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

when at length it happened one day that the monarch, noticing the frequency of my appearance, sent for me into his presence. I went into the closet, not without some perturbation of mind at the idea of a private interview with my sovereign. “Who are you?” said he; “your features are not altogether strange to me. Where have I seen you?”

“Please your majesty,” answered I, trembling, “I had the honor of escorting you one night with the Count of Lemos to the house of⁠ ⁠…”

“Ah! I recollect it perfectly,” cried the prince, as if a sudden light had broke in upon him; “you were the Duke of Lerma’s secretary; and if I am not mistaken, your name is Santillane. I have not forgotten that on the occasion alluded to you served me with a most commendable zeal, but received a left-handed recompense for your exertions. Did you not get into prison at the conclusion of the adventure?”

“Yes, please your majesty,” replied I; “my confinement in the tower of Segovia lasted six months; but your goodness was exercised in procuring my release.”

“That,” replied he, “does not cancel my debt to my faithful servant Santillane: it is not enough to have restored him to liberty; for I ought to make him ample amends for the evils which he has suffered on the score of his alacrity in my concerns.”

Just as the prince was uttering these words, the Count of Olivarez came into the closet. The nerves of favorites are shaken by every breath, their irritability excited by every trifle: he was as much astonished as any favorite need be at the sight of a stranger in that place, and the king redoubled his wondering propensities by the following recommendation: “Count, I consign this young man to your care; employ him, and let me find that you provide for his advancement.” The minister affected to receive this order with the most gracious acquiescence, but looked me over from head to foot, with a glance from the corner of his eye, and was on tenterhooks to find out who had been so strangely saddled upon him. “Go, my friend,” added the sovereign, addressing himself to me, and waving his hand for me to withdraw; “the count will not fail to avail himself of your services in a manner the most conducive to the interests of my government, and the establishment of your own fortunes.”

I immediately went out of the closet, and made the best of my way to the son of Cosclina, who, being overrun with impatience to inquire what the king had been talking about, fumbled at his fingers’ ends, and was all over in an agitation. His first question was, whether we were to return to Valencia or become a part of the court. “You shall form your own conclusions,” answered I, at the same time delighting him with an account, word for word, of the little conversation I had just held with the monarch.

“My dear master,” said Scipio, at once, in the excess of his joy, “will you take me for your almanac-maker another time? You must acknowledge that we were not in the wrong: the lords of Leyva and myself have our eyeteeth about us! a journey to Madrid was the only measure to be adopted in such a case. Already I anticipate your appointment to an eminent post: you will turn out to be, some time or other, a Calderona to the Count of Olivarez.”

“That is by no means the object of my ambition,” observed I in return; “the employment is placed on too rugged an eminence to excite any longings in my mind. I could wish for a good situation, where there could be no inducement to do what might go against my conscience, and where the favors of my prince are not likely to be bartered away for filthy lucre. Having experienced my own unfitness for the possession of patronage, I cannot be sufficiently on my guard against the inroads of avarice and ambition.”

“Never think about that, sir,” replied my secretary; “the minister will give you some handsome appointment, which you may fill without any impeachment of your integrity or independence.”

Induced more by Scipio’s importunity than my own curiosity, I repaired the following day, before sunrise, to the residence of the Count d’Olivarez, having been informed that every morning, whether in summer or winter, he gave audience by candlelight to all comers. I ensconced myself modestly in a corner of the saloon, and from my lurking-place took especial notice of the count when he made his appearance, for I had marked his person but cursorily in the king’s closet. He was above the middle stature, and might pass for fat in a country where it is a rarity to see any but lean subjects. His shoulders were so high, as to look exactly as if he was humpbacked; but appearances were slanderous; for his blade-bones, though inelegant, were a pair; his head, which was large enough to be capacious, dropped down upon his chest by the unwieldiness of its own weight; his hair was black and unconscious of a curl, his face lengthened, his complexion olive-colored, his mouth retiring inwards, with the sharp-pointed, turn-up chin of a pantaloon.

This whole arrangement of structure and symmetry did not exactly make up the complete model of a nobleman according to the ideas of ancient art; nevertheless, as I believed him to be in a temper of mind favorable to the gratification of my wishes, I looked at his defects with an indulgent eye, and found him a man very much to my satisfaction. One of the best points about him was, that he received the public at large with the utmost affability and complacency, holding out his hand for petitions with as much good humor as if he were the person to be obliged; and this was a sufficient set-off against anything untoward in the expression of his countenance. In the meantime, when, in my turn, I came forward to pay