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

this house. At least, replied the young man, I have influence

enough here to put an honest rustic like you into the right

train. That being the case, resumed the captain with a smile, I

place myself under your protection. I accept the pledge, rejoined

Pedrillo. You have only to acquaint me with your particular

taste, and I engage to give you a savoury slice out of the

ministerial pasty.

 

We had no sooner opened our minds to this young fellow, so full

of kind assurances, than he inquired where Don Annibal resided;

then, promising that we should hear from him on the following

day, he vanished without informing us what he meant to do, or

even telling us whether he belonged to the Duke of Lerma’s

household. I was curious to know what this Pedrillo was, whose

turn of mind appeared to be so brisk and active. He is a brave

lad, said the captain, who waited on me some years ago, but

finding me out at elbows, went away in search of a better

service. There was no offence to me in all that; it is very

natural to change when one cannot be worse off. The creature is

pleasant enough, not deficient in parts, and happy in a spirit of

intrigue which would wheedle with the devil. But notwithstanding

all his fine pretence, I am not sanguine in my reckoning on the

zeal he has just testified for me. Perhaps, said I, there may be

some plausibility in his designs. Should he be a retainer, for

example, to any of the duke’s principal officers, it will be in

his power to serve you. You have lived too long in the world not

to know that in great houses everything is done by party and

cabal; that the masters are governed by two or three upper

servants about their persons, who, in their turn, are governed by

that multitude of menials attendant upon them.

 

On the next morning we saw Pedrillo at our breakfast table.

Gentlemen, said he, if I did not explain myself yesterday as to

my means of serving Captain Chinchilla, it was because we were

not in a place where such a communication could be made with

safety. Besides, I was disposed to ascertain whether the thing

was feasible, before you were made parties in it. Understand,

then, that I am the confidential servant of Signor Don Rodrigo de

Calderona, the Duke of Lerma’s first secretary. My master, who is

much addicted to women, goes almost every evening to sup with a

little Arragonian nightingale, whom he keeps in a cage near the

purlieus of the court. She is quite a young girl from Albarazin,

a most lovely creature. She has some wit as well as beauty, and

sings enchantingly; they call her the Spanish Syren. I am the

bearer of some tender inquiries every morning, and am just come

from her. I have proposed to her to pass off Signor Don Annibal

for her uncle, and the object of the forgery is to engage her

lover in his interests. She is very willing to lend her aid in

the business. Besides some little commission to which she looks

forward on the profits, it will tickle her vanity to be taken for

the niece of a military man.

 

Signor de Chinchilla looked very grim at this suggestion. He

declared his extreme abhorrence of becoming a party concerned in

a mere swindling trick, and still more of adopting a female

adventurer, no better than she should be, into his family, and

thus casting a stain upon its immaculate purity. It was not only

for himself that he felt all this soreness; there was a recoil of

ignominy on his ancestors, which would lay their honours level

with the dust. This morbid delicacy seemed out of season to

Pedrillo, who could not help expressing his contempt of it thus.

You must surely be out of your wits to take the matter up on that

footing. A fine market you bring your morals to, you dictators

from the plough, with your ridiculous squeamishness! Now you seem

a good sensible man, appealing to me as he spoke these last

words. Can you believe your ears when you hear such scruples

advanced? Heaven defend us! At court, of all the places in the

world, to look at morals through a microscope! Let fortune come

under what haggard form she may, they hug her in their arms, and

swear she is a beauty.

 

My way of thinking was precisely with Pedrillo; and we dinned it

so stoutly into both the captain’s ear; as to make him the

Spanish Syren’s uncle against nature and inclination. When we had

so far prevailed over his pride, we all three set about drawing

up a new memorial for the minister, which was revised, with a

copious interlacing of additions and corrections. I then wrote it

out fair, and Pedrillo carried it to the Arragonian chauntress,

who that very evening put it into the hands of Signor Don

Rodrigo, telling her story so artlessly that the secretary,

really supposing her the captain s niece, promised to take up his

case. A few days afterwards we reaped the fruits of our little

project. Pedrillo came back to our house with the lofty air of a

benefactor. Good news, said he to Chinchilla. The king is going

to make a new grant of officers, places, and pensions; nor will

your name be forgotten in the list. But I am specially

commissioned to inquire what present you purpose making to the

Spanish Syren, for the piper must be paid. As to myself, I vow

and protest that I will not take a farthing; the pleasure of

having contributed to patch up my old master’s broken fortunes,

is more to me than all the ingots of the Indies. But it is not

precisely so with our nymph of Albarazin. she has a little Jewish

blood to plead, when the Christian precept of loving your

neighbour as herself is preached up to her. She would pick her

own natural father’s pocket; so judge you whether she would be

above making a bargain with a travelling uncle.

