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

“Attend to me, Gil Blas. I really like you very much. You are a zealous, confidential lad, full of understanding and discretion. My trust cannot be misplaced in such hands.”

I threw myself at his feet at the music of these words, and kissing his outstretched hand, answered thus: “Is it possible that your excellency can think so favorably of your servant? What a host of enemies will such a preference conjure up against me! But Don Rodrigo is the only man whose privy grudge is formidable enough to alarm me.”

“You have nothing to fear from that quarter,” replied the duke. “I know Calderona. He has loved me from his cradle. Every movement of his heart is in unison with mine. He cherishes whatever I love, and hates in exact proportion to my dislike. So far from being alarmed at his ill will, you ought, on the contrary, to hug yourself on his peculiar partiality.”

This let me at once into the abysses of Don Rodrigo’s character. He shuffled and cut the cards to his own deal, and paid his debts of honor out of his excellency’s pool. One could not be too wary with this gentleman.

“To begin,” pursued the duke, “with a proof of my thorough reliance on your faith, I will open to you a long-projected design. It is necessary for you to be informed of it, to qualify you for the commissions with which I shall hereafter have occasion to entrust you. For a great length of time have I beheld my authority universally respected, my decisions implicitly adopted, places, pensions, governments, viceroyalties, and church preferments, all awaiting my disposal. Without umbrage to my royal master, I may be said to be absolute in Spain. My individual fortunes can be pushed no higher. But I would willingly fix firm the structure I have raised, for the storms are already beginning to beat about the citadel of my peace. My only safety must consist in nominating my nephew, the Count de Lemos, as my successor in the ministry.”

This profound courtier, observing my astonishment, went on thus: “I see plainly, Santillane, I see plainly what surprises you. It seems strange and unaccountable that I should prefer my nephew to my own son, the Duke d’Uzeda. But you are to learn that this last has too narrow a genius to fill up my place in politics; and there are other reasons why I set my face against him. He has found out the secret of making himself agreeable to the king, who wants him for his interior cabinet; and back stairs influence is what I cannot bear. Royal favor is a sort of political mistress; exclusive possession is its only charm. The very existence of the passion is identified with inextinguishable jealousy; nor can we the better endure to share the bliss, because our rival has been nursed in our own bosom.

“Thus do I lay bare the very recesses of my soul. I have already tried to ruin the Duke d’Uzeda with the king; but having failed, am pointing my artillery towards another object. I am determined that the Count de Lemos shall stand first with the Prince of Spain. Being gentleman of his bedchamber, he has opportunities of talking with him continually; and, besides that he has a winning manner with him, I know a sure method of enabling him to succeed in his enterprise. By this device, my nephew will be pitted against my son. The cousins, harboring unfavorable suspicions of each other, will both be forced to place themselves under my protection; and the necessity of the case will render them submissive to my will. This is my project; nor will your assistance be of slender avail to its success. It is you whom I shall make the private channel of communication between the Count de Lemos and myself.”

After this confidence, which sounded, for all the world, like the clink of current coin, my mind was easy about the future.

“At length,” said I, “behold me taking shelter under Plutus’s gutter; the golden shower may drench me to the skin before I shall cry, Hold, enough! It is impossible that the bosom friend of a man, by whom the whole music of the political machine is tempered, should be left to thrum upon the discord of poverty.”

Full of these harmonious visions, my fifths and octaves were but little untuned by the sensible declension of my purse.

V

The joys, the honors, and the miseries of a court life, in the person of Gil Blas.

The minister’s growing partiality towards me was soon noticed. He displayed it ostentatiously, by committing his portfolio to my custody, which it was his habit to carry in his own hand when he went to council. This novelty causing me to be looked upon as a rising favorite, excited the envy of certain persons, so that I was preciously sprinkled with the hellish dew of court malevolence. My two neighbors the secretaries were not the last to compliment me on my budding honors, and invited me to supper at the widow’s, not so much by way of returning my hospitality, as with an eye to business in the cultivation of my acquaintance. Parties were made for me everywhere. Even the haughty Don Rodrigo was cap-in-hand to me. He now called me nothing less than Señor de Santillane, though the moon had scarcely changed her face since he “thee’d” and “thou’d” me, without ever bethinking him that he was talking to something above a pauper. He heaped me up and pressed me down with civilities, especially within eyeshot of our common patron. But the fool was wiser than to be caught with chaff. The good breeding of my returns was nicely proportioned to my thorough detestation of my humble servant: a rascal who had lived in court all his life could not have played the rascal better than I did.

I likewise accompanied my lord duke when he had an audience of the king, which was