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

do no more than my duty in placing you on a footing of respectability and consequence. No longer, therefore, let what I do for you be a subject of surprise; but rely on it that splendor in the eye of the world, and the solid advantages of accumulating wealth, are equally within your grasp, if you do but attach yourself as faithfully to me as you did to the Duke of Lerma.

“But now that we are on the subject of that nobleman,” continued he, “it is said that you lived on terms of personal intimacy with him. I have a strong curiosity to learn the circumstances which led to your first acquaintance, as well as in what department you acted under him. Do not disguise or gloss over the slightest particular, for I shall not be satisfied without a full, true, and circumstantial recital.” Then it was that I recollected in what an embarrassing predicament I stood with the Duke of Lerma on a similar occasion, and by what line of conduct I extricated myself: that same course I adopted once again with the happiest success; whereby the reader is to understand that throughout my narrative I softened down the passages likely to give umbrage to my patron, and glanced with a superficial delicacy over transactions which would have reflected but little lustre on my own character. I likewise manifested a considerate tenderness for the Duke of Lerma; though, by giving that fallen favorite no quarter, I should better have consulted the taste of him whom I wished to please. As for Don Rodrigo de Calderona, there I laid about me with the religious fury of a bishop in a battle. I brought together, and displayed in the most glaring colors, all the anecdotes I had been able to pick up respecting his corrupt practices and underhand dealing in the sale of promotions, military, ecclesiastical, and civil.

“What you have told me about Calderona,” cried the minister with eagerness, “exactly squares with certain memorials which have been presented to me, containing the heads of charges still more seriously affecting his character. He will very soon be put upon his trial, and if you have any wish to glut your revenge by his ruin, I am of opinion that the object of your desire is near at hand.”

“I am far from thirsting after his blood,” said I, “though, had it depended on him, mine might have been shed in the tower of Segovia, where he was the occasion of my taking lodgings for a pretty long term.”

“What!” inquired his excellency, “was it Don Rodrigo who procured you that sudden journey? This is a part of the story of which I was not aware before. Don Balthasar, to whom Navarro gave a summary of your adventures, told me, indeed, that the late king gave orders for your commitment, as a mark of his indignation against you for having led the Prince of Spain astray, and taken him to a house of suspicious character in the night: but that is all I know of the matter, and cannot, for the life of me, conjecture what part Calderona could possibly have had to play in that tragicomedy.”

“A principal part, whether on the stage or in real life,” answered I; “that of a jealous lover, taking vengeance for an injury sustained in the tenderest point.” At the same time I related minutely all the facts with which the reader is already acquainted, and touched his risible propensities, difficult as they were of access, so exactly in the right place, that he could not help wagging his underhung jaw in a paroxysm of humor-stricken ecstasy, and laughing till he cried again. Catalina’s double cast in the drama delighted him exceedingly; her sometimes playing the niece and sometimes personating the granddaughter seemed to tickle his fancy more than anything; nor was he altogether inattentive to the appearance which the Duke of Lerma made in this undignified farce of state.

When I had finished my story, the count gave me leave to depart, with an assurance that on the next day he would not fail to make trial of my talents for business. I ran immediately to the family hotel of Zúñiga, to thank Don Balthasar for his good offices, and to acquaint my friend Joseph with the favorable dispositions of the prime minister, and my brilliant prospects in consequence.

V

The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro, and his first employment in the service of the count d’Olivarez.

As soon as I got to the ear of Joseph, I told him, with much trepidation of spirits, what a world of topics I had to deposit in his private ear. He took me where we might be alone, when I asked him, after having communicated a key to the whole transaction up to the present time, what he thought of the business as it stood. “I think,” answered he, “that you are in a fair way to make an enormous fortune. Everything turns out according to your wishes: you have made yourself acceptable to the prime minister; and what must be taken for something in the account, I can render you the same service as my uncle Melchior de la Ronda, when you attached yourself to the archiepiscopal establishment of Grenada. He spared you the trouble of finding out the weak side of that prelate and his principal officers, by discovering their different characters to you; and it is my purpose, after his example, to bring you perfectly acquainted with the count, his lady countess, and their only daughter, Doña Maria de Guzmán.

“The minister’s parts are quick, his judgment penetrating, and his talents altogether calculated for the formation of extensive projects. He affects the credit of universal genius, on the strength of a showy smattering in general science; so that there is no subject, in his own opinion, too difficult to be decided on his mere authority. He sets himself up for a practical lawyer, a complete