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

Your noble gift is the more welcome, as it precedes the knowledge of a service it has been in my power to render you; and I had rather owe it to your generosity than to your gratitude.” This governor of my making did not know what to understand by the hint, and pressed for an explanation. I gave it in full, to his utter astonishment. Neither he nor Baron Steinbach could ever have the slightest suspicion that the government of Valencia was owing to my interest at court. Yet, having no reason to doubt the fact, my friend proposed to grant me an annuity of two thousand ducats, in addition to the little farm at Lirias.

“Hold your hand, Señor Don Alphonso,” exclaimed I at this offer. “You must not set my avarice afloat again. I am myself a living witness, that fortune may give superfluities to her favorites, but has no competence to bestow. With pleasure will I accept of the estate at Lirias, where my present property will be sufficient for all my wants. Rather than increase my cares with my possessions, I would build a hospital out of my existing funds. Riches are a burden; and it must be a foolish animal that would bear fardels in the manger or the field.”

While we were talking after this fashion, Don Caesar came in. His joy was not less than his son’s at the sight of me; and being informed of the family obligations, he again pressed me to accept of the annuity, which I again refused. When the writings were drawn, the father and son made the assignment their joint act and deed, transferring to me the fee simple, and putting me in immediate possession. My secretary half stared the eyes out of his head when I told him we had a landed estate of our own, and how we came by it. “What is the value of this little freehold?” says he. “Five hundred ducats per annum,” answered I; “and the farm in high cultivation, within a ring fence. I have often been there during my stewardship. There is a small house on the banks of the Guadalaviar, in a little hamlet, surrounded by a charming country.”

“What pleases me better than all,” cried Scipio, “is, that we shall have plenty of sporting, rare living, and excellent wine. Come, master, let us leave this crowded city, and hasten to our hermitage.”

“I long to be there as much as you can do,” answered I; “but I must first go to the Asturias. My father and mother are not in comfortable circumstances. They shall therefore end their days with me at Lirias. Heaven, perhaps, has thrown this windfall in my way to try my filial duty, and would punish me for the neglect of it.”

Scipio approved my purpose, and urged its speedy execution. “Yes, my friend,” said I, “we will set out as soon as possible. I shall consider it as my dear delight to share the gifts of fortune with the authors of my existence. We shall soon be settled in our country retreat; and then will I write these two Latin verses over the door of my farmhouse, in letters of gold, for the pious edification of my rustic neighbors:⁠—

“Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna, valete.
Sat me lusistis; ludite nunc alios.”

Book X I

Gil Blas sets out for the Asturias, and passes through Valladolid, where he goes to see his old master, Doctor Sangrado⁠—By accident, he comes across Señor Manuel Ordóñez, governor of the hospital.

Just as I was arranging matters to take my departure from Madrid, and go with Scipio to the Asturias, Paul V gave the Duke of Lerma a cardinal’s hat. This pope, wishing to establish the inquisition in the kingdom of Naples, invested the minister with the purple, and by that means hoped to bring King Philip over to so pious and praiseworthy a design. Those who were best acquainted with this new member of the sacred college, thought, much like myself, that the church was in a fair way for apostolical purity, after so ghostly an acquisition.

Scipio, who would have liked better to see me once more blazing at court, than either cloistered or rusticated, advised me to show my face at the cardinal’s audience. “Perhaps,” said he, “his eminence, finding you at large by the king’s order, may think it unnecessary to affect any further displeasure against you, and may even reinstate you in his service.”

“My good friend Scipio,” answered I, “you seem to forget that my liberty was granted only on condition of making myself scarce in the two Castiles. Besides, can you suppose me so soon inclined to become an absentee from my domain of Lirias? I have told you before, and I tell it you once again, though the Duke of Lerma should restore me to his good graces, though he should even offer me Don Rodrigo de Calderona’s place, I would refuse it. My resolution is taken: I mean to go and find out my parents at Oviedo, and carry them with me to Valencia. As for you, my good fellow, if you repent of having linked your fate with mine, you have only to say so; I am ready to give you half of my ready money, and you may stay at Madrid, where fortune puts on her kindest smiles to those who woo her lustily.”

“What, then,” replied my secretary, a little affected by these words, “can you suspect me of any unwillingness to follow you into your retreat? The very idea is an injury to my zeal and my attachment. What, Scipio! that faithful appendage, who would willingly have passed the remnant of his days with you in the tower of Segovia, rather than abandon you to your wretched fate, can he feel sorrowful at the prospect of an abode where a thousand rural delights are waiting to smile on his arrival? No, no, I have