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

would not have been taken in as well as myself? There was but one virtuous princess in a whole strolling company, and she, plague take her! fell into my hands.”

“It was throwing with bad luck most undoubtedly,” said the barber. “But then, why did not you look out for an actress in the regular theatre at Madrid? You would have been sure of your mark.”

“You are perfectly in the right,” replied the stroller; “but the mischief is, we underlings dare not raise our thoughts to those illustrious heroines. It is as much as an actor of the prince’s company can venture on; nay, some of them are obliged to match with citizens’ daughters. Happily for our fraternity, citizens’ daughters, nowadays, contract theatrical notions; and you may often meet with characters among them, to the full as eccentric as any bona roba of the greenroom.”

“Well! but have you never thought,” said my fellow traveller, “of getting an engagement in that company? Is it necessary to be a Roscius for that purpose?”

“That is very well of you!” replied Melchior, “you are a wag, with your Roscius! There are twenty performers. Ask the town what it thinks of them, and you will hear a pretty character of their acting. More than half of them deserve to carry a porter’s knot. Yet, for all that, it is no easy matter to get upon the boards. Bribery or interest must make up for the defect of talent. I ought to know what I say, since my debut at Madrid, where I was hissed and catcalled as if the devil had got among the grimalkins, though I ought to have been received with thunders of applause; for I whined, ranted, and offered all sorts of violence to nature’s modesty: nay, I went so far as to clench my fist at the heroine of the piece; in a word, I adopted the conceptions of all the great performers; and yet that same audience condemned, by bell, book, and candle, in me, what was thought to be the first style of playing in them. Such is the force of prejudice! So that, being no favorite with the pit, and not having wherewithal to insinuate myself into the good graces of the manager, I am on my return to Zamora. There we shall all huddle together again, my wife and my fellow-comedians, who are making but little of the business. I wish we may not be obliged to beg our way out of town⁠—a catastrophe of too frequent occurrence!”

At these words, up rose the stage-struck hero, slung across him his knapsack and his sword, and made his exit with due theatric pomp: “Farewell, gentlemen; may all the gods shower all their bounties on your heads!”

“And you,” answered Diego with corresponding emphasis, “may you find your wife at Zamora, softened down in her relentless virtue, and in comfortable keeping.” No sooner had Señor Zapata turned upon his heel, than he began gesticulating and spouting as he went along. The barber and myself immediately began hissing, to remind him of his first appearance at Madrid. The goose grated harsh upon his tympanum; he took it for a repetition of signals from his old friends. But, looking behind him, and seeing that we were diverting ourselves at his expense, far from taking offence at this merry conceit of ours, he joined with good humor in the joke, and went his way, laughing as hard as he could. On our part, we returned the compliment in kind. After this, we got again into the high road, and pursued our journey.

IX

The meeting of Diego with his family⁠—Their circumstances in life⁠—Great rejoicing on the occasion⁠—The parting scene between him and Gil Blas.

We stopped for the night at a little village between Moyados and Valpuesta; I have forgotten the name: and the next morning, about eleven, we reached the plain of Olmédo. “Señor Gil Blas,” said my companion, “behold my native place. So natural are these local attachments, that I can hardly contain myself at the sight of it.”

“Señor Diego,” answered I, “a man of so patriotic a soul as you profess to be, might, methinks, have been a little more florid in his descriptions. Olmédo looks like a city at this distance, and you called it a village; it cannot be anything less than a corporate town.”

“I beg its township’s pardon,” replied the barber; “but you are to know that after Madrid, Toledo, Saragossa, and all the other large cities I have passed through in my tour of Spain, these little ones are mere villages to me.” As we got further on the plain, there appeared to be a great concourse of people about Olmédo: so that, when we were near enough to distinguish objects, we were in no want of food for speculation.

There were three tents pitched at some distance from each other; and, hard-by, a bevy of cooks and scullions preparing an entertainment, Here, a party was laying covers on long tables set out under the tents; there, a detachment was crowning the pitchers of Tellus with the gifts of Bacchus. The right wing was making the pots boil, the left was turning the spits and basting the meat. But what caught my attention more than all the rest, was a temporary stage of respectable dimensions. It was furnished with pasteboard scenes, painted in a tawdry style, and the proscenium was decorated with Greek and Latin mottoes. No sooner did the barber spy out these inscriptions, than he said to me: “All these Greek words smell strongly of my uncle Thomas’s lamp. I would lay a wager he has a hand in them, for, between ourselves, he is a man of parts and learning. He knows all the classics by heart. If he would keep them to himself it would be very well, but he is always quoting them in company, and that people do not like. But then, to be sure, he has a right, because this