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

out betimes in the morning, and never returned at night before bedtime, there was not much to quarrel about on that score. All day I was the hero of my own stage, or rather of the duke’s. It was a principal part that I was playing. But when I retired from this brilliant theatre to my own cockloft, the great lord vanished, and poor Gil Blas was left behind, without a royal image in his pocket, and, what was worse, without the means of conjuring up his glorious resemblance. Besides that it would have wounded my pride to have divulged my necessities, there was not a creature of my acquaintance who could have assisted me but Navarro; and him I had too palpably neglected, since my introduction at court, to venture on soliciting his benevolence. I had been obliged to sell my wardrobe article by article. There was nothing more left than was absolutely necessary to make a decent appearance. I no longer went to the ordinary, because I had no longer wherewithal to pay my score. How, then, did I make shift to keep body and soul together? There was every morning, in our offices, a scanty breakfast set out, consisting of a little bread and wine; this was the whole of our commons on the minister’s establishment. I never knew what it was to exceed this stint during the day, and at night I most frequently went supperless to bed.

Such was the fare of a man who made a splendid figure at court; but his illustrious fortunes, like those of other courtiers, were more a subject of pity than of grudge. I could no longer resist the pressure of my circumstances, and ultimately resolved on their disclosure at a seasonable opportunity. By good luck such an occasion offered at the Escurial, whither the king and the Prince of Spain removed some days afterwards.

VI

Gil Blas gives the Duke of Lerma a hint of his wretched condition⁠—That minister deals with him accordingly.

When the king kept his court at the Escurial, all the world was at free quarters: under such easy circumstances I did not feel where the saddle galled. My bed was in a wardrobe near the duke’s chamber. One morning that minister, having got up, according to his cursed custom, at daybreak, made me take my writing apparatus, and follow him into the palace gardens. We went and sat down under an avenue of trees; myself, as he would have it, in the posture of a man writing on the crown of his hat; his attitude was with a paper in his hand, and anyone would have supposed he had been reading. At some distance, we must have looked as if the scale of Europe was to turn upon our decision; but between ourselves, who partook of it, the talk was miserably trifling.

For more than an hour had I been tickling his excellency’s fancy with all the conceits engendered by a merry nature and an eccentric course of life, when two magpies perched on the trees above us. Their clack and clatter was so obstreperous as to force our attention, whether we would or no.

“These birds,” said the duke, “seem to be in dudgeon with one another. I should like to learn the cause of their quarrel.”

“My lord,” said I, “your curiosity reminds me of an Indian story in Pilpay, or some other fabulist.” The minister insisted on the particulars, and I related them in the following terms:⁠—

“There reigned in Persia a good monarch, who, not being blessed with capacities of sufficient compass to govern his dominions in his own person, left the care of them to his grand vizier. That minister, whose name was Atalmuc, was possessed of first-rate talents. He supported the weight of that unwieldy monarchy, without sinking under the burden. He preserved it in profound peace. His art consisted in uniting the love of the royal authority with the reverence of it; while the people at large looked up to the vizier as to an affectionate father, though a devoted servant of his prince. Atalmuc had a young Cachemirian among his secretaries, by name Zeangir, to whom he was particularly attached. He took pleasure in his conversation, invited him frequently to the chase, and opened to him his most secret thoughts.

“One day, as they were hunting together in a wood, the vizier, at the croaking of two ravens on a tree, said to his secretary, ‘I should like to know what those birds are talking about in their jargon.’

“ ‘My lord,’ answered the Cachemirian, ‘your wishes may be fulfilled.’

“ ‘Indeed! How so?’ replied Atalmuc.

“ ‘Because,’ rejoined Zeangir, ‘a dervish, read in many mysteries, has taught me the language of birds. If you wish it, I will lay my ear close to these, and will repeat to you, word for word, whatever they may happen to say.’

“The vizier agreed to the proposal. The Cachemirian got near the ravens, and affected to suck in their discourse. Then, returning to his master, ‘My lord,’ said he, ‘would you believe it? We are ourselves the topic of their talk.’

“ ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed the Persian minister. ‘Prithee now, what do they say of us?’

“ ‘One of the two,’ replied the secretary, ‘spoke thus: Here he is, the very man; the grand vizier, Atalmuc, the guardian eagle of Persia, hovering over her like the parent bird over its nest, watching without intermission for the safety of its brood. For the purpose of unbending from his wearisome toils, he is hunting in this wood with his faithful Zeangir. How happy must that secretary be, to serve so partial and indulgent a master! Fair and softly, observed the other raven shrewdly, fair and softly! Make not too much parade about that Cachemirian’s happiness. Atalmuc, it is true, talks and jokes familiarly with him, honors him with his confidence, and may very possibly intend to signalize his friendship by a lucrative post; but between the cup and the lip Zeangir may perish with thirst. The