Gil Blas, Alain-René Lesage [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗

never cross him. Tell him, however, that he need not have insulted me. I should have left the course open to my rival, without his warning me from the field: for so fickle a lover has not soul enough about him to pay for the degradation of soliciting his return.” With this sentiment she gave me my dismissal, and retired in a whirlwind of passion against Don Lewis.

My exit was conducted entirely to my own satisfaction, for I conceived that with due cultivation of my talent I might in time become a consummate hypocrite and most successful cheat. I returned home on the strength of it, where I found my worthy master Mendoza and Pacheco supping together, and rattling away as if they had been playfellows from their cradles. Aurora saw at once, by my self-sufficient air, that her commission had not been neglected in my hands. “Here you are again then, Gil Blas,” said she; “give us an account of your embassy.”

Wit and invention was all I had to trust to, so I told them I had delivered the packet into Isabella’s own hands; who, after having glanced over the contents of the two letters, so far from seeming disconcerted, burst into a fit of laughter, as if she had been mad, and said, “Upon my word, our young men of fashion write in a pretty style. It must be owned they are much more entertaining than scribes of plebeian rank.”

“It was a very good way of getting out of the scrape,” exclaimed my mistress; “she must be an arrant coquette.”

“For my part,” said Don Lewis, “I cannot trace a feature of Isabella in this conduct. Her character must have been completely metamorphosed in my absence.”

“She struck me, too, in a very different light,” replied Aurora. “It must be allowed some women can assume all modes and fashions at will. I was once in love with one of that description, and a fine dance she led me. Gil Blas, can you tell the whole story? She had an air of propriety about her which might have imposed upon a whole synod of old maids.”

“It is true,” said I, putting in my oar; “it was a face to play the devil with a sworn bachelor: I could scarcely have been proof against it myself.”

The personated Mendoza and Pacheco shouted with laughter at my manner of expressing myself; the one for the false witness I bore against a culprit of my own creation; the other laughed simply at the phrase in which my anathema was couched. We went on talking about the versatility of women; and the verdict, after hearing the evidence, all on one side, was given against Isabella. A convicted coquette! and sentence passed on her accordingly. Don Lewis made a fresh vow never to see her more, and Don Felix, after his example, swore to hold her in eternal abhorrence. By dint of these mutual protestations, a sort of friendship was established on the spur of the occasion, and they promised on both sides to keep no secrets from each other. The time after supper passed in ingratiating intercourse, and the time seemed short till they retired to their separate apartments. I followed Aurora to hers, where I gave her a faithful account of my conversation with the doctor’s daughter, not forgetting the most trivial circumstance. She had much ado to help kissing me for joy.

“My dear Gil Blas,” said she, “I am delighted with your spirit. When one has the misfortune to be engaged in a passion not to be gratified but by stratagems, what an advantage is it to secure on the right side a lad of so enterprising a genius as yourself. Courage, my friend! we have thrown a rival into the back ground, whose presence in the scene might have marred our comedy. So far, all is well. But as lovers are subject to strange vagaries, it seems to me that we must make short work of it, and bring Aurora de Guzmán on the stage tomorrow.”

“The idea met with my entire approbation; so, leaving Señor Don Felix with his page, I withdrew to bed in an adjoining closet.”

VI

Aurora’s devices to secure Don Lewis Pacheco’s affections.

The two new friends met as soon as they came down in the morning. The ceremonies of the day began with reciprocal embraces, about which it was impossible for Aurora to be squeamish, for then Don Felix must have dropped the mask altogether. They went out and walked about town arm in arm, attended by Chilindrón, Don Lewis’s footman, and myself. We loitered about the gates of the university, looking at some posting-bills and advertisements of new publications. There were a good many people amusing themselves, like us, with reading over the contents of these placards. Among the rest, my eye was caught by a little fellow who was giving his opinion very learnedly on the works exposed for sale. I observed him to be heard with profound attention, and could not help remarking how amply he deserved it in his own opinion. He was evidently a complete coxcomb, of an arrogant and dictatorial stamp, the common curse of your gentry under size.

“This new translation of Horace,” said he, “announced here to the public in letters of a yard long, is a prose work, executed by an old college author. The students have taken a great fancy to the book, so as to carry off four editions; but not a copy has been bought by any man of taste!”

His criticisms were scarcely more candid on any of the other books: he mauled them every one without mercy. It was easy enough to see he was an author! I should not have been sorry to have stayed out his harangue, but Don Lewis and Don Felix were not to be left in the lurch. Now, they took as little pleasure in this gentleman’s remarks as they felt interest in the books which he was Scaligerizing,