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

general a text As he looked like a good man, and

there was no positive evidence to set against his looks, I was

simpleton enough to fancy that he had taken the trouble of

inquiring why I was shut up; and meant, not finding me so

atrocious a culprit as to deserve such shameful insults, to take

my part with the corregidor. But I was not up to the tricks of

the Biscayan, he had a much longer head. He was turning over in

his mind the scheme of an elopement, and made the proposal to me

in profound privacy some days afterwards. My dear Laura, said he,

your sufferings have taken such deep possession of my mind, that

I have determined to end them. I am perfectly aware that my own

ruin is involved in the measure, but needs must when the tender

passion drives. To-morrow morning do I intend to take you out of

prison, and conduct you in person to Madrid. No sacrifice is too

great for the pleasure of being your deliverer.

 

I was very near fainting with surprise and joy at this promise of

Zendono, who, concluding from my acknowledgments that my very

life depended on my rescue, had the effrontery to carry me off

next day in the face of the whole town, by the following device:

— He told the lady abbess that he had orders to take me before

the corregidor, who was at his country box a few miles off; and

without betraying himself by a single change of countenance,

packed me off, with him for my companion, in a post-chaise drawn

by two good mules which he had bought for the occasion. Our only

attendant was the driver, a servant of his own, and entirely

devoted to the steward by stronger ties than those of gratitude.

We began bowling away, not in the direction of Madrid, as I had

taken for granted, but towards the frontiers of Portugal, whither

we got in less time than it took the corregidor of Zamora to

receive the deposition of our flight, and uncouple his pack or

set them barking at our heels.

 

Before we entered Braganza, the Biscayan made me put on man’s

clothes, with which he had taken the precaution of providing

himself. Reckoning on me as being fairly launched in the same

boat with him, he said to me in the inn where we put up, Lovely

Laura, do not take it unkindly of me to have brought you into

Portugal. The corregidor of Zamora will make our own country too

hot to hold us, for in his eyes we are two criminals, under the

weight of whose enormities it is not for Spain to groan. But we

may set his malice at defiance in this distant realm, though at

the present conjuncture under the dominion of the Spanish

monarchy. At least we shall stand a better chance for safety here

than at home. League your fortunes with those of a man who would

follow you in prosperity or in adversity through the world. Let

us fix our residence at Coimbra. There I will get employed as a

spy for the inquisition; under the cover of that formidable

tribunal, a refreshing shade for us, but Cimmerian darkness to

its victims, our days will glide smoothly on in ease and

pleasure, we shall fatten on the spoil of religious delinquency.

 

A proposal so much to the point gave me to understand that I had

to do with a knight, who had other motives for officiating as the

guardian of distressed damsels, besides the honour of chivalry. I

saw at once that he reckoned much on my gratitude, and still more

on my distress. Nevertheless, though these two pleas were almost

equally eloquent in his favour, I rejected his addresses with

disdain. The reason was, that there were two advocates still more

eloquent on the side of a refusal; a certainty that he was

disagreeable, and a strong suspicion that he was poor. But when

he returned to the charge, and offered to say the grace of

matrimony before he fell to, proving to me at the same time, by

the undeniable evidence of cash in hand, that his stewardship had

enabled him to live in clover for a long time to come, the truth

must come out in spite of blushes; my heart was softened, and my

ears unstopped. I was dazzled by the gold and jewels which he

laid out in burning row before me, and became a living monument

in my own person, that miraculous transformations are effected by

the power of pelf, as well as by the wand of love. My Biscayan

became, by little and little, quite another sort of man in my

eyes. His tall body and bare bones were plumped up into a shapely

and commanding figure; his cadaverous complexion was improved

into a manly brown: even that look, as if butter would not melt

in his mouth, was no longer hypocrisy, but a staid and decent

aspect. Having made these discoveries, I accepted his hand

without any material abhorrence, and he plighted the usual vows

in all due form. After this, like a good wife, I kept the spirit

of contradiction as much as possible under the hatches. We

resumed our journey, and Coimbra soon received a new family

within its walls

 

My husband stocked my wardrobe as became my sex and station,

making me a present of several diamonds, among which I fixed my

eye on that of Don Felix Moldonado. There were no further

documents wanting to give a shrewd guess whence came all the

precious stones I had seen, and to be morally certain that I had

not married a troublesomely nice observer of the eighth article

in the decalogue. Yet, considering myself as the main-spring of

all his little deviations from the strict law of propriety, it

was not for me to judge harshly on that point A woman can always

find a palliation for the misdeeds which are set in motion by the

power of her own beauty. But for that, he certainly would have

ranked no higher than one of the wicked in my estimation.

