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

poor devil lodges in a ready-furnished apartment, where there is not an article of furniture for his use. In a word, he leads a starving life, with all the paraphernalia of a plump-fed courtier. The grand vizier never troubles his head about inquiring into the right or wrong of his affairs, but, satisfied with empty good wishes towards him, leaves his favorite within the ruthless grip of poverty.’ ”

I stopped here to see how the Duke of Lerma would take it! and he asked me, with a smile, what effect the fable had produced on the mind of Atalmuc, and whether the grand vizier had not felt a little offended at his secretary’s presumption.

“No, my noble lord,” answered I, with some little embarrassment at the question; “historians say that his ingenuity was amply rewarded.”

“He was more lucky than discreet,” replied the duke, with a serious air; “there are some ministers who would esteem it no joke to be lectured at that rate. But the king will not be long before he is getting up; my duty demands my attendance.”

After this hint he walked off with hasty strides towards the palace, without throwing away a word more upon me, and to all appearance in high dudgeon at my Indian parable.

I followed him up to the very door of his majesty’s chamber, and went thence to arrange my papers in the places whence they had been taken. Then I entered a closet where our two copying secretaries were at work; for they also were of the migratory party.

“What is the matter with you, Señor de Santillane?” said they at the sight of me. “You are quite down in the mouth! Has anything untoward happened?”

I was too much mortified at the ill success of my narrative to be cautious in the expression of my grief. On the recital of what had passed with the duke, they sympathized in my disappointment.

“You have some reason to fret,” said one of them. “Heaven grant you may be better treated than a secretary of Cardinal Spinosa. This unlucky secretary, tired of working for fifteen months without pay, took the liberty of representing his necessities to his eminence one afternoon, and of asking for a little money towards his subsistence.

“ ‘It is very proper,’ said the minister, ‘that you should be paid. Here,’ pursued he, putting into his hands an order on the royal treasury for a thousand ducats; ‘go and receive that sum; but take notice at the same time that it balances accounts between us.’ The secretary would have pocketed his thousand ducats without remorse, had the thousand ducats been tangible, and the liberty of changing services secure; but just as he stepped down from the cardinal’s threshold, he was tapped on the shoulder by an alguazil, and carried away to the tower of Segovia, where he has been a prisoner for a length of time.”

This little historical anecdote set my teeth chattering. All was lost and gone! There was no comfort from within nor from without! My own impatience had been my ruin! just as if I had not borne starving till patience could avail no longer.

“Alas!” said I, “wherefore must I have blurted out that ill-starred fable, which went so much against the grain of the minister? He might have been just on the point of extricating me from all my miseries; it might have been the moment of that tide in the affairs of men which sets in for sudden and enormous elevation. What wealth, what honors have slipped through the fingers by my blunder! I ought to have been aware that great folks do not love to be forestalled, but require the common privileges of elementary subsistence to be received as favors at their hands. It would have been more prudent to have kept my lenten entertainment longer without bothering the duke about it, and even to have died with hunger, that he might be blamed for letting me.”

Supposing any hope to have remained, my master, when I saw him after dinner, put an extinguisher over it at once. He was very serious with me, contrary to his usual custom, and spoke scarcely at all⁠—an omen of dire dismay for the remainder of the evening. The night did not pass more tranquilly: the chagrin of seeing my agreeable illusions vanish, and the fear of swelling the calendar of state prisoners, left no room but for sighs and lamentations.

The following was the critical day. The duke sent for me in the morning. I went into his chamber, with the ague fit of a criminal before his judge.

“Santillane,” said he, showing me a paper in his hand, “take this order⁠ ⁠…”

I shuddered at the word order, and said within myself, “O heaven! here is the Cardinal Spinosa over again; the carriage is ordered out for Segovia.”

Such was my alarm at this moment, that I interrupted the minister, and throwing myself at his feet, “May it please your lordship,” said I, bathed in tears, “I most humbly beseech your excellency to forgive me for my boldness; necessity alone impelled me to acquaint you with my wretched circumstances.”

The duke could not help laughing at my distress. “Be comforted, Gil Blas,” answered he, “and hearken attentively. Though by betraying your necessities a reproach lights upon me for not having prevented them, I do not take it ill, my friend. I rather ought to be angry with myself for not having inquired how you were going on. But to begin making amends for my want of attention, there is an order on the royal treasury for fifteen hundred ducats, payable at sight. This is not all; I promise you the same sum annually; and moreover, when people of rank and substance shall solicit your interest, I have no objection to your addressing me on their behalf.”

In the excess of joy occasioned by such tidings, I kissed the feet of the minister, who, having commanded me to rise, continued in familiar conversation. I endeavored to rally my free and easy humor; but