are to

understand she was yet in her prime, comely in her person, and

had a good breast of milk. The young suckling had noble blood in

him, and was an only son. My mother accepted the proposal with

all her heart, and went to fetch the child. It was entrusted to

her care. She had no sooner brought it home, than, fancying a

resemblance, she conceived the idea of substituting me for the

brat of high birth, in the hope of drawing a handsome commission

at some future time for this motherly office in behalf of her

infant. My father, whose morals were on a level with those of

clodhoppers in general, lent himself very willingly to the cheat:

so that with only a change of clouts the son of Don Rodrigo de

Herrera was packed off in my name to another nurse, and my mother

suckled her own and her master’s child at once in my little

person.

 

They may say what they will of instinct and the force of blood!

The little gentleman’s parents were very easily taken in. They

had not the slightest suspicion of the trick; and were eternally

dandling me till I was seven years old. As it was their intention

to make me a finished gentleman, they gave me masters of all

kinds; but I had very little taste for their lessons, and above

all, I detested the sciences. I had at any time rather play with

the servants or the stable boys, and was a complete kitchen

genius. But tossing up for heads or tails was not my ruling

passion. Before seventeen I had an itch for getting drunk. I

played the devil among the chambermaids; but my prime favourite

was a kitchen girl, who had infinite merit in my eyes. She was a

great bloated horse-god-mother, whose good case and easy morals

suited me exactly. I boarded her with so little circumspection

that Don Rodrigo took notice of it. He took me to task pretty

sharply; twitted me with my low taste; and, for fear the presence

of my charmer should counteract his sage counsels, showed the

goddess of my devotions the outside of the door.

 

This proceeding was rather offensive; and I determined to be even

with him. I stole his wife’s jewels; and ravishing my Helen from

a laundress of her acquaintance, went off with her in open day,

that the transaction might lose nothing in point of notoriety.

But this was not all. I carried her among her relations, where I

married her according to the rites of the church, as much from

the personal motive of mortifying Herrera, as from the patriotic

enthusiasm of encouraging our young nobility to mend the breed.

Three months after marriage, I heard that Don Rodrigo had gone

the way of all flesh. The intelligence was not lost upon me. I

was at Seville in a twinkling, to administer in due form and

order to his effects; but the tables were turned. My mother had

paid the debt of nature, and in her last agonies had been so much

off her guard as to confess the whole affair to the curate of the

village and other competent witnesses. Don Rodrigo’s son had

already taken my place, or rather his own, and his popularity was

increased by the deficiency of mine; so that as the trumps were

all out in that hand, and I had no particular wish for the

present my wife was likely to make me, I joined issue with some

desperate blades, with whom I began my trading ventures.

 

The young cut-purse having finished his story, another told us

that he was the son of a merchant at Burgos; that, in his youth,

prompted more by piety than wit, he had taken the religious habit

and professed in a very strict order, and that a few years

afterwards he had apostatized. In short, the eight robbers told

their tale one after another, and when I had heard them all, I

did not wonder that the destinies had brought them together. The

conversation now took a different turn. They brought several

schemes upon the carpet for the next campaign; and after having

laid down their plan of operations, rose from table and went to

bed. They lighted their night candles, and withdrew to their

apartments. I attended Captain Rolando to his. While I was

fiddling about him as he undressed: Well! Gil Blas, said he, you

see how we live! We are always merry; hatred and envy have no

footing here; we have not the least difference, but hang together

just like monks. You are sure, my good lad, to lead a pleasant

life here; for I do not think you are fool enough to make any

bones about consorting with gentlemen of the road. In what does

ours differ from many a more reputable trade? Depend on it, my

friend, all men love two hands in their neighbour’s purse, though

only one in their own. Men’s principles are all alike; the only

difference lies in the mode of carrying them into effect.

Conquerors, for instance, make free with the territories of their

neighbours. People of fashion borrow and do not pay. Bankers,

treasurers, brokers, clerks, and traders of all kinds, wholesale

and retail, give ample liberty to their wants to overdraw on

their consciences. I shall not mention the hangers-on of the law;

we all know how it goes with them. At the same time it must be

allowed that they have more humanity than we have; for as it is

often our vocation to take away the life of the innocent for

plunder, it is sometimes theirs for fee and reward to save the

guilty.

