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

As we were chatting in this strain, we got nearer and nearer to the house, where the door opened as by magic, the moment Scipio announced Señor Gil Blas de Santillane, who was coming to take possession of his estate. At the mention of this name, received with reverential homage by the people who had been instructed in the transfer of their obedience, my carriage was admitted into a large court, where I alighted; then, leaning with all my weight upon Scipio, as if walking was a derogation from my dignity, and putting on the great man after the most consequential models, I reached the hall, where, on my entrance, seven or eight servants made their obeisances. They told me they were come to welcome their new master with their best loves and duties; that Don Caesar and Don Alphonso de Leyva had chosen them to form my establishment, one in quality of cook, another as under-cook, a third as scullion, a fourth as porter, and the rest as footmen; with an express injunction to receive no wages or perquisites, as those two noblemen meant to defray all the expenses of my household. The cook, Master Joachim by name, was commander-in-chief of this battalion, and announced to me the whole array of the campaign; he declared that he had laid in a large stock of the choicest wines in Spain, and insinuated that for the solid supply of the table, he flattered himself a person of his education and experience, who had been six years at the head of my Lord Archbishop of Valencia’s kitchen, must know how to dish up a dinner so as to meet the ideas of the most fastidious layman in Christendom. “But the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” added he; “so I will just go and give you a specimen of my talent. You had better take a walk, my lord, while dinner is getting ready; look about the premises, and see whether you find them in tenantable condition for a person of your lordship’s dignity.”

The reader may guess whether I did not stir my stumps; and Scipio, still more eager than myself to take a bird’s-eye inventory of our goods and chattels, dragged me back and fore from room to room. There was not a corner of the house that we did not peep into, from the garret to the cellar; not a closet or a cranny, at least as we supposed, could escape our prying curiosity; and in every fresh room we went into, I had occasion to admire the kindness of Don Caesar and his son towards me. I was struck, among other things, with two apartments, which were as elegantly furnished as they could be, without misplaced magnificence. One of them was hung with tapestry, the celebrated manufacture of the Low Countries; the velvet bed and chairs were still very handsome, though in the fashion of the time when the Moors possessed the kingdom of Valencia. The furniture of the other room was in the same taste: to wit, an old suit of hangings, made of yellow Genoa damask, with a bed and armchairs to match, fringed with blue silk. All these effects, which would have furnished but a sorry display in an upholsterer’s shop, made no contemptible appearance in their present situation.

After having rummaged over every article of the paraphernalia, my secretary and myself returned to the dining-room, where the cloth was laid for two; we sat down, and in an instant they served up so delicious an olla podrida, that we could not help revolving on the various turns of the fate below, which had parted the good Archbishop of Valencia from his cook. We had in truth a most catholic and ravenous appetite⁠—a circumstance which added new zest to our praises and enjoyments. Between every succeeding help, my servants, with all the alacrity of fresh and holiday service, filled our large glasses to the brim with wine, the choicest vintage of La Mancha. Scipio, not thinking it genteel to express aloud the inward chucklings of his heart at our dainty fare, winked and nodded his delight, and spoke by signs, which I returned with the like dumb eloquence of overflowing satisfaction. The remove was a dish of roast quails, flanking a little leveret in high order, just kept long enough; for this we left our hash, good as it was, and gorged ourselves to a surfeit on the game. When we had eaten as if we had never eaten before, and pledged one another in due proportion, we rose from table, and went into the garden to look out for some cool, pleasant spot, and take our afternoon’s nap voluptuously.

If hitherto my secretary had goggled satisfaction at what he had seen, he stared wider and grinned broader at this vista vision of the garden. He scarcely allowed the comparison to be in favor of the Escurial. The reason of its extreme niceness was, that Don Gaesar, who came backwards and forwards to Lirias, took pleasure in improving and ornamenting it. All the walks well gravelled and lined with orange trees, a large reservoir of white marble, with a lion in bronze spouting water like a dolphin’s deputy in the middle, the beauty of the flower borders, the profusion and variety of the fruit trees⁠—such pretty particulars as these made Scipio smack his lips, and snuff the air; but his raptures reached their summit at the gradual descent of a long walk, leading to the bailiff’s cottage, and overarched by the interwoven boughs of the trees planted on each side. While eulogizing a place so well adapted for a refuge from the intenseness of the heat, we made a halt, and sat down at the foot of an elm, where sleep required very little cunning to entangle two high-fed, half-tipsy blades, just risen from so voluptuous and voracious a repast.

In about two hours we were startled out of