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

“Santillane,” cried he, “I am come to receive your congratulations. My fortune is made, my friend, though my play is marred. You know what a mistake they made on the first and last night of The Count of Saldaña; hissed instead of applauding! You would have thought all the wild beasts of the forest had been let loose, with their ears fortified against the softening power of poetry; but the more they bellowed, the better I fared, and they have roared me into a provision for life.”

There was no knowing what to make of this incident in the drama of our poet’s adventures. “What is all this, Fabricio?” said I; “how can theatrical damnation have conjured up such Elysian ecstasy?”

“It is exactly so,” answered he; “I told you before that Don Bertrand had thrown in some of the circumstances; and he was fully convinced that there was no defect but in the taste of the spectators. They might be very good judges; but, if they were, he was no judge at all! ‘Núñez,’ said he this morning,

“ ‘Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.5

“ ‘Your piece has been ill received by the public; but against that you may place my entire approbation, and thus you ought to set your heart at rest. By way of something to balance the bad taste of the age, I shall settle an annuity of two thousand crowns on you: go to my solicitor, and let him draw the deed.’ We have been about it: the treasurer has signed and sealed; my first quarter is paid in advance⁠ ⁠…”

I wished Fabricio joy on the unhappy fate of The Count of Saldaña; and probably most authors would have envied his failure more than all the success that ever succeeded. “You are in the right,” continued he, “to prefer my fortune to my fame. What a lucky peal of disapprobation in double choir! If the public had chosen to ring the changes on my merits rather than my misdeeds, what would they have done for my pocket? A mere paltry nothing. The common pay of the theatre might have kept me from starving; but the wind of popular malice has blown me a comfortable pension, engrossed on safe and legal parchment.”

XI

Santillane gives Scipio a situation⁠—The latter sets out for new Spain.

My secretary could not look at the unexpected good luck of Núñez the poet without envy; he talked of nothing else for a week. “The whims of that baggage, fortune,” said he, “are most unaccountable: she delights to turn her lottery wheel into the lap of a sorry author, while she deals out her disappointments like a stepmother to the race of good ones. I should have no objection, though, if she would throw me up a prize in one of her vertical progresses.”

“That is likely enough to happen,” said I, “and sooner than you imagine. Here you are in her temple; for it is scarcely too presumptuous to call the house of a prime minister the temple of fortune, where favors are conferred by wholesale, and votaries grow fat on the spoils of her altar.”

“That is very true, sir,” answered he; “but we must have patience, and wait till the happy moment comes.”

“Take my advice while it is worth having, Scipio,” replied I, “and make your mind easy: perhaps you are on the eve of some good appointment.” And so it turned out; for within a few days an opportunity offered of employing him advantageously in my lord duke’s service; and I did not suffer the happy moment to pass by.

I was engaged in chat one morning with Don Raymond Caporis, the prime minister’s steward, and our conversation turned on the sources of his excellency’s income. “My lord,” said he, “enjoys the commanderies of all the military orders, yielding a revenue of forty thousand crowns a year; and he is only obliged to wear the cross of Alcántara. Moreover, his three offices of great chamberlain, master of the horse, and high chancellor of the Indies, bring him in an income of two hundred thousand crowns; and yet all this is nothing in comparison of the immense sums which he receives through other transatlantic channels; but you will be puzzled to guess how. When vessels clear out from Seville or Lisbon for those parts of the world, he ships wine, oil, grain, and other articles, the produce of his own estate; and his consignments are duty free. With that perquisite in his pocket, he sells his merchandise for four times its current price in Spain, and then lays out the money in spices, coloring materials, and other things which cost next to nothing in the new world, and are sold very dear in Europe. Already has he realized some millions by this traffic, without detracting from the dues of his royal master.

“You will easily account for it,” continued he, “that the people concerned in carrying on this trade return with great fortunes in their pockets; for my lord thinks it but reasonable that they should divide their diligence between his business and their own.”

That shrewd son of chance and opportunity, of whom we are speaking, overheard our conversation, and could not help interrupting Don Raymond to the following purport: “Upon my word, Señor Caporis, I should like to be one of those people; for I am fond of travelling, and have long wished to see Mexico.”

“Your inclinations as a tourist shall soon be gratified,” said the steward, “if Señor de Santillane will not stand in the way of your wishes. However particular I may think it my duty to be about the persons whom I send to the West Indies in that capacity⁠—and they are all of my appointment⁠—you shall be placed on the list at all adventures, if your master wishes it.”

“You will confer on me a particular favor,” said I to Don Raymond; “be so good as to do it in kindness to me. Scipio is