 

CH. VI. — The attempt of Gil Blas to escape, and its success.

 

AFTER the captain of the banditti had thus apologized for

adopting such a line of life, he went to bed. For my part, I

returned to the hall, where I cleared the table, and set

everything to rights. Then I went to the kitchen, where Domingo,

the old negro, and dame Leonarda had been expecting me at supper.

Though entirely without appetite, I had the good manners to sit

down with them. Not a morsel could I eat; and, as I scarcely felt

more miserable than I looked, this pair so justly formed to meet

by nature, undertook to give me a little comfort. Why do you take

on so, my good lad? said the old dowager: you ought rather to

bless your stars for your good luck. You are young, and seem a

little soft; you would have a fine kettle of fish of it in the

busy world. You might have fallen into bad hands, and then your

morals would have been corrupted; whereas here your innocence is

insured to its full value. Dame Leonarda is in the right, put in

the old negro gravely, the world is but a troublesome place. Be

thankful, my friend, for being so early relieved from the

dangers, the difficulties, and the afflictions of this miserable

life.

 

I bore this prosing very quietly, because I should have got no

good by putting myself in a passion about it. At length Domingo,

after playing a good knife and fork, and getting gloriously

muddled, took himself off to the stable. Leonarda, by the

glimmering of a lamp, showed me the way to a vault which served

as a last home to those of the corps who died a natural death.

Here I stumbled upon something more like a grave than a bed. This

is your room, said she. Your predecessor lay here as long as he

was among us, and here he lies to this day. He suffered himself

to be hurried out of life in his prime: do not you be so foolish

as to follow his example. With this kind advice, she left me with

the lamp for my companion and returned to the kitchen. I threw

myself on the little bed, not so much for rest as meditation. O

heaven! exclaimed I, was there ever a fate so dreadful as mine?

it is determined then I am to take my leave of daylight! Beside

this, as if it were not enough to be buried alive at eighteen, my

misery is to be aggravated by being in the service of a banditti;

by passing the day with highwaymen, and the night in a

charnelhouse. These reflections, which seemed to me very dismal,

and were indeed no better than they seemed, set me crying most

bitterly. I could not conceive what cursed maggot my uncle had

got in his head to send me to Salamanca; repented running away

from Cacabelos, and would have compounded for the torture. But,

considering how vain it was to shut the door when the steed was

stolen, I determined, instead of lamenting the past, to hit upon

some expedient for making my escape. What! thought I, is it

impossible to get off? The cut-throats are asleep; cooky and the

black will be snoring ere long. Why cannot I, by the help of this

lamp, find the passage by which I descended into these infernal

regions? I am afraid, indeed, my strength is not equal to lifting

the trap at the entrance. However, let us see. Faint heart never

won fair lady. Despair will lend me new force, and who knows but

I may succeed?

 

Thus was the train laid for a grand attempt. I got up as soon as

Leonarda and Domingo were likely to be asleep. With the lamp in

my hand, I stole out of the vault, putting up my prayers to all

the spirits in paradise, and ten miles round. It was with no

small difficulty that I threaded all the windings of this new

labyrinth. At length I found myself at the stable door, and

perceived the passage which was the object of my search. Pushing

on I made my way towards the trap with a light pair of heels and

a beating heart: but, alas! in the middle of my career I ran

against a cursed iron grate locked fast, with bars so close as

not to admit a hand between them. I looked rather foolish at the

occurrence of this new difficulty, which I had not been aware of

at my entrance, because the grate was then open. However, I tried

what I could do by fumbling at the bars. Then for a peep at the

lock; or whether it could not be forced! When all at once my poor

shoulders were saluted with five or six good strokes of a bull’s

pizzle. I set up such a shrill alarum, that the den of Cacus rang

with it; when looking round, who should it be but the old negro

in his shirt, holding a dark lanthorn in one hand, and the

instrument of my punishment in the other. Oh, ho! quoth he, my

merry little fellow, you will run away, will you? No, no! you

must not think to set your wits against mine. I heard you all the

while. You thought you should find the grate open, did not you?

You may take it for granted, my friend, that henceforth it will

always be shut. When we keep any one here against his will, he

must be a cleverer fellow than you to make