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

gently to the fold. It is he himself, my child, it is he who warns and guides us. Let us not be deaf to the call of his voice; let us abandon all our wicked courses; let us begin from this day to work out our salvation with diligence and in the spirit of repentance: we had better spend the remainder of our days in this convent, and consecrate them to penitence and devotion.’

“I applauded Raphael’s sentiment,” continued brother Ambrose, “and we formed the glorious resolution of becoming Carthusians. To carry it into effect, we applied to the venerable prior, who was no sooner made acquainted with our purpose, than, to ascertain whether our call was from the world above or the world beneath, he appointed us to cells, and all the strictness of monkish discipline, for a whole year. We acted up to the rules with equal regularity and fortitude, and, by way of reward, were admitted among the novices. Our condition was so much what we wished it, and our hearts were so full of religious zeal, that we underwent the toils of our novitiate with unflinching courage. When that was over, we professed; after which, Don Raphael, appearing admirably well qualified, both by natural talent and various experience, for the management of secular concerns, was chosen assistant to an old friar who was at that time proctor. The son of Lucinda would infinitely have preferred dedicating every remaining moment of his existence to prayer; but he found it necessary to sacrifice his taste for devotion, in furtherance of the general prosperity. He entered with so much zeal and knowledge into the interests of the house, that he was considered as the most eligible person to succeed the old proctor, who died three years afterwards. Don Raphael accordingly fills that office at present; and it may be truly said that he discharges his duty to the entire satisfaction of all our fathers, who praise in the highest terms his conduct in the administration of our temporalities. What is most of all miraculous, and shows the hand of heaven in his conversion, is that, with such an accumulation of business rushing in upon him in his bursarial department, his regards are inalienably fixed on the world to come. When business leaves him but a moment to recruit nature, instead of lavishing the short period in indulgence, his thoughts wing their way into the regions of devout and holy meditation. In short, he is the most exemplary member of this body.”

At this period of our conversation I interrupted Lamela by an ebullition of joy to which I gave vent at the sight of Raphael coming in. “Here he is!” exclaimed I; “behold that righteous bursar for whom I have been so impatiently waiting.”

With a leap and a bound did I run to meet and embrace him. He submitted to the hug with his newly-acquired resignation; and, without betraying the slightest shock at meeting with an old companion of his profaner hours, his words were dictated by the spirit of gentleness and humility: “The powers above be praised, Señor de Santillane, the powers be praised for this kind providence whereby we meet again.”

“In good truth, my dear Raphael,” replied I, “your happy destiny pleases me as much as if it had been my own good luck; brother Ambrose has told me the whole story of your conversion, and the tale almost moved me to a similar change. What a glorious lot for you two, my friends, when you have reason to flatter yourselves with being among that picked number of the elect, who have eternal happiness thrust upon them whether they will or no!”

“Two miserable sinners like ourselves,” resumed the son of Lucinda, with an air which marked the extreme of sanctified morality, “must not hope that our own merits are of weight enough to save our souls; but even the wicked one who repenteth findeth grace with the Father of mercies. And you, Señor Gil Blas,” added he, “is it not time to lay in a claim for pardon of the offences which you have committed? What is your business here in Valencia? Are you not hankering after some office of devil’s deputy, and making shipwreck of your voyage to another world?”

“Not so, by the blessing of heaven,” answered I; “since I turned my back on the court, I have led a very moral sort of life; sometimes enjoying rural recreations on an estate of mine at a few leagues’ distance from this town, and sometimes coming hither to pass my time with my friend the governor, whom you both of you must know perfectly well.”

On this cue I related to them the story of Don Alphonso de Leyva. They heard the particulars with attention; and on my telling them that I had carried to Samuel Simon, on the part of that nobleman, the three thousand ducats of which we had robbed him, Lamela interrupted the thread of my narrative, and addressing his discourse to Raphael, said, “Father Hilary, if this be true, the honest vender of wares has no reason to quarrel with a robbery which has paid him fifty percent; and our consciences, as far as that indictment goes, may bask in the sunshine of acquitted innocence.”

“Brother Ambrose and I,” said the bursar, “did actually, on the assumption of the habit, send Samuel Simon fifteen hundred ducats privately, by a pious ecclesiastic who made a pilgrimage to Xelva for the sole purpose of accomplishing this restitution; but it will go hard with Samuel at the general reckoning, if he for filthy lucre could soil his fingers with that sum, after having been reimbursed in full by Señor de Santillane.”

“But,” said I, “how do you know that your fifteen hundred ducats were faithfully paid into his hands?”

“Unquestionably they were!” exclaimed Don Raphael; “I would answer for the disinterested purity of that ecclesiastic as soon as for my own.”

“I would be your collateral security,” said Lamela; “he is a priest