 

She has only to name her own terms, answered Don Annibal.

Whatever my pension may be, she shall have the third of it

annually if she pleases; I will pledge my word for it; and that

proportion ought to satisfy her craving, if his Catholic Majesty

had settled his whole exchequer on me. I would as soon take your

word as your bond, for my own part, replied the nimble-footed

messenger of Don Rodrigo; I know that it will stand the assay;

but you have to deal with a little creature who knows herself,

and naturally supposes that she knows all the rest of the world

by the same token. Besides, she would like better to take it in

the lump; two-thirds to be paid down now in ready money. Why, how

the devil does she mean that I should get the wherewithal? bawled

the captain in a quandary. Does she take me for an auditor of

public accounts, or treasurer to a charity? You cannot have made

her acquainted with my circumstances. Yes, but I have, replied

Pedrillo; she knows very well that you are poorer than Job; after

what she has heard from me she could think no otherwise. But do

not make yourself uneasy, my brain is never at a loss for an

expedient. I know an old scoundrel of an usurer, who will take

ten per cent, if he can get no more. You must assign your first

year’s pension to him, in acknowledgment for a like valuable

consideration from him, which you will in point of fact receive,

only deducting the above-mentioned interest. As to security, the

lender will take your castle at Chinchilla, for want of better;

there will be no dispute about that.

 

The captain declared his readiness to accept the terms, in case

of his being so fortunate as to possess any beneficial interest

in the good things to be given away the next morning. It happened

accordingly. He got a government with a pension of three hundred

pistoles. As soon as the news came, he signed and sealed as

required, settled his little concerns in town, and went off again

for New Castile with a balance of some few pistoles in his

favour.

 

CH. XIII. — Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at

court. Great ecstacy on both sides. They adjourn together, and

compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be

anticipated.

 

I HAD contracted a habit of going to the royal palace every

morning, where I lounged away two or three good hours in seeing

the good people pass to and fro; but their aspect was less

imposing there than in other places, as the lesser stars turn

pale in the presence of the sun. One day as I was walking back

and fore, and strutting about the apartments, making about as

wise a figure there as my neighbours, I spied out Fabricio, whom

I had left at Valladolid in the service of a hospital director.

It surprised me not a little that he was chatting familiarly with

the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Marquis of Santa Cruz, Those

two noblemen, if my senses did not deceive me, were listening

with admiration to his prattle. To crown the whole, he was as

handsomely dressed as a grandee.

 

Surely I must be mistaken! thought I. Can this possibly be the

son of Nunez the barber? More likely it is some young courtier

who bears a strong resemblance to him. But my suspense was of no

long duration. The party broke up, and I accosted Fabricio. He

knew me at once; took me by the hand, and after pressing through

the crowd to get out of the precincts, said with a hearty

greeting, My dear Gil Blas, I am delighted to see you again. What

are you doing at Madrid? Are you still at service? Some place

about the court perhaps? How do matters stand with you? Let me

into the history of all that has happened to you since your

precipitate flight from Valladolid. You ask a great many

questions in a breath, replied I; and we are not in a fit place

for story-telling. You are in the right, answered he; we shall be

better at home Come, I will shew you the way; it is not far hence

I am quite my own master, with all my comforts about me;

perfectly easy as to the main chance, with a light heart and a

happy temper; because I am determined to see everything on the

bright side.

 

I accepted the proposal, and Fabricio escorted me. We stopped at

a house of magnificent appearance, where he told me that he

lived. There was a court to cross; on one side it had a grand

staircase leading to a suite of state apartments, and on the

other a small flight, dark and narrow, whither we betook

ourselves to a residence elevated in a different sense from what

he had boasted. It consisted of a single room, which my

contriving friend had divided into four by deal partitions. The

first served as an antechamber to the second, where he lay: of

the third he made his closet, of the last his kitchen, The

chamber and antechamber were papered with maps, and many a sheet

of philosophical discussion; nor was the furniture by any means

unsuitable to the hangings. There was a large brocade bed much

the worse for wear; tawdry old chairs with coarse yellow

coverings, fringed with Grenada silk of the same colour, a table

with gilt feet, and a cloth over it that once aspired to be red,

bordered with tinsel and embroidery tarnished by that old

corroder, time; with an