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

“Santillane,” exclaimed he with delight, “you give me new life by the assurance of Don Henry’s capacity and application: it runs in the blood of the Guzmáns; and I am the more confirmed in his being unquestionably my own, because I am just as fond of him as if Madame d’Olivarez herself had lain in of the brat in due form under this very roof. The voice of nature, you perceive, will make itself heard.” I thought it unnecessary to give his lordship any opinion on that subject; but with a delicate deference to his credulity, left him to enjoy his fancied paternity in peace, whether well or ill founded.

Though all the Guzmáns held this clod of newly turned up nobility in utter scorn, they were politic enough to smooth over the corrugations of their contempt; nay, some of them even affected to languish for his good opinion; the ambassadors and principal nobility then at Madrid waited on him with all the ceremony appertaining to the rank of a legitimate son. The minister, intoxicated with the fumes of incense offered to his idol, began to build a temple worthy of the worship. The cross of Alcántara was the foundation, with a commandery of ten thousand crowns. The next step was to a high office in the royal household, and the completion of the whole was matrimony. Wishing to connect him with a family of the first rank, he picked out Doña Johanna de Velasco, daughter to the Duke of Castile, and had influence enough to accomplish the alliance, though against the will of the duke and of all his kindred.

Some days before the nuptial ceremony, his lordship put some papers into my hand, saying, “Here, Gil Blas, is a patent of nobility which I have procured as the reward of your services.”

“My lord,” answered I, in much astonishment, “your excellency knows very well that I am the son of an usher and a duenna: it would be caricaturing the peerage to confer it on me; and besides, of all the boons in his majesty’s power to bestow, it is that which I deserve and desire the least.”

“Your birth,” replied the minister, “is a slight objection. You have been employed on affairs of state under the Duke of Lerma’s administration and under mine: besides,” added he with a smile, “have you not rendered some things to Caesar which Caesar is bound, on the honor of a prince, to render back in another shape? To deal candidly, Santillane, you will make just as good a lord as the best of them; nay, more than that, your high office about my son is incompatible with plebeian rank, and therefore have I procured you to be created.”

“Since your excellency will have it so,” replied I, “there is no more to be said.” So, saying no more, I put my new-blown honors in my pocket, and walked off.

“Now can I make any Joan a lady!” said I to myself when I had got into the street: but it was not the handiwork of my parents that made me a gentleman. I may add a foot of honor to my name whenever I please; and if any of my acquaintance should snuff or snigger when they call me Don, I may suck my teeth, lean upon my elbow, and draw out my credentials of heraldry. But let us see what they contain, and how the corporeal particles, which have accrued during my artificial contact with the court, are distinguished by genealogical metaphysics from the native clay of my original extraction. The instrument ran thus in substance: That the king, in acknowledgment of my zeal in more than one instance for his service and the good of the state, had been graciously pleased to confer this mark of distinction on me. I may safely say that the recollection of the act for which I was promoted effectually kept down my pride. Neither did the bashfulness of low birth ever forsake me, so that nobility to me was like a hair shirt to a penitent: I determined therefore to lock up the evidences of my shame in a private drawer, instead of blazoning them to dazzle the eyes of the foolish and corrupt.

An accidental meeting between Gil Blas and Fabricio⁠—Their last conversation together, and a word to the wise from Núñez.

The poet of the Asturias, as the reader, if he thought of him, may have remarked, was very negligent in his intercourse with me. It was not to be expected that my employments would leave me time to go and look after him. I had not seen him since the critical discussion touching the Iphigenia of Euripides, when chance threw me across him, as he came out of a printing-house. I accosted him, saying, “So! so! Master Núñez, you have got among the printers: this looks as if we were threatened with some new production.”

“You may indeed prepare yourselves for such an event,” answered he: “I have a pamphlet just ready for publication which is likely to make some noise in the literary world.”

“There can be no question about its merit,” replied I; “but I cannot conceive why you waste your time in writing pamphlets: it should seem as if such squibs and rockets were scarcely worth the powder expended in their manufacture.”

“It is very true,” rejoined Fabricio: “and I am well aware that none but the most vulgar gazers are caught by such holiday fireworks; however, this single one has escaped me, and I must own that it is a child of necessity. Hunger, as you know, will bring the wolf out of the forest.”

“What!” exclaimed I, “is it the author of the Count of Saldaña who holds this language? A man with an annuity of two thousand crowns?”

“Gently, my friend,” interrupted Núñez: “I am no longer a pensioned poet. The affairs of the treasurer Don Bertrand are all at sixes and sevens: he