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

“You have nothing to do,” added the heir of Lucinda’s wit and wisdom, “but to wait for us under these willows; we shall not be long before we are with you again.”

“Señor Don Raphael,” exclaimed I with a horselaugh, “tell us rather to wait for you under a more substantial tree⁠—the gallows. If you once leave us, we are in a month’s mind that we shall not see you again till the day after the fair.”

“This suspicion of our honor goes against the grain,” replied Señor Ambrose; “but we deserve that our characters should suffer in your esteem. It is but reason that you should distrust our purity, after the affair at Valladolid, and should fancy that we shall make it no more a matter of conscience to play at the devil take the hindmost with you, than with the party that we left in the lurch in that town. Yet you deceive yourselves egregiously. The gang upon whom we turned the tables were people of very bad character, and their company began to be disreputable to us. Thus far justice must be done to the members of our profession, that there is no bond in all civilized life less liable to be broken by personal and private interest; but when there are no feelings in common, our good understanding will be the worse for wear, as it happens among other descriptions of men. Wherefore, Señor Gil Blas, I entreat you, and Señor Don Alphonso as well as you, to be somewhat more liberal in your construction of us, and to set your hearts at ease respecting Don Raphael’s and my whim about going to Segorba.”

“It is the easiest thing in the world,” observed Lucinda’s hopeful brat, to quash all subject of uneasiness on that score; “they have only to remain treasurers of the exchequer, and they will have a sufficient pledge in their hands for our return. You see, Señor Gil Blas, that we are all fair and above board. You shall both hold security for our reappearance, and you may rest assured that for Ambrose and myself, we shall set off without the slightest misgiving of your taking to your heels with so valuable a deposit. After so substantial a proof of our good faith, will you not place implicit confidence in us?”

“Yes, gentlemen,” said I, “and you may do at once whatever seems good in your own eyes.”

They took their departure immediately, carrying the bottle and the wallet along with them, and left me under the willows with Don Alphonso, who said to me, after they were out of sight, “Now is the time, Señor Gil Blas, now is the time to open my heart to you. I am angry with myself for having been so easily prevailed on to herd thus far with these two knaves. You have no idea how many times I have quarrelled with myself on that score. Yesterday evening, while I was watching the horses, a thousand mortifying reflections rushed upon my mind. I thought it did not become a young man of honorable principles to live among such scurvy fellows as Don Raphael and Lamela; that if by ill luck, some day or other⁠—and many a more unlikely thing has happened⁠—the success of our swindling tricks should throw us into the hands of justice, I might sustain the shame of being tried with them as a reputed thief, and undergoing the disgraceful sentence of the law. These frightful thoughts present themselves incessantly to my imagination, and I will own to you that I have determined, as the only means of escape from the contamination of their bad actions, to part from them forever. I can scarcely suppose that you will disapprove of my design.”

“No, I promise you,” answered I; “though you have seen me perform the part of the alguazil in Samuel Simon’s comedy, do not fancy that such pieces as those are got up to my taste. I take heaven to witness that while acting in so witty a scene, I said to myself, ‘Faith and troth, Master Gil Blas, if justice should come and lay hold of you by the weasand at this moment, you would well deserve the penitential wages of your iniquity.’ I feel therefore no more disposed than yourself, Don Alphonso, to tarry longer in such bad company; and if you think well of it, I will bear you company. When these gentlemen come back, we will demand a balancing of the accounts, and tomorrow morning, or even tonight before tomorrow, we will make our bow to them.”

The lovely Seraphina’s lover approved my proposal. “Let us get to Valencia,” said he, “and we will embark for Italy, where we shall be able to enter into the service of the Venetian republic. Will it not be far better to take up the profession of arms, than to lead such a dastardly and disreputable life as we are now engaged in? We shall even be in a condition to make a very handsome figure with the money that will be coming to us. Not that I appropriate to myself without remorse a fund so unfairly established; but besides that necessity obliges me to it, if ever I acquire any property in my campaigns, I make a vow to indemnify Samuel Simon.”

I gave Don Alphonso to understand that my sentiments coincided with his own, and we resolved at once to separate ourselves from our companions on the following morning before daybreak. We were above the temptation of profiting by their absence, that is, of marching off in a hurry with the sum total of the finances; the confidence they had reposed in leaving us masters of the whole revenue did not permit such a thought so much as to pass through our minds.

Ambrose and Don Raphael returned from Segorba just at the close of day. The first thing they told us was, that their journey had been propitious, for they had laid the cornerstone of a rascality which,