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

of the strictest sanctity, a sort of universal almoner; and though many times cited for sums of money deposited with him for charitable uses, he has always nonsuited the plaintiffs, and gone out of court with an augmentation of alms-giving notoriety.”

Our conversation continued for some time longer: at length we parted, with many a pious exhortation on their side, always to have the fear of the Lord before my eyes, and with many an earnest entreaty on mine, that they would remember me constantly in their prayers. Don Alphonso was now the first object of my search. “You will never guess,” said I, “with whom I have just had a long conference. I am but now come from two venerable Carthusians of your acquaintance; the name of the one is Father Hilary, that of the other, brother Ambrose.”

“You are mistaken,” answered Don Alphonso; “I am not acquainted with a single Carthusian.”

“Pardon me,” replied I; “you have seen brother Ambrose at Xelva in the capacity of commissary, and Father Hilary as register to the inquisition.”

“O heaven!” exclaimed the governor with surprise, “can it be within the bounds of possibility that Raphael and Lamela should have turned Carthusians?”

“It is even so,” answered I; “they professed several years ago. The former is bursar and proctor to the convent, the latter, porter.”

The son of Don Caesar rubbed his forehead twice or thrice, then shaking his head, “These worshipful officers of the inquisition,” said he, “most assuredly purpose playing over the old farce on a new stage here.”

“You judge of them by prejudice,” answered I, “from the impression of their characters as men of sin: but had you been edified by their lectures as I have been, you would think more favorably of their holiness. To be sure, it is not for mortal men to fathom the depth of other men’s hearts; but to all appearance they are two prodigals returned home.”

“It possibly may be so,” replied Don Alphonso: “there are many instances of libertines, who hide their heads in cloisters, after having scandalized human nature by their obliquities, to expatiate their offences by a severe penance: I heartily wish that our two monks may be such libertines restored.”

“Well! and why not?” said I. “They have embraced the monastic life of their own accord, and have squared their conduct for a length of time according to the maxims of their order.”

“You may say what you please,” retorted the governor; “but I do not like the convent’s rents being received by this Father Hilary, of whom I cannot help entertaining a very untoward opinion. When the fine story he told us of his adventures comes across my mind, I tremble for the reverend brotherhood. I am willing to believe with you, that he has taken the vow with the pious intention of keeping it; but the blaze of gold may be too much for the weakness of his regenerated eyesight, It is bad policy to lock up a reformed drunkard in a wine cellar.”

In the course of a few days Don Alphonso’s misgivings were fully justified; these two official props and stays of the establishment ran away with the year’s revenue. This news, which was immediately noised about the town, could not do otherwise than set the tongues of the wits in motion; for they always make themselves merry at the crosses and losses of the well-endowed religious orders. As for the governor and myself, we condoled with the Carthusians, but kept our acquaintance with the apostate pilferers in the background.

VII

Gil Blas returns to his seat at Lirias⁠—Scipio’s agreeable intelligence, and a reform in the domestic arrangements.

I passed a week at Valencia in the first company, living on equal terms with the best of the nobility. Plays, balls, concerts, grand dinners, ladies’ parties, all things that heart could wish or vanity grow tall upon, were provided for me by the governor and his lady, to whom I paid my court so dexterously, that they were heartily sorry to see me set out on my return to Lirias. They even obliged me, before they would let me go, to engage for a division of my time between them and my hermitage. It was determined that I should spend the winter in Valencia, and the summer at my seat. After this bargain, my benefactors left me at liberty to tear myself from them, and go where their kindness would be always staring me in the face.

Scipio, who was waiting impatiently for my return, was ready to jump out of his skin for joy at the sight of me; and his ecstasies were doubled at my circumstantial account of the journey. “And now for your history, my friend,” said I, taking breath: “to what moral uses have you turned the solitary period of my absence? Has the time passed agreeably?”

“As well,” answered he, “as it could with a servant to whom nothing is so dear as the presence of his master. I have walked over our little domain, circuitously and diagonally: sometimes seated on the margin of a fountain in our wood, I have taken pleasure in beholding the transparency of its waters, which are as pellucid as those of the sacred spring, whose projection from the rock made the vast forest of Albunea to resound with the roar of the cascade: sometimes, lying at the foot of a tree, I have listened to the song of the linnet or the nightingale. At other times I have hunted or fished; and, what has given me more rational delight than all these pastimes, I have whiled away many a profitable hour in the improvement of my mind.”

I interrupted my secretary in a tone of eager inquiry, to ask where he had procured books. “I found them,” said he, “in an elegant library here in the house, whither Master Joachim took me.”

“Heyday! in what corner,” resumed I, “can this said library be? Did we not go over the whole building on the day of our arrival?”

“You