 

I had no great reason to complain of him for two or three months.

His attentions were always polite and kind, amounting apparently

to a sincere and tender affection. But no such thing! These

proofs of wedded love, this worshipping with the body, and

endowing with the worldly goods, were all but a copy of his

countenance; for the cheating fellow meant, as men serve a

cucumber, to throw me away on the first opportunity. One morning,

at my return from mass, I found nothing at home but the bare

walls; the moveables, not excepting my own apparel, every stick

and every thread, had been carried off. Zendono and his faithful

servant had taken their measures so adroitly, that in less than

an hour the house had been completely gutted; so that with

nothing but the gown upon my back, and Don Felix’s ring, as good

luck would have it, on my finger, here stood I, like another

Ariadne, abandoned by the ungrateful rifler of my effects as well

as of my charms. But you may take my word for it, I did not

beguile the sense of my misfortunes in tragedy, elegy, scene

individable, or poem unlimited. I rather fell upon my knees, and

blessed my guardian angel, for having delivered me from a rascal

who must sooner or later fall into the hands of justice. The time

we had passed together I considered in the light of a dead loss,

and my spirits were all on the alert to make up for it. If I had

been inclined to stay in Portugal, as a hanger-on to some woman

of fashion, I should have found no difficulty in suiting myself;

but whether it was patriotism, or some astrological conjunction,

preparing a better fortune for me under the influence of the

planets, my whole heart was bent on getting back into Spain. I

applied to a jeweller, who valued my diamond and gave me cash for

it, and then took my departure with an old Spanish lady who was

going to Seville in a post-chaise.

 

This lady, whose name was Dorothea, had been to see a relation

settled at Coimbra, and was on her return to Seville, where she

lived. There was such a sympathy between us, as made us fast

friends on the very first day of our acquaintance; and the

attachment grew so close while we travelled together, that the

lady insisted, at our journey’s end, on my making her house my

home. I had no reason to repent having formed such a connection.

Never was there a woman of a more charming character. One might

still conclude from the turn of her countenance, and from the

spirit not yet quenched in her eyes, that in her youth the catgut

of many a guitar must have been fretted under her window. As a

proof of this, she had many trials what a state of widowhood was;

her husbands had all been of noble birth, and her finances were

flourishing on the accumulation of her several jointures.

 

Among other admirable qualities, she had that of not visiting

severely the frailties of her own sex. When I let her into the

secret of mine, she entered so warmly into my interests, as to

speak of Zendono with more sincerity than good manners. What

graceless fellows these men are! said she in a tone from which

one might infer that she had met with some light-fingered steward

in the passing of her accounts. They would not be worth picking

off a dunghill, if one could do without them! There is a large

fraternity of sorry scoundrels in the world, who make it their

sport to gain the hearts of women, and then desert them. There

is, however, one consoling circumstance, my dear child. According

to your account, you are by no means bound fast to that faithless

Biscayan. If your marriage with him was sufficiently formal to

save your credit with the world, on the other hand, it was

contracted loosely enough to admit of your trying your luck at a

better match, whenever an opportunity may fall in your way.

 

I went out every day with Dorothea, either to church, or to visit

among her friends; both likely occasions of picking up an

adventure; so that I attracted the notice of several gentlemen.

There were some of them who had a mind to feel how the land lay.

They made their proposals to my venerable protectress; but these

had not wherewithal to defray the expenses of an establishment,

and those were mere unfledged boys under age; an insuperable

objection, which left me very little merit in turning a deaf ear

to them. One day a whim seized Dorothea and me, to go and see a

play at Seville. The bills announced a favourite and standard

piece: El Embaxador de Si-mismo, written by Lope de Vega.

 

Among the actresses who came upon the stage, I discovered one of

my old cronies. It was impossible to have forgotten Phenicia,

that bouncing good humoured girl whom you have seen as

Florimonde’s waiting-maid, and have supped with more than once at

Arsenia’s. I was aware that Phenicia had left Madrid above two

years ago, but had never heard of her turning actress. I longed

so earnestly to embrace her, that the piece appeared quite

tedious. Perhaps, too, there might be some fault in those who

played it, as being neither good enough nor bad enough to afford

me entertainment. For as to my own temper, which is that of

seeking diversion wherever I can find it, I must confess that an

actor supremely ridiculous answers my purpose just as well as the

most finished performer of the age.