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

other side of the question; the hint seemed

difficult to wrap up so as to make it palatable. Authors in

general are stark mad on the subject of their own works, and such

an author might be more testy than the common herd of the

irritable race: but that suspicion seemed illiberal on my part,

for it was impossible that my freedom should he taken amiss, when

it had been forced upon me by so positive an injunction. Add to

this, that I reckoned upon handling the subject skilfully, and

cramming discretion down his throat like a high-seasoned

epicurean dish. After all my pro and con, finding that I risked

more by keeping silence than by breaking it, I determined to

venture on the delicate duty of speaking my mind.

 

Now there was but one difficulty; a difficulty indeed! how to

open the business. Luckily the orator himself extricated me from

that embarrassment, by asking what they said of him in the world

at large, and whether people were tolerably well pleased with his

last discourse. I answered that there could be but one opinion

about his homilies; but that it should seem as if the last had

not quite struck home to the hearts of the audience, like those

which had gone before. Do you really mean what you say, my

friend? replied he, with a sort of wriggling surprise. Then my

congregation are more in the temper of Aristarchus than of

Longinus! No, may it please your grace, rejoined I, quite the

contrary. Performances of that order are above the reach of

vulgar criticism: there is not a soul but expects to be saved by

their influence. Nevertheless, since you have made it my duty to

be sincere and unreserved, I shall take the liberty of just

stating that your last discourse is not written with quite the

overpowering eloquence and conclusive argument of your former

ones. Does not your grace feel just as I do on the subject?

 

This ignorant and stupid frankness of mine completely blanched my

master’s cheek; but he forced a fretful smile, and said — Then,

good Master Gil Blas, that piece does not exactly hit your fancy?

I did not mean to say that, your grace, interrupted I, looking

very foolish. It is very far superior to what any one else could

produce, though a little below par with respect to your own works

in general. I know what you mean, replied he. You think I am

going down hill, do not you? Out with it at once. It is your

opinion that it is time for me to think of retiring? I should

never have had the presumption, said I, to deliver myself with so

little reserve, if it had not been your grace’s express command.

I act in entire obedience to your grace’s orders; and I most

obsequiously implore your grace not to take offence at my

boldness. I were unfit to live in a Christian land! interrupted

he, with stammering impatience; I were unfit to live in a

Christian land if I liked you the less for such a Christian

virtue as sincerity. A man who does not love sincerity sets his

face against the distinguishing mark between a friend and a

flatterer. I should have given you infinite credit for speaking

what you thought, if you had thought anything that deserved to be

spoken. I have been finely taken in by your outside shew of

cleverness, without any solid foundation of sober judgment!

 

Though completely unhorsed, and at the enemy’s mercy, I wanted to

make terms of decent capitulation, and to go unmolested into

winter quarters: but let those who think to appease an

exasperated author, and especially an author whose ear has been

long attuned to the music of his own praises, take warning by my

fate. Let us talk no more on the subject, my very young friend,

said he. You are as yet scarcely in the rudiments of good taste,

and utterly incompetent to distinguish between gold and tinsel.

You are yet to lean that I never in all my life composed a finer

homily than that unfortunate one which had not the honour of your

approbation. The immortal part of me, by the blessing of heaven

on me and my congregation, is less weighed down by human

infirmity than when the flesh was stronger. We all grow wiser as

we grow older, and I shall in future select the people about me

with more caution; nor submit the castigation of my works but to

a much abler critic than yourself. Get about your business!

pursued he, giving me an angry shove by the shoulders out of his

closet; go and tell my treasurer to pay you a hundred ducats, and

take my priestly blessing in addition to that sum. God speed you,

good Master Gil Blas! I heartily pray that you may do well in the

world! There is nothing to stand in your way, but the want of a

little better taste.

 

CH. V. — The course which Gil Blas took after the archbishop had

given him his dismissal. His accidental meeting with the

licentiate who was so deeply in his debt, and a picture of

gratitude in the person of a parson.

 

I MADE the best of my way out of the closet, cursing the caprice,

or more properly the dotage of the archbishop, and more in

dudgeon at his absurdity, than cast down at the loss of his good

graces. For some time it was a moot point whether I should go and

lay claim to my hundred ducats; but after having weighed the

matter dispassionately, I was not such a fool as to quarrel with

my bread and butter. There was no reason why that money, fairly

earned, should deprive me of my natural right to make a joke of

this ridiculous prelate; in which good deed I promised myself not

to be wanting, as often as himself or his homilies were brought

upon the carpet in my hearing.

