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

The home-strokes he had laid on were not lost to my sober recollection. My neglect of filial piety struck home to my heart, and melted me into tears. When I recollected how much my childhood was indebted to my parents, what pains they had taken in my education, these affecting thoughts gave language for the moment to the still small voice of nature and gratitude; but the language was never translated into solid sense and service. An habitual callousness succeeded this transient sensation, and peremptorily cancelled every obligation of humanity. There are many fathers besides mine who will acknowledge this portrait of their sons.

Avarice and ambition, dividing me between them, annihilated every trace of my former temper. I lost all my gayety, became absent and moping; in short, a most unsociable animal. Fabricio, seeing me so furiously bent on accumulation, and so perfectly indifferent to him, very rarely came to see me. He could not help saying one day, “In truth, Gil Blas, you are quite an altered man. Before you were about the court, you were always pleasant and easy. Now you are all agitation and turmoil. You form project after project to make a fortune, and the more you realize, the wider your views of aggrandizement extend. But this is not the worst! You have no longer that expansion of heart, those open manners, which form the charm of friendship. On the contrary, you wrap yourself round, and shut the avenues of your heart even to me. In your very civilities I detect the violence you impose upon yourself. In short, Gil Blas is no longer the same Gil Blas whom I once knew.”

“You really have a most happy talent for bantering,” answered I, with repulsive jocularity. “But this metamorphose into the shag of a savage is not perceptible to myself.”

“Your own eyes,” replied he, “are insensible to the change, because they are fascinated. But the fact remains the same. Now, my friend, tell me fairly and honestly, shall we live together as heretofore? When I used to knock at your door in the morning, you came and opened it yourself, between asleep and awake, and I walked in without ceremony. Now, what a difference! You have an establishment of servants. They keep me cooling my heels in your antechamber; my name must be sent in before I can speak to you. When this is got over, what is my reception? A cold inclination of the head, and the insolent strut of office. Anyone would suppose that my visits were growing troublesome! Can you suppose this to be treatment for a man who was once on equal terms with you? No, Santillane, it can never be, nor will I bear it longer. Farewell. Let us part without ill blood. We shall both be better asunder; you will get rid of a troublesome censor, and I of a purse-proud upstart who does not know himself.”

I felt myself more exasperated than reformed by his reproaches, and suffered him to take his departure without the slightest effort to overcome his resolution. In the present temper of my mind, the friendship of a poet did not seem a catch of sufficient importance to break one’s heart about its loss. I found ample amends in the intimacy of some subaltern attendants about the king’s person, with whom a similarity of humor had lately connected me closely. These new acquaintances of mine were for the most part men from no one knows where, pushed up to their appointments more by luck than merit. They had all got into warm berths, and, wretches as they were, measuring their own consequence by the excess of royal bounty, forgot their origin as scandalously as I forgot mine. We gave ourselves infinite credit for what told so much and bitterly to our disgrace. O Fortune! what a jade you are, to distribute your favors at haphazard as you do! Epictetus was perfectly in the right when he likened you to a jilt of fashion, prowling about in masquerade, and tipping the wink to every blackguard who parades the street.

Scipio’s scheme of marriage for Gil Blas⁠—The match, a rich goldsmith’s daughter⁠—Circumstances connected with this speculation.

One evening, on the departure of my supper company, finding myself alone with Scipio, I asked him what he had been doing that day. “Striking a masterstroke,” answered he. “I intend that you should marry. A goldsmith of my acquaintance has an only daughter, and I mean to make up a match between you.”

“A goldsmith’s daughter!” exclaimed I, with a disdainful air; “are you out of your senses? Can you think of tying me up to a trinket-maker? People of a certain character in society, and on a certain footing at court, ought to have much higher views of things.”

“Pardon me, sir,” rejoined Scipio; “do not take the subject up in that light. Recollect that nobility accrues by the male side, and do not ride a higher horse than a thousand jockeys of quality whom I could name. Do you know that the heiress in question will bring a hundred thousand ducats in her pocket? Is not that a pretty little sprig of jewelry?”

To the resounding echo of so large a sum my ears were instantly symphonious. “The day is your own,” said I to the secretary; “the fortune determines the case in the lady’s favor. When do you mean to put me in possession?”

“Fair and softly, sir,” answered he; “the more haste, the worse speed. It will be necessary for me first to communicate the affair to the father, and instil the advantage of it into his capacity.”

“Good!” rejoined I, with a burst of laughter; “is it thereabouts you are? The match is far advanced in its progress towards consummation.”

“Much nearer than you suppose,” replied he. “But one hour’s conversation with the goldsmith, and I pledge myself for his consent. But, before we go any farther, let us come to an agreement,