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

“My presence appearing to be a restraint, Gentlemen,” said I, “it should seem that I have interrupted your conversation: resume it, or you drive me away.”

“My learned friends,” said Fabricio, “were discussing the Iphigenia of Euripides.” The bachelor, Melchior de Villégas, a clever man of the first rank in the republic of letters, resumed the topic by asking Don Jacinto de Romerate which was the point of interest in that tragedy. Don Jacinto ascribed it to the imminent danger of Iphigenia. The bachelor contended, offering to prove his proposition by all the evidence admissible at the bar of logic or criticism, that the danger of a trumpery girl had nothing to do with the real sympathy of that affecting piece.

“What has to do with it then?” bawled the old licentiate Gabriel of León, indignantly.

“It turns with the wind,” replied the bachelor.

The whole company burst into a shout of laughter at this assertion, which they were far from considering as serious; and I myself thought that Melchior had only launched it by way of adding the zest of wit to the severity of critical discussion. But I was out in my calculation respecting the character of that eminent scholar: he had not a grain of sprightliness or pleasantry in his whole composition.

“Laugh as you please, gentlemen,” replied he, very coolly; “I maintain that there is no circumstance but the wind, unless it be the weathercock, to interest, to strike, to rouse the passions of the spectator. Figure to yourselves a multitudinous army assembled for the purpose of laying siege to Troy; take into the account the eager haste of the officers and common men to carry their enterprise into execution, that they may return with their best legs foremost into Greece, where they have left everything most dear to them⁠—their household gods, their wives and their children: all this while a mischievous wind from the wrong quarter keeps them port-bound at Aulis, and, as it were, drives a nail into the very head of the expedition; so that, till better weather, it was impossible to go and lay siege to Priam’s town. Wind and weather, therefore, make up the interest of this tragedy. My good wishes are with the Greeks; my whole faculties are wrapped up in the success of their design; the sailing of their fleet is with me the only hinge of the fable, and I look at the danger of Iphigenia with somewhat of a self-interested complacency, because by her death the winding up of the story into a brisk and favorable gale was likely to be accelerated.”

As soon as Villégas had finished his criticism, the laugh burst out more than ever at his expense. Núñez was sly enough to side with him, that a fairer scope and broader mark might be presented to the shafts of malicious wit which were let fly from all the quarters in the shipman’s card at this poster of the sea and land. But the bachelor, eying them all with sublime indifference and supreme contempt, gave them to understand how low in the list of the ignorant and vulgar they ranked in his estimation. Every moment did I expect to see these vaporing spirits kindle into a blaze, and wage war against the hairy honors of each other’s brainless skulls; but the joke was not carried to that length: they confined their hostilities to opprobrious epithets, and took their leave when they had eaten and drunk as much as they could get.

After their departure, I asked Fabricio why he had separated himself from his treasurer, and whether they had quarrelled.

“Quarrelled!” answered he: “Heaven defend me from such a misfortune! I am on better terms than ever with Señor Don Bertrand, who gave his consent to my living apart from him: here, therefore, I receive my friends, and take my pleasure with them unmolested. You know very well that I am not of a temper to lay up treasures for those who are to come after me; and as it happens luckily, I am now in circumstances to give my little classical entertainments every day.”

“I am delighted at it, my dear Núñez,” replied I, “and once more wish you joy on the success of your last tragedy: the great Lope, by his eight hundred dramatic pieces, never made a quarter of the money which you have got by the damnation of your Count of Saldaña.”

Gil Blas sent to Toledo by the minister⁠—The purpose of his journey and its success.

For nearly a month his excellency had been saying to me every day, “Santillane, the time is approaching when I shall call your choicest powers of address into action;” but the time that was coming never came. It is a long lane, however, where there is no turning; and his excellency at length spoke to me nearly as follows: “They say that there is, in the company of comedians at Toledo, a young actress of much note for her personal and professional fascinations; it is affirmed that she dances and sings like all the Muses and Graces put together, and that the whole theatre rings with applause at her performance: to these perfections is added matchless and irresistible beauty. Such a star should only shine within the circle of a court. The king has a taste for the stage, for music, and for dancing; nor must he be debarred from the pleasure of seeing and hearing such a prodigy. I have determined on sending you to Toledo, that you may judge for yourself whether she really is so extraordinary an actress: on your feeling of her merit my measures shall be taken; for I have unlimited confidence in your discernment.”

I undertook to bring his lordship a good account of this business, and made my arrangements for setting out with one servant, but not in