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

“It was not long before Gaspard had proof positive that I was to a hair’s breadth the very man he wanted; and the following was precisely the first trick I played into his hand. Balthasar’s strong box was in the good man’s chamber, by his bedside, a sort of oratory, with a prayerbook always lying upon it. Every time I looked that way, my eyes glistened with hope and pleasure; my heart chuckled over the very idea of what might happen: ‘Fair, sweet, cruel box, will you forever be coy to my addresses? May I never experience the heartfelt delight of possessing all your charms for better, for worse?’ As I went into the room at pleasure, and only Gaspard was warned off the premises, it happened one day that I watched his father. The old gentleman, fancying himself unobserved of human eye, after having opened his treasury and closed it fast again, hid the key behind the hangings. I took an accurate observation of the place, and communicated the discovery to my young master, who said, with an improving hug, ‘Ah! my dear Scipio, what glorious news you bring! Our fortune is made, my dear fellow. I will furnish you with wax; you shall take the impression of the key, and then our business is done. There will be no difficulty in finding a benevolent locksmith in Cordova, where, to do the place justice, there are as many rogues as in any part of Spain.’

“ ‘Well! but why,’ said I to Gaspard, ‘do you want a false key? We may find our account in the proper one.’

“ ‘Yes,’ answered he; ‘but I am afraid lest my father, through mistrust or whim, should take a fancy to hiding it elsewhere; and the safest way is, to have one of our own.’ I commended his precaution, and falling in with all his principles, got ready for taking the impression of the key: this was effected one morning early, while my old master was paying a visit to father Alexis, with whom he for the most part held very long conferences. I did not stop here, but availed myself of the key to open the strong box, wherein an ample range of large and small bags threw me into the most delightful perplexity imaginable. I did not know which to choose, there was such a family likeness among them; nevertheless, as the fear of being caught did not allow of any long deliberation, I laid hands, haphazard, on the largest. Then, locking the box carefully, and putting the key back again behind the hangings, I got away out of the chamber with my booty, and hid it under my bed, in a small closet where I lay.

“Having performed this exploit so successfully, I ran back as fast as my legs would carry me to young Velasquez, who was waiting at a house where he had given me notice to meet him, and his delight was extreme at the recital of what I had just done. He was so fully satisfied with me, as to lavish caresses without number, and to offer me thrice, in the fullness of his heart, half the contents of the bag, which I did thrice refuse. ‘No, no, sir,’ said I; ‘this first bag is yours, and yours only; apply it to your own uses and occasions, I shall return forthwith to the strong box, where, as our lucky stars have contrived it, there is money enough for both of us.’ Accordingly, three days afterwards I carried off a second bag, containing, like the first, five hundred crowns, of which I would only handle the fourth part, let Gaspard be as pressing as he pleased to force upon me a brotherly division, share and share alike.

“As soon as this young man found himself so flush of money, and consequently in a condition to gratify his hankering after women and play, he gave himself up entirely to the devices of his own imagination; nay, his evil genius pursued him so far as to make him fall desperately in love with one of those female harpies, who devour without remorse or intermission, and swallow up the largest fortunes. His disbursements at her instigation were frightful; and thus it became necessary for me to pay so many visits to the strong box, that old Velasquez at length found out he had been robbed. ‘Scipio,’ said he one morning, ‘I must give you a piece of information; someone robs me, my friend; my strong box has been opened; several bags have been taken out; that is a certain fact. Whom ought I to accuse of this theft? or rather, who else but my son can have committed it? Gaspard must have got by stealth into my chamber, or else you yourself must have played booty with him; for I am tempted to believe you are in league with him, though to outward appearance you do not set up your horses together. And yet I am unwilling to harbor that suspicion, because Father Alexis undertook to answer for your honesty.’ I gave him to understand that, by the blessing of heaven on a good natural disposition, my neighbors’ goods had no temptation in my sight; and I so happily suited the action to the lie, and the lie to the action, that my judge pronounced a verdict of acquittal on the evidence of grimace and hypocrisy.

“Accordingly the old man dropped the subject; but for all that, there was a general misgiving in his breast, and it would sometimes light upon me: taking precautions, therefore, against our further attacks, he had a new lock put to his strong box, and always carried the key in his pocket. By these means, an embargo being laid on our traffic with the bags, we looked excessively foolish, especially Gaspard, who, being unable any longer to keep his nymph in her usual style, knew very well that he was likely to be tossed out of her window.