 

I went therefore and asked the treasurer for a hundred ducats,

without telling a word about the literary warfare between his

master and me. Afterwards I called on Melchior de la Ronda, to

take a long leave of him. He was too much my friend not to

sympathize with my misfortune. While I was telling my story

vexation was strongly imprinted on my countenance. In spite of

all his respect for the archbishop, he could not help blaming

him; but, when in the fever of my resentment I threatened to be a

match for the prelate, and to entertain the whole city at his

expense, the prudent Melchior gave me a salutary caution: Take my

advice, my dear Gil Blas, and rather pocket the affront. Men of a

lower sphere in life should always be cap in hand to people of

quality, whatever may be their grounds of complaint. It must be

admitted, there are some very coarse specimens of greatness,

which in themselves are scarcely deserving of the least respect

or attention; but even such animals have their weapons of

annoyance, and it is best to keep out of their way.

 

I thanked the old valet-de-chambre for the good counsel he had

given me, and promised to be guided by it. Pleased with my

deference to his opinion, he said to me: If you go to Madrid, be

sure you call upon my nephew, Joseph Navarro. He is factotum in

the family of Signor Don Balthazar de Zunigna, and I can venture

to recommend him as a lad in every respect worthy of your

friendship. He is just as nature made him, with all the vivacity

of youth, courteous in his manners, and forward to oblige; I

could wish you to get acquainted with him. I answered that I

would not fail to go and see this Joseph Navarro as soon as I

should get to Madrid, whither I meant to return in due time. Then

did I turn my back on the episcopal palace, never to grace it

with my presence again. If I had kept my horse, I should perhaps

have set out for Toledo immediately; but I had sold it during the

period of my administration, supposing that I was in office for

life, and should not henceforward be migratory. My final

resolution was to hire a ready-furnished lodging, as I had made

up my mind to stay another month in Grenada, and then to pay the

Count de Polan a visit.

 

As dinner-hour was drawing nigh, I asked my landlady if there was

any eating-house in the neighbourhood. She answered that there

was a very good one within a few yards of her house, where the

accommodations were excellent, and the company select and

numerous. I made her shew me where it was, and went thither sharp

set. I was shewn into a large room, resembling the hall of a

monastery in everything but good cheer. There were ten or a dozen

men sitting at a long table, with a cloth spread over it that

fretted in its own grease; but they, with unoffended nostrils,

were engaged in general conversation, though they dined

individually, each having a miserable scrap for his portion. The

people of the house brought me my allowance, which at another

time would have turned my stomach, and have made me sigh after

the luxuries of the table I had just lost. But at this moment I

was so indignant against the archbishop, that the homely fare of

a paltry eating-house seemed more palatable than the dainties of

his sumptuous board. It was a burning shame to see such a waste

of provisions served up in soups and sauces to pamper the

appetite. Arguing like a deep examiner in the economy of the

human frame, and reasoning medically as well as philosophically,

on the disproportion between the simple wants of nature and the

complexity of luxurious indulgence; cursed be they, said I, who

invented those pernicious dinners and suppers, where one must sit

on the tenterhooks of self-denial, for fear of overloading the

storehouse and shop of the whole body! Man wants but little here

below; and provided he can but keep body and soul together, the

less he eats the better. Thus did I, in my surly vein, give

utterance to wise saws; which, however just in theory, had

hitherto been little recommended by my practice.

 

While I was dispatching my commons, without any danger of a

surfeit from repletion, the licentiate Lewis Garcias, who had got

the living of Gabia in the manner above-mentioned, came into the

room. The moment he recognized me, he ran into my arms with all

the cordiality of friendship, or rather with the extravagant joy

of a lover after a long exile from his mistress. He folded me

repeatedly within his sincere embrace, and I was compelled to

stand the brunt of a long-winded compliment on the unparalleled

disinterestedness of my conduct towards him. Gratitude is a fine

virtue; and yet it is wearisome when carried beyond due bounds!

He took his seat next me, saying: Well! a parson must not swear;

though by the mass, my dear patron, since my good fortune has

thrown me in your way, we will not part without a jovial glass.

But as there is no good wine in this shabby inn, I will take you,

if you please, after our make-shift dinner, to a place where I

will treat you with a couple of bottles, rich, genuine, and old,

in comparison of which the Falernian of Horace was all a farce.

The church will give us absolution, in the cause of gratitude! If

I could but get you for a few days down at my parsonage of Gabia!

Maecenas was never more welcome to the poet’s Sabine farm, than

the author of all my ease and comfort to the choicest