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

prepared by your hands, was to have been administered to me; but, mad as you are, could it enter into your contemplation that my life could have been invaded with impunity by such means? How fatally mistaken! Your crime would soon have been detected, and you would have perished under the hands of the executioner. There is a safer way of glutting your fell malice, without exposing yourself to an ignominious death; we are here without witnesses, and in a place where daily murders are perpetrated; since you are so thirsty after my blood, plunge your dagger into my bosom: the assassination will naturally be laid at the door of some banditti.’ After these words, Balthasar, laying his breast bare, and pointing to his heart, ended with this challenge: ‘Here, Gaspard, strike deep enough, strike home; make me pay that forfeit for having engendered such a disgrace to human nature, and no more than what is due to so monstrous a production.’

“Young Velasquez, struck by this reproach as by a thunderbolt, far from pleading in his own justification, fell instantly lifeless at his father’s feet. The good old man, hailing the germ of repentance in this unfeigned testimony of shame, could not help yielding to paternal weakness; he made all possible haste to give his assistance; but Gaspard had no sooner recovered the use of his senses, than, unable to stand in the presence of a father so justly offended, he made an effort to raise himself from the ground, then sprang upon his mule, and galloped out of sight without saying one word. Balthasar suffered him to take his own course, and returned to Cordova, little doubting but conscience would play its part in revenging his wrongs. Six months afterwards it appeared that the culprit had thrown himself into the Carthusian convent at Seville, there to pass the remnant of his days in penance.”

XII

Conclusion of Scipio’s story.

“Bad example sometimes produces the converse of itself. The behavior of young Velasquez made me think seriously on my own predicament. I began to wrestle with my thievish propensities, and to live like one of the better sort. A confirmed habit of pouncing upon money wherever I could get it, had been contracted by such a long succession of individual acts, that it was no easy matter to say where it should stop. And yet I was in hopes to accomplish my own reformation, under the idea that to become virtuous, a man had nothing to do but to contract the desire of being so. I therefore undertook this great work, and heaven seemed to smile upon my efforts. I left off eying the old draper’s strong box with the carnal regard of avaricious longing: nay, I verily believe, that if it had depended on my own will and pleasure to have turned over the contents to my own use, I should have abstained from the crime of picking and stealing. It must, however, be admitted, that it would have been an unadvisable measure to tempt my newborn integrity with meats too strong for its stomach; and Velasquez was nurse enough to keep me on a proper diet.

“Don Manriquez de Medrano, a young gentleman, knight of Alcántara, was in the habit of coming backwards and forwards to our house. He was a customer, one of our principal in point of rank, if not punctual in point of pay. I had the happiness to find favor with this knight, who never met me without that sort of notice which encouraged conversation, and with that conversation he appeared always to be very much pleased. ‘Scipio,’ said he, one day, ‘if I had a footman of your kidney, it would be as good as a fortune to me; and if you were not in the service of a man who stands so high in my regards, I should make no scruple about enticing you away.’

“ ‘Sir,’ answered I, ‘you would have very little trouble in succeeding; for I am distractedly partial to people of fashion; it is my weak side; their free and easy manners fascinate me to the extreme of folly.’

“ ‘That being the case,’ replied Don Manriquez, ‘I will at once beg Señor Balthasar to turn you over from his household to mine: he will scarcely refuse me such a request.’

“Accordingly Velasquez was kind and complying, with so much the less violence to his own private feelings, as there seemed no reason to think, that if a man parted with one knavish servant, he might not easily get another in his place. To me the change was all for the better, since a tradesman’s service appeared but a beggarly condition, in comparison with the office of own man to a knight of Alcántara.

“To draw a faithful likeness of my new master, I must describe him as a gentleman possessing every requisite of person, figure, manners, and disposition. Nor was that all; for his courage and honor were equal to his other qualities: the goods of fortune were the only good things he wanted; but being the younger son of a family more distinguished by descent than opulence, he was obliged to draw for his expenses on an old aunt living at Toledo, who loved him as her own child, and administered to his occasions with affectionate liberality. He was always well dressed, and everywhere well received. He visited the principal ladies in the city, and among others the Marchioness of Almenara. She was a widow of seventy-two, but the centre of attraction to all the fashionable society of Cordova, by the elegance of her manners and the sprightliness of her conversation: men as well as women laid themselves out for an introduction, because her parties conferred at once on the frequenters the patent of good company.

“My master was one of that lady’s most assiduous courtiers. After leaving her one evening, his spirits seemed to be more elevated than was natural to him. ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘you are evidently in a good